The week before Christmas I was struck with a deadly attack of needing to play a piano. I took lessons from the age of nine to nineteen, and after quitting lessons (due to the demands of schoolwork) my daily practice ground to an eventual halt with my move last year to piano-less South Bend. (Not that there are no pianos in South Bend, but there were none to which I had access, having had to leave my own upright at home for lack of storage space and the inallowability of playing it in an apartment complex.)
So just before Christmas, when job stress became unbearable and sleep came with a fight, I felt the muscles in my arms and torso and hands and fingers aching to pour their energy into cool smooth keys. My body longed to engage in music. So I took the piano books I'd brought from home, just in case, and after work one day slipped up to the Community Room on the third floor, a vast open room which when not in use lies empty and boasts a piano. I dragged up a chair, opened a Grieg sonata, and attempted for the first time in more than a year to play something besides the simple melody I'd written in high school.
It was, of course, a disaster. Like trying to dredge your memory for fragments of a forgotten language when suddenly faced with a native Spanish-speaker in a half-emergency situation. Music I had once nearly memorized (or, in the case of Debussy, had completely memorized so that even when I couldn't find my place on the page my body remembered to play) I had to sight read. I picked over the songs for half an hour in frustration, then finally hit some sort of stride and ended in a decent tone. Roger the maintenance man came upon me playing, encouraged me, then sensitively left me alone to my struggles. I left slightly disheartened but resolved to continue relearning to ride the bicycle, as it were.
Then tonight I sat down to play my own piano, the piano that knew my fingers and my feet on the pedals from the time I was a child. It went almost like a dream. There were still rough spots that I had to stop and squint at, but the difference playing my own piano was astonishing. And when I played "Claire de Lune," my favorite piece, it was how I imagine old lovers who parted under necessary circumstances coming back together...cautiously, a little warily, with a longing and a touch of sweetness and remembered love. There were spaces where I'd never really gotten it right and had to work over with careful attention, and other places where the music and I had meshed so completely that I couldn't ever forget it. Overall it was a little clumsy, a little halting here and there, but still beautiful.
And complementarily enough, my sister's half-grown cat fell asleep next to the piano, listening.
It's been long enough that I've gone without music. I can't afford more lessons, but I can practice what I once learned. It'll have to be in the Community Room until I get my first house and can transport my childhood piano out to South Bend.
I have missed music.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Thursday, December 29, 2005
the necessity of poetry
You can see what I've indulged in from my Borders gift card: the complete (well, it says "complete" but we all know it isn't) poems of James Wright, and A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far by Adrienne Rich.
I like James Wright because he could be categorized as "confessional" (a term which I despise anyway, misapplied as it is to woman poets honest about their lives and their worlds and the world, making it sound as if they had something to be ashamed of, telling their lives in strands of burning words, holding language accountable for its glossed persecution of the experience of women rendered to silence) -- Wright writes with a tenderness and self-awareness and sensitivity that I appreciate. He has a good strong use of metaphor and a consciousness of the natural world that, very simply, work. An emptiness comes through in his poetry that is at times almost Japanese. So I like him.
Adrienne Rich I love. More than any other poet, she inspires me to write.
So I'm sitting in a quiet house for once -- my parents gone (to work? on errands? they left no note), my sister sleeping, the menagerie of animals for once at peace. It's nice, to be alone and quiet in the house. I'm used to living alone, I'm accustomed to cherishing my space, to waking up and breathing and knowing that mine is the only breath in the rooms that are my own. Living alone is a sort of wild dream, something I can't always believe, that makes me glow with happiness.
It has its funny aspects. I've largely stopped reacting at all when I drop something or hurt myself through moments of uncoordinated stupidity. The other week I spent a few minutes putting a huge stack of CDs back into their enormous CD carrier, then when I went to stand up to put it away the carrier ricocheted off my knees and bounced into my face and cut my lip. I put the carrier down, reached for a tissue, and pressed it to the cut until the bleeding had mostly stopped. Then I put the carrier away. Throughout the whole incident I didn't make a sound. Why would I? There was no one to hear.
Then last week I was cleaning up the kitchen and set a clean glass on the edge of the counter and turned toward the living room to fetch a tissue because I felt a sneeze coming on. In the process of turning I bumped the glass and heard it drop to the floor behind me and shatter. I turned around, looked at the mess, then went to get the tissue. After mopping up my nose, I returned to the kitchen and got out the broom and swept up the shards of glass lying all over the floor. No swearing. No anger. No reaction even. Something that once was highly unusual and is becoming more of a norm.
Maybe it will change when I get a cat. Part of the lack of reaction, as I mentioned, is the lack of audience. It seems far more functional just to clean up the mess than to get mad about it. But then all the reactions I don't indulge get packed in somewhere inside me and periodically I have a sort of insane meltdown to let it all out (and those are times when I'm glad there is no audience). But all of it takes place in the emptiness of my own rooms and although it would sometimes be nice to have someone there to say, "Sarah. It's no big deal. Calm down," or to laugh at the humor of the situation, or to put a pair of reassuring arms around me and let me fall apart if I want, there's a joy in taking responsibility for my actions, all of them, and a joy in knowing that I can live on no one's initiative but my own.
This does not excuse me from a need for community. One of my New Year's resolutions is to attend church three Sundays of every month, to build community. And I'm starting to build community at work. Man is a social being, and I can't deny my place in society among other human beings. But it is wonderful, so deliciously wonderful, to have my own tower to retreat to. Mike at work says that being an extrovert or introvert has nothing to do with being outgoing or shy and everything to do with what energizes you: people or solitude. So while I'm outgoing and engaging and love being around people, I am energized by solitude. I need to back out of society quite often, actually, to recharge my batteries and reorient myself to life.
So living alone is perfect for what I need, and emerging from my tower is necessary as well.
And so is reading poetry.
I like James Wright because he could be categorized as "confessional" (a term which I despise anyway, misapplied as it is to woman poets honest about their lives and their worlds and the world, making it sound as if they had something to be ashamed of, telling their lives in strands of burning words, holding language accountable for its glossed persecution of the experience of women rendered to silence) -- Wright writes with a tenderness and self-awareness and sensitivity that I appreciate. He has a good strong use of metaphor and a consciousness of the natural world that, very simply, work. An emptiness comes through in his poetry that is at times almost Japanese. So I like him.
Adrienne Rich I love. More than any other poet, she inspires me to write.
So I'm sitting in a quiet house for once -- my parents gone (to work? on errands? they left no note), my sister sleeping, the menagerie of animals for once at peace. It's nice, to be alone and quiet in the house. I'm used to living alone, I'm accustomed to cherishing my space, to waking up and breathing and knowing that mine is the only breath in the rooms that are my own. Living alone is a sort of wild dream, something I can't always believe, that makes me glow with happiness.
It has its funny aspects. I've largely stopped reacting at all when I drop something or hurt myself through moments of uncoordinated stupidity. The other week I spent a few minutes putting a huge stack of CDs back into their enormous CD carrier, then when I went to stand up to put it away the carrier ricocheted off my knees and bounced into my face and cut my lip. I put the carrier down, reached for a tissue, and pressed it to the cut until the bleeding had mostly stopped. Then I put the carrier away. Throughout the whole incident I didn't make a sound. Why would I? There was no one to hear.
Then last week I was cleaning up the kitchen and set a clean glass on the edge of the counter and turned toward the living room to fetch a tissue because I felt a sneeze coming on. In the process of turning I bumped the glass and heard it drop to the floor behind me and shatter. I turned around, looked at the mess, then went to get the tissue. After mopping up my nose, I returned to the kitchen and got out the broom and swept up the shards of glass lying all over the floor. No swearing. No anger. No reaction even. Something that once was highly unusual and is becoming more of a norm.
Maybe it will change when I get a cat. Part of the lack of reaction, as I mentioned, is the lack of audience. It seems far more functional just to clean up the mess than to get mad about it. But then all the reactions I don't indulge get packed in somewhere inside me and periodically I have a sort of insane meltdown to let it all out (and those are times when I'm glad there is no audience). But all of it takes place in the emptiness of my own rooms and although it would sometimes be nice to have someone there to say, "Sarah. It's no big deal. Calm down," or to laugh at the humor of the situation, or to put a pair of reassuring arms around me and let me fall apart if I want, there's a joy in taking responsibility for my actions, all of them, and a joy in knowing that I can live on no one's initiative but my own.
This does not excuse me from a need for community. One of my New Year's resolutions is to attend church three Sundays of every month, to build community. And I'm starting to build community at work. Man is a social being, and I can't deny my place in society among other human beings. But it is wonderful, so deliciously wonderful, to have my own tower to retreat to. Mike at work says that being an extrovert or introvert has nothing to do with being outgoing or shy and everything to do with what energizes you: people or solitude. So while I'm outgoing and engaging and love being around people, I am energized by solitude. I need to back out of society quite often, actually, to recharge my batteries and reorient myself to life.
So living alone is perfect for what I need, and emerging from my tower is necessary as well.
And so is reading poetry.
Integrity
the quality or state of being complete; unbroken condition; entirety --Webster
A wild patience has taken me this far
as if I had to bring to shore
a boat with a spasmodic outboard motor
old sweaters, nets, spray-mottled books
tossed in the prow
some kind of sun burning my shoulder-blades.
Splashing the oarlocks. Burning through.
Your fore-arms can get scalded, licked with pain
in a sun blotted like unspoken anger
behind a casual mist.
This length of daylight
this far north, in this
forty-ninth year of my life
is critical.
The light is critical: of me, of this
long-dreamed, involuntary landing
on the arm of an inland sea.
The glitter of the shoal
depleting into shadow
I recognize: the stand of pines
violet-black really, green in the old postcard
but really I have nothing but myself
to go by; nothing
stands in the realm of pure necessity
except what my hands can hold.
Nothing but myself?...My selves.
After so long, this answer.
As if I had always known
I steer the boat in, simply.
The motor dying on the pebbles
cicadas taking up the hum
dropped in the silence.
Anger and tenderness: my selves.
And now I can believe they breathe in me
as angels, not polarities.
