I used to be a big believer in the importance of knowing THE TRUTH. It always seemed very important to me to know the truth about things, particularly other people's feelings and opinions about me. Because I am super self-absorbed, apparently. I wanted to know things like, Do my friends secretly think my haircut is stupid? Does my boyfriend really think I'm the prettiest girl in the world? Does my mom think I'm obnoxious? I felt very strongly that I would rather know THE TRUTH and be miserable, than be misled and deluded and happy. (I also felt that most constantly happy people were probably happy because they were too stupid to know better.) Unfortunately, my strongly-held convictions were based on two faulty assumptions:
1) That people have absolute feelings and opinions that are unchanging and completely knowable.
2) That my happiness should in some way be dependent on the feelings and opinions of others.
I don't really believe those things anymore, for a lot of reasons. One big reason for my change in philosophy was the end of a 4-year-long, mostly disastrous relationship. A lot of my happiness at the time depended on what my boyfriend thought of me, and when the relationship imploded for the final time, all I wanted was validation. I was basically OK with the fact that the relationship was over, but it had ended badly enough that I wasn't sure if he had ever actually loved me. I felt that I needed to know whether he had or not; it felt like everything hinged on that fact. If he had never loved me, then the last 4 years of my life had been a waste and I should be appropriately miserable and ashamed. If he had loved me at some point, then that made everything OK. Until I knew THE TRUTH, I couldn't let it go.
Unfortunately, there were some serious obstacles between me and THE TRUTH. For one, I had vowed (in a quite dramatic fashion, as is my way) never to speak to my ex-boyfriend again. For another, even if I broke my promise and asked him directly, there was no guarantee that he would answer the question honestly. During our relationship he had lied to me about a wide variety of things, and would change his mind often and abruptly. He could also be pretty manipulative. So it was possible that even if he never loved me, he would lie and say he did in an attempt to earn my forgiveness. Or if he had loved me, he might lie and say he didn't in an attempt to hurt me. And I'd never know for sure if he was telling me the truth.
This puzzle drove me crazy for quite awhile. Finally, after a lot of obsessing, I was forced to accept a simple fact:
There is no objective way for me to know, without a doubt, the true thoughts, feelings, and opinions of another person. There is no knowable TRUTH when it comes to someone else's inner life.
Once I accepted that fact, I was immediately faced with another problem. If my happiness depended upon knowing THE TRUTH about my last relationship, and there was no way for me to know THE TRUTH, then how was I supposed to know how to feel? Briefly, I considered the possibility of floating through the rest of my life in an emotional limbo. If anyone asked me how I was doing, I'd say, "Well, I'm either completely worthless or I'm doing alright - the answer is locked in my ex-boyfriend's head." I ultimately rejected that idea as being potentially off-putting to future acquaintances. Then I considered just assuming the worst (that he'd never loved me), in accordance with Neurotics' Rule #547, and just feeling shitty about myself for the rest of my life. I had to reject that possibility as well, because it seemed like it would require a lot of energy, and was probably unsustainable. Finally, I settled on a solution that had quite possibly never occurred to me before.
I could just say fuck it and be happy anyway.
My self-esteem, self-image, happiness, all that, didn't have to depend on other people! I didn't have to have all the facts, all the time! I could choose to be happy just because! I was on the verge of alerting the news media about my discovery when I realized that this was probably what the constantly happy people had realized ages ago. I'll be honest, for a moment I contemplated punching all those people in the face. "Let's see you choose to be happy after I give you a black eye, sucka!" In the end, though, I decided to put my new knowledge to use and just get over it.
So now instead of constantly searching for the THE TRUTH upon which to base my happiness, I live by these two rules instead:
1) Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to.
2) Don't let your happiness depend on anyone else; they're all liars anyway.
Also, rainbows and puppy dogs or whatever.
Showing posts with label relationship bliss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationship bliss. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Things I Hope Not to Do If/When I'm Married
Here lately I've been paying a lot of attention to all the couples around me. I've also probably been reading a little too much of this website. And, as luck would have it, I'm currently channel-surfing and I seem to have stumbled upon the season premiere of Bridezillas. In response to all this input, I've been putting together a mental list of things I hope I never do when I'm married (or really, in the context of any relationship). Here's what we've got so far:
Things I Hope Never to Do
1) Refer to my spouse as "hubs," "hubby," "hubster," or any variation thereof
2) Refer to myself as "wifey"
3) Write weird blog posts/facebook statuses/text messages/whatever listing all of the housework and cooking I've done that day and what an awesome wife that makes me
4) Have a joint facebook account with my significant other
5) Refer to my significant other by a cutesy pet name in public (in private, however, I'll call Widdle Pookie Honey Lovebuns whatever I like)
6) Call my significant other and harass him a million times a day
7) Forget the importance of occasionally leaving my significant other at home while I socialize on my own
8) (And I hope I don't forget that he'll probably want to do the same sometimes)
Of course, this is all just about my personal preferences. If you do any of those things, I still love you anyway. And if you'd like to submit your own list of things you'll never do, feel free!
Things I Hope Never to Do
1) Refer to my spouse as "hubs," "hubby," "hubster," or any variation thereof
2) Refer to myself as "wifey"
3) Write weird blog posts/facebook statuses/text messages/whatever listing all of the housework and cooking I've done that day and what an awesome wife that makes me
4) Have a joint facebook account with my significant other
5) Refer to my significant other by a cutesy pet name in public (in private, however, I'll call Widdle Pookie Honey Lovebuns whatever I like)
6) Call my significant other and harass him a million times a day
7) Forget the importance of occasionally leaving my significant other at home while I socialize on my own
8) (And I hope I don't forget that he'll probably want to do the same sometimes)
Of course, this is all just about my personal preferences. If you do any of those things, I still love you anyway. And if you'd like to submit your own list of things you'll never do, feel free!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Why I'm The Best Girlfriend Ever (Part 2)
Hello, and thanks for returning for the thrilling conclusion of our tale of romance and heroism!
When we left off, it was Tuesday evening, Lee and I were assembling a car-top carrier, and I was slowly becoming convinced that we were never actually going to leave North Carolina. I even began to entertain the idea that, perhaps, I was trapped in some sort of Groundhog Day scenario.
Once we finished constructing the luggage carrier and had it mounted to the top of Lee's car, we were finally able to start packing boxes into the backseat and trunk. As we carried the first few boxes to the car at 10pm on Tuesday night, I reflected on the heady days of my youth, when with pink cheeks and sparkling eyes I had believed with all my heart that we would be leaving early Tuesday morning. At this point I was merely a shadow of my former self, and I knew that this never-ending bullshittery had irrevocably aged me.
At some point Lee noticed that my spirit had dimmed. Maybe it was because I went nearly an hour without speaking, trudging wordlessly up and down the hall, in and out of the elevator, watching silently while Lee unloaded cart after cart of boxes. Around 2:30 in the morning he suggested that I go home and get some sleep while he finished up the packing, so that at least one of us would be well-rested when we hit the road early that morning. I grudgingly agreed to let him work on into the night while I slept peacefully in my pillowy soft queen-sized bed. I vaguely remember being awakened at about 4:30 in the morning to let Lee into my apartment so he could sleep, too. But after that, I happily snuggled back down into the covers, whisked away by blissful dreams of hitting the open road at last.
Wednesday morning.
If I remember correctly, the first thing Lee said to me was, "You're gonna be so mad when you see the apartment." Apparently, he had packed all he could into the car and there were still boxes left. Like, 10 of them. That morning we stood in his apartment and gaped with despair at the remaining boxes. I was pretty sure Lee was going to cry. I, on the other hand, had long ago transcended human emotions and calmly accepted the fact that I had obviously done something terrible for which I was being severely punished. We made some half-hearted stabs at problem-solving as we felt our planned departure time slipping painfully out of our grasp. There was nothing else to do, nowhere else to put the rest of the boxes.
Defeated, Lee called his mom and brother and asked them to drive out and take the last of the boxes to be stored at their house. Earlier that morning, before I had realized how truly screwed we were, I had demanded that we forgo breakfast until we were on the road. Now, with nothing do but wait for backup, we decided to go to Bob Evans and eat our pain.
There we sat, haggard and unwashed and out of place amongst the other diners, who all lived happy, carefree lives where all their things were unboxed and they weren't endlessly preparing for cross-country moves that never actually happened. It was at that point that I think Lee and I both realized that the experience had reached a critical level of awful which transcended time and space. Neither of us could remember a time when we hadn't been side by side, cleaning and packing and carrying boxes. The fact that we hadn't yet died or killed each other meant that we were bonded for life, like every pair of romantic interests in every disaster movie ever. The only appropriate response to surviving a trauma like that together is to make sweet, grimy love. But we were tired, and in a restaurant, so instead we ate pancakes and eggs.
When the cavalry finally arrived, Lee took his mom upstairs "to look around" and she didn't come back down for three hours. It was my job to guard the van while Lee and his brother carried down boxes. Every once in awhile I received a report that the apartment was almost empty, or that Lee's mom was dusting the baseboards. After half an hour, I got wise and called my mom to entertain me while I waited.
