General Updates

In looking back, I just noticed that I never posted again about Ian's mother.

She died. Jyl died too, by suicide, and my darling friend Aby died as well, by accidental overdose, in a relapse.

It was a hard year.


I know I've tried to write about my almost-mother-in-law's death several times, but I guess it must have just been too hard. I don't remember what I wrote or why I didn't post it. I have probably attempted to address Jyl's and Aby's as well, but I guess those words never made it through.


By some miracle--by a whole bunch of miracles really, and with a lot of help--we did manage to get married. In large part the wedding was beautiful, but looking back I have a lot of negative feelings surrounding the planning and the day that I don't want to try to dissect right now.

I have an office job, which I both like and hate. Mostly I enjoy my coworkers, and obviously the stability of a regular paycheck. But I feel trapped. I never see the sun. The sameness of my environment and my work, day after day after day, is rotting me away inside. I am starting to feel old, and empty, and (at the very high risk of being nauseously over-melo-dramatic) lately this has been leading me to ponder my own mortality in a very dark way. I am sure the awareness of one's own mortality is normal, and maybe early thirties is when it usually hits--but I am really not liking it. I was hoping to get away from the total surety that the rest of my life was going to be nothing but a long unsteady irrefutable slide down into a dark tunnel. Lately, mostly, each day has felt either the same as or worse than the last and the horizon looks dark and dangerous. I feel like I've made all the wrong decisions and now I just have to learn to live with them until I die. But maybe it will get better, right? People say it sometimes gets better.

Two Weeks

I turned in my written resignation today, which is a little bit terrifying, but I am fairly certain that it is the right thing to do. Probably more than fairly certain, but it is difficult not to second-guess when the prospect of being jobless is as scary as it is. I think, though, that if I am responsible about getting enough sleep and taking my vitamins and watching my attitude/time management, getting a new job (or finding enough tutoring clients, which amounts to the same thing only probably better) shouldn't be too big of a deal. We'll see how it goes.

For now though, I need to tie up loose ends and finish these two weeks, and then I think I'll be heading out to California to visit my cousin Pierce. She's lived out there for ages and I've never been, and she'll probably be moving back East soon, so now seems like a strikingly good time to go. She's near a few other sets of cousins too, so hopefully I'll get several different visits in while I'm there.

Once I'm back: beach with Ian & co.

What's Going On

I may not have mentioned that I've moved into this place with my best friend. Most days I love it. I love having my own space, I love having a washer/dryer literally inches from my bedroom door, I love having a kitchen stocked with things that I bought, etc. I love that we're walking distance from the river, and I love that some nights when I drive home, the air is swimming with fireflies.

I thing I have mentioned that I've been working at this daycare-type place, but it isn't really for me. I've told them that I want to leave, but have not officially put in my two weeks' notice. I don't have another job yet. Some moments this seems incredibly reckless and misdirected; other moments it seems reasonable and necessary. I am not the person they want or need for the program, though I know that better than they do. They are not a program I want or need to be a part of. It plays up my weaknesses and does not utilize my strengths, and possibly more importantly, it does not help or encourage me to move toward my goal, which is to be a counselor/therapist. I will miss the children, though.

I didn't get enough sleep last night, and I woke up feeling discouraged and somewhat depressed. Floundering a bit, where earlier in the week I felt confident. I need to remember how important it is for me to make sure that I don't blow off my sleep schedule, as has been my habit for almost my entire life. When I do, my performance and my mental health suffer. And my attitude suffers. And attitude is everything.

I was browsing Pinterest a week or two ago and saw a link to a video of a commencement speech delivered by Neil Gaiman, who is one of my favorite authors. He's a rock star in my book, and he seems like a pretty wise guy. Toward the end of the speech he said that a woman he knew had called him once, and asked how he thought she should go about doing something that she considered to be quite difficult. He told her to pretend that she was a person who was capable of accomplishing her goal. It can be difficult for me to remember to pretend that way, and it can take some energy, but honestly, this is some of the best advice I have ever heard, and it has been helping me greatly. Attitude is everything.

About Ian: he's not perfect, we don't always see eye-to-eye, and like just about every other relationship I've ever been in I'm not 100% sold, but he is pretty awesome in a lot of ways. He is caring and funny and sarcastic, complimentary and generous, forgiving and flirtatious and attentive. And I really appreciate those things.