Anger and tenderness: the spider's genius
to spin and weave in the same action
from her own body, anywhere--
even from a broken web.
The cabin in the stand of pines
is still for sale. I know this. Know the print
of the last foot, the hand that slammed and locked that door,
then stopped to wreathe the rain-smashed clematis
back on the trellis
for no one's sake except its own.
I know the chart nailed to the wallboards
the icy kettle squatting on the burner.
The hands that hammered in those nails
emptied that kettle one last time
are these two hands
and they have caught the baby leaping
from between trembling legs
and they have worked the vacuum aspirator
and stroked the sweated temples
and steered the boat here through this hot
misblotted sunlight, critical light
imperceptibly scalding
the skin these hands will also salve.
~Adrienne Rich, 1978
A wild patience has taken me this far
as if I had to bring to shore
a boat with a spasmodic outboard motor
old sweaters, nets, spray-mottled books
tossed in the prow
some kind of sun burning my shoulder-blades.
Splashing the oarlocks. Burning through.
Your fore-arms can get scalded, licked with pain
in a sun blotted like unspoken anger
behind a casual mist.
This length of daylight
this far north, in this
forty-ninth year of my life
is critical.
The light is critical: of me, of this
long-dreamed, involuntary landing
on the arm of an inland sea.
The glitter of the shoal
depleting into shadow
I recognize: the stand of pines
violet-black really, green in the old postcard
but really I have nothing but myself
to go by; nothing
stands in the realm of pure necessity
except what my hands can hold.
Nothing but myself?...My selves.
After so long, this answer.
As if I had always known
I steer the boat in, simply.
The motor dying on the pebbles
cicadas taking up the hum
dropped in the silence.
Anger and tenderness: my selves.
And now I can believe they breathe in me
as angels, not polarities.
Anger and tenderness: the spider's genius
to spin and weave in the same action
from her own body, anywhere--
even from a broken web.
The cabin in the stand of pines
is still for sale. I know this. Know the print
of the last foot, the hand that slammed and locked that door,
then stopped to wreathe the rain-smashed clematis
back on the trellis
for no one's sake except its own.
I know the chart nailed to the wallboards
the icy kettle squatting on the burner.
The hands that hammered in those nails
emptied that kettle one last time
are these two hands
and they have caught the baby leaping
from between trembling legs
and they have worked the vacuum aspirator
and stroked the sweated temples
and steered the boat here through this hot
misblotted sunlight, critical light
imperceptibly scalding
the skin these hands will also salve.
~Adrienne Rich, 1978
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Trying to Pray
This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In its dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
It is dusk.
It is the good darkness
Of women's hands that touch loaves.
The spirit of a tree begins to move.
I touch leaves.
I close my eyes, and think of water.
~James Wright
In its dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
It is dusk.
It is the good darkness
Of women's hands that touch loaves.
The spirit of a tree begins to move.
I touch leaves.
I close my eyes, and think of water.
~James Wright
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
post-Christmas craziness
I love Christmas. While it didn't feel quite fair to have Christmas on a Sunday, we more than made do (Mom and Dad went to church while I shamelessly stayed home with Laura and Keith to catch a late-morning nap -- very necessary to make up for the two and a half hours of sleep caught the night before due to present-wrapping and early rising to look at the tree). I asked for a number of intensely practical things that I never feel justified in putting into my budget -- new towels, cloth showercurtains, a Swiffer duster -- and I got them all, plus some (a new phone with a working answering machine! and a nice 3-qt saucepan, and jersey knit sheets, mmmmm). Laura gave me a GORGEOUS coat from her place of employ, Banana Republic, Keith gave me a scrumptious gift card to Borders (which I am going to spend today, the hole has burned through my pocket and into my skin), and Boss Meg gave me a FABULOUS monthly/weekly planner which will be absolutely indispensible as I move on to my new job.
I visited with church people and friends yesterday, and today am spending time with my beloved Eigh Ann after my post-Christmas shopping spree. Among the things I need (aside from the eight or so books that I do not yet own, imagine!) are gloves and a scarf to match the new coat, and new jeans.
It's so nice to be at home, taking a break from work. Since Christmas and New Year's fall on a Sunday, we get to take two weekdays off of our choice, and I took in addition three personal days (personal days! how adult! how career-oriented!) so that I get the whole week to myself to spend on my native soil with friends and family. So so good.
Even though I'm having dreams about cute guys who select other girls over me. Meh.
Oo but yesterday I saw a preview for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and those views of Johnny Depp more than sustained me.
I visited with church people and friends yesterday, and today am spending time with my beloved Eigh Ann after my post-Christmas shopping spree. Among the things I need (aside from the eight or so books that I do not yet own, imagine!) are gloves and a scarf to match the new coat, and new jeans.
It's so nice to be at home, taking a break from work. Since Christmas and New Year's fall on a Sunday, we get to take two weekdays off of our choice, and I took in addition three personal days (personal days! how adult! how career-oriented!) so that I get the whole week to myself to spend on my native soil with friends and family. So so good.
Even though I'm having dreams about cute guys who select other girls over me. Meh.
Oo but yesterday I saw a preview for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and those views of Johnny Depp more than sustained me.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
who's surprised?
| Your Reputation Is: Maneater |
 |
Saturday, December 17, 2005
nevertheless, hello
Holy smokies, it's been awhile since I've updated.
The reason for this is simple: My life has been turned into some ghastly sort of one-dimensional hell where I drift in the-ghost-of-Marley fashion with my jaw bandaged shut in order to stifle the moans of despair. I have kept myself at a level of near-complete exhaustion in order to deaden myself, with the result that I have no brain cells left for blogging.
And it's all because of work. Work has become as difficult as it could imaginably be at every facet.
Now, lest you think I am about to launch into a barrage of complaints, allow me to say that I am not in true despair. I just have to hang in there. I know that "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well"; but boy howdy, I'm tired. And I wish to explain to my beloved readers why.
The Center for the Homeless in South Bend is a sort of national phenomenon. It's not a soup kitchen, or a shelter; it seeks to end homelessness for its guests by giving them all classes and programs to address and fix why they're homeless. People can get their GEDs, acquire sponsored internships and externships around the community, pay off debt, learn about themselves, and find homes, all while having their basic needs met and their basic bills paid by living for free at the Center.
In its fifteen-ish years of existence, the Center has expanded a great deal, rather beyond its original vision, and so it is in the process of hashing out what its current vision and purpose are supposed to be. So there's been a lot of turnover as various people have left, and as a new leadership is establishing itself; and overall, as with all revolutions, things are in a state of temporary chaos as the new order begins to gain its balance.
This puts a lot of burdens of adjustment on all the staff, and the PEDS program where Meg and I work is no exception. We're undergoing a lot of changes anyway -- changes to the curriculum, changes in our supervisor, changes in the enrollees to the program, changes in the number of volunteers (on whom we rely -- a day with five toddlers and three infants and without help is almost impossible) and now changes in the program assistant, as Meg looks for a replacement for me in preparation for my move to the administrative branch.
As other children have left, Meg and I have taken on five new children, all very young and very needy. Two of the infants do not sleep when the older children do, so now there is no point in the day wherein Meg and I get a break. We have no lunchbreak, and with the vanishing of the volunteers (mostly college students) for their long Christmas breaks, we have had to beg for help from the already overworked staff in order to be able to put all the children down for a nap in under an hour and a half. Meg and I agreed yesterday that we are so busy taking care of kids all day long that we don't have time to run to the bathroom or even put on chapstick. We're desperately overworked and overwrought just trying to get through each day.
So I've pretty much shut down into survival mode. No emotional response to anything, no deep thinking. I come home deadpan from work every day and shuffle around the apartment putting off going to bed, then get up so tired I see flashes of light as I stagger to the bathroom to shower, and drag myself to work.
At least I can say there's a light at the end of the tunnel -- I get to start my new job once my replacement in PEDS has been found. It's much worse for Meg as she tries to keep the program running by herself. Hopefully the new hire will have more energy and boundless enthusiasm.
I do love the Center. I love working there and I love the people who work there and live there. Last week I sang a duet with one of the case managers at the Center's holiday talent show and it went over extremely well, and it was nice to come out of the woodwork and be part of the community there. Last week also some of the staff got together after work at the Fiddler's for fun and socialization, making me fall in love even more with the staff. I am optimistic about everything working out in the end for everyone else's benefit. It's just a roughish road getting to where we need to be.
So simple exhaustion is the reason for my long silence. Today I took an entire Saturday to go nowhere and do nothing but relax and clean. Tomorrow Meg and I are getting together to bake cookies, and when I come home I will finish wrapping presents for the people for whom I can afford to buy presents. It's going to be a lovely Christmas, I think -- not because of lavish gifts (tons of bills for various things -- hopitalization, car tax, car rental -- have just arrived, tightening the screws down on my already squeaking budget) but because this year I can spend Christmas at home with my family. That in itself is comfort and joy.
The reason for this is simple: My life has been turned into some ghastly sort of one-dimensional hell where I drift in the-ghost-of-Marley fashion with my jaw bandaged shut in order to stifle the moans of despair. I have kept myself at a level of near-complete exhaustion in order to deaden myself, with the result that I have no brain cells left for blogging.
And it's all because of work. Work has become as difficult as it could imaginably be at every facet.
Now, lest you think I am about to launch into a barrage of complaints, allow me to say that I am not in true despair. I just have to hang in there. I know that "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well"; but boy howdy, I'm tired. And I wish to explain to my beloved readers why.
The Center for the Homeless in South Bend is a sort of national phenomenon. It's not a soup kitchen, or a shelter; it seeks to end homelessness for its guests by giving them all classes and programs to address and fix why they're homeless. People can get their GEDs, acquire sponsored internships and externships around the community, pay off debt, learn about themselves, and find homes, all while having their basic needs met and their basic bills paid by living for free at the Center.
In its fifteen-ish years of existence, the Center has expanded a great deal, rather beyond its original vision, and so it is in the process of hashing out what its current vision and purpose are supposed to be. So there's been a lot of turnover as various people have left, and as a new leadership is establishing itself; and overall, as with all revolutions, things are in a state of temporary chaos as the new order begins to gain its balance.
