February 10th, 2010
The walls of my cubicle kinda depress me. So does this fragile industry – doing my job well does not necessarily mean success in times like these. In fact, it almost never does. But that’s okay. Because I have a plan.
The most freeing thing ever is realizing you have choices. I can choose to stay in a gray-walled cube for the rest of my life, because the job is predictable and the pay, somewhat reliable. Because I’m scared to act. OR! Or I can figure out what makes me happy and then do that, working out the money bit when I get there. Which is what I’ve decided to do. Not right away, but eventually.
I didn’t even have to finish the question, “What makes me happy?” before I knew the answer. Yoga makes me happy. I feel my strongest, most beautiful and most capable when I’m pushing past the imaginary boundaries I’d set for my mind and my body, discovering new abilities and most of all, peace. A few weeks ago, I read on Facebook that my old boss (from way back Boston days),had been accepted to a yoga teaching program and I was thrilled forher. After discovering hot yoga back in 2002, I went on and on to herabout it and looky, here she is several years later, becoming ateacher. Serious warm fuzzies. After e-high-fiving her, I realized – that’s what I want. So, I’m going to teach. Not right away, like I said, but eventually. I have some goals I’d like to reach, pre-requisites to achieve, some money to save, yadda, yadda and then, it’s game on.
Sometimes I lie awake in bed at night with little anticipation butterflies in my stomach – the way I used to feel at the start of a new semester. So much possibility! The Dork Lord is sided firmly on Team Yoga Teacher, which couldn’t make me happier. It’s nice to have someone in your camp, who wants your ultimate happiness more than anything – especially when that person shares your concerns about finances and you know, having a roof overhead.
I’ve always known people who love what they do. Or rather, made the choices and sacrifices to do what they love. My sister quit the rat race, went back to school and became an elephant trainer. She now works at the San Diego Zoo saving elephants. My brother ditched a job in software to go to school nights and weekends so he could be a cop. He loves to tase, what can I say? I’m a little disappointed with myself that it took a big forehead slap to realize I found my passion a long time ago and didn’t make a go of it, but mostly, I’m just pleased that I found it at all.
February 8th, 2010
I was putzing around on Facebook the other day and discovered that my old running buddy, Bob, got engaged last month. And I will not lie, I was totally crestfallen. On my Feelings Meter (where one end is labeled with glittery gold lettering, “Happy for Bob! Yay!” and the other with, “Crazy Jealous Like a Pathetic Stereotypical Chick Lit Cat Lady”), the indicator is decidedly right of center, and fluttering wildly.
Engagement is a sensitive topic in our household. See, I don’t give a rat’s ass about tradition and I don’t really care for the whole formal proposal with three months salary riding on my ring finger bit. We’ve made the decision to get married. We’ve even marked the five year calendar with when we’re going to start adding kids to this whole chaotic mess. We have a joint savings account. In short, we make every decision together. But this one? This one, because tradition says so, is entirely up to him. And he couldn’t be in any less of a hurry to make it.
And it stings. Mightily.
I hear his reasons for waiting – he doesn’t like where he is financially at all and his Man Pride won’t let him bend that knee until he feels better about it. He wants to pay cash for the ring. And while I hear his reasons – and understand them in their universality slightly better after talking to my similarly-minded brother (there is, apparently, a very insightful Little House on the Prairie episode in which Almanzo temporarily cancels his engagement to Laura over money issues) – they do nothing to quiet the discontent I feel over the matter. I’m broke and in debt, too. But what’s that to do with love? I don’t need to be provided for – I’ve been doing a damn good job of that all by myself.
When we initially talked about moving in together, I said I’d like to be engaged first. Not as a rule, but as a preference. He had other ideas. Namely, that he thought we’d live together for six months or so and then get engaged. That didn’t seem unreasonable to me at all. So now here it is, one year later, and I’m keeping house and making dinners and picking up step-dog poop and folding laundry and helping with homework – playing the housewife without the title. I do all of these things gladly, but the lack of forward motion in our relationship makes me feel like a bunch of old ladies are sitting around somewhere tsk-ing about how he’s gettin’ the milk for free. He’s not moving forward because he has very little incentive to.
Except, you know, for being in love and excited about our future and wanting to.
The part of me that doesn’t fully understand Man Pride has been unable to help feeling that if he were as excited about us as he used to be, money wouldn’t matter. I don’t want a diamond ring. I don’t. Period. Because that’s not where our priorities should be right now, or really any time within the next five years. He’s in school. We’re in debt. But what I want is for our plans to be official and public. And, yes, I suppose I do care that we look legitimate to the rest of the world. He doesn’t, but I do. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.
Also – and I’m fully aware of how selfish this sounds – I’d like a little something for me. Something to be excited about. Our lives right now revolve, with minor interruptions, around dog excrement and school work. Investing in my beloved’s future is an investment in our future and so I’m happy to revisit fractions, edit English compositions and research Mt. Rushmore, but some days it feels like, in playing the supporting role, I have very little to look forward to for myself.
He loves me. Unquestionably. I know how much I matter to him. We’re happy together. And in my brain, I know that’s more important – that’s most important. But there’s another part – the heart part of me – that doesn’t know anything except that there used to be something so exquisitely special in feeling like we were terribly in love and couldn’t wait to spend forever together. And the more he hesitates, the less special I feel.
