Wanting

This post is one that wanders, according to my custom.

It's a gorgeous night tonight, and somehow walking under the nearly full moon made me start to think about what I want.

And what I want is to do what I want. Just me. No compromising or making nice, which feels as natural as breathing. And so when I daydream, I daydream about being alone.

I want to spend my days writing and walking by the water, rising early and drinking coffee in sunlit rooms (built to bring the outside in), staying up late under the stars, reading poetry, doing yoga. That's my most persistent daydream. The daydream of my stilted, crumbly heart.

Of course, there are others. I want--perhaps on principle--to be a person who welcomes others into her home. The kind of woman my great aunt was, who hosts missionaries and refugees, who invites people to dinner, who opens her home and heart to those in need.

I also want to move in with my friend Kelly. I want to treat my car nicely, as it deserves to be treated: get her all fixed and tuned up, clean her out, paint her pretty colors with rustoleum. I want...hmm. I want to be more of a doer, and less of a killer-of-time. I can kill time like it's an Olympic sport I've been training for all my life, and it's shameful, wasteful, sickening. It is not life-giving. I am learning, slowly, slowly.

And today (or at this point in the evening, yesterday) was my three-year anniversary with Ian. And I want unfair things of him. Or are they unfair? Maybe unfair for me to ask, or expect, or maybe "unfair" is a meaningless term here. But:
Sometimes I want to marry him. Is it, would it be settling? Marriage is not something I desperately want right now. I don't walk around feeling overwhelmed with lovey fuzzies. I'm not consistent in my feelings and I am often uncomfortable with them. But at times I do feel the lovey fuzzies. And in some ways we balance each other quite well. And in some ways we drive each other nuts. Am I supposed to wait for or find someone who makes me feel lovey fuzzies more consistently, more confidently, or what?

Regarding nuts: I am, in many ways, quite independent. I do not always respond well to advice, or to others' expressions of concern for my safety. I also don't like to plan things. Typically I'd rather wing it. Also I am unbelievably forgetful. All that drives Ian nuts, and still he graciously acts as my personal reminder service on a regular basis.

Here's what drives me nuts: Ian is not very independent. I don't mean to imply that he is emotionally dependent, but rather that he likes to do things together, and make decisions together, and sometimes those things are hard for me. He also likes to plan things down to the most minute details, which I find tiresome (but which I admit is a good quality). The downside there is that he is not comfortable with much spontaneity, and that is difficult for me. Lastly, anxiety. He is working with it, and working hard. Still, wrong as I may be, I have been unable to escape the idea that anxiety is the king of Ian's life. Because of that idea or fact or whatever it is I become irritable, angry, condescending, demanding, and sometimes mean, and that needs to stop one way or another.

More importantly than the way we drive each other nuts though is the way we communicate. There is plenty of friction in our relationship--there is a lot we don't have in common--but we go out of our way almost daily to better understand ourselves and one another. I've never had a relationship with communication this good, and I definitely can't take the credit here. Every step of the way, this man has asked questions, communicated his feelings and frustrations, and, when I finally started talking, listened to what I had to say. We often have trouble understanding one another; for example, I strongly suspect that the phrase, "life giving," would have no meaning for Ian. And that upsets me because I want the things that are important to me to be important to everyone I care about. I want Ian to believe in the God I believe in, and to feel the connections and the joys I feel at the same moments I feel them*. But isn't that life? As difficult as it is for me to grasp, life is different for everyone. The best we can do is try our best to bridge the gaps.

*why? Because I'd feel connected? Because I'd believe in his depth of emotion? Because I feel that I'm "right," and I want him to be right too? I don't know. There is a story I've heard about a child with autism who had trouble grasping the idea that everyone had a different point of view, and everyone had a different experience of the world. Sometimes I feel like that child.

An epiphany in the morning

Driving home from work this morning I had the sudden realization that Ian is, I think, washing away the bitterness I hadn't even realized I still retained over all the stuff that happened with David.


I feel like major emotional crises (that breakup, for me, would fall into that category) are like landslides. Or they're massive floods of emotion that cause landslides. Everything you've worked so hard to build is washed completely away, and you're left in the valley, drowning in muck and wreckage and sewage. And then, hopefully, eventually things start to dry out, and you can finally start to climb again, to build again, to painstakingly carve stairs step by step back into the side of the mountain. And at first it's the most impossible task in the world, but it gets easier. You learn to build. You get stronger. You find a rhythm. And one day you realize that life is moving forward, and you are moving forward, and things are okay.

