The Last Two and a Half Years

Well, It's been almost two and a half years since I've written anything here, despite my initial intentions for something fairly regular.  It's probably been the toughest period of my life, both financially, and emotionally.  Oh, on that note, my profile needs updated.  I have passed the mark of twenty something early this year and have hit thirty.  Surprisingly that has been one of the easier bits. I had kind of been dreading the milestone for the simple fact that I didn't feel I had much to show for the thirty years I've stewarded, but I just have to accept that it can't be changed, and only the future can be affected/effected from here.  It's not what I'd call a liberating realization, but it's certainly a shred to hold on to.  I initially didn't really intend to drag much of my personal life into a blog, but what goes on in one's personal life tends to affect their outlook, and I'd imagine that mine has been altered, at best a little, more likely quite a bit.

The first, and very difficult admission is that I have more recently suffered quite a bit more depression than I'd ever let on.  Depression for me was sort of a dirty word.  It is a very real struggle for many people out there, but I felt that I could at least be relatively immune to it.  No one is happy all the time, but depression is a different beast.  I'd always considered myself a fairly successful self preservationist as well.  I've always been good at putting ideas into perspective, and channeling darker emotions into some sort of productivity.  Even though I'm poor, I've always had enough to eat, and at least a leaky roof over my head.  I also have a family that would never let me starve.  By all accounts, I still have a damn good life.  Family and friends that care, a house, (well, actually two, but that's a different beast) a job, a car, a bicycle, hobbies, and certain materialistic trappings that I treasure.

There are many people in this world that don't have the security of knowing they'll wake up the next day because of hostilities, war, illness, food security, and countless other issues.  People are homeless,  hungry, don't have beds, don't have water.   Some children are born with terminal illnesses that guarantee they won't survive even to adulthood.  What reason have I to complain?  But depression isn't about complaining.  It's gnawing.  It's intangible.  It's as much physical as psychological sometimes.  It was perhaps the first time in my life that I'd ever felt lonely, despite the presence of others.  It may sound strange, but I'd never really experienced feelings of loneliness in my life.  I'm certainly content to "play by myself."  But this was different.

Last year I ended a fairly long term relationship, not intending to find a new one, or really even looking.  However, one found me, or I found one, but it happened.  Very quickly.  He was really fascinating.  A lawyer, an ordained minister, a musician, an opera singer, a polyglot.  On paper it was fantastic.  His friends were great, we got along.  I was shocked.  For the first time in my life, I thought I was actually perhaps in love, a feeling I wasn't ever sure I'd feel.  I could actually see building a sustainable future with someone.  But I was wrong.  Very wrong.  Very, VERY wrong.  It was really subtle at first, but he was emotionally abusive.  I was wonderful, but why did I want to talk to that person, I was free to have my friends, but I'd feel guilty if I chose to spend time with them.  I loaned him my spare automobile that I was going to sell to repair my porch and actually make it safe.  It was wonderful, then it was terrible.  I've been accused of such outlandish things that it still occasionally makes me angry to think about.  Then he was always so sorry, I was so good to him, he loved me, etc.  I badly wanted to believe, but after more unspeakable horrors that occurred (near physical altercations between him and a friend in my hallway) and a later near physical assault from this same friend, (which I don't condone physical violence, but the manipulation from the relationship had caused a yo-yo effect on my end of treating this friend very badly, and having to apologize for it on multiple occasions) I was able to get out.

It's worth mentioning that not everyone gets out of these situations, and some people live years, or the rest of their lives in relationships like that one.  My heart breaks for these individuals because it's hell.  I am not an overweight individual by any means, in fact most people consider me thin.  (I was a fat kid, and if there's one thing that anyone who grew up fat can tell you, it never goes away.  You always, as Rebel Wilson's character in Pitch Perfect says, "have a fat heart."  In the course of about 4 months, I lost 25lbs, dropping to my lowest adult weight ever of about 135lbs.  On my not quite 5'9" frame, my friends were super worried.  I was gaunt, I had no energy, I couldn't eat.

