15 posts tagged “introspection”

So, you know how I did French immersion almost 2 years ago?  Well, I had a professor, I think I've mentioned her before, who is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.  For all you francophones, she's just released a book about her experience!! http://www.editionslaurenceteper.com/fiche-livre.asp?Clef=41

So you can buy it on amazon: http://amazon.qc.ca/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=berthe+kayitesi&x=0&y=0

I want to pick it up and read it.  Sometimes inspiring people just fall into your lap and you don't even really stop a moment to think about it.

Onto other things, though, as this is my blog and I'm egotistical like that.

I've been all over the place mentally lately.  Though, I want to focus on one subject which will bleed into others, but I should start somewhere, right?

I've been looking into moving to New Orleans.  It seems like a drastic thing which will pass in the coming days, but I've taken some steps to make this plan actually happen, and it feels good, if strange.

I spent a chunk of the morning texting with Emily about the possibility of moving and what it would entail, time lines and all that stuff.  I e-mailed Tulane about their French and Business programs, their non-traditional student application process and some of their student services.  I've yet to hear back from Tulane, but I got an out of office message telling me the counselor who specializes with Massachusetts prospective students will be out of the office until tomorrow.  We'll see how that goes with that.

As for moving, I'm toying with the idea of getting rid of my car completely when I do it.  The one hang up, though, is that it limits my ability to get around a lot.  New Orleans has a bus system and limited tram/street car.  Most of the getting around, especially getting out, of the city is through car.  I also would need a method by which to get out in the event of an evacuation for a hurrican (which is a possibility since I'd be moving to a lovely hurricane prone area).

My car loan is up in June, so it gives me the opportunity to buy a new one or ditch it all together.  I'm leaning toward buying a new (as in, like, I'm the first owner new) car and learning how to drive manual.  If I can drive manual, I can pay what I pay now for this car with something that's going to easily last me 10 years.  I've been looking into getting a station wagon (yes, station wagon) because it gets the gas mileage of a sedan while have a lot more storage space (because, with evacuation, I'm going to want to take my valuables like my computer in case of severe damage or looting).  It'll also allow me to ship less stuff when I move because I can drive with it.  I'll also be able to drive a new car down there without worrying as much if it's going to shit out on me.

There's also been a lot of BIG SHINING ARROWS for me going down South, as I've explained to a few people.

Firstly, I've been feeling very stagnant and stuck up here.  I've been wanting a change of big proportions even when I was in school.  I was placated for a while moving out of the house and establishing myself, but it's waned because I've not been able to land a better job with more potential up here.  Everything I'm looking for requires this magical "3+ years experience" for something that is, really, not anything someone with that many years needs to do the job.  I've got the skills and the talent, but no one is interested in hiring me.  It sounds like time to go back to school and investigate greener pastures.

Secondly, Emily point blank asked me if I'd be interested in moving in with her in New Orleans before I went down there to visit.  It had totally taken me by surprise, and I didn't just say "no" on instinct.  I was open to the idea, even if I hadn't considered it.  I like Louisiana a great deal, and I definitely want to get out --even if just for a couple years.

Thirdly, I think New England is making me into someone I really don't want to be.  I desperately fighting the exclusivity and coldness that typifies the culture here.  It's not to say I want to go running around chatting every random person up; I just feel like New England is making me into a hard, distrusting and even distant person.  I need to get out of this for the betterment of myself.

Fourth, I've encountered absolutely no heavy resistance from anyone I've talked to when mentioning my desire to move down South.  It's all been "GO FOR IT!"  It's really refreshing to know I've surrounded myself with such supportive people who really encourage me to go out and do, but it also shows how much getting out and getting away is really in my self-interest.  I'd miss everyone dearly up here because you all are (some literally) my family.  I would never forget or leave any of you in the dust because I love you all way too much to do that to you.

The people that I've talked to about it have actually helped me push my ass into doing this and somewhat committing to it. I've actually gotten a couple people to say "what's holding you back?  you/we're still young and have every chance to do it."

Fifth, I was talking with my boss today.  We've actually grown into pretty good friends over the last couple months.  We were in the parking lot taking a break and she started asking me about my trip -- what I did, if I know anyone down there, all of that.  Then she mentions to me if I've ever thought about moving down there.  I artfully answer the question (remember, I don't lie).  I say "Yeah, I've thought about it, but I'm way too poor to move anywhere."  She proceeds to tell me about someone else who used to work at the Bureau who was in a similar situation to what I'm in (used the Bureau to get their feet wet in the professional world, but it isn't their world-ending dream to work there).

He, one day, just moved out to California to work in IT.  He knew no one, had no job and had to find a place to live -- all that stuff -- but he did it and now he's doing really well for himself.  He never would have had that opportunity had he not just taken the plunge and done it.

