The thing I'm reconnecting with, now that I'm back in the States, is all the music.
All my punk stuff.
All the songs that were popular when I was in college, that all of us radio people were most into (hello, Children of Nuggets Vols 1-4).
Rockabilly, punkabilly - the edgy stuff that is country-informed, and that you don't earn the right to play unless you're from Texas.
The guitars, which were all invented and built here. Stratocaster, Telecaster, Les Paul.
The indie magazines, the mimeographed posters in the windows of indie record stores. The venues, the pick up bands, the kids doing it, the homemade tapes.
The tattoos, the leather jackets, the shirts with those colored panels down the front, the hands around necks of beer bottles, the post-Elvis punkabilly hair.
I am from this place. There's a line to it from me now. I'm back home, and reconnecting to it.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Mageirocophobia
I have never liked to cook, but I noticed this past weekend that it was somehow worse. I have always had cooking disinclination, but not so much cooking avoidance.
This past weekend I noticed that I would walk into the kitchen, sort of lurk by the fridge near the edge of a counter, and then walk back out of the kitchen again and go lie on the couch watching TV. I tried encouraging self-talk, tried daring myself, tried tricking myself into going in there and preparing something, but I would walk in the kitchen and just walk back out.
I thought it was maybe a general lassitude in the universe, because I'm not practicing guitar much or unpacking any boxes either, but now I think it was something more. I took steps on like Monday to solve the problem, picked up the stuff for spaghetti at the grocery, brought them home with good intentions, but no. Put stuff away in the fridge, walked out of the kitchen.
Tonight, same thing, and I really did need to act on the groceries in the fridge or risk having to throw them all away, unopened. Walked into the kitchen. Walked back out.
Yeah, this was more than disinclination. I decided to kind of delve into the thoughts and feelings a bit more. What bad will happen if you go in there? Over the weekend I had thought it was the time involved, that cooking a proper meal and then dealing with all the dishes would take too long, and I had other priorities that were more important uses of my time, like practicing guitar (or lying on the couch watching TV). So I tried that tonight, but my internal inquisitor was not convinced and pushed further.
And I realized I was afraid of danger. And I think this is because of my recent burn. On that occasion I was already resistant and kind of self-medicating it, because I'd had quite a bit of white wine and because of that kind of mis-aimed and touched my arm to the hot rack in the oven when putting in some frozen pizza, and then didn't react immediately to put the burned place under cold water and so ended up with a pretty severe injury that has left a eucalyptus-leaf-shaped scar, right on the top of my right arm where it's quite obvious all the time.
You know from a previous post that this scar has bugged me and is associated with all kinds of things about aging and hurt and the passage of time.
But also, tonight the emotion was, I hurt myself really badly and because I live alone I just had to go, "Oh," and get the proper ointments and bandages, and just deal with it. I was wearing huge bandages on my arm all week at work, and not one person asked me, "What happened to your arm there?" I even had the bandage at guitar lessons and he didn't ask me anything.
So I had a pretty bad and kind of scary and painful (and permanent) injury, and I never got the chance to kind of collapse and be vulnerable about it, and have someone say, "Oh you poor baby" and comfort me.
And that set up a fear, a dread of pain and fire and heat and boiling things, of sharp knives and deep alarming bleedy cuts and smoke and ruined ingredients, and all the things that can so very easily go so very badly wrong in a kitchen, and I didn't even know that it had. But I'm sure, now, after that excavation work, that's what it was. I was afraid to cook anything because I might hurt myself - the memory of the recent hurt lodged there and turned to avoidant fear maybe because it never got comforted.
This is going to sound like I'm fishing for sympathy. I'm really not, I don't mean to make any of you feel bad, I'm fine and surviving quite well on my own. And then also, I broke through my phobia tonight - put a pot of water on to boil, cooked up the spaghetti and sauce, did all the dishes, put everything away. I got through it by putting the iPod speakers in the kitchen and playing some music that I loved when I was in college, that filled the space and avoided the sense of wasted time in case that was still lingering on top of all of this. And now I'm well fed, have leftovers, and did not have to discard spoiled food. So I got past it. But it certainly was there - if there's anything else like this that comes up, more than a block but a real avoidance, just a physical walking away, I will do this same kind of exercise and see if there was a past sharp unresolved hurt that might be causing it.
