contrary to when i actually get out of bed on saturday mornings, i'm not a late sleeper.
ever since i was a little girl, saturday mornings have been my favorite time out of any given week. i've never been an exceptionally late sleeper, but i will lay in bed, invariably, until at least 10. for a few hours, i may slide in and out of semi-conscious dreams, aware of them, what they are, and able to change the paths in the brief moments of lucidity as i drift in and out of sleep, but the process of waking up is equally treasured, because it's then that hours of lazy daydreaming can begin.
i spent this saturday morning like i spend every other saturday morning, only vaugely aware that i was awake since eight o'clock, and in every moment since allowing my mind to wander and drift through novels and memories and hopes and aspirations.
i'm not sure what i'll do today, but i imagine it's difficult not to be well-disposed when one wakes up so sweetly.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
pretty things...
i had a pretty intense dream this weekend, internet.
it morphed into a commentary on life and on love and how woefully short of loving anything i have a tendency to fall. naturally, i responded to this dream by hopping online in search of a dream catcher. i found one at toonyvintage on etsy and i can only hope that it arrives as beautiful as it appears - a fluff of feathers and the perfect mix between art and purpose.
love incarnate...and speaking of that...
a lot of things in my personal history haven't really worked out, and i'm sure i have no shortage of things in my future that won't work out either, but to learn to live the experiences and love them for what they are is something i'm not sure i've ever done before - to be open and take deep breaths and drink everything in, each iota of what it means.
it feels really silly to say that i've never considered what i want, what kind of person i want to be or what kind of people i want to be around. as my relationship suffers/survives while will be transformative (either way), i caught myself building up an expectation that i would be able to rely on the other people in my life to help me patch up some of the void and fill in some of the empty spots. in the last few weeks, it's become really clear that i can't count on that - that not all of the people in my life are ready to be that person, but really, that's okay, because it prompted me to ask myself questions about more than what i want to be, but about who i want to be surrounded by.
i've slipped a little bit - struggled to invest my time and my hope and my love in mike, so constantly afraid that he had one foot out the door - but i think, no matter what happens, the investment can't be wasted now. my tendency to focus on the destination more than the journey (hi, type a personality!) makes me look back at my friendships, at my mistakes and dismiss the entire experience with no regard for the adventure.
it's a mistake i'm trying not to make again (and again, and again and again...) so, today, respecting the adventure, i decided to part with $40 hard earned dollars, trading them in for a chance at unmolested sleep and a guarantee of a piece i will keep with me for years, exactly as it is.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
how you doin'?
or maybe it is more appropriate to say 'how i doin'?' and the answer to that question is so so so so so much better.
in the last couple of months, i have started to learn to accept that i have GAwD* (generalized anxiety disorder) when my two therapists started to suggest it, i kind of took offense. not the sort of 'how dare you suggest there is something wrong with me?' kind, but more to the notion that there was something wrong with me that wasn't just completely a product of my own making. things that i do to myself, i can fix...but things that are just wrong with me, that will just always be something i have to manage, seem really unfair. its been so long since i haven't been all dark and twisty and damaged that i have a tendency to believe it was all off the trauma that made me the person i've become, better and worse, but when i think back on it objectively, i can remember having panic attacks long before things started to really unravel.
this trip to d.c. was really really really good for me. it was everything i hoped it would be. (well, almost. i'm still pretty bummed that we couldn't get into the gallery over the reading room at the LoC and that the house and senate weren't in action.) parts of my trip bordered on pretty sucky. my mom has a little bit of her mom in her and she's afraid of a lot of things that have never really frightened me. i might be afraid, in the big scary, poorly lit subway at night, that something worthy of an episode of csi is going to happen to me, but my mom is worried that someone is going to steal my purse. that kind of stuff never really frightened me. if someone does steal my purse, it will suck. but i buy my electronics on the cheap, i don't carry cash and i only have one credit card, so to cancel my accounts and get new ones would only take me a few minutes. it would be an inconvenience, but i wouldn't like, you know, die or anything. for my mom, though, its a lot bigger than that, and her amped up anxiety over silly things like that tends to feed negatively into my own energy to control mine. there was, of course, the meltdown to start all other meltdowns - and by that, i mean that i've come to believe that part of my process of traveling is just going to be that complete emotional collapse in the first twenty-four hours. it doesn't just happen - i need it to happen. it seems to be the only way to purge all of that chemical tension and, as soon as it's over, i feel great. knowing that is so amazingly freeing because now i can know that i just need an hour or two at the beginning of a trip to totally lose my shit before i can carry on with the enjoyment. maybe someday i will learn to manage my GAwD enough that i don't need that kind of release anymore but, for now, just reconciling with it is enough to make me feel better about my mental health and my future as a traveller of the world.
most of it though, was pretty great. i saw arlington and the hill and i walked the mall and saw the supreme court and went to the iwo jima memorial on the anniversary of the flag raising. i learned so much about myself and saw so many of the things that mean so much to me.
