VEDA is over and I am so happy to be back to blogging. I’ve missed it here. But, I’ll only just say hello before I wave goodbye again.
I wrote a version of this post a week ago in anticipation of this day. I knew then that I needed a break. I don’t know why people normally unplug, but between a daily vlog, two blogs, dailybooth, tumblr, and twitter, there has been a lot of me on the internet this month and in the background of it all, I’ve been falling apart, putting myself back together, and then falling apart again.
I love having this whole internet life and, even more so since VEDA, this amazing group of people who make me laugh and listen to me be pathetic. I think I just need to take a minute to find some peace and face things instead of distracting myself from them. In other words, dear internet, it’s not you, it’s me. Yeah, that old line.
I’m not actually unplugging. I mean, I’m only human and I need the internet for work and school. But, I’m going to disappear from everything except for email. You can still reach me there. Otherwise, I’ll see you in a week or so. Love your faces.
Do you ever feel like you could talk for days and still not say everything on your mind, all while knowing that if anyone took you seriously enough to sit you down and say, “okay, spill,” you’d have to backtrack and say, “oh, well, I don’t really know where to start” and then they would say, “start anywhere; start from the beginning,” and then you would go silent and they would just stare at you?
Fall is approaching like a tidal wave, there is so much to do, and by the time my next day off comes around, I will have worked 11 days straight. But, really, it’s none of that.
It’s, well, that’s the problem. I don’t know how to explain what I feel. It’s always something and it always feels new. I’m not anxious really. More restless. And I’m so unconfused about most everything that the few things floating right outside my grasp are taking up 95% of my thoughts.
People confuse me, which is not my passive aggressive way of saying I hate people or what is this world coming to? I read this description once of INFJs that we like our external world to be very orderly, I think as a way of dealing with the dynamic and inconsistent way we feel inside. My external world is full of these things I can place into categories and order and reorder however I see fit, but people, who I let in more and more all the time, don’t follow that order. They throw me into chaos, which is exciting, but exhausting. I like people in my life who I can depend on. People who always let me know where I stand. And since I’m quite selfish and tend not to bother with people I don’t like, that leaves a small group of people who I care about, but who unsettle me, no matter how much I try to figure out exactly how they fit into my life and shove them into those boxes.
I also have a lot of what am I going to do with my life thoughts plaguing me. Or maybe not so much the what right now, but the how. I used to think things like, I just want to be happy, but then I became happy and found out there’s a lot of life left to figure out. Sometimes it’s as silly as thinking that I want to have the kind of life where I see every good new movie that comes out. I think these thoughts are my way of dealing with my current schedule, which is so rigid and stuffed full that it doesn’t allow for many decisions.
I can see I make the mistake of trying to force things to be settled and at peace when they can’t and don’t need to be, but I guess that’s how I deal with things. And maybe now that so many of the pieces are fitting together, I’m in a hurry to have the whole puzzle complete.
If instincts are intended to protect you from harm, then I have good instincts. There are a lot of people who struggle to say No, but I’m really good at it. It comes out of my mouth before I can even think something over.
But, in protecting myself from harm, I too often protect myself from fun and excitement and the things I want. I don’t like conflict or drama or looking stupid or asking too much of people, so I don’t put myself out there.
I know all of this, so I try harder to stick my neck out. With encouragement, I’ll wander further away from home. But, at the slightest rejection or disappointment, I retreat.
After retreating, I realize that whatever I was scared of really isn’t that big of a deal. I see that I overreacted. I see that I almost lost out or did lose out, because I ran when I should have stood my ground.
All of this results in a lot of confusion. I try to fight my instincts when I see them doing me more harm than good, but I can’t always tell the difference between putting myself out there and subjecting myself to unnecessary pain and embarrassment.
I think things over and over until they only become more confusing to me. I go back and forth trying to decide whether to risk more or retreat. One extreme or the other, because I don’t want to do nothing. It’s hard to decide whether to do one thing or the complete opposite of that thing. Strange to think any question worth asking could be answered legitimately in two such opposed ways.
I make so much of the decision and in the end it makes no difference, because it’s hard to move on from things you want and I don’t trust my instincts anymore.
I hate to be completely unoriginal, but I love the Fall. It’s my favorite time of year. Southern California doesn’t pull it off very well, but I can pretend.
As last Fall approached, I was overwhelmed with feelings of dread. I was nervous about starting a PhD and worried I’d committed myself to working too much, but what I didn’t tell anyone was that I was stressed to death about money.
This Fall is so different. I can do the PhD thing. I can do the work thing. And I am so close to being out of debt. I’m still anxious about a lot of things, but mostly just excited.
