Inadequacy

I really wish I could figure out why I feel so awkward in social settings, and then get over it.

I attended two "social functions" on Friday (which is like a record for me).

First was a "teacher appreciation" lunch at my school. During our "in-service" day, we broke for a lunch buffet at a nearby restaurant. Of course, most of these teachers have known each other for a year, if not many years, so coming in at the end of the year as the new kid makes it hard to get to know people. And I am one of those people who has such a hard time talking to people in situations where I don't know many people. My cooperating teacher is nice enough, but she doesn't always remember to introduce me to people, or draw me into conversations, etc, so a lot of time I end up standing back by myself, because I'm too uncomfortable to just stick my nose in.

Later last night, I went to a gathering at a local bar, for a friend who is leaving town for 6 months (to perform in a show in Alaska!). It was mostly people I knew, but even so, I still felt slightly "outside." I tend to feel like I'm the "extra" person. Established groups sit together, talking, and whenever I attempt to join one, I can never seem to blend in properly. I blame me, not them. I just always feel less important, or unnecessary, and eventually I'll move off to try somewhere else, or just sit back and listen.

I don't think it's social anxiety, really. I don't freak out or panic or anything. I just feel like I don't fit in. I suppose it's the self-esteem issues that I've never really solved. I managed, through counseling and medication, to fix so many other issues, but that one never really got resolved. It just seems like, in any group, I always consider myself the lowest rung on the ladder. Like I'm the one you talk to when someone better isn't available. How do you cure that feeling?

beauty isn't free

Just for fun, I started looking into the costs of living in central coastal Califonia. Nothing like cold reality to ruin a misty dream.

Basically, the cost of living is so radically different between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area, that the transition would be really difficult, financially. In most areas, apartments are about double what they are in Chicago, and I'd have to pay for a car there, as well. Unfortunately, teacher salaries in the area aren't really concurrent with the housing prices.

Maybe it will change in the next few years, or when I start to look at moving, I could start out moving to a more urban area (the eastern side of the pennsula), and give myself a year or so to get financially established before moving somewhere closer to the coast.

More and more, I think I'm about done with living in the city. Feeling anonymous in crowds, the light pollution and the noise, the giant billboards and ads trying to sell me something everywhere I look. I want to look out and see mountains on the horizon, rather than skyscrapers. I want to be able to have a dog, and spend weekends at the ocean or in the mountains. I want sea lions rather than pigeons. I want to know the people around me.

want and fear

while in California, I simply fell in love with the Central Coast. It's such a treat for the eyes. The mountains, the cliffs, the shades of the water.







Part of me is screaming out to move there, to live among the beauty, among the casual attitudes. After 8 years in the city, and 22 in the suburbs, part of me is crying out for some tranquility. There are parts, north of Monterey and south of San Francisco, that are quiet and amazingly beautiful, yet with easy access to the "real world."

In about a year and a half, I'll be completely finished with my graduate program, and free to move, to live anywhere I want. For years I've had an urge to live on the Pacific Ocean. Yet the thought of moving across the country, to a place where I don't know anyone, alone, is terrifying.

But I read this woman's blogs, first about riding a Vespa across country and then about living in a cabin in Wyoming and raising a wild coyote, and I almost hate myself. Why this fear of the unknown? This is my life. My ONE life. Should I spend it only engaged in what I know, only do things when I have someone there to back me up?

I spent four days on a vacation, alone. At times it felt awkward and uncomfortable, and other times it was absolutely freeing. I saw so many new things, had new experiences, talked to new people. There are so many other things I want to do that I haven't yet done. I long to camp out in the desert and for the first time, really see the stars. I long to visit the Grand Canyon. I want to backpack across Europe.

Next year, I'll be 30 years old. When will I do these things, if not now?

i can't get no...

As happens to me on occasion, I'm suffering through one of my periodic instances of complete and utter restlessness. It's not boredom - I'm plenty busy. It's just this weird mood I get every few months of complete dissatisfaction with pretty much everything. I can usually solve it, at least for a short term, with travel or some other kind of temporary change.

I can't figure out, though, what causes it. What's the underlying problem that makes me feel so periodically irritated and unhappy with my life? Maybe the changes that are coming, the new job, will help.

Do other people go through this? Do other people live contented lives, and just on occasion stop and look around and say "this is not what I want." Am I leading a life of quiet desperation, and I don't even know it? Am I afraid to take risks, and this dissatisfaction is caused by the fact that I live in a rut of safety?

