Guess you better go and get your armor
I have this mentor that I may or may not have mentioned at some point on this site. He was one of my teachers in high school and though we related well then, now that I no longer define the end of the world as a fight with my 15 year old boyfriend our thought processes are so in tune that it’s like we were born from the same emo cesspool of baby tears and Converse All Stars.
Nowadays we maintain a pretty tight friendship via e-mail, and when I have a problem or just need to decompress with someone who tolerates my whacked emotions I pull the pen pal card and we have a virtual, life altering conversation. Here’s a bit of the last message he sent:
“I was thinking about ants yesterday. I almost stepped on an ant river crossing a sidewalk. A big one. I would have killed like hundreds at once. They would have scurried around manically for a minute, but would have quickly reestablished their lines and got on with it. They live in an incredibly hostile world. It's the kind of world that would leave most humans curled up in the fetal position. They can't predict when disaster will strike, but it must strike like every day. Hurricane Katrina every day. But, they reestablish their lines and keep going. And, they build amazing things.”
This obvious metaphor was part of his reply to the OH-EM-GEE-WTF-IS-MY-LIFE message I sent towards the end of last month. Basically, since arriving in Japan I’ve been gangbanged by life. That’s right, “gangbanged.” Tokyo has been witness to an influx of various life aspects screwing me in quick succession.
When I first tried to sort out what was going on with my brain it was mid August and my friends from California had just left. It was like 200 degrees and getting up to brush my teeth caused me to sweat so profusely that I considered never brushing my teeth again. Or even moving at all. Honestly, I think I was probably suffering from legit heat stroke and I felt crazy and tired and mean. After being prompted to recheck my attitude I started sifting through photos of my friends’ visit, considered my current sitch, and wondered why I wasn’t as happy as anyone in my position should be. You know, the whole I work online, can go anywhere I want, am spending a ludicrous amount of time in a foreign country rent free thing. Add the fact that I have friends who love me enough to fly halfway around to world just to chill, and I think most would conclude that I should be shitting glitter and rainbows.
Realizing that I wasn’t even close to that really struck me. And when I became aware that my negativity and general dissatisfaction stemmed from sadness rather than what most would pinpoint as anger, I sent a flurry of e-mails to said mentor. Most of them went something like, “DID YOU KNOW, DID YOU KNOW? I’M A SAD PERSON. I’M FULL OF SADNESS. SADDY SAD SAD.”
And do you know what he said? He said, “I know.” It was like a punch to the head:
“I know. You have been for a very long time. I've been waiting for you to recognize this, instead of deflecting your adversity with cynicism, apathy, and anger.”
(Sidenote: I think maybe this is part of what makes a true friend. Someone who sometimes knows you better than you know yourself; someone who will do what they can to help figure out who you are, even if all that means is being around to listen to your crazy thought process; someone who wouldn’t try to force you to understand something before you’re ready for it, or make you someone you’re not.)
I deemed this state “The Sadness” and for 48 hours all I could think about was how I was going to get rid of it. I questioned all of my closest friends, one of whom suggested I was depressed. Admittedly, it would be easy for me to classify my issues as depression, pop a xanax in my nightcap and call it a day, but fuck that. I don’t mean to downplay depression because chemical imbalances are very real and deserve medical assistance when the situation calls for it, but at the same time I think too many people these days confuse depression with plain old consciousness. I have no idea when society added continuous emotional placidity to their definition of happiness, but I think it’s fuckin’ lazy and unrealistic. If I never felt sad or angry or impassioned by anything, life would be stupid.
