"But she wasn't back where she'd started; she'd simply arrived where she'd left off, this time smarter and stronger and maybe even stripped of illusions." -Kate Bollick
The First Time of Significance...
The fall I was 14, my paternal grandmother--a dotty old woman we called Lady Sue, I don't even know why--called me up, all excited because she had gotten a good deal on an airplane ticket and wanted to fly me up to see her and her husband, my Grandpa Fritz. (Again, not sure why we called him that. They were a couple of odd ducks to be sure; to this day my sisters and I recall an incident concerning them and a fight over ketchup and peas, and no one remembers the outcome, but we sure as heck remember the fight).
So I flew up to Indianapolis in October 1994 and visited my grandparents, and their son, my uncle, picked me up and drove me down to Bloomington. It was a great place to live, he told me. He raved about what a young, vibrant feel the place had, what with it being a university town and all. I was 14; to me, college was ages away and only promised troubling things like...College Algebra. The only other things about Bloomington that stood out to me were the grey, chilly weather and the piles of dead leaves; accustomed as I was to the balmy climes of Florida, this was a novelty to me, and I begged my uncle to let me rake his lawn.
The Second Time of Significance...
The late summer of 2004, when I was 24, I arrived in Bloomington, chased out of Florida by a hurricane. I was excited to live somewhere brand-new and completely different, and for the first six weeks of my time there, I was completely starry-eyed, enchanted with the old buildings and houses, the swarms of young people, the amazing variety of foods, the different trees and climate...Of course, the feeling didn't last; grad school and real life and yes, winter and the feeling of being trapped in a small town all overwhelmed me, and while I still loved it, the novelty wore off.
The Third Time of Significance...
Now. Right Now. Spring of 2016, almost 10 years since I moved away from Bloomington, I am back. Yesterday, when driving through the downtown area to meet up with friends for lunch, that old sense of wonder tugged at me a little. Bloomington is a bit magical--"a town forever young", I once read it described as--but I am not forever young. I am not 14 or 24. I'm almost 36, about to be divorced, basically circling back around to the beginning and trying to pick up a different thread of my life story. It's almost like, when I was young, I'd read the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels in reverse, carefully following which storylines and choices took me to the best outcome. Only I'm doing it now, living my life in reverse a little.
I don't have many dreams and hopes beyond what has driven me over the past year--stay alive, get divorced, protect yourself, get out. Now that all of that has been accomplished... I'm not thinking too much about anything else other than "being successful at my new job" and "being worthy of this new third time..." I don't really know what comes next. But I've been given a chance, and this time, I hope I get it right.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Wherever I go, There I Am
Late on Tuesday afternoon, me, the cats, and our overstuffed Corolla rolled up to our new home here in Southern Indiana. Within two hours of our arrival, the car was unloaded, the cats were hiding under the bathroom sink (always what my instinct is during traumatic times, so seems a legit response), and my housemate and I were eating pizza and watching Archer re-runs. Every now and then I got up from the couch and meandered to the back porch doors, where I gazed out at the back area. There are some dead flowers that I THINK are hydrangeas...
...for years, I've wanted to live in a place where hydrangeas can grow. So I suppose dead hydrangeas are a step in the right direction, no?
Eventually, I inflated my air mattress and positioned it almost under the window, and collapsed into an exhausted heap on the bed. Sleep didn't come immediately, for I was too wired, and then I saw that I could see the full moon from my window, and the silvery-white light shone directly down onto my bed--a perfect set-up for late night contemplative ponderings.
Just because I am now seeing my dream-life unfold doesn't mean I won't be a little bit melancholic, ya know? I'm still me.
...for years, I've wanted to live in a place where hydrangeas can grow. So I suppose dead hydrangeas are a step in the right direction, no?
Eventually, I inflated my air mattress and positioned it almost under the window, and collapsed into an exhausted heap on the bed. Sleep didn't come immediately, for I was too wired, and then I saw that I could see the full moon from my window, and the silvery-white light shone directly down onto my bed--a perfect set-up for late night contemplative ponderings.