This puts a lot of burdens of adjustment on all the staff, and the PEDS program where Meg and I work is no exception. We're undergoing a lot of changes anyway -- changes to the curriculum, changes in our supervisor, changes in the enrollees to the program, changes in the number of volunteers (on whom we rely -- a day with five toddlers and three infants and without help is almost impossible) and now changes in the program assistant, as Meg looks for a replacement for me in preparation for my move to the administrative branch.
As other children have left, Meg and I have taken on five new children, all very young and very needy. Two of the infants do not sleep when the older children do, so now there is no point in the day wherein Meg and I get a break. We have no lunchbreak, and with the vanishing of the volunteers (mostly college students) for their long Christmas breaks, we have had to beg for help from the already overworked staff in order to be able to put all the children down for a nap in under an hour and a half. Meg and I agreed yesterday that we are so busy taking care of kids all day long that we don't have time to run to the bathroom or even put on chapstick. We're desperately overworked and overwrought just trying to get through each day.
So I've pretty much shut down into survival mode. No emotional response to anything, no deep thinking. I come home deadpan from work every day and shuffle around the apartment putting off going to bed, then get up so tired I see flashes of light as I stagger to the bathroom to shower, and drag myself to work.
At least I can say there's a light at the end of the tunnel -- I get to start my new job once my replacement in PEDS has been found. It's much worse for Meg as she tries to keep the program running by herself. Hopefully the new hire will have more energy and boundless enthusiasm.
I do love the Center. I love working there and I love the people who work there and live there. Last week I sang a duet with one of the case managers at the Center's holiday talent show and it went over extremely well, and it was nice to come out of the woodwork and be part of the community there. Last week also some of the staff got together after work at the Fiddler's for fun and socialization, making me fall in love even more with the staff. I am optimistic about everything working out in the end for everyone else's benefit. It's just a roughish road getting to where we need to be.
So simple exhaustion is the reason for my long silence. Today I took an entire Saturday to go nowhere and do nothing but relax and clean. Tomorrow Meg and I are getting together to bake cookies, and when I come home I will finish wrapping presents for the people for whom I can afford to buy presents. It's going to be a lovely Christmas, I think -- not because of lavish gifts (tons of bills for various things -- hopitalization, car tax, car rental -- have just arrived, tightening the screws down on my already squeaking budget) but because this year I can spend Christmas at home with my family. That in itself is comfort and joy.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
o tannenbaum
Yesterday I pulled sturdy jeans over a pair of old nylons, layered up in sweaters, donned the only hat that becomes me, and headed up to Michigan to fetch myself a fine-lookin' tree with Boss Meg and her husband Phillip.
Christmas tree selection, transportation, and installation is possibly a greater difficulty to the modern single woman than the pointlessness of hanging mistletoe. A dear friend (an attached young man) once asked, "Why do all these TV shows and movies make a big deal out of single women having to drag Christmas trees into their apartments through their windows?" Because it's the starkest thing about the single life. A woman can be content, even satisfied, with her life as a Singleton; but managing a Christmas tree by herself throws into sharp relief the inherent wrongness of having to navigate life alone. There should be someone to help her with the damn tree. When there isn't, it goes beyond a feeling of cosmic mockery and violates the sensibility that lies at the marrow of Christmas: connection. Divine connection to humanity, human connection to humanity. A woman falling back on her own resources to set up her isolated celebration of connection is a terribly ironic tragedy.
I've been blessed so far by not having to set up makeshift pulleys out my living room window. Last year when I couldn't go home for any of the holidays because of the demands of retail, my parents visited for Thanksgiving and brought with them a Scotch pine to set up in my living room. (One of these days I'll post on the necessity of having parents, even and especially as an adult, and how glad I am that my parents maintain an active involvement in my life, or I might be lost.) They helped me purchase the lights, the ornaments, the tinsel. I decorated it alone, but even though I cried as I did it, I did not feel abandoned.
This year I could not have done it without Meg and Phillip. And I had a wonderful time. We drove to a Christmas tree farm in the middle of nowhere, which supplies its customers with saws and hayrides (horse- or tractor-drawn) to the tree fields, where you can wander at will and select your very own tree. Phillip cut mine down for me (a tall, full Douglas fir -- I'm drawn to triangular trees the way some people are drawn to certain body types), and we hauled our trees back to meet the next hayride and headed to the home base where our trees were mechanically shaken free of dead needles, measured, priced, and bundled. Then we went into a log-cabin style general store for complimentary hot cocoa and to pay for the trees. Phillip strapped the trees to the top of their SUV and we returned to their place for chili and tree decoration, after which they drove my tree to my apartment, carried it upstairs, and went about the messy business of setting it up in my living room.
I had already rearranged all the furniture to accomodate the beautiful annual intruder, but we hadn't factored on the difficulty of forcing the tree into my ancient tree stand. In the end my living room carpet was littered with branches, bark, sawdust, pinesap, needles, and twigs as Meg and Phillip hacked away at interfering tree limbs. (At one point Phillip was doing the sawing while Meg and I straddled the still-bundled tree to keep it still, and I laughed and said, "Meg, we're having a treesome!")
So now I have armfuls of fir boughs to adorn the apartment, a clean carpet, and a fully decorated tree. Every family decorates differently; mine favors large colored lights, some of which randomly blink (and the first half-hour or forty-five minutes of tree decoration involves unscrewing and moving bulbs around to eliminate clusters of one color throughout the branches) and no particular theme to the ornaments. The tree is a hodgepodge of homemade, inherited, bought, and acquired ornaments placed to fill its spaces, some hung as far back as possible, layered over with silver tinsel icicles (no garland for me!) and topped with an angel. The overall effect is friendly, warm, and delightful; my favorite evening advent activity is to turn off all lights in the house except the tree just before bed, and sit listening to Christmas music or in silence, watching the tree and the needly patterns of colored light it throws against the white walls and ceiling.
It's still odd, decorating by myself and for myself, but this year I feel I have friends with which to share it. Next weekend sometime Meg and I are getting together for a Christmas cookie-baking bonanza (such fun, to swap recipes), and she'll be stopping by during the week to see what I've done with the tree. I'll have Colette over soon, and I'm pretty sure I can drag MP over for some insane Christmas cheer.
This is a new and glowing facet to celebrating Christmas: sharing and experiencing the traditions of fully grown friends. Everyone has a different story, and story, as Leigh Ann and I enthusiastically discuss, is life.
So I'm single. So I'm living alone. But I didn't have to wrestle my tree in place by myself, and I am beginning to feel more and more connected where I am.
And my tree is fragrant and gorgeous.
Christmas tree selection, transportation, and installation is possibly a greater difficulty to the modern single woman than the pointlessness of hanging mistletoe. A dear friend (an attached young man) once asked, "Why do all these TV shows and movies make a big deal out of single women having to drag Christmas trees into their apartments through their windows?" Because it's the starkest thing about the single life. A woman can be content, even satisfied, with her life as a Singleton; but managing a Christmas tree by herself throws into sharp relief the inherent wrongness of having to navigate life alone. There should be someone to help her with the damn tree. When there isn't, it goes beyond a feeling of cosmic mockery and violates the sensibility that lies at the marrow of Christmas: connection. Divine connection to humanity, human connection to humanity. A woman falling back on her own resources to set up her isolated celebration of connection is a terribly ironic tragedy.
I've been blessed so far by not having to set up makeshift pulleys out my living room window. Last year when I couldn't go home for any of the holidays because of the demands of retail, my parents visited for Thanksgiving and brought with them a Scotch pine to set up in my living room. (One of these days I'll post on the necessity of having parents, even and especially as an adult, and how glad I am that my parents maintain an active involvement in my life, or I might be lost.) They helped me purchase the lights, the ornaments, the tinsel. I decorated it alone, but even though I cried as I did it, I did not feel abandoned.
This year I could not have done it without Meg and Phillip. And I had a wonderful time. We drove to a Christmas tree farm in the middle of nowhere, which supplies its customers with saws and hayrides (horse- or tractor-drawn) to the tree fields, where you can wander at will and select your very own tree. Phillip cut mine down for me (a tall, full Douglas fir -- I'm drawn to triangular trees the way some people are drawn to certain body types), and we hauled our trees back to meet the next hayride and headed to the home base where our trees were mechanically shaken free of dead needles, measured, priced, and bundled. Then we went into a log-cabin style general store for complimentary hot cocoa and to pay for the trees. Phillip strapped the trees to the top of their SUV and we returned to their place for chili and tree decoration, after which they drove my tree to my apartment, carried it upstairs, and went about the messy business of setting it up in my living room.
I had already rearranged all the furniture to accomodate the beautiful annual intruder, but we hadn't factored on the difficulty of forcing the tree into my ancient tree stand. In the end my living room carpet was littered with branches, bark, sawdust, pinesap, needles, and twigs as Meg and Phillip hacked away at interfering tree limbs. (At one point Phillip was doing the sawing while Meg and I straddled the still-bundled tree to keep it still, and I laughed and said, "Meg, we're having a treesome!")
So now I have armfuls of fir boughs to adorn the apartment, a clean carpet, and a fully decorated tree. Every family decorates differently; mine favors large colored lights, some of which randomly blink (and the first half-hour or forty-five minutes of tree decoration involves unscrewing and moving bulbs around to eliminate clusters of one color throughout the branches) and no particular theme to the ornaments. The tree is a hodgepodge of homemade, inherited, bought, and acquired ornaments placed to fill its spaces, some hung as far back as possible, layered over with silver tinsel icicles (no garland for me!) and topped with an angel. The overall effect is friendly, warm, and delightful; my favorite evening advent activity is to turn off all lights in the house except the tree just before bed, and sit listening to Christmas music or in silence, watching the tree and the needly patterns of colored light it throws against the white walls and ceiling.
It's still odd, decorating by myself and for myself, but this year I feel I have friends with which to share it. Next weekend sometime Meg and I are getting together for a Christmas cookie-baking bonanza (such fun, to swap recipes), and she'll be stopping by during the week to see what I've done with the tree. I'll have Colette over soon, and I'm pretty sure I can drag MP over for some insane Christmas cheer.