There is of course, the other extreme, which is just as damaging. Living in a perpetual state of unhappiness is taxing and dangerous, and probably closer to where I’ve been for the last couple of years. Now, in trying to find a balance, there are two pieces of advice from close friends (including mentor dude) that I want to tape to the insides of my eyelids:
- That you care about this at all is a demonstration that you're not embittered; you're critical, and being critical at a moderate level is extremely useful and productive
- I've tried to identify my sad times and mine them and ride them a bit. I find much of the richest parts of my soul are rooted in sadness. I don't want to prevent getting sad anymore because now I recognize its value in my life. However, I don't want to stay there either
They've helped me to established that my poor soul isn't in the shitter and that crapping rainbows and glitter every day isn't necessarily the level of happiness I want to live in. These are the things I contemplate while being gangbanged by The Sadness squad, and though they are extremely comforting and helpful words, they certainly don’t lighten the load. The gangs of bangers keep coming and in fact they’re here as I type this, banging away (I can’t even imagine what kind of mental images this is causing you, but they’re probably fantastic). Their forms have changed; they’ve morphed from mental states to friendships to career decisions to affairs of both the financial and love variety, but they all serve the same purpose of fucking me mentally until I reach the point I did yesterday, which is where I’m so exhausted from tossing my life around in my head that all I can manage to do before I fall into a 17 hour nap is drink sake and watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
[originally this space was full of crazy talk about love, but I took it out because it invited way too much no goodity.]
My final conclusion in this big ranty rant is that I think I’m on my way to a better place than the one I’m in now. It’s like the ants story: after a hurricane of—get ready—GANGBANGERS! I’m quickly trying to realign my insides. At the same time though, I've realized I want to keep things kinda wacky. Remember, that 24/7 emotional placidity thing is just lame. I’m sure whatever I build will be even more amazing if it’s saturated in my own brand of crazy. So I hope you understand me when I say that even though I want it sorted, I hope to never feel like my life is totally “fixed.” In examining my issues and letting others offer their own advice things don’t become better, but they do become clearer. And in being able to see what the fuck is going on I think I’m closer to knowing both what I want and what I don’t want, and how I'm going to get there. Most importantly (and I hope made very evident through drawn out discussions like this one), my drive to move forward is alive and totally drooling. I guess that’s a good start.
The message
I have a confession to make: I’ve been following this chick on the net for a while now; I forgot how I found her, but I often look at her photos as she is an aspiring model and takes tons and tons. Something about the angles in her face is very striking, and, I mean, who doesn’t like to look at pretty things? I was taught in my psych 101 class that even babies are more likely to stare at people with symmetrical faces (symmetry being one of the main factors in what and whom we find attractive) but now I’m just digressing because I don’t want you to go, CHELSI IS A LESBIAN, CHELSI IS A LESBIAN!
I want to make it clear that I don’t keep this site because I want to be famous or adored. I write what I write here because, as silly as it may sound, it gives me a sense of accomplishment, and I honestly don’t think I could get along in the world without having some kind of outlet like this. And while the choice to make it public may seem like a cry for attention, I really just hope that through this medium I’m able communicate with people across the world who may be having the same kind of issues or thoughts. This is going to sound a little crazy, but after a long day of running around, working with people I have absolutely nothing in common with, and doing my daily hustle (not involving illegal activity), I love, love, love coming home and getting on my janky ass lap top and talking to all of you folks. For one, you can’t talk back (HA) and two, normally I'm confident that the people who continue to come back here are people who enjoy my point of view and hopefully, are inspired by it.
And on the third year, God said Let there be closure
In case I don't get around to posting again before May, I want to quickly update you all on how I did with my April Goals. Because I know you care so much about whether or not I have abs of steel.
I’ll start off by saying that I did not work out at all. Not a single day. Why? BECAUSE WHO HAS TIME FOR WORKING OUT? Did you read my last post? I’m completely whacked out on caffeine and lack of sleep, and I think if I actually had the drive to work out in spite of those things, the over exertion would send me to an early grave anyway. Oh well. Maybe it’ll be something I can start doing next month, although I think Graduating will still be at the top of my list. Also, in case you hadn’t already guessed, the not eating after eight o’clock thing didn’t work out so well either. What kind of crack was I on when I dreamed up these impossible feats? Honestly, nighttime is the only time I have to eat unless I want to spend all of my money on takeout, and after waking up next to soy sauce packets and bits of rice last week, I realized that doing that is not a good idea for many, many reasons. Plus, I wouldn’t have been able to eat all of that jalapeño spinach artichoke dip, chili, pineapple upside-down cake, sweet potato fries and the delicious, delicious beer at the lesbian/hula themed birthday party I helped throw last Sunday, which included a game called pin the boobs on the babe and a piñata full of dental dams, snickers and little whips on key chains. The five pounds I’m sure I gained? Totally worth it.