But back to the job issue: probably tutoring would be wise for me to get back into. I'm also looking for flexible hourly positions that would make it somewhat easier to a) hold multiple jobs, should I so choose, and b) take classes. Not that I know what I'm doing AT ALL when it comes to researching and applying to graduate schools. So if anyone knows of good companies to work for, or if anyone has any advice re: higher education, feel free to let me know.

Crucial reminders

I used to walk around feeling like (and saying) I had no life, and maybe for a while it was true. Then gradually I began to realize that in actuality I did have a life. I was reluctant, but this realization was forced upon me when it became impossible to ignore the fact that I hardly ever had free time on weekends. And it got worse from there. I've tried to calm things down a bit--working full time will do that to a person--but I just realized that, several times recently, I have had to remind myself of something shocking:

When I have free time, I don't have to fill it with other people. I am actually allowed to go do things by myself, even if it might be possible to make plans with someone else. When did I become a person who needed that kind of reminder?




In other news, one of the girls on the bus--a kindergartener--said something a little bit heartbreaking this morning. Justin Beiber came on the radio, and so came up in their conversation. One girl said, "The funny thing is, my mom loves Justin Beiber." Then another said, "My mom hates Justin Beiber because he's white. She says white people are stupid and make bad decisions."


What do you say to that? Do you let it pass? Do you get upset? I said something about how people are people, regardless of skin tone, but that won't change the environment she lives in. Why do people perpetuate racism?

From Friday

1. Today was the last day of petsitting--I've been taking care of a litter of black lab puppies on weekdays since January, and the last will be sold this weekend. I'll be glad to have my afternoons back, but I'm a little sad to see her go.

2. Here is what I'd write about inchworms if I felt affection for them, rather than revulsion at their mission and massive numbers: I would say something like, everywhere I walk, the air is filled with shining threads of light, strung gently to and fro from tree to car to fence to jungle gym, to the tiny t-shirt of a small boy in my P.E. class on Tuesday.

Also if I liked them I probably wouldn't throw them out the window of moving cars.

But since I do not feel affection for them, and instead feel revulsion, here is what I'll write instead: the fucking things are everywhere. It's like a damn plague of inchworms, and their sticky little threads crisscross everywhere, all over the place, across the driveway, across the doorway, across the playground at work. When I get in my car, if I've left the windows cracked to prevent a little solar oven from forming, there will be an inchworm dangling inside my window. GO AWAY. And if one more child at work comes up to me talking about how great the damn things are or how he can't find any and Jackie won't give him the one she found, it is possible that I will freak out.


3. Today, while I was driving the bus toward an area elementary school, I suddenly realized that I was happy.  Happy. That I had a job and a boyfriend and this new phone, so many friends, this great kindle thing...I'm making it sound like a shallow happiness, and maybe it is in some way, but I don't really think so. It isn't like everything is perfect, or like I have everything I want, or whatever. It's more like, for the moment, I was satisfied. What I had, what I have, was enough. And increasingly often, it is enough. And that is the kind of person I want to be. And the kind of person I've wanted to be for so, so long.

Giving 110%. ish.

So I'm all smug as shit because I just finished putting up a bulletin board, like I'm supposed to do every month (this is the second that I've done since I started in January). It's decent but not even that awesome...but after I put away the stapler and stuff I was dripping swagger on my way back through the library. I was all like BRUSH

THAT

DIRT OFF YO SHOULDERS.



Also... my old phone has been breaking, and my new one just showed up in the mail, so excuse me while I go and, as the package says, "master my device."

I would like to take a moment to complain.

I'm leaving for the beach after work tomorrow, and, as I will be working from 7am to 7pm,* I will have exactly zero time tomorrow to pack or shower or nap, or eat for that matter, so these things need to happen tonight. And I LIKE TOTALLY do not feel like doing anything at all except reading for a few hours and then going to sleep and then sleeping in WAY past 6:15. And then just teleporting to the beach, rather than hanging out in a car for four hours or so.








































*Okay, maybe 6:45. 6:40 if I'm really lucky.

Quotes from the bus

Every weekday afternoon I pick up three girls from an area elementary school. The two in question here are in second grade.

