looking forward, looking back
Dec4
This is me, right now…
I am listening to an actual honest to god CD on my stereo, a compilation of live songs performed at Red Rocks Amphitheater, my favorite music venue of all time.
So here I am sitting, using my personal day which would have magically disappeared with 2007 if I had not used it today. I have coffee in a mug that proclaims my proud allegiance to Colorado independent booksellers, and I am in a room full of light.
A year ago I would never have imagined that this is where I would be sitting.
Last year I did not do an end of the year/ beginning of the year post. Looking back at my archives I see that some things have changed (I am in a far more lovely living situation), and some have not (I’m still not studying for the GRE). By the way, the guy that I bumped into in my very last post of the year ended up calling me about a week later and I got a decidedly creepy vibe off of the conversation. Yeah.
Many of my online friends have been posting year end reflections and resolutions for the new year. I don’t usually do resolutions, but this year I do have some pretty firm ideas of what I would like to accomplish. I set my sights at a reasonable level, but these are the things that I hope will make my life better over the coming year:
Tell Dan that I love him every day
Spend time loving my cats and not asking them to get out of my way
Stick to drinking only one cup of coffee a day (I’ve been fluctuating a fair bit lately)
Ride my bike three mornings a week
Do yoga four evenings a week
Read more, watch less TV (even on the computer)
Stop being on my computer last thing before I close my eyes at the end of the day
Remember to accept the people that I love for being the people that they are and not the people that I want them to be.
Accept that sometimes they may not be able to do that for me, and love them anyway.
Develop a realistic budget and stick to it
Take care of myself
Push my boundaries without punishing myself
Over the last year I have made a lot of progress in quite a few of these areas, but they still need work. I have come to my own acceptance that some of the people in my life will not be the people I wish they could be for me. I have spent the last year learning to understand this idea, and I hope to spend the next year learning how to love them without being disappointed in them for not being what I need. We are all fallible in our humanity, and I know that I am not always the person that the people who love me need me to be.
I hope that the New Year brings insight and love for everyone out there reading this.
these are just a couple of my vices
Dec0
It’s dreary out today. After cleaning throughout the weekend basically the entire house, and my bedroom, look pretty good. My desk though… it seems like no matter how often I clean my desk it is dirty and cluttered again within hours. I wish I could stop getting junk mail. Actually… there is a way to do it, through a website. Somehow that just seems too labor intensive at the moment.
I’ve been looking at pictures of babies on the internet, which is really not such an awesome idea. They are cute and adorable and they make me want to have a home and a family all my own. All of which seems far too far away at this point.
Still… my favorite photographers are married or engaged, my favorite bloggers are married with families, my favorite webcomic author just got engaged. I am allowed to lurk through these people’s lives through their blogs and flickr streams, and I can’t help but wish that I had something interesting to show or say as well.
Be the trouble you wish to see in the world
Dec2
(Leise, I’m co-opting your status message)
Recent events have caused me to think long and hard about what exactly I want to be doing in the world. I don’t mean in terms of profession or hobbies, but I mean in terms of the human being that I want to be. Am I the person that is going to sit there, poking at the great white institutions of the land saying (poke) racist (poke) patriarchal (poke) non-inclusive (poke) global north centric?
I think that today I decided that there is definitely that space in my world, and I need to act on it. I proudly wear the mantle of activist, and I don’t mean in terms of marching (though I have done that, and really once you’ve done it twice you realize the only thing that’s really ever different is the number of people who show up). When I talk about being an activist I mean that I am ACTIVE in my life. I actively seek out non-racist, inclusive organizations with which to work. I actively identify inequality in my world, and I actively bring people’s attention to it. I am also actively a pragmatist. At this point in time my activism yields to the fact that I need to have, and maintain a job in order to live the life I find minimally comfortable (and I’m not at a place where I want to live an uncomfortable life).
The sum total of all of these ruminations is that I had a fantasy tonight of being a middle school teacher. I want to paper my classroom with sayings like the one above. Slight variations on the now cliche terms for activism. I want to encourage my students to research Frank Shepard, Borf, and other forms of art and activism that they know about and that I don’t. I want to tell them to experience a burn, to live their life. I want to teach them to use condoms and that if they don’t feel comfortable standing in front of someone naked they should think long and hard about whether they are ready to have sex with that person.