This is a new and glowing facet to celebrating Christmas: sharing and experiencing the traditions of fully grown friends. Everyone has a different story, and story, as Leigh Ann and I enthusiastically discuss, is life.
So I'm single. So I'm living alone. But I didn't have to wrestle my tree in place by myself, and I am beginning to feel more and more connected where I am.
And my tree is fragrant and gorgeous.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Enter Henrietta
My cute, sassy 2001 Toyota Corolla Sport. Yes, in the span of sixty hours I got a new car. Here's a frame-by-frame:
Friday. The call comes from Gurley Leep about Earl's totalled status. I freak out. My grandparents promise to help. I ride back to Erie with Mom and Dad feeling sick. Dad calls a friend from church for car-buying tips. The guy tells him he usually gets them off Ebay.
Saturday. Doug e-mails Dad a link to a 2001 Toyota Corolla Sport on the Ebay market, fantastically priced and in great condition. I see the pictures. I read a list of the car's assets. I fall in love. Dad calls the seller (who lives in Rochester, NY) to ask a few questions. Dad calls Pap-pap to tell him about the car. Dad wants to drive the car before he buys it. I spend the entire day chewing my nails.
Sunday. Dad calls the seller again. Pap-pap calls with his approval (necessary because Pap-pap is footing all of the money for the car, part a gift and part a loan). Mom, Dad, and I drive to Rochester. We test drive the car. I am wildly in love with the car. I name her Henrietta Brighton-Jones. We buy the car. We drive her to North East. We arrive there at 8:00 p.m. I finish packing the rental car and start out in it for South Bend at 9:00 p.m.
Monday. At midnight I am still driving. I pull over at the western edge of Ohio at 1:00 a.m. for a nap because I am so tired I am shaking and feeling close to vomiting. I arrive at my apartment at 3:45 a.m. I fall asleep an hour later. My alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m. I sleep for another hour. I arrive at work forty minutes late. I make it through the day. I go to bed at 9:00 p.m. for ten hours of sleep.
Tuesday. Mom and Dad drive Henrietta to me. Dad and I return the rental car while Mom helps Meg at work. I drive Henrietta back to work. We have dinner at the Fiddler's, then part ways so Mom and Dad can get home before midnight. I drive Henrietta home and hash out the details of repayment with my grandparents (I'm paying back eighty-eight percent of the cost of the car, which will have me making payments to them for the next five years. This basically means I'll be living in my current lifestyle -- no extra frills or fun stuff, definitely not a new chair and probably not even a new mattress for a long time -- even after my raise. This stings a little, particularly about the mattress because my back HURTS all the time now, but at least they're not charging me interest, which with their loans they usually do. My grandfather was a banker). I sit back excited to watch Bones and House. Or maybe just Bones, depending on how tired I am.
So Henrietta is white, snazzy, with a CD player and a stick shift and cruise control. I have wanted a stick ever since I learned to drive one. I can't believe that I have the car of my dreams. For this I am exceedingly grateful. And she definitely has "get-up-and-go." Earl was faithful, but certainly not speedy (zero to thirty in ten seconds). Henrietta grips the road and jumps.
I have an amazing family and a great car.
Happy happy happy.
Tired.
Friday. The call comes from Gurley Leep about Earl's totalled status. I freak out. My grandparents promise to help. I ride back to Erie with Mom and Dad feeling sick. Dad calls a friend from church for car-buying tips. The guy tells him he usually gets them off Ebay.
Saturday. Doug e-mails Dad a link to a 2001 Toyota Corolla Sport on the Ebay market, fantastically priced and in great condition. I see the pictures. I read a list of the car's assets. I fall in love. Dad calls the seller (who lives in Rochester, NY) to ask a few questions. Dad calls Pap-pap to tell him about the car. Dad wants to drive the car before he buys it. I spend the entire day chewing my nails.
Sunday. Dad calls the seller again. Pap-pap calls with his approval (necessary because Pap-pap is footing all of the money for the car, part a gift and part a loan). Mom, Dad, and I drive to Rochester. We test drive the car. I am wildly in love with the car. I name her Henrietta Brighton-Jones. We buy the car. We drive her to North East. We arrive there at 8:00 p.m. I finish packing the rental car and start out in it for South Bend at 9:00 p.m.
Monday. At midnight I am still driving. I pull over at the western edge of Ohio at 1:00 a.m. for a nap because I am so tired I am shaking and feeling close to vomiting. I arrive at my apartment at 3:45 a.m. I fall asleep an hour later. My alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m. I sleep for another hour. I arrive at work forty minutes late. I make it through the day. I go to bed at 9:00 p.m. for ten hours of sleep.
Tuesday. Mom and Dad drive Henrietta to me. Dad and I return the rental car while Mom helps Meg at work. I drive Henrietta back to work. We have dinner at the Fiddler's, then part ways so Mom and Dad can get home before midnight. I drive Henrietta home and hash out the details of repayment with my grandparents (I'm paying back eighty-eight percent of the cost of the car, which will have me making payments to them for the next five years. This basically means I'll be living in my current lifestyle -- no extra frills or fun stuff, definitely not a new chair and probably not even a new mattress for a long time -- even after my raise. This stings a little, particularly about the mattress because my back HURTS all the time now, but at least they're not charging me interest, which with their loans they usually do. My grandfather was a banker). I sit back excited to watch Bones and House. Or maybe just Bones, depending on how tired I am.
So Henrietta is white, snazzy, with a CD player and a stick shift and cruise control. I have wanted a stick ever since I learned to drive one. I can't believe that I have the car of my dreams. For this I am exceedingly grateful. And she definitely has "get-up-and-go." Earl was faithful, but certainly not speedy (zero to thirty in ten seconds). Henrietta grips the road and jumps.
I have an amazing family and a great car.
Happy happy happy.
Tired.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
good night, sweet prince
They're totalling my car.
Apparently on the close inspection that he should have done the minute I drove to the dealership with my damaged Earl four weeks ago, the inspection/estimate guy decided yesterday that the cost to repair outweighs the value of the eleven-year-old minivan. So I'm sitting back waiting for a call from the insurance company.
This frustrates me for a number of reasons. First, my old Earl has been a faithful vehicle. So I'm sad. But more than this, the insurance company should have declared total loss at least a month ago. Instead they farted around denying me the money I needed for a rental (they said they'd pay for the three days it would take to repair the as-then-assessed damages, but no more, sticking me with the bill for another five days since the soonest they would let me take my car in was Thanksgiving week, when I was due to travel to visit family), and then the estimate guy waited till FRIDAY (I dropped my car off on Monday) to call me to tell me he's putting a hold on my car until he can hear back from the insurance company about totalling it.
So now I have to scramble to find a new car before the cost of the rental puts me in the poorhouse. My grandparents were great, though -- I got the phone call yesterday at their house, and was so upset that I buckled onto the floor and started crying (I seriously don't have the money for this and I sure as hell have never bought a car before); poor Mom thought someone had died -- and my tough, practical, Scots-Irish grandmother came and knelt in front of me on the floor and took my hands firmly and said, "You're a good kid, and you've been making it on your own. I am so proud of you. Your grandfather and I will help you with a new car. And don't be too proud to accept it." I sniffled and said, "Thanks, I'll pay you back," and she said sharply, "No you will not. If we help you, you won't pay anything back." And my gruff German-Scots-Irish pap-pap growled, "Sure, honey. We'll help you." And Grandma started flipping through the 2006 Consumer Report looking for reliable automobiles while Pap-pap gave me advice on taxes and told me to run my hands up under the dashboard of any used vehicle I consider to look for flood silt.
So I've decided I want a Toyota Corolla -- affordable, reliable, cheap to repair, long-lasting, safe -- and Mom and Dad and their friends and our family are helping me locate some. So within a week I should have a new car.
The good thing is I get an extra paycheck in December, which should cover the cost of the rental. And I'm actually pretty excited about a new(er) car. I'm just glad I don't have to do everything myself (another sucky singleness factor, especially with home base so far away).
Oo, and my parents are giving me my favorite of their three cats, adorable black-as-velvet Simon who doesn't prefer the company of so many cats and would probably benefit from living with only one person. He strayed into our yard two Easters ago and I made first contact with him (I was sitting in the yard with Kristin Born, then Bell, late one evening when I saw this gorgeous slender black cat hanging around under one of the cars, so I crouched down and started rubbing my fingers together and crooning. He paced frantically back and forth like he wanted to come running but was afraid, then suddenly gathered all his courage and shot over and scooted under my hand and froze. Then when I kept crooning and started stroking his head, he relaxed all over and kicked up a raspy loud purr that you wouldn't believe and started rolling around in ecstasy in the dirt. Within a week he was formally adopted into our zoo/family). So after Christmas I'm taking him back to South Bend.
This will put me two closer to achieving my five By The Time I'm Thirty-One I Will Have goals. Those goals are: a house, a new car, a cat, a dog, and a king-size bed.
Three to go.
Apparently on the close inspection that he should have done the minute I drove to the dealership with my damaged Earl four weeks ago, the inspection/estimate guy decided yesterday that the cost to repair outweighs the value of the eleven-year-old minivan. So I'm sitting back waiting for a call from the insurance company.
This frustrates me for a number of reasons. First, my old Earl has been a faithful vehicle. So I'm sad. But more than this, the insurance company should have declared total loss at least a month ago. Instead they farted around denying me the money I needed for a rental (they said they'd pay for the three days it would take to repair the as-then-assessed damages, but no more, sticking me with the bill for another five days since the soonest they would let me take my car in was Thanksgiving week, when I was due to travel to visit family), and then the estimate guy waited till FRIDAY (I dropped my car off on Monday) to call me to tell me he's putting a hold on my car until he can hear back from the insurance company about totalling it.