Around 4pm, the apartment was empty, the cars were full, and the keys were turned in. Three days before I might have felt a little sentimental about the end of an era, but at this point it took all the self-restraint I could muster not to set the whole building on fire and ride away on a motorcycle. Lee was determined to start heading toward Texas that night, but since I had moved onto the acceptance phase of the grieving process I was able to convince him that maybe staying at his parents' house and then getting up and driving in the morning (after showers!) would be a more pleasant option. So we drove to Charlotte, ate the last North Carolina barbecue Lee will have for awhile, and passed the hell out.
Thursday morning.
The sun bloomed majestically in the east and pointed its golden fronds toward our destination. After some coffee (and a few photo ops for Lee's mom), we set out like the Joads, Clampetts, and Bundrens before us, on a journey to far-distant lands that no one ever wanted to go to in the first place. We drove for 14 hours on Thursday, slept in Baton Rouge, and drove another 6 hours on Friday. I was in Texas long enough to enjoy an impressive rain storm and a few delicious meals cooked by Lee's talented aunt before I flew out early Sunday morning.
So, to summarize...
My plan: Pack Monday. Leave early Tuesday, drive all day Tuesday and Wednesday, spend three days together in Texas, fly home Sunday.
Vs.
Reality: Pack Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Leave Wednesday evening and drive 2 hours to Charlotte. Leave early Thursday, drive all day Thursday and Friday. Spend a day and a half together in Texas, fly home Sunday.
If I ever agree to help anyone move ever again, I better be getting a technicolor triceratops with wings at the end of it.
Seriously, though? The whole process was about as painless and enjoyable as it could have been, given the circumstances, and I wouldn't have wanted to go through it for anyone else's sake. And even though I miss him terribly, I'm so proud of and excited for that kid.
When we left off, it was Tuesday evening, Lee and I were assembling a car-top carrier, and I was slowly becoming convinced that we were never actually going to leave North Carolina. I even began to entertain the idea that, perhaps, I was trapped in some sort of Groundhog Day scenario.
Once we finished constructing the luggage carrier and had it mounted to the top of Lee's car, we were finally able to start packing boxes into the backseat and trunk. As we carried the first few boxes to the car at 10pm on Tuesday night, I reflected on the heady days of my youth, when with pink cheeks and sparkling eyes I had believed with all my heart that we would be leaving early Tuesday morning. At this point I was merely a shadow of my former self, and I knew that this never-ending bullshittery had irrevocably aged me.
At some point Lee noticed that my spirit had dimmed. Maybe it was because I went nearly an hour without speaking, trudging wordlessly up and down the hall, in and out of the elevator, watching silently while Lee unloaded cart after cart of boxes. Around 2:30 in the morning he suggested that I go home and get some sleep while he finished up the packing, so that at least one of us would be well-rested when we hit the road early that morning. I grudgingly agreed to let him work on into the night while I slept peacefully in my pillowy soft queen-sized bed. I vaguely remember being awakened at about 4:30 in the morning to let Lee into my apartment so he could sleep, too. But after that, I happily snuggled back down into the covers, whisked away by blissful dreams of hitting the open road at last.
Wednesday morning.
If I remember correctly, the first thing Lee said to me was, "You're gonna be so mad when you see the apartment." Apparently, he had packed all he could into the car and there were still boxes left. Like, 10 of them. That morning we stood in his apartment and gaped with despair at the remaining boxes. I was pretty sure Lee was going to cry. I, on the other hand, had long ago transcended human emotions and calmly accepted the fact that I had obviously done something terrible for which I was being severely punished. We made some half-hearted stabs at problem-solving as we felt our planned departure time slipping painfully out of our grasp. There was nothing else to do, nowhere else to put the rest of the boxes.
Defeated, Lee called his mom and brother and asked them to drive out and take the last of the boxes to be stored at their house. Earlier that morning, before I had realized how truly screwed we were, I had demanded that we forgo breakfast until we were on the road. Now, with nothing do but wait for backup, we decided to go to Bob Evans and eat our pain.
There we sat, haggard and unwashed and out of place amongst the other diners, who all lived happy, carefree lives where all their things were unboxed and they weren't endlessly preparing for cross-country moves that never actually happened. It was at that point that I think Lee and I both realized that the experience had reached a critical level of awful which transcended time and space. Neither of us could remember a time when we hadn't been side by side, cleaning and packing and carrying boxes. The fact that we hadn't yet died or killed each other meant that we were bonded for life, like every pair of romantic interests in every disaster movie ever. The only appropriate response to surviving a trauma like that together is to make sweet, grimy love. But we were tired, and in a restaurant, so instead we ate pancakes and eggs.
When the cavalry finally arrived, Lee took his mom upstairs "to look around" and she didn't come back down for three hours. It was my job to guard the van while Lee and his brother carried down boxes. Every once in awhile I received a report that the apartment was almost empty, or that Lee's mom was dusting the baseboards. After half an hour, I got wise and called my mom to entertain me while I waited.
Around 4pm, the apartment was empty, the cars were full, and the keys were turned in. Three days before I might have felt a little sentimental about the end of an era, but at this point it took all the self-restraint I could muster not to set the whole building on fire and ride away on a motorcycle. Lee was determined to start heading toward Texas that night, but since I had moved onto the acceptance phase of the grieving process I was able to convince him that maybe staying at his parents' house and then getting up and driving in the morning (after showers!) would be a more pleasant option. So we drove to Charlotte, ate the last North Carolina barbecue Lee will have for awhile, and passed the hell out.
Thursday morning.
The sun bloomed majestically in the east and pointed its golden fronds toward our destination. After some coffee (and a few photo ops for Lee's mom), we set out like the Joads, Clampetts, and Bundrens before us, on a journey to far-distant lands that no one ever wanted to go to in the first place. We drove for 14 hours on Thursday, slept in Baton Rouge, and drove another 6 hours on Friday. I was in Texas long enough to enjoy an impressive rain storm and a few delicious meals cooked by Lee's talented aunt before I flew out early Sunday morning.
So, to summarize...
My plan: Pack Monday. Leave early Tuesday, drive all day Tuesday and Wednesday, spend three days together in Texas, fly home Sunday.
Vs.
Reality: Pack Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Leave Wednesday evening and drive 2 hours to Charlotte. Leave early Thursday, drive all day Thursday and Friday. Spend a day and a half together in Texas, fly home Sunday.
If I ever agree to help anyone move ever again, I better be getting a technicolor triceratops with wings at the end of it.
Seriously, though? The whole process was about as painless and enjoyable as it could have been, given the circumstances, and I wouldn't have wanted to go through it for anyone else's sake. And even though I miss him terribly, I'm so proud of and excited for that kid.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
I Eagerly Await My Award for Best Girlfriend Ever (Part 1)
Thanks to Lee, I have reached a point in my life where I can safely say that if you ever move across the country, I'm the kind of girl you want helping you out. Throughout the whole week-long process of packing up Lee's things and driving 1,000 miles to Texas, I exhibited a level of patience I was unaware I even possessed. (As long as you don't count the one time I lost it and threatened his life.) (Technically, I threaten his life pretty often, but I only meant it that time.)
Arguably, that level of patience wouldn't have been necessary in the first place if the Counselor had planned ahead a little better. But I can only assume that he loves me so much that he intentionally engineered things to go the way they did in order to prove to me that I'm capable of accomplishing far more than I ever dreamed possible. He's so generous that way.
Lee finished school with about a week to kill before he graduated. We were supposed to head to Texas after he graduated that Sunday. My thinking was that we'd everything ready ahead of time, pack it all in the car on Monday and then hit the road on Tuesday, giving us a few days to hang out in Texas before I had to fly back to North Carolina the following Sunday. Suspiciously, every time I suggested this timeline to Lee, he would say things like, "We'll see how things go."
When Moving Week (hereafter known as My Time In Purgatory) arrived, Lee had already sold most of his furniture, and his parents hung around on Monday to help us get rid of what was left. They took a lot of stuff to donate, and then we moved his old bed to my apartment so I could get rid of my over-10-year-old mattresses. That part was actually pretty fun, and involved me wrapped like a burrito inside the old mattress in the back of the van, holding the back hatch shut with one hand while hanging on for dear life with the other.
After his parents left, we packed and cleaned. And cleaned and packed. Around 10pm, we had the bathroom and kitchen emptied and clean, but there was still a huge pile of boxes and miscellany sitting in his living room, an aquarium to break down, a closet full of clothes, and a small bookcase with the books still in it. And we had laundry to do. Soooo... we headed back to my place where we did three loads of laundry while we both dozed a little on the couch. At the end of Day 1 of My Time In Purgatory, we went to bed at 2am.
On Tuesday we slept a little later than we intended, but I woke up with high hopes(!) that we could finish up the packing that day and then leave that evening, maybe stopping over near Charlotte to stay with his parents that night. "There is no way," I boldly declared, "that I am going to sleep tonight without putting at least a few miles behind us." Unfortunately, it took awhile before we could get started, because Lee had a few errands he had to run. Errands that couldn't have been taken care of prior to that day. Certainly not during the week before, when were both just sitting around doing nothing. Regardless of who we blame for the sitting around on Tuesday morning (although just to be clear, we blame Lee), I was in pretty good spirits, baking muffins for breakfast and downloading comedy albums* to listen to on the way to Texas.
