introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- some blah blah to get it going sit down & write something - 5 may 2017 "i’m not out looking for something i haven’t found /you won’t see me around / i’ve got a family now"~advance base i haven't been making time these last few weeks to write much...how quickly the words stop coming if you take even a little break. this break was necessary, though. we packed the boxes and moved them to the new apartment that is more than enough for the two of us. it took everyone's help to get us in the door...all except a sofa that just won't fit. i guess the leather trash-couch that saw so many naps and movie nights is going to go on to a new life with someone else. or a dump-mountain. time will tell. this spring has brought on a huge change in me...i am keenly aware of the changes taking place in my body and my mind. my thinking comes with clarity, my movements are less calculated and focused on taking up less space--my self consciousness around what my body looks like was eating me alive but i think that comes from the constant uninvited commentary from men and women alike when you work in retail. from men commenting on how my ass looked in my jeans to asking about the precise locations of other piercings to telling me that i would really benefit from an eye lift or an invasive weight loss surgery to touching my tattoos to touching me anywhere they want. i've heard everything in the last couple of years to make a person rot inside with self-hatred...and all the time smiling and being polite and saying oh, thank you, yes, i'll consider adjusting how i look to please you, creeper...because that's how my company insisted we behave...but not all of us. the men i worked with could say, 'hey, baby, go set up that phone for me okay?' and that was also acceptable. it was like Mad Men in that store, i swear. but it's behind me now. i've had time to evaluate my curves and i think we're all in very good order here thank you very much, assholes. you will see just how happy we are when i put on that bikini for the first time. i'm slaying, just saying. i don't need therapy, i just need less jerks imposing on me their truly meaningless-to-me opinions. i am happy and thankful to feel like i belong in my skin again. i am legitimately healthier than i've been since i was pregnant and i'm on a fucking roll. i am thriving. i think these winter months of introspection gave me the space i needed to focus again. i've come to a safe conclusion that my job was killing me. it was killing my spirit and my confidence and my humorously cynical sense of optimism and my belief in kindness no matter what. the election and subsequent ridiculousness and my immersion in it didn't help, either. i was gaining weight quickly the more depressed i got. the gift of severance and unemployment has given me the time to really focus on being the omnipresent mom i've wanted to be but to also to reflect practically on what i want to be doing with the time i have left as a human on the planet. i don't want to have to pretend to smile for hours on end and be sweet to men who insult or sexually harass me or be in that grind again...so here's to the interesting jobs on the radar as i start preparing my resume, eh? i'm especially enamored with the positions at the children's museum and so that's at the top of my list. it's comedy, isn't it? i avoided children for most of my adult life with the exception of a few particularly interesting specimens. now i'm gunning for a job as a teaching artist in the make-space. i suppose i spent over 6 years of my life teaching people how to use their new smartphones and half of those people didn't want to learn anything. just do it for me is not an attitude i've encountered too frequently with little kids and i want to foster that continued sense of curiosity in tiny humans. they see everything. i love that my little son watches what i do and then later tells me how to just how to do it next time. it started with making popcorn and moved on to how i care for our fish, Clark, and just this afternoon he put the needle to the record and just like that, there was music! even though i'm frustrated and a little worried by what experiment will happen next when i'm just out of the room...i'm constantly amazed at what he picks up from just hanging out. i'm trying to be a good primary role model but i also recognize that this special gift of time we've been given is wrapping up. we've found the first home in this city that feels like it could be home for awhile. gainful employment is next on the list i suppose... on an adult level, i am living like an extravagant adventurous nun. i admit that i'm in love with someone that will likely never return that love and so i'm immersing myself in other things...pinball leagues, ladies book clubs. i'm taking myself on lots of solo date nights and to concerts on my own. i feel like i'm feeling things more purely and honestly than i can remember. i love him but...but nothing. i won't be cruel to try to be with another person until i've put this to bed once and for all...and i don't know if i will this time. it's silly but it's chemistry, i suppose...and the way in one night, i felt like i was in the right place for the first time in as long as i could remember. i haven't felt like that since. i'm nonetheless thankful for the experience, strange and secret as it was. these days my friend tells me of her dating escapades and i just don't have it in me anymore. it just isn't what i want. i suppose there is a certain part of me that wants to say meet me in Nashville in September...come here, come here now... but i know that in the end, i won't invade on his life...i've got no right to do that when i've disappeared as i have. so i keep my solitude like i'm keeping loyal to something that doesn't even exist...but that's part of it. there is no telling how long it will take when it comes to spells for letting go, is there? especially when you just don't particularly want to in the first place. so it goes. so here we are. a month of making this move happen from finding a place to landing here...i can barely make myself sit still for a cup of coffee or even to just go to bed these days let alone to write much but the stories are waiting--nagging even--and they've been telling themselves beautifully all winter so maybe the journaling will help again. it always has in the past so...here's to hoping. xo, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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