SB: I can't see anything without my glasses.

SS: Just poke your eyes!

SB: That doesn't work!

SS: Well that's what Geronimo* does!

SB: He's a mouse!

me: ...And a cartoon.

SS: I don't believe that.



She was dead serious. She went on to explain that if you believe something enough, that makes it true. I told her, "I don't think that's how that works," but I'm not sure she believed me.



























*I have looked him up just for you. She talks about him all the time.

What's going on these days

Possibly this isn't the best time to write, as I am rather exhausted at the moment, but for once I have the inclination and so I will run with it, and keep the reactionary emotionality out of it as best I can.


Work: I'm still doing the with-kids stuff and also still doing some odd jobs (tutoring, babysitting, pet sitting, whatever). My attitude toward my "real job" varies, often depending on my energy level and on whether I have done anything really flipping stupid at work lately. Regardless, I'm about to start picking up more hours by teaching P.E. and movement to preschoolers, so that should put me at full time. I'm utterly stressed out by it all at the moment, but we'll see how it goes, yes? Yes.


Reading: I am incredibly lucky to have 40 minutes or so every day during which I basically get paid to sit in a van and read while I wait for kids to be let out of school. I have been enjoying the kindle I received for Christmas.


Interpersonal interaction (read: light exercises in hedonism*) : So, though I seriously doubted that they would, things have ended up going with this guy (mentioned at the bottom of the link). Ian. We spent three and a half months hanging out a lot and texting a ridiculous amount and kind of liking each other and being indecisive (because, let's be real, we only have so much in common), and appear to have both decided to quit overanalyzing our lives and just give it a go. So...here we go, I guess. Anyway, he's one of the main reasons I'm so deliriously tired this week, and he is quite a good Valentine. I have a dozen long-stem roses, and candies from Italy and New York, and more honesty than I might have expected. I'm so unromantic; I feel like I inadvertently cancel out his sporadic attempts to be so. I am so unused to being given random gifts (I guess Valentine's Day is a typical gift-giving time, but I'm still not used to it) that I never know how to react. But he is witty and sarcastic and sweet and thoughtful. And I like him.



































*Look, I'm being emotional like I said I was, okay? "As best I can" doesn't mean "perfectly."

Reasons

I think a part of the reason that I have been (sometimes consciously, sometimes not) avoiding writing lately is that I've been pointedly ignoring this little existential crisis I've been having. It is totally unlike anything anybody else in the world has ever experienced and it goes something like this: what's the point of all this? I don't see a point. I mean, life is kind of nice sometimes I guess, but it doesn't really seem worth it. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and (assuming I didn't end up having to live on in extreme pain/disability) I'd probably be okay with it.


It should go without saying (or at least, I tell myself that it should) that I probably wouldn't be all that okay with it (or at least, I tell myself I wouldn't), but that's how I've been feeling about all this lately. Just don't really feel like doing it. Like doing any of it. So I haven't been writing.

Probably this is all the result of some minor depression, dysthymia I guess, that is sapping my will to live and write and listen to music, or possibly it's related to my paralyzing fear of decision-making and the accruement of additional debt and the idea that I will never figure out what to do with my life, never find the motivation to just, for God's sake, do something that will pay the bills, never again find the will to really live, and so on. I know that some days a beautiful flower is enough to keep me going, but other days, and all of them lately, it seems like nothing is enough.

It occurs to me that this might be remedied if I did x or y or z--if I went back to school and became a counselor, or if I fell in love, or if I have children someday--but I wonder whether any of that is actually true; whether any of it would actually work. Whether this all feels pointless because I am doing nothing that has any real purpose, or whether it feels pointless because the days are getting shorter, or because my brain or hormones are somehow otherwise unbalanced, and I need to correct the imbalance with some kind of dietary change or sleep schedule or scintillating, brilliant conversation (Anna, are you free?) or self-talk or therapy. This kind of depression can be difficult to address via emotional bootstrapping, which (in addition to the wait-it-out method) is the way I have handled just about every other depressive episode I have ever encountered, because it's just a general feeling of malaise. There are very few specific thought patterns to address, very few negative thought habits to replace with positive ones, and so on.

Or maybe I just need to look harder.

