I get a crazy amount of anxiety when I'm left to myself and offered any kind of intellectual stimulation. It's a funny thing, really - it doesn't have to be an article about the city, or a discussion of mobility, or anything that should spark this feeling in me. But tonight, laying on the couch with a book open and the TV on, I feel this wave of anxiety settle over me.
I use the word "settle" deliberately - I feel like anxiety for me is a kind of blanket. It's near me, and then I choose to wrap myself up in it to feel all the melancholy feelings. It feels good some nights, especially the nights I need to remember there's more out there for us. Lately there have been an excess of those kind of nights - as great as my job is, there's this part of me just awash in longing for something that I can't completely verbalize.
I want to go experience the city again. I think about the idea of packing things up and moving, and this time not so temporarily, and I feel the pit in my stomach growing both with need and with nervousness. I want so badly to get away from all of the things that I see every day - have been seeing every day for years - but the idea of leaving, really and truly, is nervewracking. It's the city in my rearview mirror, when it shouldn't be in the rearview at all.
I guess what I'm getting at is that some days, I'm SO READY to move to the next phase of our lives. I'm ready to breathe my own air in a city that I don't have to share with everyone I know. I can't wait to hear street sounds and foreign voices, and it only took me three years to realize how much I loved those things. I'm ready to be the kind of grown up that gets to think about marriage and kids and tenure track jobs and careers, but I'm also terrified of all of those things.
I miss that sense of adventure and longing and exploration with Brian. He is my perfect exploring companion, and the responsibility I have right now is stifling that special part of our relationship that I think very few people have. I guess I have the wanderlust back.
8.05.2013
6.27.2012
Summertime, and the Living is Easy
My sister (rightly) commented yesterday that I only blog when I need to work through something, or unless I'm miserable. And while I think that's absolutely a common theme for writers - the best artists die young and miserable - I thought I'd try to write "happy" for a change. I did it a little in New York, but that was such a melancholic happiness that it absolutely worked anyway.
I've come back to such a comfortable equilibrium. I feel assured of my position at Drip - there are bumps and brief frustrations, but it's the kind of frustration that is right and healthy in the service industry. If it were always smooth and simple, something would be terrifically wrong. The minute everything becomes smooth is the moment that I've become complacent, and until then, the rocks and bumps push me to become faster and better.
Today was my first day off in a short time - maybe a week and a half? I spent it napping and thinking, cuddling with the dogs, and spending time with family. The time I spend with one dog behind my knees and another cradled to my chest just reminds me that I've done something incredibly right. When we came home from vacation and I was happy to be back in my house going to my job, I realized that I'm immensely lucky. But it's more fun to live that kind of love than it is to write about it, see. Will I at some point start to get scared that I'm throwing away my potential again? Absolutely. But this is an easier form of misery than that previous job.
Right now, the extent of my restlessness is trying to figure out where the next piercing should go. My ratio requires one more piercing before I can hit that next tattoo. Both of them are starting to itch at my mind - in small part because of the number I see every day at work, in some part because I can feel things shifting inside me. It's time to stretch my canvas. I don't paint, so I pay other people to paint on my canvas for me.
Maybe I need to stretch in another way too - start thinking about things the way I used to, ready to store pictures for later writing and use. It used to be easy for me, but after I graduated, something sort of turned off for me. I need to figure out how to re-inspire myself, or at least start to see things the way I used to.
I've come back to such a comfortable equilibrium. I feel assured of my position at Drip - there are bumps and brief frustrations, but it's the kind of frustration that is right and healthy in the service industry. If it were always smooth and simple, something would be terrifically wrong. The minute everything becomes smooth is the moment that I've become complacent, and until then, the rocks and bumps push me to become faster and better.
Today was my first day off in a short time - maybe a week and a half? I spent it napping and thinking, cuddling with the dogs, and spending time with family. The time I spend with one dog behind my knees and another cradled to my chest just reminds me that I've done something incredibly right. When we came home from vacation and I was happy to be back in my house going to my job, I realized that I'm immensely lucky. But it's more fun to live that kind of love than it is to write about it, see. Will I at some point start to get scared that I'm throwing away my potential again? Absolutely. But this is an easier form of misery than that previous job.