I know my boss well enough to know that she wasn't saying "get out now while you have the chance" so much as "don't discount it as much as you think."  It's almost as if there's a feeling at the Bureau that I'm almost beyond working there, to some extent.  It's a weird feeling.  I have this respect from management that I've worked hard to attain and I think, at a certain point, they almost want to see me go off and do other things so I can "live up to my full potential".  They've seen how hard I work and how passionate I am about doing well.  It's both refreshing and worrisome as I don't want it to be the reason they'd axe me if there's another round of lay offs.

There are downsides to moving, of course, as there always are.  But, I think, for me mentally, this would be a good thing.  I just need to start seriously saving money to make it happen and have it work.  New Orleans is definitely not the happy shiny city (comparatively) that Boston is.  It's seedier; there's more crime; it's more unsafe.  But, I think, I would do well to move there, go back to school, and really just get it going actually more on my own.  See what I'm made of and really get to test myself.

A recurring theme in my life is "untapped potential".  It's almost a mantra how often I'm told I have this in my life.  This would be an opportunity for me to tap into it and really establish myself.

At this point, I'm going to do it.  I've started putting pieces into place and I'm moving forward.

I'm making an action plan -- it's exhilirating and terrifying; exciting and numbing; logical and absurd.  It's pretty much everything I feel I am.

And, it certainly allows me to pursue more of those question marks floating around my head.

I love the sound snow makes when it's hitting the trees.  That icy snapping crackle sound.  I think it's something I'd miss if I moved somewhere it doesn't snow.  It's the little details and small joys.

I'm really apprehensive about Christmas this year.  With everything that happened last year and how crappy it was, I'm finding a really hard time forgetting it and trying to keep an open mind for this year.  Things are significantly different for me this time around, but the experiences of last year are still kicking around in my head.  I have to say they're causing me a great deal of anxiety.  I don't know how I'm going to react if things replay again or if my grandmother says something off-the-cuff inflammatory towards me.

I know it's not something I really need to worry about in the global sense.  As I said, things are drastically different than last year (I've moved out on my own; I'm (kind of) seeing a new person; if things get shitty, I can just leave and come back to my apartment) but I'm still very, very anxious.  I feel like the more time passes, the more spending extended periods of time with certain members of my family causes me a great deal of stress.

It's a really sad thing because there are members of my family whom I love a lot.  We get along very well and I feel really comfortable with them.  Then there are the people with whom I have NO rapport.  I have nothing to say to them and, honestly, they're really combative with me.  I know the combativeness is something I've also taken on to defend myself when I'm brought up with it.  It's probably not the most healthy, but I know that it's the only way I can really survive without giving myself an ulcer.  Confronting it right then and there before it festers into something worse than it is (obviously using discretion).

It's been a while since I've blogged about anything in particular, or really at all.  I have to admit that it's been a very deliberate move on my part because I find when I blog is causes me to sometimes enter into a self-destructive cycle of thinking.  I think that putting it online just gets it out and lets it free.  That freedom lets me just think I'm just so good at getting my thoughts out.  That then gives me this false impression of awesomeness while ignoring the real issues.  I've had a lot go on professionally for me, as well as internally personally, that I've been trying to manage.  There's a potential for looking up, but one thing I've learned is that my perception is in no way reality.

I've had a really hard time recently letting go of the things I can't control.  I've become a lot more control freakish lately and I really have been trying to work my through it.  I need to remind myself that the only way I'm going to get anything in this world is to allow it to do what it's going to do because the majority of life is out of my control.  Most decisions in my life, at this point, are still made by others in some way, shape or form.  The only things I can control are how I can react and deal and change with the situations -- not those situations themselves. Seeking personal solutions to move through the problem and figure things out on my own.

I really feel uncomfortable being any less vague about any of this -- especially in such public a forum.  I'm going through another shrinking violet phase where I don't spend very much time with people and I retreat into my own little corner of existence.  As I said, I've been really working through my baggage and it's not something I really have been able to do with others.

It also means I've been listening to a lot of Ani, since she's who I turn to when I feel like there's more that I need to get through.  She helps me really look into myself.  As pretentious as that sounds.

As, at least, a partial reveal, I've been working through my relationship baggage.  As with my life in general, I tend to carry a lot of stuff with me.  Far more than I probably should, but I can't seem to part with it.  Whether it's my volumes of books I've never read, my insane amount of t-shirts, or any number of countless other things I have in excess in my physical life, I can't seem to shake myself of some things from my relationship past.

I have this really big issue where I always want to find a way to figure out what it is that a person wants with me -- even if they're just genuinely interested.  I have this problem right now.  I've been talking with, what seems like, a really great, intelligent and well-meaning person.  He hasn't done anything to set off any of those classic red flags I've come to know very, very well.

There's been no pronouncements of deep love, soul-mate status or anything like that.  In fact, we are where we are right now because I asked him what his thoughts on an "us" were.  I did it so soon because I wanted to know if there was something worth pursuing or if we should just be friends (which would have been totally fine).  We both admitted liking each other a great deal.