Don talked today in his blog about taking risks - how without great risk there can be no great reward. He quotes Robert F. Kennedy - "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." Maybe this is part of my problem - there are so many things I want, but to get them, I'd have to risk so much.

I want to travel overseas (expensive!), and I've always wanted to working in theater or film production. When going back to grad school, I made the choice to pursue teaching rather than production, because of the financial security aspect. Teaching isn't exactly high-paying, but it's much more stable. I made the decision coming out of college to take an office job, rather than pursue theater or film, because I was scared to risk living a life where I didn't have health insurance or knew where my next paycheck was coming from. I want to teach much more than I want my current job, but not as much as I want the dream jobs I was scared to go for. Financial security, knowing that I'd at least be able to meet my basic requirements without worry, was more important than pursuing my dream career, or pursuing my dreams of travel.

I am also so afraid to risk my emotions. I fear humiliation or pity if my emotions aren't reciprocated. This is a result of low self-esteem, I know. But knowing that doesn't make it an easier to overcome. I want to love and be loved, but I'm so afraid of the vulnerability necessary to achieving it. In growing up, I've learned a lot of things, made a lot of changes, but this fear is one thing I've never been able to let go of, and I worry that I'm dooming myself.

on the couch

I mentioned Friday that I am insanely busy, which I am. In an email, one of my friends reminded me that I like to keep busy, a side effect of my slight bipolar. And I do like to keep busy, to an extent, but I also need ME time to recharge, and it's been in short supply lately. The black circles under my eyes are getting worse, especially because I can't seem to fall asleep before 12:30 or 1 in the morning. but I don't know that it's so bipolar-related.

I think she really hit the nail on the head when she said, "you like to feel like you're critical to any project."

This is the one neurosis that therapy never cured me of. I have this desperate need to feel essential to other people. I have this sort of loneliness inside me that comes from no one in my life finding me as important as I find them - not being number one on anyone's list. It's sad, i know, but it's persuasive, and it actually guides quite a bit of what I do - trying to prove myself and my importance to other people. Even though I know that it doesn't work in the way I truly want it to - projects like these only temporarily fill that need. I don't know what created that need, but it's something I just can't shake.

more musings on what's going wrong in my life

I was sitting in a cab heading home this evening, and I suddenly had a scary thought. If I were to disappear, it would likely be a couple of days before anyone noticed that I was missing.

I think this says something about the kind of life I lead. A rather introverted one. If I didn't show up for work for a couple of days, my coworkers would assume I was sick or on vacation. My boss would probably assume that I'd told her I was taking a vacation and she forgot. I don't see my friends every day. If I didn't respond to an email or voicemail, they would assume I was busy - it would probably take three days of non-response before they realized that something was really wrong, because that's just the non-intrusive way we are. My family, I see and speak to even less. Now that I have a roommate, at least temporarily, this might get cut to two days. We aren't really in each other's faces much - if I didn't come home one night, I doubt his first inclination would be "she's dead in a ditch." I am one roommate away from being "one of those...deaths that no one notices for two weeks until the smell drifts into the hallway" (to quote "When Harry Met Sally") and who, in the meantime, has her face eaten by her cats.

I've cultivated a life filled primarily with acquaintances I see occasionally, and friends that I communicate with more online than in person. How did I create this life for myself? Is it the one I really want? Why is it so difficult for me to create close ties? Do I reject people before they have the chance to reject me?

Most of the time, I really do enjoy my solitude. But how do I deal with this feeling that humans are supposed to be part of a pair (something I truly want as well)? That we're all supposed to have another person that is our first phone call, that is watching out for us, just as we are for them? In first grade field trips, everyone is assigned a buddy so that no one is lost or left behind. As adults, we have to find our own buddies. And sometimes, you can be surrounded by people who love you, but who all love some else more. There's an inherent loneliness in not being at the top of anyone's list. That's what being part of a pair, what a relationship, what love, is about - being at the top of each other's lists. Being the one who worries, who remembers, who notices. How do you ignore that ache of never being first and most important?

Why does it all have to be so goddamn complicated.

I've been suffering from insomnia pretty much all week, so if this is maudlin and rambling, please forgive me.

laziness vs. willpower

Once again, I seem to have dipped down into the land of negativity. I tend to be a bit of a pessimist by nature (though I prefer to think of it a being a realist). What I've realized recently is that I have really high expectations of the way things should be, and when those expectations aren't met, I get discouraged. For example, the world being the fucked up place it is, the fact that it only seems to be getting worse, and the fact that I feel powerless to make changes overwhelms me, and I decend in to Weltschmerz.

