thoughts on the new year

After a less-than-promising start to 2011, I woke up this morning to see that a cousin had posted this as her facebook status:

"Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert."

~Isaiah 43:18-19

It's never too late for anything; and there is always hope.

it's gonna be good.

it's been weeks since i've had the mental energy to function at 100%. every day had a routine: get up, be bright and sparkling at work, then get home and crash on the couch til somebody tells me to go sleep in my own bed.
but today i made my way out of the fog of lethargy, and decided that i'd break one of my rules as a sort of reward.
months ago, i realized that i was so fixated on the idea of the perfect future that i was ignoring the needs of the moment. so i promised myself that i wouldn't plan more than six months ahead, and told my friends that they were to ignore me if i started talking about abstract plans. and that's the rule i decided to temporarily break, just to give myself the incentive to stay at more than borderline functionality.
i won't talk about my plans yet, because if they don't work out i don't really want to have to explain that in any detail. but when they get off the ground, things will be on their way back from "fine" and maybe even make it to "great."
a life should have secret plans, just to have something to look forward to.

telling the future, with 85% certainty

it would appear that interesting things have been going on within my family while i've been away. in the past five months, two cousins have had babies; and my aunt remarried this morning, which nobody told me about until literally last week. another cousin is getting married in may, and i'm going to be one of her bridesmaids.
so i think i can guess what the dinner conversation is going to be this christmas: babies, weddings, and omg who's next?!
part of me is really hoping that doesn't happen, because relationship discussions with my family tend to get intense and kind of awkward. i'm very much single right now, and even though i'm too young to be thinking about my shelf life i'm still worried that i'll end up alone forever and so i don't like talking about my lack of a meaningful long-term relationship.
on the other hand, i don't intend to have children (my reasoning is a separate post in and of itself). and i do enjoy reasonable debate; so i may just cause trouble over the dinner table instead.

another year, another thanksgiving

and my first one on my own. well, perhaps not completely on my own; just my first one away from the family.
the friends and i had epic plans for this evening, but were stymied by our failure to plan properly; so the cooking has been put off until tomorrow, and instead i treated myself to dinner. a nice, solitary dinner at legal seafoods with a copy of les miserables.
and i thought good and long about where my life has landed me lately, and realized that despite how miserable i can get, i have a lot to be thankful for and very little actually worth complaining about.
i have a full-time job that doesn't suck, and will soon have insurance again through said job.
my family loves me enough to understand that sometimes it's better to stay away from home for a while, and is okay with that.
and there are people who love me enough that i can occasionally light up their lives. they may not be the ones i live with, but they exist.

boston

this year is wearing on me. i'm enjoying not being in school full-time, and i do love my job, but the academic stress has been replaced by personal disasters.
i almost think i should leave the country for a while. after i graduate maybe i'll go to israel for a year; but i want to find a way out of the hole i've dug myself into now.
i left new york for boston so i could start over; leave behind who i'd been in high school. and i managed it for a while until i started burning out. and now that i've made my mistakes in yet another city i feel like there's nowhere else for me to go to try and fix things.
rationally, i know that moving is not the answer, because it involves too many complications. but hell if i want to stay here.

avoidance

i occasionally find it difficult to rationalize my intermittent disappearances. sure, they make sense to me; when the world is not quite the appropriate frame of existence for me, i wander off for a while and come back when things are less not-right.
but it seems as though people think that i'm deliberately avoiding them. and, well, there is a sense of arrogance in feeling that one is being avoided; as though one is at all entitled to the attention of others.
nobody is entitled to an explanation of what is going on in my life and why it makes me avoid interacting with them. i am alive, and life is unpredictable, and that should quite honestly be justification enough. sometimes i am busy, sometimes i would simply rather be doing other things; and that is legitimate, no matter who you are and what you ask of me.

on dreaming

remember way back when i dreamed of being a real musician? when i finished my last final and immediately sat down to look at conservatories for post-graduation? when i had Plans for my life?
...yeah. more and more, those plans are looking like a waste of my time. i'm not an actress; so goodbye broadway. i'm not really a soprano; so goodbye any sort of classical performance. and i have artistic integrity, so no recording contracts for me. going to a conservatory will really end up just being a waste of time and money.
the hardest part of having dreams is waking up and realizing that they were just that: dreams, and nothing more.