We're going through a getting to know you phase and, honestly, I think it's making me uncomfortable.  I went through a small phase, before I knew what the fuck I was doing, where I was actually exceptionally negative for about a week -- like, an insufferable clod, really -- and he stuck with me through it.  When I realized what I was doing, I cut it out.  Being like that is not me and it's definitely me trying to hurt him before he hurts me.  Classic behavior from someone who's been in some of the relationship situations I've been in.  Lashing out before I could be lashed at.

I feel rather foolish about this because I've got a really good thing going.  No red flags, we talk all the time -- but we're not panicking and sending message after message if the other is out of contact, and we're really getting to know each other.  I feel like I know him now.  The sad thing is, I feel like I know him better now than I've ever known anyone who I've ever dated.  I feel like that should hallmark something for me, but I don't know what -- my growing up?  the pathetic nature of my last relationships?

I keep getting overwhelmed by these ideas that I should just run away from it all.  I have this base instinct in me that just wants to run away and not have to deal with the idea of being with someone.  I'm scared, in a sense, because I'm really scared of just letting myself fall. I'm scared of being hurt again, even though I don't think I actually have to worry about it.  I'm scared most of all of the idea that I might fuck something up.  Like, really fuck something up beyond repair.

I don't want to run away from anything, but the commitment-phobe in me is screaming that I'm falling into something that'll put me in a real commitment that could actually change my life.  As it stands, I don't have much stability in my life.  I'm not entirely financially stable, certainly not professionally stable in the current economic conditions, my mental state changes by the moment.  I'm not in a stable place, but I'm honestly scared to change anything in my position.

I think that's what's driving all of this shit.  I'm too scared to change the wrong thing.  Whether it's a change in profession, location or both, I'm too scared that I'm going to change the wrong thing and I'm going to make it all worse.  I don't know which of the strings to pull or cut or knot together.  I'm such a clusterfuck of a decision maker that I really just have no idea.  I go from working on the Foreign Service Application to researching how to become a history teacher, to a foreign language teacher, to seeing how I can start my own non-profit and get involved in politics again, to seeing how I could start my own business.  I apply to jobs at the state government, non-profits and corporate america just throwing everything into the wind and seeing which of the straws hits me back in the face.  Throwing myself over to reckless abandon and random chance.

To be honest, I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing with myself right now aside from wasting my life away.  I fee like I'm wasting myself with what I'm doing now.  I do want to feel somewhat fulfilled with what I do, but I don't know what that is to even chase it in more than a cursory fashion.  I know that no matter what straw hits me, I'm going to do it well and to the best of my ability.  It's what I do in everything I do.  I'm a go hard or go home person and always have been.  I just need to know what I'm going hard at that will give me some satisfaction.

And here comes this one great thing in my clusterfuck of a life right now.  Someone who seems to like me for me.  Someone who's interested in what I do and genuinely likes me for who and what I am.  I've told him about all the geeky shit I do, the cons, politics, the potentiality of kids in the future.  We've talked about all of that stuff.  Like, real, decent conversation.  And yet, the hint of something remotely stabilizing throws me completely down the shitter and I don't know what to do with myself.  It just adds to the confusion and makes me question it more.

I question whether it's him or the stability he represents.  I start to question it all because I have grown this mistrust of my own decision making skills, especially romantically.  I do have this incredibly nesting need inside me and I just crave to have that stability more than someone as young as I am probably should.  I have this want in me to settle into something stable and loving and lasting.  I want something in my life to just last for more than a little while.  I'm in such a state of constant upheaval that nothing seems like it ever lasts.  Even at work, my job tasks are constantly changing.  Nothing is in any way remotely stable.

I need to stop bemoaning my very existence and do something.  There's no point in being an emo fuck and wallowing in my own misery about anything.  I need to do something. I've done some things, but I need to commit to them.

I need to commit.

I have to say that the hot weather has proven to be really outstanding for me.  Yes, I know that I sweat like a mother when I'm actually outside in it, but it's bright and sunny and I feel energized by the amount of invigorating sun!

I love summer and summer nights when I can get them.  Nothing beat driving around with a good CD, good friends and obnoxiously loud singing to some of your favorite songs.  One of the few things I miss about being "A Real Adult" is that I can't be up late at night to hear the silence.

I love that quiet the world has at about 230 in the morning.  Everyone's asleep and the animals are not really active. It's you, the stars and the silence.  Nothing is so humbling, so awing and so inspiring to me as the dead silence of the middle of the night.  Everything is so alive and electrical with possibility, and yet nothing's been formed yet.  It's the down time between day 1 and day 2 where the Earth finally gets a chance to breathe.  It's really magnificent and I would change it for nothing.

Signs post for Toronto forthcoming, I've just been helping out with Villari's for the black belt test and so haven't had time to do much of anything this weekend.  One of my students tested!  She did really well and I'm actually exceptionally proud of her.  She's going to be a fantastic black belt and I look forward to taking class with her.

I need to start getting ready because I'm helping set up for the congratulatory dinner tonight and the girls want to meet up at 2!

