hahaha. Damn. Well, at least I'm working on it.
chicagotribune.com
Are you addicted to approval?
How to cope with the need to be liked
Jen Weigel
Lessons for life
June 26, 2012
Are you obsessed with the need to please? From parents to bosses, we all like a pat on the back for doing well, but what if you're addicted to the approval of others?
"People who are addicted to approval have a fragile ego," said Gregory Jantz, an author of several books about addiction including "#hooked" and "Gotta Have It!". "Their sense of self-esteem is dependent upon whether or not someone likes them, so in order for them to feel OK about themselves, they need to know they are liked."
Jantz said the use of cell phones and social media have only exacerbated the problem.
"We did a study for my latest book that says 48 percent of the highest users on Facebook will go on (to Facebook) first thing in the morning," Jantz said. "This is even before they go to the bathroom! They check to see who 'liked' their posts and for many, this will determine how they feel before starting their day."
Psychotherapist Jeffrey Sumber said it's important to understand the difference between a serious addiction and the pop culture version of the term.
"We have a culture right now which is extremely reliant on external validation but it might not mean you're an addict," Sumber said. "If someone says, 'I'm addicted to chocolate,' it doesn't mean you're addicted to chocolate. So we need to understand the difference. But in our society we are taking our temperature based on how other people react to us."
Sumber said building up your self-esteem with your own "internal validation" will help, but "some of us never quite develop a healthy form of this."
Here are some ways to keep that need for approval at bay:
Develop three real relationships.
"Ask yourself, 'Are my three basic human needs being met?'" Jantz said. "Those basic needs are to be loved, understood and affirmed. If those needs aren't being met, I want you to — over the course of three months — develop three new relationships. I call them the 'three intimates'. They can't be virtual friendships or family members. It can be a spouse or significant other, but all three intimates need to be giving you those three basic human needs."
Find the facts.
"What I ask clients often is, 'Let's discern between fact and feeling. Is this a fact or is this is a feeling?' If we ask this we can catch ourselves before we go to that place of insecurity that takes you back to that rejection you felt in third grade," Sumber said. "If you ask, 'Is there a thread of possibility that what I'm experiencing right now is not true and that I actually have more self with than what I'm giving myself credit?' that can be helpful."
Let go of technology.
"We had one guy who came to see us and he averaged between 6,000 and 7,000 texts a day," Jantz said. "Did he have any real relationships? Not really, but that contact made him feel OK. I suggest that people go four to six weeks with no devices at all." (oh crap! *laughs*)
Don't blame others.
"We have a habit of projecting onto our partners if we aren't happy — so take responsibility and look within and say, 'What are my needs and what do I need to do to fulfill them?'" Sumber said. "Don't play the blame game."
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
Hidden
I pull the blankets back, exposing a very naked me each day.
A naked me with the same lines and curves
that have identified this body as my own for my own short eternity.
I cover my nakedness in different costumes,
Every day choosing a new identity.
Indiscriminate pieces of fabric
That by themselves cause no real reaction,
But when snapped or buckled to my bare body
Let you decide how to react to me.
A button-down blouse and starch-stiff suit.
Cut-offs and a stained tee-shirt.
Black leather vest with black leather skirt with black leather boots.
Yoga pants and a fitness sports bra.
Lace and satin corset and a token thong.
Broomstick skirts and pretty shirt.
Why can’t anyone understand that multiplicity?
I am desperate to become someone,
If no one in particular, than anyone.
If the time isn’t dedicated to becoming, at the very least,
It is spent trying to solidify.
I can't meet you,
The world at large
Naked.
I am afraid to be seen
Without those conflicting images,
Because even I am not sure
Who am I really
When the clothes come off.
Day to day, am I so different
Covered by leather, lace, silk, denim?
How brave would I be to be
Seen for who I am?
Could I dare to be nothing more than
Myself.
A naked me with the same lines and curves
that have identified this body as my own for my own short eternity.
I cover my nakedness in different costumes,
Every day choosing a new identity.
Indiscriminate pieces of fabric
That by themselves cause no real reaction,
But when snapped or buckled to my bare body
Let you decide how to react to me.
A button-down blouse and starch-stiff suit.
Cut-offs and a stained tee-shirt.
Black leather vest with black leather skirt with black leather boots.
Yoga pants and a fitness sports bra.
Lace and satin corset and a token thong.
Broomstick skirts and pretty shirt.
Why can’t anyone understand that multiplicity?
I am desperate to become someone,
If no one in particular, than anyone.
If the time isn’t dedicated to becoming, at the very least,
It is spent trying to solidify.
I can't meet you,
The world at large
Naked.
I am afraid to be seen
Without those conflicting images,
Because even I am not sure
Who am I really
When the clothes come off.
Day to day, am I so different
Covered by leather, lace, silk, denim?
How brave would I be to be
Seen for who I am?
Could I dare to be nothing more than
Myself.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Brace for impact!
The forecast has triple digits this week. The basement is not even close to done. *sigh* It's going to be rough.
On the more positive side, the house is clean and week TWO of the Sunday chores has been accomplished! There's a little pick-up from Girl this afternoon, but that is manageable.
Tuesday, we are getting a new bed. Beloved and I finally gave in to Shado's enthusiasm for a Sleep Number Bed. Holy mackeral is it expensive! Thinking about it makes my gut clench, but...but if it really helps with my back problems, it is probably worth it. Leap of faith and all that good stuff.
Boy has one week of camp left before there are two weeks at home. I'm a little nervous, but there are things lining up to keep us somewhat busy. Somewhere I want to get a little camping trip in, although I'm late looking for a site. Maybe July 6-8?
Counseling continues. I want to jump up and down and brag about how it's all better and I can see clearly now. It's not quite that simple, and I am still dealing with a lot of lows. The last session, we started talking about the polycule and I pulled out the map. "How many of these are still as they were when this was created?" I teared up immediately. Only one of them, and the one is a long-distance romantic friendship tempered by the both of us having primary partners.
