It's Only A Paper Rose

Last night, Brian and I watched what's turned out to be one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek: Voyager: "Living Witness".

It starts out with a "What's Wrong With This Picture?" portrayal of the Voyager crew. The actors and costumes are the same, but lots of details are wrong: everyone wears black gloves, Chakotay's tattoo takes up half his face, Janeway and Tuvok flirt with each other, the Doctor is a sociopathic android, and the crew members constantly belittle and insult each other. Most shockingly, Janeway and the crew commit outright genocide in a battle between two races on a nearby planet.

Rather than a mirror-universe story, the opening act turns out to be a recreation in a museum by an alien civilization, 700 years in the future, telling the history of their conflict with their co-species. Needless to say, a patron who's a member of that species isn't particularly fond of the portrayal, and challenges the curator as to the authenticity of his data. The curator smugly informs him that they've just discovered a data storage unit at an excavation that they hopes to recover more data from to fine-tune their story; when the patron asks him what will happen if the data contradicts their expectations, the curator assures him they will reexamine their assumptions.

After some work, the curator finally activates the data device, only to find that it's a backup copy of the holographic doctor, who reacts with understandable shock and horror to this portrayal of his friends. Initially excited, the curator grows increasingly agitated as the Doctor argues for the character of the Voyager crew, insisting that they weren't the aggressors at all and that the crew were inadvertently caught in the conflict as they attempted to negotiate a trade agreement. Angry at having his worldview challenged, the curator refuses to listen and shuts off the Doctor's program mid-sentence. (This being Star Trek, though, that's not the end of the story.)

It's probably not surprising that I loved this story; I've written before about the trickiness of history, and how easy it is to cast people and events in an entirely different light, depending on what you include or leave out, or even such subtleties as the descriptors you use. But I think what I loved about it even more was the journey the curator takes throughout the story.

I've been spending a lot of time lately ruminating on the paradox of intelligence and self-awareness, and how the two don't always coincide where you would expect. One of the classic examples is with situations precisely like the curator's: you would think that intelligent and scientifically-minded people, who are aware of confirmation bias and how it works, would be more open than the average person to changing their assumptions. And yet, in practice, it turns out the reverse is true; intelligent and scientifically-minded people are some of the most prone to confirmation bias, because they're particularly good at marshaling arguments to support their assumptions, as well as finding reasons to dismiss evidence counter to their views. That's not to say they can't reexamine their beliefs, but it's sometimes harder for them.

So it really struck me when the curator re-activated the Doctor's program a day or two later, even (with prompting) apologizing for cutting him off mid-sentence, and asked him to continue his recounting of events. The Doctor, still miffed, asks why he'd want to listen to the words of a genocidal maniac like him - what changed his mind? And the curator replies, with refreshing honesty: "Time to think."

I wonder if, here in this age of social media arguments and instant messaging, that's what's missing from our discussions. Not just the lack of investment in the other person's humanity - so easy when you're shielded by two screens - but also that willingness to step back and absorb, or even more, let the other person step back and absorb. Instead we batter them with all the reasons why we're right, sometimes with the aid of other people, having convinced ourselves that we just need to win, we don't need to worry about the state of the other person involved or what they think of us. Even though we know this tactic doesn't work - the evidence is right in front of our faces.

After years of attending classes, working on their cleaning staff, getting to know the teachers and managers, not to mention paying for and attending Teacher Training and Extensions, filling out applications, and getting my CPR certification...I've been invited to audition for a yoga teaching slot at CorePower.

Obviously I'm pleased about this. But it's turning out to be a bit more nerve-wracking than I anticipated. The grapevine has it that 75 people applied to the Uptown studio alone; presumably not all of them are auditioning, but chances are there'll be a lot of people looking to fill just a few available spots. This has always been my concern with CorePower's business model; they market teacher training heavily because it's a big moneymaker for them, but as the local yoga market has reached saturation and their regular teachers settle into their grooves, the number of classes they need taught has shrunk significantly even as their potential supply has grown commensurately larger. I feel like I have some advantages versus the crowd: I've been attending for years and know a lot of folks in the community, I have a lot of flexibility in my schedule, plus I'm already on their payroll, albeit in a very minor capacity. (Cleaning staff are paid minimum wage plus a half-price membership in exchange for at least 1.5 hours of work per week.) But on the other hand, if the rest of the TT groups this go-round were anything like mine, we're going to have a serious glut of talented, capable teachers looking for a spot.

Upon reflection, I suspect what I'm feeling is that sense of insecurity that comes from having put most of your eggs in one basket. I'm not a joiner by nature; I tend to spread myself out, preferring to build minor connections in multiple communities rather than become a central figure in a single community and thus beholden to its failings and dysfunctions. So this whole "being a recognizable face in a large group" thing is new to me. And...it's a little anxiety-inducing, realizing that I've invested a not-inconsiderable amount of time, effort, money, and social capital in a community that may or may not return my investment, whether due to a lack of affection or simply a lack of availability.

