{ 10 / 5 / 17 }

last night i went to bed with (mostly unfounded) anxiety about a very specific situation. i went to bed early with the single goal of turning my body off, hoping my mind would follow.

and in the quiet dark
it was louder and brighter
than i could bear

//

i carried this anxiety into my sleep and into my dreams. i had a vivid dream that what i feared became a reality. typically in my dreams something fantastical enough happens that i become aware that i'm dreaming - or i can wake up and know that any lingering impressions are from what i was dreaming. but at 4:04am this morning, i couldn't make those distinctions.

what it all came down to was me vs. an imaginary person i could never beat. at anything. i would never be more talented, desirable, interesting, intelligent, or beautiful than this person. and i was being directly pitted against this person in the most one-sided comparison ever made. it was clear i'd never be chosen, i'd never win, there was no possible way, and i knew it. and i conceded demurely because it was the last shred of dignity i had to wrap around my insufficient, insignificant self.

//

opening myself to certain things in this season
means opening myself to being evaluated and compared
against other things: ideals, other peoples' pasts, other people.
it also means i'm constantly analyzing myself.
sometimes i feel like the person i really can't win against
is the person i think i should be

{ 10 / 4 / 17 }

at 7:45am someone texted me asking if he should be worried about me. the reason? i hadn't yet responded to a text he sent at 8:15pm yesterday.

good intentions or no, if you can't give me 12 hours to return a text, we're not going to get along very well. i am not like most people. my phone is not an electrobiological extension of my hand. i do not spend my day staring at it. i do not respond to every text within the hour. in fact, it's my goal to put my phone on airplane mode for at least 2 hours, at least 2-3 times per week. after 10-12 straight hours of being expected to answer every incoming phone call, email, and text while maintaining almost constant in-person communication with patients and staff, being off the grid is a need.

//

i need
so much space

be careful of that, he said.
before you know it you may have
more space than you know what to do with.

and even though i knew he could be right
i pushed off into the silent seas

//

someone apologized to me this week for being preoccupied. it was almost offensive to me. if someone is able to occupy him or herself without my facilitation, that's a plus. if someone is able to occupy him or herself in my presence, that's a massive plus. it releases me from having to entertain, perform, appease. it releases me from having to wonder if i'm entertaining, performing, and appeasing to satisfactory levels. it allows me to occupy MYself without feeling guilty or neglectful.

(however: if you're in my presence and we're sitting face to face and you're preoccupied while i'm trying to talk to you? we're done.)

//

i need
you to need space,
like i do sometimes

i need you
to be able
to take up your own space

i need you
not to need me
sometimes

{ time out }

today was a distinctly good day. it started with a full hour of daydreaming in the cool morning air, watching shadows play on the ceiling. from there it went to clean hair (a rarity these days) to coffee to a kick-ass salad and the smell of towels fresh from the dryer. i wrote letters this afternoon, watched a movie on tv, let the knots of the week loosen and unravel. and tonight i turned out all the lights, lit my favorite blood orange candle, and practiced yoga in the dark to the soundtrack of my own breath. sometimes i need that - to turn everything off but the sensation of being in my own body. it reduces everything to the simplest form for me, streamlines my mind. it helps me to get grounded and calls me to rise higher, both.

//

that being said, and although i often wax eloquently about it, yoga isn't easy for me. i'm not a naturally willowy zenlike bendy person. i'm solid and athletic and compact. i often yearn for the slender limbs of my instructor, since it seems like being less muscular would make many of the poses easier to achieve. but i guess that's the point --- yoga isn't about achievement, which is why it's something i want to keep doing. it's something i can continually strive to do better, but it's not something anyone can really master in the sense of arriving at a point where she doesn't need to try at or do it anymore.

i think maybe there aren't a lot of things like that in the world.

//

[everything after this point is stream of consciousness that is probably more suitable for a personal journal nobody else would ever see...it's not well written but it contains some thoughts and questions that are vital to me right now. if you keep reading, no judgment on writing or style or syntax allowed.]

articulating and maintaining boundaries with people is something i'm working on right now. the need i have to please everyone has shrunk considerably over the past several years, but it's still something i have to constantly manage. keeping a healthy distance from the people i love is a complicated thing for several reasons; one, it feels like something i shouldn't have or want to do. two, i think a common understanding of love is being so close to someone that boundaries don't exist --- i.e. you can tell someone anything, you can call upon her at any time of day or night, and maybe most of all, you can expect that she will drop anything and deny her own needs for your sake. funny, isn't it, that the concept of "selfless" love often means a selfishness on the taking side, with an expectation that the other is the one giving all? and then the giver is in a position to feel guilty if she chooses not to give up on herself in order to give all to another.

i'm not talking about anything new here, of course - but the concept of self and love is tricky terrain for me. i am a high introvert with specific needs for solitude and distance and safe borders, but (for reasons i won't go into now) my fear of abandonment often leads me to disregard those needs in favor of proving my indispensability to others. i've been doing this for the majority of my life and have had to dispossess people of the expectation that i will completely ignore my own needs to meet theirs. it is exhausting, requires vigilance, and is often met with resistance and incredulity. i can hardly blame people - they've become accustomed to my habitual accommodation. building healthy walls after years of letting everyone blast through them to the very heart of me is one of my most important endeavors right now. i think in theory people support me caring for myself, but when that means they don't get as immediate or as big a cut of me as they were looking for, they don't like it as much.

this has made for a handful of uncomfortable conversations lately. in the rougher moments i wonder if the stress involved on my part is worth it - in many ways it would be easier to submit to momentum and just keep behaving the way i always have, making everyone else happy. but when i'm able to persevere through the discomfort and move beyond it, i feel nothing but an undeniable resounding rightness. the problem with setting my boundaries according to what will keep everyone else happy is that i often suffer, and greatly, as a result.

i am not a wildly popular person, but the people who depend on me, really depend on me. i feel the weight of so many expectations and the pressure to perform/entertain/support at a high level - and if i haven't gotten enough sleep or had enough time to myself or a dozen other things that contribute to my ability to function well, i will find a way to show up for everyone else and in doing so, bail on myself. i have to stop doing this. backing the hell up and finding balance means frustrating people and receiving backlash ("why didn't you respond to my email/text message in less time?" "when are we ever going to hang out again?" "why are you pulling away? let me be there for you", to name a few). because the answers to those questions go something like this:

i work a high-demand, fast-paced, socially demanding job that takes all my energy
i know i was instantaneously available before, but that took a toll and i can't do it anymore
i need time
i need space
this doesn't mean i don't care for and love you
i don't know when i will be ready to see you again
you can be here for me by staying where you are for the time being

people do. not. like this.
i don't know what i can do about it.
well, nothing.
unfortunately everyone is going to have to deal with it until i've had some time to recover and figure out what is best for me.
i think it's hard for people to understand that as an INTJ and an aquarius and as the person i am, the more space i am given, the more quickly i will feel ready to let them in. we all (myself included) want to grasp and squeeze the things we love in constant close proximity for fear we we will lose them. but i should know as surely as i know my own soul that holding on too tightly only smothers the thing...potentially to death.

so what can i let go?
what am i holding too tightly that could find its true beauty if i loosened my grip?
what weight could be lifted if i opened my hands?
what wisdom or truth could alight on my hands, if i opened them?
what could be different/better about me if the space i need felt more protected and respected?