So now I have to scramble to find a new car before the cost of the rental puts me in the poorhouse. My grandparents were great, though -- I got the phone call yesterday at their house, and was so upset that I buckled onto the floor and started crying (I seriously don't have the money for this and I sure as hell have never bought a car before); poor Mom thought someone had died -- and my tough, practical, Scots-Irish grandmother came and knelt in front of me on the floor and took my hands firmly and said, "You're a good kid, and you've been making it on your own. I am so proud of you. Your grandfather and I will help you with a new car. And don't be too proud to accept it." I sniffled and said, "Thanks, I'll pay you back," and she said sharply, "No you will not. If we help you, you won't pay anything back." And my gruff German-Scots-Irish pap-pap growled, "Sure, honey. We'll help you." And Grandma started flipping through the 2006 Consumer Report looking for reliable automobiles while Pap-pap gave me advice on taxes and told me to run my hands up under the dashboard of any used vehicle I consider to look for flood silt.
So I've decided I want a Toyota Corolla -- affordable, reliable, cheap to repair, long-lasting, safe -- and Mom and Dad and their friends and our family are helping me locate some. So within a week I should have a new car.
The good thing is I get an extra paycheck in December, which should cover the cost of the rental. And I'm actually pretty excited about a new(er) car. I'm just glad I don't have to do everything myself (another sucky singleness factor, especially with home base so far away).
Oo, and my parents are giving me my favorite of their three cats, adorable black-as-velvet Simon who doesn't prefer the company of so many cats and would probably benefit from living with only one person. He strayed into our yard two Easters ago and I made first contact with him (I was sitting in the yard with Kristin Born, then Bell, late one evening when I saw this gorgeous slender black cat hanging around under one of the cars, so I crouched down and started rubbing my fingers together and crooning. He paced frantically back and forth like he wanted to come running but was afraid, then suddenly gathered all his courage and shot over and scooted under my hand and froze. Then when I kept crooning and started stroking his head, he relaxed all over and kicked up a raspy loud purr that you wouldn't believe and started rolling around in ecstasy in the dirt. Within a week he was formally adopted into our zoo/family). So after Christmas I'm taking him back to South Bend.
This will put me two closer to achieving my five By The Time I'm Thirty-One I Will Have goals. Those goals are: a house, a new car, a cat, a dog, and a king-size bed.
Three to go.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
this is me doing okay.
I found my first facial line.
There are three, actually. Very fine, but clear. One parallelling the curve of my upper right lip, the other two side-by-side at the left-hand corner of my mouth. I have been noticing for the past month or so that when I smile (yes, I check myself out in mirrors and my car windows when I'm unlocking the door) the smile quirks back into set, predestined curves. But then after a four-hour laugh session at Don Pablo's with the incorrigible and hilarious MP, I got home and noticed while getting ready to wash my face that the laugh lines...were still there. And I wasn't smiling.
A smile-free night of semi-restful sleep (I have just decided that my mattress sucks, which is the reason I wake up tired and sore every morning) found the lines...still there.
I have two feelings about this. The first is, of course, a combination of hollow regret and desperate panic (will I meet the man who wants to marry me BEFORE my skin collapses into dewlaps?) because I think, I'm not eighteen anymore. The fresh unworn skin is becoming a little less supple, a little more set, like overworked clay.
The other feeling is...pride. I hated being eighteen. I have always wanted to be a grown-up. I have always felt a little too old for my age (and have been told at least a thousand times that I am, even this year), and now I've reached the point where I've lived enough to have it carved, just the tiniest bit, into my skin. My body is beginning to catch up and take me where I've always wanted to go. And I'm proud because the lines, the first to appear and tell me that however young I am, I'm getting older, were born of laughter. In high school I had small white frown-spots at the corners of my mouth from not smiling, from feeling heavy-laden and sad; in college I started to shove away sadness and embrace joy. And the lines that tell me where the smile is going to go show me that I've won what is for me an old war. I have a leg up on time. I'm going into age laughing.
There are years of reasons why this is a miracle. I was reared in my adolescence by a fanatic youth pastor who taught me that I was horrible, who trained me to hate myself and to think that God hated me for not being perfect. I used to lie awake every night weeping, casting around in my mind for every single minute thing I had done wrong that day and desperately begging for God's forgiveness, believing he would cast me into hell and withhold his love from me because I was human. I believed for the entirety of the most formative years of my life that God detested me, was disappointed in me, would never be satisfied with me, thought I was disgusting, and loved me only in spite of myself because he was God but would much rather he didn't have to. I was afraid. I was in despair. I didn't particularly want to live. I didn't think I could make it on my own. I thought that if God could only love me because he was God, no one else could love me. I was alone.
But in college I learned that my fellow human beings could, and did, love me. And so did God. My favorite bathroom stall in North Hall my freshman year (left-hand side, second door from the front) had Zephaniah 3:17 hanging in it. Every time I took a pee, it affirmed to me in curly cheerful letters, "The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. / He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." I started to uncurl my fingers and loosen my hold on the idea that I was worthless, good-for-nothing, better off dead. I began to laugh.
When my sister went through her debilitating illness, I learned to stave off the anguish and despair with laughter. Wild sometimes, hollow sometimes, forced sometimes, but still healing. Even when I was angriest at God, I found something I'd forgotten, something that vanished sometime after I turned eight. I found joy. And I held onto it. I met people I could laugh with, and I found faith that everything would work out.
And it has. It's not a happily-ever-after ending, of course -- not yet. But it's still good. When I was eighteen I had my whole life planned out. Now at twenty-four I don't have plans at all. None of them panned out the way I thought. And I couldn't be happier about it. Sure, there are nights when I wish my battered stuffed Eeyore was a solid, breathing, warm human man; sure, there are mornings when the thought of wiping one more horrible slug-dripping nose or changing one more shitty diaper or holding one more kid in the throes of a temper tantrum over something stupid like "It's time to brush your teeth" makes me want to pull the covers back over my head and deny the daylight; but at every moment I'm in a season. Something new is just around the corner.
Not all of it will be enjoyable (in fact I have an appointment after Thanksgiving to see if I have a stomach ulcer, which I doubt but who knows?), but everything will be okay. I'm doing what I didn't think possible, even two years ago: I'm relatively emotionally stable, I have a good job (which is getting better -- in mid-January I'm going to be, not Administrative Coordinator, but Director of Events, some Marketing, and some PR -- I'll be writing press releases and I get a thirty percent raise and an extra week of paid vacation and an office!!!), I find pleasure in living alone, I find pleasure in spending time with the few trusted friends I've made here. I find pleasure in being.
Yesterday I opened my Bible at random to Psalm 37: "If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand." Yesterday I laughed so hard with Marianne that my abs hurt more than they do after my daily workout. Yesterday I found my first facial lines. Today the lines were still there, and today I looked out my window at the hard, bright, shallow sunshine on the bare bright trees and I loved my life and this season and the God who brought me to it. I put on my coat, my favorite scarf, and my warm ugly gloves and went out into the day at the death of the year (this coldness before the snow flies, when the leaves are packed in sharp-smelling banks along the curb and the land is stark and bare, is my favorite time of year), and found Colette, and walked around the neighborhood, talking.
Maybe every second doesn't find me jumping up and down in elation -- that's not life. Maybe every morning doesn't find me burning with delight to be awake, maybe every afternoon doesn't find me suppressing a song because I'm filled to bursting with happiness. But every minute finds me alive. Every minute finds me upheld. And when I turn my faithful, as-yet-unrepaired old Earl nosefirst down the driveway wherever I'm going each day, I can look down the uneven bricks of Ashland St. and up at the flat November sky and think, I'm doing okay.
I'm not getting younger, and I'm not where I thought I would be. But where I am is better. Facial lines and all.
There are three, actually. Very fine, but clear. One parallelling the curve of my upper right lip, the other two side-by-side at the left-hand corner of my mouth. I have been noticing for the past month or so that when I smile (yes, I check myself out in mirrors and my car windows when I'm unlocking the door) the smile quirks back into set, predestined curves. But then after a four-hour laugh session at Don Pablo's with the incorrigible and hilarious MP, I got home and noticed while getting ready to wash my face that the laugh lines...were still there. And I wasn't smiling.
A smile-free night of semi-restful sleep (I have just decided that my mattress sucks, which is the reason I wake up tired and sore every morning) found the lines...still there.
I have two feelings about this. The first is, of course, a combination of hollow regret and desperate panic (will I meet the man who wants to marry me BEFORE my skin collapses into dewlaps?) because I think, I'm not eighteen anymore. The fresh unworn skin is becoming a little less supple, a little more set, like overworked clay.
The other feeling is...pride. I hated being eighteen. I have always wanted to be a grown-up. I have always felt a little too old for my age (and have been told at least a thousand times that I am, even this year), and now I've reached the point where I've lived enough to have it carved, just the tiniest bit, into my skin. My body is beginning to catch up and take me where I've always wanted to go. And I'm proud because the lines, the first to appear and tell me that however young I am, I'm getting older, were born of laughter. In high school I had small white frown-spots at the corners of my mouth from not smiling, from feeling heavy-laden and sad; in college I started to shove away sadness and embrace joy. And the lines that tell me where the smile is going to go show me that I've won what is for me an old war. I have a leg up on time. I'm going into age laughing.
There are years of reasons why this is a miracle. I was reared in my adolescence by a fanatic youth pastor who taught me that I was horrible, who trained me to hate myself and to think that God hated me for not being perfect. I used to lie awake every night weeping, casting around in my mind for every single minute thing I had done wrong that day and desperately begging for God's forgiveness, believing he would cast me into hell and withhold his love from me because I was human. I believed for the entirety of the most formative years of my life that God detested me, was disappointed in me, would never be satisfied with me, thought I was disgusting, and loved me only in spite of myself because he was God but would much rather he didn't have to. I was afraid. I was in despair. I didn't particularly want to live. I didn't think I could make it on my own. I thought that if God could only love me because he was God, no one else could love me. I was alone.
But in college I learned that my fellow human beings could, and did, love me. And so did God. My favorite bathroom stall in North Hall my freshman year (left-hand side, second door from the front) had Zephaniah 3:17 hanging in it. Every time I took a pee, it affirmed to me in curly cheerful letters, "The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. / He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." I started to uncurl my fingers and loosen my hold on the idea that I was worthless, good-for-nothing, better off dead. I began to laugh.