None of which is to say it'll be the end of the world if I don't make the cut. It'll mean some changes in my focus, which are always uncomfortable when you've gotten into a habit. But they'll also be opportunities for growth, just in a different direction than the ones I'll face if I do teach for them.

I suppose we'll see which of my patron Five Gods deities shows up on audition day - the Mother of Summer, or the Bastard...

"Take this paper, and write down all the regrets you have from the past year. Then we'll burn them and start with a clean slate."

My friend hands me a torn scrap of foolscap, and I pull my purple pen from my purse, considering. The other party guests banter with each other, covering up the inherent vulnerability of the moment by proposing outrageous stories or asking whether such-and-such mundane thing counts as a regret.

I write a few lines, mostly small things; slowly, they begin to imply a theme of something larger that I can't yet articulate. I write a few more, circling around the issue: I regret not taking some of the opportunities my mother offered to grow closer. I regret not reaching out to my friends when I needed emotional support. I regret letting my certainty that I already knew the answers cloud my ability to learn new things.

Finally, I've outlined the shape enough to identify what it is my brain's been hiding from me: carefully, in clear letters, I print "I regret all the times my pride has kept me from connecting with the world."

Then I circle it and underline it twice, as if to emphasize its importance to the oncoming flames.

--

"Even from the time Ambrosia was little, she knew her self-worth."

I am twelve years old, and my mother has told this story many times. Still, my back straightens a little.

"When she was a toddler, I would take her to the playpark in our neighborhood, and she would want to stay longer. So I would tell her, 'Okay, I'm going home without you,' and pretend to leave. And she would keep on swinging, or playing on the jungle gym, until I turned right back around and scooped her up."

At this age, in the nadir of middle school, I am just now beginning to be aware that my greater-than-average self-confidence has been a handicap to my social acceptance. Eight years of teasing, of ostracism both subtle and blatant, of outright violence on a few memorable occasions, are finally starting to penetrate. I am slowly realizing that, contrary to the "just be yourself!" messages of a thousand thousand afterschool specials and middle-grade novels, my defiance of social dictates - my refusal to wear 'normal' clothes, to care about my presentation, to keep my opinions to myself in class - are exacting a very real toll on my ability to get on with my classmates.

Until this point, I've taken pride in not caring about the shallow and superficial things most people in my age group care about, in marching to the beat of my own drum. But the constant shaming wears on me, as it is meant to do; we are social creatures, exquisitely attuned to the slights of others. It will be some years yet before I start to appreciate the value of building my personality through careful negotiation with social norms, of bearing superficial markers indicating belonging to a particular class or cohort. And it will be many more years of careful observation and learning - often by saying precisely the wrong thing - until I learn the subtle arts of getting along in a community, of deferring to others' knowledge even when I'm convinced of my own correctness, of influencing group opinion in small ways, of quietly building social currency against the day when my integrity will demand that I take a stand.

--

This morning, cocooned in blankets and absent any driving motivation to get out of bed early, I sank into the sort of brightly-lit, highly-detailed dream that often seems to visit me at such hours. I was visiting a mall storefront that turned out to be a beautifully decorated Jewish temple, run by a particularly Orthodox sect. For some reason I had a pressing need to wash my hands, and I remember asking a stern-browed woman if I might do so; she looked displeased at the notion, but apparently my need was great enough to overcome her reservations.

I proceeded to the back of the space, where there were several sinks, and started washing my hands at one of them, only to realize from the horrified faces of those around me that not only was I using entirely the wrong sink, but that I was trespassing upon the men's side of the temple, as well as likely violating several other rules I didn't even know. I take such pride in knowing the social tenets in any given situation, in acting carefully to ensure the comfort and approbation of others; the realization that I was in a situation where I was socially illiterate sends a wave of shame, pure and unadulterated as few non-dream emotions are, swamping my chest and my cheeks. Strong as it is, it burns indelibly into my memory the dream that might otherwise have faded in the light of day.


--

"Are you feeling inspired?" I ask my client, once she's taken a few breaths of her aromatherapy oils. We had been laughing at the silliness of naming a scent blend "Inspiration", as if achieving so notoriously elusive a state could be as simple as taking a few breaths.

"Oh, absolutely!" she answers, tongue planted firmly in cheek. "Now I can go home and finish all those half-done songs I have filling my notebooks!"

We spend a few moments bonding over the difficulties of musicianship, and the specific frustration of unfinished artistic efforts. She admits that she finishes perhaps one in ten songs that she starts; I, having not even been brave enough to start ten, feel simultaneously relieved and humbled.