Right now, the extent of my restlessness is trying to figure out where the next piercing should go. My ratio requires one more piercing before I can hit that next tattoo. Both of them are starting to itch at my mind - in small part because of the number I see every day at work, in some part because I can feel things shifting inside me. It's time to stretch my canvas. I don't paint, so I pay other people to paint on my canvas for me.
Maybe I need to stretch in another way too - start thinking about things the way I used to, ready to store pictures for later writing and use. It used to be easy for me, but after I graduated, something sort of turned off for me. I need to figure out how to re-inspire myself, or at least start to see things the way I used to.
5.24.2012
Reflection on Transitions
My awesome, supportive mom called my attention to a blog post from 09.29.11, which I titled "Transitions" (yeah I'm cliche). I was right on the verge of beginning the job that I'm now right on the verge of ending, and so it seems like an appropriate time to reflect on what I've learned in the last nine months, and try to parse through some of the same-but-opposite feelings that I have now.
You know what jumps out to me first? This line right here: "[Sean is] such a generous man, and the thought of leaving a boss who already loves me and respects me is terrifying." I think there was some amount of prescience on my part there, and as my mom mentioned, a certain amount of doubt that I felt acutely right from the get-go. If I knew that two particular qualities were so important to me - the love and respect of my boss, and a sense that I am accomplished in my field - then why did I leave? Maybe it's as simple as having been caught up in the career-path delusion, which turned out not to be applicable to me anyway when I found out that this job was nothing like a career, and more like a time-filler.
I've really tried to consider what I've learned from this experience. I've weighed my different reasons for being unhappy in this job, trying to figure out which ones were about people and which ones were about the work itself. If I'm perfectly honest, part of it probably had to do with the hours. Oddly, I really enjoy having afternoons to myself, and those three hours I'd get off earlier at Drip left me room to at least consider being more creative. More on that in a minute. But the scale goes like this: on the one hand, I believe in the Nickelodeon. When I told Andy I was leaving, he asked me some question that prompted me to tell him, entirely honestly, that I've never stopped believing in the Nick. It's not like that at all. But on the other side of that spectrum, I can't believe in terrifically boring clerical work for a boss that I can hardly stand making eye contact with. If there were even one small part of my job that required creativity, I think I'd be much more willing to stick it out. But all I do is pull reports from broken databases, then cobble together multiple busted reports in order to make one half-assed list that's probably only half correct. I ask for newer, better systems only to be denied, and then am blamed for the nature of those lists.
It doesn't help that I'm not active, I have little interaction with anyone outside of the office, and am never thanked for the work I put in. Maybe this is office lifestyle - maybe the kind of passive-aggressive cruelty we endure is actually totally normal - but either way, I'm not into it. Considering all the stereotypes about the restaurant/food service industry, I've got to say I've been treated much better by customers and employers in food service than by customers and employers in the "real world."
Do I regret giving it a shot? No. I learned so much. Do I regret the way I've handled some of the situations during this period? Absolutely. I covered a lot of that in the last post. Am I afraid that it's going to be difficult moving forward after this job? Yes. I definitely do. All that crap about "a black mark by my name" could still be true, even if I have tried to exit as gracefully as possible. But is there a big weight off, knowing that I'm going somewhere that I'm loved and respected and valued? Yes. More than anything.
You know what jumps out to me first? This line right here: "[Sean is] such a generous man, and the thought of leaving a boss who already loves me and respects me is terrifying." I think there was some amount of prescience on my part there, and as my mom mentioned, a certain amount of doubt that I felt acutely right from the get-go. If I knew that two particular qualities were so important to me - the love and respect of my boss, and a sense that I am accomplished in my field - then why did I leave? Maybe it's as simple as having been caught up in the career-path delusion, which turned out not to be applicable to me anyway when I found out that this job was nothing like a career, and more like a time-filler.
