Rebuilding

So I've been thinking lately...

My whole life I've been pretty definitive about things. My friend even described me as a "go getter" the other day. I thanked her but found myself really disagreeing especially in light of my life's pace as of late but with reflection realized, she was right.

I have proven to be a mover and shaker in my own life and to myself many many times. I used to go after the smartest and best looking boys in in the ward, Institute etc and more often than not, got them.

I went after jobs I wanted and got them. I went after the degree that I wanted and huffing and puffing achieved it. I saw some girls playing water polo during my 7 am swim class and just got up and decided to join the team. I pretty much Forest Gumped my way into a marvelous set of situations and a rather beautiful life. I was loved and had fun almost all the time. I realize this was all because in the back of my brain I had a plan. I am a planner. It's what I do. It's how God made me. If a pink rose and an itemized check list flew at each other with some pixie dust and mascara that would be me.

I went on my mission, came home, continued through school but bits and pieces of my plan started to flake and fall off in the wind tunnel that was my life. 25 came and went and I was not married nor with children but I still had Grad school and a fun teaching career to look forward to. Once graduation was a real thing in Dec of 2007 and I started the Grad School hurry-up-and-wait dance I knew it was just a matter of time. But the thin envelope came in April 2008 and if I was at liberty to have shut myself up for days I would have, not just mourning the lost opportunity and validation of grad school but because that was the last shingle of My Plan.

From there on out My Plan (read: life) came crashing down like a Jenga Tower.

* I didn't get into grad school.

* I had one of the worst break ups I've had yet that I really thought was going towards marriage.

* I had to let go of a torch I'd been carrying for a good long while and my sub-conscious back-up plan (marriage wise).

* I got laid off from my job.

* I had to find a new job in our HORRIBLE economy.

* My grandmother passed away

* My sister-in-law almost died and had my nephew 6 weeks early (that's pretty happy though)

* California's Education budget shut down enrollment in 90% of programs I could get into and/or were looking at.

I don't think that I've been the funnest of people to be around this last year and for those of you who have stuck around and still love me - thank you. I'm aware of what a bother I've been. How withdrawn I've let myself become, how moody and distracted I am. I'm sorry. I really really am.

It just hasn't been an easy time. I don't feel sorry for myself. I know there are a WORLD of people out there that have lost homes, lost hope, lost their families, lost health. I know my burden is comparatively light but it's still my little shattered world and these last 6 months I've been starting to pick up the pieces.

I did find employment and am enjoying it a lot.

My nephew remains one of the most adorable earthlings ever

And I've been getting to rebuild.

I've spent a lot of time constructing this life I though I should have and in doing so, I've forgotten a few of things. Namely, who I was and am.

For instance; I'm a self-proclaimed non-crafter. I don't really do cute very well. I'm lame at scrapbooking etc. I've felt unworthy as a female because my quilting skills don't go much beyond tying knots so I just put away the whole scene thinking there were other and better things to do. What I neglected to understand that though I don't need crafts I do need creativity. The majority of my creativity comes out in fixing things; mending socks, hemming pants, organizing drawers and closets. I'm a solutions girl I guess. Hence, when I was cleaning my room (in preparation to move) and doing a Goodwill purge I realized I found a large amount of sewing supplies strewn about and I thought to myself;

Self, you know, you really do like sewing and you're pretty good at it. You're just a really unhealthy perfectionist about it. That's all. Too many things have come easy to you so when something isn't perfect the second or third time you pick up a needle or paint brush you've dismissed it. That's ridiculous. You're human and the sooner you admit that and start working from that vantage point the better. You LIKE sewing and being creative. You've tucked this rather sizable stash of sewing supplies into different corners for the last 3 years. You need to just admit Crafty-proclivity and buy a sewing basket, centralize your efforts, and move on. It's OK.

So that's what I did. With the purchase of my Joanne's Clearance sewing basket I'm admitting my willingness to screw up in the name of progress and give up delusions of infallibility. I'm letting myself be creative again.

Pictures to follow.

This admonition has tree-branched out, in tandem with my impending move, to want to start from scratch.

Like most things, my emotional state is finding root in the physical world. Like, when I look around and start planning the move I find myself wanting to trash everything and start from scratch. Ditch all my clothes, ditch my furniture - everything. Just take my books, shoes and things I love and just piece things back together one by one. Fresh, new, and untainted with the last two years.

This has most acutely come out in the planning of my new living quarters.

I've got all new furniture picked out (mostly because mine is crap) and I've found it all on special or clearance :)

I've made a scaled layout of where it will all go. No.... seriously

and I've started making changes where I could. Principally in new bedding.

