Defense

Calling my mother is like playing Plinko on the Price Is Right.  A contestant places a wooden disk at the top of the board and watches it fall in a random pattern, bouncing haphazardly between the Love/Support and Batshit Crazy slots.  There is a whole manner of additional available prizes, but they generally fall in between those two categories.  The player’s heart leaps when the piece looks to be headed toward Maternal Warmth only to sink in dismay when it makes a last second detour to Sicilian Guilt.  The outcome waits to reveal itself even to the final moments, as she answers the phone the same way, no matter her mood.

Mother’s Day was no exception.

“HELLO?!” she accused into the phone, leaving me to guess at the direction our chat would take.   To judge by her tone, anyone would think that she couldn’t possibly be more annoyed, that even correcting the grammatical errors of the entire population of Facebook would be preferable to taking my call.  That’s not really the case…it’s just how she rolls.

Knowing her tone is no indication of her mood, I chirped a cheerful Happy Mother’s Day  (!!) into the receiver and was rewarded with a couple of cold responses.  Under normal circumstances (and to save my own sanity) I will beat feet to the end of the conversation when I see it headed in this direction.  If I don’t, screaming matches occur; it’s better to live to fight another day than engage, logic has no place when her voice takes on a certain edge.  But, it WAS Mother’s Day, and as such (I felt), required a bit of extra effort on my part.

After some prying and coaxing (“Seriously, what’s the matter? Why do you sound so hateful today?”) I was rewarded with a solid dose of the truth.

Now, here I pause to tell you something else about my mother.  I’ve shared some shitty things about her on this blog.  Told a couple of horror stories.  Mostly because this seems to be where I work some crap out.  But, beyond those stories, it should also be known that she’s a woman dealing with her own shit.  A really smart fucking woman, dealing with her own shit.  I forget sometimes that she’s spent a considerably longer amount of time trying to figure herself out and get back to even than I have, and as such, has the benefit of experience.  Every once in a while, she pops out with something that sounds completely ridiculous, but turns out to be exactly what I needed to hear at that particular moment.  It’s those times that I know I’m just as Batshit as she is and that there will never be anyone out there who understands quite like she does.  This fact absolutely has TNT written all over it, but sometimes when it manifests, it’s the only thing in the world that helps me know I’m not alone.

This was one of those times.

“I’m not a goddamned business, Jennifer.”

Now, the layperson will read that line and wonder:  “What the fuck does that even mean?!”  But I’m no novice when it comes to my Mom.  I knew exactly what she was talking about.  I’d just spent the previous five-or-so minutes in a state of calm detachment, trying to figure out why she was upset.  My voice had been soft and clear, friendly even, but there was no warmth behind it.  I’d been giving her the fake customer service treatment, and she called me out.  I was instantly fighting back tears.  She knew, goddamn it.  She knew and saw right through.

I use my call center voice when I’m in danger of feeling something.  I use it when I’m perilously close to submitting to weakness.  When I’m so lonely for the touch of the person I’m speaking to that going another moment without it might drive me to desperation; the emptier my soul, the more cordial my voice.  Without that failsafe, that tone modulation, the outside world is in danger of falling victim to the dam breaking.  I’d just been using it on her and she failed to play along, instead, forcing me to recognize something about myself that had (has) become my entire world lately.

There I was, face-to-face with the truth of my coping mechanisms.

These days, I am detachment embodied.  I have shut myself down to only the bare minimum.  Essential systems only.  Reserve power.  Low lighting.  Martial law.  I have declared a  moratorium on the expression of, well, anything.  I live so teeteringly close to a breakdown that I must maintain a state of hyper-vigilance lest this wound opens only to bleed and bleed and bleed.

I have become so careful about how I express myself that I don’t express myself at all.  My closest relationships have withered off of once healthy vines.  My need and drive to write has dried up because in its honesty, it would be admitting to the lies I’ve been telling those around me.  I have no shortage of hands reaching toward me, but I’m afraid they have no idea what they’re offering; that once I give in and let go, allow myself to be comforted by those hands, that they’ll realize the extremity of my need and retreat, sorry at once that they’d offered any contact at all.

