I feel irrationally angry today. I want to throw things and stomp and yell and break stuff. For weeks I have been fine and today I am just mad. There was nothing in particular that made me mad, just thinking too much I guess. I thought something good would come of my efforts but now it seems that no matter what I might have done it would have failed because he either did not want to make it work or perhaps could not…
Any recognition of the things that made it hard to be with him was accompanied with this “take it or leave it” attitude. “I’ll have to think about that” is the closest we ever got to him acknowledging that he might need to make some effort to grow and change and that it’s not all on me. As I think about the conversations we had, all I can remember are the things he accused me of doing wrong. When I would try to bring something up about how he had made me feel, he just told me why I was wrong or why it was my problem. Sometimes I got the “figure out how to deal with it or leave because that is how I am” response. I stopped bringing things up.
What was I thinking? Why did I bother with it for as long as I did? Why did I keep hoping that maybe he would get over this childish idea of what a relationship is (instantly perfect and easy, never any disagreements or miscommunication) and actually try to be a part of something with real communication, compassion, understanding and empathy? I guess I hope that everyone would have that. I like him enough to have tried and I care enough that it makes me sad to walk away from it.
I have to admit to being really into delivery tracking data. I love watching a package make its way across the country to its destination. Origin scan, departure scan, arrival scan, departure scan, arrival scan, etc. until I see that it is out for delivery. . . and there is nothing left to do but wait for for the email notification of delivery. The idea of this is absurd when compared to the Pony Express and other early transcontinental mail services – i imagine you just hoped they would get it there.
The Pony Express rider changed his horse about every 10 miles – apparently this is how far one could gallop before the horse is stressed. So they rode across the country on horseback to get mail from the midwest to the west coast – until the railroad put them out of business. Today, we romanticize that journey but really – it had to suck. I can say that I would not want to be a Pony Express rider. I shall content myself with the tracking numbers and the scans that I follow from here to there. . . .
Oh – in case you are wondering, the package I was watching as it traveled to its destination was delivered exactly on time. Shortly after receiving an email alerting me to the delivery, I heard from the recipient who seemed quite pleased at its arrival.
I know people who rant and rave about how pedestrians and bicyclists get in their way. These are the same people for whom walking two blocks when they park is an abomination. They complain about traffic and the cost of gas. These same people shop at Walmart and eat at Arby’s for lunch. When you examine all the facts it seems that they are completely unaware and represent the epitome of consumption and wastefulness. They are the perfect example of a parasite.
You drive a car – it consumes petroleum and pollutes our environment. YES! You should have to pay to park and maybe if you walked a bit more you would not be such a burden on our health care system. I wish we could heavily tax your lunch – with your CAFO raised beef and corn syrup laced beverages – so we can pay for the health care you do and will continue to require for the next 30 years.
I ask you to consider this – when the flow of petroleum becomes a nearly imperceptible drip, for it will be in your lifetime, how will you manage? What will you do? Bitch and complain? Keep voting republican and start another war? Steal it from the ‘terrorists’ and the ‘communists?’ When whole communities start to rot because the good, white Christians of the world take care of their own – will your conscience be stirred or will the poverty-stricken, minority communities ‘get what they deserve?’
The world is changing. Are you changing with it or will your cold, petroleum soaked hands clutch the wheel of your gas-guzzling, carbon-spewing, roadkill machine until there is nothing left? How many people will die trying to suck up or control the last drop of oil? You hear people talk about the crisis and you stand by, skeptical and apathetic. There’s nothing we can do about it so why change – right?
We’ve got americans ditching their cars and installing bike racks. People are trying to keep Walmart out of their town and choosing the farmers’ market. We have public policy makers looking for ways to promote and expand public transportation. The world is changing and it’s time for us to change with it. Innovate or die. Adapt or go the way of the dinosaur.
If we have the awareness to do these things it seems that we must do them.
it arrived without me noticing – a moment when i looked up, the water was gone and low tide was upon me. i didn’t notice until after it had washed everything away, leaving me stranded and alone.
i’ve stopped crying the salty tears that come with loss. i’m not sure where i am or where i’m going. ahead of me I have the long quiet of a solitary walk. the sky is dark and full of stars to gaze upon and the surf filled with tiny pieces of long forgotten lives that sparkle like the memories I wander among.
I have not written in a long time. It’s not for having nothing to say. . . I say that I don’t have time but really it’s just that I don’t make the time for this.
I logged in today for the first time in a while to find an enormous number of page views happened yesterday. I wonder who found me and think that perhaps I should write a little more often.
I’m okay with getting old and I am okay with not being alone. I think it’s a fine thing to find a person you want to make a life with. it’s not necessarily out of weakness or fear that we embark on this sort of journey with another.
I think that sometimes I disagree with people – even the people even those I love. I don’t think its effortless – because nothing in life is effortless. our tiny brains fuck stuff up – it is the nature of things. humans misunderstand and communicate poorly. that is the nature of language and the beauty is in finding that person who is willing to step back and rethink what they just did or what just came out of my mouth because every time you learn to communicate better it brings you one step closer to that absolutely intuitive way of interacting with a person you really know, appreciate, and love. so yes, I ask the question, what are you afraid of?