Shifts

Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I began to consider the possibility of being a teacher. A writing teacher. I've been editing papers for a friend who is in grad school, and I love it. I love it. I love it so much.


Also I ended up at Starbucks tonight and there on the counter was a Michael Buble Christmas cd. Halfway through my hot chocolate I decided that I couldn't leave without it. I put it on in the car as I drove home through the driving rain, and it took about a song and a half for my cheeks to start to ache from smiling so hard.

"...but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world."

Today did not necessarily begin as I would have hoped, but it has been a beautiful day.

I woke up feeling somewhat rested, which was wonderful, even if I did temporarily obliterate that healthy feeling by stubbornly refusing to not eat cereal for breakfast*, and I went to work for Mrs D organizing and whatever, and I was in such a good mood. Regardless of my morning or my stomach, how could anyone possibly be upset when the world has transformed into a red, yellow and orange pointillism painting, and the air is streaming with brightly colored leaves and filling with breathtaking flocks of starlings? How could anyone do anything but grin and sing into the wind when the air is seventy-five degrees in November, and the radio is playing The New Radicals and Alanis Morrisette and Miranda Lambert, with Eric Hutchinson in the cd player?

I came home from Mrs D's for a little while to check email and make more delicious fried eggs with tumeric and chili powder, thyme and garlic in coconut oil, then went to tutor Mary and help her prepare for her history test (why didn't I think this stuff was interesting when I was in school?). Afterward I made a deposit at the bank, dropped off my car at the service station for an oil change and inspection, and walked the  two or so miles home. It wasn't my favorite venue or time of day for walking--I was on a main road with no sidewalk, and I was walking between the sunset and the appearance of the stars, so the scenery wasn't particularly relaxing or pretty--but after a few minutes I started to tune in to the smells of the warm grass and crunchy fall leaves, and that was very nice. The evening breeze was delicious, and the stark contrast between the main road and my quiet, sleepy little street made it seem even more peaceful than usual. A cat wandered over from a driveway across the street, and after I scratched its ears it followed me halfway home, hoping for more love.














































*By the way, I keep forgetting to mention this, but I think I just became lactose intolerant. That would be funny if I were kidding, but I'm not. I am not kidding. And that means that I am upset, because I love milk and other milk-related products. I mean, cheese! Yogurt! Hot chocolate! Ice cream! And I eat cereal for breakfast every day! And do not even talk to me about soy or rice or almond milk. Don't even start. I am grieving right now. Just leave me alone.

When I drive home from painting under the welcome threat of rain, I watch the cloud layers slide past one another over the bridge. Blue sky slips beneath whispery grey, which is superseded by fluffy white and then dark, smoky shadows. Rinsing the paint from my hands at the garden hose, I reflect that this may be the season's last smell of warm water and living wet dirt, so I breathe it in deeply. But though the night brings the seasonally appropriate whiff of dry autumn leaves, the next day it's eighty degrees again. Things are what they are.

It's late.

I've been doing my angsty-boy-problems thing. Feeling whiny about problems that, in a broader context, aren't really problems. Wishing for jobs and looking for apartments. Watching the skies.

The night skies have been cloudy and overcast, and I don't mind the rain, but I don't love the humidity and I miss the stars. Fall has been approaching with tantalizing slowness--it still feels like summer half the time, and a handful of the leaves began to change and then seemed to stop in their tracks. The air is as muggy as August's. Two nights ago the sky was grey when I knelt to the ground and pressed my face to the blacktop, and when I struggled to my feet the clouds had moved away, revealing stars for the first time in days. I felt very grateful. It seemed symbolic.



Some of the books I've been reading in the past six months:

the Mistborn trilogy (Brandon Sanderson, fantasy)
BAM (Best American) Science Writing 2010 (various, essay)
At Home: A History of Private Life (B. Bryson's brand of research)
Sandman (vol. 1) (Neil Gaiman, graphic novel)
AWOL on the Appalachian Trail (David Miller, memoir)
A Hat Full of Sky (Terry Pratchett, fantasy)
The Hunger Games (don't you already know?)
I started something by Charles DeLint tonight, but I can't remember the title.

I have begun and (for the time being) abandoned several more, including a book about leafcutter ants, and another of Bryson's amateur researcher books, and probably several others.