In truth, my inner world is a blustering chaos.  I don’t jest when I say that out loud.  It’s more than just a warning or humorous hyperbole.  As my skin screams out for contact, tenderness, soft words, I breathe those desires back inside.  Their ferocity isn’t to be meddled with, and I don’t trust the outstretched and open palms to know what they’re offering.  With certainty I know that once I open that door, that cut, there will be no stanching the flow.  And while I fully expect and understand that those offering aid will retract it once they see the truth in the outpouring, I also know that that abandonment is something I can never recover from.

So I keep to the inside and play my grand role.  With abiding grace, I am thankful for the kindness of the people that reach out.  I am quietly awed by their intentions and charity.  But I must, at all costs, maintain this distance; a break in the ranks could mean a break in my tanks, the reserves, what’s left of this crumbling edifice.  It’s not enough to know that she sees me, my Mother.  Not enough to just be revealed.  All I am at that point is revealed, uncovered.  There is no protection in the open, and in the end, just being found out is not the same as being understood.

33

A few weeks ago, I celebrated my 33^rd birthday…celebrated being a euphemism for what I ACTUALLY did, which was spend a significant portion of the day crying while getting royally drunk on red wine.

33 roared up on me, presenting itself in motorcycle leathers, demanding the goods for its payment at my birth.  It had given me enough time, it reasoned, gesticulating with a cigarette, to DO something, BE something, SHOW something, and it wanted proof—just the facts, man—that its loan had been put to use.

My lower lip trembled.

I hadn’t, in fact, done anything with the gift, and was standing there–With nothing as proof.

Instead, I look back at a long road, a tough one, and me, a terminally miserable, ever-dissatisfied wastrel; a mess in her quest toward the unnamed and ill-defined.

Standing in my place, in these shoes, this body, there was supposed to be a bohemian traveler.  A jaunty soul.  An accomplished….SOMETHING.  I was set to see the world, to take lovers, to fit my life into a backpack.  I was to lie on beaches, stroll museums and bazaars, to teach small children English As A Second Language, stopping each day by the box to send the postcards I now beg off of others.

Would have.  Should have.  Could have.

Youth is indeed wasted on the young.

Somewhere along the line, it became too late for those things.  Somehow, the small setbacks got the better of me.

The successes that I push myself toward are only illusions to fool the unwitting onlooker.  “But this!” they shout, “You’ve done this!  And this!  And THIS!!”  Smokescreen, I tell you.  Sleight of hand.  Shadows and mirrors.  For if they knew the image of myself that I hold in a secret pocket, the shock of the disparity would silence the room.

How do I reconcile this failure?  How do I make it okay that my end point is here, rather than THERE?

In truth, I cannot.  And that is the bottom of the well.

Out! Out! Damned Spot!! (R11#1)

One Word:  Encapsulate the year 2011 in one word.  Explain why you’re choosing that word.  Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2012 for you?

 

 

I came very close to blowing off this post.  Skipping it.  Or at least putting it off until tomorrow…without genuine intention to pick it up again.  There was a list, a bunch of “WHYs” and, at the top, the reality of my recent state of mind.  The spinning, whirling mess and the endless drop to the bottom.    I remembered last year’s journey and how my mostly one-sided musings circled the same two or three topics…30 days of endless loop, staring at each thing from all angles and shining the light of 360 degree surveillance on them in hopes of coming to some manner of clarity.  Some days I was rueful, others sardonic, but mostly I was optimistic: hopeful for brighter days ahead and certain that I’d taken something from those experiences to guide me forward.  It turns out those December days were postcards from the edge.

Looking down at the things circling the bowl labeled 2011, I wondered seriously if they were the types of things I should be sharing out loud.  I imagined the pity party and the well-intentioned “We’re All In This Togethers”.  Imagined post after post of maudlin mental vomit and then the subsequent nose-dive of friends and followers; people fleeing the scene of the crash to keep out from under the swirling black cloud that’s been plaguing me.

But the stark reality hit not long into The Making-Of-Excuses and I jolted to and began typing:  My bread is buttered one way only, and that is with a blunt knife.  My niche, you see, is the truth.  The Self Truth. The uncensored description of the crazy that I keep in my closet.    Why on earth would I start keeping secrets now?   I’m not published, or accomplished or professional.  I don’t have a book, or an idea for a book or a million followers.  What I do have, what I’m not lacking, is my truth and the lantern I shine on it, and I fancy that’s what keeps the few readers coming back. In the end, I may not know what’s going to come out of my mouth next, but I do know that it’s going to be as close as I can get it to The Big T.

