Back to Not Knowing

A year ago today, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

I love kids. I love teaching them the valuable skills they need to know in order to live a fulfilling life. The problem is, I don't know what a fulfilling life for me looks like anymore.

I got burned out on the teaching path. I worked in childcare for three years and in doing so, I found out an important fact about myself: my bandwidth in terms of children maxes out at two at a time. A classroom full of kids is not my ideal workplace.

So, career-wise, I'm back to square one.

I've always been a dreamer. Ideally, I'd like to be an internet celebrity or a professional full-time author. But those things just aren't practical. Because I was always told by media and by society that I should follow my dreams, no matter how improbable or unlikely, I never thought to explore my options. I've never once gone to a career fair. I never met with a counselor about my professional future. And now I'm stuck trying to think practically about what I could do, rather than what I want to do.

I don't have the mind for school. I'm not stupid, I know I have the capability to do whatever I put my mind to, it's just the actual putting of my mind to it that trips me up. I have a little tiny voice inside me that's petulant and unyielding, telling me, "I don't wanna!" to everything. And it's especially strong when it comes to school. If anything is too easy or otherwise inconvenient, that little voice speaks up. I don't do important assignments. I miss deadlines. And I don't know how to make it shut up.

I believe I've found a workaround, however. Several accredited universities offer coding bootcamps, programs that last 3-6 months and are about as straightforward as they come. I have experience with HTML and a little bit of CSS, so I feel like I have a good background for becoming a web developer. It's a respectable career that doesn't seem to be going anywhere with the way the world is going. Tech is a major industry. That's something I could do.

But do I want to do it?

Eh. Sure.

I got a job in healthcare after I decided I couldn't handle the children anymore. I'm now working graveyard shifts assisting adults with developmental disabilities. It's better than childcare in some ways, but still not what's in my heart. I've learned a lot, and I respect the people in my current field. But I just can't do it forever.

I know it's what I don't want to do. That's kind of the only thing that's driving me right now.

There's plenty to look forward to in my life otherwise, though. Tyler is going to propose soon, I'm sure of it. I've been looking at wedding venues and setting up a budget and a registry and a wedding website. This man keeps me going. He encourages me to do what I want to do, but also keeps me on the ground, thinking realistically.

Capitalism can take away everything, but it can't take away my dreams.

Moving, moving, moving.

My life is moving at the speed of a freight train right now and I can't decide whether or not I like it.

But I think I'm erring on the side of I do. 

I started dating a guy in March of this year. Seven months ago. His name was Tyler. It was going to be my last date before I gave up on the apps and tried more traditional methods.

The first green flag was the fact that he wanted to come to me for the date. I don't live in a completely rural town, but I am kind of out of the way for most people so I have always been used to making the trip when meeting up with someone for the first time. But he asked me what cool things there were to do in my city, so I told him, and we agreed to meet here.

We clicked almost immediately. Any silences or lulls in the conversation felt natural and comfortable. He made me feel safe to be myself. 

We had Mexican food and then went antiquing, a very stereotypical lesbian date. I always think back to that fact and think it's funny, because as a cisgender man and a cisgender woman, we appear on the surface to be the most cis-hetero couple ever. But I am bisexual, and he is gray-asexual, so the reality of the situation is anything but.

He bought me a necklace. We got milkshakes and walked along the waterfront. The sky started to turn dark gray with an oncoming storm, so we were forced to end the date after four and a half hours.

We kissed.

It was magical.

After three months, I revisited the wedding playlist I had made on Spotify years and years ago. I made edits. I started a Pinterest board. We were seriously discussing our future together. I spent almost every weekend at his house.

By August, the weekend of the renaissance faire, we had come up with a five year plan. We wanted to buy a house together in a better city. We wanted to get married. We wanted to start thinking about kids.

A little over a week ago, his roommates announced they would not be renewing their lease and therefore would be moving out by November 5th.

This, of course, allows the space for me to move in.

In the span of eight months, I have gone from thinking I would be single forever to finding my person completely by happenstance. 

