4.19.2011
4.05.2011
surfacing
It has been a long time since I've made an appearance here.
I always did figure that would happen - just about every blog I've started, the day comes when something stops me from coming back to it. Maybe because a living chronicle is, by nature, haunted by the ghost of the younger self who started it, all smiles and enthusiasm, picking out background graphics and fonts, imagining all the excellent adventures and sparkling insights that would one day dance across the scrolling pages. And, after a while, after you've disappointed yourself enough times, you lack the courage to look that optimistic younger self in the eye.
If you're a coward, that is. Which I am.
On paper, it has been a busy and progressive (in the sense of making progress) year or so. Last July in particular, was quite the hotbed of activity - I started a new (steady-ish) job, found a new apartment, and moved in with my then-boyfriend - all in a matter of about 3 weeks. (I always find it hard to wrap my mind around just how FAST the most important changes tend to happen.) And then I got engaged. So, you know, hurrah - the developmentally arrested adolescent has grown up, glory be and hallelujah, let angels sing and let parents unrend their garments at long last.
In theory.
In practice, it has been a long, vicious winter of discontent. In practice, while I am actually - surprisingly - happy in my relationship and deliberate codependency, everything else has been falling around my ears. Sometime last fall, I realized that I'd stopped doing everything that made me feel like "me" - writing, photography, music. I pulled away from my friends and all the things I used to love.
I felt like I betrayed myself. I felt like I'd slid backward, past all the personal-development progress I'd made in the last few years, into a black hole I recognized well from circa 2006, when I finished grad school, finally got my last degree and found myself completely unsure of who I was or what I wanted. I felt lost; I felt wasteful; I felt wasted and angry and aimless.
I've been blaming my job for sucking the life out of me; I've been blaming the weather; I've been blaming my lack of alone time. And maybe all of that is true, to an extent.
But maybe it's also time to forgive myself. And maybe the long road of life sometimes loops in on itself. And maybe I just need to stop comparing today's reality with yesterday's dreams of its tomorrow.
Life, despite all the pretty metaphors, is nothing like a book or movie or symphony. At least, not until it's over, and by then, it's left to the lawyers and biographers to sort out. Until then, every time you feel like you've Finished something or Closed A Chapter or Gotten It At Last, and somehow manage to idiotically infer that this Accomplishment means anything will be easier or simpler from now on, somebody up there laughs, pats you on the head and politely refrains from pointing out that you probably felt the exact same way when you finally managed to make poo-poo on the Big Kid Seat.
I have no illusions of anyone giving a damn about any of this. I am not sure why I am writing tonight. Maybe because I just feel like I need to. Maybe because I need to remind myself that I can't fight or deny the present reality by refusing to write about it. And maybe just because whatever future self comes back around this blog, she deserves a better host than that goddamned snot-nosed font-picking punk who's been running this joint lately.
Fuck optimism.
Bring on the future anyway.
I always did figure that would happen - just about every blog I've started, the day comes when something stops me from coming back to it. Maybe because a living chronicle is, by nature, haunted by the ghost of the younger self who started it, all smiles and enthusiasm, picking out background graphics and fonts, imagining all the excellent adventures and sparkling insights that would one day dance across the scrolling pages. And, after a while, after you've disappointed yourself enough times, you lack the courage to look that optimistic younger self in the eye.
If you're a coward, that is. Which I am.
On paper, it has been a busy and progressive (in the sense of making progress) year or so. Last July in particular, was quite the hotbed of activity - I started a new (steady-ish) job, found a new apartment, and moved in with my then-boyfriend - all in a matter of about 3 weeks. (I always find it hard to wrap my mind around just how FAST the most important changes tend to happen.) And then I got engaged. So, you know, hurrah - the developmentally arrested adolescent has grown up, glory be and hallelujah, let angels sing and let parents unrend their garments at long last.
In theory.
In practice, it has been a long, vicious winter of discontent. In practice, while I am actually - surprisingly - happy in my relationship and deliberate codependency, everything else has been falling around my ears. Sometime last fall, I realized that I'd stopped doing everything that made me feel like "me" - writing, photography, music. I pulled away from my friends and all the things I used to love.
I felt like I betrayed myself. I felt like I'd slid backward, past all the personal-development progress I'd made in the last few years, into a black hole I recognized well from circa 2006, when I finished grad school, finally got my last degree and found myself completely unsure of who I was or what I wanted. I felt lost; I felt wasteful; I felt wasted and angry and aimless.
I've been blaming my job for sucking the life out of me; I've been blaming the weather; I've been blaming my lack of alone time. And maybe all of that is true, to an extent.
But maybe it's also time to forgive myself. And maybe the long road of life sometimes loops in on itself. And maybe I just need to stop comparing today's reality with yesterday's dreams of its tomorrow.
Life, despite all the pretty metaphors, is nothing like a book or movie or symphony. At least, not until it's over, and by then, it's left to the lawyers and biographers to sort out. Until then, every time you feel like you've Finished something or Closed A Chapter or Gotten It At Last, and somehow manage to idiotically infer that this Accomplishment means anything will be easier or simpler from now on, somebody up there laughs, pats you on the head and politely refrains from pointing out that you probably felt the exact same way when you finally managed to make poo-poo on the Big Kid Seat.
I have no illusions of anyone giving a damn about any of this. I am not sure why I am writing tonight. Maybe because I just feel like I need to. Maybe because I need to remind myself that I can't fight or deny the present reality by refusing to write about it. And maybe just because whatever future self comes back around this blog, she deserves a better host than that goddamned snot-nosed font-picking punk who's been running this joint lately.
Fuck optimism.
Bring on the future anyway.
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