I can’t tell if I want to be a parent or a teacher. Or maybe both.
I am okay, I am okay, I’m not okay
Dec0
(2/18)
This was a gift from one of my students. I don’t know why the small gifts that I received from a few of my students so touched me. I know that for parents it is a rote behavior, at the holidays, and perhaps at the end of the school year you buy your kids’ teachers small gifts. Rarely more than ten dollars.
I think what touched me most was getting a hand drawn card on a piece of notebook paper from one of the students that said “thank you for being my hebrew teacher). She is not a student who has excelled in my class, and 80% of the time it has seemed that she would much rather be any number of places than in my class.
I see how easily it becomes to power trip in such a position. I have a hard time explaining to my students sometimes, the whys and hows. Especially when I don’t know the answer. For example, they are not allowed to play on the playground equipment. It didn’t occur to me to ask why… I have gotten to a place in my life when someone tells me something I only question it if I have a reason to. That makes me sad. So my students asked me why they can’t play on the playground equipment and the best I can do is “It’s not my rule, I just have to follow it” That’s not acceptable to me, and it’s not respectful of their need to know. It also runs contrary to the fact that I am actively trying to teach them to question authority.
I kind of want to be a “real” teacher.
I think I would be kind of badass.
What is my life without my heart at risk?
Dec1
Today I was struck by the strangeness of possessive relationship terminology. I was in the car with someone I have known for many years, since her husband was her boyfriend. When I knew her we were both in an abroad program, so he was not a daily fixture, as he has been for her for most of the past six years.
I was struck by how seamlessly she continually referred to him as “my husband” as though I had not lived with her for three months, had not heard her refer to him by name at least fifty times, likely over one hundred and fifty. I am sure that for her it has become habit, especially considering that in her job she interacts with over a hundred people who do not know her well.
I think however, that it is this tendency which turned me off of possessive relationship terminology. When I first met Dan I was adamant in my refusal that I did not ever want to be someone’s girlfriend, nor did I want to have a boyfriend. I was in a confused place, having decided that open relationships were not for me, and not being able to clearly articulate why I disliked the terminology.
I still dislike the words, but I have a feeling that eight months and counting its going to be easier to just stick with what we have for now.
But at the root of it is the fact that I am an individual, and Dan is an individual. I am far happier to refer to him as Dan, and then to explain my relationship to him, than to continually refer to him as someone who is “mine” (my boyfriend…) You can have an entire conversation with someone, referring to a relation as “my…” without once mentioning their name. And I think that for some roles that is acceptable (mom, dad, grandparent), because in taking on that role you have fundamentally and permanently altered your individuality. Once I become a mother I will never again not be a mother, no matter what happens to me or my children.
Husband and wife are necessarily very similar to mother and father. I do think that in referring to the person by name to third parties you keep in mind that they have, and continue to have, an existence independent of you. A child fundamentally does not have that, for at least the first three years of his or her life. I would be far happier to refer to my boyfriend (the abstract idea, not the actual human being in my life) as my partner (should our relationship develop to that point) when it is necessary to describe his role in my life. In doing so I inherently acknowledge that our relationship is on equal footing, that we make decisions together, that we value and respect one another and that we are truly partners in what we have chosen to undertake together, whatever that may be.
I can count on two fingers the number of times I have referred to myself as “Dan’s Girlfriend”. I am proud of my relationship to Dan, I am ecstatic that I am with him, but my identity is not defined by my relationship to another person. My relationship with Dan is by far the most important relationship in my life right now, by no means do I intend to diminish its importance to me.
I do define myself relationally. I am a teacher, an (shudder) administrative assistant, a daughter, a niece, a sister, a granddaughter, a friend, and of course a girlfriend. Looking back on the last couple of years, I realize that the times I have felt most diminished, least effective, and the least like I had earned my place (whether good or bad) was when I was being reprimanded or rewarded based on one of my relationships. Thinking about this, it’s no wonder that I have such a hard time getting by in DC (where, more than any place I’ve ever spent time, it’s about who you know).
I’m beginning to ramble (nearly one am, and one and a half glasses of wine in the hole because I’ve had trouble sleeping lately?)
I wonder… what does the great wide eyes of the internet have to say?