When my sister went through her debilitating illness, I learned to stave off the anguish and despair with laughter. Wild sometimes, hollow sometimes, forced sometimes, but still healing. Even when I was angriest at God, I found something I'd forgotten, something that vanished sometime after I turned eight. I found joy. And I held onto it. I met people I could laugh with, and I found faith that everything would work out.
And it has. It's not a happily-ever-after ending, of course -- not yet. But it's still good. When I was eighteen I had my whole life planned out. Now at twenty-four I don't have plans at all. None of them panned out the way I thought. And I couldn't be happier about it. Sure, there are nights when I wish my battered stuffed Eeyore was a solid, breathing, warm human man; sure, there are mornings when the thought of wiping one more horrible slug-dripping nose or changing one more shitty diaper or holding one more kid in the throes of a temper tantrum over something stupid like "It's time to brush your teeth" makes me want to pull the covers back over my head and deny the daylight; but at every moment I'm in a season. Something new is just around the corner.
Not all of it will be enjoyable (in fact I have an appointment after Thanksgiving to see if I have a stomach ulcer, which I doubt but who knows?), but everything will be okay. I'm doing what I didn't think possible, even two years ago: I'm relatively emotionally stable, I have a good job (which is getting better -- in mid-January I'm going to be, not Administrative Coordinator, but Director of Events, some Marketing, and some PR -- I'll be writing press releases and I get a thirty percent raise and an extra week of paid vacation and an office!!!), I find pleasure in living alone, I find pleasure in spending time with the few trusted friends I've made here. I find pleasure in being.
Yesterday I opened my Bible at random to Psalm 37: "If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand." Yesterday I laughed so hard with Marianne that my abs hurt more than they do after my daily workout. Yesterday I found my first facial lines. Today the lines were still there, and today I looked out my window at the hard, bright, shallow sunshine on the bare bright trees and I loved my life and this season and the God who brought me to it. I put on my coat, my favorite scarf, and my warm ugly gloves and went out into the day at the death of the year (this coldness before the snow flies, when the leaves are packed in sharp-smelling banks along the curb and the land is stark and bare, is my favorite time of year), and found Colette, and walked around the neighborhood, talking.
Maybe every second doesn't find me jumping up and down in elation -- that's not life. Maybe every morning doesn't find me burning with delight to be awake, maybe every afternoon doesn't find me suppressing a song because I'm filled to bursting with happiness. But every minute finds me alive. Every minute finds me upheld. And when I turn my faithful, as-yet-unrepaired old Earl nosefirst down the driveway wherever I'm going each day, I can look down the uneven bricks of Ashland St. and up at the flat November sky and think, I'm doing okay.
I'm not getting younger, and I'm not where I thought I would be. But where I am is better. Facial lines and all.
Friday, November 11, 2005
la la la la la
Just had a fantastic evening hanging out with former roommate Marianne -- I sometimes forget how lovely and essential it is to spend time with someone who has known you well for a long while, whose company you really enjoy. (Shout out, MP!)
Also some really exciting news on the promotion, which I'll go into further over the weekend. Right now I'm tired and have to get up early on a Saturday for a conference on baby sign language. Wheee.
Also some really exciting news on the promotion, which I'll go into further over the weekend. Right now I'm tired and have to get up early on a Saturday for a conference on baby sign language. Wheee.
Monday, November 07, 2005
yak
So I'm recovering from a weekend of nasty illness and took a sick day today to give me a chance to get back to as normal as possible.
Last week a wicked stomach bug ran rampant at the Center, and Friday afternoon I caught it. When I got home from work I emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet (my toilet has an old-fashioned base shaped in cross-section rather like a flower, which makes it conveniently easy to grip when in the throes of retching), and went to bed. Apparently bored with the dash-for-the-bathroom routine, I had my stomach put a little blood into the vomit and treated myself to a trip to the ER where after being ignored for hours I was put onto an IV and drugged senseless. My two angels through this ordeal were Colette and her coworker Tona -- Colette drove me to the hospital and Tona met us there -- and they lugged my stuff around and told stories and fetched me things like heated blankets and cups of ice.
After about six hours I was still having trouble keeping water down and the nurse was all for admitting me for the night, but by then I had one clear and ever-so-stubborn thought in my muddled head: Go home. That was about all I could manage to say: "Wan' go home." So Colette drove me home, then filled my prescriptions (I did say angel, yes?) while I dragged myself up the stairs and collapsed into bed.
So the rest of the weekend my stomach was irritable and sore, and I lay around feeling generally miserable and weak and with the idea that I really ought to be eating something, but I was afraid I couldn't get it down. Then came today, when I felt reasonably sure of my stomach lining and managed to make a nice chicken soup that tasted insanely delicious.
So my NaNoWriMo project is sadly sadly behind, but I can sit up without every abdominal muscle clenching in pain, so I think I'll call that progress.
And tomorrow it's back to the gremlins.
Last week a wicked stomach bug ran rampant at the Center, and Friday afternoon I caught it. When I got home from work I emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet (my toilet has an old-fashioned base shaped in cross-section rather like a flower, which makes it conveniently easy to grip when in the throes of retching), and went to bed. Apparently bored with the dash-for-the-bathroom routine, I had my stomach put a little blood into the vomit and treated myself to a trip to the ER where after being ignored for hours I was put onto an IV and drugged senseless. My two angels through this ordeal were Colette and her coworker Tona -- Colette drove me to the hospital and Tona met us there -- and they lugged my stuff around and told stories and fetched me things like heated blankets and cups of ice.
After about six hours I was still having trouble keeping water down and the nurse was all for admitting me for the night, but by then I had one clear and ever-so-stubborn thought in my muddled head: Go home. That was about all I could manage to say: "Wan' go home." So Colette drove me home, then filled my prescriptions (I did say angel, yes?) while I dragged myself up the stairs and collapsed into bed.
So the rest of the weekend my stomach was irritable and sore, and I lay around feeling generally miserable and weak and with the idea that I really ought to be eating something, but I was afraid I couldn't get it down. Then came today, when I felt reasonably sure of my stomach lining and managed to make a nice chicken soup that tasted insanely delicious.
So my NaNoWriMo project is sadly sadly behind, but I can sit up without every abdominal muscle clenching in pain, so I think I'll call that progress.
And tomorrow it's back to the gremlins.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
the update
I'm sure most of you have stopped clicking on my link because it's been so damn long since I posted. For which I apologize, but yes, Matt, you were right, things have been busy.
So, first the update on the busyness, then the tag (thanks Susie!).
Things at work:
Last week the executive director of the Center for the Homeless (a very outgoing, rather scattered man in his early thirties) approached me and said, "So you've been here for about six months, and I wanted to check on you and see how things are going...and to ask if there was anything else at the Center you'd be interested in doing."
Thinking he was after me to get more involved in extra-work activities, I said, "Can I ask what you had in mind?"
To which he replied, "Administrative coordinator."
And I sort of reeled for half a second (oh wow, he meant what other JOB?) and said, "Okay. What's involved with that?"
So pretty much I'd be his personal assistant, lots of secretarial work (phone calls, filing, organizing his schedule, reminding him of all his tasks) and some extra organizing activities, plus a role as the guy's right-hand gal able to advise him on ideas. Frankly, running to get a guy's coffee (which I doubt I'd have to do) doesn't knock my socks off, but on the other hand I would get to meet EVERYONE (because this guy knows EVERYONE in South Bend), so it would be a huge networking opportunity, and a launching pad toward any career in the community that I would want. There's also a ten to twenty percent pay raise involved (v. good), and I would get to wear nice clothes again, interact with adults, learn all there is to know about the inner workings of the Center (satisfying my life drive to know everything), and help make decisions.
I've been getting stressed and burned out on the children front -- the kids I most love are turning three and leaving the program soon, and really when it comes down to it what I love about my current position is the administrative and development aspect, not so much the day to day grind of wiping snotty noses, cleaning dirty asses, and maintaining a ridiculously patient persona. So this looks like a perfect opportunity.
And naturally I've been losing sleep over it, because Boss Meg is burning out too and this is a heavy blow to her. We're an amazing partnership, think along the same lines, complement each other's strengths, have the same sense of humor, and it's going to be extremely hard to let that go. Also to yield up some of my professional independence.
But I think it's the next right thing.
And I'm going to have to satisfy the tag in a later post; the parental units are visiting this weekend (which is wonderful and also another reason I've been insanely busy, up late every night cleaning) and I want to spend time with them.
Oo, Linds, since you asked -- I had taken a nearly year-long hiatus on writing (sad) -- the last thing I'd really written was that half-baked poem I posted in July -- but the other weekend I sat down and wrote a new fragment for my Clytemnestra project. And it felt wonderful. When I talked to Dr. Price at homecoming he remembered the project and asked after it, and said, "You really need to write that. It has legs." Which pretty neatly bolstered my confidence. Anyway, it's once again a work in progress.
Anything new to send me?
So, first the update on the busyness, then the tag (thanks Susie!).
Things at work:
Last week the executive director of the Center for the Homeless (a very outgoing, rather scattered man in his early thirties) approached me and said, "So you've been here for about six months, and I wanted to check on you and see how things are going...and to ask if there was anything else at the Center you'd be interested in doing."
Thinking he was after me to get more involved in extra-work activities, I said, "Can I ask what you had in mind?"
To which he replied, "Administrative coordinator."
And I sort of reeled for half a second (oh wow, he meant what other JOB?) and said, "Okay. What's involved with that?"
So pretty much I'd be his personal assistant, lots of secretarial work (phone calls, filing, organizing his schedule, reminding him of all his tasks) and some extra organizing activities, plus a role as the guy's right-hand gal able to advise him on ideas. Frankly, running to get a guy's coffee (which I doubt I'd have to do) doesn't knock my socks off, but on the other hand I would get to meet EVERYONE (because this guy knows EVERYONE in South Bend), so it would be a huge networking opportunity, and a launching pad toward any career in the community that I would want. There's also a ten to twenty percent pay raise involved (v. good), and I would get to wear nice clothes again, interact with adults, learn all there is to know about the inner workings of the Center (satisfying my life drive to know everything), and help make decisions.