i came home from that trip on thursday, high on personal revolations, vacation juju, the joy of finally seeing some things that i have always wanted to see and the realization that i have a way to see cities and things in the way i've always wanted to see and experience them without having to completely tear my life apart to trek up to madison to participate in the #wiunion rally, to see the days speaker and to protest the (at the time) proposed denial of access to a public building by anyone suspected of being a protestor. while it's true that i am, for the moment, covered under my mother's state health insurance and that she is being directly targeted by this legislation, it's also true that i stand somewhere in the middle on this issue. having had a handful of public school teachers and not having thought any of them were worth their salt, i do think that those particular teachers should tighten their belts until they are right out of jobs. but, with all of that said, i also believe that school should be palaces or - in the words of bradley whitford (a.k.a.josh lyman *swoon*) who came to speak to us that saturday - that they should be as shiny as our missiles and that the teachers who are good aren't being paid anywhere near enough.
i still have to get into what i saw and what i experienced there because it was truly surreal. the true politeness of wisconsinites came through in sharp reveal, despite the 15/85 split. the will of the people with whom i shared the air, to stand outside for ten hours in hoodies, hats and gloves, through snow and fifteen degree weather, not to destroy anything but to say 'stop it - stop attacking our chlidren' was - no is, because they're still out there - amazing. to see strangers consoling other strangers and to see protestors stepping in to stand with police when one of the 15% whackadoo's got out of line only to see the police break ranks to stand with us when they were ordered to evict citizens from the capitol building. i can neither adequately verbalize what i saw there, nor express how hurt i've been by the way it's being reported in some outlets. to call these people slobs - these people who have, by and large (did i mention the 15%), complied with every reasonable request to preserve order and property - and to be called hateful and uncivilized when i have never seen a group so organized and polite as to use protest marshalls to guide people in and out of a starbucks, making sure the doors stay shut so the baristas who didn't dress for the weather don't get cold with the wind whistiling in and out of the door as people open and close it. (i mean, really folks, "hateful and uncivilized?')
since monday, protesters have been barred from entering the capitol building in violation of an appellate court ruling and, those who didn't exit - a group of about 75 holding out inside - were unable to leave because they would not be let back in... that, that was worth fighting for. until yesterday, i'd planned to return to madison this weekend to stand in force with them.... with the democratic assembly members forced to move their desks to the capitol steps because their constituents weren't being allowed inside and with the citizens sleeping on the lawn for fear they would be pushed all the way back out to the streets if they gave up the ground. thursday, i was spared that chilly fate by a higher court who ruled that, while it is unconstitutional to bar access to a public building during business hours, it would be considered permissible to close the capitol until open of business monday for cleaning and any necessary repairs.
as the political situation in this state deteriorates, and as the country watches us, i'm not so interested in standing on the sides of unions, but i will always stand with those who stand against those who wish to trample the first amendment, whatever that requires. monday is going to prove a very interesting day.
i guess i got into that a little more than i'd originally intended to...and i can tell because i started crying a little while talking about it but my original point was really just this - that i went and i saw and i participated and that is exactly what all of this is about.
i am starting to see a real change in myself. it's small and it's subtle but i know it and i can see it. while i still haven't really forgiven the universe for birthing me into a family where i would be required to work every day of my life, i find that i'm happier, even there and, when i'm at home, i find myself treasuring the little things more. wednesday, i danced in the grocery store to footloose and last night i rocked out in the car to a little bit of prince. i'm embracing things more and worrying about things less, which is a huge change for me, since i should really be worrying about whether or not i'm leaving mike behind in all of this (i think i might be) but, i have therapists for that.
in the days to come, spring is going to start to peak its head out from behind the piles of totally gross snow-trash which means all sorts of things, from moving our little weekend picnics outside to kite flying (a new addition to my list-of-things-to-do-outside) and a scary camping trip all the way out to the roads finally drying up enough that i can start to learn to do that which has scared me so much - drive without a sense of paralyzing anxiety. mike will be picking up his new accessories in the next few days, which means a lot of changes for our relationship - good or bad - and it means i am one step closer to my own car, and my own requirement to drive it which, for me, means a lot of freedom i really should have gotten about ten years ago...it also means that my money will once again become my own and jetting off for a weekend to experience a place i've never been will, once again, become an option.
i am so excited to see everything that is in store for me and, that, internet, is the biggest change of all.