Elsewhere I wrote about a conversation I'd like to have, and produced a train metaphor. Then I typed up a short, one-draft poem about it:


Life runs on ahead, and we jump
from train to train, moving too fast
to read destination signs, packing away
our lives into hankerchiefs on staffs, tied up,
minding the gaps and wondering what lies
ahead.

Notes on medicine, honesty, weather, and unnecessarily profound observations.

Prednisone is not tasty, but I am still worried about having just taken my last dose. I still itch. Shouldn't I have stopped itching by now?
 (The poison ivy has improved--drastically, in some places. But it isn't gone. My itching hands and shins still contributed to my poor sleep last night.)


I just had to (or felt that I had to) admit to a guy I've been talking to that I might have met somebody cool and thus might not be around on the site much longer. So now I feel pretty bad. Great. (Cry me a river, I know. Watch it not work out, anyway. How often do these things work out? So far: 1-3 times in 25 years, that's how often.)


It has been raining a lot over in this part of the world. It's kind of nice, aside from the part where I don't get to do the outdoor work with Rick that I was supposed to do earlier in the week, and thus do not get paid for it. A particularly close bolt of lightning (and crash of thunder) shook the house quite hard this morning.

And when it is raining, I love hearing the birds still singing--even through the lighting and thunder sometimes. I guess I don't have much else to say about it. I just love those sounds together, and the symbolism that I can make up and put in there.


And here is a quote from Style Rookie, which I rarely read but which often amuses me when I do, despite my almost complete disinterest in style: "The thought of summer and its nearing end is causing me to make unnecessarily profound observations about the way the light is hitting all the crap on my desk while the sun sets."


This reminds me so much of myself, except that I make unnecessarily profound observations about the way the light is hitting all the crap on my desk (and so on) almost literally all the time.

Just pretend this is in a normal font and size. I reserve the right to write elsewhere and copy/paste from undisclosed locations.

Camp is over, three friends came and stayed and are now gone. My resume has been (probably poorly) updated, and I'm looking for jobs in a meandering sort of way, doing little odd jobs for people that need them, chewing on the idea of grad school.

Still doing this weird "online dating" thing, which in large part I find distasteful and dorky, but which I continue to use as a way to get myself the hell out of the house. Thus far nothing goes anywhere, but there have been some interesting emails, some decent movies, and whatever. I am pretty excellent at going on lots of first dates and never really talking to any of these guys again. Usually this is more a function of my apathy/laziness than of any strong negativity. And I mean, I guess that's alright. Still hoping to run across somebody awesome, on there or in real life. Preferably in real life, obviously.


I have a truly terrible case of poison ivy, contracted while I was running siphons out into the backyard during the hurricane in a (thankfully successful) attempt to keep the basement from flooding. Nothing I was doing was helping at all, so yesterday I broke down and went in for a cortisone shot. I think it has helped, but the stuff definitely isn't gone. Time to call in the prescription for prednizone, I guess. I'm tired of being unable to sleep through the night, and waking up scratching the skin off my forearms, fingers, ankle, face, etc. It shouldn't be able to spread once the oil has been washed off, but I swear it's still spreading, six days later. Good times.


I've been working with my neighbor Hartley, helping with storm cleanup while he fixes the roof of a house that was smashed in during the storm. So many long-established trees were blown down, and now are being cut up and loaded into trailers and hauled off for mulch. It's a sad thing. But the wood smells like fall to me, and I've been catching whiffs of fall more and more frequently in recent days. The temperature is dropping just slightly, and the leaves are beginning to fall and accumulate along the side of the road. It's time.

A sleepy reflection

A new (to me) love song came on the radio as I drove home today from Camp, and suddenly it seemed like such a great time to fall in love*. The world just felt like things were clicking into place, and (despite the fact that I rarely meet new people) this could happen any time. Bam. Soulmatehood.

I mean, this shouldn't be too difficult, right? I'm pretty awesome. You, theoretical mystery man, are pretty awesome too. We'd be great together. So it's cool, you can go ahead and show yourself now. No need to be shy. Just step right on up. Let's buy some finger jewelry and make a whole bunch of babies.



I say that like I'm good at relationships. Love songs (and the effects thereof) are so ridiculous. Annnd just a little bit frustrating.