I've long known that my difficulties in finishing anything artistic stem from my perfectionism; so long as a song or a story lives only as an idea in my mind, it will always be perfect, spared the trauma of birth and the inevitable marring of being shaped by imperfect hands. But, with pride much on my mind of late, I begin to consider how much of that perfectionism stems from pride. Completion means sharing, and sharing means risk - of judgment, of failure, of losing my sense of specialness. If I could let go of that need to feel special, set apart, would that help me to take artistic risks? Would it be easier to share something imperfect and true if I didn't tie my self-worth to my pride?

That last thought startles me with the truth it implies, and I almost miss a stroke in the massage.

--

"You can spend your life trying to fit yourself into a box. But you'll always be too much for some people. For others, you'll never be enough. But the great joy is that, if you let yourself, you'll always be exactly enough for you."

Something in the yoga teacher's voice catches me, which seems odd - I've been ruminating of late on how the doctrine of self-exceptionalism has been harmful in my life, and on the surface her message reads very much as a variation on the "just be yourself!" mantra.

You'll always be exactly enough for you.

It occurs to me, as my brain slowly slots the puzzle pieces together, that perhaps the problem isn't pride, per se - it's what I'm proud of. All my life I've been told that I'm talented, intelligent, exceptional; all my life I've been secretly terrified that I'm going to seriously screw up and prove everybody wrong, prove that I really am that weird girl who deserved to be bullied and ostracized, disappoint everyone who had such faith in me. I've accomplished a few things, it's true, and I'm proud of them, but I think I've been even more proud of how they reaffirmed my belief in my own exceptionalism.

And yet...in order for me to be exceptional, it logically follows that others have to be unexceptional. And I've long since rejected the idea of talent as a zero-sum game; I strongly dislike the idea that because one person doesn't measure up to another on one arbitrary scale, that means they don't have something to contribute on another axis. I wonder how much of the fear and misery I can forestall by refusing comparison, by practicing humility with regards to others, by working on being enough for me.

I wonder if, freed of its shackles of fear and embracing its gift of imperfect life, my art might someday take wing, finally able to share itself with the world, to help forge those tenuous connections we so desperately need.

I've written quite a bit about my struggles with anxiety and depression, both in terms of how they feel and how they manifest in my behavior. Yesterday, however, a friend linked to an article that resonated quite a bit: Living With High-Functioning Anxiety.

My experience is somewhat different from the writer's. For one thing, mine tends to move in cycles; there are times when I can't stop the stream of internal criticism, and other times when I feel perfectly normal and happy. For another, even when I'm in an anxious phase, my symptoms aren't usually that severe. But I feel firsthand so much of what she's written. The perfectionism. The need to constantly be busy while avoiding important or high-stakes tasks. The inability to ask for help, because that means admitting you're not capable of handling things on your own. The vacillating between "everyone has it together but you, what's wrong with you" and "other people have things so much worse, what are you complaining about".

Those of you who've been around the past couple years have probably noticed my increasing focus on self-care, mostly through increased physical activity and better diet. (I know that, to some people and in some circumstances, I've come across as more than a little evangelist on this point; to those people, I owe an apology. Yoga and self-care have been quite literally life-changing for me, but I suspect in my exhortations I was ignoring the twin contributions of a move to a much better-for-me environment and a significant socioeconomic boost that came about at the same time.) This has done a lot to stretch out the periods of feeling happier and more balanced. But these past several months, I've been feeling the anxiety creep up on me even with those efforts; this latest bout has lasted some weeks.

Another link from a friend, Life Hacks of the Poor and Aimless, has shed some light on what's been going on in my subconscious. Laurie Penny posits that my demographic's obsession with self-care isn't in spite of the scary events going on in the rest of the world, but is in fact a reaction to that very sense of helplessness. We can't refill the Ogallala aquifer, or stop ourselves hurtling past the carbon emission point of no return, or fix a broken political system, or avert any number of other disasters that seem to loom over the horizon. So we turn our focus selfward instead, and convince ourselves that by practicing "radical self-love" we can find happiness - and, on this philosophy's darker side, feel as if we're insufficient when our self-care practice fails to adequately substitute for a stable and functioning social contract.

And yet, the answer can't be to give up self-care entirely. One of my favorite yoga teachers would probably fit Penny's description of an "Instagram happiness guru", or at least an aspiring one. But I go to her classes regularly, because she makes a real effort to make them a safe place, where we can work on self-improvement without judgment. When it feels like the world is falling apart around us, where there's no good answer or right thing we can do to stop things hurtling toward a horrible conclusion, there's a real value in that sort of centering, in exercising that little bit of control we do still have. I always leave her classes feeling more hopeful, more able to focus on the positive aspects of my life. It doesn't always overcome the overall sense of helplessness, but it provides a bulwark, a small protection for my sanity that helps me keep a more even outlook.

And let's not kid ourselves - outlook is important. It's a lot easier to focus on the positives, to work towards making the world a better place in those hundreds of small ways that seem insignificant but are far more likely to ripple out into something lasting, if we're feeling energized and stable and hopeful for the future. Zeitgeist matters; the more we become convinced that the world is headed for disaster, the more likely it is that we will bring that disaster on ourselves. No single one of us can prevent it, no, but by each doing what we can to help raise each others' spirits, perhaps we can improve our collective future.