*w totally optional, but it's more fun to say "g-ahw-d" than "g-A-d" as in 'dad'
in the last couple of months, i have started to learn to accept that i have GAwD* (generalized anxiety disorder) when my two therapists started to suggest it, i kind of took offense. not the sort of 'how dare you suggest there is something wrong with me?' kind, but more to the notion that there was something wrong with me that wasn't just completely a product of my own making. things that i do to myself, i can fix...but things that are just wrong with me, that will just always be something i have to manage, seem really unfair. its been so long since i haven't been all dark and twisty and damaged that i have a tendency to believe it was all off the trauma that made me the person i've become, better and worse, but when i think back on it objectively, i can remember having panic attacks long before things started to really unravel.
this trip to d.c. was really really really good for me. it was everything i hoped it would be. (well, almost. i'm still pretty bummed that we couldn't get into the gallery over the reading room at the LoC and that the house and senate weren't in action.) parts of my trip bordered on pretty sucky. my mom has a little bit of her mom in her and she's afraid of a lot of things that have never really frightened me. i might be afraid, in the big scary, poorly lit subway at night, that something worthy of an episode of csi is going to happen to me, but my mom is worried that someone is going to steal my purse. that kind of stuff never really frightened me. if someone does steal my purse, it will suck. but i buy my electronics on the cheap, i don't carry cash and i only have one credit card, so to cancel my accounts and get new ones would only take me a few minutes. it would be an inconvenience, but i wouldn't like, you know, die or anything. for my mom, though, its a lot bigger than that, and her amped up anxiety over silly things like that tends to feed negatively into my own energy to control mine. there was, of course, the meltdown to start all other meltdowns - and by that, i mean that i've come to believe that part of my process of traveling is just going to be that complete emotional collapse in the first twenty-four hours. it doesn't just happen - i need it to happen. it seems to be the only way to purge all of that chemical tension and, as soon as it's over, i feel great. knowing that is so amazingly freeing because now i can know that i just need an hour or two at the beginning of a trip to totally lose my shit before i can carry on with the enjoyment. maybe someday i will learn to manage my GAwD enough that i don't need that kind of release anymore but, for now, just reconciling with it is enough to make me feel better about my mental health and my future as a traveller of the world.
most of it though, was pretty great. i saw arlington and the hill and i walked the mall and saw the supreme court and went to the iwo jima memorial on the anniversary of the flag raising. i learned so much about myself and saw so many of the things that mean so much to me.
i came home from that trip on thursday, high on personal revolations, vacation juju, the joy of finally seeing some things that i have always wanted to see and the realization that i have a way to see cities and things in the way i've always wanted to see and experience them without having to completely tear my life apart to trek up to madison to participate in the #wiunion rally, to see the days speaker and to protest the (at the time) proposed denial of access to a public building by anyone suspected of being a protestor. while it's true that i am, for the moment, covered under my mother's state health insurance and that she is being directly targeted by this legislation, it's also true that i stand somewhere in the middle on this issue. having had a handful of public school teachers and not having thought any of them were worth their salt, i do think that those particular teachers should tighten their belts until they are right out of jobs. but, with all of that said, i also believe that school should be palaces or - in the words of bradley whitford (a.k.a.josh lyman *swoon*) who came to speak to us that saturday - that they should be as shiny as our missiles and that the teachers who are good aren't being paid anywhere near enough.
i still have to get into what i saw and what i experienced there because it was truly surreal. the true politeness of wisconsinites came through in sharp reveal, despite the 15/85 split. the will of the people with whom i shared the air, to stand outside for ten hours in hoodies, hats and gloves, through snow and fifteen degree weather, not to destroy anything but to say 'stop it - stop attacking our chlidren' was - no is, because they're still out there - amazing. to see strangers consoling other strangers and to see protestors stepping in to stand with police when one of the 15% whackadoo's got out of line only to see the police break ranks to stand with us when they were ordered to evict citizens from the capitol building. i can neither adequately verbalize what i saw there, nor express how hurt i've been by the way it's being reported in some outlets. to call these people slobs - these people who have, by and large (did i mention the 15%), complied with every reasonable request to preserve order and property - and to be called hateful and uncivilized when i have never seen a group so organized and polite as to use protest marshalls to guide people in and out of a starbucks, making sure the doors stay shut so the baristas who didn't dress for the weather don't get cold with the wind whistiling in and out of the door as people open and close it. (i mean, really folks, "hateful and uncivilized?')
since monday, protesters have been barred from entering the capitol building in violation of an appellate court ruling and, those who didn't exit - a group of about 75 holding out inside - were unable to leave because they would not be let back in... that, that was worth fighting for. until yesterday, i'd planned to return to madison this weekend to stand in force with them.... with the democratic assembly members forced to move their desks to the capitol steps because their constituents weren't being allowed inside and with the citizens sleeping on the lawn for fear they would be pushed all the way back out to the streets if they gave up the ground. thursday, i was spared that chilly fate by a higher court who ruled that, while it is unconstitutional to bar access to a public building during business hours, it would be considered permissible to close the capitol until open of business monday for cleaning and any necessary repairs.
as the political situation in this state deteriorates, and as the country watches us, i'm not so interested in standing on the sides of unions, but i will always stand with those who stand against those who wish to trample the first amendment, whatever that requires. monday is going to prove a very interesting day.
i guess i got into that a little more than i'd originally intended to...and i can tell because i started crying a little while talking about it but my original point was really just this - that i went and i saw and i participated and that is exactly what all of this is about.