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Avast: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
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And if you get infected, you need to clean stuff up. Trend Micro: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
I have written of it before but there are albums I find that I can FEEL when I listen to them. I want to listen to them over and over again. There are two lately that have had this affect on me and they make me think about the curiosities of life and death and love and all the things that make us human.
They make me think about the people who want to deny all of it – avoid the human parts of life maybe because it is hard or because you can’t always know what will happen and yeah – sometimes it hurts. . . . They make me think about the people who embrace every bit of it and go out into the world as true to themselves as the day they were born. And they remind me that life is just as full of laughter and wonder as it is tears and pain.
I will admit to being that person who wants to be ok with all of it. I want to embrace every moment and be okay with it because what else can I do? It’s happening and I need to breathe deep and be thankful that I am here experiencing it. I think a lot about the why. . . what the hell are we doing? We eat and drink and sleep and reproduce. All the stuff that is bigger than that is imagined by these tiny little brains of ours. I am so small. This music reminds me of that.
There are a lot of dreams I’ve let go – lots of disappointment and failure that I shoo away from my bedside each morning. I wake up each day in a life I never imagined for myself, in a place I never planned. I look back on it all and I try to understand what happened because I never saw this coming. I spent 9 years dreaming up a life that is no more. 5 years of it were spent planning and building a home I never really got to live in. I planted rose bushes that I will never see flower, trees that will grow tall and make shade I will never enjoy on a hot, summer afternoon.
I am not saying I am the only person this has happened to. I am not asking for pity. I am just trying to live again. It is harder than I ever thought it would be to let go of all that happened and find a new path.
I am trying to find my way – some direction – that will lead me away from all those painful memories and dreams that I left behind. At first, this was about things. I wanted to surround myself with beautiful things because I had lived for so long with nearly nothing but a dream and it seemed to me that using furniture, art, pottery, books, curtains, 400ct egyptian cotton sheets and beautiful fluffy towels would help define this new life. I am not sure that I succeeded in defining anything but it has given me a space to which I can retreat, a place where I feel safe enough to lie on my couch and mourn for everything I walked away from.
It has taken a great deal of casting about to realize that I have no idea what I am doing with my life. I am generally capable of getting out of bed each morning and going to work. I cook great food, write, laugh with my son. . . but I lack any plan for where I want to be in 10 years. I’ve always had a plan for where I would be in ten years and I knew that even if it changed, I still needed to have one. I am not sure what to do now that I find myself unable to invent one.
I’ve tried. I have planned everything from going back to school or finding a job in another town to moving to Italy so that I can live on a vineyard and make wine. When one of those plans falls through (as they all have because I don’t really want any of those things,) I find myself simply getting drunk enough that I can pass out and not dream.
I am not at a complete loss.
Even without a plan, I have recently come to realize a few, rather important, things.
- I need to be okay with all of this. I need to trust myself and know that it is my path, that I learn from it, that it might happen again and that I should be thankful for all of it because it is what drives and shapes me. It is impossible to imagine who I would be without all of this.
- Maybe I don’t need a plan. Maybe I don’t need to be in such a hurry to run away from myself. I think it might be time to stop and look at who I am rather than continue pretending to be someone I am not. I have done a lot of self reflection in the last 5 years but I am talking about dedicating time and energy to becoming the person I really want to be.
- I might need some help working through all of this. I have always been ridiculously, fiercely, stubbornly independent. I am starting to realize that it pushes people away and maybe it is time to start looking to others for help. I have been debating this one for a year (ridiculous!) and a lovely man I know has helped me realize what I need to do. I am not sure he knows he has done this but he’s been caring and patient as he’s explained to me what I do and how he feels about it. I am so thankful.
- I must write about all of it. I have always written about my life. I will sit down upset and distracted and sometimes it takes hours but writing focuses and relaxes me.
Some people exercise or paint – I write.
It started out as something that was just for me and I was terrified of people discovering my journals, my deepest thoughts. Revealing all those things made we weak, vulnerable. I hid my writing away for years – decades, actually. Then I decided to make it public.
Being open and honest about who I am and what I feel is one of the hardest things I have ever done but also one of the best. I am not even sure who reads this stuff but I am not going to hide anymore. The writing is for me. It is how I process and it is how I remember. I share it simply because I need to stop being afraid of people knowing who I am.
So I guess it boils down to this. Know what I want from life and ask for it. Stop being afraid. Find a good therapist. Be open and honest. Smile. Love back.
cheers to an awesome opportunity.
cheers to me imagining that i am standing in that space and
we are getting ready to open the doors to our first night.
cheers to something so fucking amazing that we can hardly believe it might actually happen.
thank you for this – it is pretty cool and it matters to me more than I ever thought it would.
let’s do it.
