1/3 Life Crises

This post is none of the nerdy and analytical posts I've been mulling over lately.  This one is a spur of the moment musing mainly to (as usual anymore) give vent to some of my life angstiety (do you see what I did there?).  Because tonight I finally forced myself to get back to that loathsome task of looking for a new job.  I got that interview last week and I sort of just stopped thinking about the job hunt.  But I was supposed to hear back from them on Friday and I still haven't, and even if I do and they decide to offer me the job I am deeply divided about taking it.  Which is all to say that I need to find some other options.

So tonight I decided to look for some other jobs to apply for.  Interestingly, I'm realizing I don't really want to continue in my current field.  To be sure, in the end I might not have any choice.  But I still have a little bit of time to look around, and so I found myself trying to find alternative employment to PCB Assembly (what you google if you want to find jobs like the one I currently have).

Of course, my immediate thought was "Ok!  Let's see what kind of jobs are available in the world of publishing!" because I have no grasp of reality.  After too much time wasted wandering around the internet, conducting penetrating searches like "publishing jobs" I had the brilliant idea to google instead "how do you get an entry level job in publishing?"  I came across this very interesting and useful article which, unfortunately, convinced me merely that if I wanted to get a job in the publishing industry I should have started the process in January.

Mulling over this failure of time management of course led me to consider my other planning-related failings, specifically, my absolute lack of life-planning.  Once again I looked at my trajectory in life thus-far and marvelled at the absolute lack of navigation.  It is astonishing that such a haphazard existence has not yet crashed into a metaphorical telephone pole and combusted vigorously.  It began as soon as I graduated high school with the selection of which college to attend.  And by "selection of college" I mean that I simply neglected to reply to any other schools which admitted me, and thus ended up at BYU without putting any real thought into it at all.  Once in my carefully selected school I proceeded to spend a very long time getting a very little education.  I did manage to score a degree...in a superlatively generic field of study.  And I did nothing else in my decade-long tenure as a student that might be useful to me now, like an internship or involvement in any campus programs. Despite my father periodically asking me about such things, somehow they still never registered on my radar of activities I should (or indeed could) actually do.

The thing is, even if it had ever crossed my mind to look for an internship or to get involved in some campus program, I wouldn't have had much idea which ones to pursue.  Because my ultimate problem is a lack of real ambition.  This is no new revelation.  I have known for some years now that I have no idea where I'm going in life because I have no idea what I want.  Or, those things that I do aspire to I immediately write off as unrealistic fantasies, and thereby avert the anxiety and hard work of actually pursuing them.

But tonight, reading about the process of wedging a toe into the publishing industry, I found myself experiencing a magical fusion of two previously entirely separate branches of my anxiety.  As I sat here thinking about my life and where I want it to go and how I need to find a goal...suddenly I had the mental equivalent of one of those creepy Vertigo zooms.  I leap-frogged right over picking a goal and started looking at the process of achieving that goal.  Specifically how long it will take.  And suddenly my 10 years of college became so much more of a waste than they've ever seemed before.  Most people my age have spent the last 5-7 years slogging through the initial stages of that process, but here I am literally starting from scratch and on the eve of my third decade.  Even if I start right now, by the time I get through the same things I could be nearly 40.

You could say that this job hunt, delayed and ignored and put off, is a microcosm of my life--when I finally decide to take it seriously I am on the verge of too late to find the right thing and may simply have to settle for the most expedient.  And I don't know which is worse: to continue drifting haphazardly through life or finally deciding on a direction only to realize that my chance to pursue it has come and gone.

TL;DR job-hunting and life-upheaval is stressful

I have been thinking with some guilt on my complete failure at blogging this year.  My general goal is to post at least once a month; this year I have fallen far short of that goal.  Partly I haven't had anything I want badly enough to write about and partly I just spend very little time on my computer anymore (phone and tablet have essentially taken over my internet needs).  But the urge to blog has at last returned to me, as it so often does, because I am having a lot of emotions and I need to vent them.  This is why my blog is so entertaining...

So what is going on?

What is going on is that it turns out I am kind of a major coward.  I do not like change, even when it is a change I have wanted for a very long time.  But, in the words of the immortal Lewis Carol, I shall endeavor to begin and the beginning and when I get to the end, stop.

The first issue that must needs be addressed is money, though I'll try to be quick.  Suffice it to say, I have none.  My finances have been dwindling since the beginning of this year.  I did that thing where I pretended like I was rich and carefree because I started the year not entirely broke.  It didn't take long for me to realize that was a horrible plan, and months later I'm still mentally slapping myself for it, but sadly the damage is done.  Things have been grim ever since, more or less.  My life now is a state of constant white knuckling from one paycheck to the next.