That's what I feel in my more hopeful moments, anyway. During those times when the anxiety starts to build, when (to paraphrase Brian) I spend more and more time either absorbed in news articles or staring off into the distance, I start to think that this is what my friends and family felt like during the Cold War. Those awful moments of hope mixed with increasing dread, that encroaching certainty that the worst will happen, it was just a question of how and when. It's not a fun feeling; I especially hate how it robs me of the ability to enjoy things in my life here and now, when the worst (whatever that might be) hasn't yet happened, and may not at all.

I've been thinking, too, about my earlier post on paradox, and how essential it is to our existence, even though it's uncomfortable and difficult for us to accept. Perhaps this is how humans get into these destructive spirals in the first place: we don't like uncertainty, we want things to be good or bad. And if things stay uncertain enough for long enough, if the constructive future feels too difficult or too far away, eventually we pick the bad option, just for the relief of knowing the uncertainty is over. Perhaps this is why it's so important to practice holding our paradoxes: that anxiety and depression are challenges to overcome and perfectly reasonable reactions to an increasingly scary world; that we need to focus on taking care of ourselves and fighting for a better society; that we can contribute meaningfully to our collective future and we're dependent on other people to help us build that future.

My head is not the happiest place, of late. But I hope getting these thoughts out in the open will help, if only in the sense of lancing the wound. And to everyone whom I owe letters, or a phone call, or words of comfort - I'm sorry I've been so unresponsive lately. Hopefully this will go some measure towards explaining why.

Father's Day is interesting for me on social media. A lot of my friends post pictures or favorite memories with their fathers; those always warm my heart. Occasionally a friend will write about their difficult or outright abusive relationship with their father, which is always heartbreaking.

My relationship with my father is difficult, but in a way that's tougher to articulate. Normally I let this day pass unremarked, but recently a good friend of mine wrote about all the conflicting feelings he has around Mother's Day; it was raw and honest enough to inspire me to try and do the same.

When the subject of my father (and our lack of relationship) comes up, I usually make some reference to his self-centeredness, his penchant for emotional manipulation, his Peter Pan syndrome, his inability to see other people (especially his children) as separate human beings with their own agency. All of which is true, but which feels like an incomplete answer. We are culturally (and, likely, genetically) programmed to value parental relationships over all others, and while my father's dynamic with people he's close to is perhaps dysfunctional at best, he rarely tipped over into outright abuse or neglect (with me; my brother has a rather different story to tell).

For a while, as a newly-minted adult, I tried to maintain a relationship with him. Distance made that easier through sheer inertia; he would send the occasional email, I would tell him about my life, and invite him to follow my LiveJournal (which was then at its peak of use). He might mention a few things about his life, and that would be that for several months until the cycle repeated.

Eventually, however, I noticed a pattern of one-sidedness. For all that he asked after my life, he never seemed to have any real interest in it, never seemed interested in discussing anything I cared about in depth. And although I would ask after events in his, I rarely got any real answers; hence the petering out of our communications. It was pretty clear that I wasn't a priority for him, and frankly, it felt like he was asking not because he actually cared, but because he was maintaining form.

I thought for quite a while about whether I wanted to keep that line open. As I said, the cultural pressure to keep up family ties is strong; perhaps somewhat less so with me (the Pacific Northwest "family is who sticks around in your life" attitude is deeply engrained in my psyche), but enough that I was hesitant to lose it. But at the same time, I didn't really see the point in continuing this line of communication, especially given that I was basically just rephrasing stuff I'd put on the blog anyway. So at the next email, I sent him a response, worded as gently as my twentysomething self knew how, suggesting that he could stop emailing me for form's sake, and that if he wanted to know what was going on in my life he was welcome to follow my blog.

The exchange that followed, and its attendant outpouring of martyr complex, finger-pointing, and general drama-filled manipulative junk, doesn't really bear repeating. Suffice it to say that it did not inspire me to regret my filial ingratitude.

I've seen him a few times since then; I still keep in touch with my grandmother, and she occasionally organizes family dinners when I'm in town. The instance that really stands out is when Brian (who, if anything, suffers from an overabundant sense of family responsibility) got to meet him for the first time; as Brian commented later, it felt like the reverse of the usual father-in-law son-in-law dynamic. As for my father, he looked older, and just sort of...lost. Like his life had more or less passed him by.

I'm not sorry that we don't really talk; I have better things to do with my life than engage in one-sided relationships of any stripe. And I've never really been angry at him for falling down as a parent; frankly, I don't think he was ever really cut out for parenthood, and if my mother hadn't wanted kids so badly I doubt he would have had my brother and me. (I suspect our history is partly why I'm so strongly pro-family-planning; I've had the experience of being an unwanted child, and while I was fortunate enough to at least have one parent who loved me with the fierce, protective, unconditional love a child needs, many people I've known weren't even that lucky.)