April wasn’t a total bust. First of all, I scanned through old entries and realized how far I've come since last April, and that alone made me want to do backflips across my front lawn, and if backflips didn't require any physical exertion, let me tell you, I would definitely do them. This time around I managed to score some dental insurance and will hopefully be able to schedule an appointment to repair my rotting teeth some time next month. And I did attend as many of the events hosted by my internship as I could and have been checking out freelance job opportunities, although I haven’t yet had time to review or submit. And while to you it may seem like I kind of failed at all the things I set out to do this month, I know that because I achieved the number one thing on my list, I’m making some important progress in my life and that makes my little slip ups OK with me. Like that one time a few weeks ago when HWMNBN called me and asked me to come over and I knew it would lead to very un-holy actions in the bedroom but I went anyway, because had I not done that, I wouldn’t have discovered some very un-holy activities of his own (ones that didn't include me), and I wouldn’t have driven home listening to Purple Rain on the radio while feeling completely sure that this person who’s had a grip on my heart strings for way too long is in no way worth all the grief and aching, and instead of considering that fact with a sense of loss and remorse, there was disgust and relief instead. And had that realization not been made and this time wholly felt, I wouldn’t have been able to turn my cheek to all the calls and messages he’s sent since, and I wouldn’t be sitting here in front of this text field telling the Internet that I’m feeling the beginning of what I think will be a very amazing time in my life.
Now, let’s all pay homage to Prince and party like it’s 1999.
Coming around
I look forward to the end of each year for many of the same reasons that other people do: The holidays (Christmas presents, an excuse to shovel food down my throat like it’s my job, seeing the family), the outrageous parties, the false belief that we are actually starting our lives anew and nixing all of the terrible things we did in the last year, the motivation to start exercising, etc. But another, less common reason I enjoy December is because it’s the month in which tons of online writers write their year-in-review post.
The year-in-review post is awesome because it’s like flash fiction; a condensed version of life, and you know that if someone feels the need to write about their feelings often enough to have enough material at the end of the year for a review, that that review is going to be interesting and loaded with realizations, revelations and most importantly, regrets. This is why I almost never write them. I’ve had my own domain and been in this online writing game for over seven years now, and I’ve only written a year in review post once. I’m always afraid that I’ll have nothing to say, or that I’ll realize that my life hasn’t changed as much in the last twelve months as I wanted it to, so I opt for avoidance and denial, naturally.
But now I’m at the point where NOT thinking about it just isn’t cutting it anymore, so at the beginning of this year I decided to change it up and considered the following:
-I’m graduating
-I’m single
-According to the Chinese Zodiac, it’s my year.
I added all of those things together, turned my nose slightly up at the stress caused by my financial obligations (credit cards, school loans) and decided that I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to do starting June 2008 because I deserve to. Times like these, where freedom is an option and I can count my responsibilities on one hand, don't come around as often as we get older, so I think it's 'bout time I took advantage. I reasoned that I have to have a strong start to the year to feel OK about wilin’ out later on, however, so I came up with a system. And while it may sound like I’ve been preparing for reckless abandon, It's actually very organized and strategic planning that once completed, will be rewarded later on by some serious fun-having and a feeling of accomplishment.
I decided that at the beginning of each month I’d set a goal and have the rest of that month to achieve it. In January I became frantic and very serious about getting an internship and finally landed one just before I was ready to throw in the towel and become an accountant, and okay, that was a great start, but then in February my workload with school and two jobs became so heavy and intense that I lost focus and didn’t even set a goal at all. Bummer. So I said goodbye to hosting and bartending and quit my job at the restaurant to free up some much needed time and sanity. So far it’s helped. This month I decided that I’d see how I’d fare without charging anything to my credit cards, and now I’m flat broke but content that I can survive on my current salary. Sure, I have to brown bag my lunch and Steve Madden and I are on terrible terms, but still. The good definitely outweighs the bad.