It was already about 2pm by the time we got back to his apartment to finish up the packing. Lee started breaking down the aquarium while I worked on putting together his newly purchased car-top luggage carrier. I opened the instructions, which told me to first look at the instructions for the strap kit meant to hold the carrier on the top of the car. So I opened those instructions and read them intently, as only a doctoral student can. The more I read, though, the more the sinking feeling in my stomach grew. The strap instructions kept saying things like "Thread gray strap (a) through hole (b) and into mounting bracket." Why, I found myself wondering, wasn't there a helpful parts letter after 'mounting bracket'?? More importantly, why weren't there any mounting brackets? There sure as hell weren't any on Lee's car.
Lee came around the corner as I sat frowning angrily at the instructions. "What's wrong?" he asked. "I think we have a problem," I said, with extra frowning. Long story short, we spent the next hour and a half driving to Sears and back to get the mounting brackets. At this point it was about 5pm.
After all of that work to track down the parts necessary to hold it to the car roof, I assumed that assembly of the carrier itself would be simple. Something like:
1) Put your junk in the bottom half
2) Attach the top half to the bottom half (probably with duct tape)
3) Strap the thing to your car
In reality, there were fucking hinges and locking mechanisms to attach with screwdrivers and wrenches and shit, and at one point I had to close myself inside it and assemble by the light of Lee's old cell phone. It took almost 2 more hours to put the damn thing together, while the pile of Lee's possessions gathered dust.
This is getting kind of long, so I'm going to stop here and finish up later. Go have a snack, maybe work a few shifts at your job - we'll meet back here in a day or two.
*By the way, I highly recommend Patton Oswalt's Werewolves and Lollipops and Feelin' Kinda Patton. Lee and I laughed until we cried... although that might just have been road-trip-related delirium. I can't guarantee how they'll perform when you're well-rested and sitting still.
Arguably, that level of patience wouldn't have been necessary in the first place if the Counselor had planned ahead a little better. But I can only assume that he loves me so much that he intentionally engineered things to go the way they did in order to prove to me that I'm capable of accomplishing far more than I ever dreamed possible. He's so generous that way.
Lee finished school with about a week to kill before he graduated. We were supposed to head to Texas after he graduated that Sunday. My thinking was that we'd everything ready ahead of time, pack it all in the car on Monday and then hit the road on Tuesday, giving us a few days to hang out in Texas before I had to fly back to North Carolina the following Sunday. Suspiciously, every time I suggested this timeline to Lee, he would say things like, "We'll see how things go."
When Moving Week (hereafter known as My Time In Purgatory) arrived, Lee had already sold most of his furniture, and his parents hung around on Monday to help us get rid of what was left. They took a lot of stuff to donate, and then we moved his old bed to my apartment so I could get rid of my over-10-year-old mattresses. That part was actually pretty fun, and involved me wrapped like a burrito inside the old mattress in the back of the van, holding the back hatch shut with one hand while hanging on for dear life with the other.
After his parents left, we packed and cleaned. And cleaned and packed. Around 10pm, we had the bathroom and kitchen emptied and clean, but there was still a huge pile of boxes and miscellany sitting in his living room, an aquarium to break down, a closet full of clothes, and a small bookcase with the books still in it. And we had laundry to do. Soooo... we headed back to my place where we did three loads of laundry while we both dozed a little on the couch. At the end of Day 1 of My Time In Purgatory, we went to bed at 2am.
On Tuesday we slept a little later than we intended, but I woke up with high hopes(!) that we could finish up the packing that day and then leave that evening, maybe stopping over near Charlotte to stay with his parents that night. "There is no way," I boldly declared, "that I am going to sleep tonight without putting at least a few miles behind us." Unfortunately, it took awhile before we could get started, because Lee had a few errands he had to run. Errands that couldn't have been taken care of prior to that day. Certainly not during the week before, when were both just sitting around doing nothing. Regardless of who we blame for the sitting around on Tuesday morning (although just to be clear, we blame Lee), I was in pretty good spirits, baking muffins for breakfast and downloading comedy albums* to listen to on the way to Texas.
It was already about 2pm by the time we got back to his apartment to finish up the packing. Lee started breaking down the aquarium while I worked on putting together his newly purchased car-top luggage carrier. I opened the instructions, which told me to first look at the instructions for the strap kit meant to hold the carrier on the top of the car. So I opened those instructions and read them intently, as only a doctoral student can. The more I read, though, the more the sinking feeling in my stomach grew. The strap instructions kept saying things like "Thread gray strap (a) through hole (b) and into mounting bracket." Why, I found myself wondering, wasn't there a helpful parts letter after 'mounting bracket'?? More importantly, why weren't there any mounting brackets? There sure as hell weren't any on Lee's car.
Lee came around the corner as I sat frowning angrily at the instructions. "What's wrong?" he asked. "I think we have a problem," I said, with extra frowning. Long story short, we spent the next hour and a half driving to Sears and back to get the mounting brackets. At this point it was about 5pm.
After all of that work to track down the parts necessary to hold it to the car roof, I assumed that assembly of the carrier itself would be simple. Something like:
1) Put your junk in the bottom half
2) Attach the top half to the bottom half (probably with duct tape)
3) Strap the thing to your car
In reality, there were fucking hinges and locking mechanisms to attach with screwdrivers and wrenches and shit, and at one point I had to close myself inside it and assemble by the light of Lee's old cell phone. It took almost 2 more hours to put the damn thing together, while the pile of Lee's possessions gathered dust.
This is getting kind of long, so I'm going to stop here and finish up later. Go have a snack, maybe work a few shifts at your job - we'll meet back here in a day or two.
*By the way, I highly recommend Patton Oswalt's Werewolves and Lollipops and Feelin' Kinda Patton. Lee and I laughed until we cried... although that might just have been road-trip-related delirium. I can't guarantee how they'll perform when you're well-rested and sitting still.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Imagine Me, Running Up To You, Breathless
Oh Internet! We have so much catching up to do, don't we??
Filling you in on the last month will probably take awhile, so for now I'll just give you the brief version and then I can fill in the blanks over the next few days. Or weeks. Or however long it takes before I forget what it was I promised to tell you. So... let's see, what have you missed?
I (barely) survived the end of my first year of grad school. Don't worry, I've recovered now, but if I were typing this post 2 or 3 weeks ago !T wo_UlD pro0obly luK &L;Ke ThI$. And then after that there would 3 paragraphs of random letters because I would have passed out on the keyboard. But it's cool, I slept for 15 hours and once I could remember my name things really started improving.
I didn't run at all for the second half of April (or the first half of May, for that matter) on account of the thing where grad school almost killed me. But I did sign up to run a half marathon in September. Because... I don't know, I don't understand how exercise works? More on that development later.
After school was over I spent most of the next 2 weeks with Lee hanging out, preparing for his graduation, watching him graduate, helping him pack/sell/throw away all of his things, and driving (20 hours!) to his new home, which is in Texas. Sunday I flew back to North Carolina and it's no big deal, except for that MY BABY IS IN TEXAS AND I'LL PROBABLY NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN AND ok ok I'm calm. Again, I'll have to write a whole separate post about that ordeal because it was exciting and infuriating and - spoiler alert! - turns out you can't pack an entire apartment in one day, in spite of your boyfriend's most optimistic projections.
And that pretty much brings us up to this week, which mostly consists of me starting my summer job (a research assistantship) and settling back into a routine. Woo!
So, what have you been up to?
Filling you in on the last month will probably take awhile, so for now I'll just give you the brief version and then I can fill in the blanks over the next few days. Or weeks. Or however long it takes before I forget what it was I promised to tell you. So... let's see, what have you missed?
I (barely) survived the end of my first year of grad school. Don't worry, I've recovered now, but if I were typing this post 2 or 3 weeks ago !T wo_UlD pro0obly luK &L;Ke ThI$. And then after that there would 3 paragraphs of random letters because I would have passed out on the keyboard. But it's cool, I slept for 15 hours and once I could remember my name things really started improving.
I didn't run at all for the second half of April (or the first half of May, for that matter) on account of the thing where grad school almost killed me. But I did sign up to run a half marathon in September. Because... I don't know, I don't understand how exercise works? More on that development later.
After school was over I spent most of the next 2 weeks with Lee hanging out, preparing for his graduation, watching him graduate, helping him pack/sell/throw away all of his things, and driving (20 hours!) to his new home, which is in Texas. Sunday I flew back to North Carolina and it's no big deal, except for that MY BABY IS IN TEXAS AND I'LL PROBABLY NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN AND ok ok I'm calm. Again, I'll have to write a whole separate post about that ordeal because it was exciting and infuriating and - spoiler alert! - turns out you can't pack an entire apartment in one day, in spite of your boyfriend's most optimistic projections.
And that pretty much brings us up to this week, which mostly consists of me starting my summer job (a research assistantship) and settling back into a routine. Woo!
So, what have you been up to?
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Living With No Regrets
Since I was such a huge internet crybaby when Lee and I broke up, I feel obligated to notify the internet now that we're, um... back together? This is great news, of course, but it also makes me feel a little embarrassed and silly to have to announce it, because you can break up with someone and get away with not explaining why, but it's a little harder to break up and then get back together without offering an explanation. At least, that's how it feels to me. Why am I compelled to explain myself? Who knows! Just join me, won't you?