But at the same time, when I think about that severed connection, I do feel...sad. Not regretful, but sorrowful. I suspect he got so wrapped up in feeling wronged and hurt and left behind that he completely missed out on connecting with a pretty awesome daughter. Or maybe he just never valued the relationship enough to fight for it, and that's what still stings, even all these years later.

So that's what Father's Day feels like to me. But threaded through it all is a very real warmth, as I see my friends talk about their fathers, or (more recently) embark upon their own fatherly journeys. Trust me when I say your children don't need you to be perfect; if you care about them enough to fight for them, they'll know and be grateful.

Hallo from Vegas! (Or more precisely, Paradise, Nevada, as The Strip isn't technically in the city limits.) I was realizing that, while I mentioned my upcoming trip a number of times on Facebook, I never got around to writing about it here...I've been busy enough that my blogging has kind of suffered.

It's been an interesting week. I'm here because Brian has a work conference and thus had the hotel space (a damn nice suite at the Cosmopolitan) paid for. I'd basically expected to spend almost the entire time either by the pool or hiding away in the hotel room, catching up on reading and napping and letter-writing (and blogging, heh) and all the stuff I've been neglecting due to my work and social schedule. Instead I've found myself doing far more of the touristy things than I'd anticipated. I have a lot of thoughts percolating in my head about my expectations versus the reality of the place, along with some classic Big Questions about art vs. artifice, the occasionally-fine line between service and exploitation, and how one's experience of a place can drastically differ depending on one's presentation, socioeconomic status, and ability to set boundaries. (Because apparently I can't even go on vacation without my brain turning it into a sociological dissertation.) Whether or not they make it into a post is up in the air, but suffice it to say, I've enjoyed myself rather a lot more than I anticipated. Not enough to make it a destination of my own choice, necessarily - week-long stays in swanky suites with giant soaking tubs aren't exactly cheap, and for that kind of cash, I'd rather go to Europe - but enough that I'd happily tag along again.

Unfortunately, Brian managed to pick up some con crud, which he graciously passed along to me...and even more unfortunately, it's been the rare bug that hit me far harder than him. He felt under the weather for maybe a day; I've spent the past thirty hours coughing and sniffling and fighting a fever. The good news, however, is that the fever recently broke, which in addition to that "I'm a new woman!" feeling means I won't have to fly tomorrow while feverish (fingers crossed). So that's a pretty big relief.

A few experiences that have stood out:

--The Fountains at the Bellagio. A truly stunning bit of public art, and well worth the accolades. Our suite's terrace overlooks the fountains; I've spent a lot of time watching them both from here and ground level. As a side note, I've been a little amused at how much the compressed-air boom of the Shooter jets, combined with the hiss of the water hitting the lake again, sound like an approaching monsoon.

--Truly excellent local buskers. A couple of standouts: a youngish kid playing the heck out of an electric violin, and an older gentleman singing Motown with all of his heart (which is the only correct way to sing Motown). The latter was especially cleverly placed at the bottom of one of the open-air escalators, so you had the whole ride down to listen to him; I wanted to tip him, but doing so on the Strip can be tricky - the place is littered with hawkers of tickets and titties and God knows what else waiting to pounce on you the moment you pause, and they can smell an open wallet like sharks smell blood. I was pretty proud of the strategy I came up with on the fly - I used the time on the escalator to fish a bill from my wallet, strode toward the busker at my usual "I've got places to go be fabulous that aren't here" pace, dropped it in his tip bucket, gave him a big smile and accepted his high-five, all without breaking stride - and leaving the inevitable crowd of hawkers and their "Oh, hey, Miss, come back here, can I interest you in..." in the dust. Kinda felt like I should've gotten a power-up for that one. Or at least an Xbox Live achievement.

--A shopping/fashion critical success. It's been much cooler here than we anticipated - the forecast had originally said highs of 85 all week, and instead it's ranged from the mid-fifties to sixties. Given that the only real coat I'd brought was my heavy wool winter one, I thought I'd look for an inexpensive jacket with long sleeves. Unfortunately, it being springtime in the desert, neither Marshall's nor Ross had any kind of outerwear section to speak of. I poked my nose in a couple of clothing retailers, but everything I found was either far too casual for the clothes I'd brought or far too expensive (or, in some cases, both). I'd about given up when I saw a sale rack at a White House | Black Market; lo and behold, the very first thing I pulled off of it was a black bolero blazer that both went perfectly with my outfit (a black maxi skirt and long pink shirt that matched my hair) and classed up the whole look. Even better, it fits a niche in my wardrobe I've been meaning to fill for a while - I'd been looking for something I could wear over a dress when it was just a little chilly out. All of that, *and* it was a whopping $30 on sale. Score.

