the elusive "hello"

Earlier today, I ducked out of the pit of distraction I was experiencing at home to take a walk in the 40 degree afternoon.

I had a lot of thoughts in my head, and I wanted to walk along with them instead of sit underneath a cloud of them... thoughts are so restless in a cloud. The ones that are the loudest or angriest or most intense seem to gain floating electrons from the quieter ones until, like lightning, they burst through the cloud and crash into me with great force.

It was a beautiful day. Blue sky, warm sunshine, very little ice left on the sidewalks after the deep freeze that hit over the holidays. I walked quietly, with NPR's "song of the day" playing from my new iPhone through my headphones. It's a small way to feel like Tom is with me when he's at work.

I thought about the things going on in the lives of people I care about... the anticipation of new life, the challenging but exciting work of moving across the world, the prospect of a new job that changes your life, the devastating loss of normalcy after a tragic and cruel twist of fate enters your path.

As I walked, many people crossed my path. Two women chatting and pushing a stroller, Lockheed Martin employees on their endlessly revolving cigarette breaks, high-life hipsters from CPB reluctant to leave late lunches, older men getting some sunshine.

I live in a small sub-section of a low-key city... an area that people are attracted to because of the peaceful farmlands, the endless trails, and the sleepy attitude paired with easy access to the sexier rock climbing, skiing, and night life just down the road. It's hardly Manhattan... this is the kind of place, if any, that someone should be able to go next door to ask for a cup of sugar.

But as I walked, almost no one looked up at me as we passed each other.
The two women pushing the stroller actually physically turned away from me as we walked-- the one closest to me pulling her arm in close, and flinched her face as if protecting herself from a bad smell.

A man carrying a six pack of New Belgium beers half-smiled in my direction before I did, but the elderly gentleman behind him not only ignored my smile-- he seemed to glare as we passed when I nodded a friendly 'hello'.

Two 30-something men sitting behind their ad agency not only didn't smile at me-- they openly stared as I walked past them. It was a cold, empty, "she can't see us" stare.

It made me think about my dad's brother Ted, who lives in Florida, and who I've only met once. Ted is a completely withdrawn man... he sold his family up the river as a young man, acted out of self-interest through his adulthood, and always relied on others to simply give him things instead of ever working (or otherwise participating in his life). He lives in a trailer where he lived as a hoarder for years... outraged when my parents came to help him clean. He didn't want to part with the stacked dirty plates & utensils that sat in the fridge for years after he finished eating off of them... didn't want to throw away trash bags filled with pieces of paper he'd torn out of newspapers, magazines, flyers, and the like.

As I walked, I wondered-- who says hello to Ted? If they won't even look at a twenty-something woman with a happy stride and an engaging expression, who looks at the small, pale, socially anxious man who only comes outside to get food before dashing back home?

How many people talk to my uncle? How many people know his name? If he passed me on the street, would we say hello to each other?

It took me falling (madly) in love and getting married to realize the extent of my loneliness before Tom and I started dating. I was aching from loneliness... knotted in anxiety and flinging myself into every open door of opportunity I could find to fend it off. When those opportunities turned out less substantial than I'd hoped, the feeling of alone-ness intensified. It is worse to be lonely with other people than it is to simply be alone.

Over the last few years, I've noticed how odd it is that everyone seems to be home in my neighborhood... all the time. There are a few families, but mostly it's single people in their 30s and young couples. Why are we all just here, hunkered down in our sunny abodes all the time?

It makes me sad that I don't know my neighbors. It makes me sad that we, as people, make connections so much harder than they need to be. Friends treat each other harshly during bad moments of self-interest... family members take each other for granted and use their harshest words on the ones they love most. Neighbors pass on the sidewalk buried behind headphones and the day's mail.

Several years ago, I knocked on my neighbor's door to let the family who lived there know that I'd be gone for 2 weeks, just in case there was any kind of emergency... and who to contact if they needed anything. I've never seen such a confused reaction. I think they felt embarrassed, because months later one of them made a shy and awkward invitation to "maybe come by for dinner sometime," which was appreciated, but we've never talked since. In fact, I've barely seen them since that day. And for an entire complex of people who either have unemployment, freelance jobs, or enormous trust funds, I feel like we should all be like the cast of Cheers by now.