i am starting to see a real change in myself. it's small and it's subtle but i know it and i can see it. while i still haven't really forgiven the universe for birthing me into a family where i would be required to work every day of my life, i find that i'm happier, even there and, when i'm at home, i find myself treasuring the little things more. wednesday, i danced in the grocery store to footloose and last night i rocked out in the car to a little bit of prince. i'm embracing things more and worrying about things less, which is a huge change for me, since i should really be worrying about whether or not i'm leaving mike behind in all of this (i think i might be) but, i have therapists for that.
in the days to come, spring is going to start to peak its head out from behind the piles of totally gross snow-trash which means all sorts of things, from moving our little weekend picnics outside to kite flying (a new addition to my list-of-things-to-do-outside) and a scary camping trip all the way out to the roads finally drying up enough that i can start to learn to do that which has scared me so much - drive without a sense of paralyzing anxiety. mike will be picking up his new accessories in the next few days, which means a lot of changes for our relationship - good or bad - and it means i am one step closer to my own car, and my own requirement to drive it which, for me, means a lot of freedom i really should have gotten about ten years ago...it also means that my money will once again become my own and jetting off for a weekend to experience a place i've never been will, once again, become an option.
i am so excited to see everything that is in store for me and, that, internet, is the biggest change of all.
*w totally optional, but it's more fun to say "g-ahw-d" than "g-A-d" as in 'dad'
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
i am never going to be good at this
it is possible, that i am not a person for vacations. it is possible, that i am a person for long leisurely trips or perhaps just a person for taking vacations with the right person and I haven't found them yet.
i know being self-conscious doesn't help things any and i certainly am. the weight, the dress that comes with it and the incredible unease that comes from being from the abhorred midwest...then in traveling with my mother, whom i love, but who could behave no more like a tourist if she tried in her puffer vest and inability to board the blue line bus rather than the yellow. i don't like feeling like a tourist in a city like this. for one thing, i feel like i must be irritating the people who do live here and belong and, for the second, i think i would like to feel like i belong.
people keep telling me that i need to get out of the place where i live - and living on top of chicago - a veritable mecca of intellectual debate, i never understood why that was really necessary. i mean, its chicago, for christs sake. internet, i was wrong. last night,we jumped on a shuttle from the kennedy center back to the metro station and the radio blared global political news of the day and people discussed it intelligently - not loudly, but intelligently among themselves and it was...different. it was moderate, not overly liberal or overly conservative or even equivocating - just well thought out and well structured. a few college boys - still speaking with that thick, uniquely black southern accent, discussed when the next time they would be able to make it from class to another show at the kennedy center and how they'd been to see peabody the last time they'd performed and hadn't liked it, but thought they should come back thursday to give it another try. in chicago, first generation college students do not go to classical music performances unless they're actually enrolled in a classical music program or trying to sleep with someone. really. but there they were, two heterosexual transplants in their early twenties making a plan. in boggles the mind,
i always knew there was a tremendous chance i would come to love a city like dc or boston far more than i ever loved chicago. i love chicago's history - i love the years of mafia rule and i love the hardness of the city but there is something entirely unique about each city, and the part of me that spends the largest portion of many of my days entrenched in theoretical political discussion appreciates that unique something about dc. i can't say 'i love it here' because mostly, thus far, this trip has been about pain and suffering. it's 35 degrees outside and i walked miles and miles and miles in ballet flats in a cemetery. i mean, while i have been the kind of person that could trek like that in that kind of weather for nothing and i would like to be that person again, i can't say i am right now and i never did it in a cemetery before.
i guess, in the end, this trip has confirmed for me the desire to live in a city. the part of me that is very very very cheap knows that 81% above the national average for a cost of living is insane, but the part of me that thinks you can make choices that make that reasonably affordable knows that it could, at least, be ok. i mean, okay, the salary calculators all say that, to maintain my current standard of living in boston or dc, i'd need to gross an additional twenty-five grand a year...but i have to ask myself, what is my current standard of living, really?
its been so long since my money was mine that i dont know where it would get me if i was the only one spending it. its moot anyway, since i haven't actually, you know, applied for any jobs and since i dont plan to in the immediate moment. (finish college first - then start trying to negotiate for an additional twenty-five thousand dollars a year. seems logical. seems like i have no idea how i got as far as i did without finishing that pointless little piece of paper that, for a person with an iq like mine, really just proves i was capable of sitting through thousands of hours of fairly pointless lectures.) but, it does give me a different picture of what my life could look like, if that's what i wanted it to.