So FUCK IT!, I say.  Fuck it, and let’s see what comes out in the wash.  In for the penny, in for the pound, and kids, Mama’s got some shit to get off her chest.

So with that, you should know that my word for 2011 is MELANCHOLY.  I had some amazing experiences and saw some extraordinary things.  I laughed out loud and fought even louder.  I took leaps and made efforts and conquered smoking (Adieu, Parliament Lights!)  But over it all, clouding the lens, peeing in my cereal, was my old friend Depression.  She’s camped out even now in the deep recesses: over a table and under a bare fluorescent bulb, wearing green fatigues and smoking those Parliaments…planning her next guerrilla attack.  Over the next 30 days, if last year is any indication, I’m going to be introducing her to you, so here’s your fair warning.  She walks around with a half-empty bottle of vodka and no makeup, and most of the time she forgets to shower.

Last year, I wanted Renaissance, but got instead, rain my parade.  I’ll be damned if I let that bitch squat where she is for another 365.  This year?  2012?  Light.  Let there be light.

Please.

A Momentary Lapse

There is a beautiful breeze flicking in through my windows and the chimes are singing to me over potted sunflowers.  The day is unwinding with ease and I am sewing up loose ends, reminded of past self-promises as I fill in the blanks of book journals and bedstand reviews.  If I close my eyes tight enough, I can imagine that I’m someplace beautiful and that friends’ physical presences are just a short jaunt in the car away and that my throat doesn’t feel as if it’s growing a marble of bruise on the left side.  Days of sleepless torment stretch behind me in wicked lengths and I’m guilty for skipping the gym this morning, but today is a good day, and I feel a small warmth in my soul that I hope will grow rather than blink out.

The thing about depression is that it’s possible to never really realize you’re in one until a day like today comes along.  A day when it’s somehow easier to breathe and the loneliness can be held at bay by with a little imagination instead of pounding on your door like a SWAT team busting a meth lab.  And if it’s a deep funk, one that you recognize every morning right before it throws a bag over your head and beats you with a potato in a sock, then these days are even sweeter.  The black is in such sharp contrast to the bright rays of world’s possibility that you squint, almost snowblind, opening your door to the sweet air outside.

I can’t remember when this cycle started for me, but it almost always occurs during a lull, a period of thwarted forward movement.  I truck along, meandering my path only to be halted by a move, a disappointment, a plan gone wickedly awry; and suddenly my world shifts, and disorientation takes a hold.  Sometimes it’s only days, nothing a couple shots of whiskey and a good PeeMyPants laugh can’t cure.  Mostly though, it’s a long slog…long enough that in the middle, neither the end nor the beginning are visible and IT begins to look like normal.  I’ve never medicated myself, (though it has been professionally suggested on a number of occasions) so these times are hard fought with my own fists and teeth.  Whether this is folly or not, I can’t say, knowing only that my experience with mood enhancers is akin to Febreezing an old couch that smells like cat piss.

The most recent fog has been the longest, blanketing my landscape on and off for over a year, bad days outnumbering the good.  Managing to escape for only short stints, I’ve dwelt, instead, on the craggy surfaces mired in puttied shades of black and grey.  It’s felt like a losing battle, slip-sliding out of control down and down with no way to spot a bottom.  I was told once that the early to mid thirties is when dysfunctional coping mechanisms begin to crumble and their once comforting and effective presence becomes less and less so.  That’s been true of my experience, but old habits die hard, and I haven’t had the chance to develop something new against the constant onslaught of storming thoughts in my head.

Because it’s been so bad, I do my best to smile into the sunshine of days like this, to remember what it’s like to enjoy a day in solitude and peace.  I remember the feel of a normalized mind and the pleasing caress of possibility.  Instead of looking for huge cosmic signs that I belong and am “Allright”  I marvel at my tomato plants grown from seed and the stack of books yet to read.  On days like today, I feel good in my skin and am thankful for my first world problems.  On days like today, babies are born to endless possibility and I’m moving on the path that the Universe set out for me.  On days like today, I think I’ll make it.