And now here we are, on the brink of a new month. April is an especially big deal to me because April fools' day – which I know is so fitting - is my would-be three year anniversary with He Who Must Not Be Named. (Side note: I seriously just remembered that last night I dreamt that I was a news reporter filming the appearance of the Dark Mark from the shoreline on a crowded beach, and that Voldermort came flying down on a hot air balloon and looked exactly like my mom’s third husband. WTF?) This time of year usually means that I'm a total wreck and that nothing is as appealing as wallowing in my own sorrow, but I woke up today feeling so fed up with myself that I don't think I have any choice but to shut the fuck up and move on. I mean, I can only imagine how tired you all are of reading about HWMNBN (my ex, not Voldermort) if I’m getting tired of writing about him, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m very, very tired of writing about him. Did I just say that? Did I just tell the Internets that I’m mentally tired of thinking/writing/dreaming/being obsessive about the bane of my existence? Can that be my belated February achievement? Because seriously, I feel like I just finished the 12th step.
The thing about me is that when I’m in a relationship or just out of one (which includes two years later, obviously), I devote 99.9% of my energy to that person and my focus on everything else is just kind of half-assed. AND THIS IS NOT A TIME IN LIFE WHERE I CAN AFFORD TO BE LAZY. I just spent six years in college without ever being fully focused on what I was doing in my life because I’ve always been attached to someone, always been going through some kind of excruciating situation of the heart. My grade point average, although not bad at all, should be higher. With all the praise I got from teachers and workshop groups, I should have concentrated more on submitting my fiction work for publication. I should be coming up with newer, better material for my current writing class instead of re-working old shit because I’m too tired to be creative. And even though my internship takes up such a huge chunk of my mental energy already, I feel like I should be even more committed to it than I already am.
I feel like I really need to step my game up, so instead of setting just one goal, here’s an entire list of things I want to complete in April:
-Do not initiate any kind of conversation whatsoever with HWMNBN. (This means I’m not going to be a dick and not RE to the texts and calls I know I’ll get, but that I’m not going to be the first one to send them or dial.)
-Go to every event hosted by my internship, even those that aren’t part of my discipline. Then write reviews about them.
-Check up on my favorite freelance opportunity websites every day, or, at least every day that I have access to a computer.
-Get dental insurance
-Eat better and not at all after 8:00pm (track effects on weight/overall amount of energy)
-Exercise
The toughest one to type just now was the last one because I know I’m not going to edit this entry and that it will in fact be public, and publishing it for all of you to read makes the commitment that much more solid and real for me, and that means I’m going to feel very obligated to stick with it.
This December I want to write a year-in-review post and I don’t want it to prove that I’m a non-productive shmuck with her heart on her sleeve, always a victim of the same kind of situation; I want it to prove that I’m productive and passionate, and that even though I haven’t the slightest clue where my traits are taking me, that I’m confident it’s in the right direction. And that when I get there I’ll have a six-pack.
Thank you
I recently met a girl who has inadvertently turned my life around. She was hired at my place of business just before the New Year because everyone and their mother wanted to take some vacation time. I wouldn’t say that we really hit it off right away; I mean, she’s a friendly girl with lots of questions about, oh, everything there is in the world, and I love to answer questions so I guess it was just natural for her to enjoy my company. But then when I saw her for what was maybe the third time just before January hit, she hugged me and said, “Chelsi, I’m so glad to have met you this year! You are such a good friend and I feel like we’ve known each other for a long time.” Whoa, right? I wanted to be flattered, I really did, but I’m so uncomfortable in situations like that. With the hugging and the appreciating. Who does that anymore? Anyway, I decided to pass it off as a foreign thing (she’s straight out of South America) and haven’t thought about it since.