While it's great news(!) that we're back together, Lee graduates in May, at which point he will permanently relocate to Texas in order to get started on his goal of becoming a Big Deal. (Or a Republican, I'm not sure.) Although Texas is kind of a stupid state in general, that in and of itself is not a huge problem. I'm sure a person can learn to love Texas, in the same way that a child learns to love her crazy uncle who is constantly preparing for the apocalypse. The main issue here is the fact that I have recently started a PhD program, and I have approximately four (4) years of graduate school left after Lee moves. Four years of graduate school that must be completed at my university here in North Carolina. Which is roughly 1,000 miles away from Houston. A $400 plane ticket away. Thirteen hours by car, one way.
I know what you're probably thinking right now. This level of long-distance relating is impossible. This is a disaster. We're fools. I know you're thinking it because I've thought all of it myself, as has Lee. It's why we broke up. But the fact remains that life, while livable, just doesn't feel right when we're not together. And I can't seem to get behind the idea of ending a relationship with someone you love when there's still a chance it could work out. There are plenty of stories of couples who carry on in extremely long-distance relationships and manage to make it work and live happily ever after (whatever that means) in spite of it all. Of course, there's also a huge chance that we will crash and burn and it will be quite a spectacle. Either way, it should make for some interesting blog reading, I guess. And either way we're going to go down fighting, with no regrets. Because if there's anything I think it's worth being a fool for, it's this.
So that's that. What's up with you?
While it's great news(!) that we're back together, Lee graduates in May, at which point he will permanently relocate to Texas in order to get started on his goal of becoming a Big Deal. (Or a Republican, I'm not sure.) Although Texas is kind of a stupid state in general, that in and of itself is not a huge problem. I'm sure a person can learn to love Texas, in the same way that a child learns to love her crazy uncle who is constantly preparing for the apocalypse. The main issue here is the fact that I have recently started a PhD program, and I have approximately four (4) years of graduate school left after Lee moves. Four years of graduate school that must be completed at my university here in North Carolina. Which is roughly 1,000 miles away from Houston. A $400 plane ticket away. Thirteen hours by car, one way.
I know what you're probably thinking right now. This level of long-distance relating is impossible. This is a disaster. We're fools. I know you're thinking it because I've thought all of it myself, as has Lee. It's why we broke up. But the fact remains that life, while livable, just doesn't feel right when we're not together. And I can't seem to get behind the idea of ending a relationship with someone you love when there's still a chance it could work out. There are plenty of stories of couples who carry on in extremely long-distance relationships and manage to make it work and live happily ever after (whatever that means) in spite of it all. Of course, there's also a huge chance that we will crash and burn and it will be quite a spectacle. Either way, it should make for some interesting blog reading, I guess. And either way we're going to go down fighting, with no regrets. Because if there's anything I think it's worth being a fool for, it's this.
So that's that. What's up with you?
Monday, November 2, 2009
A Different Kind of Death
(Before anyone gets too alarmed, I should say that I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and it doesn't really accurately reflect my current feelings, but I'm posting it now because I have serious writer's block and I don't have anything else interesting to share. Enjoy my melodramatic ramblings!)
Sometimes when someone dies, it's kind of OK. People say things like, "At least now her suffering is over" or "He's finally gone on to a better place." I think a little bit of what people feel in those situations is relief. When you wait so long for the end, the waiting can become more scary than the death. When it finally comes, it feels like you're reliving something that's already happened, because in a way, you are. Part of your mind has been running over and over the possibility of death for days, or weeks, or even months, already. Even though it hurts, it's nice to let that part of yourself collapse and rest at last, secure in the knowledge that the worst has finally happened. You can give yourself permission to move on, to start rebuilding. Things can only get better from there.
On the other hand, some deaths come on like a tsunami, like an Escalade merging into your living room. Those are the ones that leave people slack-jawed and wide-eyed, exclaiming in disbelief about how young and healthy the deceased was, as if the fact will somehow undo reality. I've never lived through something like that, but I've been close to people who experienced it, and I can imagine it. I can imagine how the knowledge of your loss sinks in slowly, one mundane moment at a time, and you find yourself thinking inane thoughts like, He'll never make fun of my movie choices again. He'll never drink another milkshake. He'll never tell another terrible joke. After enough of those tiny epiphanies build up, maybe the force of it finally hits you, like the sonic boom that comes after a jet passes overhead - an echo more powerful than the event itself. That's the scary time. That's the time to fear. When the concept passes from being abstract and curious and instead becomes viscerally, horrifyingly real.
Obviously, losing someone to death is more painful than losing them in other ways. But losing someone, even in a divorce or a break-up or because they moved to a distant island with no phone or internet, always involves a grieving process. The dissolution of a relationship can fall along the same scale as death: from an end that was long-expected and practically a relief, to one that feels painfully premature. An example of the former would be the relationship I was in before I was with Lee. By the time it was over, I was relieved that he had finally crossed a line that made it impossible for me to make any more excuses for him, that at last I could move forward and look for something as good as I deserved. We had sucked every bit of the marrow out of that relationship, and then beaten the shit out of each other with the bones. On the other hand, with Lee I feel like the end came too soon. Maybe it's better to end a relationship before you're thoroughly broken down and disgusted with each other, but I hate the feeling that there was still... more, is the only word I can think of. But that's just how I feel. Maybe while I'm mourning the loss of a young marathon runner, struck down in the prime of his life, Lee feels more like he's finally said goodbye to his 90-year-old grandmother after a long battle with Extremely Painful and Drawn-Out Disease.
I wonder if it's really always more difficult to lose someone to death. After death, a person lives on primarily in your memory. If you like, you're free to mold that memory into whatever is most comforting to you. You can talk to the person, pray to them, imagine that they look down upon you benevolently, that they're proud of you. You can believe that every painful word that ever passed between you is forgiven, that they would still be here with you if they could, and that wherever they are, they are thinking of you with affection. But when a relationship ends, well. In that case, reality is what it is. You don't have the same luxury of converting your memory of that person into some abstract spiritual idea. In that case, the ghost carries on, with infinite potential to stymie any attempts at establishing meaning or closure. If you're like me, constantly in search of The Absolute Set-in-Stone Truth, that could potentially drive you insane. Sure, you can tell yourself comforting things, but how do you know?? It's so easy to torture yourself with split-screen visions of painfully incongruous images: you, feeling miserable while your ex-boyfriend has an enthusiastic threesome with two Scandinavian models. Or you, drinking cheap beer alone while your ex-girlfriend is happily riding a tandem bike with a devastatingly handsome rugby player. It may be unlikely, but it's not entirely impossible. You seldom have to worry about those kinds of things when someone dies.
The scariest part is wondering how long it will be before the grieving process is over and the experience goes from being "the most traumatic thing that's happened to me recently" to being "one of the many life experiences that has proven my ability to overcome adversity and which has also put me on the path to meeting my extremely handsome and successful Doctor-Lawyer-Revolutionary husband." They say that it takes half the time you were with someone to completely get over them, which means I have roughly a year to go before I'm completely in the clear. Worse than that, it also means that I really only JUST finished getting over my LAST boyfriend. And really, when you put it that way, the bottom line is this:
Fuck.
Sometimes when someone dies, it's kind of OK. People say things like, "At least now her suffering is over" or "He's finally gone on to a better place." I think a little bit of what people feel in those situations is relief. When you wait so long for the end, the waiting can become more scary than the death. When it finally comes, it feels like you're reliving something that's already happened, because in a way, you are. Part of your mind has been running over and over the possibility of death for days, or weeks, or even months, already. Even though it hurts, it's nice to let that part of yourself collapse and rest at last, secure in the knowledge that the worst has finally happened. You can give yourself permission to move on, to start rebuilding. Things can only get better from there.
On the other hand, some deaths come on like a tsunami, like an Escalade merging into your living room. Those are the ones that leave people slack-jawed and wide-eyed, exclaiming in disbelief about how young and healthy the deceased was, as if the fact will somehow undo reality. I've never lived through something like that, but I've been close to people who experienced it, and I can imagine it. I can imagine how the knowledge of your loss sinks in slowly, one mundane moment at a time, and you find yourself thinking inane thoughts like, He'll never make fun of my movie choices again. He'll never drink another milkshake. He'll never tell another terrible joke. After enough of those tiny epiphanies build up, maybe the force of it finally hits you, like the sonic boom that comes after a jet passes overhead - an echo more powerful than the event itself. That's the scary time. That's the time to fear. When the concept passes from being abstract and curious and instead becomes viscerally, horrifyingly real.
Obviously, losing someone to death is more painful than losing them in other ways. But losing someone, even in a divorce or a break-up or because they moved to a distant island with no phone or internet, always involves a grieving process. The dissolution of a relationship can fall along the same scale as death: from an end that was long-expected and practically a relief, to one that feels painfully premature. An example of the former would be the relationship I was in before I was with Lee. By the time it was over, I was relieved that he had finally crossed a line that made it impossible for me to make any more excuses for him, that at last I could move forward and look for something as good as I deserved. We had sucked every bit of the marrow out of that relationship, and then beaten the shit out of each other with the bones. On the other hand, with Lee I feel like the end came too soon. Maybe it's better to end a relationship before you're thoroughly broken down and disgusted with each other, but I hate the feeling that there was still... more, is the only word I can think of. But that's just how I feel. Maybe while I'm mourning the loss of a young marathon runner, struck down in the prime of his life, Lee feels more like he's finally said goodbye to his 90-year-old grandmother after a long battle with Extremely Painful and Drawn-Out Disease.
