Spring?

1/23/11
I thought it was 01 for a second... trippy

I don’t have time right now, but I wanted to write a little. I fell asleep on the futon again.... woke up about 5:30 – went to bed. Never really went back to sleep. Been thinking for the last two hours. Thinking about how I feel ready to kick ass these days – maybe I’m in the manic phase of my not quite manic depression. Ever since last weekend, I’m ready to take on the world – I don’t know maybe I’m pissed off, angry, frustrated – but I don’t feel like that. I just feel motivated and ready.
I’ve been thinking about life since college. The ebbs and flows. I mostly remember the good times, knowing full well that a lot of it has been overly stressful and not great. The good times have been great though. And the bad times- Thanks to the grace of God and really good friends – I’ve coped. It’s those recovery periods. The last 7 months of my life... I don’t know how to do that very well – you can’t schedule it, you can’t control it, you can’t decide when it’s over.... It just hits, like hitting mud when you were on a highway.
It feels like spring this morning. As it got light, I heard ducks/geese, then I started hearing other birds and this cool breeze hit my face. But it’s no longer cool with the threat of cold – it’s cool in expectation of the sun.
Pride and Joy – I want to send my dad the lyrics to that song. It explains everything. I just don’t think he’d get it.
This is an upswing – this last month has had some new lows, but I think we’re on the upswing. My brother hit the tipping point and is now actively recovering. My mom.... I think the good days are balancing the bad days. And I’m on my way out of college life... on to new things, or a new period of old things- today feels like a new beginning.... not for any real reason.... maybe it’s the air... the feel of spring.... restless, motivated, ready to get shit done!

Cheers!

November 15, a day which shall live in infamy

November 15, 2010
A year ago today, my dad left my mom. A month ago today, their divorce was final. Within a week, he was remarried. Last week, my mom officially declared her dating status. So, within a year, I went from being a grad student of parents who never divorced, to having to deal with all the bullshit of a split family. What to do about the holidays? Do I talk to him? Do I spend time with his family? Etc.
Law school has always felt like a refining fire. This last year felt like being dipped in plasma. But, I can see so much good that has come out of it. My mom is a better person – snapped out of the daily drama. My brother, I worry about. He has grown jaded and angry. God has made me better, though. He has humbled me and forced me to work very hard. Right now, I feel like any new lessons and abilities to concentrate and focus are totally out the window. As Senator Bob says, I’m soured. However, I am confident it is for the best. My friendships have been refined. I’ve come to terms, to a certain extent, with my sexuality and how I am going to live out my life and how that correlates with my life in the church community. The challenge is to stay, not to run away. I do think I’ve changed in ways that I’m not sure are good. I’m more abrupt, more bold, less inhibited, more confident, more stubborn, more apathetic. You know how a good swim makes you feel refreshed, but simultaneously utterly exhausted? I think that is how I feel. And now, many of my law school friends graduated and left and some more leaving soon and me transitioning soon. I put on my facebook- “the end of the beginning.” Sometimes I’m annoyed with people I care about. They lack a certain depth. Lori says the end of what beginning? Never mind. If you don’t get it, I don’t want to try to explain. This last year was the beginning of a new beginning. Today marks the end of the beginning. When dad walked out, God threw me out a window into a new level of adulthood. Within the next year, I will write a thesis, take the bar exam, learn to cope with changing relationships, hopefully get a job and start the next phase of my life.
Oddly, after Barb’s stern email last week, I feel motivated. She said to shoot for 30-40 hours a week. So, I’m shooting for 8 hours a day. A goal. All I needed, perhaps, was a goal. Or for this day to come, or to get my apartment settled – completely. Or just a month off from driving home.... Or that sense of urgency that comes with hitting the latter part of the semester, or more medication. Or, all of the above. Regardless... I’m working, focusing and today, walking back from student health, I decided I was going to finish a master’s thesis by May. It will be a somewhat remarkable feat, but I bet I can do it. I’m willing to rise to the challenge. Again, I’m not sure what changed. Maybe someone prayed a little extra for me. Maybe I confessed my apathy..... I’m really not sure what changed. But, I’m willing to wake up tomorrow and start anew. 27, divorced parents, grad student, coffee drinker. (the latter, I think, will be essential to surviving the next six months.
Oo – I just realized, in six months, I will be graduated. This really is a milestone. Today. Right now. Tomorrow is the first day of the next era and I am thankful. This realization makes me excited, refreshed, etc. I tried to feel like this at each small milestone through this divorce, but I didn’t feel it – it was hollow. Today, I feel wholly ready for the next big thing.

