Perpetual State of Flux

At my age

My current headband obsession might read less Blair Waldorf and more Baby Jane.

Lunch

I just had this Basil Pesto pasta dish from Atlanta Bread Company and during the course of my meal, I bit into a black bean.  Now, I'm all for the random french fry mixed in with my Burger King Onion Rings but this was just a little unnerving.

I wanted to throw in an MLK quote here but figured that would be a tad dramatic.

I sort of eluded to this in my other post but I quit my job today. 

I'm taking a breather. I don't have anything lined up AND I'm terrified. I'll have to go back to work eventually but I need a few months.  I know it's not exactly the best time with respect to unemployment rates and the current state of the economy but I have to believe that it will all end up as it should in the end. 

So yes, I'm TERRIFIED!  It's funny as I was preparing to do give notice I was absolutely flooded with fear and self-doubt.  It's a powerful thing.

I'm also incredibly excited. I could wax on about my plans but rather than spout them off I figure the best plan is to write about them...while I'm actually out there doing them.

I'll be working up until the Christmas break unless the powers that be change their minds.

It's a good thing.

I woke up a few times last night in a panic. 

"I can't believe I posted that!  What will people think of me?"

I suspect when you post something like yesterday's post people are going to get the wrong idea.  It's easy to read a lot into something so dramatic.

I don't particularly like the overshare. I share a lot but I also keep a great deal closely guarded and hidden away. 

The thing is I've been in a bad place for a long time and because of my inclination to wrap it up and push it down and NUMB IT THE FUCK OUT OF EXISTENCE I've been ignoring it.

This past weekend I looked at myself in the mirror and recognized that if I didn't do something about how I've been living I would cross over into a place where I wasn't sure I could return from. 

Call it what you will - insanity, clarity, leap of faith but I'm done killing myself for the safe route.  I'm done letting duty, FEAR and obligation control my future.  I'm not certain I will find any answers but one things is for certain, now that I have a plan, I'm starting to like myself again.  I'm finding solace in the little things again. 

The fact that my meltdown coincides with the world's meltdown isn't lost on me.  It's just my sort of luck that I've finally decided to take a risk at the most risk averse time. As a result, the decisions I'm making are going to be judged harshly. 

I've already heard the chorus of naysayers.  They mean well but I have to believe it's going to be alright. Call it what you will - insanity, stupidity, selfishness. 

Me, I'm going with faith.  Faith in the realization that sometimes when you feel like you are at the end of your tether it will be okay to let go...

So, yeah, I'm terrified. And I still care about what people think of me.  It's a long path back to me.  And this path may be angsty and oversharey -- frankly, I prefer to think of it as raw emotion. 

I've cringed a hundred times writing this. It's not easy for me, this honesty. Other peoples raw emotion often makes me uncomfortable.  I know how some, even my oldest friends, might perceive these last two posts and I hate being misunderstood.

But more than anything...I hate being miserable.  I know this because I've been this way for a very long time.

I'm letting go of the tether. Here's hoping I land in a better place.

The epitome of the overshare.

How do you tell the internet that you hate yourself?

That you hate absolutely everything that you have become? That you resent yourself for not only lacking the courage but also the conviction?  That you've spent so long allowing your fear to dictate your choices.  Too scared to make a choice that might be perceived as the wrong thing.  Something that might let somebody down.  That you hate yourself so much you allow yourself to make the wrong choices over and over again because you simply don't respect yourself enough to put your feelings above the other people in your life.  Other people whose opinions, should they even exist, don't matter. 

How do you tell the internet that you hate yourself for spending so much time trying to be the person you expect other people want you to be only to find yourself feeling even more alienated and alone? How do you tell them that you know you used to be a good person but somewhere along the way you lost that and now find yourself completely consumed with jealousy?  How do you tell the internet that you hate feeling as though you are jealous of every single person around you?  You are jealous of their will power. Or their courage. Of their financial freedom.  Of their professional freedom.  You are jealous of them for being everything that you've been too scared or bound by some ridiculous sense of duty or obligation to be yourself. 

