Strange, Drunken Valentine Musings

What a strange week I've had.

In the last 7 days I've gone from zen to panic to despair to anger to panic to frustrated to impatient to panic and back to zen. Today I seem to have landed on slightly lonely and depressed, which makes not a lick of sense but is inclined to happen when I'm home alone with my cat and a bottle of wine. *shrug*

I feel like something major is coming, and I don't know if I'm supposed to sit here and wait for it to happen (more likely, since I am by nature a VERY passive person) or if I'm supposed to be proactive and go out and MAKE it happen (less likely, as I tend to avoid all responsibility until the last possible moment, hence why I may be leaving the city rather sooner than expected). I don't know what this major thing is, besides a relocation of my person and possesions. It could be something else, but it feels as though the Universe has been screaming in my left ear for the last two (almost three) years, telling me to GET THE HELL OUT OF NEW YORK CITY AND GO SOMEWHERE ELSE FOR A CHANGE, WILL YA?! And I, stubborn, stubborn girl that I am, have done everything in my power, up to and including horrible mooching, to stay exactly where I am even though I'm now deaf in my left ear as a consequence.

Panic and despair stems from the fact that it's really hard to find work right now and that the New York State Department of Labor is full of the most un-empathetic prick dickwads you could possibly imagine. I honestly just don't get the job thing, though. I know this is a country-wide issue, but I feel like everyone else looking for a job has found one, and me, who is now screaming back at the Universe (and all potential employers) that I AM AVAILABLE TO WORK AND QUALIFIED TO DO MOST JOBS THAT I APPLY FOR AND EVEN IF I'M NOT I CAN LEARN IT SUPER FAST, can't seem to land something that pays peanuts. Which, I might add, I would work for since my fridge is empty.

I've been on a bunch of interviews that felt really good at the time; I had a nice rapport with staff and interviewers and have been lavished with promises that "we'll get back to you either way," and yet, here it is February 14th and I've got to call my landlord tomorrow to see if he'll let me use my security deposit for rent in March because I can't pay it otherwise.

Do I just pack it in and go home? Do I finally just stop and listen to what circumstances have been trying to tell me for so long?

What's really messed up is that I don't know if I WANT to stay here anymore. I sort of wish I could transplant this beautiful fucking apartment somewhere in the middle of the state of Vermont and start a garden.

These days I feel like the least financially responsible person in the world. And I don't know if it's worth it to waste my security deposit on the off chance that I MIGHT find work that MIGHT pay my rent in the next two or three weeks. I know thinking positive will bring positive things, but it's really hard to think positive when you can't go grocery shopping or feed your cat because you literally don't have a dime to spare. And even if you did, what the fuck is a dime going to do?

I've said goodbye to a lot of my things lately. In an effort to keep myself sane I've been combing and recombing my life to get rid of anything that will be excess weight when I inevitably move again. Today I said a tearful goodbye to my faithful futon, who was so used and unloved that no one wanted him, even for free (curse you craigslist!). Tomorrow it's a trip to Journal Square to ditch some books and appliances and things that I just have no use for anymore. If only I had the strength and courage to go through my scrap fabric, but now that I quilt it's harder than ever to say I don't want that teensy piece of cotton batik... point being, do I just suck it up and say goodbye to the city?

And, while I'm at it, let me bitch for just one second about my asshat father, who has spent his entire life telling me that what I'm doing isn't good enough. Never directly - it's always been, "wow, this is really amazing, BUT..." And let me tell you something. A little girl hearing that "but" every time she tried to do something nice or amazing or DECENT really only hears: "it's not good enough, why did you even bother trying?" I'm especially frustrated these days because that's all I hear in my head. WHY am I trying? To do anything? You know what my father said to me when I told him I wanted to leave teaching? He said, "well, Vanessa, I really hate to see you GIVE UP." And at first, I was super pissed off at him because HOW DARE HE say anything about giving up when he hasn't had a solid goddamned job in YEARS?

But lately I wonder if I have just given up. Not on teaching (which I'm further and further convinced was a total waste of my time), but on myself. Every time I think, "hey, I can do THIS, it would totally work," I see all sunshine and rainbows for about ten seconds before reality slams me in the other ear (you know, the one that still functions) till it's ringing.

I trust that I'm on a path and that it's going to lead to good things, but right now I'm stuck at Motel 6 and there are bugs in my bed and the phone doesn't work and the hot water won't run for more than five minutes at a time. I am SO GRATEFUL for the people in my life who won't give up on me even when I've stopped trying. They're the only thing that makes me feel like one day I'll have a stopover at the Four Seasons or something.