Tonight, I won’t get sleep, and I’ll feel bloated for missing step class.  I’ll brush my teeth and worry that they’re getting more crooked by the day.  My stomach will churn in anxiety over whether or not the Old Man’s contract will be renewed and if I have enough money in the bank to cover the time he spends looking for something else if it isn’t.  In bed, in the silence and dark, the world will come crashing back down, it will sit on my chest and bounce the air out taunting me with what it can do.  But now, right now, I feel good.  The sprinklers are painting misty rainbows across the front lawn and my toenails are freshly painted and I am OKAY.

The Zen Booger

Today, I threw social aplomb to the wind and became my very own punk song.

I worked out very hard this week, pushing each muscle group further than normal.  Part of that has to do with my level of stress of late and part just because it was time, training-wise, to shove forward a bit.  In any case, today, my body was spent, and instead of following my regular, end-of-the-week yoga class with it’s intended 70 minutes of steady-state cardio, I called it quits after Savasana, heading straight to Starbucks for my Friday frappucino.

Frozen coffee beverage in hand, I wasn’t out of the parking lot when I decided that I didn’t feel like going straight home to spend another morning listening to my Inner Girl natter on about how lonely she is.  I hooked the wheel left and headed toward the main thoroughfare.  A museum is what my Soul craved, but we settled instead, me and It, for retail therapy.  I took a jaunt first to Barnes and Noble to pick up a copy of Macbeth (Shakespeare in the park next weekend!) (And I’m only now remembering that I have an old edition of The Complete Shakespeare sitting on my shelf in there….) and then headed across the street to TJMaxx.  (It’s no Marshall’s or Nordy Rack, but when you’re stuck in the land of the Carhartt sombrero, you can’t be picky.)

I always start my trips to this store with the jewelry counter.  I’ve made some pretty good, thrift-conscious finds there, and the clearance case usually boasts a cocktail ring or two.  With a langour borne of months of inertia, I systematically scanned the quadrants of each glass cabinet for little treasures and determined them to be empty of anything that had to be had.  (No small disappointment since sometimes there is little better than the discovery of a trinket suitable to you and only you….)  This brings me to the shoes, but having just acquired 3 new pairs (beaded flip flops!!), my heart wasn’t really in it so I moved on to sheets, furnishings, kitchenware and, finally, tank tops and sundresses.

With a good portion of my upper body weight, I pushed a row of hangers to the right and began to rifle past each item in its turn.  click click click click click in rapid succession, leaving myself only a first glance to either pluck or pass.  (Gut reaction is the key in stores like this, otherwise it’s possible to spend hours looking at nothing in particular.  Hidden gems twinkle right away, but only for a second, and very quietly.)  Click click clicking away, I was interrupted by sneaking sneeze that left me only barely amount of time needed to get my face securely shielded by the crook of my left arm.  I made it, and nothing of substance sprayed out, but my nose did promptly begin to run.

I looked about for the bathroom, and spied, instead, a sales “lady”  in the process of rehanging one of three total garments in her hands.  She was in her approximate 50s and wore a scowl that seemed to indicate she’d just been accosted with an odor, noxious.  “Sorry, miss?” (I was VERY generous in my form of address) “Do you happen to have any tissues hiding anywhere close?” I sniffed.  “Or a bathroom?”

(Now, it bears mentioning here, that I was kind and solicitous in my query.  The very model of social etiquette and manners.  What follows in her reaction was so contrary to what the situation warranted that even now, almost a full workday later, I’m still shaking my head in disbelief.

With a long, irritated sigh, the woman raked her eyes up to meet mine and gave me a look of disgusted contempt.  “What is this,” she spat, “your HOUSE?  Do I look like your MOTHER?”

I was stunned for a second.  It shut me down.  But a quick look at a girl who had been shopping the same rack on the opposite side of me confirmed in a jerk of the head, that what I’d just heard, was indeed outrageous, rude, and totally unwarranted.

What I did next I cannot explain to you.  I don’t know what possessed me, I don’t know where the idea came from, I don’t know what to say for the type of person that this makes me.  I can’t decide if it was hilarious or trashy or just plain punk.  What I can tell you, is that it felt good, and without equivocation, the shrew deserved it.

