A few days ago I was pulling my own little rain storm around by a leash. A very short leash too, I might add. I was irritable, grumpy and bouncing from emotion to emotion, and I didn't like it at all. All because I was a little bit sick, mildly hormonal, and very, very lonely.
All of the people I usually vent to about the little things in life are now on a schedule that perfectly opposes mine. I've written about this before, but it is still affecting me a lot. So much so that when my mom gave me the very matter-of-fact "Emergency rooms are not for colds" talk (one that I have given myself) I burst into tears and was a blubbering mess for half an hour. It was so good to talk to her. I was able to get out all of my minor frustrations and some of my big ones as well, and to just cry into the phone. It was exactly what I needed.
It means that today I am bubbly instead of blubbery. It is a nice change. I enjoy being happy. That isn't really a profound statement, but it is so true. Being happy is much nicer than being irritable and upset. It means I can take the little things in stride again. I'm back to what feels more like my normal self again. I like this a lot.
Plus I just got some good news. I wasn't sure I'd be able to go to the opening night of this show that has stolen my friends away - but now I can! That, and I just got my evaluation for my performance as an Assistant Stage Manager and it was a good one. And I'm not feeling as sick anymore, and the hormones are back on an even keel - and the weekend just ended, so I've actually gotten some friend time in. By Saturday I'll be feeling the loss again, but today - nothing but sunshine.
It's a good feeling.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Make New Friends, Keep the Old...
...one is silver, the other gold.
I've always liked silver better than gold, but I am finding that a difficult thing to maintain now that most of my friends are involved in a rehearsal process without me. The people that I have hung out with for the last two years are all busy when I'm not, and when they are done I have to go to a rehearsal of my own. I've been joking about not seeing them until their show is up, but it's turning out to be true and that isn't funny anymore.
And to make matters worse, it's only been two days. How am I supposed to tolerate this for another three weeks? It sucks. I'm okay with not being in the Christmas show. I'm not upset that I am not going to be on Main Stage - but it is hard to not be in on the process that all of my friends are in on. They will get their own set of rehearsal jokes, their own memories that I will not be a part of, and I won't see them much until November.
I've been owly for the last two days, and though I've blamed it on being sick, at least a part of it has been this feeling of disconnection I have from my class and my friends. I guess I'm going to have to get over it, or else spend the next month being a gold medal grump.
Wouldn't that be a good way to make new friends?
I've always liked silver better than gold, but I am finding that a difficult thing to maintain now that most of my friends are involved in a rehearsal process without me. The people that I have hung out with for the last two years are all busy when I'm not, and when they are done I have to go to a rehearsal of my own. I've been joking about not seeing them until their show is up, but it's turning out to be true and that isn't funny anymore.
And to make matters worse, it's only been two days. How am I supposed to tolerate this for another three weeks? It sucks. I'm okay with not being in the Christmas show. I'm not upset that I am not going to be on Main Stage - but it is hard to not be in on the process that all of my friends are in on. They will get their own set of rehearsal jokes, their own memories that I will not be a part of, and I won't see them much until November.
I've been owly for the last two days, and though I've blamed it on being sick, at least a part of it has been this feeling of disconnection I have from my class and my friends. I guess I'm going to have to get over it, or else spend the next month being a gold medal grump.
Wouldn't that be a good way to make new friends?
Monday, October 09, 2006
Tea Talk
A good friend came over last night. I had just fallen asleep on the couch and was a bit disoriented but since he brought both tea and good conversation I forgave him.
We ended up talking about relationships and the spirituality of sexuality. I told him things were not as cut and dried as I had once naively thought they were, and he agreed. He said it was scary when you thought about it, because the spiritual aspect lifted sexual behaviour beyond self-gratification and brought a bunch of responsibility to it...and that the lines that people lay out for you in Sunday School aren't neccesarily the way things work in real life.
