Changing the Narrative

I am a perfectionist. I beat myself up for jobs not executed perfectly. From work to relationships, every failure is a vast canyon of defeat from which I shall never recover.

Geeeezus. 

Ok, and I've always been a bit dramatic about these things. But I'm not the only one! I know loads of people who regard losses or failures as an irreversible blemish upon who they are as people! 

Over the last month, a big part of my job as bar manager was to launch a new cocktail menu. I've been at this bar manager job for about 2 months, and it was important to me that I not disappoint anyone.

In an attempt to do everything perfectly, I entered into a stress tornado, of my own conscious choosing. Everyone around me knew I was doing it. I talked about it constantly. I wore it on my face. I won't pretend to know what my co-workers and friends really thought about it. In retrospect, I can tell you that I put far greater energy into stressing than into the actual work that needed to be done. 

I'd made my to-do lists and damn near everything was ready. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn good. 

And now that it's all done, and I'm a bit sick, and really tired, I can't figure out the point of the stressing. I think it was partly fear rising up in me that I'm not capable of much (yeesh!). I think it was partly to show everyone how hard I was working. Because that's a point of pride for me. 

And I thought about this further:

Am I a person who works as much as I do and as hard as I do because if I didn't, then I'd actually have to live a full life? What would I do with free time if I were not spending it resting up for the long shifts at work? 

I'd have to reach out to people and cultivate friendships and romance, and some of those won't work and it'll suck. But some of them will and the warmth of those connections could last forever. 

Would have to seek out hobbies, and would probably be bad at some of them, but could find new avenues for joy, and could create new things to be proud of and to share. 

Would have to try new things and go to new places and look like I don't know what I'm doing, but could delight in the discovery of things I never knew were possible, and places I didn't know existed.  

Would have to fully commit to acting, and suck at it sometimes, but also maybe be really great at it, and even better, could occasionally tap into those roles that connect me emotionally to other people. 

I have lived a long time in fear of making the wrong choice. But over the last few weeks, I've had a glimpse, and it feels like a peeking behind a veil, that I can make whatever choice I want and it doesn't matter. These brief flashes feel magical, a wispy mystical hand reaching through for mine to pull me to do it. To do something. Make a choice about anything and go in that direction until it doesn't feel right anymore and then I can simply choose to go another direction.

It feels like freedom.

Rough around the edges

Rough Around The Edges

My roughness is part of my character. It is because I was raised by my dad and my brother. It is because we watched Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and Beavis and Butthead together (although dad would not admit that! I promise you, he laughed as much as we did). It is because we made tree forts in the woods and played sports in the backyard. Because Arthur and Zeke made me laugh until I pissed myself, literally. Because my dad was fiercely proud that I was the last girl in the baseball league, and because he taught us how to sail. We spent most days salty, sandy, or dirty, and we did not care. 

It is because my dad did not care if people disagreed with him. And because he spent nights sitting up late with me as we talked religion, and people, and history. He exemplified “be good and you will be lonesome.” He was a poet, a romantic, an individual, and a humanitarian. He instilled those things in me. I learned from him to see the beauty in the world. I developed empathy, and embraced my individuality. 

But I became afraid of my individuality in my teenage years. I think probably everyone felt insecure to some degree. I let it change me for the worse. I stopped speaking my youthful truth, and began to mimic others. I wanted to blend in. I did not want to be noticed. I can trace it back to a makeover my mother gave me. I don’t blame her for it. We shed the tomboy and replaced it with fitted clothes and cute tops. I remember looking at myself in these new clothes at the mall and I thought “wow…I’m cute!” 

But I could feel a quiet prodding. A reminder that I wasn’t fooling anyone. Underneath this new shiny polish was the messy tomboy who sometimes like to sit out on the beach alone and daydream. In middle school, the other girls knew I was a fraud. And I was bullied by girls who hated me for trying to be this other thing. I couldn’t even tell you their names anymore. But they made me want to disappear, so that’s what I tried to do. 

And then there were the boys. Those awful teenage boys. They often didn’t know better than to treat girls like something to be acquired and had, and then discarded when you either did or did not give them what they wanted. When you’re a young girl in that atmosphere, it’s hard not to measure your worth by whether boys like you or not. And everyone participates in the awful game, boys and girls alike. I wish I could have been stronger. I wish I’d had the guts to tell them I didn’t give a shit what they thought of me. But I was scared of being disliked, of being noticed too much. 

Fast forward many years.

I know now that I do not need anyone who doesn’t like me the way I am. I do not want anyone who would like me better if I were more polished, ladylike, graceful, maybe not such a messy eater. Or if they think my face would be prettier if my nose were not so big. And I certainly do not want anyone who believes women ought to be a certain way. 

Because I’ll tell you this. Some days, I won’t shave. Not a thing! I’ve been known to go a few days. I kind of appreciate when the leg hair gets real soft. Most days I can’t be bothered to do much more than put a brush through my hair. I go too long between eyebrow waxing and haircuts. My fingernails are not manicured and I cut my toenails super short. 

I enjoy music that makes most people want to jump off a bridge! I sometimes eat a restaurants alone, not because I’m trying to get picked up, but because I like eating at restaurants and sometimes I like being alone. I enjoy time to myself. 

I’m sometimes attracted to women, but I picture myself married to a man. 

Sometimes I overthink stuff, but I enjoy thinking stuff out. I know how to laugh and have fun, but sometimes I take myself really seriously.

I have codependency and trust issues that I’m actively dealing with. I don’t fully love myself yet. I want to be independent and I want a partner with whom I can be fiercely loyal and honest, and they’ll do the same for me. But I know I’m strong enough to handle it if they decide they don’t want to anymore. 