Some might claim it isn't necessary, that I am unfairly shutting them out of my life. Sadly, I don't agree. Earl Nightingale authored "The Strangest Secret". He says, we are what we think about.
"You are the little bright spot in my day." When your dominant thoughts are dark and depressed, I cannot bare the weight of that responsibility. Every one of us is the sum total of our own thoughts, and I was getting swallowed up in complicated and bleak thinking. My day starting with worry over someone else's issues or how I might be at fault for the state of chaos. It was killing me. I had to isolate my own emotions, untangle my heart, and walk free. I have to find my own happiness, and you need to find yours.
I have admitted over and over that this is not how I imagined my life would be. This is not how I envisioned my success, and thus, I am not successful here. I am not STUCK here unless I allow myself to be stuck. I have to cut away the fetters and permit myself to soar as I was divinely designed to do.
I am back to considering vision boards...and external, tangible image for myself. What is MY definition of success?
Back to Nightingale and his 30-day test:
1. Write on a card what you want more than anything else. Single goal, clearly defined.
2. Think of it in a cheerful, relaxed and positive way each morning when you get up, and immediately you have something to work towards, something to live for.
3. Stop thinking about what it is you fear, replace it with a positive though – control your thinking.
4. Do more than you have to.
5. Give of yourself more, knowing that your returns will be in proportion to what you sow.
6. Don’t concern yourself with how you are going to achieve the goal, just where are you going. The answers will come to you of their own accord and at the right time.
Remember your card every day.
Act as though it was impossible to fail.
Control your thoughts.
Limitations are self imposed.
Have courage.
Use your imagination.
Become the person you *want* to become.
You have nothing to lose, but you have a whole life to win.
Have faith!
On the more positive side, the house is clean and week TWO of the Sunday chores has been accomplished! There's a little pick-up from Girl this afternoon, but that is manageable.
Tuesday, we are getting a new bed. Beloved and I finally gave in to Shado's enthusiasm for a Sleep Number Bed. Holy mackeral is it expensive! Thinking about it makes my gut clench, but...but if it really helps with my back problems, it is probably worth it. Leap of faith and all that good stuff.
Boy has one week of camp left before there are two weeks at home. I'm a little nervous, but there are things lining up to keep us somewhat busy. Somewhere I want to get a little camping trip in, although I'm late looking for a site. Maybe July 6-8?
Counseling continues. I want to jump up and down and brag about how it's all better and I can see clearly now. It's not quite that simple, and I am still dealing with a lot of lows. The last session, we started talking about the polycule and I pulled out the map. "How many of these are still as they were when this was created?" I teared up immediately. Only one of them, and the one is a long-distance romantic friendship tempered by the both of us having primary partners.
Some might claim it isn't necessary, that I am unfairly shutting them out of my life. Sadly, I don't agree. Earl Nightingale authored "The Strangest Secret". He says, we are what we think about.
"You are the little bright spot in my day." When your dominant thoughts are dark and depressed, I cannot bare the weight of that responsibility. Every one of us is the sum total of our own thoughts, and I was getting swallowed up in complicated and bleak thinking. My day starting with worry over someone else's issues or how I might be at fault for the state of chaos. It was killing me. I had to isolate my own emotions, untangle my heart, and walk free. I have to find my own happiness, and you need to find yours.
I have admitted over and over that this is not how I imagined my life would be. This is not how I envisioned my success, and thus, I am not successful here. I am not STUCK here unless I allow myself to be stuck. I have to cut away the fetters and permit myself to soar as I was divinely designed to do.
I am back to considering vision boards...and external, tangible image for myself. What is MY definition of success?
Back to Nightingale and his 30-day test:
1. Write on a card what you want more than anything else. Single goal, clearly defined.
2. Think of it in a cheerful, relaxed and positive way each morning when you get up, and immediately you have something to work towards, something to live for.
3. Stop thinking about what it is you fear, replace it with a positive though – control your thinking.
4. Do more than you have to.
5. Give of yourself more, knowing that your returns will be in proportion to what you sow.
6. Don’t concern yourself with how you are going to achieve the goal, just where are you going. The answers will come to you of their own accord and at the right time.
Remember your card every day.
Act as though it was impossible to fail.
Control your thoughts.
Limitations are self imposed.
Have courage.
Use your imagination.
Become the person you *want* to become.
You have nothing to lose, but you have a whole life to win.
Have faith!
Friday, June 22, 2012
missing life
It's 9pm on a Friday night. I'm thinking about bed. There's some part of me that is very sad about this. When did I get so old?
Thursday, June 21, 2012
African Chicken
Sterling commented, "African Chicken? Sounds like something you should share the recipe for."
There is a story I have to share first.
Before I was born, there was a young political refugee from South Africa. Upon seeing my Opa, this young man opened his arms and embraced Opa, announcing, "My American father! I greet you!" Opa brought the young man home, and that is how Molapatene Collins Ramusi became part of the family. I knew him as Uncle Mafa.
African chicken is a meal that he made for my family. I have vivid memories of how wonderful dinner was, and my mother's cry of despair when she saw the aftermath in the kitchen.
Although he was allowed to return to South Africa in 1984, when his wife was killed, Uncle Mafa returned to Chicago briefly...I don't remember when, but it was for a wedding, done with the traditional tribal flare. My Da and I were among the few white-skinned people who attended. It was the last time I ever saw him. I do not know if he lived to see Nelson Mandela released from prison, but I hope so!
The exact recipe for the meal made in my childhood home is long-gone. It is also peanut based, so I have had to experiment with alternatives. This approximation is close enough to bring back memories of a magnificent man.
