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Today I watched an episode of Dead Like Me (which I just found, and have decided I love), and one of the characters described people as being of two camps: bowling balls and pins. I think, for the most part, I have been a pin in my life. I have “gone with the flow,” or “drifted,” or whatever other cutesy name you want to give it. And, I have to say, everything has generally turned out well. I have a great job, great friends, and am generally pretty happy. Yes, there’s the whole love/partner piece still missing, but I think this will be the case for quite awhile. (Side note: I have realized lately that something is different in me, that something has changed when it comes to men, love, relationships. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. It is kind of like a hole, or that my heart is covered in scar tissue and can’t really feel anything right now, and I’m not really in any hurry to let it feel anything again. So, we will come back to this some other time.) What do I want? I am blessed to be smart and crafty enough to basically have whatever I want in life, so why can’t I decide?
I’ve been thinking that I need a plan, so here are the basics of it. I don’t know where the plan will get me, but it is a start.
Things I want to do:
- Move back to New Orleans.
- Remodel a house in New Orleans (I can see this in my mind, and think about it frequently.)
- Play roller derby.
- Be an artist.
- Be happy.
- Be in better shape.
- Get another degree.
- Save enough money to have a nest egg.
- Pay off my bills.
- Buy a new-to-me Jeep.
- Find a way to do my job from Louisiana, or find an equally satisfying job there.
- Open my heart again.
- Stop wasting time.
- Travel: Mexico, Africa.
- Do more outdoorsy things.
- Not be lonely.
- Go to the dentist and doctor.
Pretty simple list, really. Some of them actually involve planning, and some of them don’t. And of course, this is just a sarting place. I am sure that I will edit/add to/delete things again and again.
I guess the next step is figuring out how to get to each of these goals? I should be pragmatic and plan and save and then move back to New Orleans when everything fits. But, I really don’t want to. I want to jump. I know it will all work out in the end, but I don’t know how I will do with the uncomfortableness that comes with jumping again. I am just now settling from my last jump and would kind of like to not do it again for awhile. But then again, I don’t want to get bored either.
Hmm… I can think on it, awhile, but not too long. Thinking is what makes people never do anything and only dream about it. I don’t want to live a life of regret.
I was shaken a little when I heard, but that’s just it–I was shaken, a little. Not utterly destroyed, not hurt, not really–much, come to think of it. Just shaken. As for you, and me, and US, well, I’ve put that all in a nice little box, wrapped it in kraft paper, using plenty of tape, and tied it all together using string and a neat little bow. Right now, that box is still in the middle of the floor, but soon I will tire of tripping over it and will put it on a shelf. As time passes, I will add more things to my shelf, and eventually, well this box, the US box, will get pushed all the way to the back, with plenty of other boxes in its way. I am sure I will come across this box again one day, probably several times since it will always be on my shelf, but only when I am looking for it.
I have moved across the country three times for a boy — twice for the same one. Yes, three times. What does that say about me? I don’t know, and am trying to figure it out.
The first boy was Jeremiah. He was on his way to Bible College (really.) in Seattle when I met him. He had stopped in Idaho to visit family. I met him at a party at his aunt’s house, and we fell in love quickly and completely. We were utterly unsuitable for each other. I am/was much more like the Bible School attending person he thought he wanted to become than his real self. Falling in love quickly and completely blinds you; you are only able to see the other person through a filter — not that I am saying anything new here at all; I realize that countless things have been uttered on this theme for as long as there has been love.
Anyway, as happens in all relationships, our true selves began to show through, and we weren’t at all what the other person needed/wanted. But, I (maybe we? I don’t know) was too stubborn to let go when I should have, and kept up the relationship for entirely too long.
Jeremiah bounced between jobs, was sometimes homeless, and generally unhappily searching for his place in the world. I was living at home, working a dead-end job, and trying to go to school at a second rate university. At one point in our relationship, Jeremiah had a breakdown. One of his best friends died, and he lost it. He went to the funeral, and spent the better part of a year following Phish around the country, even dabbling in selling weed to pay his way. He was gone. Somewhere in the Midwest. No cell phone. No email. No contact.
Instead of letting go (because we were obviously so well suited for each other) I tracked him down at his friend Jason’s parents’ house in North Dakota. He told me he was in trouble. That he had cheated on me, not then, as we were apparently not together then, but before — God was I dumb. That he was at the worst point in his life. So what did I do? I went to him. I finished my last week of classes, and met him in Minneapolis. Here, he was practically living in a van (I know; so weird that I got mixed up in this), and “living” with his friend Allison, who I am pretty sure made her living as a full fledged drug dealer.