I wonder if it's really always more difficult to lose someone to death. After death, a person lives on primarily in your memory. If you like, you're free to mold that memory into whatever is most comforting to you. You can talk to the person, pray to them, imagine that they look down upon you benevolently, that they're proud of you. You can believe that every painful word that ever passed between you is forgiven, that they would still be here with you if they could, and that wherever they are, they are thinking of you with affection. But when a relationship ends, well. In that case, reality is what it is. You don't have the same luxury of converting your memory of that person into some abstract spiritual idea. In that case, the ghost carries on, with infinite potential to stymie any attempts at establishing meaning or closure. If you're like me, constantly in search of The Absolute Set-in-Stone Truth, that could potentially drive you insane. Sure, you can tell yourself comforting things, but how do you know?? It's so easy to torture yourself with split-screen visions of painfully incongruous images: you, feeling miserable while your ex-boyfriend has an enthusiastic threesome with two Scandinavian models. Or you, drinking cheap beer alone while your ex-girlfriend is happily riding a tandem bike with a devastatingly handsome rugby player. It may be unlikely, but it's not entirely impossible. You seldom have to worry about those kinds of things when someone dies.
The scariest part is wondering how long it will be before the grieving process is over and the experience goes from being "the most traumatic thing that's happened to me recently" to being "one of the many life experiences that has proven my ability to overcome adversity and which has also put me on the path to meeting my extremely handsome and successful Doctor-Lawyer-Revolutionary husband." They say that it takes half the time you were with someone to completely get over them, which means I have roughly a year to go before I'm completely in the clear. Worse than that, it also means that I really only JUST finished getting over my LAST boyfriend. And really, when you put it that way, the bottom line is this:
Fuck.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
My Fairy Godmother Is Trying To Protect Me From Skin Cancer
Over the weekend, Lee and I spent a few days at the beach. It was my birthday present to myself, because I love the beach, and it didn't look like I was going to get to visit it this summer unless I took matters into my own hands. (Not counting the trip I took with Kellie to Florida, but that was more of a shrimp-focused trip than a beach-focused trip.)
Because I am not yet at the point in my life where I go to sleep each night in a big pile of money, I booked 2 nights at a pretty affordable hotel about 20 minutes inland. My basic plan was to get there Friday night, spend Saturday at the beach, check out Sunday morning and then visit the aquarium before heading back home. When I made this plan, it didn't really occur to me that I had given myself only one day in which to complete all of my beach-related sunbathing and frolicking.
Friday night we arrived in the midst of the most intense storm I'd seen in some time. At one point, there was even hail. Welcome to the beach! the hail said as it bounced off the hood of the car. After I went inside the hotel and checked in, we sat in the car and tried to wait out the worst of the storm before we carried our bags in. I called my brother and asked him to check weather.com and tell me what the forecast was for Saturday, my One Shot at lying on the beach. He said that the chance of rain was only 20%, so I was hopeful. I hung up the phone and explained to Lee that we had to get out to the beach as early as possible the next day, so that we could maximize whatever sunshine the day might have to offer.
The next day, we rolled out of bed at around 10am. I looked out the window at a gorgeous day. The sky was clear blue, and the sun smiled kindly down at me. Don't worry! I have many hours of searing, beach-friendly UV rays planned for today! I felt comforted. I didn't even mind that we were going to have to go to Target to buy Lee a new bathing suit before we could go to the beach. While he took a shower, I pulled my hair back into a braid to keep it out of my face during all the great times I was going to be having on the beach. About an hour later, we left the hotel to get some food.
About an hour after that, we had finished eating. It was already noon and we still had to go to Target and get dressed before we could head to the beach. I glanced anxiously out the window. Still here! the sun shined down. I'll be here as long as you need me! Lee and I headed out into the sweltering (yet glorious!) heat to get him a bathing suit. After another 45 minutes, we were back in the hotel, and I began the arduous process of suiting up and thoroughly sunscreening myself.
Around 1:30 I was finished. I looked adorable, and sun-resistant. Meanwhile, Lee had turned on Animal Cops Philadelphia, which I sat down to watch while he finished getting dressed. Around 2pm, he was also ready, but at that point the Animal Cops had found a neglected husky with a big open wound around his neck from a makeshift rope collar, and I was sobbing. Obviously, we had to wait and see if he was going to make it. I was getting nervous about the time rapidly slipping away, but the sun was still peeking around the curtain, so what was there to worry about? Not a thing! answered the sun. Well done on all that sunscreen, by the way!
We finally left the hotel at around 2:30 (I think the husky turned out to be ok) and drove out to the beach. I had never been to this particular beach before, but I assumed it would be like most of the other NC beaches I had been to - pretty low-key, not too crowded, mostly just houses and ice cream shops, and plenty of parking and beach access. I hadn't really considered the fact that a small beach in close proximity to a city might be a little more intense than that. The island was really only wide enough to accommodate about 2 streets and 3 rows of houses, and every inch of it was covered in people and cars. When we stopped at a stop sign, overtanned bikini-ed young ladies with tramp stamps clambered over the hood of our car in order to reach similarly overtanned and drunken young men with tribal tattoos. Also, there was no parking.
After driving around in circles for a little while, we managed to find a parking space that someone was about to vacate. Unfortunately, it was a metered spot and we only had 2 quarters between the two of us. This situation called for an embarrassingly heated conversation with me on the side of "I'll just use my debit card to get a parking pass from that machine over there" and Lee on the side of "That machine probably doesn't apply to the metered spots, therefore my car will be towed and we'll be arrested and live the rest of our lives in jail." (By the way, that little bit of neurotic pessimism is proof positive that he and I are meant to be together forever and always.)
Once we finished arguing, the sun shined down on us with benevolent approval. We trudged out onto the (similarly crowded) beach and settled down. I took off my shorts and tank top and layed down with my book, while Lee looked out over the hazy sea. Twenty minutes later, when I looked up to watch some toddlers splashing around in the waves, their water-logged diapers expanding in their adorable little swimsuits, I realized that my faithful friend the sun was trying to slide inconspicuously behind some clouds. Huh. Where was he going? Peace out, sucka! was the last thing I heard from him that day. I think his farewell may also have been accompanied by an obscene gesture, but it was hard to tell, what with the glare.
Not long after that, I felt a water droplet land on my shoulder. I looked around, curious. "Did you feel that?" I asked Lee. "No, what?" he said. "I think I felt a raindrop." Another one hit my arm. "Seriously, you don't feel any rain?" "No, I don't feel anything." Two more trickled down my back. "Ok, it's definitely starting to rain, Lee." "What are you talking about?? ... oh, I feel it now."
Five minutes later, an hour after we had arrived, it was pouring on the beach.
For a few minutes I looked around, thinking about all we'd been through to try to get to the beach that day - the shopping trip, the sunscreen process, the bickering over parking - and wondering if we could just wait out the rain. Then suddenly I felt something snap inside me, and I burst out laughing. "What?" Lee said, looking at me anxiously. I think he'd been waiting for some sort of outburst on my part, but this wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting. I laughed even harder, looking and feeling like a damn nutjob, sitting in a bathing suit, on a beach towel, in the pouring rain.
"We... we...." I tried to speak. "What?? I can't understand what you're saying!" He looked incredulous. "We... took forever getting here..." I was gasping now, and I could barely see through my watering eyes and the raindrops collecting on my eyelashes. "We took forever to get here... and now... it's raining!" I couldn't stop laughing, and now I was crying, too, rocking back and forth on my beach towel in hysterics. At this, Lee started laughing too, and I wiped the salt and rainwater from my eyes and looked around the beach. People were huddled on their towels and blankets, under boogie boards or umbrellas, trying to avoid getting rain in their faces. A few yards down the beach a large group of beachgoers had sought refuge under the fishing pier.
I looked out to sea and started to calm down. The horizon was blurred where the ocean blended with the stormy sky into a uniform steel gray, not the view I'd looked forward to all day, but beautiful in its own right. After we'd both stopped laughing, and I'd stopped crying as well, we decided to just gather up our things and head back. We squished into Lee's car (which hadn't been towed after all), trailing sand behind us and sliding on the seats, lubricated by water and sunscreen. As we turned the car back toward the hotel and I watched the windshield wipers struggle to keep up with the downpour, I felt more relaxed than I had all week.
Because I am not yet at the point in my life where I go to sleep each night in a big pile of money, I booked 2 nights at a pretty affordable hotel about 20 minutes inland. My basic plan was to get there Friday night, spend Saturday at the beach, check out Sunday morning and then visit the aquarium before heading back home. When I made this plan, it didn't really occur to me that I had given myself only one day in which to complete all of my beach-related sunbathing and frolicking.
Friday night we arrived in the midst of the most intense storm I'd seen in some time. At one point, there was even hail. Welcome to the beach! the hail said as it bounced off the hood of the car. After I went inside the hotel and checked in, we sat in the car and tried to wait out the worst of the storm before we carried our bags in. I called my brother and asked him to check weather.com and tell me what the forecast was for Saturday, my One Shot at lying on the beach. He said that the chance of rain was only 20%, so I was hopeful. I hung up the phone and explained to Lee that we had to get out to the beach as early as possible the next day, so that we could maximize whatever sunshine the day might have to offer.