African Chicken
Ingredients
Directions
Put peppers, onion, and chicken into a skillet. Stir-fry until chicken is cooked through, and the vegetables are wilting. Remove from heat.
In a stew pot, combine the tomato paste, nut butter, broth, and spices over a low heat. Stir in the chicken and peppers and simmer for 20-30 minutes or longer...like chili, it is more flavorful the longer it sits. Just be careful not to burn it!
(Alternatively, throw everything UNCOOKED in a crock pot and cook for 4 hours on high or 8-10 on high.)
Serve over rice, with a variety of toppings.
Topping suggestions
flaked coconut, peanuts (almonds, sunflower seeds, etc), raisins, dried cranberries, banana slices, crushed pineapple, chutney, chopped hard-boiled eggs, chopped eggplant, apple pieces tomatoes, shredded carrots, chopped eggplant
There is a story I have to share first.
Before I was born, there was a young political refugee from South Africa. Upon seeing my Opa, this young man opened his arms and embraced Opa, announcing, "My American father! I greet you!" Opa brought the young man home, and that is how Molapatene Collins Ramusi became part of the family. I knew him as Uncle Mafa.
African chicken is a meal that he made for my family. I have vivid memories of how wonderful dinner was, and my mother's cry of despair when she saw the aftermath in the kitchen.Although he was allowed to return to South Africa in 1984, when his wife was killed, Uncle Mafa returned to Chicago briefly...I don't remember when, but it was for a wedding, done with the traditional tribal flare. My Da and I were among the few white-skinned people who attended. It was the last time I ever saw him. I do not know if he lived to see Nelson Mandela released from prison, but I hope so!
The exact recipe for the meal made in my childhood home is long-gone. It is also peanut based, so I have had to experiment with alternatives. This approximation is close enough to bring back memories of a magnificent man.
African Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 green peppers, cut into rings
- 1 onion, cut into rings
- 4-6 chicken breasts, cut into cubes
- 6-oz tomato paste
- 3/4 cup "nut" butter (I use almond or sunbutter, traditionally, it is peanut butter)
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Directions
Put peppers, onion, and chicken into a skillet. Stir-fry until chicken is cooked through, and the vegetables are wilting. Remove from heat.
In a stew pot, combine the tomato paste, nut butter, broth, and spices over a low heat. Stir in the chicken and peppers and simmer for 20-30 minutes or longer...like chili, it is more flavorful the longer it sits. Just be careful not to burn it!
(Alternatively, throw everything UNCOOKED in a crock pot and cook for 4 hours on high or 8-10 on high.)
Serve over rice, with a variety of toppings.
Topping suggestions
flaked coconut, peanuts (almonds, sunflower seeds, etc), raisins, dried cranberries, banana slices, crushed pineapple, chutney, chopped hard-boiled eggs, chopped eggplant, apple pieces tomatoes, shredded carrots, chopped eggplant
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
a lesson to embrace
An anonymous writer challenged me in my last post..."Maybe the reason he didn't fight your wish to leave is because he wishes you would."
Perhaps this person is just a stranger who is embittered by a personal situation and didn't read or understand what really happened in the exchange I shared. Perhaps this person is less anonymous and is using my blog to fire poisoned arrows towards my heart just as I am swinging back to a more positive side.
I have a choice, though.
I can let the poison sit in my blood, boil in the back of my brain, and ruin my day.
I can take a deep breath and let it go.
*wry smile* My knee-jerk reaction was to rise up and challenge the person. Then I went looking for IP address loggers to add to my blog, to protect myself. In both cases, I allow this individual to dictate my actions.
Blogging about it is not much better, but maybe it is. The comment was mean and hurtful, and it stung. It does not change anything, though.
*blinks* Sometimes...wow. Sometimes writing here surprises me. Did you see it? The little spark of magic right just four sentences back? THAT is the lesson for the day! The comment, the other person...they are OUTSIDE of me. It does not matter what they think. What matters is what *I* think.
This is an internal locus of control,, for those of my fellow nerds and geeksters. *chuckles* I'm not precisely a Fount of Useless Knowledge...I use Google for that...but I love school-stuff, and I have a pretty good memory for bits and pieces.
I think this is the beginning, and what I will take to counseling this week. I need to develop a strong internal locus. I need to remember that I am a creature of light. I need to own my own feelings and my own actions.
*nods* Those are good things to work on.
Today, I am also going to work on laundry, and I'll do an initial pick-up in the basement while I'm down there. There is a Jim Gill concert that Girl and I are going to this afternoon. I am making African chicken for supper. I am going to begin prep for our Solstice celebration tomorrow. I am going to feel good about today.
Perhaps this person is just a stranger who is embittered by a personal situation and didn't read or understand what really happened in the exchange I shared. Perhaps this person is less anonymous and is using my blog to fire poisoned arrows towards my heart just as I am swinging back to a more positive side.
I have a choice, though.
I can let the poison sit in my blood, boil in the back of my brain, and ruin my day.
I can take a deep breath and let it go.
*wry smile* My knee-jerk reaction was to rise up and challenge the person. Then I went looking for IP address loggers to add to my blog, to protect myself. In both cases, I allow this individual to dictate my actions.
Blogging about it is not much better, but maybe it is. The comment was mean and hurtful, and it stung. It does not change anything, though.
*blinks* Sometimes...wow. Sometimes writing here surprises me. Did you see it? The little spark of magic right just four sentences back? THAT is the lesson for the day! The comment, the other person...they are OUTSIDE of me. It does not matter what they think. What matters is what *I* think.
This is an internal locus of control,, for those of my fellow nerds and geeksters. *chuckles* I'm not precisely a Fount of Useless Knowledge...I use Google for that...but I love school-stuff, and I have a pretty good memory for bits and pieces.
I think this is the beginning, and what I will take to counseling this week. I need to develop a strong internal locus. I need to remember that I am a creature of light. I need to own my own feelings and my own actions.