This past weekend I noticed that I would walk into the kitchen, sort of lurk by the fridge near the edge of a counter, and then walk back out of the kitchen again and go lie on the couch watching TV. I tried encouraging self-talk, tried daring myself, tried tricking myself into going in there and preparing something, but I would walk in the kitchen and just walk back out.
I thought it was maybe a general lassitude in the universe, because I'm not practicing guitar much or unpacking any boxes either, but now I think it was something more. I took steps on like Monday to solve the problem, picked up the stuff for spaghetti at the grocery, brought them home with good intentions, but no. Put stuff away in the fridge, walked out of the kitchen.
Tonight, same thing, and I really did need to act on the groceries in the fridge or risk having to throw them all away, unopened. Walked into the kitchen. Walked back out.
Yeah, this was more than disinclination. I decided to kind of delve into the thoughts and feelings a bit more. What bad will happen if you go in there? Over the weekend I had thought it was the time involved, that cooking a proper meal and then dealing with all the dishes would take too long, and I had other priorities that were more important uses of my time, like practicing guitar (or lying on the couch watching TV). So I tried that tonight, but my internal inquisitor was not convinced and pushed further.
And I realized I was afraid of danger. And I think this is because of my recent burn. On that occasion I was already resistant and kind of self-medicating it, because I'd had quite a bit of white wine and because of that kind of mis-aimed and touched my arm to the hot rack in the oven when putting in some frozen pizza, and then didn't react immediately to put the burned place under cold water and so ended up with a pretty severe injury that has left a eucalyptus-leaf-shaped scar, right on the top of my right arm where it's quite obvious all the time.
You know from a previous post that this scar has bugged me and is associated with all kinds of things about aging and hurt and the passage of time.
But also, tonight the emotion was, I hurt myself really badly and because I live alone I just had to go, "Oh," and get the proper ointments and bandages, and just deal with it. I was wearing huge bandages on my arm all week at work, and not one person asked me, "What happened to your arm there?" I even had the bandage at guitar lessons and he didn't ask me anything.
So I had a pretty bad and kind of scary and painful (and permanent) injury, and I never got the chance to kind of collapse and be vulnerable about it, and have someone say, "Oh you poor baby" and comfort me.
And that set up a fear, a dread of pain and fire and heat and boiling things, of sharp knives and deep alarming bleedy cuts and smoke and ruined ingredients, and all the things that can so very easily go so very badly wrong in a kitchen, and I didn't even know that it had. But I'm sure, now, after that excavation work, that's what it was. I was afraid to cook anything because I might hurt myself - the memory of the recent hurt lodged there and turned to avoidant fear maybe because it never got comforted.
This is going to sound like I'm fishing for sympathy. I'm really not, I don't mean to make any of you feel bad, I'm fine and surviving quite well on my own. And then also, I broke through my phobia tonight - put a pot of water on to boil, cooked up the spaghetti and sauce, did all the dishes, put everything away. I got through it by putting the iPod speakers in the kitchen and playing some music that I loved when I was in college, that filled the space and avoided the sense of wasted time in case that was still lingering on top of all of this. And now I'm well fed, have leftovers, and did not have to discard spoiled food. So I got past it. But it certainly was there - if there's anything else like this that comes up, more than a block but a real avoidance, just a physical walking away, I will do this same kind of exercise and see if there was a past sharp unresolved hurt that might be causing it.
TMI
Back in February or so I was having some severe dramas with my shoulder. And at that same time my monthly cycle was out of whack - just missed one altogether, an eight week gap. I started tracking the monthly cycles and they were going three weeks, three weeks, five weeks, like that, and then next time I went to the doctor I took them in, but I didn't see my normal doctor and the guy I did see what kind of a jerk to me. I showed him the changing date ranges and he said, "Yeah. Well, you're at that age," really cavalierly, and I think I must have reacted because I remember he said, "Well, some women find it a relief."
So just in the last few days the shoulder thing has kind of started up again, and it started so suddenly and with so little provocation that I'm wondering if it's a chemical/hormonal thing, actually, and not ergonomic at its base, because I'm also late, late, late. Maybe the squinching of all the muscles in my shoudular region is a chemical thing from some hormone confusion happening in my woman's body, women's bodies being so complicated generally. (Have you ever read how periods actually happen? The tiniest, tiniest thing goes from one place to another, and it sets off this huge, complicated, interrelated chain reaction, and then it resets and starts all over again. Check out Our Bodies Ourselves. It boggles the mind.)