Because we work the same position, I don’t see her unless I catch her at the tail end of her shift or vice versa, but even in those short five or six minute windows she’s always eager to play twenty questions or to set up a time when we can hang out outside of work. My schedule between two jobs and TRYING to find an internship is crazy, so I usually have to tell my friends that unless they book me two weeks ahead of time, I can’t hang out. But how do you repeatedly turn down someone who HUGGED you and thanked you for existing? Unless you have no soul, YOU CAN’T. So then yesterday, after sitting on my ass for a good four hours because we had a total of thirty three customers all morning, I decided to give Miss South America a call and ask her if she’d like to get together for some coffee or a movie after I got off. (Does this sound like it’s going to turn into a story of the lesbian variety? Because it isn’t. Sorry to disappoint!) Miss South America was a film student when she was in college, so she insisted that we see the movie Juno, which, by the way, is amazing.
While waiting for the movie to start we talked about how she got her dream job as a Mac Specialist at the Apple store downtown, but shortly after the confirmation she received an e-mail retracting the job offer because her work visa ends in March and they require a longer commitment. It made me think about where I regrettably stand in internship land (at the bottom of the septic tank) but that the opportunities surrounding me are vast. That if I don’t get the exact one I want, the chances of finding something else are still significant, whereas here is this girl who has flown all the way to California in order to immerse herself in a profession that she’s wanted to be a part of for the greater part of her entire life, was accepted into her dream world and then rejected because she’s not a citizen. That’s more than a no, you suck at interviewing, try again somewhere else; that’s a no, you can’t have a job here. Period. Ever. Unless you marry some American guy.
What’s worse is that that’s not even the part that humbled me. The part that made me want to start crying and hug her with my cold and unaffectionate American arms is when she told me that she suffers from a very debilitating disease, and because of that disease, was practically bedridden for two years of her life. When the doctor that had been monitoring her case from the beginning told her she couldn’t possibly do anything for her anymore, Miss South America decided that it was time to seize any opportunity to enjoy life that presented itself, and that’s what backed her decision to see her current holistic doctor and try her luck in the States. Now she drinks her holistic teas and works as often as she can, even though it takes her two to three days to fully recuperate after two five hour shifts, and it seems to be working out well for her so far. She told me the reason she confided in me about her condition was because she feels like we were meant to be friends, and she doesn’t want to lie to someone she thinks may be such a big part of her life in the long run.
Do you want to hug your monitor and cry yet? Because I do. Before this information, I felt like Miss South America’s optimism was really overwhelming. I mean, nobody in San Francisco is that optimistic. We have earthquakes and tons of homeless people and terrible weather and ridiculous living costs and no parking, so it’s a little hard to shoot rainbows out of our asses. A lot of tourists are surprised that we’re not the fun-loving, beach-dwelling, surfer, sunshiney, happy-go-lucky people that they had in mind (for that kind of experience you definitely want to go to Southern California), but Miss South America seems largely unaffected by this. Instead she says “goodmorning!” like sugar is dripping from her teeth and laughs about walking to work in the rain without an umbrella and acts like being sad is just so two years ago. And now that I know she is projecting this unexplainable niceness while constantly dealing with weakness, pain and unbearable fatigue on top of the scum-filled city, I feel like such a pile of trash for ever complaining about anything.
Before we did the whole hug thing again and said goodbye after our movie date, she said something that I think will probably stay with me for the rest of my life, and that is that pity and compassion are two very different things. She hates pity because to her it’s superficial. Someone can feel sorry for someone else’s situation, but it’s fleeting. Often there is no effort or desire to understand it. Compassion involves action, because compassionate people want to fix the situation because of how much they care, even if the only thing they can do to alleviate any stress for the person in question is to act as though nothing is wrong, though they’ll never forget what they know, and will somehow, someway, be forever changed by it. Miss South America says she feels very strongly that I am a compassionate person, and that that sort of detection is very rare for her.