--Brian being awesome. I've been more than a little grouchy about being bedridden for the past day and a half. (I really wanted to ride the High Roller before we left; I have an irrational fondness for Ferris wheels, and it's the largest one in the world, set over a glittering neon wonderland. Sign me up!) Brian's been an absolute champ, listening to me grouse, fetching me soup and tea, and generally making sure I don't stew in my own misery. He really went above and beyond, though, when I asked him if he could get me a hot toddy from one of the bars downstairs. After striking out at the bar (him, via text: "Turns out you can get anything in Vegas but a hot drink"), he went to the coffee shop and ordered tea with honey, took it to the Chandelier bar to get a shot of whiskey poured in, then (at their suggestion, since apparently they were far too chic to keep such a pedestrian garnish around) hit up another bar to get a lemon wedge. So I got my hot toddy after all, and he only had to trot all over the hotel to get it for me. <3

My life looks very different now as compared to a year ago.

On the whole, it's a set of changes I'm pleased with. I've made a number of friends; found a career path; found a clinic job, a couple of fill-in gigs, and a number of private clients; I've enthused about my new career to lots of people and handed out lots of business cards, and generally made a start at establishing myself as a therapist, especially in the local yoga community. I'm in the process of making my first major job change, from the clinic to a spa in a swanky hotel, working for a woman I like and respect very much, with possible future management opportunities if I want to pursue them. I'm making an effort to continue learning in my field. I'm bringing in some income again, with a lot of potential ahead for more. My social calendar is filling up and my work calendar is as well, and so far I've been pretty successful at juggling the two.

The tradeoff, perhaps unsurprisingly, has been a corresponding increase in anxiety, despite regular yoga-going. Of course, being me, I didn't realize it at first; I'm excellent at sublimating anxiety and turning it into fuel. I merely attributed the stiffness in my shoulders to unaccustomed workload and figured I was just focusing extra hard and therefore not particularly talkative, until Brian finally sat me down and said "So...you've been really moody and hard to live with lately, what's going on?" and I put two and two together, took a deep breath, and almost broke down crying.

I've been trying hard not to berate myself over it; it's perfectly reasonable that the measures I took to keep my mood issues in check for the past couple of years aren't going to be sufficient for such a dramatic lifestyle change. It's hard, though; some part of me feels like this is a failing on my part, that I should have at least seen this coming and accounted for it. Then there's the ever-present fear that it was the even-keeled-ness that was the exception, that the stress => anxiety => moodiness => depression cycle is my natural state that I'll always return to. And it certainly didn't help when, roundabout the middle of the month when things hit a nadir, I sabotaged myself by subsisting almost entirely on junk food for a week, until I put myself in the blood sugar loop-de-loops and nearly passed out at work. (Brownies. Not breakfast food. Also, my Achilles' heel.)

So I'm working on climbing up out of that trench...again. Awareness is turning out to be a big part of the equation - noticing when my focus starts to narrow, when my stride starts to get that extra spring in it, when I start having difficulty keeping the flow of a conversation going because my brain keeps circling around one particular topic. Self-care comes next; massage is helpful, as are meditative exercises (and keeping focused on the meditative aspects when at my yoga classes). Eating well, of course, which means planning out time for grocery shopping and food prep rather than letting all of that slide so that the only thing available for breakfast is a brownie. I've also invested in some bottles of Soylent, despite my dislike of the "high-tech disruptive food of the future!" cult that's sprung up around it; the fact is, it does a good job keeping my blood sugar steady on days when I don't have the time to make/eat a full breakfast, so I'm going to keep some around regularly, Brian's aesthetic objections notwithstanding. ("It tastes like watery oats and sadness!")

I may also try reiki in the future. I'd tried a couple of sessions as part of a massage trade, and they were pleasant and produced some interesting effects, but nothing I would have called "therapeutic", exactly. But yesterday I had an interesting experience. I took a yoga class taught by the woman I'd done trades with; it was an excellent class in its own right, but towards the end when we were all in savasana, she was going around doing a bit of reiki on people. Busy floating along on endorphins, I wasn't even aware of where she was; then at one point I felt a discrete tingle all through my lower torso, and I had just enough time to wonder what had caused it before her hands came down on my hips. And...well, I'm not quite sure how to describe the sensation; y'all know I'm a little distrustful of experiences that can't be quantified. But physically, I could feel myself relaxing, and emotionally...I felt like a dried-out sponge that someone had just put into a pan of water. After class, she commented, "You were seriously ready for that reiki!" and I couldn't disagree. So perhaps I'll see if she wants to do another trade or two in the future.

And then there's needing to take time for myself. I think this might be the biggest piece of the puzzle; I was looking at my schedule recently and realizing that, while I've had some downtime between shifts/appointments/social engagements, it's been a few weeks since I had a solid day or two with no commitments. Some people can function just fine being "always on"; unfortunately, I need to face the fact that I'm not one of them, and I need downtime. It's frustrating, because there's always something that needs doing, or someone I haven't seen in a while whom I'd like to hang out with, which makes it easy to feel guilty; I think letting go of that guilt over prioritizing myself is going to be key to sustaining this pace.

