My Tent on The Beach

This could easily be a rant about comments I didn’t ask for showing up on my Facebook page that “cynify” [def: turn something fun into something cynical...that's right, my word] something I’ve posted up there as a moment of levity.  In fact, I’m choosing not to dwell on that (and it’s an active choice because I’m actually seething about it right now…but I’m letting go).

No, instead, I’m going to build on the somewhat popular, new-to-this-blog topic of friends being asses.  It seems fruitful territory to mine these days; at least, I learn an awful lot about myself.

I think it’s no secret (unless you read this blog and literally absorb nothing I write about) that I’m in a period of reflection, transition, self-discovery…all brought on my these crazy circumstances of change everywhere I turn.  Like “epic dreams” that allow your subconscious to speak “truth” to you in dreams, my life right now is at “epic transition.”  I’m totally day to day.  And I’ve already discussed how important my friends are in keeping me afloat in what can be tumultuous seas.

But this tumult also breeds a really bad habit on my part and what can be really bad behavior on the part of some of my friends: they can be mean to me and I’m likely not able to call them on it.

I know…it’s funny even to think about that weird contradiction–if people are mean to us, how can they be friends?  But no, there is a fine line I think lying in between people being comfortable enough to “be who they are” in their darkest of forms and people just being…well, asses.  And this is a line we (meaning the “me”s in this situation) regulate…it’s up to us to defend who we are and what people are allowed to do to us.  Although, arguably, when it comes to friends, we should never have to. (What can I say…I’m still an idealist at heart…and head…okay, I’m an idealist at the most molecular level.)

I realized today that this has been happening to me for awhile…with someone(s) I do consider my ports in this daily storm.  And it makes me sad in several dimensions.  I’m sad I let it happen.  I’m sad they’ve taken advantage (although I’m sure they’re not even aware…which, incidentally, is why we can still be friends).  I’m sad I have to confront my “ports,” a situation that could render me…wait for it…portless.  And portlessness is a scary place to be.  But it’s not scarier, necessarily, than have ports whose waters aren’t shelters but are actually barnacle-pummeling storms (okay, I’m done with the boat metaphor now.)

I guess the realization is this…I’ve assumed the storm was outside of this group of folks I’ve surrounded myself with…only to discover that they’re part of the storm.  I do have faith that I’ll be heard in whatever way I choose to address it; these conversations won’t be easy, but I think they’ll be fruitful.  But I keep moving along as though I’m protecting something I have.  What I’m really protecting is just a mirage…once again, the choice to face what is real rears its ugly head.  At least there isn’t a decision to be made; this simply cannot go on.  But things will change…another transition.

What’s hard to remember is that there are transitions that will bring about more difficulty and there are transitions that will actually get us to a better place.  This specific case is definitely the latter; my life will be qualitatively better not swallowing the bad behavior (no matter the intention) or justifying it…or contextualizing it…or rationalizing it.  I’m going to get away with much less work on a daily basis.

But I’m not fully prepared to accept that some of these “friends” might not be “friends who are asses sometimes.”  They might, in fact, just be “asses.”  And maybe it’s time for them to find another lost little rowboat to pummel (sorry…I needed just one more go…)

I’m hoping…really hoping…for option A.

Yesterday, I was headed over to the eye doctor for some new,  exorbitantly expensive contact lenses when I saw possibly the greatest vehicle I’ve ever come across.  A silver Dodge Utilivan pulled up next to me and I never would have noticed it had it not roared past me, displaying it’s company to be “Universal Power and Control.”  There was a ladder on top…it was an electrician…or was it.

That made my whole day…as did my ridiculous knee-jerk reaction that was, “How do I work there?”  I don’t know how to do anything electrical…but I’m willing to be an apprentice just so I can drive that truck around Chicago.  Brilliant.

Of course, the irony was not lost on me…in fact, the whole episode was nothing but ironic since for the past 7-8 weeks my whole life has been one big shitstorm of unknowing; Universal Power and Control has been my sad, pathetic mantra.  I’d do just about anything to get it at this point.  And whenever I’m clinging on so tightly to that need to control, I just know that whether I like it or not something profoundly chaos-enducing will surely happen.  I just need to let it go a bit.  There is a balance to all of these things.

So this morning as I was standing (okay more like trembling) in “vertical splits pose”–the one I’ve also heard called “needle”–I realized two things.  First, I came to accept the fact that I cannot have universal power and control.  Actually, I’m not even sure I’d want universal power and control–I mean, really, wasn’t that what the entire movie Aladdin was all about? [Sidebar: is anyone else as shocked as I am that the entirety of the western world has been saying this name wrong...and that it's -ah-la-DEEN....not ah-LAD-din?  Thanks again Disney for creating another lie my whole life is tremulously built upon. End Sidebar].  My greater insight, though, is that I already have universal power and control–but it’s really only over my universe which is mildly annoying but a step in the right direction.

