There's a thin line between realism and fatalism

So it takes time for me to get to know people and to feel comfortable enough to let my guard down. Sometimes, I find myself simply trying to prove my worth... that I'm cool and whoever it is should be friends with me.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Halloween happened and left me with the urgency of re-evaluating my ideals and ideas and actions. I think it all comes down to self worth and self esteem. There is definitely a difference in having fun and doing stupid things because you think you don't matter enough. I can see myself almost going down this bad downward spiral, but I can't let myself do that. It is just a bad idea.

I think my head is a little clearer now. I have to remind myself to be myself. As odd as that statements seems, I have to remember to be me and to do the things that make me proud to be me. I just want to be loved... I think that is the heart of this matter, I just know that in order for that to happen I have to really be comfortable in my own skin. I have to honestly love myself, as cliche as that may sound, it is so true. So I'm working on that whole part of living again. Things with Craig have fizzled to the fact that his job doesn't leave him time for a relationship. I think I have finally excepted that. There is still that chemistry when we see each other, but this one I'll chalk up to bad timing. And really... who knows where I'll end up after May. Maybe the internship will turn into a job. Maybe I'll lead crews before going to grad school. Maybe I will work to save up money to bum around for awhile. Who knows? I sure don't.

I am 23, for better or worse. I am me. I am faulty, I get too drunk and I talk too loud. I get quiet and shut down. I find people that I think will turn out to be alright friends and I open up to them, slowly and then in an explosion. I am sarcastic and funny and fun. I am constantly changing and evolving and adapting, but that just makes me even more me.

So here is to possible good new friends, to a (free) guitar to learn on, and laughter.

November

I work in a nursery and have a lot of time to think while I'm doing tasks that aren't exactly brain surgery. I thought of trying out this idea of making mixed CDs, a monthly mixed CD to send to a few friends. I got this idea when one song I was listening to, Scattered Leaves by the Be Good Tanyas, had a line about November in it and thus an idea was born. So I've been considering if I want to make these CDs monthly reviews or make a CD for the next month, something to look forward to. I think I'll just do the November one and send it out on November 1st or something and go from there. The songs on the playlists aren't just going to be about November but also what I'm listening to at the moment of CD creation. I know a few of my friends will get a kick out of these. So, that's what I'll be working on today.

I also have actual work to do, something to type up that I've been putting off, an email to comment on, a budget to make, typing to do. I've been doing a lot of reading. Yesterday I read The Bean Tree by Barbara Kingslover, like the entire book. I finished My Antonia the day before that and also started Into the Wild yesterday and am about half way through it. I've loving all of this reading I'm doing, I just needed to get out of the house today.

There is also the topic of my not really having a space of my own, which is something I need. I just feel out of place and want this whole housing situation to get figured out soon. But! I'm super excited for this weekend, Joshua Tree Music Festival... which means I get to see Jonathan! and others. So I'm stoked for a weekend of fun.

I have today, Columbus Day, off from work because I work for the government now and they take such days off. I'm not complaining, but it does feel weird to be just hanging out on a Monday, like I feel like I'm being bad.

I am here

I am here, although here is relative to where you are. I am in California, my here for the previous year and for the next year. I am in a different part of California, 2.5 hours north of my past here. But, either way I am here. Maybe I will keep making my way north in California. Maybe I will find myself out in North Carolina or Chicago, New York, Portland? Who knows, I don't, so don't ask, please. I am here as a directed effort to get closer to someone, to try and get to know him and for him to do the same. But, I am here and he has a job that makes him here only 10 days out of a month. So a 1/3 of the month he's "here" but mentally, I would say 5 days of a month he'll be able to not just be physically here. So... the story goes. We are "taking things slow" and I am really not all that surprised at this outcome of events. So there are still the feelings between us, but there aren't any commitments. We are not but we aren't either. (Does that make sense?) Maybe I do try too hard. But, if I hadn't done this I wouldn't have ever known. Or would I? Would we have kept in contact and then ended up in the same location again at some point in time? Who knows.

Either way and probably needless to say I was pretty depressed for the first few weeks I got here after we talked about the state of what is and isn't happening between us. I was still very lonely, adjusting to a new workplace, new people there, and the lack of people outside of work. Now I am better, but a week ago I was a bit of a wreck. His crew arrived last week and I think they might be at training right now or at least they will be soon. I am not calling him, I am letting him call me whenever he decides he wants to. Maybe it would be good if I gave him the opportunity to miss me.

