My Tent on The Beach

Every so often I realize that my life is built in cycles.  As time moves forward I can see the rise and fall of patterns: similar, comfortable, repetitive, cyclical.  Like the seasons, I can predict with a sharpness that whatever seems good now will wither in particular ways.  I call them cycles.

They’re actually habits.

One that’s commanded my recent attention is that of “settling.”  This is the time of year that I get all uppity to move somewhere.  Until right now I thought that was a function of living in places that were less than good; the search was always on to find better.  Last year when I moved to an apartment deemed by myself and others as “the awesomest apartment I’ll ever find for that price” I thought my itch to move would dissipate.  Nope.  I’m ready to move come June 1.  And yet, I know I’m not.

I have a problem with settling.  I’ve just never done it. Why settle for a B when an A is always possible? Why settle for mediocre when excellent stands enticingly around the corner? Why stay in a place that makes me somewhat happy when a place that makes me joyously happy could be beckoning to me from afar?  Why ever settle when not settling is an option?

I think I’m starting to understand why settling might be a good option.  In part, I’ve been approaching this whole thing with a complete hard-headedness.  I’ve always viewed settling as an implicit quitting–giving up the fight for “better.” This is a crazy competitive tendency perhaps born of my love of sports or anything that can declare a “winner” at the end.  [Sigh.] Even to me this sounds misguided.

More pressingly, though, settling down scares me.  I immediately think “stagnant, boring, prescribed, without options, boxed in.”  I suppose I’ve observed those enough to equate one with the other.  But, the more I really think about it, I do think I’m interested maybe not in settling down but settling into. Just changing that one word makes me think “becoming familiar, making a choice, trying it on and adjusting along the way, working it into something workable.”

Settling down for me will always seem like a destination.  Settling into, on the other hand, might just be the process I need to think about not constantly hitting the road whenever something feels uncomfortable.  If I can work with it for awhile, get to know it, consider it as the means and not the end…I might just be able to stay in this apartment for another year.

Maybe.

I wrote this a year ago and I still love it.

Usually on this blog I’m ranting about something.  Or complaining. Or whining.  I woeing.  Looking back at some of the archives, I come across as being really amazingly…well, frumpy.  But today I have a new kind of problem.  It’s actually interesting that I even remotely find it a problem.  It’s just that…well, I have this friend who just makes my life a little more worth living and I’m not sure what to do with it.

My friend, as so many do, just came out of nowhere.  Through the most random series of events, I found this person.  Actually, maybe this person found me.  I can never be sure exactly how to mark the beginning of a friendship.  Do you go back to the moment you met?  Was it that time you had that first conversation that, upon leaving, made you think, “Oh…I’ve got to get to know this person better.”  Is it that first time that you weather a fight with each other together, that moment of return when you can feel that even though everything will not be the same ever again that what is to come will be just as good.  No, probably better?  I guess it doesn’t really matter; I can trace the linear path of this friendship but I think that’s a stupid game.  Life is not linear and neither are relationships.

So anyway, over time this friend has made quite an impression, as so many friends do.  But not just the normal kind of impression.  It’s an indentation, really.  There now exists a space that was not there before, that I usually do not recognize and have no idea how to tend.  Sometimes it’s the most wonderful, beautiful indentation a girl could have.  Other times, it hurts, aches even, and I loathe it.  This space that once was solely mine now has an indentation that I’ve come to learn will exist as it will.  I only have so much control. And it will always be there now.  If something heads south, it will become a scar all shiny and leathery looking.  But it’s there for good now.  And I love that.  And it scares me.

And maybe that’s where “my problem” comes in.  I worry about this indentation.  I worry that it might take up too much room, that I’ve become too accustomed to it, that time will only warp it.  I’m not going to lie; it’s a nicely appointed indentation.  I want to protect it, keep in tidy, maybe drape some nice plastic on it to avoid spillage and staining.  If I had a curio cabinet, it might be nice there.  That’s how I feel.  But I know that won’t ever work.  I have to let this space be what it will and know that there’s only so much I can do to control it.  The rest is up to my friend who form-fitted it. Who I allowed to form fit it. And who really gave me no choice in the matter. And I love that.  And that scares me too.

So there’s my problem.  At this moment, I feel too loved, too lucky, too unworthy.  I can feel the other shoe just hanging precariously somewhere,  It’ll drop. And I fear that moment.  The one in which this will all end and I’m left with a shiny, leather scar of an indentation that will be empty and tinny sounding in there.  But I have to let this space be what it will.  And maybe, just maybe, it’ll always ring clearly and sweetly. And that’s what I hope for.  And I love that.

So who’s the friend?
Probably you.

I’ve been majorly avoiding this blog, probably because I know how it looks.  Every month or so I put up a post about how crazy things have been and how I’m starting over.  I try to make it quippy and funny.  Then 4 weeks later I’m still doing the same thing, only after another chasm has somehow changed everything forever.

This life is a challenge.

I remember when I was teaching at Walsh and worried that if I stayed there the next 25 years would look exactly the same and I wasn’t happy with that. So instead I chose a life that requires every February – May to be a scramble to figure out how I’m going to support myself, keep inspired, stay healthy, not go totally nuts with worry. And now I find myself looking back at the Walsh days with a fond nostalgia toward its consistency.  Everything there is pretty much the same.

So, this, maybe is the lesson I’m supposed to learn in graduate school, the one I didn’t know I was paying for: that life goes on, opportunities come and go, people come and go, and my life and that which ultimately stays important is where I am.

These last months have been hard, presenting me with challenges I’ve never even thought about facing…mostly involving taking action on plans of which I cannot envision an exact, finite end point.  It’s truly been about making moves with the resources I have now and hoping that it works out in the end and at the same time learning how to adjust expectations and re-frame the way things work out when they’re beyond my control.  I’m learning one step at a time to “go with the flow.” It’s been backbreaking some days.

But I should learn to be careful what to wish for.  For the last several years I’ve bemoaned a lack of constancy in my life.  I’ve hoped for some kind of foundation to ground me.  I think I’ve found my constant and it’s name is change.

It’s not the constant I expected.  But it sure is always there.