So that's it.  I made it out.  On halloween night, I decided to go on a date.  Ex had invited me to a Halloween party, but I was finally mentally empowered enough to say no.  A shockingly big deal for those of you who have never experienced something like this.  I was pretty excited about the date.  It wasn't someone I'd met online.  I met him at his family's vineyard a couple of years before when I a friend and I discovered it along a route we were driving.  I went back and bought a couple of bottles of wine, and he showed up, and remembered the meeting from a couple of years before.  He invited me over.  He seemed nice, I'd chatted with his mom, he'd let us walk around and see some of the grape presses.  It was very interesting.  I met him at his apartment and we had wine, and cheese, and maybe one thing led to another.  (Before the naysayers, the ones who don't read this blog anyway, make their judgements, I was by no means drunk.  I don't enjoy drunk people, and I don't enjoy being drunk myself)  To make a long story short and to avoid graphic, and painful details, I was sexually assaulted.

It was a scary and confusing time after that.  There are feelings of anger, guilt, shame, fear, isolation.  I didn't call the authorities, I did go to a clinic for testing, and that short half an hour meeting three days later was the only thing like counseling that I received for the incident.  I've always been really good at processing information through a filter of detached reason, and while I may run situations by people, I'm not one who frequently asks for advice.  I usually carry the debates on internally to their logical ends, and feel fairly comfortable with my decision.

Right after that I turned thirty.  Then, two weeks later I was laid off from my job, and suddenly I found myself not really myself anymore.  Something was missing, like a little bit of the fire had gone out.  That fire was always a hope for a better future.  It's what I was striving to outline in this blog.  That's why I thought I'd visit this blog again, and maybe find that fire/motivation/drive.

Here's to a long and worthwhile journey.

Confessions of a Packrat

I'm cleaning my bedroom.  That's pretty innocent, isn't it?  I was folding the mass of sweaters in my wardrobe, and picking the other up from the floor when I came across the three that I have been avoiding.  When I first moved to the house, there was a moth issue.  I'd never experienced that before...and they chewed a few holes into three of my really nice sweaters.  Well, that was a couple of years ago.  Now, I have to confront them...do I keep them?   And wait till I get around to mending them, they are nice sweaters after all...Do I pitch them?  They won't do anyone else any more good than they're doing me at the moment...or do I keep them until I find a project that they'll work for?  These shouldn't be revolutionary questions, or really questions that should prey on my mind.  It feels like if I answer this wrong, I'm going to end up as one of those people on hoarders.  Like if I can't make the correct decision, it's going to affect every part of my life...my sanity, my ability to get things done, my motivation to find a better job.  If I can't get my house in order, I can't get my life in order.  I don't want to run away, but I don't know how to start.

To my Voyeuristic Diary

I guess it's tomorrow already, so I can post about my initial thoughts from this evening.  Now, dear reader, you get a taste of something less insightful, or at least far less earth shattering or opinionated. The fact is, I'm in a dire need for a career change, or a job change into something resembling a career.  I had an epiphany the other night when I was randomly searching the internet for nothing in particular.  It occurred to me to search for positions in living history institutions, and lo, and behold, such a thing does exist.  That led to a short search and I found apprenticeships for preservation.  So here is my concern...would I be foolish to give up a steady, flexible, but low paying job and throw caution to the wind and work in Rural or Urban Pennsylvania for comparable pay, but no longevity in an effort to build experience and hope for a better shot at a real career, or tough it out and forge a new path here, albeit slowly?

Life Changing. A double entendre.

I can't help but wonder how this "stalled" generation is going to sort itself out.  College graduates with debt can't afford to move out of their parents' houses, let alone start their retirements savings, bear children, and save for their college.  How are we going to handle it?  There will have to be a push against our materialistic culture (of which I'm still guilty, in some sense), and a return to practices that we haven't seen or used since the depression.  I feel that this must include growing our own food, using our bodies for transportation, and supporting each other in enterprise, instead of corporate entities.  But, how do we undo, or redo 70 years of damage to our cities, and our rural areas?  How do we shrink cities and infrastructure to  levels manageable by our current population and income levels?  How do we balance the modern sensibilities of home with the need for tighter living spaces?  And how do we put the brakes on a consumption based economy without destroying "the system." (Because though many people allegedly hate "the system," we're still pretty dependent on it for jobs, goods, etc., so I guess we should ask how do we redefine "the system?")