I'm not really sure where to start at the present moment.  I've had a lot on my mind that's been keeping me from posting as well as putting me into that dangerous seclusion which can only breed bad things in my mind.  I need to spend time with myself, yes, but there's a difference between time spent alone and time spent in isolation.  I've definitely become a lot of an isolationist recently, keeping my thoughts and feelings really inside.  Not for fear of reprimand or anything, just because I didn't fell they had really matured enough to really be adequately expressed.

This past weekend, my Great Aunt passed and it's really tipped a lot of the usual scales about family, friends, love and relationships which creep up in me from time to time.  Whether it's just being angry at my mother for something stupid, something hurtful she accidentally does or say or something else, I go through cycles within my own feeling on the relationships I keep and maintain.

When I really come down to the base of my entire existence, I really have no idea what I'm doing.  I'm going through all of us this just trying to get a handle on my present situation.  It's true that I'm much happier now than I have been, and I attribute that to being out on my own and really taking a handle of my own life -- even if the only thing that's really changed is that I live with roommates, buy my own food and pay rent.

I often think of myself as a terrible friend. I get caught up in myself a lot and I miss the mark a lot.  I feel like I fuck up a lot and it's really a mystery why any puts up with me.  I'm boorish, cynical and blunt to the point of hurting others -- even if totally unintentionally.  I'm aggressive in all the wrong things and passive in all the wrong things, as well.  I could get so much farther ahead in my life if I retooled what I'm doing, but I can't seem to get anything going.  I feel stagnant, but I know that I need to be stagnant right now.  I've spent so many years already running around for what's essentially nothing and now I'm finally cooling a bit and I don't really know what it's like.

For the first time in years, I've been able to appreciate that Spring is here because I'm not stressed out with midterms or finals or papers or theses.  I ave been able to really just relax when I get out of work and let all that stress stay behind me.  It feels so weird, yet so good.  I sometimes get the urge to bring work home because I feel like it's something I should be doing after being trained for so many years that the thing that consumes the most amount of your time should be the thing that carries over into everything else that you do. Admittedly, it's a falsehood, but also, admittedly, it's been the trend of my life.  Everything has always bled into everything else.

I don't feel any less busy than I ever was before -- I still am running back and forth between things and trying to fit people into my schedule.  I have weekends to myself, and I do spend it with people, but it almost still feels like I'm doing too much.  I can't even really explain it.

I've been feeling overwhelmed by my life, even though nothing about it is uniquely overwhelming.

I've started to really look at everything and I realize that everything I'm doing right now is, in some way, getting me nowhere.  I also keep looking and see that I've nowhere to go.  I know this part of adjusting into "real" life, but I can't help but feel like a bit of a failure.

I'm in an admittedly dead end job.  I'm working at a karate studio which is slowly dying for various reasons which I won't even get into.  I've all but stopped volunteering at the Suicide Line because I don't have time on the available shifts and I've stopped leaving there feeling good.  It doesn't give me the boost of supporting someone in need I got even 6 months ago.  I guess the shine has worn off?  Or maybe I'm burned out from listening to people complain all afternoon and then going in to listen to more people complain about more serious things (or sometimes not)?  I don't know, but it's just not the same.

I do also have to say that I am feeling lonely and single.  The majority of the people I'm close to are now in long term, supportive relationships and I have to admit that sometimes I do feel left out.  All of my romantic endeavors have turned up very short for various reasons and it leaves me wondering, yet again, if I'm damaged goods.  Why do I keep picking losers?

I've been feeling really lonely in that respect a lot.  I almost feel left out in a way because I'm not at that next level like everyone else is.  I know it's completely irrational of me and I know it's an unhealthy mind set.  I know that it's all up to me and my will and my head to get myself out there and talking to people and really turn on the charm I know I have.

But, sometimes, I can't help but feel extra lonely.  I know it's bride's maid syndrome or whatever you want to call it -- when you're in everyone else's wedding, but you can never find someone you want to be with.

I know this might cause some guilt or waves, but I'm a bit glad I had plans when game night happened.  Not because I didn't want to see everyone -- I was bummed about that, I really was.  It was more that everyone had an "and x" attached.  Alli AND Matt, Denise AND Dave, Katie AND Jared.  Even though it's not the same, Cass AND Kyle.  and then there'd be me. I know I could always bring someone, but it makes me feel like kind of a loser.

It makes me wonder if I'm going to be starting my adult life alone and if it's going to change any time soon.  I don't believe I'm going to be single forever.  I know that when I'm ready and whoever he is is ready, we're going to build that relationship, but I can't help but wonder if I'm behind the curve because lasting romantic relationships are being built by my peers, my friends, and I'm not even dating anyone.

I just feel dead ended.

I've been making of fantastic escape plans from my own life to start over and just renew.  The Foreign Service is my current escape, but I don't know if it's really something I'd be able to do.  The success rate for getting selected is, literally at or below 5% per applicant pool.

Yes, I know, I can beat the odds if I study my ass of and really prepare and get myself out there in all the interviewing and pre-interviewing and all of that.  I know I can do it, but it's nothing something I should rely on.  I can't plan on doing the Service.  It's not to say I'm not planning on trying; I'm going to be talking to my parents about the process and what each step is as well as what it would mean if I got selected.