{ taking liberties }

i spent the entire weekend alone. i made pancakes, read books in the sun, did hammer curls and sit-ups while watching hours of television. i drank rose at 4pm. i ordered pizza and silenced my phone. i folded shirts, placing them one atop the other, neat slices of cotton.

sometimes i reach out and make the tiniest movements toward social plans. more often than not the text message thread trails off, and i might be the only person in the world who doesn't mind when it does. maybe that's because i know that if i brought my full momentum to the efforts, concrete things would come to pass. somehow i've perfected the art of appearing to try seeing people while remaining profoundly ambivalent as to whether i do or not.

concrete meetings make me restless. as soon as i've arranged them i regret it.
i'm not a misanthrope. i'm beginning to understand that i despise being tied to anything.
i don't fear commitments; i abhor making them.

for so long i thought i needed structure and adherence to something (a schedule, a religion, a program, a plan) or someone (my parents, my friends, a partner). i thought it was in the construct and the connective sinew that i thrived. and because that was how i perceived myself and my needs, so it was. i rarely allowed unprogrammed time or solitude in my life. because to lack a plan or a person for each minute was to be aimless, purposeless, drifting. it was to be formless and unimportant.

it is with relief i am learning that at my core, i'm much wilder than i ever knew. (not wild, per se; compared to truly wild and unstructured individuals i'm probably incredibly uptight.) for the first time in my life, i can sense that my type-A friends view me as foreign: i shy away from plans, i give vague answers to social requests, i regularly dole out "let's see how things go" and "i could probably make that work". a friend told me recently that my comings and goings "seem so mysterious" because when i'm not with her, she has no idea what i do. i believe she said this to cajole me into filling the gaps. (i also believe she said it because my mysterious nature makes her feel insecure about her friendship with me. like, how many other friends do you have? and do you see them more than you see me?) anyone's mistake in trying to manipulate (without malice, sure, but manipulate nonetheless) me in such a manner is that instead of coaxing me to full disclosure or expository confession, it pushes me further into the shadows. reflexively my fists close, holding solitude in my grip, the diamond kernel of my soul spinning faster, smoother, silent.

//

when i was in my mid-twenties i was never alone. i had a boyfriend, i had weekly standing plans with friends, i avoided quiet and rest. my self-worth was tied directly to how busy i was (even at that age i had strong glimmers of self-awareness...from somewhere outside and above my body i observed myself moving so endlessly, and sighed). i created activity and noise to insulate myself. (from what, i'm still figuring.) and lest i completely demonize busy-ness, i think to some extent i was simply being young --- flapping my wings, tirelessly bouncing from corner to corner, face wide open, overly generous with myself and prone to overexertion. my job was easy and light (as easy and light as a mini-career in oncology could be, but still). i did not yet carry the questions and experiences i do now. i had energy left over each day; i spent it all and saved none.

when the boyfriend was no more, things underneath slowed, moving through the cruel gelatin of grief. but on the surface, i only got more frenetic. i was running from the sadness, over-occupying my physical hours and my overwrought faculties. i wanted a drowning that i chose, not the one that threatened to overcome me in my sleep, woke me gasping for air.

all that activity was an effort to buoy myself up. i surrounded myself with an endless ring of people, my human inner tube. i knew i couldn't keep myself afloat on my own. so while in retrospect it all looks ludicrous, like a social circus with a manic ringleader (me), i must bow to the wisdom in those choices, the subconscious knowledge that i couldn't retreat to a cave of pain and heal myself.

//

so it was wisdom that pushed me to dive into community when i was twenty-seven.
and it is wisdom that calls me to stand in my own strength now, at thirty-four.

there are times to take the hands of all who will have you,
to make tearful late-night phone calls that ward off nightmares.
and there are times to clasp your own hands,
to look out the window as dusk gathers and fear no darkness.

{ my feminism, part one }

My awareness of my own feminism has been slow, but unmistakable. I feel fortunate to have arrived to the movement after many have done the hard work of freeing the word "feminist" from negative connotations. There are still unfavorable generalities tied to feminism --- though to be fair, that's true of many labels.

A handful of the attitudes I now associate with feminism have always stood tall in my mind; I haven't radically changed my views or opinions. The subculture I grew up in didn't explicitly dishonor or abuse women, but many of its subterranean attitudes certainly didn't celebrate or create opportunities for us. I grew up believing women were supposed to complement men, come second to them, in almost every way (except if casserole or cleaning house were involved, of course). I grew up believing that the pinnacle of a woman's life was being chosen for marriage by a man. I grew up believing that a woman truly became a woman if (and only if) she bore children. I grew up (and went through many of my young adult years) believing that no one thought I was or could be a complete human being without being in a relationship with a man. I spent my latter twenties and early thirties puzzling through a chorus of (female) voices telling me they were praying I'd find a man, reassuring me it would happen in time. You can probably imagine what this systematic inundation of attitudes about women and myself as a woman, FROM women, eventually did to me when I found myself at 32 years of age, single AF and seriously questioning whether I was engineered to bear children.

I felt like I'd been duped into waiting for a fairytale that was never going to happen. But instead of doubting the fairytale itself, I doubted myself. I felt hideous, disgusting. I felt like a failure. I wondered what it was about me specifically that was so undesirable and unpalatable that just about every single woman I knew had been married for 10 years and was at home raising 2-5 small children and I was working 12 hour days without a soul to wonder when I was coming home or whether I was alive, or eating dinner, or happy. I figured I was too outspoken, too strong-willed, too introverted and unapproachable. Not thin enough. (God, I was not thin enough. I didn't even have a thigh gap, for fuck's sake.) At my age I was deeply discounted goods, and still no one (no man) had chosen me. I believed I was truly fucking terrible, truth be told.

And then I was kicked out of the church, and things changed. But that's another story for another time.

It's difficult to articulate where I came from and where I stand now on women's issues (is that a PC way of referring to, well, women's issues? I don't even know). It's difficult to give it voice without coming off bitter in hindsight...and maybe I am, and maybe that's okay. I feel the need to be excruciatingly neutral in how I speak about it, lest I be branded an Embittered Feminist (anything but that, she thought with a shudder). But even that portrays my own subterranean attitudes and fears: Be likable. Don't make waves. Don't upset anyone.

There is so. much. more. where all of this came from. It's painful to look back and see how indoctrinated I was, how readily and wordlessly I accepted profound beliefs about the world, about myself...and how devastating those innocently adopted beliefs were to me later in life. How hard I had to work (am working) to unravel them from around my neck, to breathe, to think on my own and figure out if I'm really that terrifyingly repulsive, if I'm actually a worthwhile human being despite not having been chosen in a traditional sense by a man for a safe, traditional, charted life. I'm still figuring it out. I'm still defining myself as a single woman who, as of now, has not chosen to have children. The whole thing is stupefyingly simple and infuriatingly complex. It feels untouchable in a way, inexpressible. But part of unburying the truth about who I am and what is possible for me is traveling in the direction of everything I feel insufficiently prepared to face. And that, for me, means trying to write about it.
---------------------------
The excerpt below is from an essay I read in Lenny Letter this morning. There's so much more to the article (that I can't seem to find a direct link to on the site right now), but these are some of the words that struck me the hardest. To put it in context, the author is writing about her experience raising a daughter who doesn't behave like she's expected to --- i.e. "like a normal girl."

In 2016, these are still culturally held truths: a girl is supposed to try to fit in. A girl is supposed to want to be liked. A girl, unlike a boy, who can simply "be a boy," is supposed to care about what grown-ups think. When a girl is not that way, she is pathologized. She is labeled. We have models for rough-and-tumble, too-rambunctious boy outliers. We understand Dennis the Menace–like boy menaces. We delight in tiny male Wes Andersons, chockablock with eccentricities. But when a girl is this way, she is weird, her behavior is a concern, her very being is a problem. To be clear, I understand that C’s behavior would be problematic for a boy as well. But I have to wonder if the framing of it and the discussion around it would have been quite as extreme if C had been a Charles.