I guess if I'm complaining this much about the way things are going, I can't be too zen about the way things are right now. I'm reading a book called The 20-Something Manifesto, which a friend recommended to me. It's a great book, articulates a lot of things I've felt over the last few years in a way that I never could... but it's also frustrating as fuck to read because so much of it depends on whether or not you have a JOB.

I made this choice and put myself in this situation. I own that. But I jumped out of one boat and into a serious fire assuming that I wouldn't have a problem finding work. Which obviously was an erroneous assumption.

Ugh. I would like to stop feeling like I'm in limbo now.

A Life Less Ordinary

I've been listening to Carbon Leaf's "A Life Less Ordinary" on repeat lately. I hear this song and even though it's talking about a relationship, I hear a call to live my life how I want to live my life, not how society or my friends or my parents expect me to. Of course, that raises the question, how do I want to live my life? What do I want out of this little blip of an experience? And how in the world will I ever figure this out in time to make it meaningful?

(I feel like assigning meaning to anything is sort of pointless, since eventually my body will be happily feeding some trees in the gloriousness of the life cycle of this planet. But there's something really human about wanting the things we do to endure beyond our short little lives, so, I won't apologize for feeling this way.)

This is going to come off sounding whiny to some people, I know, but I will make the disclaimer here that I am not unhappy right now. Lost as fuck, yes. Unhappy, definitely not. I feel a million times freer than I did a month ago, and have found a few coping mechanisms that had once been my friends hiding in my bedroom closet. I've since dusted them off and am using them with abandon.

I don't have a clue what I want to do with myself. That's really the crux of the issue these days; it's not that I don't have a job, or that I'm tired of New York City, or that I hate the idea of leaving my friends behind even if it becomes necessary. I can deal with not having a job (I think I've spent more time in the city without a job than with one, actually), I can deal with walking through the streets and not knowing or even recognizing a single person I see, I can call or email friends if I have to leave (those of you who are already far away, please don't give away the terrible secret that I actually suck at this). What I can't deal with, or at least am having a hard time dealing with, is that the path before me is completely unclear. There's no end-goal in sight. I'm a planner - maybe not a good one, but I like to have a plan, and right now the only plan I have is to make a new plan.

In the past weeks, while trolling through craigslist and Monster and idealist.org to find an office job that any monkey could perform (just to pay my bills, which keep showing up despite the hexes I sent in the mail to my credit card companies. ... just kidding), I have compiled a list of all of the things I enjoy, and could see myself making something of a "career" out of. In no particular order, I've thought of being a professional seamstress, a librarian, a farmer, an editor, a book designer, a yoga instructor, a baker, a chef, a masseuse, a bee keeper, a sailor, a jeweler, a fire performer, or a professional drifter. I've visited schools, emailed friends, called people I know in the business, and have cast nets out looking for at least a hint of where I should head next, but I haven't found any answers yet.

I know I want to live simply. What does that mean? In my mind, it means making enough money to feed, clothe, and house myself (and occasionally travel), but not enough to give in to the spending culture we live in. It means I should probably get my driver's license before my foot forgets how to work a gas pedal, but I don't want to own a car. It means I need to get a bike, ride it every day for fun, and have a basket for when I need to go shopping. It means I must make yoga an integral part of my day, no excuses. It means that I cook simple meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It means that I have time for textile arts or whatever other hobby happens to have my attention at the time. And it means that I am open and honest with the people in my life, no matter who they are, where they live, or how I feel about them. It means having faith rather than being afraid.

Is this a life less ordinary? I feel like I won't do well doing what "normal" people do. This whole work, work, work, so I can earn, earn, earn, and spend, spend, spend, and maybe leave a little money for my children when I die thing just doesn't appeal. I used to think that having a family - you know, husband, children, pets, white picket fence and all that - was what I wanted, but I'm starting to realize a lot of things about myself that don't fit in this picture. So, if I don't want normal, if trying to be "normal" and work "normal" and live "normal" hasn't worked... what do I do?

This is where that faith over fear thing comes in. I think I'm working myself up to the faith part, because I still have too many "what ifs" running around in my brain. That part of me that likes for things to be perfectly coordinated and planned balks at the idea of living as a sailor on a boat somewhere, with no guarantee of work or housing when I'm shore-bound. It hates the idea of uprooting my life to go someplace completely new for a job that might not last longer than a few months. But this is a wind I have to bend to, I guess.

One of my favorite quotes is "Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart. Love the questions." I often find it extremely difficult to love the questions, or be patient. But I am trying, desperately, to do so right now. I was in this place four years ago, wondering what I was going to do with my life. I landed on teaching, and ended up hating it. I know that if I rush this, I'll be asking myself a lot of the same questions again in four years. And while I know that the journey is important, I would really love to find something that sustains me emotionally, spiritually, and physically... no more wondering.

On the hunt now...