*nods* Those are good things to work on.
Today, I am also going to work on laundry, and I'll do an initial pick-up in the basement while I'm down there. There is a Jim Gill concert that Girl and I are going to this afternoon. I am making African chicken for supper. I am going to begin prep for our Solstice celebration tomorrow. I am going to feel good about today.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
cleaning...
Yesterday, Beloved looked at me for a long moment and smiled. I haven't seen you look this close to content in a long time.
A bit of a change from the last post, and all part of the roller coaster ride I've been on for a while. So what changed this time?
Friday afternoon, I made a very hard phone call, wrote a very hard letter, and ended a relationship that had become increasingly impossible for me to maintain. I'm so sorry...it was killing me and I had to let go. If you have lost someone you loved very much but knew it was time to let them go, you might know where I am. The restorative grief mixed with a guilty sense of relief.
Friday night, I chatted for a while with Futhark. Life experiences, while usually painful, tend to mature us and I appreciated his frank point of view. *wry smile* Sometimes it is hard to hear the outsider's view of "truth", but he didn't have anything to add that surprised me. Generally speaking, I've gotten to be a cold and nasty piece of work, and it is going to take some effort to undo bad habits. Let go of those little hateful thoughts, as Beloved put it.
Saturday afternoon, I took advantage of naptime to come clean about my insistent thoughts of leaving. Since we managed to pay off all of the credit cards, the only mutually held debt is the house. We each have a small monetary nest egg from our grandparents, and nursed carefully, I could probably land a work-study program at a college and reboot my life. I would not challenge his primary custodian of the kids. He would have Sunshine's support with the kids, and perhaps even a teacher-break by sending the kids to her school. Real and solid considerations.
He didn't challenge it. He talked about how hard it's been the last week since Tryst, his concern that I fall into the "no matter where you go, there you are" syndrome. He said that he would support whatever I *needed* to do, and encouraged me to work through some of this with my counselor to determine if it was a *need*.
He didn't downplay my feelings, didn't tell me I was being silly, didn't guilt-trip me about how hard it would be without me. He listened and he validated me. THAT did more for my soul than I can possibly express.
Sunday morning, we...Beloved, Boy, Girl, and I...we cleaned house. (In the midst of all this crap, our roommate bought her very own condo and has moved out to start her doctorate program. Bully to her!) The carpets were cleaned last week, we have a quote for filling the cistern in the basement, and now the whole house has been scrubbed down. There's still a mess of crap on the pool table...a hurry-up-and-wait with the basement and moving furniture down there...but it's CLEAN. We had finished up and were eating lunch when Beloved commented on my state of almost-content.
Today, I got some long-overdue garden work done. The lupines and alliums had dried and I harvested the seeds (If you are interested, I have TONS to share!). I wasn't so sure yesterday, but today, yes, I am feeling content.
Enough so that although there was an initial clutchly-clinging "don't go!" when Beloved left to spend the night with Sunshine, I am actually relieved that I had the time to do my own thing. I got the kids to bed and then finished up some pruning work and sat on the steps, enjoying the cooler evening air. Then I got some much needed work done on my own room...enough that the mess is contained and not spilling over everywhere. Then I took a long shower and scrubbed and shaved.
I haven't felt this CLEAN in the longest time.
A bit of a change from the last post, and all part of the roller coaster ride I've been on for a while. So what changed this time?
Friday afternoon, I made a very hard phone call, wrote a very hard letter, and ended a relationship that had become increasingly impossible for me to maintain. I'm so sorry...it was killing me and I had to let go. If you have lost someone you loved very much but knew it was time to let them go, you might know where I am. The restorative grief mixed with a guilty sense of relief.
Friday night, I chatted for a while with Futhark. Life experiences, while usually painful, tend to mature us and I appreciated his frank point of view. *wry smile* Sometimes it is hard to hear the outsider's view of "truth", but he didn't have anything to add that surprised me. Generally speaking, I've gotten to be a cold and nasty piece of work, and it is going to take some effort to undo bad habits. Let go of those little hateful thoughts, as Beloved put it.
Saturday afternoon, I took advantage of naptime to come clean about my insistent thoughts of leaving. Since we managed to pay off all of the credit cards, the only mutually held debt is the house. We each have a small monetary nest egg from our grandparents, and nursed carefully, I could probably land a work-study program at a college and reboot my life. I would not challenge his primary custodian of the kids. He would have Sunshine's support with the kids, and perhaps even a teacher-break by sending the kids to her school. Real and solid considerations.
He didn't challenge it. He talked about how hard it's been the last week since Tryst, his concern that I fall into the "no matter where you go, there you are" syndrome. He said that he would support whatever I *needed* to do, and encouraged me to work through some of this with my counselor to determine if it was a *need*.
He didn't downplay my feelings, didn't tell me I was being silly, didn't guilt-trip me about how hard it would be without me. He listened and he validated me. THAT did more for my soul than I can possibly express.
Sunday morning, we...Beloved, Boy, Girl, and I...we cleaned house. (In the midst of all this crap, our roommate bought her very own condo and has moved out to start her doctorate program. Bully to her!) The carpets were cleaned last week, we have a quote for filling the cistern in the basement, and now the whole house has been scrubbed down. There's still a mess of crap on the pool table...a hurry-up-and-wait with the basement and moving furniture down there...but it's CLEAN. We had finished up and were eating lunch when Beloved commented on my state of almost-content.
Today, I got some long-overdue garden work done. The lupines and alliums had dried and I harvested the seeds (If you are interested, I have TONS to share!). I wasn't so sure yesterday, but today, yes, I am feeling content.