No matter how many studies show us that gender roles are learned and not innate, we’re still expecting and rewarding girls for being pretty and neat and soft and sweet and polite. For looking like a little princess. For smelling nice. For fixing their hair. When they are messy and defiant like C, when they advocate for themselves and they protect their bodies — sometimes aggressively — they exist outside a set of socially sanctioned boundaries we’re still living within. We say we want our daughters to grow up to be empowered, strong, unique women. How are we not consistently embracing these qualities in them as girls?
 From "For All The Weird Girls" by Jennifer Romolini 

{ first time in a long time }

a friend pointed out to me recently that i haven't posted here in, ahem, quite some time. i replied with something self-deprecating, like "my extensive readership of 2.3 people are probably really struggling to function without my neurotic ramblings." the truth is, sometimes life is so blissfully normal that there's nothing to write about. and sometimes life is so profoundly stressful that there's plenty to write about but no time or energy to do so.

so i'm sitting here at my desk furtively eating strawberries and blogging for the first time in 6 months. that about sums it up.

//

maybe everyone feels like this, but i often feel like i'm in a position to comfort and counsel and advise and kick peoples' asses. this sounds like a great position to hold, and it sort of is, but it's also a position that carries a shit ton of weight and responsibility. sometimes i'm totally up to handle it. sometimes i resent it and wonder why everyone who seems to have it all still needs my help to be happy. most of the time i wonder why the hell other people want my opinion about the very important things in their lives. i mean, who am i? what do i know? and why does anyone care what i think?

my korean name translates to "jewel of wisdom."
maybe this is the answer to those questions.

//

the thing i have to be careful about is pouring so much of myself into helping other people examine and enjoy and fix their lives that i have nothing left over for myself. that's always been the problem. in a way it makes sense, since it's much easier to see and speak to someone else's life than one's own. i think that's human nature. but it's a part of human nature worth paying attention to and managing. i'm prone to burnout because i want to do the best and please people the most. and, it feels stingy to conserve energy for myself.

because isn't it more noble to be selfless?
to sacrifice my own comfort for the good of another?
to give myself wholeheartedly to lift someone up?

it feels sort of wrong to turn off my phone for the night because i can't take one more text message, one more point of contact, one more need. to make myself unavailable and inaccessible. but i'm realizing i need to cut off access before i'm running on fumes --- not only to cut down on my resentment of people, but because what's the point of giving time to myself if i don't have any resources to draw upon?

//

this is why i don't "blog" --- because it's boring.
it's my endless internal processing and doesn't benefit anyone but me.
it's possible that blogging is the epitome of selfishness.
so on second thought, perhaps i should do it more often.

strawberries are done,
patients are due in,
paperwork is waiting.

back to giving my all to the day, though now i think i'll drop a few coins into my pocket and leave them there, not to be spent. they will be saved for the end of the day when all the other voices have died down. they will clink and shine, untouched and extravagant, for me and me alone.

{ lessons }

most people don't look very closely at all.

//

i just had a conversation with a co-worker because i had to let her know that i'd been trying too hard to protect her. after a frustrating situation yesterday in which she was once again treated unfairly and i found myself extremely upset after having made every effort to shield her, i finally realised something: it's not up to me to come to the rescue of a grown woman who repeatedly puts herself in unfavorable situations.

to back up, i'm not even sure i've learned this lesson; it feels more like i've learned that protecting someone who will never protect herself is a waste of my energy. in my opinion, putting it that way paints me in a stingy light, but after years of investing in this particular person and zero progress on her part in standing up for herself, i think it's safe to say everything i've done has come to no fruition and i can/should stop pouring myself into it.

surprisingly, after i told her she simply said, "yeah, i think that would be better for you. you won't be so stressed out." i thought she'd say something more like, "no, i need you to be a friend to me in that way," but she didn't. she let me let go of her, seemingly without difficulty. it was both hurtful and liberating.

what i don't think she understands is that my withdrawal of protection also means withdrawal of sympathies if and when she continues to be trampled by other people at work; perhaps being let go of won't feel so easy to her then. or maybe it will --- the point of all this is that it's not my concern.

//

live and letting live would be a flowery, altruistic pursuit if there wasn't such a strong element of self-protection wrapped up in it for me; yeah, i'm letting her go and letting her fend for herself in the name of relinquishing my need for control --- how noble of me. but i'm also taking some huge steps back because to see someone squander my investment in her so consistently feels like a slap in the face.

i don't invest in a lot of people. i don't have the inner resources to do that. so when one of the few people i've chosen to engage with doesn't seem to realize it (and then when she accepts my retraction of investment so readily), it's painful.

with regard to how this affects my work situation, i've (re)learned the unfortunate but inevitable lesson: i can only depend fully on myself. this co-worker has been helping me with some of my duties for the past few weeks, but there's been continued tension as she'll drop anything she's doing for me in order to rush to the aid of more....um, abusive people we work with. i've become too comfortable thinking i'll always have a backup when the truth is, i am not her priority. apparently i'm not tyrannical enough to warrant her loyalty.

so it's been a nice few weeks relaxing a little and letting someone else help me with the slack, but i'm confronted with the stark reality that i can't relax anymore. i am responsible for covering every imaginable circumstance and i can't assume there will ever be assistance on hand. this isn't great for my control issues, but i don't know how to counteract a tendency that's perpetually reinforced. i kill myself controlling things and the practice hums like a well-oiled machine. i let go of controlling everything, and things go to shit. so what the hell am i supposed to do?

//

it's strange to think of letting go, detaching, distancing, as worthy, healthy efforts. it feels mean. but right now it's not only healthy, it's necessary. since deciding (after a long conversation with myself last night) to let go, i feel lighter and less anxious. i'm not anticipating the next disappointment --- i'm focused on doing the best i possibly can instead of wondering if someone else is going to abandon me, how, and when.

//

if you looked for me, you'd find me everywhere:
standing firmly on the earth,
cradled in every molecule of air,
billowed across the sky like storm and cloud.

{ overexposed/underseen }

the other night i admitted to some close friends (after a few glasses of sangria) that i have a twitter account. they immediately wanted to know what my handle was. "you tweet?" they squealed (sangria) and looked at me incredulously (annoying - is the fact that i tweet really that shocking?). "yes," i rolled my eyes. "and i'm not telling you where to find me. i don't know if i've written anything about any of you."

i've never been anything but honest.

(the best part is, these friends have known me for so long that a.) they weren't offended, and b.) they didn't press me. they know better than that.)

------------

pardon me for hating, but i'm irritated that amal clooney has been determined (by barbara walters, so i know, who cares, but barbara walters has encountered her fair share of humanity over the course of her career, so this isn't completely dismissable) the most fascinating person of 2014. not because i'm jealous (since jealousy would require some delusional notion that i could stack up to amal in even the most remote universe). ..no wait, hear me out. seriously.

it irritates me because hasn't amal possessed all the characteristics that make her "fascinating" for quite a few years prior to being connected to a guy who resides in the twisted caste called "celebrity"?

i have no doubt amal is an intelligent, complex, gorgeous, hard-working and interesting person. but what's finally made her truly interesting to the entire world is the fact that she married george fucking clooney.

i feel the same way about benedict cumberbatch's fiancée. yes, it's amazing that she's fluent in thirteen languages and can sing in french and wore a bikini once on vacation, but she was capable of all these things before being relationally linked to benedict. it's quite special that he's found her beautiful and interesting enough to marry, yes, but that fact alone doesn't make her special --- not any more than the other incredible things about her.

i'm sensitive to the concept of being noticed/claimed by a man making a woman more interesting or appealing. i frown when a newlywed or someone who's been married a long time references his/her wedding day as "the best day of my life" or "the day my life really began." i'm judgmental and i think it's lame and pathetic, for one. for two, i haven't been noticed or claimed as of yet, and i fear that makes me uninteresting and repulsive; furthermore, i may not be claimed in marriage in this life and if that's the magical thing that seals a woman's ability to be truly remarkable (even just in the world's eyes, if not my own), my soul is filled with angst at this injustice. it's not fair that the price of admission to a club that any woman would want to gain entry to (The Fascinating Women's Club, to be exact) is not attainable by any means over which i have control.

