Dear God...What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

I am not sure what has gotten into me. It feels like discontent. As Prince said, "Maybe I am just like my mother. She is never satisfied." But in my mom's case, she is never content. And here I am, feeling like I am rolling a boulder uphill, knowing that it will just roll back down the other side. King Sisyphus always did seem the most tragic of mythic figures, outside of Prometheus, for the sheer uselessness of his effort.

I am sitting in my living room, contemplating whether to make myself imitation Crystal Light or pour myself a (small) glass of brandy. I love the glasses I use for brandy. They are real crystal and make the most delightful "tink" when tapped gently. The imitation Crystal Light will go into a regular clear glass. I want the brandy. Is it wrong to choose a drink by the container into which it is poured?

I quit my job about six weeks ago to finish up my MA. My money has run out, and I need to reestablish a flow of income. I have enjoyed devoting my time to school, but spending the majority of time in my house doing homework is starting to give me cabin fever. Feeling like King Sisyphus is enough of a challenge; I don't want to add Jack Nicholson's character from The Shining into the mix.

I spoke to the English Master's director today and realized the final project I wanted to do (a travel journal for a trip to Costa Rica, where I would save baby sea turtles and learn to surf) may not be possible time-wise unless I postpone graduation by a few more months. And the scope of my project really needs to be narrowed down. So that's something to consider.

Then, what happens after I get my MA? That could be less than six months away. Plans are a good thing to have. Until having so many turns me into a control-freak extraordinaire. So to summarize, my discontent with my life as it was prompted me to stretch out and try something (many things) different. But every step feels unfamiliar and scary, so I walk around semi-frozen, afraid of making a wrong decision. I can ask for input, but at this level of creating my life, ultimately my decisions defer to me. It's exciting. I learn a lot. But I have no idea exactly what I am doing.

And with my glass of brandy in hand, cheers to learning to live with the unknown.

Oh, speaking of dead kings and horror movies, I make a dreary zombie.

Cheers!

What's next?

It has been almost two years, and I sent out with the goal of doing something worthwhile with my life based on that merit badge book mentioned in the first post...You Can Do It! (And not the one by Louis Hay, although I own that one too). I have since come to decide, in doing so, I take life far FAR too seriously. It's like I do not want to do anything unless I have a goal with end results, which are measurable. There is a problem with this, simply because along the way, the journey will reveal possibilities never even dreamed of.

This blog posting is going to go off as more of a rant. I just have to much to say and need to get it off my chest. Since no one reads it, that is quite okay. Besides, even this blog posting is prompted by a goal with measurable results. At the end of 2010, I decided to go back to school to get my Masters in English and become well-read. Two years of graduate school, and I am staring down my thesis project, which is seeded in this post. As for being well-read, I've read more, but my to-read list has exploded. So about that thesis project thing, I have a piece of creative nonfiction I want to write. In writing it, I will also have to write about writing it. Higher educations in the Humanities....metacognition is not enough. One must think and document the metacognition going on. A blog seems a perfect place to do so! And when I have to bundle up all my reflections, I will have a place to collect them. I intend to set up a different, more professional, looking blog to chronicle the chronicle of my life, but till then, this blog is a perfectly lovely place to track myself. I should probably describe my project. Nah, I am going to put that off for now. But as a hint, true to the roots of this blog, it involves sea turtles and Costa Rica.

SO instead, I will share another rumination. I was driving around, blasting the heat in my Jeep, considering fall. The whole cycle of life, death, and rebirth. October always takes me to meditations on this subject. I went to one of my favorite coffee shops and got a tuna sandwich on lettuce. Then I came home, lit the gas-fire place, and made some sugar plum tea. My cats insisted on having their own tuna, and now they are curled up like little insects, sleeping in front of the fire place.

October, like the autumn, is a very powerful  place for ruminations. The weather gets cold, bears go into hibernation, and we look within. What I find is that I have internalized the idea of the Law of Entropy a tad to well. My house is not as clean as I would like it to be, and the only reason is that I can barely understand why I should clean it if it will just get messy again. My car too. Why should I dust the dash board if it will just be dusty in a week again anyway? While some of this mind frame is natural, some of it is just complacency.  Just because all things move from new and fresh to decay, life to death, is that a reason to let things fall apart? Knowing I will someday die...is that a reason to have an only half-lived life?

This conversation was so much more interesting inside my head. Oh well, at least now I have it written down so I can revisit it, I guess.

It's Spring! Not that you can tell by the weather.

So Spring is here. I guess Spring has been here for a month, officially, but it never seems real to me until Easter. It is hard to believe with the perpetually pewter sky and nippy chill to the air. Where are the days for riding a scooter?

Work is slow, and I was thinking it has been a while since I have reflected, at least on this blog. I was considering the wonderful experience of being a dilettante, which is just a fancy way of saying someone with a short attention span that changes projects a lot and dabbles in several arts or hobbies without too much commitment to one project. Actually, it means this:

1. a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, especially in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.

That would be me! And I have the closests of half-finished projects and art-supplies to prove it. It's too bad it is not possible to be a professional dilettante. I would be an expert!

There's the costume making. And the oil painting. And the drawing. And the charcoals. And the quilting. Oh, and the beer brewing.

So I have been thinking about doing less 'thing' intensive dabbling. Things like bird watching, water skiing, and camping. I am all about doing fun and exciting things! I just want options that invovle less clutter.