if this process is teaching me nothing, it has served to remind me that i have choices and that those choices are my own. mike can do as he likes. he can be as he likes, what he likes and when he likes. i am not obligated to wait around for him to get his personal shit together and if he can't keep up, that's his problem, really. so it's served to remind me that if i wanted to pack up my life and move it to a city, i could and i could make it. living as far in the burbs as I do, there's a tendency to lean on "get married, buy starter house, have baby" life plan as your goals and, while i'm not sure on the marriage or the baby, i've become rather attached to the notion of buying a house and doing some reno. i like my sewing machine and my yarn and feel like having a room in which to do it would be, you know, nice. after years of living in an apartment that doesn't have walls, let alone doors, the prospect of one area not flowing completely into another, has it's appeal. i still love high ceilings and big windows and wide open rooms, but being able to shut a door on a messy bedroom and have people over is certainly not beyond redemption. in a city, that starts to look a lot more like a tiny table in the corner of a one bedroom or studio apartment with a narrow bookshelf, a tiny sewing table and an easel that you trip over every time you get off of the couch, but that could be okay too.
in any case, it's 9:30 in the morning and the tours all open at ten. in truth, i should have let the hotel room ages ago, jumped on the subway and made my way down to the mall to start going and doing and seeing things but today is the only day i have to take things at my own pace and this trip stopped being about seeing things sometime yesterday and started being about thinking things.
seeing the kennedy graves was something i so wanted to do and, as hard as i try to be positive about it, it was spoiled in so many ways. spoiled by the angry little guy from jersey who couldn't keep himself or his children in check as they went on their own capitol marathon through some of the most relevant ground in this country. he went apoplectic over the prospect of having to wait a whole hour to see the changing of the guard so the rest of the tour bus could stop at the kennedy gravesites. it was fortunate, in that moment, that my mother was with me because, if i'd been forced to say something, it might have been a tirade of insults thrown in his direction - along with some fairly severe condemnations for behaving that way in a cemetery. she was able to politely say that the kennedy gravesites were really the only reason we came and the tour guide was able to work it out. it was spoiled when we got there, standing over the flame for john and the two little girls poking around the children's gravesites asking 'how them die? how them die?' over and over again...or maybe by their mother, who could not legitimately answer their questions because, behind john's obvious demise, she didn't know how jackie died or who the other two headstones were for. it was ruined by the plywood and indoor/outdoor carpeting that led up to teddy's grave in lieu of an actual sidewalk for reasons that i dont really understand. his death was so long ago, surely they had time to build a three by five sidewalk? it wouldn't take but an afternoon. (reasonably, i'm trying to imagine that they did build the sidewalk but they just did a bad job and ended up letting the winter take it out. or...i dont know, something.)
arlington, for me, was a pilgrimage, not a stop on a tour destination and i didn't go there to see things, i went there to feel them. it bothered me to see that not everyone treated it the same - the bands of school children taking walking tours through the cemetery, giggling and shouting while, over the top of the hill, you could see a horsedrawn carriage escorting another casket to it's home. the tour guides say things like 'active cemetery' and remind you to be respectful of your fellow visitor when really they should be reminding people that each of those stones represents a death, and that the cemetery is still growing and they shouldn't need signs that read "silence and respect" because that you would ever imagine to behave any other way should be beyond belief.
so, as i prepare to get up and shower and get dressed and make my way down to the monuments and memorials on the mall, i also find myself struggling to believe that i won't encounter more of the same, and that those very realizations make it ever so much harder to believe the best in people, to enjoy things and to be happy among other human beings.
i know being self-conscious doesn't help things any and i certainly am. the weight, the dress that comes with it and the incredible unease that comes from being from the abhorred midwest...then in traveling with my mother, whom i love, but who could behave no more like a tourist if she tried in her puffer vest and inability to board the blue line bus rather than the yellow. i don't like feeling like a tourist in a city like this. for one thing, i feel like i must be irritating the people who do live here and belong and, for the second, i think i would like to feel like i belong.
people keep telling me that i need to get out of the place where i live - and living on top of chicago - a veritable mecca of intellectual debate, i never understood why that was really necessary. i mean, its chicago, for christs sake. internet, i was wrong. last night,we jumped on a shuttle from the kennedy center back to the metro station and the radio blared global political news of the day and people discussed it intelligently - not loudly, but intelligently among themselves and it was...different. it was moderate, not overly liberal or overly conservative or even equivocating - just well thought out and well structured. a few college boys - still speaking with that thick, uniquely black southern accent, discussed when the next time they would be able to make it from class to another show at the kennedy center and how they'd been to see peabody the last time they'd performed and hadn't liked it, but thought they should come back thursday to give it another try. in chicago, first generation college students do not go to classical music performances unless they're actually enrolled in a classical music program or trying to sleep with someone. really. but there they were, two heterosexual transplants in their early twenties making a plan. in boggles the mind,
i always knew there was a tremendous chance i would come to love a city like dc or boston far more than i ever loved chicago. i love chicago's history - i love the years of mafia rule and i love the hardness of the city but there is something entirely unique about each city, and the part of me that spends the largest portion of many of my days entrenched in theoretical political discussion appreciates that unique something about dc. i can't say 'i love it here' because mostly, thus far, this trip has been about pain and suffering. it's 35 degrees outside and i walked miles and miles and miles in ballet flats in a cemetery. i mean, while i have been the kind of person that could trek like that in that kind of weather for nothing and i would like to be that person again, i can't say i am right now and i never did it in a cemetery before.