things i have learned in the past 24 hours

• pandora is not as good at choosing music as it claims to be
  
• life is a lot more awesome when you wear underwear that fits properly
• croutons are delicious especially when soggy with caesar dressing
• being philosophical about disappointment is a lot easier than you expect
  

feeling sentimental

i come home in the evenings to a house full of light.
of everything that's changed in the past few months, this is what i notice most. the laughter, the hugs, the "where were you? we missed you at dinner!" - that's what's making the difference. yes, my job kind of sucks; and yes, i kind of hate not being a full-time student right now; but i live with people who like me, and maybe even love me, and that makes everything worthwhile.

feeling domestic

i just got home from work, sat down at my computer, & started shopping for candles and rugs.
domesticity is my kryptonite.

mindless irrational paranoias yay!

i have two days off from work this week. i think it's time for me to go back to therapy.
and i am terrified.
i've done a huge amount of introspection in the past eight months, and discovered things about myself that i wish i didn't know. i am loving, caring, and friendly; vicious, manipulative, and arrogant; fragile, insecure, and lonely. i am everything anyone could possibly be, rolled into a five-foot bundle of contradictions that i would dearly love to have sorted out. but who will i be when that's all said and done?
i am scared to shit of what i'll become. i don't want to change, but i don't really want to be who i am now either.
yes, okay, maybe somebody should call the waahmbulance.

next to normal (complete with spoilers!)

it's almost a month since i saw next to normal on broadway. on the surface, it's a very simple show to summarize: a family made dysfunctional due to mental illness. i suppose just from that description, it would be easy to write it off as something akin to schadenfreude, since after all, theatre is a form of entertainment and this show is centered on someone else's misfortune.
but at least to me, that's not at all what it is. perhaps this is only because it's been years since i was anything approximating normal, but i found it heartwrenchingly relatable.
the audience is taken all the way through diana's breakdown, from every character's perspective, with vivid and all too realistic descriptions of the accompanying mental states. and to sit there in the mezzanine and realize that i have been where she was...well, it was frankly terrifying. the entire show is just so. fucking. real. that by intermission i was back in that old state of wide-eyed terror over where my life could end up.
i cried the entire way through. even watching the family make its way out of that darkest place i cried. but somewhere along the way, a glimmer of hope turned up, and got brighter and brighter with every song (quite literally) til by the end things looked less bleak for both them and by extension, for me.
i don't know where i'm going with this review, so i'm going to stop here, but all in all this is a wonderful show. musically amazing, wonderfully acted, and utterly real. i'm going to see it again, and probably send my parents tickets as well.

things are looking up

i'm no longer unemployed! i had an interview at barnes & noble on wednesday (was it? maybe it was tuesday...) and i start work on monday!
and so i had to go back to ny today to get my social security card from the safe deposit box. been home for 7.5 hours so far, and not one argument with my parents. i guess it's kind of shitty that it weirds me out to not be fighting with them, but this is a really surreal feeling.
like, they just paid for my fall classes, and i owe them (even more) money now, and there *still* hasn't been any arguing.
now i guess the next thing to do is figure out this whole insurance thing, and get myself a new therapist. again.
still, i am breathing easier now.

the long-awaited explanation of where i've been

here it is: the reason i haven't had time to write, in a nutshell.
i had a complicated year. i decided a few too many times that i didn't know what i wanted to do with my life, and so the classes i hated most this year also turned out to be completely useless with respect to my degree.
issues that i thought i'd left in high school came back to bite me in the ass, ruining my self-perception and my social life. i became kind of unbearable to be around and my friend circle shrank to less than half the size it used to be. i'm still not entirely certain why so many people put up with me through that, but thanks.
in january i broke up with the boyfriend of a year, because our personal philosophies were too different. i then spent the next six months second-guessing myself and making everyone around me miserable as well. somehow i still have friends (no, i don't really understand why. perhaps schadenfreude?)
oh, and i got swine flu. twice.
disheartening? yeah, but somehow it's been good for me. now i'm taking a year off to re-center myself, and i'm looking forward to it.
but that's another (later) post, because this one is getting long.