My wish for 2011 and my future, in general, is to feel more at peace with my connections. To be brave enough to say hi, and to have people in my life who are conscientious about connections. I get anxious with long-distance friendships if they 'require' a lot of sonar pings... but I deeply value the 'fewer but more substantial' check-ins.

We've been considering a dog lately, and although this isn't the right home or financial time in life to get one, I can't wait to have a irresistible pal with me on my future walks who will demand that people stop and smile.

If only we had wagging tails...

work in progress

This photo was taken in April of 2009 at the St. Francis Cathedral Basilica in Santa Fe, NM. It was the first vacation Tom & I ever took together, and our long weekend there has been lovingly sewn into a quilt of memories that I hope to keep forever.

It was magical and romantic and perfect, and it made me realize that I was dating someone who not only tolerated a quirky, dusty, art-filled and almost completely empty city (April is not tourist season there by any means) on my behalf... but he loved it, too. It was one of the first moments in my life when I felt like maybe it WAS possible for someone to love the eccentric, dog-eared, private side of my life. My love of Santa Fe is nestled in the part of me that also loves weekends spent with a book propped on my stomach; that loves being home watching a movie instead of being out bar hopping at 1am; the part that knows I'm going to go to bed sporting a messy ponytail that makes me look like I'm in 6th grade instead of the coiffed, eyeliner-at-all-times woman who I imagine someone would want to see instead when they're going to bed.

Tom & I are heading back to Santa Fe again next week, and although it feels really weird to be going on a feet-up, vacation-snacks filled road trip when I still have no semblance of employment or stability in my future, I couldn't be happier or more excited to head back to our old haunt.

The photo I posted is from our brief tour of the Basilica, which was under a massive renovation for their 400th year anniversary. I took a lot of photos of the stained glass windows and ornate carvings that were hidden behind construction scaffolding; and I've thought about those images often over the last five months.

It is so easy to feel like a failure. For me, at least.
I deeply internalized the various petty comments I received at my old job, and even though I worked hard to grow a thicker skin and learn the difference between spite and valuable criticism over those five years, the sensitive person that I've always been was wounded by them.

Skimming the value out of my feedback and rejecting the high school pettiness was a huge learning experience for me, but the job searching process has proven to be another massive lesson in self-esteem and intuition.

I have applied for so. many. jobs. I've heard back from three robots, one frazzled human being, and one recruiter who I suspect follows up with 98% of the applications she receives. I've been sneaky, I've been aggressive, I've been passive, and I've been apathetic. Write, review, edit, send. Wait. Forget. Move on. My cover letters never fail to perplex me... even after asking several people for feedback, I have little to no sense of the quality of my sales pitch. My resume has been expanded to two pages (by the firm insistence of the HR recruiter I worked with), but the old-school advice handed out about 1 pg. resumes literally keeps me awake some nights, wondering if I didn't get a callback for job X because they thought I was presumptuous.

Or boring.

Or because my email is secretly broken and only sends personal emails to friends... automatically deleting anything that's sent to a business email.

Or because if you read my resume backwards, it says something malicious about the government and current affairs.

In an ironic twist, my life has gone from receiving constant, never-ending feedback to not receiving any feedback at all, and I miss the fresh hell out of it. I thrive on feedback. I obsess over things I've said to people; replaying them in my mind and worrying if humor could've been offensive or if my appreciation of a kind deed wasn't emphatic enough. My gut twisted this morning when I realized that Tom had taken a peanut butter sandwich to work instead of the Thai leftovers in the fridge, wondering if I had accidentally said something that would make him think he shouldn't take them with him.

Our work is so much a part of who we are, and without a job title to define my place in the world, I can't stop questioning my value, my skills, and my purpose. Some weeks have been good-- I feel more capable and 'awake' than ever. This week has been harder... the doubt has pervaded my brain to the point that I've truly felt like I am not good enough for the jobs I'm seeking.