To be sure, I am aware of my good fortune.  I may not have any extra, but I have not yet come up short and I cannot begin to say how grateful I am for that fact.  But knowing that your life is the financial equivalent of that fork and toothpick trick and that the slightest bump will bring everything down around your ears is....wearing.

Perhaps this preceding stress will give me some excuse for my reaction, then, to the news Caleb gave me a few weeks back.

For over a year now Caleb has periodically come down to the basement to have a little chat with me about "the future of the company."  Every time he likes a different plan--release lots of new products one conversation, shift into high-end markets the next.  Then, about five weeks ago he comes to me again.  But this time his plan is to close CH Robotics down entirely.  This has always been listed in the possible options, but never seriously considered till now.  But it is all very vague.  He's going to look into selling, but maybe he'll just sort of go dormant, or maybe he'll officially close up shop.  He isn't sure.

Even though this sounded like another one of Caleb's ephemeral ideas--typically forgotten in a few days--it nonetheless sparked a pretty nasty anxiety attack.  That whole gratitude thing about always coming up flush no matter how close, it only works because I have this magical job that pays me really well.  Suddenly my rainbows and unicorns job has gone from anchor to...what is the opposite of an anchor?  The wind?  Sure, let's go with the wind.  Whimsical and dangerous to rely upon.

I prefer this sort of whimsy.  If you do as well, then might I suggest my whimsical pinterest board
where you shall find many more such whimsical images to make you feel happy

Things have remained in flux since then.  But slowly a picture has pulled together of what is probably going to happen.  Some time ago one of the components on our primary product was going out of stock with our supplier so Caleb bought out their entire stock.  The gyro/accelerometer IC.  This has become Caleb's countdown; as soon as I've used them all up he plans to shut down manufacturing.  At first he projected next spring, then February, and then this week he asked me if I could get them all built by the middle of November.  For those keeping track that means that the deadline of my own joblessness went from March to February to two weeks from now.  Though, I hasten to add that Caleb assured me that he will find things for me to do long enough for me to find a new job.  Bless his heart, he is doing his best to help me as best he can.  His deadline for closing the company entirely after we sell out our inventory is still the end of the year and from what he said I got the feeling he was assuming I'd stay till then as well.  Though I suspect he'll run out of things to keep me busy before then.

The thing is, objectively this really is not a bad situation.  I have been given plenty of warning of what is happening, and my boss is working really hard to help me out in every way he can.  It is a pretty decent bet that I could get another job doing what I've been doing at CH.  And then there's the fact that this is actually a great opportunity.  I have been dying to get out of Utah for years now and, since I finally graduated, the only thing holding me here theoretically has been this job.  Indeed, one could interpret the whole situation as a cosmic kick in the pants to get on with my life.

this is what came up when I googled "cosmic kick in the pants"
and I regret nothing

And yet...

Even though I know all of these things, the fact remains that I am, to use the vulgar expression, scared absolutely shitless about the whole thing.  I am terrified and anxious and perpetually on the verge of freaking out.  Like I said at the beginning, it turns out I'm a massive coward. But I feel like I need to explain why.  Like I need to justify my emotional response even to myself to prove that I'm not just a...a....a cotton-headed ninnymuggins.

First, know that above almost anything else I hate unsureness.  Which isn't a word, but you get the point.  To illustrate just how much I hate it, let me remind you all of the time I withdrew from BYU.  It was 2007 after my study abroad and I was broke.  I spent the summer trying to figure out how I was going to pay for school and taking my first steps down the road of churning anxiety with no outlet.  Ultimately I decided I was going to withdraw for a year and try to earn money.  At the time, if you didn't formally defer by a specific deadline then you were considered withdrawn and would have to reapply to come back.  I made this decision and I immediately felt better--I now had a solid point from which I could navigate further.  I then spent fall semester working, saving no money, and coming to the realization that I had made the wrong decision.  I should have gone back to school.  Nothing made this more clear than the moment BYU called me, a few weeks before winter semester was to begin, to tell me that their enrollment numbers were unexpectedly low so they were opening enrollment to students who had missed the deferral deadline instead of making them re-apply.  Now, I don't know the official numbers, but at the time that felt pretty dang specific to my situation.  Not quite a kick, but certainly a cosmic nudge in the ribs.  But I turned them down.  Because I had already made the decision. I so badly didn't want to have to revisit it, and consequently throw myself back into the marshlands of unsureness, that I consciously chose to continue making the decision that I very definitely knew was the wrong one (which, now I think about it, is possibly why the cosmos have upped their game to pants kicking).  So now apply that to my current situation and maybe you can catch a glimpse of my current unhappiness.  I don't know what is happening with the company and I don't know what is happening with my job and I don't know what is happening with my life and hate all of those thing.  So much.