It's 6:30 AM on Christmas Eve, and rather than sleeping like a normal person (or a normal person without children), my brain is apparently wide awake. Not unpleasantly so, oddly; I think knowing that I have plenty of time to catch up on sleep is helpful in keeping the "must get back to sleep/can't sleep, going to be short on sleep/must get back to sleep" stress cycle at bay. But enough that coming out to the living room and making tea and sitting and admiring the Christmas tree felt like an attractive option.

I've been writing letters to, and gradually getting to know, a friend-of-a-friend who's going through a tough transitionary period in her life. We've been Facebook acquaintances for years but (as transitions often are) she's pretty lonely right now, with a lot of difficult issues and contradictory beliefs and unhelpful coping mechanisms to sort through. And at one point, she said something along the lines of this: "Tell me about your life. Because I read your posts and I wonder if you're really that happy."

This hit a bit of a nerve, and has resulted in quite a bit of rumination. Not because I'm unhappy, but because of the context. See, one of the issues I've struggled with most, both in person and on social media, is the desire to always appear happy and content, no matter my actual emotional state. It's both a way of defending myself and my life choices - if I'm happy, no one can question whether I've done the 'right' things in life, can they? - and, in a way, a form of revenge. All those people who've wished me ill over the course of my life can just eat it.

Obviously there are a lot of problems with this; for one thing, as I've discovered over the past decade or so, vulnerability is a powerful social tool, and studiously refusing to use it hamstrings your interpersonal interactions. But the more pertinent issue here, I think, is that it's just not possible for anyone to be happy all the time. We talk about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in this country as if the first two will naturally lead to the third, and perhaps they do: the key word being pursuit. Even "hap", the root word of "happy", literally means "luck" or "chance"; hence why we also see it in "happenstance", "haphazard", and "hapless". For all that our culture is poised to sell you happiness at a moment's notice, guaranteed, we completely ignore that most of our moments of happiness are more like a cat in a sunbeam. Even if we don't change, the sunbeam moves on; our mental balancing point reasserts itself. (The flipside, of course, is that people who go through horrible experiences also eventually get back to that balancing point. It just doesn't make sense, from a survival standpoint, for us to be constantly on one end of the scale or the other.)

And then there's the question of whether we're talking about short- or long-term. When I woke up and opened my computer, I had about two-thirds of a blog post written, complaining about a bunch of miscellaneous stuff - petty things like waking up and being out of coffee, or forgetting my work clothes and having to block off the first half-hour of my schedule so I could get new ones; all the way up to more overarching things like being exhausted from a six-hour shift at the chiropractor's and my crazy schedule making it feel like I'd practically missed Christmas this year. But before I could finish it and click "post", Brian and I had dinner and watched some Star Trek, and the food and relaxation time helped recharge my cope - enough that I decided not to post my whining, since none of it was really all that important; I simply had been losing perspective thanks to exhaustion and low blood sugar.

Long-term, though, could take us all the way back to the beginnings of this blog, almost exactly twelve years ago, which was the first time someone asked me if I was happy with my life. I would say I'm much happier now than I was then, in large part due to figuring out a set of goals, and how to achieve them in a way that fits with my strengths and weaknesses. Clearly, that doesn't mean that I don't get frustrated or upset at times. But I think the better life circumstances, combined with learning and practicing better self-love and self-care, have helped to move my usual balance point up the happiness scale. And because I like myself much better, it's much easier to genuinely care for others, too.

So yes, ultimately, I think I am that happy. I know it's partly due to several spectacular runs of luck, and that it's an ongoing project (once again, the key word is pursuit); I also know that it's probable that I'll have less happy periods in the future, whether due to loss or environmental change or just the pain that comes as an inevitable part of living with and caring for other people. Which is partly why I try to spend less time complaining about petty things, and more time being grateful for what I have now, and the people I get to share it with. <3

Happy birthday to me!

I was going to post a video I found a while back, a parody of Taylor Swift's "22" for my current age: "Uh-oh, hey! I don't know about you, but I'm feeling thirty-two/Read Fifty Shades of Grey and kinda liked it too!" Unfortunately, they appear to have taken it down, which makes me sad. There are a couple of similar parodies by other artists, but none of them feature the singer drinking wine and chowing down on a Costco-size wedge of Gouda, and thus they are clearly inferior. (Mmm. Gouda.)

Still, I can't feel too bummed out. I observed on Facebook that multiples of 16 must be lucky for me, present-wise; I've gotten more presents this year than I have since my sweet sixteen party. I have no idea what it was I did this year, but hey, I'll take it.



(Not pictured: the professional-quality blow dryer I wanted, currently on order by a longtime friend; and a significant contribution towards a professional-quality massage table from my mum.)