I know I have to tap into my confidence and self worth if I wish to be successful, and I know that I’m on my way, and I trust it will come.

I make bad jokes and puns that usually make me laugh and everyone else roll their eyes. I’ll probably just keep that up!

With all of these truths, what’s not for me to love?

Cold Love

It always happens to me when the air gets cold.
I get nostalgic for people and places and times.
Frozen in snapshots or vignettes,
and me, certain that I'm the reason I can't have them anymore.

Why is it only Winter that sets me back and reminds me?
Why can I spend all of Spring and Summer oblivious and selfish?

But October comes, and it settles in.

The color of a fall sun reaching across Capital monuments on that incredible DC trip.
The view of the NC Mountains in a 3 person plane with a someone who would become a lifelong friend.
Sunday dinners with a family that could have been my own. He and his family are always washed in this golden warm glow of his parent's house - and the smell of baking. I would, as a rule, fall asleep on his lap while we all ended the night watching some movie.
6th and Chestnut, the first night in that house. The chill in that drafty, sparsely furnished house in the mornings, hot tea, and falling so absurdly in love with someone. Even the next winter, relishing in the success of Chicago, and dinner parties on Castle Street. No falling asleep on his lap, he'd shake me, HEY! Wake up! I whine and he waggles his eyebrows at me in glee.
New Years Eve parties after a show at Level 5 with the people I have come to love over the last 6 years.
And this last winter in New York, alone. Discovering the city I adore. Freezing, which I just hate, but so alive.

I have just realized that, with one exception, I have only ever fallen in love in Winter. The holidays depress me and intensify my nostalgia to the point where I have to escape into someone else.
That should make me look forward to this Winter. Perfect! By January, I'll be in love and I'll be blissfully happy!
But I know that's not true this year.
Too much has happened in 2012 - there is too much baggage, and it is clinging on, no end in sight of letting go. I don't know if it's because I can't or because I won't. I have loved so much, and fought so fucking hard, to the point of exhaustion. And, still loving, attempted to drink my way through to another side. Scouring for a scrap of goddamned clarity. I have let go those who love me, and who I love. Because what else could I have done?

Spring cannot come fast enough.

Air

It seems to know the exact moment you need it.
You're staring at the pavement,
walking with a destination,
consumed,
but seeming to have no aim.
And the moment you have forgotten to breathe,


it sweeps you,
alarming you!


And the wind, breathes with you


Into your mouth, your nose,
as deep as your bones.
Inhaling up in circular motions 
around your brain, expanding it,
you have more space,
more time to decide,
more time before you die!
And into your veins and muscles,
depositing desperately desired extra breaths.


That is just the inhale.


The exhale collects the stubborn dark splotches
with the delicate tendril grasp,
sweeps swift and blue and quick through your
limbs, guts, bones, and pushes
the discomfort out like electricity from your pores!


And you are clean again for that moment..


I would suffocate and die without the wind.

The art of disarmament

What an expedition I have been on!
Is it more interesting to blame someone else? Some higher power?
Of course!
We are artists!
We cannot be at fault!
We are following the paths laid before us,
and though the choices are certainly our own,
the "forces" which imparted us with particular personalities have guided us to this misery.
And so I tell you,
it is not my fault.

I have before me what I wish to be:
She is blonde and blue eyed and beautiful.
Astounding happiness and love for others,
and they for her.
Maybe that's the part I want:
to be adored by everyone I encounter.

This is me desperately trying to communicate with someone.
This is honest.
I am desperate for a place to be honest.
For a person to unload their truths
so that I may do the same.

Otherwise I am only meant to blog and journal for my own release,
which is just fucking sad.
I have to teach myself to bring people in. To disarm.

06/26/2012

I am sure that I am alive.
Certain I can feel the hot Louisiana air inside my lungs,
the sun so near, and seeping into my pale skin -
can hear people around me chattering away to one another.

I feel like a ghost.
Haunting through these streets
unfamiliar,
with situations
I know so well.
Comfortably settling into my sadness,
busy streets are so much the same
anywhere you go.
Surrounded by everything, and still so damn alone.
The way I ought to be.
I need this sadness and lonliness
to find my worth.

Where has it been buried?
What city have I left it in?
Which address?
At the bottom of some shoe box,
smothered by theatre tickets and programs, 
birthday cards, and burned CDs.


Traipsing, trailing, silently behind me
all these years, waiting for me to remember when I loved myself.
Waiting.


Waiting?


Why were you waiting?
Why didn't you crush me?
That weight of necessity!
You SAW my sadness these years!
Why did you wait? Why are you still waiting?
I'm here! I'm so close,
we are staring one another in the face
like some odd stand-off,
fingering the guns digging into our hipbones.


And I know you are as afraid of me,
I've stranded you before.
And you know how terribly lost I am.
What's the secret?
That that special collection of words or thoughts we can arrive to
so I can free myself.

Forgetting to breathe is not exclusively a North Carolina thing

I keep forgetting to breathe.

In milder climates, it's only a silly thing.

Down here, 

it's a mistake.

 

I go too long without breathing,

when I snap back, I can only inhale thickly

a hot, wet, fog.

 

And even though I'm new here,

it coats my fragile, used-up lungs

with a familiar heaviness.

I become aware of the hollowness of my gut,

fed full but mildew empty.

 

And so so quiet.

No where to explode, erupt.

And though I'm surrounded by city,

there's no one here

with an ear I can respectfully bend.