Like I said, it stings. Mightily.
February 6th, 2010
Sometimes I miss waking up in New York. Especially on the weekends when I want to do something and nothing all at the same time. The City is good for sublime adventures in nothingness. An iced coffee and a meander in Central Park. The man behind the bodega counter always seemed a bit relieved to see me, maybe because my presence meant that the pot of room-temperature joe wouldn’t go to waste on winter days when the sky was sulking. A dollar twenty-five beginning to an afternoon of bliss. And when you’ve got $4.28 in your checking account, even that feels a little like decadence.
I miss New York today. Broke and bored in Dallas, Texas is a terrible cocktail.
February 1st, 2010
I had a fitful night’s sleep, finally waking five minutes after my alarm should have gone off (helps if you set it, I guess). Deliriously tired, I headed downstairs to let Jillian Michaels give me a good ass-kicking before work and when we got to the punching part I felt this funny little jolt of optimism. Like, “Oh, yeah, this is going to feel good.” I’m never just punching air — it’s usually some imaginary offender. Like, that lady who has absolutely no idea what a yield sign means. Or that ex-coworker of mine. The one who could not shut up. Ever. This morning, though, I wasn’t in need of vindication so much as eleveteen more hours of sleep so I punched with little enthusiasm. And then I remembered.
Today is Sarah Brown day! If there was any perking up to be had, it was from knowing that this afternoon, I get to road-trip it up to Tulsa, Oklahoma and deliver a hug that’s two-and-a-half years in the making. We’re probably going to paint each other’s nails and watch Meet Me in St. Louis and eat things which are bad for us. And talk about boys.
Sarah and I went through some relationship doozies in New York. In fact, I met Sarah the same night I met one of the biggest relationship mistakes of my life. We were bonded from that very moment. But the same week that I met the Dork Lord, Sarah met her own love, moved to far, far away London to be with him and await a fiance visa (me, I’m just awaiting the fiance (ba-dump-bum!)) so there is much catching up to do.
So blah, blah, I’m excited about seeing Sarah but can we for one second talk about how BAD Taylor Swift’s performance was last night? Is that, you know, like a regular thing for her – the whole, not being able to sing thing? It was terrible. And up until that point, I have to admit I was pretty enamored of her. Gosh, she’s so cute. And nice. And ohmygod, totally tone deaf. I felt like I was watching a talent show at church and it felt really, really awkward.
Discuss.
January 28th, 2010
Yesterday I purchased plane tickets for my sister’s wedding. I did not get a sweet deal. And if prices come down before our travel date, I hope to be blissfully unaware of it. Buyer’s remorse is the worst. Wait, I take it back. Buyer’s remorse runs a tight second to One Night Stand remorse, followed closely by I Can’t Believe I Ate the Whole Thing remorse – a trilogy which beautifully sums up a weekend I once spent in Florence, Italy. But you know, that’s kind of a long story.
The wedding is going to be one of those awesomely warm fuzzy events, not just because it’s full of mushy I Do love stuff, but because I don’t get to see my siblings very often – I’ve never even met my niece, Penny – so this will be our chance to get in some good bonding time. While wearing pinned-on flowers and acting on our best behavior. I snorted while typing that. You just couldn’t hear.
Well, mostly the wedding will be a warm fuzzy. My mother and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms, which should make the whole wedding weekend one big Lifetime Original Movie Starring That Woman From China Beach. Sometime shortly after Christmas, I (totally against my better judgment) let my mom know that I didn’t appreciate her advice. I said I thought her assessment of the situation was incorrect and that she was wrong to butt in. She said F–k you – just like that. Only spelled out in full, with exclamation points and maybe the @ symbol for good measure. I’ve come to expect a certain degree of fall out from disagreeing with the one who birthed me (the last time we dared question motherly love, she took our photos off the mantle put them away in a cardboard box) but this – this is new territory. I won’t lie. I think it’s unhinged. I have never had an argument with anyone that deteriorated into “Screw you!” Ever. A first for everything, I suppose.
If you’ve been reading for any length of time, you’ll know that things with my mother have always been difficult – in cycles. One, we’re both strong willed. Two, like with my father, there are greater factors at work. My sister, brother and I spent our childhood being parented by two people who were terribly stressed out and suffering from, at times, severe depression. And now that I’m an adult (and I’ll be the first to admit that yes, the following statement makes me feel bad about myself), I’m running out of patience for it. Enough, already. Suicide talk from a parent is truly horrific. And it’s unbelievably disappointing that with all of the available help out there, all the hours of therapy and medication have changed nothing. NOTHING. And I want to know who’s to blame for that.
I’m angry about it. I’m angry that my parents are unstable. That their instability is going to affect their relationships with my future children. That they may not HAVE relationships with my future children. That I find much more comfort in other people’s parents because they behave normally.
My siblings and I spend hours sighing over phone lines, wondering what to do. Yes, accept the people you love for who they are. And then… what? Then don’t have weddings, because you’re tired waging wars on guilt and self pity? Don’t share information or say how you really feel? Oh my god, the amount of truth-avoiding we do! I even do it here – the one place I created to be a more thinking, feeling, expressive person – because I fear the reaction. But not today. I’m done with that crap. This is mine, and I’m taking it back.
My brother was right when he said, “This is the information age, not the feelings-suppression age.”
And today I’m feeling angry.
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