With a straight, innocent face, I grabbed the sleeve of one of the shirts she was holding, looked her dead in the eye, and wiped my runny nose.  And that, shut her down.  As I turned and walked away, not a single word spoken, I watched the irritation and loathing drain from her face and morph, instead, into a mask of shock.

I am the master of Escalating Retaliation.  Chances are, I will yell “PENIS!!!” the loudest in a quiet library.   Lots of times, this is embarrassing for me and ill-played.  Rarely, fleetingly, it’s not.  In the vibrating hum of spectacular timing, instinct and agility played their hand and I struck my blow with grace and attitude; the perfect one-liner launched off the tongue with deft speed and accuracy.

It was uncouth, yes.  Disgusting?  Without a doubt.  But I can’t say I’m embarrassed.  I would, in fact, go so far as to say proud.  A single action proved a point that even the most succinct tongue-lashing couldn’t have touched.  I went the tiniest bit overboard, certainly, but there’s humor here, and I can’t help but laugh, a little to myself and a little out loud.

Don’t mess with me sister, because I’m a little bad ass.

i fall apart when no one’s watching

In a store, I discover,

a hole in my ear

And everything is leaking out onto the floor.

(?!)

My inside thoughts are seeping their way outside in a slowlavaooze  and I’m staring down in alarm and this liquiddark stain is spreading like molasses in a snuff film.

It doesn’t hurt and world, in a muffle, dances on down a loooong foreshortened hallway past my hollow numb sockets.

I’m staring at this stain,

and at my ear,

and at this stain,

and one is growing and the other is shrinking and I just kind of rest my hands at my sides palms outward.

suspended in solution,

slow-motion leak,

deadened head underwater.

Rasping air pressing past a pressure narrowed pathway,

and on and on, that viscous trickle,

spilling

because the seam gave way.

If Only It Were That Simple….

 

Author Dan Andrews wrote a prompt for the Trust 30 challenge that I don’t find to be much of a prompt at all.  It was kind of a self help book boiled down to a couple of paragraphs.  Regardless, I signed on, and certainly don’t want to cop out.  As such, I took a portion of The Prompt and realized I already had something in the archives that I wanted to say about it.

 

In regards to the kind of person I want to be, I have the following to say:

I want quiet–quiet in my head;

a hush when I close my eyes.

I want to lay my head down and drop to sleep without the agony of the day’s playback on repeat.

I want to feel effortlessly kind, and less a fraud.

I want buoyancy in place of the lead weight in my chest which I think must be my heart.

I want to sigh in contentment at this day’s end, and, instead of rancid ennui, look to the next with optimism and genuine curiosity.

I want pleasing things to feel pleasing, and I want to look at my world with real and unclouded joy.

In Which the Universe Reminds Me Who’s In Charge

I just wrote a pretty fucking good description of neurotic, Jen-style Writer’s Block.  It was the best thing I’d written all week.  And it came out easier.  There were flights of phrase that I was really proud of.  I hadn’t meant to write it.  I was doing my 750 Words and it just kind of evolved into a pretty good piece.  I had started by trying to answer today’s Trust 30 prompt, and quickly realized that I was going to ignore it in favor of sudden inspiration.  I was going to post it.  You were going to love it.  There were going to be scads of comments.  It might have made me famous***.

I once caught a fish *THIS BIG*.

Then, I went to the bathroom.  Upon my return, I entered my ‘security word’.  My fresh words popped up on the screen, and after 1 second, popped off.  I sat there for a moment, puzzled.  I checked my open windows to see if they were just re-loading.  They weren’t.  I pressed clicked on my Edit tab to make sure I hadn’t just done something that needed UNdoing.  Nope.  I refreshed my screen.  Nothing.

GONE.  They were all gone.  All that was there was the first word I’d posted.  I got up.  I swore out loud.  I swore on Twitter and Facebook. I contemplated punching the wall.  I stared in disbelief.  I swore some more.  And some more.  When I remembered to breathe, I attempted to recreate what I’d just written.  Only to find that my red-burning anger and shock had completely erased my memory.  Insert annoying blinking cursor here.