Ass-kicking

This fifth semester of law school has been rough. Or maybe it was the year long death of a marriage that did it to me. My counselor/life coach tells me that if/when I ever meet someone I will need to tell them that I've been through a divorce... not mine own, but still, a divorce. Either way, all semester I've struggled, like Jacob with the angel? I'm apathetic."If only I could find an enemy bigger than my apathy, I could have won." I'm distracted, no longer motivated. I'm not afraid of failing. I'm not afraid of disappointing anyone. If you don't have fear to motivate you, what is left? A desire for money? I can make enough money to support myself without a JD/MS. A desire for success? getting out of bed in the morning is success. Power? My power lies within my faith. Sex, drugs, or money? Not appealing. So.... a remote sense that I don't want to disappoint my professor. Yes. That is not enough to make me motivated. So, I've been half-assing my way through. Until last week. Sitting in class, I realized that I was miserable because I am never adequately prepared. Part of being the person I want to be is being prepared. I am never adequately prepared. So, I have determined to learn to prepare. However, I then turned in my thesis proposal. I knew it wasn't awesome. However, the reaction from my adorably wonderful major professor was enough to tip me over the edge of the abyss. Hence, the ass-kicking. Not to say, it wasn't deserved. It totally was. I half-assed that thing. However, I don't know how I am going to devote enough time to this thing and do the other things I need to do. I don't even know how to do this thing. I woke up this morning wondering if I could even do this. I thought, well, I finished law school, I should be able to get a master's degree.But, on the other hand, I don't seem to want to do this, be very good at doing this, or have the energy for this. Why should I do this if I'm not going to do a good job of it? I want to do well. I want to not let my professor down. But I don't want to suck at this. I was pretty down. I'm tired, not physically tired as much. These days I sleep 8-9 hours a night. Shocking to anyone who knew me in college. I used to be a 5-7 a night girl.I'm emotionally tired. In the last year, my parents went from a 35 year marriage to being divorced, my dad remarried and my mom dating some guy she knew in highschool. That's kind of a paradigm shift. I'm intellectually tired. Right now, I don't want to think this hard anymore. I don't want to figure things out anymore. I just want to slip into a rote existence. Fortunately I have great friends who have more faith in me than they should. They also remind me that I'll regret it if I quit and that I will be ok. Some good conversations and a good 6 hours in a coffee shop working, listening to chill music, and a honey latte I'm ok. Still tired, but I can do this. Sometimes motivation is all about mindset. Sometimes depression is the only cure for apathy. That or good company of people who care about you and believe in you. (A nap and a good lunch helps, too.)

Arrival

As children, we wait to be grown-ups. We wait to arrive. My grandfather recently told me that life comes in stages, like a buffet. We never arrive - we travel, we walk through, taking what we want, sometimes ending up with what we didn't expect. The contrast would have made childhood much less traumatic. Think of it, guilt, regrets... when shit comes, duck and keep walking. Don't look back. Sometimes you take a wrong turn. Find your way home then keep walking. Every day is a new opportunity to take the right turn. Did you abandon? were you abandoned? Did you cause harm? were you harmed? I've been learning coping skills. Emotions are real. We don't coddle children because we they're just tired, need to eat, are cold, feel pain -all these excuses to delegitamize their emotions. It's not that their sadness and pain isn't real - they just aren't coping. I find that disturbing. Are we supposed to feel our emotions or cope with our emotions? Is there a way to do both? Why is showing emotion so concerning? What is the difference between not coping and showing emotion in a healthy way? Each stage of life presents challenges. Parents, teach your children to cope, to roll with the punches. Don't feel guilty cause you fucked them up. You didn't. They were born that way. Teach them to cope with it. Cope with it through good health, through faith in God, through healthy relationships, support systems, etc. But, in the end, they have their path to walk. As do you. Walk with dignity. Find joy when you have joy. Enjoy the beautiful when it crosses your path. Endure the pain when it comes. Love when you have the chance. Find beauty in the solace when it comes. It's all life. We have our destiny, our path, our God given futures. Walk them.