How do you tell them that you hate this so much about yourself that you bury it all and push it down with your smile?  That you're smiling and laughing and cracking jokes but that you are dying inside.  That this jealousy is completely antithetical to who you are. Or who you were before you became this person so consumed with hate.  Hate that's really only reserved completely for yourself. 

How do you tell the internet that you hate yourself for allowing yourself to get to this place?  That you hate yourself for allowing you to get to this place?  That you hate yourself for letting that person get away from you.  The person that you once were --  Bold. Audacious. Interesting. Intelligent. Good. -- no longer exists because you censored her. You put your needs behind those of everyone else.

How do you tell the internet that you hate yourself because you feel like a whiny bitch?  The girl always in the midst of an existential crisis. The girl who has been unhappy for so long that no one can remember that she was once bold, audacious, interesting, intelligent and GOOD. 

How do you tell the internet that you hate yourself because you've finally realized you can no longer live with what you've become?  That it's time to fight back.  How do you tell them that you hate yourself because you no longer believe you have what it takes to get back?  You hate the apathy. The lethargy. How do you tell them that you hate yourself because you realize that even without the apathy and the lethargy you have no idea what it would take to get you to a place where you might be able to stop hating yourself?

For the better part of this year I did my writing on my tumblog until one day I'd had enough, for no other reason than I'm one fickle lady, and deleted the whole thing.

While most of what I'd written was typical tumblr reblogs and twitter like reactionary posts, there was one post that I was particularly fond of.  Of course, in my haste to be done with tumbling, I deactivated my account without saving a thing.

Luckily with a little help from a few kind souls who felt the need to reblog the initial post, I was able to find it.  I am now posting it here for posterity.

PLEASE CONFIRM HOW YOU KNOW EACH OTHER

My ex-fiance recently joined Facebook. I like to believe that he and I are friendly - the pain of break-up long since passed and the who did what to whom no longer an issue. We’ve moved on and we were always good at the friend bit. Besides it’s not difficult to remember someone fondly when they live 9000 miles away.

Honestly, I have no idea how he feels. We both periodically send these “how’s your life that I was almost a larger part of” emails. I’m under the impression that we both send these more out of genuine appreciation of our shared past than a desire to make sure that the other person isn’t happier than the other. I know I hope that he’s happy. Afterall, I believed he was the great love of my life at one time but ours wasn’t something that was sustainable.

Anyway, I opened my gmail today to see that we are now Facebook friends and that he had entered details on how we know each other.

This I had to see.

I mean Facebook doesn’t really have a “we dated for six years, she broke up me, and then six months later we poorly decided to get back together and then I rushed to propose to her, she stupidly accepted, then we spent months pretending this could actually work and then three weeks before the big day she overheard me on the phone telling me mother that I didn’t think I could go through with it” box.

Instead, it appeared Greg went with the next best thing…Please confirm the following details - “You went to college with Greg.”

I certainly did.

OH CRAP!

It's what echoed in my mind as I realized in bed last night that I didn't post yesterday.  Well, I wasn't going to get a prize anyhow.  Once again, work kicked my ass and I actually fell asleep on the sofa at 9:30 last night. I haven't done that since my 20s. 

Seriously, in my 20s I used to sleep SO much. I loved sleep. I would get home from work, climb into my pjs and get straight into bed.  Now I stay up past midnight almost every night.

Great story, Laura!

Well, Obama did it.  Now I'm on tenterhooks waiting to see what happens next.  What kind of puppy will the girls get?  What kind of dress will Michelle wear to the inauguration? (I, frankly, thought she looked stunning the Narciso Rodriguez dress BTW).

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, WTF?  Balling tears of joy, dancing in the streets and now we're discussing puppies?  Will he get a shelter dog?  If he's serious about change he'll get those girls a pound puppy!