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."

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.

Oh, right.

It's been a while since I've dealt with my habit of emotional subduction. Or rather, I deal with it all the time, but I generally deal with it in solitude. It's been a very long time since I considered the addition of another variable--another person. And when I am just floating along in my solitary state I sit around and daydream about connecting with other people--but then when I try to let other people get closer, I begin to remember the difficulties, and the hoops I put everyone through, including myself.


I wish it were warm enough to go swimming in the river, or to drive up to the mountains and jump off redneck rock in Goshen Pass, or dive into the lake at Douthat. I'd even settle for a chlorinated pool right now. I just crave the feeling of slicing through the water, holding my breath and diving down deep, and being held and borne up by that viscous cool blueness.



For a while now I've loved Leona Lewis's song "Better In Time," and I just went to watch the video on Youtube before buying the song on Itunes. And then I went to watch another of her videos. And then another. I think I may buy her album in a moment. Or one of her albums? I don't know how many she has--I just really like her.

Not much here.

I'm wearing red: red shirt, red nails, red bag, red roses on my hoodie. And sometimes lately it feels like I can't speak or write without drawing blood. Without messing something up. It isn't the best feeling I've ever had.


Brian, my boss via the tutoring company for which I work, still does not know whether this program of seven week math tutoring is going to make. I will, therefore, go ahead and sign up for WSI (water safety instructor) training. The WSI is for Camp--evidently there's a new ACA requirement that there be a person with a WSI certification present at all times. And Beth says that I am in as head counselor, but she isn't sure exactly when. A few friends of mine also applied who would do a great job, so she's figuring out who she needs to use for what sessions, etc. And apparently I'll be the token WSI person, for part of the summer at least.









Joy to the world, all the boys and girls. Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me.

The Ropes

Sometimes I feel like I'm walking a tightrope trying to figure out what I really want in life and at the same time trying to pretend like I'm a non-sociopathic, functioning adult member of society. Or maybe several tightropes.

Rope 1: David. Not at all to suggest that he isn't fantastic--only to suggest that I am an emotional moron, and allowing myself to feel and think whatever things I would normally feel and think, without banishing uncomfortable items or forcing other items into view (is the only way I will ever have any hope of knowing what I want ever, and also)is not particularly easy for me, especially when I am also trying to not be a complete bitch.

Rope 2: Living arrangements. Currently I am living with my parents again--super cool. Again, not to suggest that my parents are not super cool; rather to suggest that living, at 23, with the people who raised you, is not always simple. And my uncle (a very good guy, actually, but not very timely, but yes very underpriced for family so I shouldn't complain at all) has had my car for four or five months, so I share with my really wonderful, but MUST PARTICIPATE IN EVERYTHING sister. And I have my own stuff to take care of (needs and wants), but living in a group dwelling requires things like cleaning up my own and other people's messes. Especially since my mother and sister seem to tend to look to me as their organizational savior when I am home, thanks to my occasional bursts of Cannot Stand This Mess. This opinion of theirs stands despite the fact that my normal mode of operation is "What mess? Leave me alone, I am reading. And later when you would like me to help, I will be out of town."

Rope 3: Money. No excuses here--money is absolutely a bitch and I am not a big fan. Probably this is because I am in possession of very little of it, and I would like to have a lot of it, only without working very much. It's an issue. But I've just been hired to do exciting science experiments with the aim of convincing kids that science is awesome (which it of course IS), so that's good. It's only part time though, duh, so I'll still need to find another gig.

And finally (?), Rope 4: Ignorance. I majored in English, without particularly wanting to teach English. Also, I didn't work for the school paper ever at all. Even given the fact that I'll probably apply to go teach ESL in South Korea, this wasn't the best plan, and I should probably go to grad school. The problems here are A)I cannot afford grad school at the moment, and I don't really want to add any more loans right now to the $10,000 or so that I'm still paying off, and B) I cannot decide what to go to grad school for. Majors in consideration are Creative Writing (terminal degree makes that somewhat less useless, actually); Anthropology; Sociology; some sort of physical therapy--not Physical Therapy I mean, but massage therapy or chiropractic something or another similar thing; some sort of emotional/mental therapy, like Art or Recreational therapy, or plain old Psychology or Psychiatry; Environmental Studies type things. If I think for a few more minutes I'll probably come up with another handful. Best to stop here. Problem(s) illustrated, anyway.