At some point, I know I just have to go balls out and just do something.  The only thing holding me back is my own fear of failure and disappointment.  I have to fail to succeed and I have to succeed at something in order to fail at something else.  I can't let myself just sit here and be wallowing in my own miserable shit while there's an entire world and an entire life outside my encapsulated reality.

I already feel like I need to break free from where I am.

Am I just flighty, or is there more to this?

I'm making significant headway in the realm of packing (I think I may actually be done in time to move, which is somewhat miraculous).  I've started in on my drawers since I've little to pack in my room on shelves or hidden in other places that I don't want to wait a little longer to do.

I've done all the other drawers and right now I'm on the drawer where I kept my past.  I put all the notes, letters and scribbled correspondences between me and my small enclave of friends in high school into the small drawer.  The drawer, technically, has notes going back to 6th grade in it and, for all intents and purposes is where I keep all my skeletons.

I have a problem with throwing out correspondences (except now, where I have to).  I always just try to keep it somewhere and never let go.  A part of me never moves on from whatever mental state I was in at any given time.  Much of that mental state is depression, mind you, but you should never forget your roots.

I was going through the notes and most of them are from Carlie, my high school girlfriend.  That's to be expected.

We had ended rather explosively, as most of my relationships have ended, and several bits of information about what was going on when my head was turned came to the surface.  Check my livejournal's back entries to 2003 around October through December for the slow demise of the relationship and our friendship.  Those letters, filled with her heartfelt proclamations of her love for me which I do not doubt for a second are false, I have an easy time throwing out.  Every letter representing a past me that I'm trying to move away from.  A new beginning I'm trying to make for myself.  I want to be something better than that person was.

I come to a letter which I didn't even know I had kept.  It's like that moment in a horror movie when the monster/killer comes right up behind the victim and the struggle continues on.

It was a letter from my high school best friend for several years, Jessica.  The letter was a last correspondence of sorts. It detailed how she felt about what was going on between the two of us in reaction to a blog post I had written in livejournal.  It was peppered with hurt and pain and anger from surprise.  Reading it, I couldn't remember what the problem was, exactly, but I know that my older self would have gladly written it in livejournal for all the world to see before trying to confront the person about what was going on.  It's something I've only recently learned from the tracts of Real Social Behavior.

As I was reading the letter, I was stricken with an overpowering feeling of remorse and guilt.  This letter was written, at the very soonest, 4 years ago.  I know that, in no way, do I have to do anything about it and in no way do I have to feel attached to it.  I couldn't help myself.  I empathized with the Jessica of high school and reviled the James I was.  I felt as if I was a terribly beast and my eyes had opened to what kind of person I was.

I read the letter in its entirety and let it sink into me.  I let it seep into my body and wrap itself around my gut.  I feel intense guilt over my actions, and so I did the only thing I could think to do.  I sent her a message on Facebook and told her how I was feeling.  I apologized for how I had hurt her, and for bringing it out of nowhere.

Sometimes, the ghosts of the past walk before you and show you something about yourself.  They're spectres and mirrors showing you the darker parts of yourself and challenging you to do something about it.  To extend even something small.

I don't expect to hear back, but, then again, that's not what's really important.  What's important is that I said it and that I meant it.  What's important is that I confronted that old me again and showed him that he is not me anymore and I would do whatever I could to make sure he will never be me again.

I never would have thought that packing would be also a spiritual journey.

So, yesterday, I bought a deck of Oracle Cards.  I've never bought nor used oracle cards before, but I just felt the compulsion to buy this deck.  There was just something about it that said "You need me now. Take me with you."

Naturally, I've been shuffling and asking questions of the deck, doing different card spreads and seeing what comes out of the cards.  I've been getting a lot of the same reading:

I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, even though the answer to everything is obvious if I just open my eyes.  The problem is, I have no idea how to do this.

This moral has been in readings I've gotten over the last couple months, but it's been in subtler (well, kind of) ways.

Everything, it seems, is coming from the same roots.  All the problems and everything I've been feeling are coming from the same source and I'm ignoring what it is in some way.  I just don't know how I'm ignoring it and it's bothering the fuck out of me.  It leads me to believe that perhaps I'm trying too hard to find the answer.  Maybe if I just relax and let it do its thing, it'll come to be on its own.  I had thought I was doing that already, but I guess not.  I dunno.

I also realize I'm making myself sound insane, but it's where I am at this very moment.

gah.

I think the greatest thing about my life is that I have nothing to report on.  Everything is going as it is and I'm just gliding along with it.

Everything in the universe is exactly as I had thought it would be at this point.  I've numbed into my job just enough to slink by without being seen on the radar.  I'm semi-actively looking for something new and applying to whatever interests me.  I've fallen into the stability that comes with a relationship and the regularity it gives my schedule.

My life is really mundane.  I don't even mean that in a bad way.  It just is.  I go to work, come home, sleep, go to work again.  It's a rut, but it's ok.  I don't have any drama to worry about.  I don't have any real worries at the moment because everything just fits together. It's just boring.  Nothing is new at all.