I've really tried to consider what I've learned from this experience. I've weighed my different reasons for being unhappy in this job, trying to figure out which ones were about people and which ones were about the work itself. If I'm perfectly honest, part of it probably had to do with the hours. Oddly, I really enjoy having afternoons to myself, and those three hours I'd get off earlier at Drip left me room to at least consider being more creative. More on that in a minute. But the scale goes like this: on the one hand, I believe in the Nickelodeon. When I told Andy I was leaving, he asked me some question that prompted me to tell him, entirely honestly, that I've never stopped believing in the Nick. It's not like that at all. But on the other side of that spectrum, I can't believe in terrifically boring clerical work for a boss that I can hardly stand making eye contact with. If there were even one small part of my job that required creativity, I think I'd be much more willing to stick it out. But all I do is pull reports from broken databases, then cobble together multiple busted reports in order to make one half-assed list that's probably only half correct. I ask for newer, better systems only to be denied, and then am blamed for the nature of those lists.
It doesn't help that I'm not active, I have little interaction with anyone outside of the office, and am never thanked for the work I put in. Maybe this is office lifestyle - maybe the kind of passive-aggressive cruelty we endure is actually totally normal - but either way, I'm not into it. Considering all the stereotypes about the restaurant/food service industry, I've got to say I've been treated much better by customers and employers in food service than by customers and employers in the "real world."
Do I regret giving it a shot? No. I learned so much. Do I regret the way I've handled some of the situations during this period? Absolutely. I covered a lot of that in the last post. Am I afraid that it's going to be difficult moving forward after this job? Yes. I definitely do. All that crap about "a black mark by my name" could still be true, even if I have tried to exit as gracefully as possible. But is there a big weight off, knowing that I'm going somewhere that I'm loved and respected and valued? Yes. More than anything.
5.18.2012
Major Character Flaw
Once again today, I was reminded of what I consider to be one of my worst character flaws: my inability to speak my mind in stressful situations. There's this part in You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan speaks a truth I've lived by for a long time, where she delineates between two kinds of people. Because of my inability to find this particular scene (and the fact that my parents have the DVD I thought I owned), I'm just going to paraphrase: "there are two kinds of people. The ones who can say exactly the perfect thing in a situation to cut the other person down to size, and the people who can't."
Obviously, bad paraphrasing. Sorry, fans of the best movie ever made.
But the point is, I'm one of the latter kinds of people. No matter what the situation is, no matter how offended I am or will be in the minutes after that situation, the "right" thing to say just never occurs to me just at that moment. In the last few weeks, I've come to loathe that about myself. Kathleen Kelly (of You've Got Mail) has this wonderful breakthrough moment where she says exactly what she wants to say (to the unknown love of her life, of course), but there's never a reason why she suddenly finds this part of her personality. There's no catalyst for her newfound ability to say those mean things that other people can say. How can I get that?
Today I had a run-in with a very irritated older gentleman over the parking situation in the shared Nickelodeon/Immaculate Consumption lot. I had used an accepted parking trick in a completely full lot, and thought I was being courteous by leaving a note on my car directing one to the Nick office. But this older, entitled gentleman with his Mercedes SUV apparently does not park often in the Immac parking lot much and wasn't aware of the general practices, and so when he came outside and saw his car blocked in, he decided to lay on his horn for several minutes rather than trying to solve the issue politely. To be perfectly fair, I've been in his position. And like all parking situations, you calmly look for the owner of the blocking car, and ask that person to move. No threatening, no yelling. It's the downtown area, folks, parking ain't all neat rows anymore. He threatened to tow me next time (ironic, as it was my first time using this move), stared me down as I climbed into my car, and acted totally aggrieved in a completely common situation.
And you know what the really shitty part was? When he asserted that I was never to park that way again, all I said was "yes sir." As he was a complete asshole to me - I can't describe the situation well, or I won't so I don't get mad all over again - all I did was complacently apologize for something that isn't even wrong. And to some extent, by not explaining the unspoken rules of the Immac parking lot, I was actually harming others - when Jordan's car gets towed by this same asshole (he uses that maneuver far more often than I do), I will partially take blame because I never explained to this entitled gentleman how this parking lot works.
I really thought about the situation on the drive home from work, and in that short time became increasingly frustrated. Brian told me to put it out of my mind, but it's not just a single encounter - it's a systemic error. That fact just slays me. When I think about how the stronger people in this world would go about resigning, or how the Heather Bauers of this world would deal with Andy, it really makes me hate that part of my nature that makes me handle situations in the least confrontational way possible. No matter the level of the conflict, I'll go into fight-or-flight mode and just come up with the best way to avoid tension.