This isn't all doomsday talk, I promise.  Just...more recently I've felt moved to be a little closer "to the land" (I have to put this colloquial stuff in quotes so I don't sound too pathetically idealistic and tree-huggy, because it's a bit deeper than a love for the environment) in a way that I've never felt before.  I couldn't wait to get out of the country and into the urban core of the city (even though I regard my house as suburban, most people can't comprehend that distinction when the house is 120 years old).  Now I worry about if my yard is large enough to have chickens and grow grains.  My parents live on a farm, and I worry that someday they'll sell it because Mom doesn't like living there.  It's not that I necessarily want to live on that farm (that is to be determined), but I would like the option to live on a farm, if I so choose.  And with current land prices, inheritance is about my only option.

On the other hand, my passions still lie in cities.  Not nameless, faceless cities, but a city of neighborhoods, where people know their neighbors, and know their grocers, and God-forbid, care about each other.  I think this may be the key to our survival as a generation, and the legacy that we're responsible for leaving.  We've been weaned from the rules of good society in a "take-care-of-number-one" mentality that is slowly destroying our ties to each other, and letting corporations take advantage of our increasing need to feel something more.  They just substitute goods, where we need humanity.  So whether it be in the city or country, (and heaven help us if we must have these accursed postwar suburbs for awhile longer)  community and a cultivated, rather than learned sense of values (because our generation learned the wrong set for the most part, it seems) will be the keys to our success.  I think one thing that defines our upbringing was the notion that we could do anything, or be anything.  Of course, the harsh reality is that we can't.  But if we team up, maybe, just maybe, we can.

Like everything I do, it's never enough.

So it's been a really long time since I've written.  Ah well, not too many people to disappoint here. :)  I've been reading again finally, (another major benefit of my getting fired last fall) and have had the opportunity to read several books that address the consumptive western lifestyle that is so ubiquitous to the US that we don't even see it as a problem anymore, or how terribly unsustainable it is. 

The most recent book that I've nearly finished is, "The Revolution Will Not be Microwaved."  It's probably the most terrifying book I've ever read.  It illustrates how everything family farms in the midwest to small farmers in Africa have been systematically destroyed by big business, government, and "free trade."  Nothing in Capitalism is ever free.

Here in the States we're so cheap.  Not interested in value, not interested in quality, but we're interested in cheap.  Manufactured goods cost a lot of money.  Food cost a lot of money.  A much greater percentage of our incomes went to food in the past.  But look what we've given up in our quest for cheap.  We've given up our jobs (because they all got shipped overseas), and as a result we've given up good pensions, good livelihoods, our middle class, even.  We've given up our health to processed foods, to a total separation of how our food gets to our plates.  We've given up our health in servitude to the jobs we do have in the form of long commutes, sedentary lifestyles, and pollution.  We've given up on farmers and landowners rendering them unable to function independently from the corporate machines that dictate what plants we can have, how they're genetically modified, etc.  These all seem like high prices to pay for "cheap stuff."

I'm still trying to find my place in all of this.  I'm not equipped to sever myself from the industrialized food system, or the consumer economy as I rely on one to survive in the other.  But in the greater context of a nation that is increasingly unskilled and idle, with mounting debt and political denial, something will have to give, and I fear that if we lose the basic skills of how to take care of ourselves, we will have a grim future ahead of us.