So I was reflecting on this whole looming change of life thing, and finally got an articulation of why I'm kind of not at all okay with it. A conversation with someone in my head:
"So when my relationship broke up, I guess I always imagined I could start over again with someone new, and this time it might be possible to have it all - the whole husband and babies thing. But it turns out it's not possible."
It's not. Possible.
(That is a big deal, Replacement Doctor. That is grief and loss. Not a relief.)
So just in the last few days the shoulder thing has kind of started up again, and it started so suddenly and with so little provocation that I'm wondering if it's a chemical/hormonal thing, actually, and not ergonomic at its base, because I'm also late, late, late. Maybe the squinching of all the muscles in my shoudular region is a chemical thing from some hormone confusion happening in my woman's body, women's bodies being so complicated generally. (Have you ever read how periods actually happen? The tiniest, tiniest thing goes from one place to another, and it sets off this huge, complicated, interrelated chain reaction, and then it resets and starts all over again. Check out Our Bodies Ourselves. It boggles the mind.)
So I was reflecting on this whole looming change of life thing, and finally got an articulation of why I'm kind of not at all okay with it. A conversation with someone in my head:
"So when my relationship broke up, I guess I always imagined I could start over again with someone new, and this time it might be possible to have it all - the whole husband and babies thing. But it turns out it's not possible."
It's not. Possible.
(That is a big deal, Replacement Doctor. That is grief and loss. Not a relief.)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Film consumption
I was thinking about how people consume movies these days - either via cable or cable-on-demand or Netflix or buying the DVD or downloading or just streaming them on the computer.
And then I was thinking back to the olden days where you had to go see movies in the cinema. Even if you loved the first Star Wars movie more than anything in the world, which a lot of people did, the only way you could see it again is if it was showing at a cinema in a revival.
How did we even live that way? It's as hard to imagine as trying to remember how we ever checked any facts before Google.
No wonder people went to see the first Star Wars movie 70 times when it was first released. Now, everyone sees every movie 70 times. But back then you had to take advantage while it was still showing in cinemas.
And then I was thinking back to the olden days where you had to go see movies in the cinema. Even if you loved the first Star Wars movie more than anything in the world, which a lot of people did, the only way you could see it again is if it was showing at a cinema in a revival.
How did we even live that way? It's as hard to imagine as trying to remember how we ever checked any facts before Google.
No wonder people went to see the first Star Wars movie 70 times when it was first released. Now, everyone sees every movie 70 times. But back then you had to take advantage while it was still showing in cinemas.
Taco Turducken
My favorite lunch lately is at a taco place up the road from the office. It's a hard shell taco, with the usual meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato, very traditional fast-food taco. But then that's wrapped in a soft taco, with refried beans in between to stick them together.
It occurred to me the other day that this is the taco version of a Turducken. I love America sometimes.
It occurred to me the other day that this is the taco version of a Turducken. I love America sometimes.
Account managers on the phone
In my last job I was an account manager, and it was my job to always sound delighted when clients called, to always have tons of time for them even if they only paid us a few hundred dollars per month and we were in the midst of a crisis for a client who paid us hundreds of times more, to always act like their work was a high priority ("Yep, it's just in final testing," when in fact we hadn't been able to assign any resources to it yet), and basically to lie to them, all the time, for a living.
Now I'm the client, but I still have a bit of this in my phone manner, and when I get another account manager on the phone with me, especially one who specializes in new business development or sales, it almost gets out of hand. There's so much smarmy bullshit on both ends of the phone, so much saccharine sweetness, that if anyone was listening it it would make their teeth hurt.
I suppose at least I'm not trying to snow you all the time. Pretty much here I say what I think.
Now I'm the client, but I still have a bit of this in my phone manner, and when I get another account manager on the phone with me, especially one who specializes in new business development or sales, it almost gets out of hand. There's so much smarmy bullshit on both ends of the phone, so much saccharine sweetness, that if anyone was listening it it would make their teeth hurt.
I suppose at least I'm not trying to snow you all the time. Pretty much here I say what I think.
Beatitude
I was driving through Menasha, one street down from how I normally go because of construction, and passed a church that had the Beatitudes on a sign out front. One is "Blessed are the peacemakers," and of course my mind went immediately to Monty Python's Life of Brian and changed it to "Blessed are the cheesemakers", and here I am in Wisconsin and that's what we all are, and that made me smile.