Just because I am now seeing my dream-life unfold doesn't mean I won't be a little bit melancholic, ya know? I'm still me.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Is anyone else familiar with your first night of sleep after a painful breakup?
I am. And no matter how many times I go through a breakup, that first night of sleep is always the worst. Inevitably, I wake up at arse-o'clock in the morning, and am struck by my new reality, which results in a gaping hole in my heart, with hot tears trickling down my cheeks, with a hundred thoughts and a thousand regrets.
Last Saturday, I kind of went through that again.
It was a new feeling, though, because I hadn't broken up with anyone, or been dumped. Not with a person, anyway. But I had left something the night before--after a flurry of last-minute deadlines, after a big going-away party, and amidst sincere and sometimes tearful speeches, and generous gifts, and more than a few chuckles over shared memories, I walked away from the job that I had held for the last 8.5 years. The first really stable job of my life, the first really substantial job of my career, the source of my emotional stability for the longest time, and I left it.
And so, at 5 AM Saturday morning, I awoke abruptly, my heart pounding, and while I wasn't crying or devastated, I was still...lost. I spent the next hour trying to go over all the final details in my head, all the jobs and duties and responsibilities and commitments, all the people that I had worked with. And then I thought about the next few weeks, before I start my new job, and really, the next...well, lifetime ahead of me without this job I had just left.
I'm like a moon who has lost its planet to orbit around, I thought, with maybe more than a little self-pity. I had lost my gravitational pull, the thing that had kept me on course.
Maybe I will have it again. Heck, likely I will have it again. It's going to take time, though, just as it took time for Fancy Desert Library to become the center of my Universe. And I suppose, in the meantime, I can only concentrate on avoiding what Eldest Sister conjectured when I gave her my "moon lacking a planet" hypothesis:
"Well, what happens when a moon loses its source of a gravitational pull? It continues to spin pointlessly until it veers of course and crashes into another planet and kills millions of people."
I am. And no matter how many times I go through a breakup, that first night of sleep is always the worst. Inevitably, I wake up at arse-o'clock in the morning, and am struck by my new reality, which results in a gaping hole in my heart, with hot tears trickling down my cheeks, with a hundred thoughts and a thousand regrets.
Last Saturday, I kind of went through that again.
It was a new feeling, though, because I hadn't broken up with anyone, or been dumped. Not with a person, anyway. But I had left something the night before--after a flurry of last-minute deadlines, after a big going-away party, and amidst sincere and sometimes tearful speeches, and generous gifts, and more than a few chuckles over shared memories, I walked away from the job that I had held for the last 8.5 years. The first really stable job of my life, the first really substantial job of my career, the source of my emotional stability for the longest time, and I left it.
And so, at 5 AM Saturday morning, I awoke abruptly, my heart pounding, and while I wasn't crying or devastated, I was still...lost. I spent the next hour trying to go over all the final details in my head, all the jobs and duties and responsibilities and commitments, all the people that I had worked with. And then I thought about the next few weeks, before I start my new job, and really, the next...well, lifetime ahead of me without this job I had just left.
I'm like a moon who has lost its planet to orbit around, I thought, with maybe more than a little self-pity. I had lost my gravitational pull, the thing that had kept me on course.
Maybe I will have it again. Heck, likely I will have it again. It's going to take time, though, just as it took time for Fancy Desert Library to become the center of my Universe. And I suppose, in the meantime, I can only concentrate on avoiding what Eldest Sister conjectured when I gave her my "moon lacking a planet" hypothesis:
"Well, what happens when a moon loses its source of a gravitational pull? It continues to spin pointlessly until it veers of course and crashes into another planet and kills millions of people."
Thursday, March 10, 2016
How I Fear...Er, Fare
And then we came to the end.
Almost, anyway. Tomorrow is my last full day at the Library--the place that has been more of a home to me than any other building in California. Where I have been surrounded by kind, patient colleagues and supervisors that I've trusted for a long time. Where I've had the most financial and emotional security in my life. Where I felt challenged at first, and later confident, and later still too confident, and then pigeonholed and therefore somewhat resentful, most of all towards myself. But always, always, I felt at home. Safe, and sheltered.