It's been a good year, I think. I've made a number of social connections (and lost some as well, all of which were painful but good learning experiences), I've tried and learned a number of new things, I've acquired a few new skills and embarked upon a new career path.

Now for some introspection: reading through a few of my entries from around this time a year ago, I'm seeing a lot of variations on the theme of structure vs. independence in my life. I've often prided myself on being an independent sort of person, willing to forge ahead my own way when there isn't a set path that I like. But while that's true, I've been comparing my mental state now to a year ago, when I was trying (and failing) to figure out a career path in writing and/or music. And I've come to the conclusion that, independent as I am, I need a certain amount of structure in my life to function well. At this point, I don't have a strong enough center or the self-motivation to work with no real idea if or when I'll see a payoff; I do far better when there's a clear set of expectations with (relatively) fixed rewards, which in turn gives me a sense of social identity. (This, incidentally, explains why keeping up enthusiasm for guitar was so much easier when I was busking weekly in Bisbee; I wasn't doing it for money, but the social payoffs in a small hippie town were noticeable. Moving to Chicago, however, removed a good chunk of that motivation, as it's not a particularly busking-friendly town and I don't know anyone in the local music scene yet.)

More importantly, I feel like I've decided that that's okay. I can be an independent-minded person who happens to work best in an interdependent context. It doesn't mean that I don't make valuable contributions, or that I'm not my own person, or that I'm not 'extraordinary enough'. It just means that I know what lifestyle choices fit me best at this point in my life, and points me at opportunities where I'll function at my best.

I'm thoroughly glad I decided to go to massage school; it's a path that gives me lots of options with varying levels of independence, but with a comparatively structured social role and a sense of identity I feel I can be proud of. It's a field with plenty of opportunities for continuing education, which I've found is integral to maintaining my interest. It's something that helps people feel better, which in turn helps them be excellent to each other. And it's something where I can earn a decent income of my own, enough to be financially independent if I need to. All of which, I think, are important to me in terms of finding long-term career satisfaction, as well as mental stability. (Now if the nice folks in the Illinois licensing office would get around to processing my application...)

So to celebrate, tonight is dinner with some of the local folks I've met who actually like my weird intense hyperintelligent analytical enthusiastic slightly-Zen...self. And Brian made me the most delicious chocolate layer cake with mint-chocolate-chip-buttercream frosting. Because he is the best. <3

This morning, I was reading a discussion elsejournal about the importance of how one conducts themselves online, positing that negativity, since it can ruin so many people's moods and thus their whole experience, should be avoided as much as possible online. Someone else brought up the point that negative emotions/experiences are a fundamental part of being human, and sharing them should be okay, because it helps us all recognize that we're not alone. I'm posting my response here, both because I think it's a point worth wider consideration, and because it's a lesson I'm learning in my own life right now.


I think there's a crucial distinction to be made here. There's a big difference between sharing one's troubles from a position of vulnerability and ownership, and doing so as a means of vindictive projection.

The latter I see far too often, and tends to happen when people are too afraid to understand their feelings are fundamentally their own, and start talking about how Others are Responsible. Sometimes they do it in a passive-aggressive way, pretending they're talking about themselves, but the subtext is clear. Sometimes it's just out-and-out active "These people are ruining everything!" What always gives it away, however, is that they're giving away their agency left and right. "Why doesn't everyone feel the way I do? Clearly that's the only way that's correct!" It's a seductive trap for a lot of people, because it renders you helpless; you don't need to put forth any effort to think about your own reactions, or do any work to change them, because it's all on the Other People.

In the former, however, you're saying "I'm having a rough time with X, and this is why"; you're owning your feelings and acknowledging them, as you say here. This is tough for a lot of people, both because you're having to take responsibility for your feelings/reactions (which often means examining and/or changing them), and because you're putting yourself in a position of vulnerability by asking others for empathy. Most of the time, people will instinctively understand that, and will respond accordingly. But sometimes, especially when they're projecting their own issues, someone will take the opportunity to sucker-punch you right square in that vulnerable spot you've so conveniently opened up for them. And that kind of social rejection hurts like few other experiences; it's no wonder we're so afraid to be vulnerable.

The strange thing is, however, that when you're truly standing in that spot, having empathy for yourself and your shortcomings, it gives you uncommon clarity into others' minds. We're all human, after all, and our problems and mental processes are far more alike than different. So while it's painful, when someone you care about takes that opportunity, it's not as world-ending as your initial fear of that experience might have suggested. You've already acknowledged your humanity, in its strengths and shortcomings; if they can't see it, then it says much more about them than about you.

So I say yes, share the less-acceptable feelings. But do the work beforehand; make sure you're coming from a place of power, not giving that power away in a mean-spirited attempt to deprive others of theirs. *That's* the sort of negativity that ruins others' experiences, and the root of most real evil in the world.