A constant work in progress. I'm grateful for the opportunity to define myself-- my deep down, art-loving, taco-eating, Real Housewives of New York-watching (on the sly), crazy hair sporting, kindred-spirit loving, previous-comment-obsessing self. I'm grateful for the guise of a difficult job market, which has provided a tangle of scaffolding bars and platforms in-between me and the employers who will (with luck) soon be staring at me across a desk, looking me straight in the face and asking me blunt questions about my flaws and my mistakes.

Right out of the gate, I was too vulnerable for a firing squad. I didn't know it until now, but I was. I have re-learned the game... I have been reminded that interviews are places to shine, not confess, and down-time is an opportunity to reflect, not self-flagellate. (man. that always sounds dirty.)

At the moment, I'm supposed to be applying for jobs, but instead I'm curled into a corner of my favorite coffee shop writing an unfocused journal entry.

I have applied to be a researcher, an admissions counselor, a museum sign writer, an advertising copywriter, a library workshop leader, a marketing guru, a broadcast television producer and a beading & knitting show videographer. I've begged to be considered as a project manager, a portfolio coordinator, a Chipotle training instructor and an at-risk youth counselor.

I have channeled the identity of fifty professionals over the past 5 months, and I've written as much as I could to convince strangers that I would be the perfect, irreplaceable person for each of those jobs.

But for the moment,
I'm just a work in progress... seated by the window, letting a caffeine buzz flow through my veins while I peer between the bars of construction platforms I've built around me.

It's not such a bad place to be.

a time to drink Cava

The winter Olympics are ending... I'm watching Apollo Ohno being interviewed under the 'final ceremonies' dome, craning to see the faces in the background to see if my auntie and my cousin will make it on camera. My favorite Oregon and Vancouver residents. I've always loved watching the Olympics, but this year really felt special. I loved watching the opening ceremonies with friends in my home, I loved the three nights I spent curled up with my parents cheering for the skiiers and the women's skating short program, and I loved earlier today when a bunch of us crowded around Peter's television with a basset hound and a plate full of homemade chicken wings as we cheered for the hockey game. I loved looking up to see the curling scores while I pulled my hair out over infuriating online job application nonsense.
They're special and beloved because they're only on once in a blue moon, but they came and left so fast. I'll miss you, Olympics.

Today and Friday were unbelievably low for me. I don't know if I've ever felt so low, or so completely overwhelmed-- even by small details. Tom came over after a long day of work on Friday, and I had spent the past hour at King Soopers just standing there holding my little red basket. I was surrounded by shoppers, feeling completely numb... unable to choose between hot dog bun brands and totally unsure of how to navigate the fresh produce aisle. Instead of the warm-smelling kitchen that I wanted both of us to come home to, Tom entered my apartment just to find a cold bag of hot dog buns sitting on the counter next to an unopened box of highlighters.
Just the sight of him made me buckle-- it made the awful sense of panic that I'd been holding in all day bubble over and I lost it.

Some people know just what to do. (I am not one of them.)
He put his arms around me. He put his face against mine and let me cry. He listened. Even through the hot tears. And then-- in a moment of sheer brilliance-- he opened the fridge, reached down to the bottom shelf, and grabbed the cava. The bottle of rose that I bought last fall, confident in my budget and the promise of a new job that an odious company had winked to us that would be his by the end of the day. The bottle that I'd hastily stashed in the bottom drawer of the fridge under a bouquet of broccoli when he told me that they'd lied, the job wasn't his. The bottle that became permanently off-limits... unopened on Valentine's day and our one year anniversary.

The need for an 'occasion' had become too built up, with a shiny bottle of pink silliness reminding me of that daily, and what Tom taught me is that Shitty Day Cava is the best bubbly cork-popping ego boost in the world. The fine nuance of distilled brut is best brought out by $2.99 cole slaw and well-done hot dogs. Sometimes, your fanciest treat needs to be enjoyed in stretchy pants, with hot tears drying on your cheeks and speed skating on NBC.