Good God, what was I thinking? All I could see was love (which wasn’t even really there, the more I look at it), and it didn’t matter to me that I was putting myself in danger — drugs (not just weed, and not just using it either, though I swear I never touched ANY of it, still, just to be around it …), alcohol, so many illegal activities a thousand miles away from everything I had ever known. WHAT WAS I THINKING? How did I believe in the fairy tale so much that I could do that to myself?
Luckily, I didn’t last long. All I would do is hide in “our” bedroom while Jeremiah did whatever with his friends in the basement. One night, Jeremiah was gone, and Allison came home and started throwing things; I swear she broke everything in the kitchen. So I left. I got out of the house, and went to the park behind the house and hid until I saw Jeremiah come home in his van. Then I ran out and told him what happened. It just wasn’t working. This life wasn’t me.
Then next morning I called my grandma and she bought me a plane ticket home for that day. I think I was about 23, and I suppose that is an age where you are supposed to be messing up royally as I had done, but it still makes me mad that I let that happen to myself.
So was that it? Was that the end of Jeremiah? Of course not! A few months passed, and Jeremiah and I talked again. I had finally moved out of my parents’ house, and had found a great place in downtown Boise. It was pricey for me (at $500 a month!), but I knew that if I had a place then Jeremiah would come back (again, what the hell was wrong with me? how degrading is that?). Not that Jeremiah was a completely bad guy. I do believe that he loved me; he just wasn’t the right one for me.
So, Jeremiah came back to Boise (I bought him a ticket). I remember going to Savers before he got to Boise and buying him two new outfits. He literally didn’t have a thing. So, he moved in. It seemed like we were happy again. But, eventually our true selves showed through everything again. Jeremiah decided that he wanted to become a country music star (and guess what? he has.) and I wanted him to be something more suitable, say an accountant. Anyway, Jeremiah was embarrassed of me when we were out, and never wanted me to come and see him play (this seems to be a theme in my relationships — I embarrass him when we are out). Things got bad. I broke (okay, smashed, destroyed) his Martin. He wrote an album full of country songs about me. I moved to Louisiana. And that was that with Jeremiah.
The week is almost over again. This weekend, I HAVE to move the rest of my things, and repaint my old bedroom. I am not looking forward to it, but once I am done, I won’t have to go back to my old place EVER again! Hooray! Then I can be completely in my new place.
I was thinking about Africa again today. I think that I have to go there at some point, or will dream about it for the rest of my life. But, that brings up an interesting thought, well to me anyway. Do we always need some dream to hold onto? I think this is how I have lived my life for the most part; I have only experienced a few moments actually in the moment. Most have been through hindsight or looking forward. Is this unique to me?
I remember being maybe seven or eight and realizing (I can see exactly where this happened too; on 10th Avenue in Caldwell, Idaho, in the backseat of my parents’ gold Impala) that it was so much better to look forward to going to the fair, and remembering the fair than it was to actually experience the fair. This theme repeated itself with dances, vacations, and the other moments of youth.
One exception to this that I can remember is the Republican National Convention in 1996. I can honestly say I lived every moment of this. I can remember exactly how it felt to get sunstroke in the harbor while waiting for Bob Dole’s boat to arrive. I can remember the temperature outside, and the way it felt to have Jeff’s arm around me when we were evacuated from the dorms at 2am. I can remember seeing a picture of Jeff and I asleep in a hammock in the sunshine, in the LA Times the morning after it was taken, realizing that we were a part of this huge event.
So what was different about that one event? I can’t put my finger on it–exactly. Though I do know there were differences. I was extremely excited. This was one of the first times I was ever away from home. This was the first time I had ever had slept in a bed with a guy (not that we had sex mind you). I took everything in. I hardly talked to my parents. I didn’t know anyone. And I had an amazing time. And it was crazy–something that most of the other people in the country were not experiencing for whatever reason.
Volunteering for Katrina was like this at first; eventually it got to be very routine, but in the beginning, it shared the same energy. The similarities between the two are pretty obvious. I was untethered–I entered both experience without knowing another soul. It was a BIG deal–one was a political convention that only comes along every four years, and the other, well, the greatest natural disaster our country has seen. During both experiences, I was a part of something so much bigger than myself, yet I still felt like I was a part of history; sound strange? That’s how it felt.
I also got quite a bit of attention from boys at both; something that generally doesn’t happen in my everyday life. What was it about me during those times that guys seemed to like so much? I liked me more during those times; maybe it is as simple as that?
I want to think about this and dissect it a bit more later. Something good to sleep on.