The problem comes in that I allow myself to get overwhelmed by this, and use it as an excuse to give up on other things. Like the fact that I have very poor self-discipline. I've become engrossed in this Weltschmerz, and it's given me permission to default on the smaller things, the things I want to change that might make me happier.

The point is, that I'm going to work on looking for more positives, on trying to focus more on the small picture and the good that can happen there. Especially, I'm going to try to focus more on me. I've made some promising changes already, like no longer biting my nails, and doing a great deal more "intellectual" reading. The area where I can't seem to retain my discipline, though, in in my weight and health. Again and again I try, and again and again my self-discipline falls apart within weeks. Ultimately, I think I am in fact lazy.

The thing is, there are things I want in life, and I'm fairly sure that being overweight and lazy and tired are holding me back from getting them. Maybe not directly, but in the way I see myself, and the way others see me, and in the energy I have to devote to making the bigger changes.

I guess I'm trying to find the event horizon where being fat and lazy is more repugnant to me than exercise and salads. because let's be honest - wouldn't we all rather spend our time on the couch with soda and cupcakes, watching TV, as opposed to on the treadmill?

How do people make that decision to devote themselves? What is the driving factor? Because even though I know that losing about 40 pounds would change a lot of things in my life, I can't get to the point where I can consistantly make myself do the things that I have to do. There's this "better" version of me out there somewhere. Maybe because I've never seen it, because I've been chubby since I was about 12, it seems too abstract. Is it easier for people who were once thin, and became fat, to find that motivation? They know what they could be, have some tangible memory of what their better version is. I can't imagine what I'd look like in a bathing suit without my oversized hips and thighs. It's not even real to me, and so the idea of diet and exercise changing anything about how I look or feel seems so foreign. I mean, this is who I am. This is how I've always looked, how I've always felt. I don't know what the better is that I'm supposed to be striving for.

Somehow, I have to find the willpower to get through the first few months, until I get to a point where I can see or feel some sort of difference that will motivate me.

you can pick your nose...

every holiday season, i go through the same mental back-and-forth regarding my relationship with my father (or lack thereof). I haven't spoken to him in at least 3 years now.

he's not a bad person, in that he isn't abusive or dangerous, or even really mean. it's more that he's so completely self-absorbed and thoughtless, that he has no sense of responsibility to others or recognition of how his actions affect others.

my parents divorced when i was 6, and as I was growing up, I saw my father every other weekend. my parents were polite to each other, but as i grew older, both of them had plenty of bad things to say about the other. My father and I were a lot alike when i was a young teenager, and we got along really well. He and my sister never really connected, maybe because they were so different, maybe because she was only 3 at the time of the divorce, whatever. as i went through my rebellious "i hate my mother" stage, my dad and i were great friends.

As an adult, I grew to see more and more that my Dad is incredibly self-absorbed. He would promise to help me with money for school, and then not follow through (one part of the reason I was several thousand dollars in debt was that he promised to help me with money for textbooks, and then didn't, so I bought them with credit cards because I didn't want to tell my mother). He was rude or dismissive of my sister, because they just didn't get each other. He often forgot events I had, and especially events for my sister, or else wouldn't come because he freaked out in crowds.

That gets to the crux of it - he had bipolar disorder that wasn't treated for a while, and then once it was, he went on and off his medication. For a while when I was in college and after I moved to Chicago, he was an alcoholic. By this point, I was having less and less to do with him, but every few months or so, I'd do my duty and call him, or he'd call me, and he'd be on the phone drunk, telling me how proud he was of me, how great i am and how much he loves me. However, he couldn't tell you my job, or probably what my college degree was in, or really anything about my life at all.

My sister and I would go to see him at Christmas, and it would be incredibly awkward, and he'd treat my sister really shabbily, and usually he'd either be drunk or well on his way, and all we could do was try to get away. The last time we visited at Christmas, about three years ago, he was a complete asshole to my sister the minute we walked in the door (who at that point was STILL trying to talk to him now and then - she's a much better and more forgiving person than I). She didn't have her coat off yet, and he was berating her about not giving our grandmother her current address or something. She barely spoke to him the rest of the day, and the rest of the day, whenever he could pin me down, he kept asking me why my sister hated him. At this point, we both wrote him off. I haven't spoken to him since, and I don't know if she has.