Unexpected Day Off

I had an unexpected extra day off this week because I will be working a show for my store for the next three days.  It's been an all around crappy day.  One of those days that is cold, wet, and apparently depressingly ripe for introspection.  I haven't done anything today.  That said, it's only 3 o'clock, but I have gone through today feeling like a failure.  Mostly because I've wasted time perusing the internet looking for things I want.  Really, I don't need more "things."  Given some of the amazing gifts I've had (no college debt for starters) it seems ungrateful to want anything.  I guess what I'm after is a purpose, sprinkled with some meaning.  My job doesn't really help anyone...it lies firmly in the consumer/consumption side of the economy, and when I see all of the waste (a tremendous amount of garbage is generated by retail with shipping, etc.), the garbage products that are out there (cheap, overpriced plastic toys from China that kids cry over when they don't get them), it begins to eat away at my self worth.

Is it silly that my perceived value is so integrally tied to my livelihood?  After all, it's a job, not a career.  But I can never seem to separate myself.  Perhaps I am a product of the "make every kid feel special" generation, where I'm so pathetically idealistic that I think I can make a difference.  Is that part of why we 20 somethings can't seem to find our stride?  Because we really bought into the idea that we could make a difference?    There's a poster on Despair, Inc. in the style of the posters that used to be on the walls of our high school classrooms.  Rich, high quality images, with an catch word, and a pithy quote to back it up.  It reads "Potential," underneath a full size image of a sack of french fries, with the sub message of, "Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up."  Some of us have to be corporate pawns so that we appreciate the success stories in all of the magazines. 

I have an idea of something that might make me feel better.  But, we'll see if I can get motivated enough to actually do it.

People Power

I have not always been a "thin" person.  In fact, I still don't see myself as thin.  Average maybe, but thin by most people's standards I guess.  I think if you are or have ever been fat, you'll always be fat on the inside.  There is a certain self-devaluing mindset that accompanies obesity.  But happily, I lost weight in college.  I'd lost some in high school mind you, but instead of gaining the freshman 15, I lost it.  Twice over.  In the intervening 5-7 years, I'd done the gradual, 5lb a year weight gain.  It finally came to the point where I was going to have to do something, or buy new clothes.  Read that first post again...being impoverished doesn't exactly jive with new wardrobes.  Fortunately last year the organization (and I use that term loosely) that I worked for offered Weight Watchers to any employee willing to go through the program for something ridiculous like 16 weeks.  It was fantastic.  People chided me as, "not needing to lose weight," but at 175 lbs and standing just under 5'9", I was considered to be overweight.  I lost 25 lbs last summer doing that, and vowed I would never let that happen again.  A year later, I'm within 5 lbs of last year.  But that is how it started before, no?  Those sneaky 5 lbs. 

That is the backstory of course, and you're here (well, if anyone actually read this) because of the present.  I'm trying to find ways to increase activity, and save money.  So I've decided to merge the two goals, and I'm planning to begin commuting to work by bicycle at least part of the time.  I don't live as close as I used to.  When I worked downtown, it was just barely over 2 miles to work.  Now, it's just under 15.  Before you assume I'm crazy, hear me out.  At 15 miles, that should take me near an hour to make the trip.  Many people drive longer than that.  And let's face it, a 15 mile bike ride is nothing.  I'm also looking at selling one of my cars and buying something uber fuel efficient.  And incidentally, cheaper to insure than a Luxury Sport Coupe.  My only concern is traveling a rather busy route to work on a road where there is no shoulder in most cases.  That means as a bicyclist, I have to do the "pisses everyone off" thing and take up a whole lane by myself.  But hey, if it's the difference between me, and me squished on the sidewalk, I can curse and flip them right back off when they pass.

People powered objects are liberating in my opinion.  It connects you more with the task at hand.  Ever done laundry by hand?  Decidedly more fun than people realize.  Ever make something on a treadle sewing machine?  Very rewarding.  The mechanical connection between man and machine, and the substantive relationship between man and his ability to provide for himself is liberating.  Liberating in perhaps a way that laundry has never been.  There is corporate slavery involved in using your washing machine.  Without a job, you can't afford the machine, or the gas and electric to run them.  I think sometimes our own leisure time contributes to our petty dissatisfactions with life.