I hadn’t saved because I hadn’t expected to be writing.  In my life, I’ve ‘not saved’ only ONE OTHER TIME.  In college.  A 35 page English paper (something to do with the Restoration) and I’d waited until two days before it was due to start it.  The feeling is roughly the same.  A sucky, sinking, slightly nauseas sensation residing in the stomach and midchest.  It pools there and soaks, reducing to a burning, lamenting refrain and the dull headache follows straight after.

And so I breathe.  Actively, at first.  There’s nothing I can do.  The Universe has a plan.  It sucks, but isn’t earth ending.  There’ll be other days.  And besides, this isn’t wildly different in tone or spirit than what I’d had on the page and lost.  Writing to replace writing as therapy.  It’s a deeper well than originally thought. Wooooo-sssssssaaaahhhhh.

In the interest of closure, my three dreams:

 

1.  That I wrote on a typewriter (with spectacles and khaki jodphurs).

2.  That I was on my second Passport book because the first one had no more room for stamps.

3.  That I had never lost the retainer I received after getting my braces off in high school.

 

***awesomeness of post may be slightly exaggerated for dramatic appeal.

Alice? More like the Mad Hatter.

I’ve just returned from an interview at Kennewick City School District.  It was short and sweet and I’ve come away with a job as a substitute para-educator.  No twisted knickers please, I had to look that one up myself…it means Fill-In Heartbeat.  Extra Body.  Chaperone.

I am, Dear Reader, a hurricane of thought right now, and am truthfully having a helluva time sifting through it all.  It’s well-documented that, aside from tutoring, I am sans employment.  I’m also at an employment intersection where I can continue on straight or veer hard right into the barrio.  A super smart lady once told me:  “Jennifer, it’ll work, or it’ll work.”  I keep repeating that to myself as I face the polarity in my head.

1.  There’s a certain amount of self-loathing that goes along with being jobless.  What am I WORTH to anyone sitting around my apartment all day, blogging and working on my fitness?  To an outsider, that might sound like a little bit of heaven, but I’ve got news kids:  If I was going to be a kept women, there would have to be OODLES more jewels and private beachfront involved.  Trust.  I am contributing a big, fat goose egg to the world right now, and that looms large.  Towering, even.

2.  Stagnant Credits Column = Plummeting self-esteem.  Ima be real whichall for a second….I very much gauge my own success by salary and the increasing importance of the positions I’ve held.  My advancement since college has been textbook, an upsweeping curve of remuneration, responsibility and expertise.  I was proud of my last job.  Proud of its scope and its stress level.  I earned my salary there, and was salaried well.  Historically, it was very difficult to keep a position there for any period over a year.  Factor in my womanhood, and that period decreased to around 6 months.  I was really kind of awesome at it.

Taking this position means a lopping-off-at-the-knees of all of the above.  It’s requirements were a GED and a heartbeat.  (Although they DID request a college transcript)  I haven’t checked the mall lately, but I’m fairly certain that I could make as much folding a week’s worth of boatnecks at The Gap.  This job means quite a few leaps back toward BEGINNER and away from BIG GIRL.  It’s a blow to my ego, for sure.

3.  The Unknown = Unsettling Pit In My Stomach.  I like a sure thing.  A plan.  Contingencies.  I like knowing what to expect and to be prepared for it.  Stress goes notoriously hard on me, and I’ve learned, over and over, that an Adapted Jen’s Intestinal Tract functions much closer to normal than a Where-The-Fuck-Did-THAT-Just-Come-From Jen’s Intestinal Tract.  Operations is all I’ve known for the past 10 years.  See problem?  Solve problem.  It’s my jam.  Why do I want to go and mess with something I’m pretty damn good at in order to search for something I haven’t yet fully identified?

4.  Fulfilled = Zen Jen.  I hated it more than I loved it.  And I can’t say I ever really loved it.  It fed my ego, absolutely.  Being GOOD at something was like an E pill for my inner self.  A mellow roll for my soul.  It felt GOOD to make more than the Old Man.  Felt good to be more educated and better employed than most people in my private life.  I was silently superior.  I would never lord it over someone, but I was definitely privately glad to NOT be them.