Between that and the sweetness he showed me today, Tom continues to remind me that even when things feel too big to handle, a pair of loving arms is all I need. It's ok that I lost my saved freelance money and my carefully e-saved 1040. It's ok that I not only lost my reference and a professional mentor I looked up to, but that I have to face her in a hearing next week. It's ok that I sound ridiculous with sinuses that are permanently on vacation, waiting out my flailing panic in the Bermudas.

He reminded me that I have all that I need-- I have my brain and body and home, I have my family, I have him. I can't "what if" myself into the ground... there's enough on my plate as it is. It's a very small plate... it fits a hot dog with mustard, relish and ketchup, cole slaw and a dill pickle. No room for additional fear.

This venting is just a repeat of the purging, cliched and emotional babble I've been so consistent with lately, but I need this to be in print so I can look back on it. Writing from the midst of rawest emotions doesn't make for good literature-- but it can be decent therapy once in a while. And tonight, with endearingly cheesy Olympic farewells set to dramatic John Williams scores (and Neil Young... and...Nickelback?!? and... Avril Lavigne?!?!?), I know that I need to listen to my wheezy lungs and achy stomach and keep the things that are dear to me close, without needing a "special occasion" to validate it. Cava was meant to be opened, and loved ones are meant to share love.

I'm not a religious person, but I sometimes wish I was. I appreciate the comforting repetition of lovely verses and prayers such as these (made even better with the chorus of "turn turn turn")

ecclesiastes 3:1-8
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

"a time to weep and a time to laugh"-- these words never ring so true than when you have experienced both in the same day. The same moment.

A time to get, a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away. A time to drink cava with hot dogs. A time to be small and to feel awe at the bigness of the world. A time to seek comfort, and a time to feel blessed in love.

Rudy? Seriously?

Low gray skies today... I've been crashing at my parents' house for a couple nights to try to sort out some rougher seas than normal at home.

I haven't showered or done anything blindingly productive today, and it sounds like someone's walking around their house, even though they left hours ago. I can hear creeping footsteps in the hall. It's a sleepy, fearless feeling of being gently haunted. I'm ok with it.

The past couple of weeks have been oddly harder than they probably should've. Dad's struggling with health, mom and I are fretting about it. I've been so anxious the past two months that everything feels off, the good and the bad. It feels like when you're sick and your ears become plugged-- everything takes on a muted quality, no matter how hard you yawn or strain to hear. I'm extremely anxious about the recurring thought patterns that have been plaguing me since losing my job-- where and when will I find a new one? Why did it have to happen that way? What are the ramifications of feeling that shitty at a job I really liked, for a long long time? How do I sort out the good from the bad and keep them in their respective camps?

The questions are relentless at times. I try meditation. I try exercise. I try sleep, not sleeping, and feeling dazed. I try focus and procrastination. Things are good-- great, at times-- often peaceful, and always relieved that I'm out of a bad situation. Relieved that I can reinvent myself in a meaningful way. Excited for what the future holds.

But then out of the blue, the questions and queasiness arrive in blinding waves. What does it mean that I worked my ass off to save money, and now I'm hemorrhaging my savings? Will I ever receive unemployment? Was it worth working nights and weekends even though I've just lost everything I made in those 7 months in less than 8 weeks, and I'll have to pay an additional $4-500 for taxes? I was perfect for my freelance boss-- why did they turn on me, too?

One consistent worry is the challenge of writing letter after letter to companies touting my writing skills. Writing cover letters and resumes is an excellent opportunity, I feel, because instead of simply filling in your years of experience, you can attempt to share your personal history and personality with the hiring manager. But the pressure to not write boring, trite, incorrect or revoltingly non-creative work sometimes gets to me. A lot. "I'm a great writer," my cover letters are all supposed to say, "so I think you should hire me for this fabulous writing position because look how many times I've managed to write 'writing' since the date stamp above."