Enough so that although there was an initial clutchly-clinging "don't go!" when Beloved left to spend the night with Sunshine, I am actually relieved that I had the time to do my own thing. I got the kids to bed and then finished up some pruning work and sat on the steps, enjoying the cooler evening air. Then I got some much needed work done on my own room...enough that the mess is contained and not spilling over everywhere. Then I took a long shower and scrubbed and shaved.
I haven't felt this CLEAN in the longest time.
Friday, June 15, 2012
bruised and battered
While not perfect, it had been a pretty reasonable week. Mostly quiet...carefully hiding my wounds, dutifully avoiding triggers, diligently seeking professional help. heh.
There is a certain amount of irony that must be appreciated here. I have an emotional crisis and finally hit the point that I should probably try in-patient help only to come home and find a letter from the insurance company that they are changing services to a provide I can not and will never again trust. *sigh* We're working on the bureaucracy. In the mean time, I might end up paying $200/visit out of pocket.
damn it.
But four days, and I thought maybe I was managing. Maybe I was putting the pieces back together enough...
It was not intentional, but Beloved drew me out, offered a new version of a trigger, and I collapsed in tears and loathing.
Tonight, he is out with people he met at Tryst. People he met with Sunshine at Tryst. Because of the emotional chaos I created, I wasn't mentioned. They know Saul and Sunshine as a couple, and they invited Saul and Sunshine as a couple. Although he offered the differentiation from D&d's "advanced poly" class...that there is a unique dynamic between us...I can't help but feel sponged out...replaced.
If I had asked, he would have stayed home. *sad smile* I don't want to be one of those people who expect YOU to be miserable just because I am. Still...ouch.
There is a certain amount of irony that must be appreciated here. I have an emotional crisis and finally hit the point that I should probably try in-patient help only to come home and find a letter from the insurance company that they are changing services to a provide I can not and will never again trust. *sigh* We're working on the bureaucracy. In the mean time, I might end up paying $200/visit out of pocket.
damn it.
But four days, and I thought maybe I was managing. Maybe I was putting the pieces back together enough...
It was not intentional, but Beloved drew me out, offered a new version of a trigger, and I collapsed in tears and loathing.
Tonight, he is out with people he met at Tryst. People he met with Sunshine at Tryst. Because of the emotional chaos I created, I wasn't mentioned. They know Saul and Sunshine as a couple, and they invited Saul and Sunshine as a couple. Although he offered the differentiation from D&d's "advanced poly" class...that there is a unique dynamic between us...I can't help but feel sponged out...replaced.
If I had asked, he would have stayed home. *sad smile* I don't want to be one of those people who expect YOU to be miserable just because I am. Still...ouch.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Well, that was a disater...
The good news is it did not rain while I was in the woods. I had good fortune in where my tent got placed, in actual woods and on the outskirts of the main camp. The tree that was directly overhead was a mature redbud, and I spent hours memorized by the canopy. There were some very pretty garden patches that I got to wander through, and I was delighted to recognize most of the plants...disappointed I didn't get a chance to ask about the ones I didn't know. The ponds had tiny little frogs that got brave if you sat quietly long enough.
But given that this was Tryst...well, the bad news is I spent the majority of the time in solitude observing the natural gems and trying very, very hard to keep a handle on the internal panic and emotional craze. I haven't been exactly stable for a while now, and for me, Twisted Tryst was about as nightmare-ish as it could get without it being intentional. Within 24 hours of arrival, I had a fairly complete emotional collapse. In the following seventy-two hours, I tore off Beloved's key, made a wreck of the remaining shreds between Rain and myself, disappointed and cut off Sir, and blew off Malifeo and SpiritualPennies.
I am a mess and it is serious enough that I am looking into the mental health facility in the morning. I am not sure how that will go, but if I am committed, it might be a couple of weeks before I see my computer again. I don't know what else I can say. For now, I am putting pixie to sleep and seeking out help with the wreckage of my life. *sigh* It's not the end...but I almost wish it was just plain over.
But given that this was Tryst...well, the bad news is I spent the majority of the time in solitude observing the natural gems and trying very, very hard to keep a handle on the internal panic and emotional craze. I haven't been exactly stable for a while now, and for me, Twisted Tryst was about as nightmare-ish as it could get without it being intentional. Within 24 hours of arrival, I had a fairly complete emotional collapse. In the following seventy-two hours, I tore off Beloved's key, made a wreck of the remaining shreds between Rain and myself, disappointed and cut off Sir, and blew off Malifeo and SpiritualPennies.
I am a mess and it is serious enough that I am looking into the mental health facility in the morning. I am not sure how that will go, but if I am committed, it might be a couple of weeks before I see my computer again. I don't know what else I can say. For now, I am putting pixie to sleep and seeking out help with the wreckage of my life. *sigh* It's not the end...but I almost wish it was just plain over.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
So long, farwell...
auf Wiedersehen, good night...
I'm heading out to Twisted Tryst in a few hours. I'm horribly nervous and am not sure I'm as prepared as I'd like to be.
Highlights I am looking forward to:
I'm not quite sure what will come about when AprilBlue and I cross paths. *shrug* I don't know how much worse she can to without revealing herself. My heart hurts thinking about it. I also have a book for DSG...one I went looking for last October. My thought is to just leave it at their camper with nothing else to mark my presence.
There is another book going into my bag for MonkeyFetish. One that he claims is out of print and doesn't have. I think THAT will be fun to have delivered!
Rain... I don't know. I don't know what to say or do. I feel horrible for the place that puts Beloved, but I am overly-conscious of how fragile each of us is right now and anything...everything...triggers spiraling emotions. Maybe something will be worked out this weekend. There's a good 10 hours of captive audience ahead.
When I come back to the Web, more things will have changed than not. I just have to have faith that they will be better than they are now. I hope you have a fantastic weekend!
I'm heading out to Twisted Tryst in a few hours. I'm horribly nervous and am not sure I'm as prepared as I'd like to be.