Friday, August 7, 2009
a thing about being 40+ that makes me sad
So, I was heating up a frozen pizza and accidentally touched my arm to the top rack of the oven.
There's a red spot now on my right forearm, don't think it's that bad but it might be.
And I was remembering another burn, it was when I was in college, Junior year, I was ironing the hem on a grey Goodwill skirt I'd bought and then cut off to be a mini-skirt, and I planned to wear it to go see X in Cleveland (just saw them again in Chicago recently, all of us a bit older but that's a different story). I had a very small single room in a suite that year, and I was ironing the skirt on the seat of the desk chair. So the set-up was kind of awkward. While reaching across to straighten the hem my arm touched the edge of the iron because of the crowded arrangements, and I burned a mark on my arm. Then, if I recall correctly, moshing to X I tore part of the scab off, and there's a white scar there to this day.
So, reminded of that scar, with this present burn from just a few minutes ago, I found it on my arm, just in case this new burn makes a matching one (probably won't though because it's not that deep), but I recalled the emotion of the iron-mini-skirt burn, which was much different from today's one.
I remember being absolutely horrified. I remember a sense of guilt and dread and failure, I had scarred this body and it was going to carry this scar FOREVER, for a momentary lapse. Agh! How could I bear it, how could I be forgiven? That was the emotion from the first burn.
And now, looking at the white mark on my arm, and thinking back to that poor young girl's worry (a girl who hadn't even started her life at all, really), it just brings tears to my eyes. Because, honey, there will be SO many more scars. Living life, you just accumulate them, you can't help it.
This makes me sad, thinking about her and the big deal the other burn was. But also sanguine, because, you know, this new burn, scar or not, whatever.
There's a red spot now on my right forearm, don't think it's that bad but it might be.
And I was remembering another burn, it was when I was in college, Junior year, I was ironing the hem on a grey Goodwill skirt I'd bought and then cut off to be a mini-skirt, and I planned to wear it to go see X in Cleveland (just saw them again in Chicago recently, all of us a bit older but that's a different story). I had a very small single room in a suite that year, and I was ironing the skirt on the seat of the desk chair. So the set-up was kind of awkward. While reaching across to straighten the hem my arm touched the edge of the iron because of the crowded arrangements, and I burned a mark on my arm. Then, if I recall correctly, moshing to X I tore part of the scab off, and there's a white scar there to this day.
So, reminded of that scar, with this present burn from just a few minutes ago, I found it on my arm, just in case this new burn makes a matching one (probably won't though because it's not that deep), but I recalled the emotion of the iron-mini-skirt burn, which was much different from today's one.
I remember being absolutely horrified. I remember a sense of guilt and dread and failure, I had scarred this body and it was going to carry this scar FOREVER, for a momentary lapse. Agh! How could I bear it, how could I be forgiven? That was the emotion from the first burn.
And now, looking at the white mark on my arm, and thinking back to that poor young girl's worry (a girl who hadn't even started her life at all, really), it just brings tears to my eyes. Because, honey, there will be SO many more scars. Living life, you just accumulate them, you can't help it.
This makes me sad, thinking about her and the big deal the other burn was. But also sanguine, because, you know, this new burn, scar or not, whatever.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Big finish
So it occurred to me tonight, looking up at the almost-full moon, that I have just, like, today, come out of a bad period in my life that lasted a really, really fucking long time. And now I'm out of it, but only just.
Here are the things, in chronological order:
- Got retrenched from my dot-com job
- Worked out full-time fiction writing wasn't the life for me, did the MBA, but had to move house in between semesters 1 and 2 and never did really get rested from it (the time that should have been rest was the world's worst, horrible nightmare of a beach Christmas with the inlaws - I still have a scar on my leg from it that comes up from time to time in periods of stress).
- Took 18 months to find a new job
- Which took such a toll on my self-esteem that my long-term partner left me
- just as I ran out of money
- Did get a new job, a great job, and a new circle of friends of sorts in Sydney, but the circle included some very crazy people, and it wasn't really nurturing me
- Decided to move back to the US, just before which spending the most - what - not hardest but densely packed with work, the logistically most difficult and consuming two weeks of my life.
- Had no idea the magnitude of the logistics and culture shock of moving countries
- coincidentally just in time for the longest, coldest, snowiest winter in 100 years
- and started a very challenging job in a not very supportive or nurturing work environment
- Then just as I was starting to get the hang of the job and rack up some successes, they restructured us and gave me a really boring and unstrategic job, and then yelled at me when I couldn't describe it or the value it was adding. Gave my dream job to someone else.