i guess, in the end, this trip has confirmed for me the desire to live in a city. the part of me that is very very very cheap knows that 81% above the national average for a cost of living is insane, but the part of me that thinks you can make choices that make that reasonably affordable knows that it could, at least, be ok. i mean, okay, the salary calculators all say that, to maintain my current standard of living in boston or dc, i'd need to gross an additional twenty-five grand a year...but i have to ask myself, what is my current standard of living, really?
its been so long since my money was mine that i dont know where it would get me if i was the only one spending it. its moot anyway, since i haven't actually, you know, applied for any jobs and since i dont plan to in the immediate moment. (finish college first - then start trying to negotiate for an additional twenty-five thousand dollars a year. seems logical. seems like i have no idea how i got as far as i did without finishing that pointless little piece of paper that, for a person with an iq like mine, really just proves i was capable of sitting through thousands of hours of fairly pointless lectures.) but, it does give me a different picture of what my life could look like, if that's what i wanted it to.
if this process is teaching me nothing, it has served to remind me that i have choices and that those choices are my own. mike can do as he likes. he can be as he likes, what he likes and when he likes. i am not obligated to wait around for him to get his personal shit together and if he can't keep up, that's his problem, really. so it's served to remind me that if i wanted to pack up my life and move it to a city, i could and i could make it. living as far in the burbs as I do, there's a tendency to lean on "get married, buy starter house, have baby" life plan as your goals and, while i'm not sure on the marriage or the baby, i've become rather attached to the notion of buying a house and doing some reno. i like my sewing machine and my yarn and feel like having a room in which to do it would be, you know, nice. after years of living in an apartment that doesn't have walls, let alone doors, the prospect of one area not flowing completely into another, has it's appeal. i still love high ceilings and big windows and wide open rooms, but being able to shut a door on a messy bedroom and have people over is certainly not beyond redemption. in a city, that starts to look a lot more like a tiny table in the corner of a one bedroom or studio apartment with a narrow bookshelf, a tiny sewing table and an easel that you trip over every time you get off of the couch, but that could be okay too.
in any case, it's 9:30 in the morning and the tours all open at ten. in truth, i should have let the hotel room ages ago, jumped on the subway and made my way down to the mall to start going and doing and seeing things but today is the only day i have to take things at my own pace and this trip stopped being about seeing things sometime yesterday and started being about thinking things.
seeing the kennedy graves was something i so wanted to do and, as hard as i try to be positive about it, it was spoiled in so many ways. spoiled by the angry little guy from jersey who couldn't keep himself or his children in check as they went on their own capitol marathon through some of the most relevant ground in this country. he went apoplectic over the prospect of having to wait a whole hour to see the changing of the guard so the rest of the tour bus could stop at the kennedy gravesites. it was fortunate, in that moment, that my mother was with me because, if i'd been forced to say something, it might have been a tirade of insults thrown in his direction - along with some fairly severe condemnations for behaving that way in a cemetery. she was able to politely say that the kennedy gravesites were really the only reason we came and the tour guide was able to work it out. it was spoiled when we got there, standing over the flame for john and the two little girls poking around the children's gravesites asking 'how them die? how them die?' over and over again...or maybe by their mother, who could not legitimately answer their questions because, behind john's obvious demise, she didn't know how jackie died or who the other two headstones were for. it was ruined by the plywood and indoor/outdoor carpeting that led up to teddy's grave in lieu of an actual sidewalk for reasons that i dont really understand. his death was so long ago, surely they had time to build a three by five sidewalk? it wouldn't take but an afternoon. (reasonably, i'm trying to imagine that they did build the sidewalk but they just did a bad job and ended up letting the winter take it out. or...i dont know, something.)
arlington, for me, was a pilgrimage, not a stop on a tour destination and i didn't go there to see things, i went there to feel them. it bothered me to see that not everyone treated it the same - the bands of school children taking walking tours through the cemetery, giggling and shouting while, over the top of the hill, you could see a horsedrawn carriage escorting another casket to it's home. the tour guides say things like 'active cemetery' and remind you to be respectful of your fellow visitor when really they should be reminding people that each of those stones represents a death, and that the cemetery is still growing and they shouldn't need signs that read "silence and respect" because that you would ever imagine to behave any other way should be beyond belief.
so, as i prepare to get up and shower and get dressed and make my way down to the monuments and memorials on the mall, i also find myself struggling to believe that i won't encounter more of the same, and that those very realizations make it ever so much harder to believe the best in people, to enjoy things and to be happy among other human beings.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
i take it back, it's a blessing
its funny, for all of my utter anonymity here, staying anonymous elsewhere on the internet isn't so easy.