(ohhhhh, unless i spend much of my time and money on great skincare, ideal cosmetics for my ethnicity/face shape/coloring, a fantastic wardrobe, a healthy lifestyle, constant physical maintenance in order to keep an acceptably trim figure...let's face it, people, most men won't look to my insides if there isn't something eye-catching about my outsides. it's a fact of life, it's how people are oriented, i'm done raging against that machine. but to play into this game, i have to keep my external game on point and i probably won't ever be convinced otherwise. i've come to the conclusion that it doesn't take any effort to be interesting*, but it takes monumental effort to interest people. especially in today's world, especially on a romantic plane.


* meaning, my endearing/irritating quirks come naturally to me. so does my propensity for learning languages, remembering the smallest details, and desire to detect underlying patterns in everything. my unconscious humming (harmony only) to the radio. my polar appreciation for trashy crashy pop and the most delicate preludes. my tendency to stockpile things, my outer detached nature that veils a deep, irreparable sensitivity.)

there are so many aspects to being accepted and seen by today's world and its standards of worth and beauty that can be shrugged off by the individual; i believe most of the time a person can say things like, "i don't weigh 106 pounds but i'm a healthy weight," and "i don't look like lily aldridge but i can accept how i was made." but when it comes to determining whether i'm interesting, i don't feel like i can assuage my insecurities by declaring myself a fascinating individual no matter what anyone else thinks, no matter if some damn male hasn't become preoccupied with noticing and pursuing me. that requires external input.

i hate needing external input.
the external is not safe. it does not understand.
it does not see. it is influenced by too many things.
i'm unable to diminish it with strong inner beliefs.
it is objective, and most importantly,
it is out of my control.

------------

i'm constantly irritated by the world and also stuck in its vortex. if i read one more headline about taylor swift or see one more photo of her smug lipsticked disney princess face, i will scream (also, i totally bought her album and listen to it regularly). i'm DONE with everything kendall jenner...i mean, ENOUGH, SOCIETY (but i do think she's lovely and beautiful). the wrung-out graphic tshirt/sweatshirt trend? let's move on, shall we?? of course i type this as a pile of luxe casual graphic tops teeters precariously in my laundry pile (and as i try to get the most recent one, that damn wantable "bliss" sweatshirt, out of my head).

at this point i'm overwhelmed by the amount of hypocritical paradox i apparently contain (and not in a good way). i'm also ashamed of presenting so many internal struggles that are probably completely surmountable for a more motivated, less dramatic person with an ESFP personality.

i've come to terms with so many things, internal and external, in the last five years. i still have so far to go toward finding peace with things from the inside and things on the outside. i realized this week during a situation at work that even if my mind is telling me the person whose displeasure i'm facing is being thoroughly illogical and the displeasure is radiating from a hurt place in her (not directed at a faulty place in me), my soul is still bruised every time i think someone might not be pleased with my character or performance. more and more i'm in a place where i can levelly but firmly defend myself in those situations, but inside i still want to cower and retreat...or worse, attack. because when a hurt person is lashing out at me, i have the presence of mind and the perception to destroy, which is the worst option in a professional situation (even if your boss is a narcissistic, emotionally void tyrant).

the hard part of moving forward is knowing what you must come to terms with, and what you must fight not to accept.

------------

that's more than enough for today. the chaotic ramblings above were hammered out to this album, listened to from start to finish in its entirety. this music reflects everything i feel today, and encourages me to think through everything without fear while lifting my soul to a better place.

{ too much, and it's only the beginning }

no, this isn't a picture from tonight. the me of tonight is the same as the one i'm showing you here. she's also completely different. her hair is four inches shorter, for starters.

------

i've been wanting to write something for a long time. pieces of it keep coming to me, in the moments between more immediate things. but what is more immediate than the thoughts edging their way through my crowded mind, pushing to the forefront, pressing against the inside of my skull?

------

the me of tonight just took a full six minutes off my normal walking route...by running half of it. i've been trying to walk-run: run one block, walk three. run another, walk the rest of the way home. tonight i decided to start running and walk only if i felt i couldn't run anymore. my legs carried me further than i thought they would. i am stronger than i realized. much stronger.

------

confession: sometimes (more often than i think is probably kind) i scroll through photos of the girlfriends of male celebrities i find attractive. yeah, i know that's fucking ridiculous, but it's one of my (now not-so) secret girl behaviors and i might as well be honest about it. my traitorous thumb pushes image after image of these unbelievably gorgeous creatures across my vision and i rake criticisms across my insides.

well you're obviously not his type
since he evidently gravitates toward
impossibly thin
radiantly blonde
exceptionally beautiful women

oh, not surprising:
she's minuscule 
with blue eyes
and delicate wrists, ankles, knees

an attractive person
would never find you attractive

(i mean, first of all, AS IF I'D EVER BE IN A CIRCUMSTANTIAL POSITION TO BE NOTICED, MUCH LESS ADORED, BY A CELEBRITY? okay, honey. there's the first embarrassingly fallacious part of this whole scenario. really? secondly, what is wrong with you? yeah, you aren't unbelievably fit or even remotely reminiscent of what the world would call "skinny" so unless your shoulders magically shrink by like four inches and thirty-three percent of your ass dissolves off your body and several other physically impossible things occur, i mean, please. stop.)

blonder hair, flat chest
tv says, "bigger is better"
south beach, sugar free
vogue says, "thinner is better"

pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts, pretty hurts
pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
we try to fix something but you can't fix what you can't see
it's the soul that needs the surgery
{ beyonce, "pretty hurts" }

but it's not just the devastating truth that i'll never be noticed or pursued by a breathtakingly exquisite male specimen that pulls me down. it's the belief that no intelligent, witty, strong, admirable, successful man would ever consider me worth being interested in, because i am not an intelligent, witty, strong, admirable, or successful woman. i don't say it to be pitiful. i say it because it's one of the persistent, sulfuric, unwieldy truths i've carried my entire life and will probably always carry. something about being given up as a child has left a hole in me that even the most genuine and profound love has proven unable to assuage.

ergo: needy people repulse and repel me.
because: i fear, and try to reject, my own neediness
ergo: i construct my life in order not need anyone
because: needing someone leads to disappointment
ergo: if i never need, i will never be disappointed
i mean, people, i feel anticipated guilt for when i do let myself need someone else, and he disappoints me, and he becomes aware of this, and feels badly about it. i would feel guilty for making him feel badly for disappointing me, because the fault would be mine for needing him in the first place.

oh, twisted insides.
will you ever be okay?

------

the thing is
all of this, these few measly paragraphs
are so much
but it's only a few paragraphs
in a story so heavy
i'm not sure the entire world's shoulders
are broad enough to bear

so i will bear it
as i have for thirty two years
i will carry it in these two hands
these hands that type over 100 words per minute
that produce the most beautiful handwriting
that play silent chords when the music is on
these hands that no one holds
this soul that hums
all through the night
forever, like a dream

{ on the merits of adulthood }

because finding oneself in the undeniably fascinating, yet distinctly repulsive social milieu of a car dealership lobby on a day off deserves mentioning. or forking over a week's pay to repair a cracked belt or some other such nefarious plastic part underneath the hood of one's vehicle. or making an appointment not three days later at the tire place, because as long as we're dumping cash into a great (no longer) clanking beast that carries us wherever we wish to go whenever we wish to go there (save for work lately, which is a place we do not wish to go, but must go whenever we do not wish to go), we might as well, well, keep dumping.

the eloquence emanates from me.
does it not?