A little discouraged

I ask myself what am I doing? It feels like my life is just a pile of goals, and it feels very cold to me. So if I learn to fly a plane, go skydiving, learn to speak french, even if i were to own a private castle in fairy land, those are wonderful things. But what about what makes life really rich? In my experience, being close to others and having loved ones is the greatest luxury life ever affords. I have great friends, but for the most part, it feels like i live my life in solo mode. Even the way I write, it always seems to be my own reflections. I miss my experience in Korea, where I was forced to be around others day in day out, almost every waking moment. It forced me to be open and deeply involved in others. Back home, there is a huge disconnect in my experience, and I am positive it is from my own habits and how I structure my own world. Maybe I should visit that volunteer goal of mine, and find something that redeems my humanity. That seems like a great focus for new years.

Dating 101

So I went on a date, or two, or three. After that first one of getting back on the dating scene, they all start to blend together, unless they are AMAZING or AMAZINGLY bad.Surprisingly, the best date I have had has also been the cause of ridiculous 7th grade drama as well. A little over a week and a half ago, on a Friday, I ended up going out for extra beers with a guy from work, and the night turned into nothing less than magical. Good food, good conversation, and that type of clicking that makes you think "Wow, this might just be IT. This might just be the ONE!" And then, it all became unraveled like Weazer's sweater. Over the weekend, I got a text that the night was fun, as long as a question about whether the night was just alcohol induced or there was something more to it. The latter made my heart hurt. I was worried, and tried to call him. But no answer.

Monday came around, and since we work together (always a terrible idea for a dating pool, I know, I know!) I was unquestionably going to see him. But awkwardness? It was not so bad, other than the painful uncertainty I experienced all weekend to be answered by his facial expression where no troubles had been registered.

The week passed, and he had an emergency dental visit. I sent several texts and one or two calls, all the while starting to wonder if I was becoming that crazy obsessed girl. But the texts were mostly casual, without any need for reply....sense I had some how come to conclude coworker/dating-buddy is not so phone prone.

Until Thursday....when he randomly texts with "I can't do this. I am in a relationship". No clarification on what "this" is that he cannot do. And he told me there was nothing there....that his ex was like his sister. Now I am SO creeped ou! Enough with the texts, I responded with "Okay". I have to have some amount of respect for a guy that is A) in a relationship and B)has proven nonresponsive to my texts.

Then on Friday, he text me twice or thrice, with a couple calls. Since I was on a date, this all went unanswered. And Saturday, he text me at 7:30 am to ask if I wanted to go out for breakfast and antique shopping. This behavior threw me into fits of confusion. Never have I gotten such conflicting messages in so short a time frame. I text him back, reminding him he was in a relationship and asking that he lose my number, which finally he did. I mean, when I feel like I need to talk, I might as well page a brick wall, but whenever he gets the idea in his head, after blowing me off, I am supposed to rollover and play dead, because guess what?! He was finally paying attention to me.

Today, I got to work, with a post-it note on my keyboard. "Can we talk about this" it said, with a check box for "Yes" and one for "No." I thought it would be best to borrow from his favorite bag of behaviors and opted for no response. He sent me an email, asking the same thing. I told him I had nothing to say, but if he would leave me alone, I would spend 5 minutes after work allowing him to say whatever demanded so much attention. When work ended, he positively RAN out of work. Although I am not a mind reader, I would interpret this behavior to suggest that he wanted me to know he would not talk to me on my time table and to let me know he did not care that much to talk to me.

Yes, it is 7th grade all over. And he is almost 50! I always assumed an older man would be more mature, which has always proved my assumption wrong when put to the test. It seems there are just a few extra decades to reinforce immature and self-defeating behavior. I will hopefully never mistake age for mature again in dating. People talk about baggage. It seems some baggage is good: you know, the bare essentials for survival like life learning experiences, stuff that goes on a resume, and whatever else has the ability to open someone's eyes in the search for wisdom. That seems like a good set of luggage to have and embrace in a relationship, but after that, all the baggage is just so unessential.

But in my dating life, I now have a rough draft for a list of what I want in a man, based on what I most certainly do NOT want. SO over 7th grade....

Quilting...

So he has not called, and I am freaking out. I had to distract myself. My mom came with her serger, and here is what I did:

Dating

So here I am, posting about something very personal, and it makes me want to crawl into some type of protective shell and hide from the world. I went out to drinks with a few people from work last night, and we discussed our life plans. I mentioned my list of tasks, with highlights of going back to school to be a teacher and traveling and saving baby sea turtles. One guy that I have felt a certain affintiy for noticed that I have no place in my 1-3 year plans for a relationship and/or kids. He called me out on this, saying that it was his greatest regret, and that I would regret it too, if I continue to march through life solo.

While that may be true, it intersects with one of the badges I have recently taken up. Having a purpose in life, even if it is a list of tasks to do, gives me an incredible amount of self confidence. With a recent boost in my self esteem, I took on the one task that a few months ago would have thrown me into panic attacks: dating. The book talks about making lists of my past mistakes, my personality, a personality of a person I would like to date, and what I would like to do. I skipped these steps and jumped right into online dating. At this point, I have only met one person from the site, but I have gone on three dates with a friend from my old job, and last night, the drinks-out turned into a date with the very guy that warned me about loneliness.

Now, I am feeling very insecure. And I know this is where I go when I am in a relationship. I have no idea how to hold on to who I am, who I have become, with the looming vulnerability of opening up so completely that I can experience the greatest bliss and deepest pain humans know. But I do not want to live like a robot, half lonely, for the rest of my life. Not saying I only have two options of dating or being lonely, but what is amazing is my own very resistence to what I want most.

I do not feel good right now. I am terrified. I feel like a three year old, lost in a store full of strangers. I am not sure if I have the trust or faith that everything will be okay. It does not help that I work with the one guy (I have a rule not to date guys from work, but damnit, I am not very good about following my own rules). Also in that, I have been ignoring my sexuality, which is not helpful.

I want to pull an ostrich and stick my head in the sand. But, lucky for me, I have a list of several tasks with which to distract myself.