My decorating philosophy is find some art you love and make everything work around that. You've all seen the Flora half of Mucha's La Primavera that I love. Here is my framed print



And I've put together this for my sleeping abode



I looked and looked for a duvet cover that would work with Flora and I finally found this one at TARGET! Here's a close up




I could not for the life of me find a bedding set that didn't nauseate me or make me shake my head for the lost aesthetics that is the American Market Place so I knew I was going to have to piece things together on my own and hope the colors worked. I found the sheets and small red pillow cases at Bed Bath & Beyond on a clearance (670 thread count too!) and the Euro shams were another Target find. I had to get them there because they matched the underside of the duvet. :)

I'm pretty happy. I realize I'm turning into my mother, aesthetic-wise. But I think there are worse things. She's pretty classy.

This is only the 5th set of bedding I've ever had. isn't that ridiculous? I remember getting a rainbow comforter when i was about 6. Then when i was 10ish I got a similar one but instead of rainbows it was white with a multi-colored heart pattern grid on it. Then, when I was 16 or so, to thank me for helping her on one of her books, my mother's friend Lael Littke took me shopping for my next set of bedding. I used that till I inherited a California king bed from a wealthy aunt and uncle that were moving and I needed new bedding for that and found this lovely purple and sage green bed set at TJ Maxx by luck and spite. I just finished packing up the last of that set and am ready to move on to my first bed as a real adult. A Lady that is having to carve her way out of the doldrums and through the rest of the world one day at a time.

The Price We Pay

So there are two ways people pass time in life.

One is having a career which is usually challenging, but in the good, worth-the-sacrifice kind of way. It's anything from being an artist to a lawyer to a gardener or mother. But it's always something that somebody does because of what drives them.

What we do in the meantime are jobs - and having a job sucks. I know this because I have one. It's a very jobby kind of job.

I think there is a reason they call this state after one of the most afflicted men ever recorded in history. Job - stricken Old Testament prophet. Job - source of the majority of affliction in one's live.

Coincidence? I think not.

Yes you get paid. But most of the the time it's doing something you either loathe, are bored to tears with, feel is sucking your soul out of your ears, or something you hate yourself for, or all of the above.

And sadly the jobs that actually pay you enough to, I don't know, PAY YOUR BILLS, are particularly loathsome because the more you're paid the more somebody else doesn't want to do your job. Which really just means that it's a terrible thing. A very terrible thing.

There are a few things that make the concept of a job bearable.

One is the people you work with and the other is your environment.
Benefits are nice, but I think, in terms of the emotional toll a job takes on you those are the only two factors that could possibly curb the tediousness that is your everyday.

I've worked in offices my whole life. I grew up in my father's law office. They're second nature to me but it wasn't until I was a bit older that I realized how utterly ridiculous they are and an expository of the worst that human nature has to offer.

I work with a few cool people. They're real and funny and chill and we all have the same work ethic and it's awesome. One is my supervisor and the other is my partner in my division. But the rest of the people, including our diabolical Ned Flanders (aka- HR man), are bearers of some of the grossest double standards I've ever come across in my life.

They try to paint a picture of a chill "business casual" workplace but what they say and what you're held accountable to are apparently two different things. And what standard you're held to depends entirely on their mood that day apparently. We're supposed to be on time I seriously can't remember the last time two of the three people I'm accountable to have ever been there when they say they're going to be. There is a myriad of other things I could harp on but it would be pointless, silly, and probably wouldn't make much sense to someone who doesn't spend 8.5 hours of their day in my little corner of the world. Needless to say, power games are constantly being played, and people's punctuality is the tip of the iceberg.

It literally makes me sick if I think about it too hard. Because the reality of it all is that I am subjected to that kind of hypocrisy all day everyday. I mean, it might just be a matter of time before it becomes commonplace to me. Put a frog in cold water.... It's beyond me how people live like that. It's a delicate schizophrenia and one I want no part in.

I don't believe in maniacal games or petty office politics and consequently don't play them or understand them and so when they eventually effect me, they hurt three times as much. But how can little else happen when you work in such a place? No wonder people drink. I really understand that on days like today.

I mean - it could always be worse, and I realize that. I could be mining coal or working for Anne Wintour or be a PA on Jerry Springer or clean out porter-potties. But seeing this side of people day in and out is taxing and depressing. Why are there people like this in the world and why do I always seem to end up working with more than one? I mean - one is enough, but we have multiples.

You know when you look at someone and can almost taste how bitter they are about life and can almost hear the jeers of the adolescent boys that teased him all through high school and regularly pantsed him and shoved him into lockers? And you can see that he is still fighting all of them somewhere somehow everyday? You know he still remembers their names and finds himself gripping is steering wheel too hard on his commute home when he thinks about them. He sees them in the faces of the big Company executives who handed him his pink slip when he had just began to think that he was finally getting out of his loser whimper phase he'd been in for 15 years. You know when you can smell the smarm he developed from pitting his divorced parents against each other his whole life just to get what he wants and he is bent on taking out all of that frustration and powerlessness and consequently power-hunger on people like you who are just trying to get through school and have a bit of fun in between?

You know that guy? Welcome to my office -

I need to move to Africa and help AIDS orphans or do something that actually contributes to the Greater Good (not in the Hot Fuzz sense) and work with people who truly care about things other than themselves.