"You are in a moment, and you know not to go any further, and then the next time everything feels right, and you push against the boundaries and they are still there, but they are a lot further out than you expected them to be. Suddenly you're swimming in water that is far deeper than you thought it was but you aren't drowning and it is all still right and you are still okay."
I kind of butchered what he said, but I think I got the spirit of it. It stuck out in my mind because it put into words exactly what I have experienced. It was good to hear that I am not alone in this strangeness...and I always appreciate it when others can put into words something that I cannot.
We also talked about God, and how life is a gift. That everything in life is a gift, and some parts of life aren't meant to be explored all at once, but that the gift itself is still good even if the moment isn't right. That hope is always there and is so hard to kill. That as long as you are alive there is equal potential for good or evil. That the body is a strange thing. That the spirit is unexplainable. That acceptance of pain can be good or so wrong. That it is a miracle that pain can not only be healed but that great beauty can come out of it. That sometimes it is supposed to hurt, and that when we stop fighting we can find a way to heal.
We didn't talk about it, but good friends are gifts too.
I thank God I have so many of them.
We ended up talking about relationships and the spirituality of sexuality. I told him things were not as cut and dried as I had once naively thought they were, and he agreed. He said it was scary when you thought about it, because the spiritual aspect lifted sexual behaviour beyond self-gratification and brought a bunch of responsibility to it...and that the lines that people lay out for you in Sunday School aren't neccesarily the way things work in real life.
"You are in a moment, and you know not to go any further, and then the next time everything feels right, and you push against the boundaries and they are still there, but they are a lot further out than you expected them to be. Suddenly you're swimming in water that is far deeper than you thought it was but you aren't drowning and it is all still right and you are still okay."
I kind of butchered what he said, but I think I got the spirit of it. It stuck out in my mind because it put into words exactly what I have experienced. It was good to hear that I am not alone in this strangeness...and I always appreciate it when others can put into words something that I cannot.
We also talked about God, and how life is a gift. That everything in life is a gift, and some parts of life aren't meant to be explored all at once, but that the gift itself is still good even if the moment isn't right. That hope is always there and is so hard to kill. That as long as you are alive there is equal potential for good or evil. That the body is a strange thing. That the spirit is unexplainable. That acceptance of pain can be good or so wrong. That it is a miracle that pain can not only be healed but that great beauty can come out of it. That sometimes it is supposed to hurt, and that when we stop fighting we can find a way to heal.
We didn't talk about it, but good friends are gifts too.
I thank God I have so many of them.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Adulthood
I have really good friends. I have been reminded of that this week, and I am very grateful for them.
One of my best friends, R., and I have spent a lot of time talking this weekend. I needed that more than I knew. I’ve been dealing with some big things – my sexuality, boundaries, living with the old girlfriend, my changing relationship with my parents – and it is so good to have someone to talk to who can relate and listen and share my life. R. is very good at helping me to articulate things I am feeling but have no words for, and at listening and giving me perspective on things that seem overwhelming.
I thought that I had licked this whole parent relationship thing. I really did. I thought I had figured out what it was supposed to be now. I’ve started figuring it out, that much is true, but it is still in process. It’s not easy. The problem isn’t my parents. It’s me and my response to them, my perception of them and of how they think of me, even though that perception may be skewed. I don’t know why, but it is so easy to fall back into habitual behaviours, the way I was when I was 16, and so hard to be my adult self around them. I am still trying to find out what it looks like to be the adult child.
It’s hard because I am still learning which voices in my head are my own and which ones are theirs. The hardest thing is that sometimes when I do figure out which messages are coming from whom, I can’t trust my own voice because it is in direct contradiction to the voices of my parents. And maybe my voice is naïve, but I just can’t follow their voices anymore. Even if I’m wrong, I have to figure that out myself and I can’t until I listen and am honest with myself.
Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a big sticky web, with my parents and mentors as this big spider trying to keep me there despite my fighting hard to get out, to breathe, to become my own person and get the web off of my skin. I know that it will be a good thing to get free – and I know that yes, that will mean that I can get hurt and yes, that will mean that I might make mistakes in a big-person’s arena, but dammit, I am a big person now. If I can’t make adult mistakes than I will never become an adult. It sounds terrible to put it that way, but it feels true. I cannot become an adult if I’m being protected from adulthood. I need to be able to make adult choices, to have adult freedom, and yes, that means I’ll have the potential to make adult mistakes that will leave adult consequences.
My parents love me very much, and I know they just don’t want me to get hurt. I can respect that and at the same time I don’t want protection anymore. I am an adult and their time to protect me is over. If I haven’t gotten the tools to survive in an adult world by now, it is too late for them to give them to me.
I love my parents very much as well, and I respect them very much. They have been through a lot, and have been faced with situations and decisions that I have never had to deal with – and hopefully never will. That makes this hard too. I don’t have a map for this. Relationships would be so much easier if they came with maps, but they don’t and all I can do is trust God and go forward in the way that feels best.
I just want to tell them – You have to let go of me and my choices and my life and let me live, breathe, make mistakes, get hurt, find love, create joy and learn my own path. I will be okay. You are my parents, yes.
But I am not a child anymore.
One of my best friends, R., and I have spent a lot of time talking this weekend. I needed that more than I knew. I’ve been dealing with some big things – my sexuality, boundaries, living with the old girlfriend, my changing relationship with my parents – and it is so good to have someone to talk to who can relate and listen and share my life. R. is very good at helping me to articulate things I am feeling but have no words for, and at listening and giving me perspective on things that seem overwhelming.
I thought that I had licked this whole parent relationship thing. I really did. I thought I had figured out what it was supposed to be now. I’ve started figuring it out, that much is true, but it is still in process. It’s not easy. The problem isn’t my parents. It’s me and my response to them, my perception of them and of how they think of me, even though that perception may be skewed. I don’t know why, but it is so easy to fall back into habitual behaviours, the way I was when I was 16, and so hard to be my adult self around them. I am still trying to find out what it looks like to be the adult child.
It’s hard because I am still learning which voices in my head are my own and which ones are theirs. The hardest thing is that sometimes when I do figure out which messages are coming from whom, I can’t trust my own voice because it is in direct contradiction to the voices of my parents. And maybe my voice is naïve, but I just can’t follow their voices anymore. Even if I’m wrong, I have to figure that out myself and I can’t until I listen and am honest with myself.
Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a big sticky web, with my parents and mentors as this big spider trying to keep me there despite my fighting hard to get out, to breathe, to become my own person and get the web off of my skin. I know that it will be a good thing to get free – and I know that yes, that will mean that I can get hurt and yes, that will mean that I might make mistakes in a big-person’s arena, but dammit, I am a big person now. If I can’t make adult mistakes than I will never become an adult. It sounds terrible to put it that way, but it feels true. I cannot become an adult if I’m being protected from adulthood. I need to be able to make adult choices, to have adult freedom, and yes, that means I’ll have the potential to make adult mistakes that will leave adult consequences.
My parents love me very much, and I know they just don’t want me to get hurt. I can respect that and at the same time I don’t want protection anymore. I am an adult and their time to protect me is over. If I haven’t gotten the tools to survive in an adult world by now, it is too late for them to give them to me.
I love my parents very much as well, and I respect them very much. They have been through a lot, and have been faced with situations and decisions that I have never had to deal with – and hopefully never will. That makes this hard too. I don’t have a map for this. Relationships would be so much easier if they came with maps, but they don’t and all I can do is trust God and go forward in the way that feels best.
I just want to tell them – You have to let go of me and my choices and my life and let me live, breathe, make mistakes, get hurt, find love, create joy and learn my own path. I will be okay. You are my parents, yes.
But I am not a child anymore.
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