The next day, we rolled out of bed at around 10am. I looked out the window at a gorgeous day. The sky was clear blue, and the sun smiled kindly down at me. Don't worry! I have many hours of searing, beach-friendly UV rays planned for today! I felt comforted. I didn't even mind that we were going to have to go to Target to buy Lee a new bathing suit before we could go to the beach. While he took a shower, I pulled my hair back into a braid to keep it out of my face during all the great times I was going to be having on the beach. About an hour later, we left the hotel to get some food.
About an hour after that, we had finished eating. It was already noon and we still had to go to Target and get dressed before we could head to the beach. I glanced anxiously out the window. Still here! the sun shined down. I'll be here as long as you need me! Lee and I headed out into the sweltering (yet glorious!) heat to get him a bathing suit. After another 45 minutes, we were back in the hotel, and I began the arduous process of suiting up and thoroughly sunscreening myself.
Around 1:30 I was finished. I looked adorable, and sun-resistant. Meanwhile, Lee had turned on Animal Cops Philadelphia, which I sat down to watch while he finished getting dressed. Around 2pm, he was also ready, but at that point the Animal Cops had found a neglected husky with a big open wound around his neck from a makeshift rope collar, and I was sobbing. Obviously, we had to wait and see if he was going to make it. I was getting nervous about the time rapidly slipping away, but the sun was still peeking around the curtain, so what was there to worry about? Not a thing! answered the sun. Well done on all that sunscreen, by the way!
We finally left the hotel at around 2:30 (I think the husky turned out to be ok) and drove out to the beach. I had never been to this particular beach before, but I assumed it would be like most of the other NC beaches I had been to - pretty low-key, not too crowded, mostly just houses and ice cream shops, and plenty of parking and beach access. I hadn't really considered the fact that a small beach in close proximity to a city might be a little more intense than that. The island was really only wide enough to accommodate about 2 streets and 3 rows of houses, and every inch of it was covered in people and cars. When we stopped at a stop sign, overtanned bikini-ed young ladies with tramp stamps clambered over the hood of our car in order to reach similarly overtanned and drunken young men with tribal tattoos. Also, there was no parking.
After driving around in circles for a little while, we managed to find a parking space that someone was about to vacate. Unfortunately, it was a metered spot and we only had 2 quarters between the two of us. This situation called for an embarrassingly heated conversation with me on the side of "I'll just use my debit card to get a parking pass from that machine over there" and Lee on the side of "That machine probably doesn't apply to the metered spots, therefore my car will be towed and we'll be arrested and live the rest of our lives in jail." (By the way, that little bit of neurotic pessimism is proof positive that he and I are meant to be together forever and always.)
Once we finished arguing, the sun shined down on us with benevolent approval. We trudged out onto the (similarly crowded) beach and settled down. I took off my shorts and tank top and layed down with my book, while Lee looked out over the hazy sea. Twenty minutes later, when I looked up to watch some toddlers splashing around in the waves, their water-logged diapers expanding in their adorable little swimsuits, I realized that my faithful friend the sun was trying to slide inconspicuously behind some clouds. Huh. Where was he going? Peace out, sucka! was the last thing I heard from him that day. I think his farewell may also have been accompanied by an obscene gesture, but it was hard to tell, what with the glare.
Not long after that, I felt a water droplet land on my shoulder. I looked around, curious. "Did you feel that?" I asked Lee. "No, what?" he said. "I think I felt a raindrop." Another one hit my arm. "Seriously, you don't feel any rain?" "No, I don't feel anything." Two more trickled down my back. "Ok, it's definitely starting to rain, Lee." "What are you talking about?? ... oh, I feel it now."
Five minutes later, an hour after we had arrived, it was pouring on the beach.
For a few minutes I looked around, thinking about all we'd been through to try to get to the beach that day - the shopping trip, the sunscreen process, the bickering over parking - and wondering if we could just wait out the rain. Then suddenly I felt something snap inside me, and I burst out laughing. "What?" Lee said, looking at me anxiously. I think he'd been waiting for some sort of outburst on my part, but this wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting. I laughed even harder, looking and feeling like a damn nutjob, sitting in a bathing suit, on a beach towel, in the pouring rain.
"We... we...." I tried to speak. "What?? I can't understand what you're saying!" He looked incredulous. "We... took forever getting here..." I was gasping now, and I could barely see through my watering eyes and the raindrops collecting on my eyelashes. "We took forever to get here... and now... it's raining!" I couldn't stop laughing, and now I was crying, too, rocking back and forth on my beach towel in hysterics. At this, Lee started laughing too, and I wiped the salt and rainwater from my eyes and looked around the beach. People were huddled on their towels and blankets, under boogie boards or umbrellas, trying to avoid getting rain in their faces. A few yards down the beach a large group of beachgoers had sought refuge under the fishing pier.
I looked out to sea and started to calm down. The horizon was blurred where the ocean blended with the stormy sky into a uniform steel gray, not the view I'd looked forward to all day, but beautiful in its own right. After we'd both stopped laughing, and I'd stopped crying as well, we decided to just gather up our things and head back. We squished into Lee's car (which hadn't been towed after all), trailing sand behind us and sliding on the seats, lubricated by water and sunscreen. As we turned the car back toward the hotel and I watched the windshield wipers struggle to keep up with the downpour, I felt more relaxed than I had all week.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Gratitude, Days 24 and 25: Warm Weather Edition
Once again I've missed a day, so you know what that means: Double-Up Gratitude Extravaganza! Are you ready? Brace yourself!
1) First off I would like to be thankful for the fact that I finally buckled down and got some work done yesterday. I would also like to be thankful for the realization that even though I spent several days gnashing my teeth and wailing about how I didn't want to do that work, once I got down to doing it, it really only took me a couple of hours. Sheesh.
2) After work yesterday I went to my parents' house for dinner. Getting to my parents' house from my place involves a long stretch of rural highway, and I drove the whole way with the top down on my car, basking in the setting sun and writing a poem in my head about how I'd like to make love to Spring and Summer. (Preferably in some kind of all-girl three-way. Because I'm pretty sure they're girls.) While driving along in my car with the top down, I smelled some smells that made my heart sing. Among them were:
3) A charcoal grill.
4) Freshly mowed (mown?) grass.
5) Honeysuckle! Mother-effing honeysuckle! If someone would please compile and submit to me a list of places where honeysuckle doesn't grow, I would really appreciate it, as I don't ever intend to live in any of those places.
6) The gorgeous weather continued today, so I wore a tank top, skirt, and flip flops. I'm all for any weather that allows me to perform my day-to-day activities wearing as little clothing as possible.
7) While half-naked, I looked at some apartments. I managed to find a really nice place that Future Roommate and I can actually afford, so now if I can get her approval, we can submit an application and I can move on to worrying about something new.
8) Let's take a quick one-item break from all this talk about the nice weather. I am also thankful for the fact that even when I'm in the midst of explaining to Lee how I am completely right and he is hopelessly wrong, we can still make each other laugh.
9) Back to the good weather! This evening, as the sun was setting, I went for a run. Call me unimaginative, but I really can't think of many things more soul-soothing than listening to some chill music and setting out for a run at dusk on a warm day.
10) Once I finished my run, I sat down in the grass to stretch in the dark, and the song below came on my ipod, and I was one with the world, and it was good.
1) First off I would like to be thankful for the fact that I finally buckled down and got some work done yesterday. I would also like to be thankful for the realization that even though I spent several days gnashing my teeth and wailing about how I didn't want to do that work, once I got down to doing it, it really only took me a couple of hours. Sheesh.
2) After work yesterday I went to my parents' house for dinner. Getting to my parents' house from my place involves a long stretch of rural highway, and I drove the whole way with the top down on my car, basking in the setting sun and writing a poem in my head about how I'd like to make love to Spring and Summer. (Preferably in some kind of all-girl three-way. Because I'm pretty sure they're girls.) While driving along in my car with the top down, I smelled some smells that made my heart sing. Among them were:
3) A charcoal grill.
4) Freshly mowed (mown?) grass.
5) Honeysuckle! Mother-effing honeysuckle! If someone would please compile and submit to me a list of places where honeysuckle doesn't grow, I would really appreciate it, as I don't ever intend to live in any of those places.
6) The gorgeous weather continued today, so I wore a tank top, skirt, and flip flops. I'm all for any weather that allows me to perform my day-to-day activities wearing as little clothing as possible.
7) While half-naked, I looked at some apartments. I managed to find a really nice place that Future Roommate and I can actually afford, so now if I can get her approval, we can submit an application and I can move on to worrying about something new.
8) Let's take a quick one-item break from all this talk about the nice weather. I am also thankful for the fact that even when I'm in the midst of explaining to Lee how I am completely right and he is hopelessly wrong, we can still make each other laugh.
9) Back to the good weather! This evening, as the sun was setting, I went for a run. Call me unimaginative, but I really can't think of many things more soul-soothing than listening to some chill music and setting out for a run at dusk on a warm day.
10) Once I finished my run, I sat down in the grass to stretch in the dark, and the song below came on my ipod, and I was one with the world, and it was good.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Gratitude, Day 10
Alright, I better get grateful now, because I'm leaving in a little while to go to...