I interviewed for two different jobs closer to him (not all that different from each other, really, just different companies) and received an offer from one. I'm expecting the second offer to roll in later today.

Things are going about as well as they possibly can. But everything is moving so fast, things that happened a few days ago feel like they happened weeks ago. A couple months feels like last year.

My move-in date is November 17th and I am so incredibly excited to start this new chapter of my life. After being stuck for so long, I feel like my life is moving forward. I'm finally going somewhere. I'm so incredibly sick of plateaus and I am so glad I have the resources now to get off of this giant one I've been on for almost five years, only to go up a ski lift to the top of a mountain.

Things are looking good.

You have no idea.

 It was raining. We were going to take a walk on the beach, but it was raining, so we ducked inside of a bar instead, and that’s when you told me.

Right after I said I wanted to make it work. Right after I told you that my dad said that you were a keeper. You said you didn’t see the relationship going anywhere long-term.

I kept it together. I said I appreciated your honesty. I know we weren’t together for that long. But, holy shit, the emptiness and the loneliness that I felt when you told me was fucking devastating. I was so ready to let myself love. Freely and openly. And, god, really that’s all I want to do.

You have no idea how good it felt to kiss you, how every touch felt like electricity and warmth and safety. You have no idea how terrified I am that I’m never going to feel that authentically again.

I fear I’m just going to be single my entire life.

—

I wrote this in the heat of the moment, in the car on the ferry ride back home. Since then, I have spoken with my therapist and have discovered some things about myself. Namely, that I have a fear of abandonment due to losing my mother to cancer at a young age. This, obviously, makes breakups feel that much more crippling.

Of course, the logic doesn’t make anything feel any less real. It’s a coping mechanism of mine to hide behind the logical explanations for things to make them feel more distant, less personal. But, really, what’s more personal than a relationship ending?

Another thing I learned about myself in therapy is that it’s perfectly healthy to put my feelings away in an internal metaphorical container… momentarily. Not forever. The box doesn’t disappear. It only gets bigger and heavier with every little trauma that I put into it, and if I don’t deal with any of the contents, I can’t handle them at all anymore. I take out one, and they all spill out all over the place.

So I’m dealing with it. I’m using my safe spaces and free time to cry. Taking the trauma out of the box and confronting it. Looking it straight in the face and telling it I’m stronger than it makes me believe. I can survive this; I’ve survived worse.

And I’m also dating again. So there's that.

The One That Got Away

I made this blog to let out the thoughts and feelings that are too loud to silence. It’s an outlet for my racing mind, for when it gets to be racing, which is rare nowadays, thankfully. But, as it is now, it’s 2:47 AM as I’m writing this and, well… my thoughts are racing.

I’m getting ready to break up with my girlfriend of two months. Not a long time, but honestly it’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had and the thought of doing so is incredibly difficult. I like her. I like hanging out with her. We have a ton in common. I just don’t feel a spark where she deserves a whole-ass bonfire. I want her to be happy and fulfilled, which is why I need to let her go, so she can find somebody who loves her the way she deserves to be loved.

I think about the one that got away a lot (again, something my current girlfriend doesn’t deserve). We went on one date. He was good at holding a conversation where I was bad at it, and we had things in common but not everything, which left room for learning, which was nice. He was cordial, polite, responsible, holy shit a catch. And we just… stopped talking.

I think about what could have been with him a lot. A lot more than I probably should, more than is probably appropriate. I feel like we really could have been something if I had just been better at talking. I keep hoping and praying that he’ll text me again and want to sweep me off my feet. I wonder sometimes if I should text him first, but I’m sure he’s found somebody by now and that kind of behavior would be decidedly uncool. I don’t want to be that person.

I think I might be cursed to be single for the rest of my life.

To a Long Lost Friend

I had a dream about you last night.

We were in school again, this time in college and everything about you was different; you had dyed your waist-length hair blue and had taken on a careless persona, said you were an Instagram influencer now.

But I saw through everything and persevered — we became friends again. We became inseparable again.

It just reminded me how much I miss you.