Here are some of the things I have to look forward to this Fall:
Amazing classes. This is my last year of coursework, so I was torn between taking the classes I’m most interested in and the ones that will better prepare me for teaching or, more immediately, passing qualifying exams. I went for the classes I was most interested in, which means I’ll spend my semester studying death, atheism, and democracy. It’s a weird thing I do here.
Two-day weekends. I’ve been working six days a week since the beginning of the year, and I am not a fan. Really long hours I can handle, but never having a break, because you have to spend your only day off catching up on sleep and laundry and homework is wearing. It makes me feel like I’m on a hamster wheel. This semester is as crazy as ever, but I somehow managed to pull off two day weekends and I will be defending them with my life.
I get to see Vampire Weekend at the Hollywood Bowl in September. I do love Vampire Weekend and I have always wanted to see a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I forget that I used to be a very big concert goer in higher school and college. It’s a habit I accidentally dropped when I became broke and left my concert buddy in another state. This is my first concert in more than a year.
Meeting bloggers. First Alex and then Bri. If you’re going to be in the area, please let me know, because I’d love to meet you. We just had our Southern California VEDA Meetup yesterday (video here).
I’m going to Washington in October for a wedding. Maybe Southern California doesn’t do Fall well, but the Northwest most certainly does. I won’t be there for long, but I hope to get a chance to visit my undergrad, because there’s a reason all of their promotional pictures are taken in the Fall. Seeing my oldest friend get married will be pretty cool too.
Getting out of credit card debt. I am doing everything I possibly can to make this happen by the end of the year, but the weird thing is that I’m not just looking forward to the end date. I’m looking forward to these last four months of going for the goal. I know no one believes me, but there’s a part of this getting out of debt thing that is actually fun. All the same, I can’t wait to be out: to have accomplished what is probably the hardest thing I have ever attempted and to have my money be my own again.
Whatever magic comes my way. My blog tends toward the things not going the way I want them to, because those are the things that occupy my mind, the things I need to work out in writing. But, my life on the whole is pretty damn awesome and I am both happy and incredibly optimistic about the future. I’m trying to keep my eyes open, because sometimes I get too focused and miss things right in from of my face. I hope that life keeps throwing me awesome things, and I’ll try to do my part and be bolder in taking them on.
Summer ends and Fall begins for me next week. As much as any of the above, I look forward to writing all about it here on my blog. VEDA has been a welcome distraction this month, but writing is my thing.
I don’t know how it happened that the internet knows how much I weigh, how much debt I have, my religious and political beliefs, but because I’m open about these things, people often congratulate me on my honesty. In blogging more than anything, I care to represent myself as accurately as I can, so I was relieved in recent conversations with a few bloggers when they said things to me like, “It seems like you still have your guard up” and “you seem very careful about what you write.”
It’s interesting the way the truth about yourself comes out even when you don’t articulate it. I was trying to reconcile the person I’ve always known myself as with this internet person who talks openly about things that have never had a place in polite conversation, and I couldn’t do it until other people gave me insight into the person they see.
I’ve always been very reserved. I’ve always filled journals with my feelings instead of sharing them with other people. In some ways that’s changed in the last couple years, but I’m still the same person and I still have a lot of walls up. I’m not keeping any deep dark secrets, but I’m not an open book and it’s pretty rare I express anything I haven’t thought a lot about.
There are things I used to keep hidden, but once articulated discovered were never worth keeping secret. My debt, for instance. But, there are more personal things I still haven’t found a way to write about. No one is demanding strict honesty of me and I think we all understand that a lot gets missed, especially on a blog, but there are things I want to talk about and don’t yet feel like I can.
This post is in part motivated by something I’ve been vague blogging about all Summer and what’s so strange to me is that I keep trying to talk about it and I keep failing, because I am not okay with just keeping it to myself. Years ago I would have turned it over and over in my head and that would be it, but now I’m tortured with wanting to say more. That’s probably driving me more insane than the actual subject of my vague blogging.
In addition to a blog, I also have a lot of people I can talk to, but I feel like there’s still this big hurdle for me to get over when it comes to sharing some things with other people. I really hope your brains are filling in my vaguery with things far more interesting than the truth, because otherwise I would feel ridiculous. If I could just have your ear for a second, though, I would say, “Ahhhhhh,” by which I mean I am extremely frustrated with myself.
Today is my four year California anniversary. I made the drive from Washington by myself. I just knew it was something I had to do alone and my parents didn’t object, though I found out later that they had some heated conversations behind my back and didn’t tell my grandma until I’d made it safely to California.
Grad school felt like a decision I’d made on a whim, though I researched schools, applied, and waited impatiently for a response. I applied to just one school, because it was the only place I wanted to study theology. I wasn’t sure about moving back to California (I’d spent my first year of college here), but it was at least familiar.