Ugh. It's hard. It's harder than I'm allowing myself to feel, and in turn, I am bottling things up and it's manifesting itself in acid that leaps up my esophagus and has taken my lungs hostage. The pain is scary. It feels like there's a rubber band around my chest all day, ever day, and the absurdity and pathetic truth of that makes me even more stressed. BEING stressed makes me more stressed.

It is like a sinister villain in a novel... the voice that creeps into your head, mocking your emotions and your reactions and your natural inclinations. Not to mention the things you're holding on to as sanctuaries. "Only someone weak would perseverate in thinking about the things you're thinking about." "People you know have better, more interesting jobs than you've had. They also handle it with more going on in their lives. They also easily parallel park on city streets." "Your relationships are solid. Right? Not really, I mean, your relationships are all at risk. But feel free to argue with me."

It's a creeping, evil, sniveling little bastard of a voice. Doubt is strong when vulnerability is prominent. It's my biggest goal in my life right now-- to squash the doubt every time. I think I'm doing ok, but I'm frustrated that it's even there to contend with.

I'm just having a hard time juggling all the plates. I think I just really need a hug. And to fill my prescription for lung happiness. And some cash wouldn't hurt, if I came across a gym bag full of 100s. I am building up my confidence as much as I can, but last night as I was lying awake in my bed with a pounding heart and a chaotic frame of mind, I realized something that I was trying not to think about... losing my job in the way that I did was genuinely traumatizing to me. Hell, half of what I battled with my boss and with myself over the past several years had a legitimately traumatic effect on me.

And with trauma comes skittishness and fear. I can't make fear go away by wishing it off, no matter how much I've tried-- I think I need to find a better way to analyze the fear of inadequacy and failure I've been picking up recently. The job I just applied for almost *certainly* will not consider me as a candidate, but I'd be REALLY GOOD AT IT. I need as much confidence as I can humanly muster in order to convince someone else of that, much less myself.

It's a lot to consider. Like the day of my college graduation, I guess this is another opportunity to ball my hands into fists under my graduation gown, face the stage with courageous eyes, and tell myself-- firmly-- "Rudy would be brave. You should too."

And it gives me the same surprised and amused thought as I have now... I don't know why anything in my life would make me think about Rudy, but somehow, my most unclear and nerve-wracking transitions all make me think of Sean Astin's g-rated performance as the wee little determined football player. Maybe it just got planted in the "Little Engine that Could" part of my brain, and I'm just stuck with a little bit of a maudlin, family-appropriate movie as my cheerleader.


Well. Here's hoping they put me in the big game.

with love and disappointment

J.D. Salinger passed away last week, at the age of 91.

It hurt my heart to read the news, and even the affectionate (and unaffectionate, mostly snarky) wave of come-backs and quotes people posted online hurt to read.

J.D. Salinger meant a lot to me. His writing was close to my heart because he deeply inspired me, he chose his words carefully and intelligently, his snark was forgivable and his angst was deeply heartbreaking. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" hurt me all the way down to my cells-- I was speechless after reading it, alone in my living room in the house where I grew up. I remember not being able to talk to anyone that day, and the day after, feeling like something in my life had actually changed because of the content of that story. Years later, I would write about Bananafish in a college essay that may have been the deciding factor in my admission to that college.

Even more personally, Salinger's books filled a void for me when I felt lost at home. My father used to tease me, and then seriously say, that I would grow out of my Salinger phase-- that my teenage years would be Salinger-ized while I read him, and I would look back with annoyance at his work someday. But it wasn't the teen angst that I clung to, it was the quality of his writing, the delightful stories about the Glass family's genius children (that Wes Anderson would later rip off disgustingly for his own films), the clawfooted bathtubs, the wintry backdrops, and most of all, the deep loneliness that comes with being a child who is smarter than the educational system that they're trapped in. The loneliness that comes with depth of understanding, depth of emotion... insight... at any junction in life.

I know my father would understand this because he loves reading Salinger for the same reasons, but those years were often tense for other reasons, and we found ourselves communicating unfairly and untruthfully to each other. Salinger became my respite and my sanctuary when I needed to be elsewhere in those years, when I needed to patiently wait out circumstances that I didn't like, and still find something to deeply love at the same time.