Needs vs. Wants

Wants and Needs. We are told to differentiate when we consider money. What do you want versus what do you need. Need: necessary for organisms to live a healthy life. Want: something that is desired. Would you rather be necessary or desired? I would rather be desired. Being necessary creates obligation. Obligation creates guilt and resentment. Guilt and resentment breed worse emotions. Desire is just as hopeless, I suppose. Desire leads to expectations which are then disappointed. Or, desire leads to love, unconditional love.... worship maybe, but that goes too far. I want to be wanted, not needed. I have often felt needed, rarely felt wanted. I think we mistake them for each other. I want you, I need you, oh baby oh baby. Need makes me afraid. I am afraid to need. Need creates obligation. Obligation creates the opportunity for failure. I am afraid to need for fear that I will be failed when I need most. Want is more empowering. If I want you, but I don’t need you, then you can come and go and I will be left wanting, but not desperate. What is the purpose of life? To glorify God and enjoy Him. How do we enjoy Him? By enjoying the good things he has created. How do we glorify him? By loving him and loving our fellow man. The purpose of life is to love and find joy. Need is not love. Need creates the opportunity for idol worship, need creates the opportunity for hatred. Wanting, in contrast, creates the opportunity for love, for desire, the failure to fulfill want could lead to such sins as jealousy and covetousness. I suppose all leads to conflict and negativity and sin. I still believe Want is less likely to than Need. I want to be wanted so I have made myself needed without needing. In consequence I find myself wanting and unwanted by not needing but by being needed. I have successfully gained that which I never wanted in pursuing being wanted. Because, in the end, I am never enough. Those who thought they needed me soon find other ways to fulfill their needs and I’m not sure anyone ever wanted me, if they did, in my absence (which I am frequently absent) they find other ways to fulfill their wants. This is the path down which I spiral.

Hello

"I'd make such a good statistic, someone study me now, someone has to be interested in how I feel, just because I'm here and I'm real."
I just realized that no one reads my blog. Made me feel like there's no point in writing. But, then I realized I should write more often if I want anyone to read my blog and also, I don't write because someone wants to read it. I write because it's a release.
Thoughts I've had:
Turning my back on empty darkness makes me want to cry and scream and run inside to the light. Closing my eyes in murky water makes me feel the same way.
My brother is a hurricane. I'm not sure what I am, but the opposite of a hurricane.
I like gardening. Digging in dirt, disturbing worms, nurturing pretty things, digging out undesirables.
I also like fire. Burning the dead. Releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Clearing the way for new things.
Divorce is death. It involves grief, mourning, disposal of belongings.
I don't know how to balance compassion and not enabling someone to mental illness. How do you love someone?
More importantly, how do you forgive someone when you're not even sure what you've lost? She says he's my father- you've lost your father. I just want to say, he's not my father, my father's in Seattle. He was my daddy, but I don't need/want a daddy anymore and he doesn't need/want to be a daddy. So. now what?
We busted our asses for two days. All she can say, "why would that bastard leave me?"
She says he was so ungrateful for all that she did. She says he was so selfish when he left her.
I want her to be well. I want her to forgive. I want her to see hope. But, she doesn't want to. So, what am I supposed to do? She says she doesn't know what to do. Well, neither do I.
ooo - more importantly, I figured out something about the whole crazy thing. I say some people are crazy. People say I am crazy, but I am not crazy like they are crazy and I'm afraid of being crazy like they are crazy, but I welcome my craziness. I am unconventional. I do things that people don't expect, that possibly shouldn't be done. I make very rational decisions, but sometimes they are very unexpected and not what people expect. They are irrational, thinking in loops, making decisions based on fleeting emotions and random ideas. That is crazy to me. Repeating themselves constantly and yet remembering every little detail from an argument 25 years ago. That's the difference. Next time someone tells me I'm crazy, I'm going to ask if I am unconventional or irrational. There's a HUGE difference.
She's had insomnia lately. I'm tempted to stay up late just to meet her in that dark quiet hour in hopes of a profound conversation. I realized the other night, when I talk to myself, I talk about philosophies and politics and big ideas. I want to have those kinds of conversations with other people, that's why I get so frustrated with nominal conversations about people and events. I don't even talk about that shit with myself. Why would I want to talk about it with you?
Having made that incredibly arrogant statement, I don't mean to imply that I am better, more intellectual, more intelligent. I just like different things. I am wired differently.
The more we enable, the less empowered she feels. So, then what?
Done.

El Fin

Sunshine, peach cigars, Chopin Preludes and Nocturnes, red-winged blackbirds, mauve sky in the gloaming, a story of an ending, but never a beginning.

Why can’t I make up stories about the beginnings of relationships? I tried, but it felt fake. The ending I can picture perfectly. I am always thinking about endings. This will not end well. Why do something when you know it will not end well. Why can’t I see beginnings? What were their names in my head ? Jane, the friend in Vancouver. Sarah – the one who would be everything I couldn’t be. Maybe because it’s a recurring theme – a story that has a myriad beginnings but always the same ending.