In 1.5 days, I am willingly walking away from that shelter. From those people, from my cubicle (now rendered almost barren), from the patrons both annoying and beloved (sometimes both), from the last known quantity in my life.
"Are you scared?" one of my colleagues asked me last week. Maybe that's not the type of question people ask each other in the workplace, but it's the kind of question that I've always answered, because I am compulsively honest, so why break the habit of the last 10 years of my life.
"I think I am," I told my colleague honestly. "But I'm scared in the same way I was when I moved to California. Then I was fucking terrified; I just didn't allow myself to realize it until after I was done and the fear had passed."
Of course I am scared. I'm scared my cats won't take their sedatives and will yowl and pee all over themselves on the long trip home. I'm afraid that I'll encounter snow on the drive, or that my car will break down, or I will die in an accident before I ever make it to Indiana. I'm scared that I've been too long in one organizational culture and won't be able to adapt. I'm scared that even with all this leadershippy self-awareness, I'll still fall into the same patterns, and won't be any different--just another worker bee that won't distinguish herself or help the Library innovate. I'm scared of everything, but at least what lies ahead is unknown, has as much potential for success as failure, whereas this present is simply more of the same--sustaining, holding the line. It's time to move forward, even if it's just a bit of a lurch.
It's time to be scared. I've gone too long in one spot, sheltered, not adapting.
Let's see what comes of my fear. Let's see what comes next.
Almost, anyway. Tomorrow is my last full day at the Library--the place that has been more of a home to me than any other building in California. Where I have been surrounded by kind, patient colleagues and supervisors that I've trusted for a long time. Where I've had the most financial and emotional security in my life. Where I felt challenged at first, and later confident, and later still too confident, and then pigeonholed and therefore somewhat resentful, most of all towards myself. But always, always, I felt at home. Safe, and sheltered.
In 1.5 days, I am willingly walking away from that shelter. From those people, from my cubicle (now rendered almost barren), from the patrons both annoying and beloved (sometimes both), from the last known quantity in my life.
"Are you scared?" one of my colleagues asked me last week. Maybe that's not the type of question people ask each other in the workplace, but it's the kind of question that I've always answered, because I am compulsively honest, so why break the habit of the last 10 years of my life.
"I think I am," I told my colleague honestly. "But I'm scared in the same way I was when I moved to California. Then I was fucking terrified; I just didn't allow myself to realize it until after I was done and the fear had passed."
Of course I am scared. I'm scared my cats won't take their sedatives and will yowl and pee all over themselves on the long trip home. I'm afraid that I'll encounter snow on the drive, or that my car will break down, or I will die in an accident before I ever make it to Indiana. I'm scared that I've been too long in one organizational culture and won't be able to adapt. I'm scared that even with all this leadershippy self-awareness, I'll still fall into the same patterns, and won't be any different--just another worker bee that won't distinguish herself or help the Library innovate. I'm scared of everything, but at least what lies ahead is unknown, has as much potential for success as failure, whereas this present is simply more of the same--sustaining, holding the line. It's time to move forward, even if it's just a bit of a lurch.
It's time to be scared. I've gone too long in one spot, sheltered, not adapting.
Let's see what comes of my fear. Let's see what comes next.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
"I guess at the end, you start thinking about the beginning."
On a chilly February day, 10 years ago, I listlessly--yet angrily--smashed a racquetball around at the university gym. As I did, those words were echoing in my heart and head as loudly as the little blue ball thwacking against court walls. I had heard them a mere month ago, while on a cruise down to the Caribbean with my boyfriend. Our last day on the ship was a stormy one, and there wasn't much we could do but play cards and watch Mr and Mrs Smith, which is where I had heard the line that was now haunting my heart. In the ensuing month, the end had in fact come--the end of my relationship with my boyfriend, the plans I had made for our life together, the end of my dream of living and dying in Indiana. And I was haunted by our beginning months, the first blush of connection and love and lust, and all the ways it could have gone right but went so horribly wrong instead.