I've been getting stressed and burned out on the children front -- the kids I most love are turning three and leaving the program soon, and really when it comes down to it what I love about my current position is the administrative and development aspect, not so much the day to day grind of wiping snotty noses, cleaning dirty asses, and maintaining a ridiculously patient persona. So this looks like a perfect opportunity.
And naturally I've been losing sleep over it, because Boss Meg is burning out too and this is a heavy blow to her. We're an amazing partnership, think along the same lines, complement each other's strengths, have the same sense of humor, and it's going to be extremely hard to let that go. Also to yield up some of my professional independence.
But I think it's the next right thing.
And I'm going to have to satisfy the tag in a later post; the parental units are visiting this weekend (which is wonderful and also another reason I've been insanely busy, up late every night cleaning) and I want to spend time with them.
Oo, Linds, since you asked -- I had taken a nearly year-long hiatus on writing (sad) -- the last thing I'd really written was that half-baked poem I posted in July -- but the other weekend I sat down and wrote a new fragment for my Clytemnestra project. And it felt wonderful. When I talked to Dr. Price at homecoming he remembered the project and asked after it, and said, "You really need to write that. It has legs." Which pretty neatly bolstered my confidence. Anyway, it's once again a work in progress.
Anything new to send me?
Saturday, October 15, 2005
but it pours
This week was something sort of hellish. On no night could I get a decent amount of rest for the life of me, though I went to bed at ten o'clock with the regularity of a healthy octogenarian's bowels. So I was unprepared for most of the normal upsets and wears and tears of my job, and stressed, and easily frustrated.
Not to mention a nice little fender bender on Tuesday night, the result of the most insane act of idiocy I've witnessed on the road to date. A woman who'd turned the WRONG WAY onto a one-way street swung around into the middle lane at an intersection, then, as I came up behind her on the left, turned left FROM THE MIDDLE LANE into the intersection, right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and lay on the horn for a good five seconds, to no effect. My poor Earl smacked his right front bumper into her left rear door. Plastic headlight and turn signal covers shattered all over the asphalt. My radiator slowly leaking fluid. Me so silently outraged and irate that my passenger (a coworker whom I was driving home) told me later she feared I would throttle the offending driver right there in the street.
I wish I could draw a diagram for you. The blatant stupidity jacked my blood pressure sky-high, even more than if I had been remotely at fault. A quick phone call to 911 (first 911 call I've ever made) brought a police car to the scene in about ten seconds, and since no one was injured and the damage minimal, the officer just did an official exchange of information, gave us some advice, and left. I could barely look the Stupid Woman Who Drove in Front of Me in the face, but I didn't kill her, attempted to be pacified by her frantic overtalkative woe-is-me-what-a-bad-week attempts to appease me, and left. Now I'm just waiting for her insurance company to call me and send somebody to look over my poor baby to assess the cost. At least I don't have to pay for any of the damage.
This weekend is a Note Dame home game, and I have happily holed myself up hermit- or grizzly bear-like in my apartment for the weekend, knowing that if I wanted to leave it would take me hours to get anywhere, and everything would be twice as expensive. (Oh yes. God help you if you want to fill your gas tank on a home game weekend: The prices are ten to twenty cents higher per gallon.)
Boss Meg and Jess (the coworker whom I drove home) have noticed that my Inner Bitch is snarling and rattling the bars of my ribcage -- not in how I treat people, but in my general attitude. She had a lot of free reign in college (though she didn't fool the people who knew me), and even when I worked retail; but now that I'm in social work, and with small children at that, I've stuffed her into a tight drum of controlled kindness. She's in a rage. Sometimes I've found myself longing to really have it out with Slightly Psycho Kevin, the only really hateable person I know, just to blow off steam. (But I haven't because that isn't my place and would open up a suppurating and unpleasant can of long-living worms.)
A good thing I've started working out every day after work with Meg. Without that physical outlet for pent-up aggression, I don't really know what I'd do besides slowly disintegrate.
Which is largely why I'm a.) healthy as a horse and getting steadily stronger, and b.) blowing most of my extra money on really nice-smelling Yankee Candles. Aromatherapy, my friends. It's vital.
Not to mention a nice little fender bender on Tuesday night, the result of the most insane act of idiocy I've witnessed on the road to date. A woman who'd turned the WRONG WAY onto a one-way street swung around into the middle lane at an intersection, then, as I came up behind her on the left, turned left FROM THE MIDDLE LANE into the intersection, right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and lay on the horn for a good five seconds, to no effect. My poor Earl smacked his right front bumper into her left rear door. Plastic headlight and turn signal covers shattered all over the asphalt. My radiator slowly leaking fluid. Me so silently outraged and irate that my passenger (a coworker whom I was driving home) told me later she feared I would throttle the offending driver right there in the street.
I wish I could draw a diagram for you. The blatant stupidity jacked my blood pressure sky-high, even more than if I had been remotely at fault. A quick phone call to 911 (first 911 call I've ever made) brought a police car to the scene in about ten seconds, and since no one was injured and the damage minimal, the officer just did an official exchange of information, gave us some advice, and left. I could barely look the Stupid Woman Who Drove in Front of Me in the face, but I didn't kill her, attempted to be pacified by her frantic overtalkative woe-is-me-what-a-bad-week attempts to appease me, and left. Now I'm just waiting for her insurance company to call me and send somebody to look over my poor baby to assess the cost. At least I don't have to pay for any of the damage.
This weekend is a Note Dame home game, and I have happily holed myself up hermit- or grizzly bear-like in my apartment for the weekend, knowing that if I wanted to leave it would take me hours to get anywhere, and everything would be twice as expensive. (Oh yes. God help you if you want to fill your gas tank on a home game weekend: The prices are ten to twenty cents higher per gallon.)
Boss Meg and Jess (the coworker whom I drove home) have noticed that my Inner Bitch is snarling and rattling the bars of my ribcage -- not in how I treat people, but in my general attitude. She had a lot of free reign in college (though she didn't fool the people who knew me), and even when I worked retail; but now that I'm in social work, and with small children at that, I've stuffed her into a tight drum of controlled kindness. She's in a rage. Sometimes I've found myself longing to really have it out with Slightly Psycho Kevin, the only really hateable person I know, just to blow off steam. (But I haven't because that isn't my place and would open up a suppurating and unpleasant can of long-living worms.)
A good thing I've started working out every day after work with Meg. Without that physical outlet for pent-up aggression, I don't really know what I'd do besides slowly disintegrate.
Which is largely why I'm a.) healthy as a horse and getting steadily stronger, and b.) blowing most of my extra money on really nice-smelling Yankee Candles. Aromatherapy, my friends. It's vital.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
dearly beloveds
Homecoming was perfect. I got to see nearly everyone I had hoped to see, and it was rejuvenating and healing to spend time with people whom I love ridiculously. Also good to be seen by those who have known me for some time. There's a lovely, warm comfort to being with old friends who know you well.
A wonderful weekend. Thanks all!
(And Kellie Donnelly, you left your lotion and hand cleanser in my purse. Just so you know.)
A wonderful weekend. Thanks all!
(And Kellie Donnelly, you left your lotion and hand cleanser in my purse. Just so you know.)
Monday, September 26, 2005
rorschack eggs
The egg I dropped into the frying pan this morning assumed the perfect shape of a STEALTH bomber.
It tasted fine, though.
It tasted fine, though.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
call me a cat
And I just caught Mouse Number Two, this time with some cleverness and cunning. It poked its head around the bookshelf as I sat on my couch journalling, and sneaked along the baseboard and around the corner to the kitchen. I waited a moment, then followed. It wasn't caught in the glue trap laid along the wall just around the corner. Puzzled, I checked my other empty trap in the kitchen behind the stove, then inspected its path to see how it had escaped.
It occurred to me that the mouse was running on the molding, not the bare floor, so I tipped the glue trap at an angle from molding to floor, and went on a hunt around the kitchen.
As I opened the pantry door, a little brown furriness darted behind the stove. I waited, and then with a jerk it ran over the tipped trap and caught.
So now Mouse Number Two is feeling a little colder and I'm thinking if there are more than two mice in this apartment, I am quickly going to lose my reluctance to give them a sound blow to the head to finish the whole business right away, so as not to waste good Gladware.
Meowwr.
It occurred to me that the mouse was running on the molding, not the bare floor, so I tipped the glue trap at an angle from molding to floor, and went on a hunt around the kitchen.
As I opened the pantry door, a little brown furriness darted behind the stove. I waited, and then with a jerk it ran over the tipped trap and caught.
So now Mouse Number Two is feeling a little colder and I'm thinking if there are more than two mice in this apartment, I am quickly going to lose my reluctance to give them a sound blow to the head to finish the whole business right away, so as not to waste good Gladware.
Meowwr.
a conversation with my father
Me: Hi, Daddy.
Dad: Hey, Sarah B., I just got your message.
Me: Yeah, um...what do I do?
Dad: Well, how bad is it? Did it chew through the whole wire?
Me: Hang on, checking...yeah, it chewed through an entire wire. So the speaker only has one wire intact.
Dad: Well...hm...it's a little hard for me to walk you through it step-by-step...
Me: I know, you can't even see the damage. But there are little bits of copper strewn everywhere and the speaker is definitely not working.
Dad: Do you know anyone you could take it to?
Me: Yeah, my boss's husband is good with this kind of stuff. You think that'll do it?
Dad: Yeah, I think so. Hey, what did you mean when you said the mouse is currently freezing to death?
Me: I mean I put it in the freezer.
So yes, I had a mouse this past week. Monday evening I was sitting on the couch watching TV when a furry black thing scuttled across the baseboard and disappeared behind the entertainment center. I shrieked (wondering if it was perhaps the biggest cockroach on the planet), grabbed a stool, and climbed on it to peer behind the entertainment center. There it was, terrified by the volume of my yell, and there I was, paralyzed. I put in a call to my mother and then to my landlord, who happened to be at Target at that very moment buying mousetraps for his own house. So he brought me some flat glue traps, the kind that catch but don't kill (grr, I hate doing the dirty work myself), and Wednesday afternoon I came home to find it lodged in a corner, its back legs caught in the trap and the glue full of copper wire pieces from the stereo speaker next to which it was lying.