Yuck, right?  Who wants to be THAT girl?  Always after thinking and feeling those things, I’d hate myself a little.  When a high point in your day is being able to tow someone’s car, it’s time to evict the Soul Sucker and move on.  I don’t know what happy is and I don’t know where to look for fulfillment.  But I’m certain THAT wasn’t IT.  Something is needling at me, and it’s being pretty insistent, a gentle and repetitive tug somewhere back there in the Deep Me.  I know there’s something there.  I know that it’s amazing and I know where NOT to look.  On some days, that’s more than enough. On others, that Unknown creeps right in and takes over.

5.  The Right Time = Now.  When the Old Man made the executive decision to move us here, I was comforted by three things.  The first was the fact I’d get to take an extended vacation at home and on the beach.  The second was the fact that I’d put a cap on it at 2 years FIRM and that was a duration I could endure.  The third was knowing that the Old Man would be making enough money so that I could take some time to find a job that lit my fire.  Well, I’m a year in, and this education thing is growing on me.  It’s time to figure it out.  This job may be low low low in the expertise column, but it will give me time in a classroom, with students.  It’s an opportunity for me to observe and absorb.  I can think of better places than here, but I can’t figure a better time than now.

So, of course, I’m taking it.  I’m going to ‘orientation’ (*sigh*) tomorrow and I’m told I can start working as soon as Thursday.  My hopes aren’t high–they can’t be when an interview is only 3.5 minutes long–but they are there.  This could be a dead end…or the door to the room where I finally come upon a sleeping Meant To Be.

Whew

It would appear, that despite all attempts at heart failure via anxiety, that Saturday’s excursion proved a success.

The pressure was on.  I half prayed on Friday night to wake up to torrential rain heavy enough as to provide legitimate excuse for cancellation.  I fiddled around with my back pack, packed up extra snacks, speculated as to the type of person our one signed up participant would be.

There were panicked moments.  Being only a threesome, she’d have to carpool with us.  That meant extra talking…performing.

There were tenth and eleventh thoughts…why had I chosen a hike so far away? What if it’s too long for her fitness level?  What if it’s too short and easy for her fitness level?

In the end, I did what I always do.  I ignored my misgivings and kept marching stalwartly on.  That’s what happens in my head, you see.  There are two warring factions:  One, a neurotic, shell-shocked harbinger of certain, thundering doom and the other, a pink-cheeked optimist believing unwaveringly in the possibility of beauty around each corner.  They’re both of equal size and brawn, and evenly matched in tenacity and conviction.  Predicting the winner in any given week or day or even second is a crap shoot, the odds stacked squarely at 50/50.

We saw our third the moment we pulled into the fresh market parking lot.  No turning back then, so I got out of the truck, shook her hand and invited her to drive with us.  No sense in stepping in one toe at a time right?  She piled her things into the back seat, gave a good-natured shrug to the idea that we had now heat and that our dog is a whiny mess (she takes after her mom….), and we were off.  On the road to adventure.

The rest of the car ride was well-deserving of my sigh of relief.  Conversation was easy and plentiful, and my liberal use of The Eff Word seemed not to offend.  Within a half an hour, I was able to begin congratulating myself on a smooth embarkation, and to allow for the slightest loosening of tension at the very edges of my nerves.  I breathed out slightly, and gave way to what the day wanted to be.  In skydiving, the hardest part is stepping out of the plane.  I find that to be mostly true of most other adventures I subject myself to as well.

There was a moment or two–when we were driving around, unable to find the trailhead–when I began to mourn as fleeting the success of the trip, but, thanks to some cow farmers going about their daily business, we were soon back on track and “a pied”, hiking toward Towell Falls.

The rest of the day passed pleasantly and in the best way I could have imagined it.  Everyone moved at a similar pace and the conversation wove in and out unprompted by foreign fertilizers.  At a mile in, my anxiety was at its lowest drone, and I reached my eyes around, taking in the day.

I fight endlessly and everyday against dark clouds and demons.  I feel, and deeply, the worst of each of my days.  But sometimes–and this is what keeps me from giving in to that neurotic dissenter–I manage to beat my own expectations, and prove the existence of ease and okay-ness.  This Too Shall Pass.  Sometimes, I repeat it enough that it’s true.