--------

for as gratifying as it is to have seven people per day exclaim, you look like you've lost weight!, my twisted mind responds silently and ferociously,

why the hell are you looking at my body? and,
was i really so fat before?

i won't put up noble self-enlightened pretenses and deny the fact that the pursuit of a healthier lifestyle is in some ways fueled by the yearning for a smaller number in size, and, yes, even the shameful burning desire for a thigh gap. i can readily admit this because no matter how mature and emotionally healthy you are, it's an innate part of being alive to want to look good --- to want people to notice --- to look good enough that people will notice it out loud, to your face.

so why does a part of me get angry when they do?

--------

the need for coffee is back,
in full force.

--------

i worry about a lot of things --- that my legs are too muscular, that i'm spending too much money on handbags, that i have cancer. that i am disappointing to my family and friends. that i am meant to be alone.

the problem with being a worrisome person is that i'm never quite still inside. the gratification of being a worrisome person is that my preoccupation with wanting things to go well more often than not means that things do, in fact, go well. i know that i harbor worry about many things that never come to pass. but being a person who anticipates these things also means many of them never come to pass. do you see what i mean?

my world rotates carefully
and deliberately. but
behind the smooth orbit
the axis trembles
and burns.

{ a sunday essay }

it's easier to write about being solitary than single. a single person discussing being single is boring and cliché. but i write about it because it's the only thing i know. i also write about it because by writing it, i can know it. knowledge is important to me. with knowledge comes understanding, resignation, and maybe even embrace.

//

we sat at the end of the bar. i drank gin.
we talked about a girl he's not sure about.
i wanted to ask if he talks with her like he does with me.
give me a hug before you go, he said.
i know he finds me beautiful and interesting,
but that doesn't change anything.
if it did, i'm not even sure i'd want it.
i'm beginning to feel as though i'm past love.
not past being loved. past love.
like a moon that's risen and fallen, not to appear again.

//

i have a friend who's been having a hard time. two days ago i dropped everything to bring her coffee and hold her heart. i told her i would be flexible and available these next few days, able to be present if it would be helpful. i offered to take vacation time to attend an appointment with her this week. as an unmarried person without children i almost feel like it's my responsibility to be as free and available as i can, since i don't have the obligations of a spouse or children. (more accurately, i feel like married people with kids expect that i have all the free time in the world because i don't have a husband or kids. but that's tangential to the current subject.)

so over the past couple days i've followed up closely with this friend, reminding her i'm available if she needs to talk but trying to be unobtrusive and aware that when we're struggling, other people can be smothering in their well-intentioned attempts to care for us. as it turns out, she kindly refused my availability entirely and said she's too tired to see anyone. i understand this because sometimes in crisis i need a lot of space.

i was hurt, however, when i visited her blog (at her behest) and read entry after entry about her husband and children, particularly an entry which recalled in detail an outing their family made with "their best friends." last year their families went on an outing and the table was full of toddlers, and this year there were two new babies and the toddlers were in kindergarten, and oh, how time flies, and blah blah blah.

(there it is, that damn "best friends" title again. i despise it and am doing my best to eliminate it from my own vocabulary --- not that it's necessary, because somehow i doubt that anyone in the world is as emotionally neurotic and sensitive as i am. but it feels exclusive to throw those words around and i've been stung enough times that not using them is a choice i'm making.)

as i zoomed out and thought about why that mommy blog entry bothered me, i realized that it wasn't as much with specific regard to my relationship with this particular friend as it was because the plain truth is this: i don't belong in the realm of women who are mothers. i can't understand them like they can understand each other. nor can i support them in a truly empathetic way. i am on the outside of this circle and as hard as i may try, i simply won't gain entrance unless i have a child.

while having a child isn't my primary desire or goal right now (so feeling left out of the mommy club isn't really my right), i still feel left out. because i'm now in that stage of life where people have "couple friends" and "family friends" and "kid friends" and by default, most of their lives revolve in these orbits. of course this is entirely appropriate: when you get married and have a family, the bulk of your energy is devoted to those relationships and the tangible (as well as intangible) maintenance necessary to keep the planets spinning and galaxies functioning.

where does that leave me, an unattached and heretofore barren unit of humanity?
at home alone on my couch reading mommy blogs, apparently.

//

i used to lack self-confidence of any kind.
i never could have seen myself as beautiful,
much less intelligent or interesting.
now i have confidence i am at least interesting,
and i believe other people find me as such.
but that hasn't changed, and doesn't change, anything.
still no one chooses me.

i could pay, he said.
but then we'd have to make out.

i didn't recoil, and it didn't excite me.
i had no fear, no desire. though
for a fleeting moment i remembered how
one's breathing changes, how it feels
to have someone else's hands on you.
i shook my head and laughed.

//

so really, where does the fact that my uterus hasn't incubated another human leave me in a world that, as i continue to age, will be increasingly saturated with women whose bodies have brought another person into the world?

my position in the world of women feels awkward to me because as i mentioned, i'm not a woman who's pining for a child. nor am i a woman (and i never thought i'd see the day i could say this without crying) who's necessarily pining for a relationship.

it's a reflection of the subculture i grew up in and the region of the world i live in now, but these things leave me feeling like not only less of a woman, but less of a human being.

to be fair: if you're me, feeling alienated is, for the most part, your own damn fault. i tend to exclude myself more harshly than others ever would. but i know i'm not alone in feeling alienated from the secret world of women because i'm not married (or engaged or dating or even looking, for that matter) and i don't have kids. not only that, but i'm not actively seeking those things. i'm a super-alien.

even more awkwardly, it's not as though i'm putting domesticity on a back burner because i'm so proficient at or driven in my career (one of the primary reasons it seems women are excused from being focused on domestic pursuits).

it's like i'm the most hardcore femme-underachiever in the history of all things.

//

it was ambitious to call this an essay; in reality, it's a reeling freewrite, like a massive flock of birds swirling inexplicably around a generically central location in a chaotic, beating cloud. if i had to identify a single subject or point i'm trying to talk about or make, i couldn't. i typed for a straight hour without interruptions and without pausing and re-reading everything i've just said makes me think i'm trying to talk about self, self as woman, and belonging, for a start.

//

so he didn't push you up against a wall or anything? he asked.
no, i said, trying not to look aghast. you knew him. what do YOU think?
yeah, he conceded. i'm sorry.

at this point i realized he was genuinely sorry i hadn't been handled passionately, and i found it both poignant and piercing. because no, in that relationship i wasn't handled that way, but i wouldn't have appreciated it anyway. and because the person i was talking to was operating under the assumption that i regretted not having sex, or not being treated as someone that a man wanted to have sex, with. and once again i wonder at this point if i should feel sorry for myself...if a woman is not truly a woman until a man desires her physically and --- for lack of a more romantic way to put it --- capitalizes on that desire.

//

so i have no idea where i fit into the grand puzzle of the world.
but i know me. on my own. separate from all of that.
i don't know how to measure myself against external standards anymore.

i used to identify with my percentages - my grades, my class rank, silly titles like "section leader" and "alto 1." things are much less quantitative now. but somehow standards and comparisons still occur so definitively: unmarried. divorced. childless. we still label and rank ourselves and each other and while it can be helpful and even welcome, that can also be isolating and reductive.

//

it's 42 minutes past by bedtime and i must stop.
i am not going to go back and edit this before publishing.
until next time.