Highlights I am looking forward to:
- drumming around a huge bonfire
- seeing Sir for the first time since September
- breakfast with Dawn and Dan
- lunch with my squire and his Lady
- quiet time in the woods
- sleeping until I wake up
I'm not quite sure what will come about when AprilBlue and I cross paths. *shrug* I don't know how much worse she can to without revealing herself. My heart hurts thinking about it. I also have a book for DSG...one I went looking for last October. My thought is to just leave it at their camper with nothing else to mark my presence.
There is another book going into my bag for MonkeyFetish. One that he claims is out of print and doesn't have. I think THAT will be fun to have delivered!
Rain... I don't know. I don't know what to say or do. I feel horrible for the place that puts Beloved, but I am overly-conscious of how fragile each of us is right now and anything...everything...triggers spiraling emotions. Maybe something will be worked out this weekend. There's a good 10 hours of captive audience ahead.
When I come back to the Web, more things will have changed than not. I just have to have faith that they will be better than they are now. I hope you have a fantastic weekend!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Smoochy-caliber
Beloved asked me to "Let go of all those little hateful thoughts." *sigh* I like the sound of that, but they are about as addictive as the transfat and sugary bad eating habits. I'm not proud out it, but my first thoughts upon waking up this morning were about ruining people's day.
At first glance, it seems a catch-22: Either I shut up and roll over and be railroaded or I ruin someone's day. Neither option is positive for *me*. Add some bitterness to the recipe - I predicted AND kindly vocalized this exact situation, and yet here I am, facing the issue completely alone while the other vested parties are off playing. How can I *not* be resentful?
Beloved asked me how my reading of "What's Submission Got to Do With It?" Of course I haven't gotten any further in reading...I mean, really, look at the last two weeks of posts...when have I have time to read?!? Maybe that should have been a priority, though, because maybe I'd have a better answer for how to handle this situation.
This project is going to take the better part of the day on my own, and I asked for help. This project is going to yield benefits to me, but it is also going to poison the entire weekend if I end up doing it alone. If I wait and see if I am pleasantly surprised this evening, I risk heaping helpings of anxiety all day and explosive fights (again) tomorrow morning when it is not done.
Damn it, I am so angry about being ignored!!! It's one thing to be a service submissive and offer service; it is another thing entirely to feel used and stepped on and doormatted. At 5:30am, I am dragged out of bed with these feelings, gritting my teeth and crying alone in utter vexation.
H.A.L.T.
Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. Check, check, check, and check.
*wry smile* Death to Smoochy is a good movie. It is kind of awesome how slippery the slope is from pure heart to dangerously corrupted. I feel like the fuckin' rhino.
I would *like* to be peaceful, to look at this project and complete it out of love, to have it "fill my bucket." Simply ask again, politely and with a calm tone. *sadly* And what do Iif when I am put off again? Why can't they just read my mind?!?
At first glance, it seems a catch-22: Either I shut up and roll over and be railroaded or I ruin someone's day. Neither option is positive for *me*. Add some bitterness to the recipe - I predicted AND kindly vocalized this exact situation, and yet here I am, facing the issue completely alone while the other vested parties are off playing. How can I *not* be resentful?
Beloved asked me how my reading of "What's Submission Got to Do With It?" Of course I haven't gotten any further in reading...I mean, really, look at the last two weeks of posts...when have I have time to read?!? Maybe that should have been a priority, though, because maybe I'd have a better answer for how to handle this situation.
This project is going to take the better part of the day on my own, and I asked for help. This project is going to yield benefits to me, but it is also going to poison the entire weekend if I end up doing it alone. If I wait and see if I am pleasantly surprised this evening, I risk heaping helpings of anxiety all day and explosive fights (again) tomorrow morning when it is not done.
Damn it, I am so angry about being ignored!!! It's one thing to be a service submissive and offer service; it is another thing entirely to feel used and stepped on and doormatted. At 5:30am, I am dragged out of bed with these feelings, gritting my teeth and crying alone in utter vexation.
H.A.L.T.
Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. Check, check, check, and check.
Sheldon: "I'm gonna HALT here. I'm not sure if you're familiar with HALT It's a self recognition technique. Hungry Angry Lonely Tired, that's YOU Nora and I'm not gonna get sucked into your negative energy. If you need me I'll be in my office, It's the one with the view"
Nora: "They've all got views you dumb shit"
Sheldon: "NOT LOOKING THIS WAY CUPCAKE!"
*wry smile* Death to Smoochy is a good movie. It is kind of awesome how slippery the slope is from pure heart to dangerously corrupted. I feel like the fuckin' rhino.
I would *like* to be peaceful, to look at this project and complete it out of love, to have it "fill my bucket." Simply ask again, politely and with a calm tone. *sadly* And what do I
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Tsunamis
You know those weeks when there is palpable, anger-inciting tension between you and a family member? Or you have had a crushing misunderstanding with one of your friends? An incident that has had you mumbling obscenities under your breath or perhaps screaming at the top of your lungs?
As a result of some emotionally incendiary experience where you feel wronged, not valued, misunderstood, or crossed, you find yourself on one wild ride of emotions. Feelings spike to new highs, leaving you vibrating with anger, injustice and hurt at the maddening insensitivity, sheer stupidity, or blatant passivity. Suddenly you are careening down a roller coaster of painful feelings--swinging widely to the left, twisting up, crisscrossing to the right, up and down and zigzagging to a final, lurching stop. Just when you think it is safe, someone starts talking about it again and off you go, up, up and away in a fiery fury...
Sadly, there are multiple triggers, plural incidents. Some of them ancient history that haunt me in ghost-forms, patterns that I fall into without recognizing them, power struggles in places where there really isn't any conflict. The repeated abandonment and learned detachment puts me on a collision course with people who want to love me. Instead of feeling cared for, I am trapped by expectations that I care back in equal and expected ways.