How do I crack that code?
Obviously, bad paraphrasing. Sorry, fans of the best movie ever made.
But the point is, I'm one of the latter kinds of people. No matter what the situation is, no matter how offended I am or will be in the minutes after that situation, the "right" thing to say just never occurs to me just at that moment. In the last few weeks, I've come to loathe that about myself. Kathleen Kelly (of You've Got Mail) has this wonderful breakthrough moment where she says exactly what she wants to say (to the unknown love of her life, of course), but there's never a reason why she suddenly finds this part of her personality. There's no catalyst for her newfound ability to say those mean things that other people can say. How can I get that?
Today I had a run-in with a very irritated older gentleman over the parking situation in the shared Nickelodeon/Immaculate Consumption lot. I had used an accepted parking trick in a completely full lot, and thought I was being courteous by leaving a note on my car directing one to the Nick office. But this older, entitled gentleman with his Mercedes SUV apparently does not park often in the Immac parking lot much and wasn't aware of the general practices, and so when he came outside and saw his car blocked in, he decided to lay on his horn for several minutes rather than trying to solve the issue politely. To be perfectly fair, I've been in his position. And like all parking situations, you calmly look for the owner of the blocking car, and ask that person to move. No threatening, no yelling. It's the downtown area, folks, parking ain't all neat rows anymore. He threatened to tow me next time (ironic, as it was my first time using this move), stared me down as I climbed into my car, and acted totally aggrieved in a completely common situation.
And you know what the really shitty part was? When he asserted that I was never to park that way again, all I said was "yes sir." As he was a complete asshole to me - I can't describe the situation well, or I won't so I don't get mad all over again - all I did was complacently apologize for something that isn't even wrong. And to some extent, by not explaining the unspoken rules of the Immac parking lot, I was actually harming others - when Jordan's car gets towed by this same asshole (he uses that maneuver far more often than I do), I will partially take blame because I never explained to this entitled gentleman how this parking lot works.
I really thought about the situation on the drive home from work, and in that short time became increasingly frustrated. Brian told me to put it out of my mind, but it's not just a single encounter - it's a systemic error. That fact just slays me. When I think about how the stronger people in this world would go about resigning, or how the Heather Bauers of this world would deal with Andy, it really makes me hate that part of my nature that makes me handle situations in the least confrontational way possible. No matter the level of the conflict, I'll go into fight-or-flight mode and just come up with the best way to avoid tension.
How do I crack that code?
5.17.2012
Draft of a Resignation Letter?
"I've been thinking through my life a lot lately, and my job, and how those two things tie in together, and I've realized that this job is just not a good fit for me. It's been eight months, and for most of those months I tried harder than I've had to try for a job. Part of that is the environment - which has certainly not been optimal for me - but I'll take the blame for part of it as well.
Either way, I think the best course of action is for me to resign, and for you to find someone with experience and know-how. Training me from scratch may not have been such a good idea after all when you consider that you were simultaneously trying to train yourself how to use those systems. If it wasn't unfair for you to expect me to learn new systems while you were relearning them, it certainly wasn't the best idea.
I'm fairly resolute about leaving - there are days when I think I'm dumb for wanting to, but if I'm really honest with myself, I've been wondering when I would leave almost since I started. It was a countdown until Indie Grits, and now I don't have something important to keep working for. I love Andrew and Isaac, and I love the Nickelodeon and Indie Grits, but you've made it increasingly difficult for me to love the work I do. It's the systems, yes, and the fact that I'm terrible at anticipating you, but it's also the way you treat all of us. When you hired me, you said we'd "work closely together," but that's not at all true. You work far above me and expect me to know what you need without telling me, and you don't respect me enough for it to be anywhere near working "with" me.
I really appreciate you taking a chance on me, even though I'm sure it'll look like a wasted effort to you. I'm sorry I'm leaving before you in a lurch, but I'd be happy to help you train the next one, or write an extensive list of where things are and how I've organized things. I would still love to come to the Nickelodeon and volunteer for Indie Grits, and I hope you won't think of me too harshly for realizing that someone else would do a better job, and I'd do a better job somewhere else."
