A short, incomplete, and not well-thought-out list of areas I need to improve. Or could improve.
1. I suck at asking for what I want. I expect people to read my mind. When they are incapable of penetrating the dark, smoggy forests of my brain, I dislike them for their inability to figure me out. I mean, REALLY. Why are things that are so obvious to me so difficult for others to discern? If it’s clear in my head, it should be clear in others. Unfortunately, I’m deluded, and the things that are clear to me are almost never clear to others. I think this is because my brain is wired backwards. If I were a car, I’d go sideways instead of forward or back.
2. When I do ask for what I want, I suck at dealing with the response. See, here’s the rub in asking. When I drop all pretense of coolness or humility, and I ask for what I want or need, the end result is usually the same as if I hadn’t asked in the first place. We are all sort of selfish, and we do what we want and what makes us feel good. It is not other people’s fault that I give more than I have to give or put my personal needs aside because theirs seem suddenly so much more important. My reaction to being turned down is disproportionate in their mind because really, I asked them, they answered, and now I’m having a full-blown hissy fit. Hey man. Don’t ask the question if you fear the answer.
3. Staying upright on my bike. I may just bite the bullet and invest in the egg beater thingies that Julie recommended. I think I might have figured out my problem with the clips on my bike but I’ve been too nervous to ride on my own lest I fall in front of a Mac truck again.
4. Time management. Now that I have a GIN-YEW-WHINE job, I’m trying to find time to train for a triathlon, run my normal amount of miles, be a good mother, stay on top of the laundry (normally impossible anyway), attempt to have a relationship with someone, and not lose my patience every 5 seconds.
5. Friendship. I hate talking on the phone. This is problematic when 85% of my friends are not within a day’s driving distance of Richmond.
6. Being patient. I find the thinner I am stretched, the crankier I become. My crappy refrigerator doesn’t like being opened without something inside breaking. Tonight, one of the shelves fell open onto my foot. This is the same foot that is going to carry me 8 miles tomorrow morning. Grape jelly and an old bottle of wine landed on me. I cursed and tried not to scream. Simultaneously Lily started chanting “Mommy!!!! Mommy!!! Mommy!” Turns out she just wanted to inform me that she’d put something in my room, but at that moment, I needed everything quiet to prevent myself from losing it. Poor thing. I apologized later. Patience, it is a virtue. It is one I do not possess.
7. Properly medicating. I’m starting to think I’m way under-medicated. I hate taking medication so the least amount I can get away with is what I take. Perhaps I should start listening to my doctor and taking what she says I should take.
8. Letting go. When things don’t go my way, no matter how much that may suck, I really need to learn to how look for the chocolate-lining in that cloud. I’m really, really bad at this. It’s almost as if letting go of the disappointment means I’m cool with being disappointed. Yeah, it makes no sense because I’m the only one suffering.
9. Taking Care. Some people in my life love to think I’m selfish because I do things for myself occasionally (like hiring babysitters so I can run on Saturday mornings). In some ways, I’m good at taking care of myself. In important ways, though, I totally miss the mark. See item number 1.
10. Being nice to myself. I’m still so harsh on my inner-workings. Every time I think I’ve stopped abusing myself from the inside out, I find a new way to do it without noticing it. Maybe I’m worse now because I haven’t had therapy in months and I have no one calling me on my crap besides Running Boy. Maybe I’m worse now because I’m generally dissatisfied (and concerned) about the direction of my life at the moment. Whatever the reason, I need to give it a rest already.
I’ve been struggling with the post for a while. I know I have a hard post to write when I actually have to outline, dammit. Outlines are the bane of my existence. Doing one way back when for NaNoWriMo nearly killed me. How I managed a degree in Creative Writing without ever embracing the outline I do not know, but this might be why my writing lives a tangential existence and goes where it wants. I merely follow it, trying to keep up with the flow.
This post IS about a person, and I’ll get into that (according to my outline, in the next paragraph). It’s also, however, a post about my own insecurities and sadness regarding my station in life and where my own creative genius ended up. It’s also about how nothing is ever good enough for me, and plenty of people, who truly have one gift or another.