Part of me feels like I should talk to him, and say "do you realize what a complete tool you've been?" but he's infamous for not recognizing his own responsibility in any problem. Even when I was in college and my sister in high school, he would berate us for not calling him often enough, nevermind that he never called us himself, and always sent birthday cards late or not at all, had no pictures of us up in his house, didn't come to my sister's high school graduation or my college graduation.

Four years ago (before the final break up), he had a heart attack (and surgery, I think), and we found out because his wife's sister's cousin (or something like that) works with my mom. Not because anyone bothered to call and tell us. I still don't know all that happened. Two years ago was my great-grandmother's 90th birthday party. Neither I, nor my sister who lives in the area, got an invite (we're close with our great grandmother, and only her, but she didn't plan the party).

Part of me thinks I should just let it go. There's nothing that I need from him. If he cared, he'd do something about it. And another part of me thinks "well, he's my father. I should have a relationship with him."

Another part of me sees him as "there but for the grace of god go I." A lot of the things I don't like about myself are things I don't like about him, and I feel like being around him would bring those traits out more, as it did when I was younger.

This is pretty rambling, because there's so much backstory and so many angry, annoyed, bitter and conflicted feelings. Any comments are welcome.

the one where I whine a lot

i've been feeling a little down lately. maybe it's the weather. maybe it's some jealousy that i'm harboring. i'm going through a period of being completely frustrated with myself. it's stupid, i know. but i'm so unhappy with so many aspects of myself. i want to be 40 lbs thinner and 3 inches taller. i want to be more outgoing and socially confident. i want hair that curls just a little and a smaller nose and breasts that don't sag. i want to know the right thing to say. i want to know how to flirt. i want more patience. i want to be non-judgemental. i want to understand symbolism in literature and film. i want to not be embarrassed by sex. i want people to want me around. i want to not care whether people like me. i want to be deliriously happy. i want to be carefree and unburdened. i want to less selfish.

It's become so obvious
You are so oblivious to yourself

I'm tied in a knot
But I'm not
Gonna get caught
Calling a pot kettle black

i've been hiding out for a few days, trying to come to grips with the topsy-turvey state of my life at the moment. in all honesty, i'd like a few more alone days to sort out what i'm thinking and feeling, but the world doesn't stop.

it never fails to astound me how, just when I think I have things figured out, the world does a 180 on me. you'd really think i'd have learned by now.

i'm heading home this weekend, so hopefully the change of scenary and a weekend spent with my family will help sort things out. or drive my completely crazy.

i have no idea where i am

i've got so many things going on right now, that i can't seem to blog. my mind can't focus on one topic long enough to write about it.

i spent this past sunday in a haze of sweat and sawdust, working at the Playground with my committee and a prospective member team, doing a much-needed overhaul on the Playground. We worked our asses off for seven hours, and when we were done and things were put away and swept up, we stood in the middle of the stage and realized that the place looked almost exactly the same as it had when we'd arrived that morning. all of our changes were behind the scenes - the old lightbooth (hidden behind a curtain) torn down and the space made into a dressing room; a new ladder and storage in the greenroom; some cleaning in the cleaning storage room; junk thrown out. A non-shaky ceiling fan and some paint touchups were the only changes visible to the casual observer. Nonetheless, we left exhausted, but thrilled with the overhaul. We just need to hang some new lights, and we'll be done.

My boring "introduction to research class" (see previous entries on procrastination) is killing me. thankfully, tonight's class (our next to last) was cancelled. So next week I just have to sit through presentations and I'm done. Oh, except for the 8 articles I have left to read and the 8 analysis I have left to write.

i'm having a yard sale this weekend to clear out some of my clutter and make room for my guy to move in. if you like furniture, books or women's clothes, come on by. I'm having a yard sale with 4 other women, so it should be interesting.

i'm also reinvesting in exercise and a healthier diet. the goal is to lose 30 lbs by Halloween. If I manage it, the candy gorging will be severe.

but I'm going to be FORTY!

I turn 28 on Thursday. And watch with a wary eye as 30 creeps ever closer.

So far, 28 is looking to be a good year. I'm less neurotic than I've ever been, more laidback and easy-going. I'm in a stable, happy relationship with a wonderful man. I'm in graduate school, working diligently towards a new career.