I mean, I get it.  I do!  It's nice to take a break from the serious issues but these are serious times!

It may come as a surprise to some of you that I'm a bit of a cynic.  Yes, it's true.

While I voted for Obama and I am thrilled with the outcome (although I've still got little Hillary sitting on my shoulder), I'm not a fan of politics and politicians as a whole. It stems from the summer I spent answering constituent phone calls for Senator Paul Wellstone.  Then there was the time I was "inadverdently" groped by a sitting US Senator. 

So, I'm anxious to see how the change we were all voting for comes to fruition. 

But enough about politics.  As I said just up there, I'm not a fan.  And it's only a matter of weeks before Bloomberg starts bombarding us with his re-election campaign.

Stickerless.

I was very nervous about voting today.  AND WITH GOOD REASON.

Apparently one must be a mechanic to vote in New York state.  Levers, pulleys, crankshafts!  I know I did something wrong but I got the one vote I needed to right. 

While waiting in line, I asked the guy where the stickers were.  You know, the somewhat smug "I Voted" sticker.  Well, he turned and looked at me and said, "You want us to serve you muffins too?"

Serves me right I guess but I like that sticker.  Anyone can say they voted but without the sticker it's like the proverbial tree in the forest.  If someone votes and doesn't have a smug sticker to prove it does it make a noise? 

All in all, it was a good start to the day even if I did find myself missing Minnesota with their clear methods of voting, smiling Norwegians (as opposed to surly New Yorkers and yes, muffins would be lovely) and tables full of smug stickers.

Pumpkin Patch

I have a question for those of you with a Facebook addiction similar to mine.  Has anyone noticed how it seems that if you are a parent with young children (as seemingly all of my married friends are), you are obligated to take them to the pumpkin patch, squat down among the pumpkins and take a series of pictures documenting this family outing?

Consider me fashionably late.

No? That's not going to fly?

Oh well. Anyway, here I am.  Ready to post for 28 days straight.  I sat down at my computer on Saturday to throw something up before I left for Providence to see Dolly Parton in concert.  Of course, I completely geeked out and started watching Dolly clips on You Tube and next thing I knew I was running out of the apartment without posting.  It's okay though. This is mostly a motivational tool...I don't need no stinkin' prizes.  The best thing about National Blog Posting Month is the friendships I've made in the past and the new writers I've found doing it. 

I'm hoping that's the case again this year.

Things have been really slow around here and I'm hoping I can change that. Work has been kicking my ass and as anyone who has hung around here knows, I'm not terribly found of my job.  Slaving away at something that makes you so unhappy to begin with seems to compound that unhappiness exponentially.  The good news is I'm working on an exit plan which should have some teeth in a few months assuming this wonderful economy doesn't muck that up.

Let's see...other general housekeeping items.

I'm terribly nervous about voting tomorrow. I've never voted in New York before. 

Ben Affleck on SNL.  Wow. He really is terribly handsome but for a fairly talented actor that man certainly had a case of the Jimmy Fallon's.  Can't make it through one skit without laughing - slightly endearing.  Can't make it through any of them?  Annoying.

After the Dolly concert on Saturday, Ted and I grabbed a few drinks at a bar in downtown Providence. We met one of the drunkest men I have ever met.  This guy was a mess.  Which is why I shouldn't have been offended when he called me a cougar.  I'm not a fan of the terms as it stands.  I've found I'm even less fond of it when it's used to describe me. 

Okay, so he really wasn't describing me per se.  What he said was that I was lucky to be married because most single women my age are cougars on the prowl for a husband. 

That's so much less offensive, don't you think?

Which is why when he asked me to set him up with my single girlfriends, I gave him all their cell phone numbers. 

You can thank me later ladies.  My charitable work is never done.

P.S. The Dolly concert was the greatest night of my life.  Well, not counting my wedding.  Seriously, it was so much fun.  My only wish was that we were a bit closer to the stage.  Next time I'm splurging on good seats.