in the last fourty-eight hours, that anonymity has been sorely tested and, as a consequence, i've tested the will of a few others. for a decade, i've struggled with finding the balance in having such a very public face and maintaining my personal privacy. over the years, as a staff we've shared pictures of our desks and done q&a's and it's been fun but, for a long time, it hasn't felt like that anymore. for me, now, the questions feel more invasive, the calls on my time less welcome and i've never felt my sense of vulnerability skyrocketing like i did last night.
no one ever means it to be that way - and i certainly don't blame anyone for triggering my damage...my damage is pretty much all over the place, so it isn't difficult to do, but it feels crappy to feel this exposed.
still, after a few hours of wallowing in my own frustration, i realized the thing i used to remind myself of, years ago, that this is an opportunity and that it's a blessing. not to be cliched, but there are people who would do a lot to be in my shoes and have this chance, and i shouldn't squander it pouting. i have people who love me - whose opinions i value - who want me to do well and want to help me. i have an audience and i have support.
(also, i have a d.c. metro cheat sheet and only one more day until my trip!)
in the last fourty-eight hours, that anonymity has been sorely tested and, as a consequence, i've tested the will of a few others. for a decade, i've struggled with finding the balance in having such a very public face and maintaining my personal privacy. over the years, as a staff we've shared pictures of our desks and done q&a's and it's been fun but, for a long time, it hasn't felt like that anymore. for me, now, the questions feel more invasive, the calls on my time less welcome and i've never felt my sense of vulnerability skyrocketing like i did last night.
no one ever means it to be that way - and i certainly don't blame anyone for triggering my damage...my damage is pretty much all over the place, so it isn't difficult to do, but it feels crappy to feel this exposed.
still, after a few hours of wallowing in my own frustration, i realized the thing i used to remind myself of, years ago, that this is an opportunity and that it's a blessing. not to be cliched, but there are people who would do a lot to be in my shoes and have this chance, and i shouldn't squander it pouting. i have people who love me - whose opinions i value - who want me to do well and want to help me. i have an audience and i have support.
(also, i have a d.c. metro cheat sheet and only one more day until my trip!)
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
saying thanks
a few months back, when they started floating the idea of this new job, i told my mom that i was concerned about managing people again. i've done it in the past and it didn't end well. people, as it turned, didn't like being managed by someone as young as me and i was afraid that would happen again. ever since then, she sends me what i've learners to lovingly refer to as management tips of the day. most of the time they are either pretty obvious or pretty corny. like with anything, i try to take the original idea and roll it back into the realm of the practical. so, when i was presented with the notion of writing someone a thank you note every single day, i thought 'boy, that would lose all meaning after week one' but then i realized it was no more than something i am already trying to do here. sure, i still think its a little corny, but i will make it a point to go out of my way to say a sincere thank you to someone i work with everyday.... but I probably won't hand write a note...
Sunday, February 13, 2011
its not as bad as it looks
i haven't posted here in a while - a lot longer than i originally intended to. in my defense, this hasn't really gone the way i expected it to. my relationship wasn't supposed to start unraveling at the seams and, when it did, it really put a bit of a damper on talking about accetuating the positives. still, whatever it looks like, i have been trying to live it, if i can't yet talk about it.
the trip we were going to take to chicago never got off the ground. it faded right around the same time as the nausea and, truth be told, i was a little relieved and a little sad. sad because it's exactly the sort of thing that i wanted to do. relieved because i didn't really like everyone in the party an because who knows what kind of fun they would want to have, and would it be things i find enjoyable? as much as i'm trying to step out of my comfort zone, with things as big as "enjoying time with other people" i'm trying to be careful about the things i do while i'm doing it - because god knows i'm an easy scare.
the trip to d.c. is still totally on and, i have to tell you, that is all excitement. as much as being around my mom all of the time can be maddening - because her understanding of the world and mine diverge fairly significantly (and we still haven't worked around the whole crazy-cheating-lesbian 'thing') - for a couple of days at a time, we get along really really well and i can genuinely say that i like spending time with her. i think we're going to have a lot of fun.
mike and i are...well, we are, thats all that can be said for right now. he's trying really hard to be more invested, but there's a big part of me that feels like the big things that are an issue now - money and the future - are going to stay big issues. when i originally agreed to his plan b, i agreed to it because i thought that what he meant was 'give me some time to make it on my own and learn life lessons by falling flat on my face' and what he really meant was 'let me stay like i am forever' and i don't think putting up with that would be fair to me. i want things. i want to move somewhere warmer. i want to buy a house. i want to own a nice car for me and a nice car for whomever i'm with. i (think i) want a kid and i want to stay home and raise that child until they are old enough to go to school all day.
it's way too soon to say anything for sure, but i have some reservations and some qualms and i'm going to need some more work and he's going to need some work too. when we're done, maybe we'll be together and maybe we won't but either way, i want both of us to be ok when we get where we're going.