In other news, this:

It was 7:40 am. Eye circles are my prerogative. Taken post-staff-morning-yoga, and at the swim hole, obviously. I've gone to morning yoga twice now (that makes two and then three times in the past ten years that I've intentionally woken up before staff meeting), and each time at the end I leave and walk toward the creek. I stop fifteen feet shy of the water and take off my shoes as though I'm stepping onto a holy ground of old concrete and grass and gravel, and walk carefully to the ladder, descend three steps, and sit down with my feet in the water. The slanting sunlight is savoury on the water--rich and delicate. And when I run my hands along the skin of the stream, it feels like cool silk. I've been late to staff meeting both times.

And this:

This is Daniel, and he is magical, and this picture took us about fifteen tries to take. We ran out of time during snorkeling interest group time, and then finally succeeded (with a camper behind the camera this time) at Pool Night. 

And look where I get to work:

I like this picture. Please don't steal it.

*Yeah, I know. Weird.

Volunteering.

I have no cabin this week--I'm not technically on staff--and it's been a blur of velvet water and morning yoga, big hugs and secret missions and smiles and fireflies in the trees. There has been love and new understanding, and (unfortunately, though perhaps unavoidably) anger between campers, between staff, and between staff and campers. I hate this. I suppose I am blessed in my ability to hold my temper longer than most, but what I feel is disappointment and frustration with my friends and coworkers. (I love them wildly still, but, I suppose, no longer beyond all reason.) Maybe I should be more sympathetic with the need to vent and process, but there is such a fine line between venting and meanness, I feel. And for me, conversations of that kind feel like a tar baby. It all seems so harmless at first, and then I find myself stuck further and further in the mire. I want to make it better, but so often I end up enabling or even participating instead.

On the plus side, regarding campers (present and former and future), God, I love some of them so much. I love them all, but some really have holds on my heart. As I said, the CiTs can get me every time. And one that I've known for five years gave me this lecture, though (for this repetition, at least) he delivered it to JP:
"JP, if you had a favorite counselor, one who had always been there for you, who had always been there to meet you at the bus on the first day, and who had been there every time to say goodbye to you at the end of the session, but this year they weren't there at the beginning and then you found out that they were leaving early, how would you feel?"
He has always been an excellent camper, comes from an excellent family, and has been a wonderful CiT. I so hope to work with him next year. And I hope he isn't too upset.

Our only junior counselor this session, who honestly does not seem like a junior counselor at all, has given me a very similar hard time, which makes me feel quite guilty and sad (more so than I already did), but which also makes me feel so loved.

In any case: hugs and secret missions, cicadas and fireflies and warm velvet water in the early morning. It is heaven here in these woods.

Staff training: an emotional reflection.

I am home, and (judging by the hour) possibly not resting as I should.

I both love and do-not-love the way that in my eyes, all of my coworkers are the same age--as each other, as myself. It can be an excellent way to view things, but it can also be unhelpful.

I love the way that this place is a perfect venue to get to know people on a level that is simply unavailable in any other situation I have ever experienced. There's something about the mix of the work and the training and the prayer time and the decompression that brings out true hearts.

I love the joy and laughter of our little staff bonding traditions--I speak here of "The Challenge." Even if I did nearly run into Melissa in the dark. Even if I did do an accidental full body slide on the wet grass in the dark. Victoria and I remarked to each other that "we have such a good group this year." We felt like proud parents.
    And when the guys returned from their own version, and the newbies walked in with huge grins, we clapped and cheered. This is a wonderful place.


I love the peace and truth and discovery that come, and I love the dancing and the singing and the silliness. I love that in the middle of our campfire the other night, we took a break from teaching the new kids camp songs and broke into Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds." I love the fighting and fatigue and stress, and the struggle and epiphany and euphoria. I love the sudden surprise of hot cofflet in the morning, and I love the spontaneous games that spring from nowhere, from the minds of the crazy guys that come to work. I love it all.

Some news

-For the first time in at least six months, I have a working odometer and speedometer in my car.


-I have turned in my invoices for tutoring, and, aside from a few minor changes my boss would like me to make, I am FINISHED. I will not have to turn in an invoice for at least three months. Thank you Jesus.



Camp tomorrow! Not sure I'm ready. Not that it matters...