1) A bachelorette party! This might be an iffy sort of thing if the bride-to-be were someone different, but since I'm 99% sure that there won't be penis paraphernalia involved, I'm feeling pretty good about it. And I think that even if there are penises, we'll somehow manage to have a good time anyway.
2) I've just put some makeup on and I think I look pretty foxy. Since I don't wear makeup that often (beyond some mascara and blush), I'm always a little shocked when it turns out well.
3) Tonight gives me an excuse to wear my slutty brown boots!
4) I got to sleep in SO HARD this morning.
5) My boyfriend makes me laugh even when I sort of want to punch him in the face.
See y'all tomorrow! Here's hoping I'm not hungover!
1) A bachelorette party! This might be an iffy sort of thing if the bride-to-be were someone different, but since I'm 99% sure that there won't be penis paraphernalia involved, I'm feeling pretty good about it. And I think that even if there are penises, we'll somehow manage to have a good time anyway.
2) I've just put some makeup on and I think I look pretty foxy. Since I don't wear makeup that often (beyond some mascara and blush), I'm always a little shocked when it turns out well.
3) Tonight gives me an excuse to wear my slutty brown boots!
4) I got to sleep in SO HARD this morning.
5) My boyfriend makes me laugh even when I sort of want to punch him in the face.
See y'all tomorrow! Here's hoping I'm not hungover!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Fact: Significant Other Not a Replacement For Inner Calm
Everybody and their mother (figuratively speaking) is currently on Spring Break. They're all out traveling and having a great time and I (poor, pitiful me!) had to keep coming to work all this time.
Although I sort of made up for it by not coming in before 10, staying up late, and eating out all week, and drinking on a Wednesday night.
Lee was here Monday night through Thursday morning, and the combined effort of carrying on with my life while trying to squeeze in as much Boyfriend Time as possible reduced me to just flying by the seat of my pants for 4 days. We would have dinner late, stay up even later watching TV or a movie, and finally go to bed around 1. Then I'd oversleep, come in to work around 10, and work for a little while. Then I'd leave work and meet Lee for lunch. Then work some more. Then come home and pick up all the junk in my apartment, because my apartment is big enough to contain either a) two people or b) one person and their clutter, but not both. Rinse, repeat.
I had a lot of fun while he was here, but I wasn't getting a whole lot done at work, and I didn't meditate for 4 days because I was spending so little time doing actual work that I didn't feel like I had the 15 minutes to spare. (I usually meditate sometime in the morning once I get to work. ...On the days that I actually do it.) I kind of convinced myself that I didn't actually need to meditate, because I was feeling pretty good about life, as long as you don't count the anxiety of not really being 'prepared' for work every day. I was even ready to come on the internet and tell you all about it. Who needs meditation?!? I'd say. When you can make out with someone every day, your chi is naturally balanced! Your mind is clear and calm! Your panties are unbunched!
Except for that yesterday, when Lee left, I found myself a little... relieved? Sad, of course, but also a lot more relaxed, knowing I wouldn't be responsible that night for feeding and entertaining someone, and if I wanted to sit brain-dead in front of the television and then go to bed early, I could. (I did watch TV all night, but I did not go to bed early, and I still came in to work today later than I'd like. Oh well, can't win 'em all.)
I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this revelation. I'm pretty sure this is what it's like for anyone who's hosting a guest while they still have to go to work and all. And I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I usually only see Lee once a week, so I felt compelled to focus all my attention on spending time with him. But it also makes me wonder if maybe I should be glad that we don't have any plans to live together any time soon. Perhaps I still need more time to figure out how to take care of myself and put myself first, before I complicate my life any further. But what I know I've learned for sure is that just because I'm having a great time doesn't mean I should totally neglect my inner stability and forget to slow down once in awhile. When I put my health and sanity first, my other relationships just kind of fall into place on their own. Consider that a free piece of wisdom, from me to you.
Although I sort of made up for it by not coming in before 10, staying up late, and eating out all week, and drinking on a Wednesday night.
Lee was here Monday night through Thursday morning, and the combined effort of carrying on with my life while trying to squeeze in as much Boyfriend Time as possible reduced me to just flying by the seat of my pants for 4 days. We would have dinner late, stay up even later watching TV or a movie, and finally go to bed around 1. Then I'd oversleep, come in to work around 10, and work for a little while. Then I'd leave work and meet Lee for lunch. Then work some more. Then come home and pick up all the junk in my apartment, because my apartment is big enough to contain either a) two people or b) one person and their clutter, but not both. Rinse, repeat.
I had a lot of fun while he was here, but I wasn't getting a whole lot done at work, and I didn't meditate for 4 days because I was spending so little time doing actual work that I didn't feel like I had the 15 minutes to spare. (I usually meditate sometime in the morning once I get to work. ...On the days that I actually do it.) I kind of convinced myself that I didn't actually need to meditate, because I was feeling pretty good about life, as long as you don't count the anxiety of not really being 'prepared' for work every day. I was even ready to come on the internet and tell you all about it. Who needs meditation?!? I'd say. When you can make out with someone every day, your chi is naturally balanced! Your mind is clear and calm! Your panties are unbunched!
Except for that yesterday, when Lee left, I found myself a little... relieved? Sad, of course, but also a lot more relaxed, knowing I wouldn't be responsible that night for feeding and entertaining someone, and if I wanted to sit brain-dead in front of the television and then go to bed early, I could. (I did watch TV all night, but I did not go to bed early, and I still came in to work today later than I'd like. Oh well, can't win 'em all.)
I'm not entirely sure how to interpret this revelation. I'm pretty sure this is what it's like for anyone who's hosting a guest while they still have to go to work and all. And I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I usually only see Lee once a week, so I felt compelled to focus all my attention on spending time with him. But it also makes me wonder if maybe I should be glad that we don't have any plans to live together any time soon. Perhaps I still need more time to figure out how to take care of myself and put myself first, before I complicate my life any further. But what I know I've learned for sure is that just because I'm having a great time doesn't mean I should totally neglect my inner stability and forget to slow down once in awhile. When I put my health and sanity first, my other relationships just kind of fall into place on their own. Consider that a free piece of wisdom, from me to you.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Serious Blogger Is Serious
In general, I try to be all light-hearted and ho ho ho over here, because I feel that people would rather read about fun times than serious times. Also, usually when I find myself being overly earnest in real life, I immediately feel embarrassed that I have just vomited my feeeeeelings all over some poor unsuspecting person. I don't want to do that all over the internet, where there's a permanent record of it that the CIA can catalog and add to your permanent record anytime they like. But hey! What the hell! Sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind, especially when you can't think of anything else to write about on your silly little blog, and your imaginary audience is constantly glaring at you and wondering why you even bothered to come out of the dark backwaters of xanga if you didn't have anything good to say anyway.
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, serious business. This week's (month's?) serious business is relationships, specifically the future of. This may surprise you, reader, but I have this thing. This thing where I like to feel like I'm in control of my life. I like to know what's going to happen, when, and why, and what I can do about it. I like to know what and who I can depend on, and what and who I can't. I like to be able to plan for things, prepare for things, map them out and make an itinerary. This makes me feel like things are going to be ok. Nothing can go wrong if I have a plan, because the universe will see my plan and obey it.
The problem is that even the simplest plans depend on other people, and other people are often just blatantly uncooperative. Why people don't understand that they must follow my plan first and theirs second, I will never know. This whole thing gets particularly sticky when your life is all entangled with someone else's. I guess you see where I'm going with this.
I tend to take romantic relationships pretty seriously. I've never dated someone without being pretty firmly sure that I could hang out with them long-term. I just don't have the kind of 'que sera, sera' temperament that I think you have to have in order to casually date. When you're always looking forward, trying to plan your life, it gets kind of confusing not knowing who will be there and who won't. This has come up in a pretty infuriating way in the past month or so, since I'm gearing up for another major stage of my life. Up until now, I had a 2-year plan: live in Winston, work at this job, apply to grad school. Now I'm working on a fresh 5-year plan: move to a new town, go to grad school... and that's as far as I've gotten. Grad school is squared away (for the most part - I still haven't officially accepted, because I've still got to go for my grand visit and all), but that's about it. I'm trying to imagine what the next 5 years will look like, because that's how I prepare for major changes, but I'm having trouble. Where will my significant other (you know, old whats-his-face) be for all this? He's done with his higher education at the end of next year, leaving me locked in to my thing for 4 more years while he does... what? I have no idea. Will he move to another city? Another state? Will we see each other more often, or less than ever? Will we break up? Will we get married? If we got married, when would that happen? How could we ever get married if we're going to be spending 4 years in different states? What's the point of continuing a relationship under those circumstances? If we break up, what will it be like being single again, looking for a new sugar daddy in the world of social work? Are there even any men in the field of social work? (Quick internet research confirms that yes, there are men in the field, but there are only 4 of them and 3 of them are middle-aged and married already.) If I'm not dating a successful lawyer, then who will support my unprofitable idealistic whims?
I HATE not knowing. The urge to just KNOW, just so I can feel secure in the knowledge that I know what's in store for me sometimes makes me think crazy things, like: well, he's probably going to move to another state, and we'll never make it through that, so we might as well just go ahead and break up. And I know it's the crazy that makes it sound like a good idea to end a relationship that you're perfectly happy with, and so I remind myself that it's the crazy talking, but then I'm left with... what? The feeling that I just have to wait and see. That I might be investing all this time and energy into something that will just crash and burn, but maybe not until I'm 30 years old and THEN what will I do?