I've been applying to some jobs and I've been mulling around some ideas I might want to pursue in the future, but I've really got no focus right now.  I just want to do something which I'll like. Something high impact and fluid.  Something which'll move and keep pace with my mind.  Something stimulating.

I've read enough memoirs to know that you don't need a degree in Marketing to be a marketer.  It is always changing and you're always trying to use that creative muscle to push the envelope and get your product noticed.  You want people to identify with The Pepsi Challenge, The Coke Polar Bears, MM-MM-MM-MM-MM Toasty, How Do You Eat Your Reese's.  You're out to mark culture right then and there.  No hesitation.  No borders.  No nets.  You just do it and hope it happens.

I've been overwhelmed with a sense of complacency.  I'm just ok.  Sometimes I get scared that all that fire I had is slowly dying because I'm just so indifferent.  I have nothing to get my down, but I also don't have very much to get me going, either.  I feel like, in exchange for excitement, I have stability.

I mean, I'm not discontent.  I'm not unhappy with how things are, on the whole.  I think I'm just having a hard time adjusting into this.  I don't know if I'm really adjusting well because I was so terrified of what I've, essentially, become in such a short time.  I was so scared I'd lose myself in the process of becoming a part of the workforce.  I don't think I've really lost any of who I am, but I feel like maybe the "YEAH! GO GET IT!" attitude I had has been tempered.

I think maybe it might be that I know I don't have to rush headlong in a panicked state to get a job anymore and I take my time and get something I really want to have.  I can scope something out because I have something which, while it doesn't pay really well, pays well enough for now.  I have health insurance, food and a roof.  I'm set for all I really need in life.

I feel like being on the job has mellowed me out.  Or maybe, it's that my life has mellowed and I'm cool with it.

I don't even know where to begin.  My life has become back to normal again, but on the other hand, I'm making things start to change for myself.  I'm totally comfortable, even energized, by everything that's going on.

Best of all, October is almost over.  NaNo is almost upon us and I'm excited, almost ecstatic, to get my novel off the ground.  I feel really good about where I'm going with this year's novel and how experimental and different it's going to be for me.  I think it's going to be really great.

It'll mean a virtual radio silence from me on here as I'll be pouring my life into getting my word count and, in the process, ignoring large facets of the world including, I'm assuming, the internet.  It's amazing how quickly things which seemed important not too long ago are now seemingly disposable.

I spent a considerable amount of with Alli yesterday and one of things that we talked about in a lot of different ways (even if not directly) was moving on.  The idea that you can still have something in you and that it's important to you but you don't have to be there or experience that thing.  You can have it for what it was in your life, but you have no desire to be or do that specific thing again.

The main topic of it was FSC.  We want to do things which stimulate us and make us feel like we're doing something we're interested in and engaged with.  We want to wake up every day and do something we care about, which we're both sorely lacking at this point, but are working to rectify.  We miss school, but not Framingham State.  We don't want to go back there, but we don't feel the "omgno!" of it.

I was on a bench at the Common in Boston with Paige during my lunch break last week when I realized I'd been out of school nearly six months.  I nearly shit myself because it feels like so long ago, but also as if it had just occurred.  It's strange how something in the past just seems like it's in the milky present. It's not quite so far away it's blurry, but it's not so close it's sharp either.  It hangs in the middle ground in an amorphous shape, like an aura from a migraine.

I need to stop waxing nostalgic about college because, in all honest, I spent the majority of my time there stressed out beyond belief and emotionally torturing both myself and everyone else.  I would wage that a lot of my time was spent in too much stress for its worth, especially in the final third of my college experience. Whether by design or by chance, I would say that my last 2 years at FSC were my most joyous and most sorrowful.
(11:11 make a wish!)

I'm very optimistic about the future right now.  I've been doing a lot of looking to the future, at least to the fog of the future, and trying to figure out which direction I want to grope in.  I feel confident in what I want to do in a way I've never felt before.  I feel a settled feeling as I look on and start to move towards researching.  I'm looking at research assistant positions (and, in fact, applied to one this evening at Boston University).  As more positions open up I'm interested in, I'll be applying to them.  The job I have now, while I don't like it, affords me a decent enough income as well as health insurance and other less-than intentional perks, so I'm not going to get rid of it until I have something to replace it. Hopefully it won't be that long (I'm hoping only a couple months as, since I just graduated and have a lot of experience in a relative way, I'm cheap to hire), but I should prepare myself for the long haul.

Things are looking very stable and good for me relationship wise as well, but I'll spare you the gush since this entry has very little to do with any of that.