{ finally }

i was talking with my parents about "best friends" a few days ago. this is terminology i've never truly felt comfortable with (which doesn't make sense since i'm quite a private woman with an extremely small circle of trusted soulmates). but designating one person as my "best friend" has always felt too exclusive, even for me. conversely, assigning that label to three or four (or seven or ten) people detracts from its meaning, in my opinion. not that any of this is worth nailing down, since each person feels and handles her relationships subjectively and it's impossible to strictly define or understand what means what when it comes to classifying relationships.

in any case, i think my aversion to placing the "best friend" crown has a lot to do with how that crown has (or hasn't) been set upon my head in the past. i think some people toss it around too easily. i think due to the complicated nature of female friendship, sometimes i've thought i wore the crown only to realize i don't at all --- or worse, i do wear it, but so do fifteen other people.

now i'm not here to start a debate (or an avalanche of misunderstanding or hurt feelings) about whether the use of the term "best friend" is heartfelt or hurtful, important or useless. i'm here to tell you this:

after asking my parents if they had "best" married-couple friends and exploring their different relationships (of which they have dozens...their social calendar would wither my soul in a matter of days), my mom turned to me. "so who's your best friend?"

and somewhat to my surprise, without hesitation
and as matter-of-factly as you could imagine, i replied,
"myself."

neither of my parents seemed particularly taken aback (something i'm proud of, because i've been making efforts to more straightforwardly articulate my nature to them this past year). i thought i detected a hint of sadness in my mom's reception of my answer --- i think she just wants me to find someone and get married because that's what she did and it's turned out genuinely and thoroughly well for her.

although in the moment my answer came as naturally as breathing, after the fact my heart was beating quickly. i've been waiting for this day, when i'd feel like a whole person without consciously trying to feel like a whole person. i'd say it snuck up on me, but that would be wrong; it's come after years (and years) of...of what?

shit. crap. junk. grief. sorrow. loss. rejection.
joy. wandering. restoration. acceptance. love.

so i'm probably the grossest hypocrite ever: i just labeled myself my own best friend. does it get more exclusive than that? i think not. somehow though, i don't even mind.

{ the best company }

i've been backed into a corner for a week or so, letting my thoughts get overly caught up in a certain situation which upset me more than it should. i haven't felt so desperately stuck on something i knew was so thoroughly un-fixable in a long time, and i went so far as to actually ask a good friend to make time for me so i could talk it through. i told her i was going to sit down and write it all out first, see if i could move through what felt like a steel wall six feet thick on my own. i was at the end of myself though, exhausted by cyclical thought patterns and steeped in self-loathing (what is wrong with you? who gets hung up on things like this? why can't you just get over it?). anytime i resort to external human insight, you know it's bad. it's not that i don't value other peoples' insight, but most peoples' understanding of who i am at my core is so limited that their input only frustrates me further.

i haven't had to summon large amounts of understanding for my own benefit toward a specific situation for a long time. i apply my inner resources to the lives of others all the time, but self-examination is an entirely different endeavor for me. this is largely because i find most people's situations fairly easy to untangle, but even under the considerable force of my self-awareness and directness, i often find things i don't want to face or wade into when my vision turns inward. or maybe it's the opposite: i often know exactly what needs to be done, what direction i need to go, and don't want to do it or go there. being oneself requires so much work. growing beyond oneself, even more. life doesn't leave any of us with much excess energy to apply to any of that work.

so two nights ago i sat in the still darkness of my living room at 2am, blinking into the glow of this screen, and started from the beginning.

at some points i rambled on for line after line, not bothering with paragraphs or proper punctuation. at others i made numbered lists to order my more complex thoughts. i wrote and i wrote. every ugly thought, every immature feeling. and as i ran out of things to say, i began to make my last numbered point. what i was going to type flashed in my mind before i typed it, and before i knew it, the tears came. fast and unexpected, they burned trails down my face and in that moment i knew i'd finally reached the bottom of it. i stood in the bottom of the wound, on the root that this particular situation had been scraping raw. i truly stumbled upon it after days of bruising my shoulders on the dead ends of a fathomless labyrinth.

so i cried.
out of brokenness and out of relief.
out of frustration and with gratitude.
i am not on an easy road.
but i am here as myself and with myself
and i am the best company any girl could hope for.

//

i hear a voice calling

calling out for me

these shackles i've made in an attempt to be free

be it for reason, be it for love

i won't take the easy road

i try to keep on keeping on

{ one day, pearls }

i've neglected writing for a long time. i wouldn't say it's been deliberate avoidance. it's certainly not been for lack of things turning over (and over, and over) in my mind. one day there will be pearls from me. one day.

//

i'm the slowest person ever to come around to change. some people thrive on variety and live for the opportunity to be carried on new wind. i'm the opposite. i settle in. i hunker down. i take root. and once i'm here, i'm slow to go. it distresses me, this feeling that i might be the person most resistant to change on the face of the planet. it feels like a gross defect. but it is what it is. in some situations this rock-like commitment to things is beneficial (once i love you, i love you). in others, it's absolutely agonizing (once i love you, i love you, even if you break me, if you destroy me, even then i love you).

i'm also a person who keeps a lot inside, except if i've decided to trust you, in which case you get more than you ever wanted. for the most part i have no idea how people perceive me, but i'd guess unless you know me well, there's probably a lot more going on with me than you suspect. years in ministry and administrative relational work have forced me to perfect a light, airy manner. while i can be an extremely silly and buoyant spaz, i'm naturally a pensive, serious, introspective person.

everything leaves me wanting to apologize:
i'm sorry for being closed off. i'm sorry for over-sharing.
if the paradox is frustrating for you, can you imagine
what it's like from the inside?

//

(this is why i don't write.
because there's too much to address
and no one with enough interest
who will want to listen
until there's nothing more to say.)

//

my mother has now lost her father and her brother within four months of each other.
i look on, beaten down inside, and have nothing to say.
it's the problem with hating platitudes and empty comfort.
when there's truly nothing to say,
i say nothing.

some things deserve swear words, obscene gestures, alcohol swiftly poured.
some things go beyond. some things cannot be touched.
not even with fuck or a hole in the wall or gin, alone, cold, in the dark.

//

i'm paying close attention to what i put into my body these days. the past six months have been so unhealthy physically and otherwise and two weeks ago i finally got sick of not eating all day and then eating too much, sick of feeling like a foreigner in my own skin, sick enough of bad habits to do something about it. i've been walking in the evenings, headphones firmly planted in my ears. i've been eating breakfast. half-portions of other meals. i haven't had pop or alcohol in almost 2 weeks, nor have i had iced coffee (tragic, just tragic). i think i can re-incorporate things back into my days, but first i have to detox. it's difficult for all of this not to be about deprivation. it's difficult not to fixate on numbers or even a final desired physical result.

change. adaptation. new habits, in minute increments.
this, i can do.

//

i will always feel dwarfed by people a fraction of my age who have released albums and started businesses and won championships and made millions of dollars and raised children and obtained academic degrees and bought houses, found spouses, chased and taken hold of dreams. the magnitude of my desires are mismatched with the level of ambition and courage with which i was born. i'm inspired by successful people. they also make me ashamed of myself. they are a reminder of how poor i've always been at promoting myself, how i can barely accept compliments, how little drive i possess.

i think maybe some people were born to move and shake and never be still and make things happen, real, big things that affect tons of people. i think others (like me) were born to have deep meaning to a precious few. we were born to live a profoundly singular existence. maybe the person i will know, reach, and move most in my lifetime is myself.

i am slowly accepting this.

//

arise, go forth,

and fear no darkness.

{ theoden, king of rohan, lord of the rings }

{ so i happened }

late last night i sat in a driveway with one of my closest friends and we agreed to stay up for a meteor shower meant to take place five hours later. we drove to get iced coffee and then we watched australia (which you should really see as soon as possible). we talked about people we miss, uncertainties, and miniature horses. at 2am we drove to a deserted parking lot, threw patio furniture cushions on the ground, and flopped down to watch the stars. shivering in my down coat, i thought to myself that if i could i'd never leave that spot.

an emerald green meteor shot through the sky, and we gasped.