Having spent many years running in an “artistic” crowd, I’ve met plenty of talented people. Musicians, writers, artists, poets, photographers. This is to say that I’ve met plenty of talented creatives, but in my short 40 years, I’ve only met one or two truly brilliant people. When I first met Paul, he was older, drove a convertible missing most of the floorboards, and had a coveted job at an “alternative”* clothing store. He was also the stand-out art student of that year, and probably the previous 10 and the following 20. What made him different was that he was gifted and brilliant and all those things, but he wasn’t interested in acting tortured. He was funny as hell and even today I can remember how his laughter would sneak out of him when he least expected it and we would all start laughing just because he was. He was the quintessential cool kid, and since he no longer is, I can say that he was overweight but no one seemed to notice. I have no idea how we met, but it was probably because I was working on the school newspaper and he was probably doing something hilarious and artsy for it. I could also be wrong, but he asked me out on a date. The date was to go listen to some jazz band or other. JAZZ. I was 15. (Being 15 meant I wasn’t allowed to go, but I managed to convince my parents to let me do something else with him, and that escapes memory as well.)
I don’t remember how long we dated but it was never serious. We stayed friends. I am fairly certain there was some douchebaggery surrounding us deciding not to date any longer (read: Paul decided, I accepted ungraciously). But it was high school. This is how things went. Then I got a boyfriend - my first real one - and Paul went off to Rhode Island School of Design. I ended up in Kalamazoo, Michigan for my freshman year of college. Paul was exploring Boston and Providence and meeting other brilliant (and mostly crazy) people. I was going crazy all on my own in KaZoo. Somehow I scraped up enough money to buy a train ticket to Boston. I spent a few days roaming around Providence, not fitting in (see, even at my most “alternative”, I wasn’t alternative enough to fit in with real artists), meeting his friends and roommates, drinking excessive amounts of caffeine and feeling like I was about to come unglued. I totally and completely didn’t get the sculpture major thing. I could appreciate the beauty of what he, and his friends, were creating, but I went to Rhode Island expected to see bronzed labradors or sculpted marble. I wasn’t aware of any other kind of sculpture. When I realized my mistake, I was horribly embarrassed but too insecure to be able to laugh about it.
I fell in love with Paul that weekend. He fell out of love with me when he realized that my written voice - on all those pieces of paper, long before email, was really the best part about me. Or that at least was what my memory tells me. I first learned to hate my written self from Paul, because he always loved me more on paper than he did in the flesh. It happened a number of times. Keith had an easier time loving my words and a much harder time loving the demanding, ever-present physical form of my body. Doug loved me for my grammar and my intellect, and spent weeks editing the good stuff out of my Hopwood entry. By the time he finished editing me, I no longer had a story that resembled the original. I also no longer resembled myself, but that’s another blog post entirely, and one I probably won’t waste blog space writing.
There was drama that following summer, or maybe it was the previous. We “dated” again, albeit briefly, and I was dumped (again) unceremoniously when he failed to show at an agreed-upon time and stopped taking my phone calls. He apologized later. I’m fairly certain whoever she was that took up the rest of my summer with Paul was much taller, much prettier, and definitely understood that sculpture majors don’t really sculpt.
After Paul, I swore off artists. And I really meant it. I even avoided dating the writers in my creative writing circuit. I found them either incredibly dull and self-serving, or flat-out crazy like the artists but with cheaper drugs and less finesse.
In 1999, Paul found me again somehow. He got my phone number and he called me. He was in California and doing something cool, as he always was, living with someone (tall, beautiful, and nearly as brilliant as he was, I’m sure), happily working on random things. I was engaged, or about to be engaged. Frankly, I was still over the artists. Paul was fascinating and he could tell a great story, but I wanted friends who cared enough about me to ask questions. I felt just as I had years prior - a sounding board for other people, a blank white wall in which to throw paint or words against, a flat piece of glass reflecting a beautiful vision of what they wanted to see. Frankly, I was annoyed. Frankly, I just didn’t want to hear about his fabulous life, his beautiful work, his amazing girlfriend, or the fantastic climate of California. I was in humid Virginia, about to get married, working in a job I hated, and living in a 1 bedroom apartment. I wasn’t writing at all. And all he wanted to know about me was whether or not I’d continued. I hated admitting that after college and thousands of pages of fiction, I was burned out and could barely read a book, let alone think about writing one.
He called a few times. I never responded. I was wrapped up in my new life, buying a house, getting fired, wedding preparations, moving, the important things: like which veil to choose. I got married. I loved my life for a few years. Most of the time, especially after having kids, I didn’t even mourn the loss of my “craft” anymore. I didn’t have time to think about it. Any free time I had, I wanted sleep more than anything else.