so, in the spirit of enjoying the holidays and spending time together, mike and i had another living room picnic - stuffed mushrooms and a mediocre white fish while a batch of sugar cookies baked off in the oven. when they were done, we sat on the couch with a plastic heart tablecloth on the coffee table and iced some little red, pink and white cookies. mike's look like they were done by a kindergartner and mine look somehow fussy and ugly at the same time, but we did it and we did it together and i appreciate both the effort and the gesture. i told him - and i'm sure i'll have to remind him - that next weeks' silliness is going to have to be on him.
in other news, one of the local temple's is having 'bring a neighbor night' in a few weeks and i was invited to attend. religion isn't really my thing. in fact, today i was watching tv and a character made mention of 'in my religion, we've always known prayer worked - but i didn't know there was data available' and i told mike that, when i hear things like that, i'm honestly dumbfounded. 'there are people out there that actually honestly really believe in prayer.' i know that reads as really cruel but i mean it in the best possible way - its like looking at a projection map, it just seems foreign and impossible. still, i've always maintained that, if there was a religion for me, it would have to be judaism. there have been a lot of moments in my life where i've wondered if it wouldn't be nice to believe in something bigger than myself - that there were reasons people did the kinds of things that they do or that there was a reason i'd endured the things i'd endured, but nothing ever really stuck. given everything, though, i think there might be something to be said for looking in on religion from time to time and - forgive me - cherry picking the best parts to impose on my own life. sometimes i feel like i'm looking for things to connect with and what better a place to try connecting with something than a temple? i still like bacon cheeseburgers, so i probably wont go for the whole thing, but maybe there are some details to be gleaned.
who knows, but i'm giving it a shot.
the trip we were going to take to chicago never got off the ground. it faded right around the same time as the nausea and, truth be told, i was a little relieved and a little sad. sad because it's exactly the sort of thing that i wanted to do. relieved because i didn't really like everyone in the party an because who knows what kind of fun they would want to have, and would it be things i find enjoyable? as much as i'm trying to step out of my comfort zone, with things as big as "enjoying time with other people" i'm trying to be careful about the things i do while i'm doing it - because god knows i'm an easy scare.
the trip to d.c. is still totally on and, i have to tell you, that is all excitement. as much as being around my mom all of the time can be maddening - because her understanding of the world and mine diverge fairly significantly (and we still haven't worked around the whole crazy-cheating-lesbian 'thing') - for a couple of days at a time, we get along really really well and i can genuinely say that i like spending time with her. i think we're going to have a lot of fun.
mike and i are...well, we are, thats all that can be said for right now. he's trying really hard to be more invested, but there's a big part of me that feels like the big things that are an issue now - money and the future - are going to stay big issues. when i originally agreed to his plan b, i agreed to it because i thought that what he meant was 'give me some time to make it on my own and learn life lessons by falling flat on my face' and what he really meant was 'let me stay like i am forever' and i don't think putting up with that would be fair to me. i want things. i want to move somewhere warmer. i want to buy a house. i want to own a nice car for me and a nice car for whomever i'm with. i (think i) want a kid and i want to stay home and raise that child until they are old enough to go to school all day.
it's way too soon to say anything for sure, but i have some reservations and some qualms and i'm going to need some more work and he's going to need some work too. when we're done, maybe we'll be together and maybe we won't but either way, i want both of us to be ok when we get where we're going.
so, in the spirit of enjoying the holidays and spending time together, mike and i had another living room picnic - stuffed mushrooms and a mediocre white fish while a batch of sugar cookies baked off in the oven. when they were done, we sat on the couch with a plastic heart tablecloth on the coffee table and iced some little red, pink and white cookies. mike's look like they were done by a kindergartner and mine look somehow fussy and ugly at the same time, but we did it and we did it together and i appreciate both the effort and the gesture. i told him - and i'm sure i'll have to remind him - that next weeks' silliness is going to have to be on him.
in other news, one of the local temple's is having 'bring a neighbor night' in a few weeks and i was invited to attend. religion isn't really my thing. in fact, today i was watching tv and a character made mention of 'in my religion, we've always known prayer worked - but i didn't know there was data available' and i told mike that, when i hear things like that, i'm honestly dumbfounded. 'there are people out there that actually honestly really believe in prayer.' i know that reads as really cruel but i mean it in the best possible way - its like looking at a projection map, it just seems foreign and impossible. still, i've always maintained that, if there was a religion for me, it would have to be judaism. there have been a lot of moments in my life where i've wondered if it wouldn't be nice to believe in something bigger than myself - that there were reasons people did the kinds of things that they do or that there was a reason i'd endured the things i'd endured, but nothing ever really stuck. given everything, though, i think there might be something to be said for looking in on religion from time to time and - forgive me - cherry picking the best parts to impose on my own life. sometimes i feel like i'm looking for things to connect with and what better a place to try connecting with something than a temple? i still like bacon cheeseburgers, so i probably wont go for the whole thing, but maybe there are some details to be gleaned.
who knows, but i'm giving it a shot.
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