I've been writing a lot lately about the whole situation. I am not sure what is going on between us. I do not know anything as it comes to us really, so maybe he will change his mind and miss me that much. He won't. But I'm not waiting for him. I'm here, I'm here! I think most of all (second to time) the writing has helped me deal with what is and isn't happening, what was said in May and June and what was said in September (these things differ, you see). I didn't come out here blindly, I came out here after we talked about it. It wasn't even me coming out here for him, don't get me wrong I am not nearly that hopeless. He was a bonus to an amazing internship. So, now I just have the amazing internship but not the bonus.

I have never written fictionally so truthfully about myself and others and it is frightening and refreshing. I am looking at myself through an outside perspective at times and it is helping I think.

There is your update on me. That is an idea of how I am right now and how I have been for the past few weeks. I am still here and I think I will always end up here one way or another.

in a state of movement

Currently, my life seems to be constantly changing. I'm not sure if the me of today met the me of 2 or 3 years ago that they would like each other. I'm a realistic now. I see things how they are and I try to accept them. I feel as though there are so many things that I dealt with before simply because I was in that state of mind. Now, being back in Tallahassee makes me realize how much I miss the new me, the environment of the new me, anyway. The new me is here... just trying to deal with the moment at hand.

I am amazed at how small the world is in this town. There always seems to be 2 or 3 degrees of separation, instead of 6. It seems as though there is always someone who knows someone... Its not that this is really that frustrating, its that there are all of these connections but no one really knows about them.

I am just anxious. Anxious to drive cross country. Anxious to be in California. Anxious to see people I've been missing. Anxious to start a new internship. Anxious to maybe start a relationship. I'm trying to just take the possible relationship slow, just one day at a time. I just want to get there. I know soon enough I will be, but I'm still anxious about it.

So I'm excited and frightened and nervous. I'm torn between wanting to go and not wasting my time here. I feel like I have so much and so little to do. My mind is constantly moving, constantly changing. It is just constant right now.

I hate driving home sometimes, simply because I become so alert during the drive that when I get home I have trouble sleeping. All I want right now is to communicate, but I can't as it is almost 3 a.m.

Oh well. I tried.

Plastic Bags

I was standing in a checkout line in Wal-Mart today, yes Wal-Mart. Anyway, so as I'm waiting I'm trying to remember to tell the cashier that no, I don't need a bag, thank you very much. Sometimes this simple statement can be a larger hassle that it should be. For some reason, the insistence that one doesn't need a bag for their items, or that they brought bags to put the items that will soon change ownership from the store to the customer confuses people. Sometimes, I like to think about when I was a cashier and try to remember what it was like and how I would react to someone bringing their own bags or simply saying they didn't need a bag. I hope that I would have been understanding and polite about the whole situation, but I wonder if I too would have been puzzled.

For a few years, I have been becoming more and more aware of my impact on the world, society, the environment, and the communities I have lived in. As I've learned more about myself and my ideas and beliefs, I have also learned more about the world at large and society's agreements or arguments about some of the things I believe in. I have always worked within the system, yes, I recycled, but I never consciously stood in a grocery store and considered one product over another based on whether or not I could recycle the packaging. I never brought bags with me to a store, canvas bags or plastic bags, so I wouldn't be wasting more and more plastic. I never even really thought of it. I would simply bring the bags back to the store to have them recycled and that was that.

So, as I was standing in line at the store, I started thinking about the ideal of doing your part is important, but maybe the most important thing is to do it because you believe in it, not because you're simply supposed to. I like to call this concept Thoughtful Living. Kind Living even. I think its the consciousness in decisions, large and small that make the idea of Kind Living so wonderful. Its the thoughtfulness in everything, every decision, every word, every movement that makes it special.

I was talking to my sister today on the phone, and she was upset because someone was blocking the exit from the bank she had just visited. She was upset and all I could think was to tell her that being upset wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't make the man move any faster, it would only make her upset and negative, because eventually she would be able to go forward. I understand why she was upset, she was on her lunch break and only had an hour to go to the bank and eat and take a moment to relax. She works at a stressful job as do a lot of other people.

The world is sometimes on a deadline it seems, people rushing here and there and although I live within restraints, breakfast at 6, please be ready to be ready for the morning circle at 7, those are the big deadlines I have to meet. So kind living right now is easier than it will be once I'm out of this community of like minded people. The real test will be to live in the world outside, the one I knew before I came to California and the one I'll know after, and still live kindly.