Can I do this kind of thing in an e-mail?
Either way, I think the best course of action is for me to resign, and for you to find someone with experience and know-how. Training me from scratch may not have been such a good idea after all when you consider that you were simultaneously trying to train yourself how to use those systems. If it wasn't unfair for you to expect me to learn new systems while you were relearning them, it certainly wasn't the best idea.
I'm fairly resolute about leaving - there are days when I think I'm dumb for wanting to, but if I'm really honest with myself, I've been wondering when I would leave almost since I started. It was a countdown until Indie Grits, and now I don't have something important to keep working for. I love Andrew and Isaac, and I love the Nickelodeon and Indie Grits, but you've made it increasingly difficult for me to love the work I do. It's the systems, yes, and the fact that I'm terrible at anticipating you, but it's also the way you treat all of us. When you hired me, you said we'd "work closely together," but that's not at all true. You work far above me and expect me to know what you need without telling me, and you don't respect me enough for it to be anywhere near working "with" me.
I really appreciate you taking a chance on me, even though I'm sure it'll look like a wasted effort to you. I'm sorry I'm leaving before you in a lurch, but I'd be happy to help you train the next one, or write an extensive list of where things are and how I've organized things. I would still love to come to the Nickelodeon and volunteer for Indie Grits, and I hope you won't think of me too harshly for realizing that someone else would do a better job, and I'd do a better job somewhere else."
Can I do this kind of thing in an e-mail?
5.10.2012
Post Office Etiquette
Now that I'm going to the post office literally five days a week, some things have become evident to me about the etiquette that so often goes unrealized at this, the most unconscious of public spaces. I really do believe people just go about their business without really thinking about how they should be acting, but when it's something you deal with every day, sometimes twice a day, you start to have allergic reactions to all the obnoxious people who think their business is more important than yours.
Let's back up just a bit to the pre-post office stage. This pet peeve actually transcends pet peeve and delves straight into terrible driving; I hate when people turn left at the same time someone coming towards them is turning right, just assuming that the person with the right of way is totally fine with staying in the rightmost lane. That is most often not the case at all. A lot of people want to get in the middle or right lane when they turn. Seriously. Just don't do it.
Parking in the post office is always a mess as well. But no matter how much of a mess parking is, I don't ever think it's acceptable to park in a handicapped parking space, then hop out of your car and run inside for a second. Call me old fashioned here, but those spaces are sacred. I cannot think of a single situation at the post office that justifies taking that spot when you clearly don't need it. And it happens so, so often.
It all comes back to a sense of entitlement - and while I may suffer from that same sense on occasion, I like to think I can keep it in check enough to remember things like right of way, politeness in parking, and pedestrian safety. And while some people probably do have more pressing places to be than I do (I won't get fired if I show up five minutes late), it seems like people get so caught up in their own world that they have no time to yield, to acknowledge that all of us are going places and doing things and seeing the world through our own eyes.
If I want to get into the nit-picking details of it, I could mention how people avoid your eyes or even glare at you at the post office. I feel like, in a place like this, it's actually terrifically important to smile at people. It's like a neighborhood - you get to know the cars you park next to at the post office, and by the same token, you should get to know the people that are with you on your "shift."
Let's back up just a bit to the pre-post office stage. This pet peeve actually transcends pet peeve and delves straight into terrible driving; I hate when people turn left at the same time someone coming towards them is turning right, just assuming that the person with the right of way is totally fine with staying in the rightmost lane. That is most often not the case at all. A lot of people want to get in the middle or right lane when they turn. Seriously. Just don't do it.
Parking in the post office is always a mess as well. But no matter how much of a mess parking is, I don't ever think it's acceptable to park in a handicapped parking space, then hop out of your car and run inside for a second. Call me old fashioned here, but those spaces are sacred. I cannot think of a single situation at the post office that justifies taking that spot when you clearly don't need it. And it happens so, so often.
It all comes back to a sense of entitlement - and while I may suffer from that same sense on occasion, I like to think I can keep it in check enough to remember things like right of way, politeness in parking, and pedestrian safety. And while some people probably do have more pressing places to be than I do (I won't get fired if I show up five minutes late), it seems like people get so caught up in their own world that they have no time to yield, to acknowledge that all of us are going places and doing things and seeing the world through our own eyes.
