Sunday, January 07, 2007

Progress

the party went good. better than expected. and the neighbors, who cares. it was a swap party(don't get any weird ideas), where a bunch of my friends, 20 to be exact all came and brought bags of stuff from their house that they no longer wanted anymore. kind of like an indoor garage sale, but without the JUNK. and no money was necessary. it was a very cool party, and really just an excuse for friends to get together. lots of food and drinks (coconut rum, mmm.)

i get so nervous when i invite people over. we live in one of those old style portland bungalows from the 1920's. it's very charming. , built ins and all. people always tell me how cute it's decorated. i kind of have a knack for that. and not to toot my own horn but it looks like it could be out of a magazine. however, the kitchen is outdated. i've done all i can to modernize it and cosmetically make it flow with the rest of the house, but the bottom line is that it just needs to be gutted to the studs and redone. but we cant afford to do it. so one of the reasons why i get so nervous about having people over, is that i feel so insecure about my kitchen. i mean, everyone always hangs out in the kitchen. the whole time, i'm thinking about how my friends must think my kitchen is the most hideous kitchen in the world. i know. how shallow. how superficial. but still. it just nags me, and sadly, keeps me from having more parties.

but this weekend was different. somehow, for some reason i finally convinced myself that it really just didn't matter. that i'm not defined by whether i have granite countertops and stainless steel appliances and new mahogany cabinets. and for so long i've felt like my house just didnt cut it because of my OLD kitchen. but this weekend was so fun, and i realized (like i should have realized long ago) that my friends have always been my friends regardless of my kitchen. i mean, for once i felt like i didn't have to defend my crappy kitchen. for once i said out loud, yeah. it's crappy. the cabinets suck. the tiled floor sucks. so freakin' what. i'm still a great person with great friends and that's all that matters.

1 comment:

D said...

I'm thinking to myself you torture yourself way too much.

But then I think to myself I torture myself some about this kind of "living up to the American dream" stuff, too.

Glad to see you're getting some wisdom and realizing when to let go of stuff, I'm working on the same.

And in a way, that adds a little fuel to the fire of "success" that leads to having what you were in angst about not having.

Weird how that works. For me, at least.