I’ve been sweating blood over the past couple weeks, especially when it comes to people moving and moving on.  It seems there’s a lot of this going on.  I feel adrift in their seas…at their whim…I’m floundering.  Except, while suffering through breathing in “needle pose,” I began to think that the power I have in these situations refers specifically to my ability to trust them.  I have the power to trust the people who are moving and moving on.  If I can stop fixating on the circumstances [moving and moving on] and focus on the people [trusting they will show me the loyalty I show them], then the situation becomes more manageable.  The people define the circumstances.  If I empower them to do that, I can breathe a little easier, at least for now…by that I mean this second.  I’m trying to work up to a minute.

One of the greatest comforts I find in yoga is that these systems of thought are ancient…and they seem almost tailored to me in this day and age.  If Buddhist monks on the mountain a thousand years ago were fixated on how, exactly, to live in the here and now and not slip carelessly into the future or past, then…well…good for me.  I really am human.

And I still want that Universal Power and Control truck.  It’s just to tempting NOT to think about…

I love my friends.  I suppose we could argue about which way to draw the causal arrow; I love these people because they’re my friends…These people are my friends because I love them.  Either way, I need them, they give me joy, they help me to plug along when plugging is necessary, they share my greatest triumphs.  I always aim to do the same.  It’s one touchy, feely love fest when it comes to me and my friends.

Except when friends are asses…and then…not so touchy, feely.

I think I’ve always held an “outside of the box” understanding of friends.  I’ll admit I pay very little attention to the “rules and categories” of friends (in sociology, we’d call these normative constructions…god I am a nerd).  So, I approach people first and then consider what’s going on in their lives.  This explains how I’m friends with very few people who are actually like me (single, female, grad student, etc) and I have more people around me who are just plain interesting first.  This bodes well for them (you); if I’m your friend, it means I’m really invested in you as a person…it’s not a friendship of convenience because our “categories” seem to match up.  I think that’s the difference between friends and acquaintances…acquaintances are convenient and pretty transitory as the “categories” of your life shift, sometimes rapidly.  Changing jobs, moving, graduating…acquaintances won’t follow you through those.  Friends, however, will.  This is Katie P.’s friend/acquaintance ratio.
Admittedly, it’s intense.  It makes friends an investment…which can be work…but usually doesn’t seem that way…or shouldn’t.

But I’ll tell ya, when friends are asses by upsetting the friend/acquaintance ratio, it does not feel good.  Part of the problem with my ratio is that not many naturally buy into it; most people do not approach friendships in this “to hell with categories” kind of way.  I think because most normal people don’t live 95% in their heads–as I do.  They don’t analyze their friends…they’re just friends.

Anyway, I have a friend who’s freaking out right now.  He’s in a bad place.  And yesterday, I think maybe out of fear or frustration…or stroke…basically explained to me that I’m just a friend of convenience–when in fact, I know this to be completely untrue. It’s a special day when someone you’ve really come to know as a really good friend looks you in the eye and tells you that when the time should come that you’re not in close proximity, you just can’t, or worse won’t,  be friends.  There is nothing more frustrating–because of it’s degree of ridiculousness–than this idea.

I could go on for hours about this.  I’ve worried about it enough and come to the conclusion that it’s just simply not true. My arm chair psychologist inside tells me this is an existential freakout of his not mine and has really very little actually to do with me. But, you know, above anything else I think friendship is an agreement between two people, implicit or sometimes explicit, to choose the other.  It’s one of the more tenuous kinds of agreements too–friends don’t take vows (unless you count pinkie swears), or “commit” to anything.  It’s all assumed agreements and searches for setting up good and secure boundaries.  It’s shady work sometimes.  This is why I think trusting friends can be very hard…it’s an enormous leap of faith that can be changed tomorrow based on a lot of factors.  So…this conversation…so out of character and far away from my understanding of the situation…it’s annoying. And disrupting.  And stupid.

What an ass.

This will surely sound completely impolitic.  No doubt I will be accosted by a zealous feminist and given a good piece of her mind.  But…

…there are days when I just need a man around here to do a couple things. Things like but not limited to:

1. Taking out the garbage. I’ve asked guys before if they consider this sexist and, actually, many just seem to consider it something they do.

2. Snaking the drain in the tub. Actually, plumbing of any sort.

3. Hooking up anything computer related. Not only do I somewhat suck at this job but I don’t have the spirit of interest many guys I know do when it comes to this department.

4. Reaching the high shelves. Of course, this assumes said man is taller than me…generally, that’s pretty likely.

5. Watching sports on tv that I can be only vaguely aware of. I love watching ESPN for mere moments on the hour.  I have zero impetus to turn it on and watch sports on my own.  But if there’s a game on and someone I can ask asinine questions…well, I just find that comforting.