- Then announced they were restructuring us again, and downsizing, but wouldn't tell us who was staying or going for months and months.
- And meanwhile a complete madman was in charge and I got yelled at by him and then yelled at about it by my acting boss. So I didn't want to stay working there anyway.
- (But didn't want to move because I had started playing guitar and it had become the chief love and obsession and joy and preoccupation of my life. And I had found the perfect, ideal, perfectly suited teacher, and even though he might be leaving town in a year to go to grad school, I needed at least that one more year from him.)
- (And then that same teacher told me about an opportunity to perform in front of people, which it turns out was to be on the Saturday after the Monday when we would find out if we still had jobs or not.)
- (And my sister had already planned to come visit, arriving on the Friday night just before the Saturday gig.)
So in the last two weeks, I found out I still have a job and don't have to move, I did my first public performance of guitar (and got some lovely and wonderful feedback for it), and I had a great, event-packed, wonderful, fun, Wisconsiny visit with my sister.
She went back on Sunday night. Yesterday and today were the first official days working in the new structure in my new role. And tonight was the first post-gig lesson, where I could review the performance but also get back to the curriculum, and start to play some other songs.
I brought the guitar back home and then went out again and bought myself things - two expensive bottles of Pinot Noir recommended by a huge afficionado who works at the wine shop nearby; a burger and onion rings for dinner; pens and post-its and a file to keep my guitar books and notes in. I was walking with the purchases back out to my car under a midnight-blue sky (although it was 9pm, not midnight), and looked up at the nearly full moon, and thought, I've just come out of a really difficult period of my life. And thought back to how long it's been difficult, and got back to the start of the list above - October 2001.
Eight years. And I've just come out of it, just tonight. Under this blue sky and this white moon, with a beautiful pack of new pens, and guitar ambitions to pursue. But the ambitions sort of took a back seat, tonight. I guess what I felt was calm. The bad period, eight solid years of bad period, is over, just over, just tonight.
Here are the things, in chronological order:
- Got retrenched from my dot-com job
- Worked out full-time fiction writing wasn't the life for me, did the MBA, but had to move house in between semesters 1 and 2 and never did really get rested from it (the time that should have been rest was the world's worst, horrible nightmare of a beach Christmas with the inlaws - I still have a scar on my leg from it that comes up from time to time in periods of stress).
- Took 18 months to find a new job
- Which took such a toll on my self-esteem that my long-term partner left me
- just as I ran out of money
- Did get a new job, a great job, and a new circle of friends of sorts in Sydney, but the circle included some very crazy people, and it wasn't really nurturing me
- Decided to move back to the US, just before which spending the most - what - not hardest but densely packed with work, the logistically most difficult and consuming two weeks of my life.
- Had no idea the magnitude of the logistics and culture shock of moving countries
- coincidentally just in time for the longest, coldest, snowiest winter in 100 years
- and started a very challenging job in a not very supportive or nurturing work environment
- Then just as I was starting to get the hang of the job and rack up some successes, they restructured us and gave me a really boring and unstrategic job, and then yelled at me when I couldn't describe it or the value it was adding. Gave my dream job to someone else.
- Then announced they were restructuring us again, and downsizing, but wouldn't tell us who was staying or going for months and months.
- And meanwhile a complete madman was in charge and I got yelled at by him and then yelled at about it by my acting boss. So I didn't want to stay working there anyway.
- (But didn't want to move because I had started playing guitar and it had become the chief love and obsession and joy and preoccupation of my life. And I had found the perfect, ideal, perfectly suited teacher, and even though he might be leaving town in a year to go to grad school, I needed at least that one more year from him.)
- (And then that same teacher told me about an opportunity to perform in front of people, which it turns out was to be on the Saturday after the Monday when we would find out if we still had jobs or not.)
- (And my sister had already planned to come visit, arriving on the Friday night just before the Saturday gig.)
So in the last two weeks, I found out I still have a job and don't have to move, I did my first public performance of guitar (and got some lovely and wonderful feedback for it), and I had a great, event-packed, wonderful, fun, Wisconsiny visit with my sister.
She went back on Sunday night. Yesterday and today were the first official days working in the new structure in my new role. And tonight was the first post-gig lesson, where I could review the performance but also get back to the curriculum, and start to play some other songs.