--------------------

most of the women i know are mothers with anywhere from 1-3 kids under the age of 5. they share their worries and triumphs with me, and i compare notes across the board. i'm beginning to feel like a mommy impostor, because i find myself contributing regularly to mommy conversations even though i have no children. no one's called my biological bluff yet ("hello!! unused uterus here, which means i have no authority on any of these subjects whatsoever!!!"), which i take as a sign i've been listening and re-articulating well. (i also think i remind my friends that they may be mothers, but before that was true, i knew them as single women, newlyweds, accountants, teachers, knitters, camp counselors, party-lovers, dreamers, and i call out those aspects of them which i imagine is refreshing.) so instead of feeling alienated because of my unused anatomy, i'm trying to engage with motherhood the only way i can: by asking questions, sharing thoughts from an outside perspective, and processing the adaptation and transformation of motherhood with these women.

it's been a bit startling to find that so many of the struggles of new (and repeated) motherhood are universal regardless of age, personality type, temperament, expectations, or religious background. perhaps the most pervasive adversary to the vulnerability of sleeplessness and responsibility for another human's survival is the concept of The Perfect Woman.

she's a figure who dances in all our heads, and we know she's a caricature. but repeated exposure over time fools us into seeing her as a correctly proportionate ideal not just to strive toward, but to consider attainably correct and morally good.

bullshit.

The Perfect Woman spins and twirls in our minds whether we're mothers or not (instead of feeling pressure to lose all my baby weight in 3 weeks, purée organic food every morning, and bedeck my offspring in cruelty-free outfits in the perfect morning light of their pinterest-worthy nurseries, i adopt the belief that i should be a yoga-addicted, kale-obsessed, career-oriented size 4 superwoman with perfect skin who does a juice cleanse every three weeks). there isn't anything wrong with trying to become the best women we can. all ideals don't need to be toppled. but let's not pull ourselves down in the process of trying to stand tall.

--------------------

and i realized that the reason why good things

were not happening to me as often as wanted them to,

was because i in fact was a good thing that needed to happen.

i needed to happen to me, to other people and to the world.

and so i happened.

{ c. joybell c. }

{ the unexpected becoming }

alors, quelques choses. pour vous, un peu, peut-être, mais aussi pour moi-même.

en verité, seulement pour moi-même.

(je suis desolée, mais je ne suis pas desolée.)

held belief: introverts aren't good with people.
evident truth: i am good with people.

i've been coming to the slow (very slow) realization that i am good (very good) at my job, which in large part involves reading, assuaging, and managing people. i can be quite direct and coercive when the occasion calls for timely and effective results (just ask my coworkers: when they hear my heels coming toward their operatory, they know it's time to get to it). but i've been continually surprised by how much more efficiently people function under straightforward direction, and how many people actually welcome being told what to do, how, and when. as a (particularly) autonomous individual, the thought of being handled in such a manner is dreadful. but as i've been unofficially pushed (as in, no one knows what the hell to do and is standing around and we're running behind so i storm into the confusion and say things like, will you take this to sterilization? and help her turn over this room, please and his case is in the lab, second shelf and let's go, okay, we good here?) into a position of leadership at work over the past six months, i've had to stop projecting my distaste for being closely managed onto others and overcome my fear of being explicitly directive (because no one likes a bossy person, and a bossy girl in lipstick and heels is even worse)(because over anything else, a girl should endeavor to be liked)(yeah, loooooots of held beliefs being smashed to pieces by evident truths over here lately, it's been fun, reeeeeeaal fun).

however, the results speak for themselves: the office runs like a machine. our outstanding AR is down to almost half of what it was two months ago. we're utilizing all the additional space in our new office. each person is held accountable to give their best on the behalf of their coworkers and our patients, and i'm the one exhorting them to do so. i am the momentum and the unifying force. without me, things would falter.

i don't even know if that's something i'm proud of. it would be nice to share some of the responsibility with, i don't know, ONE other person. on the other hand, perhaps i find myself in this position because i'm singularly equipped to fill it...which is weird for me to think about. i've never truly considered myself a leader because i've always felt so separate from most of humanity --- not accepted by people, not understood by them, and therefore incapable of motivating them or commanding any sort of compliance from them. moreover, i don't see myself as lovable, and in my mind, you have to love and respect someone to want to follow them. so i can't explain what's happening, but people are responding to me. they respect an authority i've never been officially given. furthermore, they appear to not only be willing to do as i say, but it seems they also want to please me. it's confounding. i've become something i never meant to become.

--------------------

held belief: i am horrible at change.
evident truth: i evolve. i adapt. i rise to challenge and surmount it.
evolved belief: i have a strong aversion to change, but that doesn't mean i'm incapable of it.

--------------------

i had dinner with a friend last night. we sipped margaritas as big as our heads, consumed what i'm sure was more than a recommended daily amount of carbs, and didn't judge ourselves or each other. i've been having some health symptoms, minor but troublesome, and we're close-but-not-close enough that i felt comfortable sharing them with her because (contrarily) i trust no one and i don't want to frighten anyone i do trust. i heard myself saying, see, with anyone else it's different, because they have husbands or children who would truly suffer if something happened to them. i'm not saying people wouldn't be sad if something happened to me, but i don't have anyone whose life would be that profoundly altered. for me, it's just me.

she said, no. it's important. you need to take care of yourself. who's going to take care of you, but you? 

sometimes i think i must lead the loneliest life of anyone i know. there are people in the world who love me, but at the end of the day when i speak my fears to the darkness, there's no one listening but me. so my life is lonely but it's also full of power. it's up to me to perceive and articulate my anxieties, to myself or to others. and it's up to me to seek out constructive ways to alleviate the pressures i feel. others can have input, but when it comes down to it, i can't say to a partner i did this for you, i sacrificed for you. i'm solely responsible. the choices are mine. there's no one in this bed, but me.

for now, i am okay with that. i even embrace it.
but that's another evolution to unravel on another afternoon.

{ when it ends well }

today was Quite A Day, so when i walked through the door bearing the weight of everything i could name and everything besides, i went immediately for the strawberries. i pulled out the baby spinach, the shaved parmesan, and the blueberries. then came the cutting board, the bowls, the knife. since i hadn't bothered to take off my heels, i put on some daft punk. all the better to dance to, my dear.

as the blade cut easily through the berries, whispering finalities into neat little slices, i shed all the layers i'd shrugged into today. (i take on a lot; i take on more than i should. i rise; i always rise. but i carry more than i should and hardly anyone knows, because i don't show it.) i smiled as i caught myself dancing reflexively to the music --- my body was relaxed and happy even though my mind felt beyond repair. 

i threw back my head and shook out my hair.

i tapped my foot and swiveled my hips.

i thought, i am finally learning well

how to take good care of myself

and i was happy, and proud.

{ the only life }

me, lately:
moving through the day with easy force.
moving human pieces across the boards
of business. answering everyone's uncertainty
with clarity. acting like someone twice my age,
navigating minefields, overturning complaints.
the world's needs confound and empty me.

how to react? how to recover?

me, lately:
standing at the countertop, knife drawn.
i don't go for precision. i let myself be messy.
it gives me greater appreciation to eat
when i prepare each part myself.
it gives me time to think, time to dance,
time to spend energy on something small
but something important.

to feel grounded in my own home:
to feel real and firmly lodged in these moments.
knife to board, knees bumping cabinets,
hands steady, thoughts focused but free.

to lie still in my own bed:
worries swirling up and away.
i welcome rest in the planes of my face,
the fold of my arms, the curve of one leg around the other.

to listen to the cries of my own soul
after everyone else's clamoring demands have faded:
it's both more necessary and much harder than you think.
but it must be done. it must be done,
or i will die. i sense sharp fingers digging in.
i feel the threat of losing myself
in the din of what would make everyone happy ---
everyone but me. there is a hollow happiness
in denying yourself for another's gain. i know it well.
so i'm diving into the silent deep
in order that i may rise.

-------------------

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save.