Some of them are because I allowed myself to be railroaded. Instead of boundaries, I pretend I am flexible, tying my emotions into impossible knots and sandwiching myself between equally repulsive choices, neither of which results in a positive outcome and everyone ends up unhappy. I lack the emotional maturity to get off that high horse and to find common ground.
Some of them are fresh uncertainties as relationships around me shift and twist in sheer agony. Joyful events soiled by betrayal. Illusions give way to falsehoods and deceptions slice jagged lacerations into the soul. These do not necessarily have anything to do with *me*, but I feel the ache and am helpless to salve the hurts. Others are the direct result of my tough love stance, and while it is the truth, it isn't necessarily kind. I have been blind to the balance.
Some of them are internal miseries which I thrust out as excuses when they are really only compounding factors. Dythymia, hormones, insomnia, ghosts, repudiations. I have a circus of my very own issues that would perhaps fascinate a therapist if I weren't terrified of being restrained and locked away again. I might be able to commit myself in those shiny low spots, but mostly choose to roil in the imagined freedom of my own pain.
After building for weeks, the tsunami came crashing down last night...again. A three-way reflection became twisted in my ears. Grasping at spiteful and hateful retorts, I lashed out in front of everyone. Beloved and I rarely have screaming matches, but it descended to that base point. I am ashamed and embarrassed and at a lost for what reparations can be offered by any party. I have been round and round and round, and I am painfully spent. I am exhausted, drained, and totally depleted from the emotional highs and lows. All that is left is the crumbling, white-ashed embers of a fire gone dead.
As a result of some emotionally incendiary experience where you feel wronged, not valued, misunderstood, or crossed, you find yourself on one wild ride of emotions. Feelings spike to new highs, leaving you vibrating with anger, injustice and hurt at the maddening insensitivity, sheer stupidity, or blatant passivity. Suddenly you are careening down a roller coaster of painful feelings--swinging widely to the left, twisting up, crisscrossing to the right, up and down and zigzagging to a final, lurching stop. Just when you think it is safe, someone starts talking about it again and off you go, up, up and away in a fiery fury...
Sadly, there are multiple triggers, plural incidents. Some of them ancient history that haunt me in ghost-forms, patterns that I fall into without recognizing them, power struggles in places where there really isn't any conflict. The repeated abandonment and learned detachment puts me on a collision course with people who want to love me. Instead of feeling cared for, I am trapped by expectations that I care back in equal and expected ways.
Some of them are because I allowed myself to be railroaded. Instead of boundaries, I pretend I am flexible, tying my emotions into impossible knots and sandwiching myself between equally repulsive choices, neither of which results in a positive outcome and everyone ends up unhappy. I lack the emotional maturity to get off that high horse and to find common ground.
Some of them are fresh uncertainties as relationships around me shift and twist in sheer agony. Joyful events soiled by betrayal. Illusions give way to falsehoods and deceptions slice jagged lacerations into the soul. These do not necessarily have anything to do with *me*, but I feel the ache and am helpless to salve the hurts. Others are the direct result of my tough love stance, and while it is the truth, it isn't necessarily kind. I have been blind to the balance.
Some of them are internal miseries which I thrust out as excuses when they are really only compounding factors. Dythymia, hormones, insomnia, ghosts, repudiations. I have a circus of my very own issues that would perhaps fascinate a therapist if I weren't terrified of being restrained and locked away again. I might be able to commit myself in those shiny low spots, but mostly choose to roil in the imagined freedom of my own pain.
After building for weeks, the tsunami came crashing down last night...again. A three-way reflection became twisted in my ears. Grasping at spiteful and hateful retorts, I lashed out in front of everyone. Beloved and I rarely have screaming matches, but it descended to that base point. I am ashamed and embarrassed and at a lost for what reparations can be offered by any party. I have been round and round and round, and I am painfully spent. I am exhausted, drained, and totally depleted from the emotional highs and lows. All that is left is the crumbling, white-ashed embers of a fire gone dead.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Twists and turns of my thoughts
I don't know quite who or when we started using tribe to describe what we have, but it seems appropriate to the "feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together," as Marina put it. We gather to celebrate, to work, to play, and to mourn. Shado labeled it "my tribe." I rejected this, and so he offered his reasoning, that the center of the kinship that ties it all together is me...pixie. It felt like a kick in the gut.
As a once-upon-a-time-student of anthropology, I remember that tribe is one of four major types of political organization; from least to most socially complex they are bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states. I went looking up more today.
Even before I was an anthropology student, I read a book by Chinua Achebe entitled, Things Fall Apart. It is about the clash of cultures and the destruction of a tribal world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. The title of the book came from a W.B. Yeats poem:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That thirty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
~ W.B. Yeats, 1919
All of this post STARTED because while I don't have the poem memorized, there are four lines that have been stuck in my mind since high school and I find them dreadfully applicable to my mood today:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
There are deep and intensely personal pieces of the puzzle that I cannot share, but I definitely feel that things are falling apart. I am a part of it...at the center of it...and I feel completely helpless to DO anything. I'm afraid my tribe is about to shatter. What will be let loose if it does?
As a once-upon-a-time-student of anthropology, I remember that tribe is one of four major types of political organization; from least to most socially complex they are bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states. I went looking up more today.
A tribe is of the order of a large collection of bands, but it is not simply a collection of bands. The ties that bind a tribe are more complicated than those of bands. Leadership is personal-charismatic-and for special purposes only in tribal society; there are no political offices containing real power, and a "chief" is merely a man of influence, a sort of adviser. The means of tribal consolidation for collective action are therefore not governmental.
Technically, the tribe is a group of bands. The tribe is, of course, a larger society tied together by familiar bonds. Family structures known as lineages, clan, moieties, and phratries form the primary bonding mechanisms. The local groups that compose a traditional tribal society are communal and strongly social, with members linked by kinship ties.