If the grad school thing didn’t work out, I would do something else, but I found out I was accepted before it became necessary to assemble Plan B. I can think of a lot of alternative plans I would have been happy with, but I needed to get away from home and I knew theology was not something I could ignore.
I didn’t remember until I was reading old journals that I felt this need to prove myself and I felt like I could only do that in a place all by myself. I guess it comes with being the youngest. I hate to say the words, but I didn’t feel like people took me seriously and I guess I wanted to prove myself by pursuing my dreams away from the people who knew me. It was just an insecurity thing, really, because I don’t think much about proving myself to anyone anymore, least of all my family. Not since I proved to myself that I could do it.
It was not easy. My first year of grad school, I was sick and dizzy from nerves and stress that made eating difficult. I had a lot of big feelings. I didn’t have enough people in my life to talk to, because I’d left them all behind. I found out I really had a talent for writing and theology. I adopted a school of thought that put to rest the war between my faith and education. And I didn’t run away when things became difficult, even if I did think several times of how easy it would be to jump in my car and head straight up I-5.
I’m really very different from the person I was four years ago when I moved down here. We share a lot of the same feelings, but while she was always teetering near destruction, I am on much more solid footing. She needed for things to work out, because she didn’t know what she would do if they didn’t, and I need for things to work out, because they’re what I want. She was worried about depression, and I disappear from my desk at least once a day to walk out feelings much more manic. We’re both confused about what people need and want from us, but while she tried to figure it out from the sidelines, I’m trying to figure it out from the trenches.
And, California. California grows on me more and more every year. I could only get away with I’m not really a California kind of person for so long before I noticed that it’s lovely here and there’s so much to do and walking outside at every odd hour you can think of wearing a t-shirt does not get old. I always thought I would end up back in the Northwest, but four days of overcast when I was last there was wearing. Rain, I love, and nothing beats a gorgeous August day in Seattle, but I forgot about all the grey that fills up the rest of the calendar. I still want to live other places, but I’m enjoying my time here in California and I’m not ready to go anywhere just yet.
Here’s to another four years, California. I’m not leaving without a Ph.D.
The thing about blogging is that it’s just predictable enough to make you think you can understand it, but unpredictable enough to regularly take you by surprise. You can generally count on other bloggers being supportive and awesome, assuming you’ve made friends with the best of them, but you never know what people will respond to. I’ve written posts I thought people would care more about, but then I was surprised that anyone was interested to hear about me and my Dad.
Nothing has taken me by surprise more than VEDA (Vlog Every Day in August). I wanted to do it just because I like vlogging and I like challenges. I thought it would be cool if maybe I could get a couple people to vlog for the first time, because it’s such a good way to get to know someone. If I expected more than one or two people to take me up on it, I wouldn’t have promised drinks to first time vloggers!
Vlogging is kind of scary at first and technical and every day is such a big commitment, but without me even pushing, people started signing on. I don’t know what got people started. Most of their reasoning was along the lines of, “Eh, it sounded cool and I’m up for a challenge.” From there, the crack-nature of vlogging took over. As everyone quickly realized, it’s addictive.
More than people just agreeing to do it, I’m surprised by the community we developed almost instantly. From the beginning, we’ve been out to support each other. I think that has to do in part with the medium of video. It’s so, I don’t know, personal in a way and real. It makes a difference seeing people speak. I had to blog about it, because something is going on over here.
I’m sure there are people annoyed by our endless #VEDA talk, so I tried to get a little quieter about it, but then I remembered that I can’t please everyone as much as I always try. We have an awesome group of people doing something awesome and that’s too cool to be quiet about. But, it’s not too late to jump in and even just make one vlog in August. Trust the 25+ of us participating, vlogging is addictive and too much fun. And, remember, there’s a drink in it for you--Coke, a screwdriver, Blue Moon, whatever you’ll have.
Thanks to my fellow VEDAers for making August awesome. I start class again on the very last day of VEDA and I can’t think of a better way to have spent my last month of Summer.
Below is my vlog from yesterday. It features my friend Elyse who I’ve know since, well, you’ll find out if you watch. Me laughing like an idiot is something I never realized was completely missing from my blog up to this point. Yeah, that’s how I do it.
I’m sitting over the heat vent on the floor next to a window. I’m in Washington and it’s cold here. Summer came and left last week. I suspect it will be back, but for now it’s raining. I used to sit in this same spot and write. I used to make lists here too and plot out my life of perfection.
This is not the house I grew up in (there isn’t just one of those). We moved here the Summer after I finished high school. I took off for college a few weeks later, but then came back to finish my last three years locally. There’s so much said about childhood homes, but what about the one you lived in when you discovered all of the things you love and became the person you are?