I know it’s weird that I do. We were friends for one year in high school before going our separate ways because I was dead-set on Running Start and you… weren’t, I guess. You probably stayed in school, did well on your assignments, graduated, and went to college like your parents expected you to.

That’s the thing, though. Did your parents expect anything from you? I always assumed they did from the way you talked about them which was little to not at all. I assumed a lot of things about you from the way you talked about yourself, which was little to not at all. I assumed you were hurt somewhere underneath the jokes and the K-pop and I wanted to help you.

I never got the chance.

It turns out Running Start isn’t all that great. At least not when you don’t put your heart and soul into it. I didn’t. I failed. I got my G.E.D. I often wonder if I had stayed in high school whether or not I would have graduated. But mostly whether or not I would have been better friends with you, and thus more motivated to stay in school rather than sit in the library and draw Pokémon all day, like I did in college.

I’ve had other friend-flings in the past that lasted a year or two and then fizzled out, but the difference is we’re still connected one way or another, and the problem I keep coming back to with you in particular is that I don’t even know if you’re even alive anymore. You could have died and I would have no idea. Nobody would have known to tell me, I wouldn’t have known to attend your funeral, and so now I’m stuck in this limbo of half-grief, of possible grief, where I’m grieving the person I could have known better and didn’t.

I thought I knew you, but I probably really didn’t.

If you’re out there, I do really want to be friends with you again. I have the heart of an elephant that never forgets.

I miss you.

So I'm unemployed again.

I left my old job for a new job that was supposed to be more fulfilling and interesting but it turned out to be very physical and hell on my chronically-ill body so I had to quit.

I could say I wish I hadn't accepted the job when it was offered to me on the spot, I wish I had been more picky, I wish I had done a million and one things differently. But the thing is... I don't.

Lots of things in my life haven't exactly gone the best possible way, and after many things that were entirely my fault and could have been easily avoided that still haunt me to this day, it's easy for my anxiety and my post-traumatic response to wish I could go back in time and change it. Not do the thing. Not say the thing. But they all end in a simple three-word phrase: "Now I know." Now I know not to lie about stupid shit. Now I know to ask for help when I need it. Now I know that I can't work on my feet anymore.

The problem, though, is that I actually hate being unemployed.

When I have nothing to do, nothing to get out of bed for, I usually just... don't. And it makes every day the same. Everything blurs together, and I can only learn so many hobbies to the point of difficulty where I give up before I have nothing left and I'm standing in the middle of this endless plateau with no end in sight.

I keep feeling like I'm on the verge of creating something. Something good. Something big. But my muses are nowhere to be found when I need them the most.

One Big Metaphor

Boots have always tasted weird to me.

Not like some of the people who absolutely love to lick them of their own accord. I've had to, in the past, and it left a sour taste in my mouth.

The Boot in question has kicked my assailant to the curb more than once. It's let me go with a warning before. This is undoubtedly because I am a white woman, which is by far the Boot's most favored on the list of whom it has sworn to protect and serve. It sees me as a small creature, abused and weak, that constantly is in need of help and makes mistakes because it doesn't know better.

The truth is, though, I was going 72 in a 60 because I was late to work and I know that on holidays, the Boot Patrol is much fewer and farther between. I cried on purpose and lied that I was only following traffic because I knew it would let me off easy. And the shitty part is that I was right. I was only fined for going 5 over the speed limit rather than 12.

I am a white woman, and the Boot loves me.

Which is why it leaves such a sour taste in my mouth when it helps me, and other white women like me, and then turns around and stomps out a trans person, or a person of color, or both, just for the sole reason of existing.

And then the Boot gets let off easy, because it is the Boot. It gets off on the plea of, "I felt threatened," and, "Just doing my job, ladies and gentlemen."

Maybe the job is wrong.

Maybe the Boot should be dismantled and repurposed into other types of shoes that might be able to do the job more efficiently and less violently, like running shoes or sandals or loafers.

Black lives matter.

Queer lives matter.

This is not an opinion.

Defund the police.