I want to take another stab at this piece of writing that I was working on a few months ago:
When Old Lady Sweet died they found a chest full of frozen tomatoes. Not canned, or quartered, or macerated in any sort of way, just whole Big Boys and Early Girls, some still on the vine, their skin shriveled and papery as lanterns. And they were solid; froze all the way through the consistency of croquet balls.
Clearing out the icebox and chest freezer fell to the man next door. Nathaniel had lived next to Miss Sweet for near thirty years, exchanging pleasantries, surplus casseroles and zucchinis in August (they both lived alone) and fruit cakes at Christmas. The tomatoes weren’t the strangest thing he’d seen. Peculiar, yes, but folks leaning that way always seemed a bit more interesting, rather than “off.” He supposed that in a whirl of embarrassment she had bagged them all up and placed them in the freezer, not wanting to unload them on her neighbor already full to the gills with his own Nebraska Weddings—in his opinion, the only tomato worth giving a second thought. She couldn’t just throw them out now could she?
So there they sat. Frozen in threes and fours placed in paper sacks and stacked neatly in the left corner making a tower almost clean to the top. What was he to do with them? He knew damn sure he didn’t want to drop them—that would break your toe quicker than anything.
(It is originally found here.)
This may be my favorite thing that I have written, particularly the first paragraph. But what to do with it? Should something have happened to Old Lady Sweet? That seems a bit conventional. And, she was an old lady. I don’t necessarily want to go killing her off. I was thinking that she died just because she was old. I could make the majority of the story take place in flashbacks…that could be interesting. Maybe Old Lady Sweet and Nathaniel had interesting lives when they were younger. Did they cross? Maybe. Or, I could go a completely different direction. Maybe some young couple moves into Ms. Sweet’s old house, and Nathaniel watches them. Hmmm… Gears are spinning. That’s good.
I suppose I need to narrow in on a time frame for the story. If the two of them were young during WWII, then this would be late seventies/early eighties? I don’t know if I like that. Maybe they were young now, and it takes place in the future (not dystopian or anything like that). Or, just sort of “anytime”. However, I would like there to be something big–a shared experience that they both had when younger. Sort of like Hurricane Katrina for me. Something that happened to many people, that many people who were not directly involved at least knew about and experienced from the outside. WPA? CCC? Right after the Depresssion? So much to think about.
I have no idea where the idea of Old Lady Sweet came from. I woke up thinking about her one morning. I can see the garage. It is in the humid, hot South, surrounded by her immaculate yard (reminds me of how grandpa kept the garage and garden).
Is this how ideas come to “real” writers? Hmmm…
Which one is right? Are they all? My least favorite is OK. Even when written in a non-email/chat/text message format I think it is loud. It conveys a sense of annoyance or exasperation at the least and tones of utter hostility at the worst. (This is of course all determined by context, and maybe just my crazy brain.)
Ok is a little better, but most applications, this one included, think that this is incorrect. Ok with initial caps simply won’t do. Interestingly, when I hover over and control click the initial caps Ok, the loud mouth version is not even a suggested replacement. Here are the options I am given to correct my misspelling:
- k
- O
- ck
- pk
- bk
How are any of these choices better than the initial caps Ok? ck, pk, and bk don’t even make sense, and k and O are simply letters. Why isn’t OK one of the choices? Things that make you go hmmmm. (hmmmm is also misspelled. According to WordPress or FireFox, not sure which one, I am trying to spell ohmmeter. Right.)
My preferred okay (Tokay is apparently what I am trying to spell says WordPress/FireFox) is the spelled out version. Most applications think that this isn’t a real word, but I don’t care. It is in my opinion the best (and only real) way to spell okay. It is more genteel, it has grace. It is a word, not an abbreviation, not two letters rammed together as a shortcut. It is in short, the right way.
What do you think?
Tokay = famed Hungarian wine. Who knew? Other than spellchecker that is.
So there it is. For as long as I can remember, I have been doing technical writing of some sort. Even when I worked at Albertson’s as a teenager, I felt the need to compile a book full of helpful hints about how to correctly close out the lottery machine at the end of the day. (One of my co-workers who often worked the evening shift, while I worked the morning, could not do the number crunching correctly, and I had to fix it almost every morning). This helped. One of my supervisors took it to some hifalutin corporate meeting and they actually implemented some of my writing as store policy. Pretty neat.
Even before that I wrote with an audience in mind. I remember being in grade school and getting some accolades from the teacher for an essay I wrote about my grandpa. So I kept making my writing more and more grandiose until the teacher finally said enough! too many adjectives and gave me a B (oh the horror!).
In college, I actually had a professor teach me how to write better. She was the first person that basically said, “you’re not doing well enough, I know you can do better.” Up until that point, I won every essay competition, was the best writer in my school according to one of those standardized tests, blah, blah, blah.