I'm also looking at moving out of the house.  I feel like I'm ready to actually start living on my own.  It's not like I feel the need to just GTFO of my house, so much as I am starting to feel as if independence of residence is sounding like a much better and better thing as time passes.  I have a problem where I don't currently have anyone I could feasibly live with, whether they already be living with someone, have not expressed an interest in living with me or I'd kill them if we lived together.  I will admit I can be a very difficult person to gel with and probably an even more difficult person to live with.  I try to compromise, but it wasn't a part of my lexicon for so long, I'm terribly at doing it and doing it well.  I've become better at being stubborn and boorish, but I still have a long way to go.
Doesn't it make you want to live with me now!  At least I'm fun! lol

When I do move out, I want to live somewhere near Boston or the adjacent suburbs.  My preferred location is in Somerville or Cambridge near Davis Square.  It's artsy, gay friendly and accessible by Red Line.  I wouldn't have to take my car to wherever every day to work, which would cut costs for me considerably, and I'm in an area that has everything I need and a ready-made community for me to jump into.  I would also like to live somewhere where I can cuddle with my boyfriend on a bench on a chilly autumn or spring evening and not worry about what anyone'll do.

Meg really wants to live in Brighton, which I'd totally be down for, but that situation is complicated.  The person who she does not want to live without doesn't want to live in Boston.  Not at all, in fact.  I've expressed interest in living with them, but they haven't expressed that interest back (not that I particularly blame them) and I'm coming dangerously close to just imposing myself and saying "I want to move out and need someone to live with".  Their lease is up in the New Year and it'd be the perfect opportunity for me to jump onto their moving bandwagon.  I just have no idea where they'd be and location is kind of key for me, even if it is somewhat negotiable.

At this point in my life, which I'm sure I've said about 900million times by now.. it's a bit cliché by now, I don't really feel as if I have a home.  I have houses and I have people and I have support, but I feel like I don't really have a place that is my home.  Sure, I have a room at my parents, but I feel the need to leave there.  Not as if I've worn out my welcome, but just because I feel it's time for me to start living more on my own.  I don't know if this is just part of that time in my life where I have "that eternal question mark emblazoned over my head" or whatever the quotation is I can't remember who it's by.

Either way, though, I am feeling good about everything.

Now, if only October would leave faster...

I've drifted into a contemplated, Sufjan Stevens, quiet frame of mind.  This usual bodes poorly for me because I start to mull things over and obsess and see the negative in my situation and just generally be miserable.  I think part of it is the weather as it's finally becoming fall.  It was a particularly grey day today, and rather humid despite the coolness.  The type of weather that inspires you to stay inside and write poor beat poetry, or sip chamomile and contemplate the problems in the world and how you would solve them.  The type of weather which beckons you to curl up with a lover or pet and just snuggle, letting the warmth and comfort roll over you as you fall in and out of consciousness.

It was a day for comfort or loneliness.  Today, I was dealt loneliness.  I'm not surprised, really.  I am finally doing the job I was hired to do in August (2 months later when the weather is starting to fail), which leaves me extensive amount of time by myself. in my car. driving in circles.

I've been thinking a lot about love (in case you're curious, this is why I didn't respond my, lj friend) and what love really is and what it means.  It piques in me the two big parts of my life which, while separate, are infinitely and exquisitely linked: my emotions and my logic.

The logic part in me contemplates the three types of love (basically: lust, friendship, family) and how I feel differing degrees of all of them for different people.  I think about how straight forward and comprehensible this model is.  How it makes love into something which is just like this and just like that and broken down into varying degrees and how you can have only lust for one person, but then only familial for another.  How you can love more than one person in different ways and in different capacities.  How cut and dry it is and how much it makes sense.

The emotion part in me shakes his head and wonders what would make anyone think they can even figure out how to define love enough to even do a psychological study to figure out the three types of love.  Love is something that socks you in the gut (to use a hackneyed phrase) and grabs you by the throat.  It's something internally violent.  A revolution in your soul which completely changes everything about you.  It makes you feel alive, but also terrifies you with its rawness.  There's no emotionally holding back love.  There's no way to tether it down.  The Macy's float that got away -- looming beautifully over the skyline of your heart.  You don't know when it's going to snag on something and deflate into tattered canvas onto unsuspecting people and cars.  Will it float forever, or is it just doomed to fail from that start?  There's no way to know.

The emotional part of me argues that the very reason we can only describe what love really is - its essential nature - can only be explained in metaphor.  We can't say "love is this." or "love is that." We have to go into what it feels like in a physical sense, how it changes your perceptions, how it fundamentally does things to you.  It's like getting high without the crash or the substances.  It's a rush like nothing else.  It's warmth all over.  It's like any infinite number of more elegant metaphors and similes than I could ever muster over the millennia of human love.  I've not thought of myself as a writer in a long time, and I was only fooling myself when I was.

All of this, of course, leads me back to myself.  One of the great and terrible things about what has happened to my thinking pattern since Research is that I've got an instant impulse to say "well, where does this leave you?  why should anyone care about this?  why do you care about this?"  This impulse leads all these thoughts internally and applies them to me.  No longer abstract; it forces them into reality.