Designer purses, river houses, an office with windows, and being able to stick it to a subordinate and get a way with it doesn't vindicate anything. It doesn't make life worth living and never has. And no matter how much bullying they do, it won't ever even the score of the real battles they didn't have the balls to fight when they came up. All they're doing is making new enemies and proving themselves to be the EXACT type of person that hurt them in the first place.

I am SO glad its Friday.

Paper Snowflakes and Pipecleaner Stars

Introspection is a Hydra of a virtue.

And the meatiest food for it are times of transition. It's a scientific principle. Activity on the surface of a body of water causes all of the particles or impurities settled at the bottom of the system to surface and I feel like I'm in a wind storm.

Graduation
Grad School preparation
Realizing that I have to take the GRE in 6 short weeks
Looking at transcripts

I feel like everywhere I've tread lately I've had to look pretty intensely at myself and I have to say that I have found myself very *sigh*ordinary. This is the one thing that I've always wanted to avoid. There is very little luster and excitement in being ordinary. And its a bit of a shock because I've always thought I had a little bit of amazing tucked inside my back pocket. Some sparkly diadem that I kept in the corner of my character and that I could pull out and remind myself that I have a Queen's name and a Hero's destiny. And to a small extent I think I still do. I know there are contributions that only I can make and that I fully intend on making, I always just thought I'd be in a sparkly ball gown making them. But the more I've honestly looked around me lately I've realized that I'm not walking through life in one of Carol Channing's best, I'm in my standard by flip flops, jeans and a tee shirt and always have been.

I'm not the first person all of my friends call to hang out. I'm probably not even the second or third. I'm not the one people talk about when "who they want to be like" comes up. I'm not "statuesque" and I'm not the girl they want their brothers to marry. Not their first choice at least. There isn't someone across the room that has been hopelessly in love with me since childhood. I don't have a wild romance just waiting for me somewhere and it's just a matter of time till I find it or it finds me and I'll probably never have stories of suitors crawling underneath the doors and in the windows like mother does. I know I'm lovable and that I will settle down with someone. It just won't be on the jumbo tron with a Tiffany ring.

I used to think I was funny - like the hilarious kind. Like it was only a matter of time till people were writing down my every twist of phrase for publishing and YouTube glory. But I've come to realize I'm not. I'm not a bore but I'm not really funny. I'm not even the funniest in my group of friends. I do have downright hilarious friends though. Like, I wonder why they're all not famous and hope they'll remember me when they are. And don't even get me started on how amazingly hilarious and witty my family is. I can hang, but I'm not leading the pack.

I used to think that my life was fascinating. That if people didn't want to hear my stories then they were just too boring to understand. But as my blog has given me evidence I am not a journalist documenting my efforts for peace in Israel, I'm not an amazing mom raising a fascinating child, I'm not a vogue editor keeping a blog to satirize my insane world, I don't have a THING in my life that is so all-encompassing that I can find enough material and thought for a whole blog. I've just spent way too much time at the movie theater and in my own head to realize that, to see anything beyond the end of my nose.

I used to think that I was brilliant. And, honestly, I have had a few moments where my professors have sat down with paper and pen and asked me to repeat what I just said and told the class to do the same. But I've come to understand that it's not a general condition and it never was. It was a moment. Just a moment where I was my best and other people were there to share it with me.

Tyler Durden says that a moment is all we can ever expect from perfection and that we're not unique snowflakes and to just lose hope in everything because that's the only way to ever be free. I can't even tell you how much I don't agree with that. But I do agree with this -

"We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. "

The boys get pissed off and they want to fight each other and bleed like Brad Pitt to vindicate that they don't feel in control of their lives and destinies. Us girls have watched the same shows and commercials and we don't want to beat up other people, just ourselves. Because, honestly, its my fault. It's my own fault that I'm ordinary.

I mean - doesn't every saucy English Major have a spot on Oprah's couch? Do I need to get through school without limbs and a weight problem to qualify? Well I'm half way there I suppose.

I think I'm a very lucky girl because I am surrounded with the extraordinary. I live in the best place in the world. I have one of the world's most brilliant and good looking families. I have magnificent friends and good books to read and tons of places to explore. I have a laptop and Google to help me find them and amazing people to take with me. I've got this blog as my own little corner of the universe to pour my brain out into. I have plenty for the B student that I am and I am fully aware of it.

Will I ever rid the ocean of trash? no - Do I still want to? Absolutely
Will I expose the true perpetrators of 9/11 and bring them to justice? Probably not - Do I still think I should? Absolutely
Will I ever be on Oprah's speed dial? Probably not. Is it still an awesome idea? Of course
Am I going to turn 30 and be everything I feared to be when I was 18? Probably. Is that necessarily a bad thing? The jury is still out.

It's still out on a lot of things and a life can change in the blink of an eye. So for tonight, right now, this is were I am. This is who I am - and frankly ordinary isn't half bad. And I hear those sequin gowns are really uncomfortable anyway.