My massive guilt trip evaporated then and there. I had decided in advance that freezing to death was the most humane way of disposing of the mouse (as opposed to smashing it or doing as my landlord suggested, which was to throw the whole thing in the trash: "You'll hear it moving around for awhile, but it'll die eventually" -- what?! -- and the glue prevents you from freeing the mouse in one piece, so I couldn't drive it twenty miles to a field and let it go) and so I lifted the trap with a spatula into a disposable Gladware container, covered it in plastic wrap, and popped it in on top of the icebox.
It's too bad mice are vermin. This particular little mouse was very very cute -- a long, alert face and bright eyes and dark brown fur, much more preferable than the nasty boorish sluggish smelly "domesticated" variety -- and if I had found his little poops in my toilet instead of my pantry, I believe we could have set up a tidy, peaceable coexistence. Instead he crapped on my flour and ate one of my speaker wires. Sorry, little buddy; time to go.
So I'm listening to George Winston with one speaker, which is adequate but one-dimensional. Boss Meg's husband Phillip will fix the devastated speaker for me, so I'm taking it to work with me tomorrow.
Dad: Hey, Sarah B., I just got your message.
Me: Yeah, um...what do I do?
Dad: Well, how bad is it? Did it chew through the whole wire?
Me: Hang on, checking...yeah, it chewed through an entire wire. So the speaker only has one wire intact.
Dad: Well...hm...it's a little hard for me to walk you through it step-by-step...
Me: I know, you can't even see the damage. But there are little bits of copper strewn everywhere and the speaker is definitely not working.
Dad: Do you know anyone you could take it to?
Me: Yeah, my boss's husband is good with this kind of stuff. You think that'll do it?
Dad: Yeah, I think so. Hey, what did you mean when you said the mouse is currently freezing to death?
Me: I mean I put it in the freezer.
So yes, I had a mouse this past week. Monday evening I was sitting on the couch watching TV when a furry black thing scuttled across the baseboard and disappeared behind the entertainment center. I shrieked (wondering if it was perhaps the biggest cockroach on the planet), grabbed a stool, and climbed on it to peer behind the entertainment center. There it was, terrified by the volume of my yell, and there I was, paralyzed. I put in a call to my mother and then to my landlord, who happened to be at Target at that very moment buying mousetraps for his own house. So he brought me some flat glue traps, the kind that catch but don't kill (grr, I hate doing the dirty work myself), and Wednesday afternoon I came home to find it lodged in a corner, its back legs caught in the trap and the glue full of copper wire pieces from the stereo speaker next to which it was lying.
My massive guilt trip evaporated then and there. I had decided in advance that freezing to death was the most humane way of disposing of the mouse (as opposed to smashing it or doing as my landlord suggested, which was to throw the whole thing in the trash: "You'll hear it moving around for awhile, but it'll die eventually" -- what?! -- and the glue prevents you from freeing the mouse in one piece, so I couldn't drive it twenty miles to a field and let it go) and so I lifted the trap with a spatula into a disposable Gladware container, covered it in plastic wrap, and popped it in on top of the icebox.
It's too bad mice are vermin. This particular little mouse was very very cute -- a long, alert face and bright eyes and dark brown fur, much more preferable than the nasty boorish sluggish smelly "domesticated" variety -- and if I had found his little poops in my toilet instead of my pantry, I believe we could have set up a tidy, peaceable coexistence. Instead he crapped on my flour and ate one of my speaker wires. Sorry, little buddy; time to go.
So I'm listening to George Winston with one speaker, which is adequate but one-dimensional. Boss Meg's husband Phillip will fix the devastated speaker for me, so I'm taking it to work with me tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
a disclaimer
Life has been a little depressing lately...I'm exhausted with no apparent cause (I've been taking iron supplements and have decided to add a meat dish every week to my diet to avoid anemia), haven't been sleeping well, and have no energy.
I've begun cracking into my Bible in the mornings again (I've needed that pretty desperately) and exercise regularly, so hopefully with my improvements in diet I'll be picking up the pace again.
Really I think my exhaustion stems from my job. I love my work, I love the kids, I love what Meg and I are trying to do; but it's an exhausting job. All day every day I have to remain patient, calm, and loving for 6-8 very small children whose mental/emotional wellbeing partially depends upon my attitude and how attentive and vigilant I am for them. This keeps me on my guard every second.
Plus it was a long summer with only one steady volunteer on only Monday and Wednesday mornings. Meg and I have been planning and executing lessons (Yes, we do lessons: This is an early intervention classroom, not a daycare) all morning every morning by ourselves since June. All summer we've been upbeat about it, refusing to admit how hard our job has been, plowing through until we can get a break. Finally more volunteers are returning with the start of the academic year; but not many are coming in the mornings when we do our lessons and need the most help: Therefore we're not getting much of a break. But even a slight bit of help has the weight of the summer leaning on me -- rather like plowing through a semester refusing to get sick because of the workload for school, then going home for fall break and catching pneumonia, the flu, or some ungodly horrible cold. Only this is manifesting itself not in illness but utter, bone-deep mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion.
I am dead tired. When I come home I barely have enough energy to make something for dinner before I sink into the couch and stare vacantly at the TV until bedtime. My entire apartment needs a thorough cleaning; my plants need regular watering; my refrigerator could stand a purge; but I can't do it.
It upsets me when people assume that most of my negligence of a social life is due to some internal rudeness or irresponsibility or callous disregard. First, my job is my life. I love it, and I will not leave it until my work there is pretty much through, and while I have it I must necessarily have early bedtimes and low-key weekends, since any time not at work is time recuperating from that day and preparing for the next. I'm in social work. If I show up groggy or grumpy children who have already endured more insecurity than I have ever endured in my life will suffer for it. I cannot do that to them. Thus, my night life is g.o.n.e. Kiss it goodbye, friends; I already have.
I am happy to meet people for dinner. I miss a lot of the folks I used to see regularly. But I can't jump into clubbing clothes and hit the bars on a work night. I doubt I can even jump into clubbing clothes and hit the bars on a weekend night. At ten o'clock my vision starts fuzzing. It's the nature of my current life.
Second, I am by nature an introvert. I do not believe this characteristic is the negative hurdle-to-be-overcome that contemporary society would have us believe. It is merely a fact. By nature I avoid oversocializing with people -- not because I dislike people, but because being with people, however fun and necessary and wholesome (and it is fun and necessary and wholesome) drains my resources. It has nothing to do with the people and everything to do with how I'm wired. When I'm at a mental/physical/emotional ebb, I heal by being alone. And I've been in a mental/physical/emotional low tide for a long time.
So friends, please don't take offense if I neglect you. I love you, and apologize for neglecting you, and hope not to neglect you soon. In the meantime, if you think of me, kindly pray that more morning volunteers will show up to help Meg and me, because until then it looks like my social life (which, may I reiterate, is sometimes just as much work for me as my job) is kerplut.
And in the meantime, I'm going to bed.
I've begun cracking into my Bible in the mornings again (I've needed that pretty desperately) and exercise regularly, so hopefully with my improvements in diet I'll be picking up the pace again.
Really I think my exhaustion stems from my job. I love my work, I love the kids, I love what Meg and I are trying to do; but it's an exhausting job. All day every day I have to remain patient, calm, and loving for 6-8 very small children whose mental/emotional wellbeing partially depends upon my attitude and how attentive and vigilant I am for them. This keeps me on my guard every second.
Plus it was a long summer with only one steady volunteer on only Monday and Wednesday mornings. Meg and I have been planning and executing lessons (Yes, we do lessons: This is an early intervention classroom, not a daycare) all morning every morning by ourselves since June. All summer we've been upbeat about it, refusing to admit how hard our job has been, plowing through until we can get a break. Finally more volunteers are returning with the start of the academic year; but not many are coming in the mornings when we do our lessons and need the most help: Therefore we're not getting much of a break. But even a slight bit of help has the weight of the summer leaning on me -- rather like plowing through a semester refusing to get sick because of the workload for school, then going home for fall break and catching pneumonia, the flu, or some ungodly horrible cold. Only this is manifesting itself not in illness but utter, bone-deep mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion.
I am dead tired. When I come home I barely have enough energy to make something for dinner before I sink into the couch and stare vacantly at the TV until bedtime. My entire apartment needs a thorough cleaning; my plants need regular watering; my refrigerator could stand a purge; but I can't do it.
It upsets me when people assume that most of my negligence of a social life is due to some internal rudeness or irresponsibility or callous disregard. First, my job is my life. I love it, and I will not leave it until my work there is pretty much through, and while I have it I must necessarily have early bedtimes and low-key weekends, since any time not at work is time recuperating from that day and preparing for the next. I'm in social work. If I show up groggy or grumpy children who have already endured more insecurity than I have ever endured in my life will suffer for it. I cannot do that to them. Thus, my night life is g.o.n.e. Kiss it goodbye, friends; I already have.
I am happy to meet people for dinner. I miss a lot of the folks I used to see regularly. But I can't jump into clubbing clothes and hit the bars on a work night. I doubt I can even jump into clubbing clothes and hit the bars on a weekend night. At ten o'clock my vision starts fuzzing. It's the nature of my current life.
Second, I am by nature an introvert. I do not believe this characteristic is the negative hurdle-to-be-overcome that contemporary society would have us believe. It is merely a fact. By nature I avoid oversocializing with people -- not because I dislike people, but because being with people, however fun and necessary and wholesome (and it is fun and necessary and wholesome) drains my resources. It has nothing to do with the people and everything to do with how I'm wired. When I'm at a mental/physical/emotional ebb, I heal by being alone. And I've been in a mental/physical/emotional low tide for a long time.
So friends, please don't take offense if I neglect you. I love you, and apologize for neglecting you, and hope not to neglect you soon. In the meantime, if you think of me, kindly pray that more morning volunteers will show up to help Meg and me, because until then it looks like my social life (which, may I reiterate, is sometimes just as much work for me as my job) is kerplut.
And in the meantime, I'm going to bed.
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