I've been frightened of love for a long time.  I have to say that the idea of being with one person for the rest of time and sticking through anything and marriage and family and commitment have scared me.  I've been frightened of the responsibility of loving another human being in a whole sense.  Of having a real boyfriend, and not even a boyfriend, a real life partner.  Someone with whom I can share anything, be anything and have anything.  Someone who I know will stick by me no matter what happens (minus certain circumstances).  Someone who knows that is the same for me.

Finding that person and building that relationship.  I've been frightened that I would never find that click.  I've been frightened that I would just get used to someone not being around.  Frightened that my eyes would wander once they were gone for long enough, but not broken up.  I've been frightened that I don't have the capacity for what real love seems to be.

I don't know if I can say I've found that right now.  It's all too fresh and new and confusing.  I'm still overwhelmed by the intensity of it all.  I can't even begin to put to words what I'm really feeling aside from the old, tried-and-true phrases like "swept off my feet", "head over heels", "like I've been punched in the gut" and just being completely astounded.

I can say I've never felt for E what I've felt for any other person.  I've never clicked as much.  I've never been so in tune with a lover.  I've never been so willing to do anything.  I've never felt so centered as when I'm with him.  The rest of the world can spin around in chaos, but it doesn't matter.

I don't know if what I'm feeling can really be called love yet, or if it's just intensity.  I want to call it love.  I want to call it love so badly.  I've been calling it love because I don't know what else to call it.

But that's really it, isn't it?

I don't know what romantic love really is.  I don't know what it is like to love a lover.  I'm so afraid of getting it wrong again, like I did in high school.  I'm so afraid that I'm convincing myself of this, that I'm forcing myself to think this way because it's so intense and passionate and yet comfortable and warm.

I think of children and pets and cohabitation and all this stuff about settling and I'm not afraid of it.  I think about growing old (I wrote up at first, I think that's telling).  I think about getting married. I'm completely comfortable thinking of him in all these situations.

Does that make it love or obsession?  Is love just really obsession, or is it obsession with someone else?  Is it being obsessed with each other so much that you become so closely linked and dependent it's heart-wrenching to tear yourself away from the other?

Since he's been gone, I've been incredibly downtrodden. I think of him several times a day and I miss him terribly.  2 weeks and he's back.  2 weeks and he can be in my arms again.  I can kiss him.  We can cuddle.  We can share a bed and covers and sleep not-cuddled (we're terrible spooners).  I won't have to long anymore, I can just have.

I feel greedy because all I want to do is keep him to myself when he first comes back.  I long for his warm touch and embrace.  I love the way my hands fit into the small of his back.

Then I wonder if all of this is just exaggeration because I am without him right now.  I wonder if this is romanticizing because he's just not here.  I'm making him into a Prince Charming he's not because he's been gone.  Longing and wanting have turned into making him into something he's not. I have no doubts I've been doing that, but I don't want to think I've made it all up to be so disappointed in 2 weeks.

I don't know.  I feel like I'm falling in love.  Falling is such an apt term, too; I feel as if I have no control over any of it.

At any rate, as a more straightforward update, I hate my job now that I'm doing it and I'm looking for research assistant positions in Boston which'll help me get into graduate school by boosting my resume.  Something that my current job does not help me with at all.  That's another thing that happens, I think about what I should do to get where I want/need to be.

It's been a day, really.
It's been a day.

I'm listening to Iron&Wine for the first time ever.  It's really different for me because I rarely listen to this genre of indie-music.  It's very mellow and melancholy.  Reminds me of slower Sufjan and even a bit of a mellower Dashboard Confessional when it was just Chris Carraba and his acoustic guitar (yeah 1999).

There is a downside to my listening to this general genre of music, however; it turns me into an introverted emo kid.  It's strange how much my mood can be affected by what's around me. It can fill me with inquietude. There's nothing going really wrong in my life right now, everything's good.  It's just the contemplativeness of the tone which gets into me.

I've been thinking about the future again.  This time, though, it's been a bit different.  I'm far more calm about it.  I've been centered and it feels good to be back on solid ground, even if it's not as solid as I'm convincing myself it is.  I mean, I still am in the air about what I want to do with my life.  I mean, I kind of know what I want and I know what I'm really passionate about.

I just feel like I want it all just to happen at once.  I want the peace corps, settling down, getting my PhD and moving away from here all to happen at once.  I know they can't, and I know it wouldn't be good if they did.  I just want it all to just fall into place. I want all the good things to keep going.

It's getting to the point where I'm waiting for the punchline. Like, nothing in my life has every gone so well all the time at once.  I'm waiting for the floor to drop out from under me, as it usually does.  Someone dies; I fail something; Something bad happens.  Being on a roll this big never lasts.  I feel like I'm going to come back to work on Thursday when my boss gets back and be fired or something.

I can't shake this feeling like I'm letting something or someone down.  I know I can't do it all, but I just feel like things are going too well for me to not be missing something.

This does not mean, however, that I'm searching for something to latch onto that's negative.  I'm good with how things are in the general sense.  There are areas I'd like to improve, like always, but I'm working on how to deal with that and those areas.

I know this has been a lot of talk about nothing in particular, but I'm feeling better having gotten it out.