If I want to get into the nit-picking details of it, I could mention how people avoid your eyes or even glare at you at the post office. I feel like, in a place like this, it's actually terrifically important to smile at people. It's like a neighborhood - you get to know the cars you park next to at the post office, and by the same token, you should get to know the people that are with you on your "shift."
5.09.2012
Too Much, All the Time
How do I ever make decisions?
I have a mind of my own - I like to think - but I've learned to pay close attention when people give me counsel. Lately, though, I'm running into some form of cognitive dissonance, when I have too many people telling me too different things. I have a bad habit of completely shutting down in that situation, digging my heels in and waiting for some blinding light to show me the way. So the last few months have been a little bit difficult, and a lot stagnant.
A friend made the point last night that I'm still really young, and this is the time in my life when I have an opportunity to do what I want to do. This really struck home with me. Maybe it's not quite as crazy as flying to Italy tomorrow (ideal), but as simple as spending my afternoons laying on the river reading, or training myself to write an hour a day again. Her implication - or the one I read into it - was that I jumped into adult life a little faster than was absolutely necessary, or maybe just faster than is good for my psyche at this time.
I've got things pretty together right now, though. I've got a wonderful boyfriend that I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with. We have two dogs together (you have to see the way he interacts with Chloe - she's as much his as mine now), a house that we're trying to move out of, and a lovely garden. I'm not saying I would lose those things if I tried this other method, but I would certainly feel less like I deserved it, had worked for it. I'd lose my claim to being a contributing member of society.
What happens if I decide I don't want this responsibility, and walk away? Not the responsibility of "family life," because I like that part, but that false responsibility of having a salary, working set hours, and hating every second of it. What if I decide I don't care about a "career," and decide to be a Five Points rat until Brian and I can go away and find something better to do? Does that mean I'm throwing away my potential or just finding out that my potential doesn't lie in office management?
It's about themes, I suppose - what's the theme by which I want to live the next few years of my life? Do I want to be selfish and "find myself" and try to find happiness externally? Do I want to "start a career" and show my worth here rather than places where I feel I'm actually talented at all?
Here's the bottom line: I want to quit. Is that the worst idea I've ever had? Does what I want actually matter if I'm doing something right?
I have a mind of my own - I like to think - but I've learned to pay close attention when people give me counsel. Lately, though, I'm running into some form of cognitive dissonance, when I have too many people telling me too different things. I have a bad habit of completely shutting down in that situation, digging my heels in and waiting for some blinding light to show me the way. So the last few months have been a little bit difficult, and a lot stagnant.
A friend made the point last night that I'm still really young, and this is the time in my life when I have an opportunity to do what I want to do. This really struck home with me. Maybe it's not quite as crazy as flying to Italy tomorrow (ideal), but as simple as spending my afternoons laying on the river reading, or training myself to write an hour a day again. Her implication - or the one I read into it - was that I jumped into adult life a little faster than was absolutely necessary, or maybe just faster than is good for my psyche at this time.
I've got things pretty together right now, though. I've got a wonderful boyfriend that I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with. We have two dogs together (you have to see the way he interacts with Chloe - she's as much his as mine now), a house that we're trying to move out of, and a lovely garden. I'm not saying I would lose those things if I tried this other method, but I would certainly feel less like I deserved it, had worked for it. I'd lose my claim to being a contributing member of society.
What happens if I decide I don't want this responsibility, and walk away? Not the responsibility of "family life," because I like that part, but that false responsibility of having a salary, working set hours, and hating every second of it. What if I decide I don't care about a "career," and decide to be a Five Points rat until Brian and I can go away and find something better to do? Does that mean I'm throwing away my potential or just finding out that my potential doesn't lie in office management?
It's about themes, I suppose - what's the theme by which I want to live the next few years of my life? Do I want to be selfish and "find myself" and try to find happiness externally? Do I want to "start a career" and show my worth here rather than places where I feel I'm actually talented at all?
Here's the bottom line: I want to quit. Is that the worst idea I've ever had? Does what I want actually matter if I'm doing something right?
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