6. Generally using tools of most sorts. I am scraping by here.  I have an excellent new tool kit that I’ve used…but I’d rather not.

7. Car related junk. Oil changes, gasket whatevers, filters, blah, blah, blah.

I think these are all things that men in my family do and that now, because I no longer live with them, I’m forced to pick up the slack on.  I would just as soon not do that.  In fair exchange I will gladly cook, bake,  and even do laundry (I’m willing to negotiate on cleaning but will make no promises here). I can also cross-stitch.

But really, if I could just get someone willing to deal with taking out the garbage and, in a related vein, deal with recycling…my life would be immediately qualitatively better.  I just know it.

Note to sociologists: Back off.  Is this a normative post? Yes.  Did I still put it up? Yes.  Get over it.

I have such an interesting relationship with the word “intuitive.”

I think it’s kinda mysterious and here’s why: I was thinking about the Meyers-Briggs personality inventory the other day.  Intuitive is one of the categories a person can end up with in describing how they “know” the world.  Opposite of sensate (which I think is similar to “clues gathering” or highly observational but in a sensate way), intuitive is more a “feeling” that something is happening or things are the way they are.  It is true that I don’t have to observe something to know that a change is coming or that someone’s feeling particular way.  I sense it.  I’m fairly blown away that everybody does not know the world in this way.  I like that I can’t explain how I know things…I just do.

But there’s a downside to this way of knowing the world.  It can be torturous sometimes.  Because very often I can know things are going on despite people trying to play it cool.  Often weeks in advance of an announcement I just have a sense that something’s up…the last great example I have is that one of my committee members called me to her office to tell me she’s leaving the university.  I knew she was leaving the university and, more interestingly, I knew the minute she called that this meeting–which she told me was about something else–was, in fact, to address this issue.  There was no process in moving from not knowing to knowing.  One day I just knew.

What I hate about it is that this intuitivity (my word I just made up) which I lovingly call “my gut” (as do most people) is very rarely wrong. Thus, when my gut speaks, I really am forced to listen…and accept.  Which is particularly hard when my gut is sending me a message I’m not wanting to hear.  This creates so much anxiety; in the end, it is just a gut reaction and my gut has been known to be wrong at times (afterall, I’m not a psychic).  But it’s rare…and it gets rarer with age.

And I’ll tell ya…my gut and I are just not seeing eye to eye at the moment.  I wish my gut would just get it together.

“Everything you’re seeing now is happening…now.”
“what happened to then?”
“We passed it.”
“When?”
“just now.“
“When is then now?”
“Soon.”

Spaceballs: The Movie…what an endless treasure trove of insight.  (C’mon…”comb the desert.”) I could quote it in most life situations. But this one I think is apt for the moment.  Yes, this moment.

There are days when I wonder how much of a sucker I really am.  Today I feel like a big sucker…because I’m stuck in the future and I don’t know how to get out.  And I’ve been thoroughly taught to think that way.  And I’ve learned it. Well.

I’ve been staying up nights with a crazy kind of anxiety…I’ll lie awake for hours, my brain spinning (needlessly) about things about to happen.  That’s right, it’s my imagination spinning away…about a time to come…sometime.  From this point today, that time always looks scary–grey, gloomy, cloudy, lonely.  I never really smell the future but I imagine if I could it would smell like sulfur. (Ironically, this also describes Cleveland on most days, so maybe it’s the comfort of home I see before me).  It’s also never going to come at least in the way I envision it.  Someone said to me today, “The future is an illusion.”  He was right.  And I’ve become enamored with an illusion…that doesn’t even really look all that great.

We are at now now.  I can’t will time to move any faster, nor should I.  There’s a lot of moments between then and “soon” that should probably be paid some attention.  I don’t really know why…then again, I think I’m the wrong person to ask…I live in then.  But I’d like to live in now.  It seems more colorful, more present, more immediate, more real.  I like all of those things.

So why is living now now so hard?

I guess I’ll find out…probably “soon.”

[hmpf.]

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.

I have a problem.

It’s motivation to work out.  I have none.  I currently have a fully functional gym membership, all the time in the world, and I live three blocks away and I cannot force myself to go.  Perhaps it’s the fact that I view it as “the worst thing I’ll do all day” (even though once I get there, I actively disagree with myself).  Maybe it’s because my gym clothes suck (but I love them…).  I don’t know–I just cannot force myself to get there.

So, here’s what I need.  All 3 of you who read this…I need to know how you motivate yourselves to go.  Respond in your inner monologue, using the exact phrasing you use to tell yourself the gym is a good thing and you must go.  Maybe I just need an inner monologue update.

Until then, I think I’ve talked myself into yoga as a workout again.  Yoga’s wonderful…but it’s not making my jeans any looser, if ya know what I mean…