I’m beyond thankful for this assumption, and am rendered almost speechless by it because so much of me feels like I don’t deserve it. I’ve been told repeatedly for the last two years by someone I care(d) for very deeply that I have serious issues. That I’m whiney and needy and annoying and crazy. My defense has always been that I’m just really passionate about the things that I love, and is that really such a bad thing? Isn’t it honest and raw and commendable? Howard Hughes said, “Passion will make you crazy, but is there any other way to live?” and I’ve surrendered myself to this quote and even, on occasion, used it to defend my actions because I simply can’t control the way that I am, the way that I think, the way so much of me is defined by my intense devotion to the things and people that I care for. And now someone I barely know has recognized that about me, and that recognition and approval almost justifies all of my uncontrollable passion-fueled actions and words that until now I’ve come so close to hating.
Funny how an almost complete stranger can right your way of thinking after someone you thought you knew inside and out managed to bend it all out of shape.
T-h-o-u-g-h-t Process
I met an eighteen-year-old girl named Ashley at my secondary job a few months ago. Her sister, Chelsea, who also worked with me at the time, stole a twenty dollar bill from my locker during my first day on the job. I’m positive that
Who Are We?
I can’t believe I’d forgotten this, but to me the re-reading part of writing is just as big of a deal as the writing part, so naturally I’ve been re-reading the same two entries over and over again for the last few days. And man, what crap. I think I may have completely forgotten how to condense one thought into a few organized paragraphs. Either that or I’m just too eager to talk about every single thought that’s on my mind at any given moment. Or maybe it’s a little of both. In any event, until I can get this straight again, I apologize if my entries are a little spastic and all over the place.
Yesterday evening while I was at work my breathing became very shallow and I started to feel light headed. It was like what I imagine I’d feel like if I downed one of those Spike energy drinks (do you think it’s normal to need ID to buy an energy drink?!) after my usual two double shots from Starbucks: hot flashes, cold sweat, rapid heartbeat. I’ve been on and off this kind of mood all week, going back to before the majority of the bad news had even hit. I’d like to attribute it to the customers who never cease to amaze me with their varying levels of stupidity, or to their bratty spawn who like to leave their bratty-spawn-shit in the toilet/on the toilet seat/on the walls, or maybe just to the simple fact that I work in retail, but I think it may have more to do with the terrible amount of anxiety I’m dealing with on a daily basis. My boss tried to bribe me out of it with yogurt parfait and the option to go home early, but money almost always wins against the thought of staying home and sitting on my ass, so I dealt. I bit my tongue and smiled at customers in-between coughs and tried to pick up my feet. And then towards the end of the night, just when I thought the worst was over, I got a phone call that simultaneously made me feel as if I have no right to ever be nervous or worried and forced me to question my faith in love.
This is a whole new tangent and I really hope to kick this tangent habit it the ass soon, but I’ve got to put it out there that I can’t understand how two people go from loving each other so deeply, to taking official vows, to making children, to screaming at each other, to divorcing, to having to run away to hotels in the middle of the night because they’re scared of what the other will do to them. What happened between the most recent ex-factor and I was enough of a slap in the face to make me realize that young love is fleeting for a lot of people, but to see the deterioration of a couple that’s been together for over 25 years makes me question whether or not we ever really learn from our mistakes, and if finding “the one” and settling down for the rest of our lives is really something we should continue to regard as the moral standard. Are we too old fashioned or are our old values the wrong ones? How has flipping the switch and doing a 180 become so easy? More generally speaking, where has all of our compassion gone? Are we really so selfish and self-involved now that the hearts of the people surrounding us, the hearts that we use as a stomping ground, don’t matter in the least? Or what about the feelings of strangers? Are we so ruthless a people that hurting others is okay just because we don’t know them personally? Why hurt at all if we can love? The amount of confusion and hatred in people today baffles me.
One good thing about my re-reading habit is that I’m forced to realize exactly how many entries I spend focused on the same topic. I can also track the changes in opinion that I’ve had over the years; re-reading old blogs is like watching my brain grow and develop. I can only hope that one day when I’ve found a man who loves all of my quirks and insane-woman tendencies as much as I love him, that I’ll come back to one of these entries where I question human nature with regards to love and that it will somehow save me from making a stupid mistake. Or, even better would be some stranger with a much more serious agenda finding one of my rants while randomly surfing the Internet and being saved by it. Or even someone like me, who wonders if there is anybody out there thinking the same thing, being comforted by it.