I brought the guitar back home and then went out again and bought myself things - two expensive bottles of Pinot Noir recommended by a huge afficionado who works at the wine shop nearby; a burger and onion rings for dinner; pens and post-its and a file to keep my guitar books and notes in. I was walking with the purchases back out to my car under a midnight-blue sky (although it was 9pm, not midnight), and looked up at the nearly full moon, and thought, I've just come out of a really difficult period of my life. And thought back to how long it's been difficult, and got back to the start of the list above - October 2001.
Eight years. And I've just come out of it, just tonight. Under this blue sky and this white moon, with a beautiful pack of new pens, and guitar ambitions to pursue. But the ambitions sort of took a back seat, tonight. I guess what I felt was calm. The bad period, eight solid years of bad period, is over, just over, just tonight.
Mosaic not a ladder
We just came through a restructure at work, and I and 33 of my colleagues got a new boss, who's been with our company about 18 months but hasn't bossed anyone until now. He met with us to introduce himself and talk about the new structure and our new roles, and everything was really vague and ill-defined which frustrated many folks, but one thing he said as part of his introduction really stuck with me.
It was a bit of advice he got from a boss of his once, which was "Think of your career as a mosaic, not a ladder."
This has stayed with me but not with respect to my career, which has been and continues to be a ladder, but with respect to my life. When I have those "how did I get here" thoughts, in those moments of residual grief for the future I thought I was going to have that didn't come about, the idea that my life is a mosaic has been powerfully comforting. No, that's not the right word - sort of exciting, actually, or infused with a spirit of creative improvisation.
Like tonight I was feeling a bit emotional, coming down off a huge couple of weeks (see next post for more on that) and had a strong desire to go buy myself some pens at the Office Max near my house, and while I was in the store I wandered around to see if there were any other nice office presents I could buy myself, and holding the pack of pens and wandering around an office supply store to comfort myself I thought of how many, many times in my life I have done that. And started to think the sorry-for-myself thought, "How did I get here, alone again, shopping for pens alone again?" But then I remembered about the mosaic, and the experience turned into, "I am shopping for pens again. I shopped for them back then, and now I am here shopping for them now, and they're just two tiles in the quilt. I might shop for pens alone one day when I'm 90, and I might have a steady partner for another batch of 10 years in between now and then, and I might not be in Wisconsin forever and didn't intend to be but now I am, and that's that."
All sorts of possible sappy endings about the crazy quilt patchwork of life, blah blah blah. But if I stop thinking of my life as a ladder requiring linear progress and achievement, which it isn't anyway whether I'm okay with that or not, but if I get okay with that, then I am just buying pens, here now. And it's no kind of failure or disappointment to be doing so. Which was stupid to think that it was. But it's not.
It was a bit of advice he got from a boss of his once, which was "Think of your career as a mosaic, not a ladder."
This has stayed with me but not with respect to my career, which has been and continues to be a ladder, but with respect to my life. When I have those "how did I get here" thoughts, in those moments of residual grief for the future I thought I was going to have that didn't come about, the idea that my life is a mosaic has been powerfully comforting. No, that's not the right word - sort of exciting, actually, or infused with a spirit of creative improvisation.
Like tonight I was feeling a bit emotional, coming down off a huge couple of weeks (see next post for more on that) and had a strong desire to go buy myself some pens at the Office Max near my house, and while I was in the store I wandered around to see if there were any other nice office presents I could buy myself, and holding the pack of pens and wandering around an office supply store to comfort myself I thought of how many, many times in my life I have done that. And started to think the sorry-for-myself thought, "How did I get here, alone again, shopping for pens alone again?" But then I remembered about the mosaic, and the experience turned into, "I am shopping for pens again. I shopped for them back then, and now I am here shopping for them now, and they're just two tiles in the quilt. I might shop for pens alone one day when I'm 90, and I might have a steady partner for another batch of 10 years in between now and then, and I might not be in Wisconsin forever and didn't intend to be but now I am, and that's that."
All sorts of possible sappy endings about the crazy quilt patchwork of life, blah blah blah. But if I stop thinking of my life as a ladder requiring linear progress and achievement, which it isn't anyway whether I'm okay with that or not, but if I get okay with that, then I am just buying pens, here now. And it's no kind of failure or disappointment to be doing so. Which was stupid to think that it was. But it's not.
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