It is so amazing to feel so calm and at ease with myself. To be off the rollercoaster that has whipped me around for the past 15 years. To be coming to accept that I can't control the future, and becoming okay with that.

i'm feeling pretty hateful towards most everyone and everything right now. and most of the rest are annoying me. I'm not posting anything else until i lose a bit of this rage.

'my life would be easier if i had been born the opposite sex'

i've been sitting here at work all day, getting things done. suddenly, PMS hit me like a ton of bricks and i feel like shit. tired, pissed, unsure, headachy, unable to focus.

the feeling of being completely overwhelmed at work isn't really helping the situation, combined with the fact that I've not had 5 minutes to myself outside the office in the past two weeks.

i really need an afternoon in bed with a pint of ice cream and a good movie.

today is the greatest day i've ever known

I'm really, really working on living in the now. It's extremely hard - I've been forward-focused my entire life. It's sort of like climbing up on a table and standing on your head - it's about seeing everything from a completely different point of view. And often, it feels much safer to go back to the way you saw everything before. Or sometimes you just revert to old habits.

Anyway, I'm working on it, and it's letting me enjoy something that is simultaneously scary and wonderful. So, you know, hopefully I won't curl up into a neurotic little ball when it all catches up with me.

surrender

The bottom line is that we live this life dying every day. It will end. No question. The time we spend, however, is 100% ours and we spend it doing whatever we can to create, connect and learn. Making a huge contribution cannot be the goal – making a small but positive one is both realistic and, ultimately, more of use to the cosmos.

Relax, look at the lovely things and people around you and enjoy those small but significant moments of joy – those moments make the rest of it bearable.

it's advice like this that i strive to follow, but some how, i seem to constantly get lost along the way. i wish i understood what it was i my psyche that wants to dwell over and over on the bad and the unknowable. what is it in me that almost refuses to let me be happy? why do i insist on ruining every moment by worrying about all the ones to follow?

if i were to die tomorrow, would i die content with how i've spent my time? constantly worrying about the future that is no longer coming? i need to find the path to allow me to override this deeply ingrained need to control what's coming, to spell out my future, to understand what i will be facing.

But I fear
I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose

Here in this lonely place
Tangled up in our embrace
There's nothing I'd like
Better than to fall

wanting doesn't mean having

every now and then, depression creeps up on me. my hormones are no help (goddamn PMS), but i think it really just brings to the surface things that are always there, but that i can normally push to the side with the help of medication and a busy schedule.

it seems strange, but i'm lonely. i'm constantly busy and surrounded by people, but i think it is the nature of improv and theater relationship to be shallow and transient. you see people at rehearsals and shows, and in some ways, it seems like "hey, these people are my friends." but your relationship with them has no real depth. you talk and discuss in brief snatches. there is little time for anything else. and when the project is over, you don't keep in touch. you don't care about each others lives, problems, dreams. you share a beer at the bar after the show, but you aren't a shoulder for each other to cry on.

my life is jammed with activities, with "must dos" and requirements and people who seem to like me, but see nothing and care nothing of me beyond the momement.

i have a very few people that i truly care about, but our lives are so hectic that i see them rarely, no matter how much more i or they might want. there is never enough time.

how can i live a life where so many of my interactions with other people are so surface? how can i be happy? how do i find joy in the few moments i can squeeze out with those i truly care about, when i know that much of my time will be spent surrounded by people who don't care about me, or i about them? how do i relax and let go when i don't know for sure how the people around me feel, what they want from me, what they think?

it hurts to feel unimportant. that's how i feel much of them time. like i'm there to do the grunt work that needs to be done (and maybe i'm appreciated for it), but as a person, i'm unimportant. i feel it, even when i don't let myself recognize it. i hate it. i want to be special. to be something that no one else can be, even if only for one person. i don't know how to find it, that niche that's waiting for me. we all have one, right? it's wearying, waiting and looking and trying to fit and never finding the place where you simply belong. how do you keep trying, how do you keep from giving up? how do you keep facing every day thinking 'maybe this is the day the emptiness will be filled' only to be disappointed again? how do you live through the little moments, where you'll feel it for a heartbeat before it's gone again? how many of those moments of hope can you stand before it hurts too much to keep trying?

what if that hope is never fulfilled? what if the place you think you belong isn't your place at all?

i hate the unknown. i've always been a person who wanted a guarantee, a promise, to know how and why and when. but at this point, i don't even want that anymore. i just want a glimmer of hope that isn't snuffed out before i get a chance to believe in it.