on being an adult

i'm at home in NY for a few days, with a couple of friends and without the parents.
i am by far the youngest of the three of us, and i feel like i'm currently the only adult around. between trying to feed two picky eaters, and trying to get things done when nobody seems to be listening to me, i think i know what my mother dealt with for a long time with me and my sister.
i don't think i really want to have children anymore...

"are you okay?"

things are happening this summer. some of my closest friends have graduated and, one by one, are leaving boston. weird personal things are happening. life is being complicated, because that's what it does. but every time there is some such upheaval, someone asks me if i'm okay. and every time, i answer "i'm fine."
i am tired of being asked if i am okay. i am not okay. i get very attached to people, places, ideas, things, and when i have to let something go i have a hard time with it. but by now i am used to it. i cry, i panic, i write, and gradually i heal. it may take a few weeks of sleepless nights, but it happens on its own.
i am not "fine," or "all right." sometimes i am not even "meh." but this is how life goes, and you cannot make things any different for me. one day the same thing will happen to you, and you will understand what i mean.
life happens to us all. don't worry about me.

say what?

i've gotten in the habit of watching So You Think You Can Dance. between that, and talking to Black Polos and Sweaters about my future in performance, it looks like i'm going to be auditioning for american idol. such are the bright ideas one gets in the middle of the night.
i still have no idea what i'll do if i make it onto the show. but for now i have less than a month to choose an audition song...

misandry ≠ feminism.

"When a man dies, it is only a man. And one is much like another. Aye, a family needs a man, to feed them, protect them. But any decent man can do it. A woman is...infinite possibility."
~Diana Gabaldon
(posted as a cousin's facebook status)

maybe i'm in the habit of overreacting to life, but it drives me up the wall when people post things on facebook seemingly without actually thinking about the impression it gives.
i read this quote a few times in the hopes of deriving some meaning from it other than what immediately jumped out at me. it really just seems to exude misandry, implying that men are expendable and of limited use. but worse than that, Gabaldon seems to be saying that men are worth significantly less than women in the real world.
the feminist movement has already been generally viewed as angry and man-hating for generations. does it really do us any good to perpetuate this stereotype?
i can't really say anything more on this subject right now, because when i think too hard about it i just get angry, and probably irrationally so. perhaps in the morning i will be thinking a little more clearly.

in limbo

another birthday is approaching, and i am reminded of why i don't want to grow up. it involves being a real adult, with an actual paying job.
thing is, i'm meant to be on the stage, whether it's on broadway or singing classically. but being a successful musician isn't just about skill; it also depends a lot on who you know. and i'm reluctant to completely commit to a career in music, simply because it takes the right circumstances to begin making money. i don't particularly want to be yet another starving artist living in a box under harvard bridge.
right now i don't really know how to handle the disconnect between the various facets of what i want from life. i'm planning to apply to conservatories & get a degree in performance after i graduate, but plans never really work out the way you expect them to. i suppose i'll just be in an interesting sort of in-between for a while; or at least, until i decide to make up my mind one way or the other.

8 miles, and then some

yesterday we went kayaking down the delaware. 8 miles, supposedly a 3 1/2 hour trip. and the best thing i've done for myself in a long time.
i was with my family and a couple of friends, but managed to get myself way out in front of everyone else. and up front there, it was just me, the river, and the birds. no phone, no ipod, nothing.
to be completely cut off from absolutely everything was just what i needed. it's been too long since i was last completely unattached, & to really feel that is wonderfully liberating. no boys randomly trying to contact me, no drama chasing me around, nothing; just the sound of the water.
with everyone so far behind that they were inaudible, and the rest of the river ahead of me, it felt like i could do anything. and even though that doesn't completely translate to the rest of my life, for a few hours it was completely true. bliss.