It was, and is, no surprise to me or anyone who knew Paul “way back when” that he accomplished more than he thought he would. He always assumed he’d fail or self-destruct and he nearly got his way, but the rest of us watching him knew without a doubt that he’d do something amazing. He ended up working in film, which also didn’t surprise me as we used to spend breaks and hunks of summer vacations filming everything and everyone with a clunky video camera that weighed at least 20 pounds. It was the 80’s. When he found me this last time, I was almost blase about his life - I never expected less. I don’t buy movies on DVD unless they are really special. Ironically, I owned one of the movies he worked on. When watching it for the first time, I was struck by the titles and how they were used throughout the movie. It was darkly funny. It was my favorite part of the movie, aside from the subplot of twinkie hunting. Maybe all these years later I related so much to the feel of those titles because they were so very much Paul. It didn’t surprise me either that he was responsible for them.
He doesn’t mince words. His life sounds different from mine - very different. It’s all very exciting and full of weird stories, neurotic people, demanding directors, exciting locations (except when he had to go film something in Michigan). But it also sounds incredibly lonely. If I worked a schedule like that, what with all my bipolar and sleep issues, I’d be kur-razy. It would be one of the most unhealthy professions I could find myself in. I also find that when surrounded by other entirely too intense and passionate people, I get entirely too intense as well.
It doesn’t mean I’m not sad, in a weird way. As I said, I’m not surprised that he is where he is. I never expected anything less. What I am surprised about is my own life. I don’t mean this in a negative way because my life is pretty awesome. Here come the standard phrases justifying my awesome life, but I really do mean them: awesome kids, a flatulent dog, a kind boyfriend, a decent ex-husband, my grasp on the english language, my businesses, my running, etc etc etc. But looking back to a night of greasy food consumed in a diner near Providence, I did not envision my life looking like this. I am disappointed that I spent so much of my 20’s floundering and wasting energy on relationships that didn’t deserve any part of me when I could have been writing. This all begs the question to be answered: if I was so talented, then why did I not do what I wanted to do?
It’s possible we all think we’re way more talented than we actually are. Paul always thought he was less talented. The minute he finished something, his public admiration would begin but it was too late. He was already ripping it apart, displeased with the end results, ready to throw it away and start again. I still know people who kept the shopping bags he used to doodle on when he worked at Irreverence because they were so different and so funny. He is probably dying with shame over that sentence, but it’s true. This is why I’ve spent years hating everything I’ve created, or thinking it could have been so much better. In my case, it probably could have been. In his case, he’s used his chronic disappointment in his ability to drive him forward, to get better and better, even if it’s cost him personally. I didn’t have that kind of drive or passion within me, which is why I am satisfied with my 8 year old blog and my unedited novel, mouldering untouched on my c: drive.
Talking to him recently has been good for me. It’s made me reassess my feelings about my own dedication to the thing that I’m “best” at. And maybe it’s time to stop assuming I suck at passion, and give it a shot again. A real shot. In the meantime, I’m holding all of the celebrity gossip hostage in the hopes he’ll give me a writing grant in exchange for my silence. I’m also still trying to answer the question: Can you be brilliant and still have a normal life? I’d sure like to find out.
*alternative and Traverse City: oxymoron. At least in 1987.
My eldest daughter is unfortunately taking after me in some ways. For example, she’d rather read a book than play outside, even though I’m mean and I force her, kicking and screaming, out into the humid Virginia hotness. This pays off sometimes, especially now, before reading will become a placard proclaiming “NERD!” in the middle and high school years.
The Accelerated Reader (AR) program is a computerized reading incentive program that assigns a reading level and point value for each book in its program, depending on the book’s difficulty. In non-educational terms, kids read books, take tests on a computer, and receive points for the tests. Lily was especially motivated by the free Chik-Fil-A kids meal if she doubled her AR goal. Turns out the cows got her first place in her classroom for AR points and in the top 10 for the second grade.
She didn’t know she’d won until the assembly this morning. Her cheering section was there and in the form and me and my parents, and her dad. I got that intense mom-pride when she was called up on stage and while making fun of myself for my irrational pride (really, it was the Chik-Fil-A incentive that got her to win), I was still goofy and happy for her.
The best picture a short girl sitting in the far back could get:
Arden’s also starting to read on her own, so hopefully the idea of a free kids meal will get her plowing through the books next year. Whatever it takes, folks. Whatever it takes.
Poor Thora; she’s going to miss me.