Once I finished school, I took a job at one of the computer giants doing technical writing. This seemed like everything I should want. Good company. Good pay. Close to my family (they thought this was a good thing, and I did at the time). In a nutshell, it is what everyone thought I should be doing.
But once I started the job, I met with conflict; I really had a hard time with my boss; she simply didn’t like me. Nothing paranoid here, those are just the facts. And, it was so boring. I need to have five thousand things piled up on my desk, working under some ridiculous deadline to feel like I am working hard. Maybe (probably) that is something I should change, but that’s what I need to feel like I am doing a good job.
So I got laid off from that job, joined the Red Cross, took a job as a trainer in New Orleans, couldn’t hack it, curled up in a ball and returned to Idaho, to what? take a job as a technical writer. Am I maybe the dumbest person on the planet? What happened to the learning from mistakes path I was on?
Bottom line, Idaho is comfortable. Technical writing is comfortable; good money, it is easy, but it is so damn boring! Working for myself freelance technical writing is not as bad because I can get it all done in bursts rather than being a slave to someone else’s schedule, but it is still boring. So what do I do?
Well, it kind of seems ungrateful to not write. I mean, I can do it, so shouldn’t I be using it? But I need to figure out how to do it differently. Maybe I should only write for purposes that make me feel good, like stopping procrastinating and finishing the New Orleans stuff and sending it off to McSweeneys. Finish it and move on.
So what then? I need to see results from whatever I am working on. I want a finished product, and I want someone to tell me I have done a good job; silly, I shouldn’t need that, but I do. I feel like I need to create something to be satisfied with work.
I have been thinking about moving to Austin (’cause it’s neat, and warm), and becoming a welder (craft, art) or upholsterer. (While waiting for news from the Peace Corps.) Crafts are a dying way of life. It is so rare to hear someone speak about being a carpenter (not houses) or anything like that (I couldn’t even think of another example). Now, everyone does something with computers. Computers make all of the things that we used to make; furniture, books, signs, shoes, almost everything. Computers definitely aren’t a bad thing; I love them and they make my world better. But what have we lost with the shift from man made everything to computer made everything? Pride in our work? Pride in general?
I think I would be happy running an upholstery shop. It is definitely a skill that I want to learn. But I want to make a living at it; a good living at it. I make good money in my industry, and I should make even more if I stay in the field. But that’s not enough. But, I’m also not willing to live a life that is not financially comfortable (not rich by any means). So how do I do it? How do I combine the two; a vocation and a good living? Combining the handcrafted (or machine crafted, through the guidance of a person) with computers? Simply using the computer to plan and market? Hmmm…
I definitely need a change. I need to be doing something with tangible results. Something that leaves something behind that I can touch, look at. Something that I can be proud of.
I’ve got to solve this riddle. And quick. How long did it take you to figure out what to do with your life? And how did you deal with the uncertainty it brought?
I am a computer nerd at heart. As much as I have tried to get away from it I can’t; it’s me. I love learning new things in every program imaginable, just as much as I love lying on my back wiring a network to full connectivity. When Hurricane Katrina happened, I had recently been laid-off from Hewlett Packard, and was feeling very badly about myself. But Katrina was too big; it snapped me out of my funk, and drove me to do something. As soon as I heard about what had happened, I logged onto the Internet to find out how I could help. To my surprise, I was quickly contacted by the local chapter of the American Red Cross. I explained that I didn’t have much money to donate but that I had plenty of time. I was signed up for volunteer training the very next day.
Initially I was trained to work in Sheltering and Client Casework (or some similarly named groups); almost every volunteer was being trained in these fundamental disaster relief areas, and my chapter didn’t have a technology volunteer group, so I didn’t even know it existed. When I arrived in Louisiana, it was amazing, in good and bad ways. The damage done by the storm was horrific, but the volunteer response was uplifting. Since almost every volunteer on the disaster was assigned to client casework or sheltering, there was a lot of waiting. While waiting for assignment, I noticed some people wiring a network. What was this? Other nerds? So I walked over to take a look.
This is how I was introduced to the Response Technology Group. I asked if I could help with anything, and in fact they needed several volunteers. I worked with the group for the day, and was asked to join that function by the end of the day. So began my nine months in response technology with the Red Cross. I was euphoric; I could actually help people with my nerdiness?
During my time with the Red Cross, I worked with amazing volunteers from all over the world who were working toward the common goal of helping people rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina. I learned so much from others, and know that I taught many people many things. Many of the volunteers coming to the disaster had never used a cell phone, let alone a computer. As part of my work with the Red Cross, I taught grandmothers in their nineties how to make functional Excel spreadsheets; I taught Americorps members how to wire networks. It was amazing.
