On My Own Blog

Tag: Sundance Film Festival

  • 2012 YEAR IN REVIEW

    Julie Goldstein

    This has been a big and profound year for me. The thick, intense “widow fog” has dissolved.

    This year was about becoming more present and moving forward without Tim. You can’t avoid grief. You have to go through it.

    It was full of emotional happy highs and lonely, deep lows. But I realized that I wasn’t completely “on my own.”  That my faith in God is true, and he’s been here with me this whole time. It was also a year filled with healing and transformation.

     

    Here are 4 words that sum up my year:

    01. Connection – Forming friendships with several strong, spiritual, and confident women that really helped me grow “on my own” and believe in myself. Fall, Hayley, Dana, Jill and Sorrel. You ladies have been my rock. I love you so much and I can’t tell you how much your soul sisterhood has meant to me.

    02. Faith – I been more vocal about my beliefs. I’ve been wary of sharing my faith, but I’ve realized that I shouldn’t be fearful to share what it means to me, and the reason why I’m optimistic and curious for what the future holds. I believe in love and God gave me that love. He took my soul mate from my arms. But I don’t blame God. All I can do is have faith that there was a reason he needed Tim up in heaven. And that God is counting on me to recognize his purpose for my life. That I need to take responsibility for living and not dwelling on the sadness. The medium session I had in April was profound – getting messages from both Tim and God gave me clarity on my new journey. I highly recommend seeing a medium to help connect with your loved one.

    03. Slowing down – Grief is very fatiguing. And I think in today’s world, we try to accomplish so many things with high expectations and its usually unfair and unrealistic. First of all, it doesn’t seem like there’s ever the time to grieve. We live in a non-stop, hurry-up, get-it done now, add it to my hotlist, firedrill-kind-of-world that expects microwave results. And how does one fit grief and healing into overloaded schedules? You can’t.

    I didn’t realize how intense grief can be until the evenings and weekends, when things slowed down, and I was alone. With my thoughts. I’d shake and cry so hard, that I finally came to a crossroads. That I needed to take care of myself.

    Quitting my job has allowed me the time to heal my heart, spend time with loved ones, have fun and organically play on my new creative path. Working “on my own” has been rewarding and overwhelming. I’ll share more in my next post.

    04. Rediscovery– Allowing myself to do things I love. That make me happy. Things that I used to enjoy with Tim. Going to new restaurants. Dancing. Going to live music. Traveling. Laughing so hard it hurts. Shopping. Cooking. Helping others. Stepping away from the computer.

    Here’s a look at some of my favorite memories of this year. These photos give me so much hope that 2013 will be even more fulfilling, fun, creative and filled with love. I will never stop missing Tim, but I believe he’s proud of what I’ve accomplished this year.

     

    So, I do have some exciting things planned for 2013. And I will share more with you.

    I also want to thank all of you for following and reading this blog. This has been therapy for me. This is my creative outlet. To share what’s on my mind. What inspires and empowers me. And what gives me hope and delight, as I recreate my life without Tim. My hope is that you will discover that you are worth it. That no matter what your circumstance is, that life really is worth living. That you are awesome. And beautiful. And have great shoes, too! (hah!)

    So I thank you so much for visiting my lil quirky blog. You rock my world.

  • A DAY AT THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

    Alison and I had time to go up for the day to Park City and scope out the Sundance Film Festival after the Alt Summit. I’ve never been to Sundance or Park City, so I was stoked. We tood the day trip with 4 new friends from the Alt conference and the 6 of us had a blast. I was totally blown away!

    We didn’t see any movies. Or any celebrities, as we had hoped. And it’s easy not see a movie while you’re at Sundance. There’s so much going on in the quaint, charming town of Park City during the festival. Art installations, Pop-up venues to hang out and stay warm. Cool, locally-owned boutiques. And loads of live music.

    So, that was our plan—to check out the live music. The snow was coming down pretty hard, and taking shuttles to movie theatres and trying to get on a waiting list to see any movie, was looking too complicated.

    We took a short, quick walk around main street, grabbed a comforting bite to eat at Zoom, then hitup one of the best live music shows I’ve seen in a few years. Granted I haven’t seen much live music in a few years, but we were all pinching ourselves at how spectacular the venue and performers were.

    Here’s highlights from our adventure.

    young widow adventure

    The music café—which only held about 100 people was so personal and intimate. It was basically a studio converted into a performance venue for the festival. For three hours we saw 6 amazing musicians for FREE! Hmm-mmm! Especially when the venue had limited capacity, and was limited to ticket holders. So we totally scored. And the crazy part, is that we almost didn’t get in.

    At first the bouncer told us that the venue had reached capacity and that only ticket holders were allowed in. So we walked away. I had stopped at the corner to take a photo, and we found another door into the venue, that lead to the back “re-entry” door. So we went up and the bouncer told us that we had to use the front entry. Then about 6-8 people walked out, and so Alison said to head back to the front and see if the bounce would let us go in if people were leaving. So that’s how we got in. Alison told the front door bouncer that a bunch of people left and to see if we could get in. And so we did.

    Here’s the performers.

    NOTE: I actually took these shots one-handed, since my other hand was holding a nice, local beer. I’m stoked how well these shots came out. Thanks Mom, Dad  & Tim for this great travel camera!

    First up was, A Fine Frenzy. She’s beautiful. Her voice was magical. And she could go from a sweet, soft, piano-playing tune to a flirty dance beat. Really dug her!

    Jenny O.

    john fronte

    Mr funk-delight-fusion (yes, I just said that… I’m a dork) or better known as John Forté. Check out his site, there’s some cool stuff, and he’s got a nice logo.

    Natasha Bedingfield

    Josh Kelley. (also married to Kathryn Heigl).

    His set was acoustic and I really dug it, better than his twangy full production stuff.

    One of his songs that’ll be on his new album coming out later this year really floored me. It was about a cowboy who was far from his girl. And she was his angel during his travels back to her. Chorus went something like… “Hallelujah, you’re my angel”.

    When he sang that part, it reminded me of Tim. Especially “you’re my angel,” part and seeing the number “12” displayed behind Josh on the backdrop, which is Tim’s lucky number, that teared me up. I didn’t have tears streaming down my face, but my eyes were filled with water and my heart sank a bit. But then I felt a calm, like, Tim was tugging on my shoulder. And I felt this sense that Tim was smiling big down at me, stoked that I was in Park City and wishing he was with me, enjoying the music and letting me know that he wanted me to hear those words. That he’s my angel watching over me.

    Ben Taylor. (James Taylor’s and Carly Simon’s son. Can you see it?)

    Thank You Sundance. You made the trip up to Utah such a blast. Look forward to coming back.