Cynicism has been unfairly attributed to much of Salinger's writing, I think... there is a thin but firm line between the camp of viewing the world through eyes of cynicism, and viewing the world through the eyes of a sensitive lonelyheart.

The thing that makes me mourn his loss the most is the conversation I've had so many times with my parents-- the one about authors and artists being betrayed by their families after their death. Frank Herbert specifically said that he did NOT want his family to allow sequels to his bestselling novel "Dune" because it was an original work that was complete unto itself. His son dodged the legalities by making money writing prequels to Dune. And on and on, the families turn their loved ones over in their graves by cashing in on an empire that was not theirs to recreate.

Salinger could not be any more clear that the novels he wrote in his seclusion were his own, and not for the public's eye... not under any circumstance. I have very little doubt that these novels will be ready for public consumption in the future, and this breaks my heart.

We're just so obsessed, the human race, with feeling entitled to someone else's art. It's for us, never them. Put the cameras in Angelina's bathroom to see if she wears more mascara than Brad and her 20 children thinks she does. Splash it in tomorrow's news.

Maybe this is cynicism spilling over-- I hope it isn't. I'm just concerned for his wishes, and sad that someone who wrote books that meant a lot to me--books that helped me get into college, books that kept me company, books that helped me fall in love with the person I love so dearly-- is no longer here.

I'm seeing the world through strange glasses today--maybe I will feel less forlorn about things tomorrow. It's so odd how various factors affect your feelings about everything* (*and yet another reason why his work speaks to me so much). The exhaustion of hating my work environment and loving my job for so many years has finally hit me, like a huge, murky wave carrying sand and seaweed and trash, and my brain has become incredibly foggy.

The stress is really starting to affect me... stress from the unemployment debacle, infuriating circumstances with withheld wages and state investigations of past employers, not having an income for the first time in 8 years. I have found a way to push the stress out of my mind, and honestly thought that I was in "a good place" emotionally with everything, until the nausea arrived that didn't leave for three weeks. Then the nausea started attacking my chest, my lungs, and I realized that it's a large daily dose of acid reflux. My voice started to squeak from the internal chaos-- to break and crack, and talking made me feel more nauseous. Then my body said ENOUGH, J.Lo style in a martial arts outfit, and retaliated with a truly painful sinus infection.

It was enough to knock me on my ass for a few days, to keep me curled up on the couch unable to go too long without pushing a hand or a blanket or a bag of frozen peas over my throbbing sinus cavities or my aching neck. It's pathetic enough to make me feel like a put-upon Glass child, a Salinger story he wouldn't want to publish. It's making me really sit still, and examine what needs to happen. I'm hopeful, I'm scared, I'm new to this, but I'm in a hurry. My confidence has been run over by a herd of reindeer wearing lead boots; I've planted seeds for a new confidence that has no other choice but to bloom in the spring.

Change... I need so much more life experience to gracefully and effortlessly deal with change. It's still clunky for me to maneuver between dramatically different lifestyles... I still make mistakes when trying to negotiate change. It's frustrating, especially because the only way to get more experience is to have even more life-altering changes come along. I'm doing my best.

It's not easy when your feeling of 'center' changes... I'm off-center, and everything from my dreams to my routine has changed. Instead of starting the day at 8am pouring a cup of coffee and talking to Robin while ice melts off the tops of my boots, I start the day alone in my apartment, staring at the cursor on my laptop, wondering if I could trick myself into leaving my silent home for an hour or two. I feel so relieved to not be in a situation that was causing me extreme frustration and sadness, and so freaked out to be staring at a blank page. It's like leaving college all over again, staring at the commencement speakers with a pounding heart and puffy bags under my eyes, slowly realizing that there was no more syllabus in my life. There was no more built-in social network. Just me.

It's my job to find the means and the luck required to turn this new year into a new adventure. With meaning and substance, with gravity and a center. With love, and always, above everything else, with squalor.