Later that day, I went back to our cold lonely apartment. And soon after that, I found the blog of a newly-divorced woman living in Los Angeles.
"I guess at the end, you start thinking about the beginning."
10 years have gone by, and have led to me here, on this insanely warm March night, sitting in bed, thinking about the end, which is coming up pretty quick. I found myself looking back over the blog of the woman who inspired me to be brave, to keep on keepin' on, to set forth and do what needed to be done, to apply for jobs everywhere--even California. That was the beginning of this California venture of mine, which sprung from an ending. And here I am now--at the end, thinking about not just the beginning of my time here, the choices that brought me here--but the new beginning ahead of me, which actually takes me right back to where I ended before. In Bloomington, Indiana.
"I guess at the end, you start thinking about the beginning."
Am I moving forward? Or am I going backwards? Am I admitting defeat and crawling back a failure? Or am I reclaiming the life that I never really wanted to leave? Of course, I am not returning to the boyfriend of long ago--he is still part of my life, in a beautiful loyal family-friend sort of way--and whatever existence I forge for myself will have to be one that make for myself. No falling in love with a person and the place at the same time. No, this time, I must stay solitary for a good long time, to make Indiana mine.
The beginnings and endings here are so tightly connected it's hard to tell which is which.
On a chilly February day, 10 years ago, I listlessly--yet angrily--smashed a racquetball around at the university gym. As I did, those words were echoing in my heart and head as loudly as the little blue ball thwacking against court walls. I had heard them a mere month ago, while on a cruise down to the Caribbean with my boyfriend. Our last day on the ship was a stormy one, and there wasn't much we could do but play cards and watch Mr and Mrs Smith, which is where I had heard the line that was now haunting my heart. In the ensuing month, the end had in fact come--the end of my relationship with my boyfriend, the plans I had made for our life together, the end of my dream of living and dying in Indiana. And I was haunted by our beginning months, the first blush of connection and love and lust, and all the ways it could have gone right but went so horribly wrong instead.
Later that day, I went back to our cold lonely apartment. And soon after that, I found the blog of a newly-divorced woman living in Los Angeles.
"I guess at the end, you start thinking about the beginning."
10 years have gone by, and have led to me here, on this insanely warm March night, sitting in bed, thinking about the end, which is coming up pretty quick. I found myself looking back over the blog of the woman who inspired me to be brave, to keep on keepin' on, to set forth and do what needed to be done, to apply for jobs everywhere--even California. That was the beginning of this California venture of mine, which sprung from an ending. And here I am now--at the end, thinking about not just the beginning of my time here, the choices that brought me here--but the new beginning ahead of me, which actually takes me right back to where I ended before. In Bloomington, Indiana.
"I guess at the end, you start thinking about the beginning."
Am I moving forward? Or am I going backwards? Am I admitting defeat and crawling back a failure? Or am I reclaiming the life that I never really wanted to leave? Of course, I am not returning to the boyfriend of long ago--he is still part of my life, in a beautiful loyal family-friend sort of way--and whatever existence I forge for myself will have to be one that make for myself. No falling in love with a person and the place at the same time. No, this time, I must stay solitary for a good long time, to make Indiana mine.
The beginnings and endings here are so tightly connected it's hard to tell which is which.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
A long time ago, I heard a silly superstition...something along the lines of "Be mindful of what you do in the New Year, for you will do it all year."
Well. If that's the case, then, judging by this picture below, taken on January 1, 2016, I will spend the whole year hiding my hangover, but being surrounded by trusted, beloved friends and adopted family. I will spend it looking fabulous, smiling past the pain and looking out with eyes filled with optimism. I will spend it unaware of the magic of change which hovers about me, but open to it nonetheless.
Because that's what I did this New Year's Day, and now, two months later, everything is different. Everything has changed. I look at this picture of me--recently come out of perhaps the saddest Christmas of my life, desperate to leave 2015 behind, yet completely unaware of when or even if my circumstances would change any time soon, and I marvel at how we never know how things can shift so utterly, so quickly.
Only two months ago have passed since this picture was taken. How is that even possible?
What will my life be like two months from now?
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