Then I have moments where I go in the complete opposite direction, moments that I'm even more embarrassed by, when I start thinking, you know, maybe you're just a little too independent. If you're this worried about it, maybe it makes sense to act more conservatively. Just do a 2 year Master's program and then you'll be able to stop and see where your relationsihp is before committing to a longer term PhD. Do you really want to sabotage a great relationship by unflexibly sticking to your own goals when you know it could mean the end of a beautiful thing? Would it kill you to compromise a little?
I hate thinking this way. I know deep down that I would never forgive myself if I gave up the chance to go to a great PhD program just because of some guy. Maybe it's a mistake, but I deeply believe that I shouldn't have to compromise my dreams to make a relationship work. I also know that, in reality, all relationships are an investment, and you hope it doesn't fail, but there's always the chance that it will. It's not that I'm some kind of insecure nutjob that's just in a hurry to get a ring on her finger, no matter what the circumstances. It's just that I hate feeling like I'm over here happily plugging away at something when I have no idea what the end result will be. Like maybe I'm involved in the relationship equivalent of that first scene of a scary movie, where everything is bright and sunshine-y and people are going about their daily business to the tune of a cheerful soundtrack, but it's painfully ominous because as the viewer you know damn good and well that this is the last time the sun will shine for the entire movie.
And in spite of my certainty that I have to follow my dreams, come what may, I'm still terrified that one day I'll look back and realize that things might have worked out differently if I'd been a little more willing to slow down and take a detour in the name of love. But if I'm honest with myself, I know that Lee would never allow me to do something like that anyway, and I guess that's Real Love, right there: pushing someone to be who they are, regardless of the consequences.
/serious
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, serious business. This week's (month's?) serious business is relationships, specifically the future of. This may surprise you, reader, but I have this thing. This thing where I like to feel like I'm in control of my life. I like to know what's going to happen, when, and why, and what I can do about it. I like to know what and who I can depend on, and what and who I can't. I like to be able to plan for things, prepare for things, map them out and make an itinerary. This makes me feel like things are going to be ok. Nothing can go wrong if I have a plan, because the universe will see my plan and obey it.
The problem is that even the simplest plans depend on other people, and other people are often just blatantly uncooperative. Why people don't understand that they must follow my plan first and theirs second, I will never know. This whole thing gets particularly sticky when your life is all entangled with someone else's. I guess you see where I'm going with this.
I tend to take romantic relationships pretty seriously. I've never dated someone without being pretty firmly sure that I could hang out with them long-term. I just don't have the kind of 'que sera, sera' temperament that I think you have to have in order to casually date. When you're always looking forward, trying to plan your life, it gets kind of confusing not knowing who will be there and who won't. This has come up in a pretty infuriating way in the past month or so, since I'm gearing up for another major stage of my life. Up until now, I had a 2-year plan: live in Winston, work at this job, apply to grad school. Now I'm working on a fresh 5-year plan: move to a new town, go to grad school... and that's as far as I've gotten. Grad school is squared away (for the most part - I still haven't officially accepted, because I've still got to go for my grand visit and all), but that's about it. I'm trying to imagine what the next 5 years will look like, because that's how I prepare for major changes, but I'm having trouble. Where will my significant other (you know, old whats-his-face) be for all this? He's done with his higher education at the end of next year, leaving me locked in to my thing for 4 more years while he does... what? I have no idea. Will he move to another city? Another state? Will we see each other more often, or less than ever? Will we break up? Will we get married? If we got married, when would that happen? How could we ever get married if we're going to be spending 4 years in different states? What's the point of continuing a relationship under those circumstances? If we break up, what will it be like being single again, looking for a new sugar daddy in the world of social work? Are there even any men in the field of social work? (Quick internet research confirms that yes, there are men in the field, but there are only 4 of them and 3 of them are middle-aged and married already.) If I'm not dating a successful lawyer, then who will support my unprofitable idealistic whims?
I HATE not knowing. The urge to just KNOW, just so I can feel secure in the knowledge that I know what's in store for me sometimes makes me think crazy things, like: well, he's probably going to move to another state, and we'll never make it through that, so we might as well just go ahead and break up. And I know it's the crazy that makes it sound like a good idea to end a relationship that you're perfectly happy with, and so I remind myself that it's the crazy talking, but then I'm left with... what? The feeling that I just have to wait and see. That I might be investing all this time and energy into something that will just crash and burn, but maybe not until I'm 30 years old and THEN what will I do?
Then I have moments where I go in the complete opposite direction, moments that I'm even more embarrassed by, when I start thinking, you know, maybe you're just a little too independent. If you're this worried about it, maybe it makes sense to act more conservatively. Just do a 2 year Master's program and then you'll be able to stop and see where your relationsihp is before committing to a longer term PhD. Do you really want to sabotage a great relationship by unflexibly sticking to your own goals when you know it could mean the end of a beautiful thing? Would it kill you to compromise a little?
I hate thinking this way. I know deep down that I would never forgive myself if I gave up the chance to go to a great PhD program just because of some guy. Maybe it's a mistake, but I deeply believe that I shouldn't have to compromise my dreams to make a relationship work. I also know that, in reality, all relationships are an investment, and you hope it doesn't fail, but there's always the chance that it will. It's not that I'm some kind of insecure nutjob that's just in a hurry to get a ring on her finger, no matter what the circumstances. It's just that I hate feeling like I'm over here happily plugging away at something when I have no idea what the end result will be. Like maybe I'm involved in the relationship equivalent of that first scene of a scary movie, where everything is bright and sunshine-y and people are going about their daily business to the tune of a cheerful soundtrack, but it's painfully ominous because as the viewer you know damn good and well that this is the last time the sun will shine for the entire movie.
And in spite of my certainty that I have to follow my dreams, come what may, I'm still terrified that one day I'll look back and realize that things might have worked out differently if I'd been a little more willing to slow down and take a detour in the name of love. But if I'm honest with myself, I know that Lee would never allow me to do something like that anyway, and I guess that's Real Love, right there: pushing someone to be who they are, regardless of the consequences.
/serious
Friday, November 21, 2008
I Can't Tell You How Many Times I've Tried to Use Wikipedia to Win an Argument
I consider myself to be very lucky in that Lee and I have a lot of things in common. I've dated people in the past that I didn't have as much in common with, and it was kind of strange, because I always felt like I was holding back parts of myself. With Lee, I never feel that way, which is nice. But this entry isn't about how lucky I am, it's about one of the less attractive things that Lee and I have in common: we're both infuriating know-it-alls.
Usually this isn't too much of a problem, because, like I said, we tend to agree on most things. Either that, or the thing that one of us feels really strongly about is something the other one doesn't care too much about, so it's easy to just agree with the Lee's opinion when he gets started on a rant. (I, on the other hand, do not rant. I make passionate, well-thought-out arguments in favor of my beliefs, which people are more than happy to hear.)
Anyway, when we don't agree, it's like some kind of back-alley street-rules debate team competition. By way of example, here are some things Lee and I have debated in the past (some of them more than once):
1) Should a woman should take her husband's name?
2) Corporal punishment: necessary and harmless, or unnecessarily violent?
3) Does organized religion have any redeeming qualities?
4) Is an animal's life worth as much as a human life?
Argument #4 from the list above was the most fun so far, because we were both drunk, and at one point I was indignantly browsing the internet for pictures of whale brains and rat brains. It's important to note two things about these arguments: 1) None of the topics currently directly affect either of us, and 2) On all of these topics, Lee and I agree on more points than we disagree. But that doesn't stop us (me) from getting really worked up about it.
For example, last night, Lee and I were arguing again about corporal punishment, and it started getting a little heated, so we sensibly decided to just drop it, for the health of our relationship. There was a short pause in the conversation, after which I said, "So... what are you doing?"
Lee: "Looking up corporal punishment on the internet."
Me: "Oh no you're not, because I am!"
Usually this isn't too much of a problem, because, like I said, we tend to agree on most things. Either that, or the thing that one of us feels really strongly about is something the other one doesn't care too much about, so it's easy to just agree with the Lee's opinion when he gets started on a rant. (I, on the other hand, do not rant. I make passionate, well-thought-out arguments in favor of my beliefs, which people are more than happy to hear.)
Anyway, when we don't agree, it's like some kind of back-alley street-rules debate team competition. By way of example, here are some things Lee and I have debated in the past (some of them more than once):
1) Should a woman should take her husband's name?
2) Corporal punishment: necessary and harmless, or unnecessarily violent?
3) Does organized religion have any redeeming qualities?
4) Is an animal's life worth as much as a human life?
Argument #4 from the list above was the most fun so far, because we were both drunk, and at one point I was indignantly browsing the internet for pictures of whale brains and rat brains. It's important to note two things about these arguments: 1) None of the topics currently directly affect either of us, and 2) On all of these topics, Lee and I agree on more points than we disagree. But that doesn't stop us (me) from getting really worked up about it.
For example, last night, Lee and I were arguing again about corporal punishment, and it started getting a little heated, so we sensibly decided to just drop it, for the health of our relationship. There was a short pause in the conversation, after which I said, "So... what are you doing?"
Lee: "Looking up corporal punishment on the internet."
Me: "Oh no you're not, because I am!"
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