Since my time with the Red Cross, and specifically during the last year, I have been trying to focus on what I really want out of life; what will really make me happy; which path my life should take. Through this searching I have figured out a few things: 1) I crave helping people; my world is not right unless I am giving back, helping someone. 2) I am a computer nerd; it is me, I may as well be happy with it. 3) I am good at teaching people, and really good at teaching people about technology. 4) I crave experience with other cultures; I have spent my life (aside from my two years in Louisiana) Idaho. Idaho is great, but it is small potatoes (I am funny!); there is so much more to the world. The two years that I spent in Louisiana were amazing; the culture is very different than that of Idaho. I enjoyed very much learning about and interacting with the people, taking part in cultural traditions such as Mardi Gras, and of course eating all of the wonderful Cajun and Creole foods.
Through the soul searching I have done (and I have really, really been searching for the past little bit) I think that serving in the Peace Corps is the next step in achieving my life’s goals; those that I know of anyway. I am at a crossroads in my life; the crossroads. I have finally figured out (I think anyway) the path I should take; this path began with the American Red Cross and Hurricane Katrina, and will be continued with Peace Corps service. Where will it go after that? I haven’t a clue; I only know that service with the Peace Corps is right, is home. The Peace Corps encapsulates all things that make me me; it is where I belong, where my skills work the best, where I am at peace, where I am at home.
But maybe the Peace Corps (And the Red Cross was too?) is running away from my life? I wonder this sometimes. I think the feeling comes from that American Dream ideal that is supposed to be the aim of every good American; well that just doesn’t work for me, yet the draw to it is magnetic, unconscious; we cannot escape it, or can we? I want to, I need to. I would not be happy in this life, I would be settling and selling myself short. Because of the perfunctory draw of the American Dream, anything that is not it, feels itchy, wrong; that is why I sometimes feel that I am running from my life (you know, the one with the two kids, house in the suburbs, etcetera, etcetera…). But its not; for me, for someone I love very much; it is just not it. Its a shame that I felt like I had to live that life; it is a same that anyone feels that pressure. But there are those that love this life, that would live no other. I do not look down on them, no I almost envy them. To those that are really, truly happy, I wish them well. I however, could never be happy in that life, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I was.
My dear friend Louise commented on my earlier slightly irate (No!) post about not being able to feel good with the place I am in right now, or be patient planning, waiting, for the things that are important to me.
Louise asked me to define successful for myself. Hmmm… I didn’t think it would be so hard. I guess that although I have never really put my finger on it, success to me has always been (and mind you this has only been in the background, it is not something that I have worked toward or anything like that) that inane American Dream version of success; house in the suburbs, two cars, two kids, dog, cat, jobs that pay well, etc.. This is the default version of success for most people my age (or at least I think it is). Because I had never defined success for myself, I guess this is the version of success that I was driving toward (I am guessing it was there in the back of my mind because this version of success is crammed down your craw at every turn); crept right in there. Ridiculous.
I know for a fact that this American Dream would never in a million years make me happy. I had my chance at that dream (more than once) and it seemed like a good idea at the time. But something held me back; and now, I am so utterly happy that I didn’t take that road; for me all that is at the end of that path is a big old Dead End sign. (Did you see/read The Hours? Remember Julianne Moore’s character? That would be me; hopped up housewife trying to escape her dream turned nightmare.) As silly as it seems, this revelation is just now coming to me. Sean and Louise (much smarter and wiser than me.), always told both Ben and I how lucky we were that we were going through this struggle to find what truly mattered and made us happy (really, really happy) as individuals now rather than later; having a quarter-life (okay, slightly beyond that) crisis rather than a mid-life crisis. It is awful to be wrapped up in the middle of it right now, but they are right; this would be so much harder if I had already started down the traditional American Dream path, and then found myself miserable and had to regroup. (Or, how sad would it be if I never came to this realization? Never found out who I was? Never followed my true way?) Now there aren’t kids, dogs, and houses; responsibilities in the way of letting me find my happiness. And there is the benefit of finding my true path early on, and not having all of the muck left behind by taking the wrong road the first time.
I sort of wavered from success to happiness there. But you know what? That is what success is to me; being happy with myself. Having confidence in myself. Being me. Loving me. Showing the world that I love me. Success to me is being happy with who I am. Happy with myself, my place in the world, all of me. This is such a hard thing for me to do. Why? I don’t have a clue. I just know that I have to do it; no one is going to do it for me, and until I am happy with myself, I won’t be happy with anything else. I have to start at home.