Not that I feel particularly nostalgic for this place. Home used to come with such heavy baggage and now it’s just a nice vacation away from the real and a place to spend time with those people I’m forever connected to. I don’t get homesick or sad or wish I was here when I’m living my life in California. I’m happy there. I needed a place to go and figure things out for myself.
But, I don’t have it figured out. Sitting by this window like I used to, I have this strange confidence I’ve always had that if I just think about something long enough, I’ll understand it. But the longer I think, the more things become about feelings and fiction, so I can’t remember anymore how it all really happened. I’m not sure whether to make up my mind to move on or just try harder.
I’m struck by how feelingless home has become now that I don’t live here and it doesn’t hold much power over me when I’m not here. I thought maybe things would become clearer to me just being away and they haven’t. That’s for the best, I think. Now I can enjoy being with my family, seeing the few friends who haven’t taken off for other parts of the country, and spending time in a really beautiful place.
I have an amazing family. The solid kind of people you don’t have to worry about all the time. The kind who make it possible to go live anywhere you want and occupy yourself with dreams and introspection. The kind who are there for you if you need anything, but are otherwise willing to let you live the way you want.
Thinking about all the things I’ve done since I last spent long hours sitting here writing, I’m optimistic. If you can come home and be proud of all the things you’ve done since you were last there, then you must be on to something. Especially if you’re a hyper self-critical, anxious, kind of perfectionist. I’m going to be okay.
I leave tonight and there’s a lot of coffee still left to drink.
I’m having a hard time writing this week. There are a million things I could say and a lot of quarter-written posts about things I care a lot about, but I don’t feel like finishing them right now. I was walking back to work after lunch yesterday, thinking I’m going through something right now and then I was like, when are you not going through something? I totally called myself on that one.
A couple weeks ago, I tore up my list of Summer goals. I just didn’t want to stare at it anymore. It was making me feel like a failure, because I somehow can’t force myself to be a robot productivity machine. Because I have big ass, distracting feelings.
At the same time, I’m not really a go with the flow person. Though, at this point, I’d have to dig my heels in deep to stop this forward motion. My life is pretty much settled for the next four years or so. This is the least lost I’ve ever been, which is strange, but also frees my mind to think of all the other possibilities out there.
I’m overwhelmed and yet also bored, because, I don’t know, I want magic or something. Not really magic, but something to take me by surprise. This settled life is not sufficiently surprising. I’m not saying I miss the crippling uncertainty, because I don’t. I’m a better and happier person now. Just wanting.
I’ve actually had a lot of fun this Summer, even if most of it has been on the internet. That sounds a little pathetic, not because we aren’t all real people interacting, but because there’s computers separating us. #winetoreach, VidCon (okay, that was with real life people), and now VEDA–they’ve all brought me that warm and excited feeling. And genuine fun. I think I’ve more than made up for practically disappearing from twitter this Spring. If I do that again, someone please reach through the internet and pull me back.
I’m working on letting go some, not because I don’t still have big dreams, but because I’m moving toward them all anyway. Maybe that’s not even worth saying, because I will probably change my mind another twelve times. I’m not an indecisive person, but it takes me a while to see things clearly. I don’t see clearly right now.
I should also probably say something specific to someone in particular, but I don’t see that clearly yet either.
I just veer back and forth between chill out and conquer the world, which leaves me saying a lot of the same things all the time. Sorry for that. I probably need to get out of my head a bit. Feel free to offer distractions.
This is your friendly reminder that I will be vlogging every day in August. Except, I won’t be doing it alone. Somehow I picked up another 19 people. You can find them all here. We’d appreciate your support this month.
Here’s what I left out of my first VEDA vlog: just about everything. That’s the awesome and terrible thing about vlogging. I talked for four and a half minutes, which was a minute longer than I intended to talk, and yet I didn’t say half of what I planned. I think it’s about time I teach myself the fine art of the jump cut.
In every video, I intend to talk a bit about what’s going on with me and then move on to a topic. I didn’t get a chance to say that I’m sorry I wasn’t around for #winetoreach, but I had a great time last night with friend to me for the last 11 years and friend to the blog since I told her about it in late 2008, Lisa, who is leaving today first for DC and then to Paris. Even though I’ve known about this trip forever, I was somehow surprised when she said she was leaving today. I don’t know who I’m going to talk nonsense with via facebook message all day.
Now to the vlog, which is brought to you by 2.5 hours of restless sleep. I won’t be posting most of the vlogs here, but this is the first and also seems significant to my life, which is what this blog is about if it’s about anything. If you want to watch future VEDA vlogs, subscribe to my YouTube Channel or just watch for the links on twitter.