{ the journey, by mary oliver }

{ a long(est) post for a long(ass) year }

i've been avoiding sitting down to write this, but it has to be done or it's going to keep taking up room in my chest --- room i don't have and don't want to keep giving up.
this isn't the unabashedly hopeful, endlessly inspiring first-post-of-the-year you've been seeing all over the internet. it's also not the real-but-not-too-real-and-conclusively-optimistic type of post that occasionally crops up all over the place. there you go. you've been warned.

truth: i resent this new year.
truth: i haven't put 2013 behind me.
truth: i don't have electric thrills running through me, morse-coding the knowledge that "2014 is going to be the best year yet" all over my insides.

furthermore, i've been having a hard time relating to those who plunged into the new year with brand-new souls and bright, fresh faces. i disconnected from social media because with every effusive grandiose mini-speech about how 2013 "had its ups and downs" but so-and-so "had a feeling" that 2014 "was going to blow all other years ever out of the water" i just got angrier and more disgusted.

i also found myself without any real new year's eve plans, kind of on purpose. expectations are always out of proportion for events like NYE, and that kind of situation (disproportionate expectations, underwhelming reality) always throws me off. actually, the only person i wanted to see on new year's eve was myself. for the first time in my life, i had a specific and articulated desire on this day: to spend new year's eve in solitude. to attempt to process things that have happened this year and go into the new calendar year in quiet strength. the best part was, i didn't feel at all motivated by self-pity or misanthropic tendencies. it's just that every other option seemed frivolous and distracting. it also felt like i'd be avoiding what simply and truly needed to be done --- what i simply and truly wanted to do.

i made the mistake of telling one of my coworkers about my plans, and was told more than once that it was "the dumbest idea ever." (note to self: keep all solitary plans to oneself in this extrovert-ridden world, lest one wants to be made to feel utterly defunct.) i'm ashamed to admit i ended up hanging out with aforementioned coworker because i succumbed to peer pressure (and the LIE that spending new year's eve in solitude and intention was "dumb"). it wasn't horrible --- i drank gin & tonics with her husband while she (five and a half months pregnant) made half-joking, half-bitter comments about our level of inebriation from the couch. (okay, maybe it was kind of horrible.)

so why am i here again, rambling endlessly on and posting more bedhead-centric, makeup-absent selfies? these were taken the morning of january 2nd, the day i was planning to write this post. i woke up feeling...empty. like a clean slate, but not in the way you'd think. just...like...nothing. apparently i'd successfully voided myself of expectation, and therefore, disappointment. what an achievement! and yet i didn't even feel human. hope and disappointment are essential parts of...being. the things i yearn for and the things i struggle with make me, me. the weight of them bears an impression on the earth. my loss and resilience displace the molecules around me. they make me real.

reality: i am not "over" 2013.
reality: i am not ready for 2014.
reality: 2013 is over, and 2014 is here.

the flipping of a calendar page has nothing to do with what's going on inside me. i'm just not one of those people. it makes sense: it's why i've lived in the same town since i was 8 years old and for the most part, not been bothered by it. this aspect of who i am is paradoxical and hard to explain: i'm highly affected by aesthetic details, smells, and the beauty of the natural world. but details like 12/31 turning into 1/1? my soul doesn't give a shit. which is also hard to understand, because i'm very affected by symbols, so why don't i buy into the most obvious symbol of renewal known to humankind?

so: things happened in 2013. things i'll carry for the rest of my life.
also: i hate resolutions. i don't set goals because i'm terrified i won't achieve them. and being disappointed in others doesn't hold a candle to being disappointed in myself. not even close. now i'm hearing all of you saying, "but honey, if you don't set goals, there's no way you'll ever achieve them anyway...it's all in your mind! get after your life! do it! i know you can! 2014 is gonna be the best year ever!"

i've spent the last week impatiently skimming new year's resolution posts and scoffing. now before you discard me as a happiness-hating, bitter old hag, know that all that scoffing has been directed at myself. i think everything i feel toward new year's this year is small-hearted, grating, and pessimistic. i think the fact that i can't even make resolutions because i'm afraid i'm incapable of keeping them is pathetic. i'm fostering a lack of belief in my ability to surmount 2013 and i'm protecting myself from the merest possibility of failure in 2014 (which incidentally also portrays a lack of self-belief --- that i wouldn't be able to handle the sting of coming up short).

the thing is, i don't know how to fix it. it's easy enough to compile a list of things i want to do this year, but to actually believe in the person who made that list --- well, not only is that a pursuit so trite i could punch myself in the face, but --- i don't know if it's possible. and if i can't believe in myself, well --- isn't that the ultimate failure to rule all failures, the failure that precludes everything good?

at this point i'm asking myself (and if you've made it this far, you've likely been asking for the last twenty minutes): so where the hell does this leave me?

i have a lot of work to do before i'm "over" 2013. in fact, i may never "get over" 2013 --- and i'm okay with that. i think it's realistic to believe that there are things that happen in our lives that change us forever --- the pages of that chapter are wrinkled and warped, like they had water spilled on them. i don't need to pressure myself to replace ripped pages and turn in a pristinely bound year.

there are things i want to do in 2014. and they don't have to be "the biggest/best things ever." some people thrive on massively lofty goals. i don't --- they shut me down. i'm afraid to want things --- anything. but i can want things. i need to want things. i mean, forget can and want --- i do want things, so what's the point of pretending i don't in a fruitless effort to convince myself i'm impervious to hope and despair? i'm not a boundlessly energetic person, so i certainly don't have energy to spare lying to my own irrepressibly discerning soul. in that light, here's my list. it's easy and it's kind, which is just what i need.

1. what i want: to purchase a keyboard. i was born to make music and i think i might be good at it. and even if neither of those things are true, it's profoundly good for me to do musical projects. how to get it: i need to research what keyboard i want, get a price range, and start saving. i'm still paying off this new computer, so depending on the price, i might need to implement a saving project --- like putting aside money normally spent on coffee or makeup for a period of time.
2. what i want: to go west again. this is a big one --- i want to hit south dakota, idaho, and seattle this year. in fact, i feel like this is necessary to the health of my heart. how to get it: planning. and more saving. i might need to give up coffee and makeup for six months.
3. what i want: to put myself first. i've changed a lot this year. i think the desire to hibernate (that's been ongoing since october) is born out of the knowledge that i don't know myself like i used to, and that really bothers me. i want to learn the person i've become so i can try to do what's best for her. i want to listen to myself more carefully (because i was absolutely right --- i should've stayed in on new year's eve). i often feel neglected because i seem to be everyone's second string; just about everyone in my life has a significant other, a fiancé, a spouse, or a child that comes first by default. the truth is, i often put myself in that same spot: i'll take time alone if no one else has time for me. what the hell? how can i feel non-prioritized by others if i don't prioritize myself? how to get it: stay in when i feel like i should go out, but don't really want to. spend time alone on purpose, not just as a last resort when other plans fall through. indulge in my love of music. oh, and write. write. write some more.

it's not going to be easy. it's never been easy. i want to push everything away and eat cookies and watch netflix and wear yoga pants all day. i want to buy another lipstick when i'm feeling sad and restless and call it good. i want to fold and re-fold my clothing into neat color-coordinated piles in the middle of the night for that jolt (and illusion) of control. i want to disappear because that would be easier than facing the work and the wanting. i want to throw up my hands and say i don't know, i just don't know and give in because i don't know where to start. i feel like i'm on some cosmic playground trying to duck between two whirring jump ropes, bewildered and mesmerized by the motion. but what choice do i have? what can i do but begin? and if the ropes catch my heel or slap my shoulders, well, those cosmic rope-slingers will just have to start over.

i wanted to do

something, anything,

but i didn't know what to do.

so i did this.

this is my something.

{ jason watt }