Tribes have developed kin-based mechanisms to accommodate more sedentary life, to redistribute food, and to organize some communal services. Public opinion plays a major role in decision making.
Tribal people tend to think in certain ways. They tend to be egalitarian, think humans are part of nature itself, the world is composed of dualities that form a harmony, and life is designed to work for the good of the community - good of the whole. Tribal people also stress consensus in determing what is good for the whole. ~ Cultural Science Dept, Mesa Community College
Even before I was an anthropology student, I read a book by Chinua Achebe entitled, Things Fall Apart. It is about the clash of cultures and the destruction of a tribal world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. The title of the book came from a W.B. Yeats poem:
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That thirty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
~ W.B. Yeats, 1919
All of this post STARTED because while I don't have the poem memorized, there are four lines that have been stuck in my mind since high school and I find them dreadfully applicable to my mood today:
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
There are deep and intensely personal pieces of the puzzle that I cannot share, but I definitely feel that things are falling apart. I am a part of it...at the center of it...and I feel completely helpless to DO anything. I'm afraid my tribe is about to shatter. What will be let loose if it does?
Sunday, June 3, 2012
DOMA down!
On Thursday, May 31, 2012, the First Circuit Court ruled that the government's ban on gay marriage, called the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), violates the Constitution and should be struck down. It stopped short of arguing that gay people have a constitutionally protected right to legal marriage, saying that only the Supreme Court could navigate difficult and thorny precedents.
This is a HUGE win for LGBT rights, and DOMA encompasses about 1,000 federal laws tangentially related to marriage and affects 100,000 couples in this country.
The case maintains the rights of individual states to decide if gay couples can legal marry. Currently there are only six states that allow same-sex unions: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, plus Washington, D.C. and Oregon's Coquille and Washington state's Suquamish Indian tribes. Illinois is currently working on joining the list, with multiple suits being filed.
This is a HUGE win for LGBT rights, and DOMA encompasses about 1,000 federal laws tangentially related to marriage and affects 100,000 couples in this country.
"Many Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today," the First Circuit wrote. "One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest."
The case maintains the rights of individual states to decide if gay couples can legal marry. Currently there are only six states that allow same-sex unions: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, plus Washington, D.C. and Oregon's Coquille and Washington state's Suquamish Indian tribes. Illinois is currently working on joining the list, with multiple suits being filed.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
The Opposite of Loneliness
I had already written yesterday's post when I read the piece below. It was written by Marina Keegan, a member of Yale's 2012 class, and was distributed at the commencement exercises last week. I was moved by the piece, and have highlighted the bits that truly connected in my heart. The most poignant statement of the article is that Marina died in a car accident, just days after publishing this article. She was 22. We have all the time in the world...but make the most of every moment.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.
It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves...” “if I’d...” “wish I’d...”
Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.
We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.
For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that…
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.
We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.
It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves...” “if I’d...” “wish I’d...”
Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.
We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.
For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that…
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.
We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.
Friday, June 1, 2012
The Risk of Living
that there are very few who have
the enlightenment or courage to pay the price...
One has to abandon altogether
the search for security
and reach out to the risk of living with both arms.
One has to accept pain as a condition of existence.
One has to court doubt and darkness
as the cost of knowing.
One needs a will stubborn in conflict,
but opt always to total acceptance
of every consequence of living and dying.
-Morris West
Entering my thirty-sixth year, I find myself hoping that THIS year...*smiles* It's been rough, there is no denying that. Sometimes I long for security, or I cling to the little bit that I have. Sometimes I am surprised by the consequences. Sometimes I think I will drown in doubt.
My father likes to tell about a time when I was sixteen years old. I had earned an invitation to spend two weeks in China. A trip that involved 17 other kids, and not one of them a buddy I hung out, with to a country on the other side of the planet, where I didn't know the language, where I would be a complete foreigner. I was so very excited by the adventure! However, part of the paperwork required a vaccine update. I don't remember which one it was, but DAMN if I waffled because of that one needle. I *hate* needles. I *hate* medical procedures in general. It was awful, being a teen and sitting in my baby sister's pediatric office where everything was three sizes too small. The doctor used a tiny little butterfly-wing needle and managed to get through the injection without my kicking or decking her. When it was over, my dad asked if skipping the shot was really worth giving up China, but the truth is I very nearly gave up a life experience for the scrap of pain avoidance. Embarrassment still shows in my wry smile when I think about it.
Two decades later, how often do I do that very thing...pass up the opportunity to LIVE? More often than I care to admit. "I feel like it took me a long time to recognize it is possible to merge something that something that you love with something that's important to you," says Mary Chapin Carpenter. I think it is possible, but I'm not quite sure how to DO IT yet. I am afraid to limit myself to loving one thing. I'm still clinging to familiar security or imagined safety. For me, being a stay-at-home mom is about as much fun as Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday afternoon; it is noisy, chaotic, messy. Yet, I hesitate and even balk when Beloved suggests I take real steps...that I stop daydreaming and begin LIVING again. At least my present is known. Limited.
The thing that catches me about Mister West's thought is the bit about "total acceptance." It makes an interesting addition to my thoughts about submission. We have free will to make our own way. We choose a path...deliberately or by default... and then we must face the consequences of the choice until the next one comes along. How many times a day do we have a choice to smile at a stranger...not a wan shy thing, but the real McCoy? That small gesture is one many people lack the courage to do. What amazing people will we miss out on meeting today because it is too risky to be friendly? Really? How sad.
Living IS a risk. No matter how small and quiet your life, some day you are going to die. If you take the risk of living, there are worse things than death that await you. There are no guarantees that anything you do will be rewarded...or punished. We all face the same option, now, today. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. It's a long enough life to be living...why walk when you can fly?
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