I give up finding relevant pictures. I'll
 just give you more from my whimsy board

Second.  This one is kind of embarrassing.  As it turns out, I haven't actually had to search for a job in nearly a decade.  And before that I only ever really went through the process twice....eh....once and a half.  My last couple years of high school I worked but whatever...high school jobs aren't exactly critical.  After I graduated I moved to Portland to live with my dad for the summer before college with the vague idea that jobs would be more plentiful in the big city.  I proceeded to spend the entire summer searching fruitlessly until August when I was hired as the BB gun range instructor at a scout camp working 12 hour days for the astounding salary of $75/week.  That is the half.  The once was that same summer after my study abroad.  I was again living in Portland with my dad and I spent a month or two traipsing around Hillsboro handing out resumes (what was even on them??), falling down hills, and eventually getting a job at Target which I would hold for the next four years.  I spent a year in Hillsboro and then transferred down to Orem.  I cannot tell you how much easier it was to move back to Utah knowing that I had a job waiting for me there.  When I eventually left Target it was completely unplanned.  My brother had gotten a job at Vivint recently enough to suggest, in the glow of his employment honeymoon, that I too apply cause then we could work together and how great would that be?!  So I applied on a whim, was called in for a interview a couple days later, and walked out of that interview with a job offer.  Certainly not a change of necessity.  Then, three months later after I realized that the only thing worse than customer support in person is customer support over the phone, I was chatting with Caleb whilst he complained about putting many stickers on many sensors and I joked that he should hire me because putting stickers on things sounded like exactly my kind of work.  And a few weeks later he did just that.  In both cases jobs were basically handed to me.  I feel like I've forgotten how to find jobs, not that I was ever very good at it (BB gun range instructor for $75/week).  All I remember about the process is how ungodly awful it is.  And the couple of hours I spent peeking into the classified corners of the internet today only confirmed that impression.  How do you find jobs to apply for them???

actually...this is totes relevant

Third, and last...moving.  As I said, I've been dreaming of getting out of Utah for years now.  But dreaming of something is a lot different than being faced with the actual reality of it.  I've started thinking of exactly what a move would mean.  I complain about how few friends I have these days, but a few is definitely more than literally zero.  I learned this when I moved into my own apartment.  I told myself before I moved that my roommates were hardly ever home so it probably wouldn't be much different.  Once again, not many is distinctly more than none; rarely home is still more than never home because they don't exist.  If I moved to let's say Pittsburgh or somewhere in Michigan I would truly be alone.  I wouldn't even have acquaintances.  And the friends that I do have hear are dear ones.  I'd be leaving behind Caleb and Kara and Michelle and Taka.  And my brother.  There are all kinds of layers to my feelings about moving away from my brother and only some of them are social.  And as for the rest of my family, no longer would I be a comfortable day's drive away if I wanted to visit.  Add in the hassel of the actual process of moving, something I just went through a few months ago, and would have to translate into the greater trial of moving long distance... Suffice it to say, while I know that I don't want to live in Utah, I am becoming aware that leaving will not be an unequivocally happy decision.

this feels accurate....

So does that explain it?  Do I have a right to my perpetual anxiety and stress?  Do all these reasons add up to legitimacy?  I don't know.  Sometimes I think yes, other times I think I need to get over myself and realize that everything is fine and it will all work out.  Most of the time I am thinking both of those things at once.  But I do feel a little better having written it all out, which is usually the case.  I guess that's a point for Allen, my long lost therapist.  He'd be so proud to hear me say that sharing my stress, even with the vagueness of the internet, makes me feel better.  I do often think of him and wonder if this would all be easier if I could go and tell him all about it.  Who is to say.

But if anyone else has persevered and read through this whole thing, well, I thank you.

Several Peas in my Podcast

This week has been a headlong dive into the world of NPR podcasts.  Previously my engagement with the medium was limited to the occasional Wait Wait Don't Tell Me episode and Serial.  But since Monday they're almost all I have listened to all day at work.  I've listened to all of Invisibilia, and many hours of Radiolab, This American Life, 99% Invisible, and Theoretically Speaking (these last two are technically not NPR podcasts but definitely of the same genus).  I learned about the decline of the American automobile industry, filming on location in LA, infant organ donation (eyes in particular), the international American Visa lottery and consequent process of emigration from Kenya to the US, echolocation and the way it gives literal sight to the blind, the largest animals ever to walk, fly, and swim on earth (the blue whale, btw, is the overall winner of that game and amazingly still exists today), the Mau Mau uprising against British Empire, and the history and importance of the "Freudian couch" to the world of psychology.  These are a few of the things I have learned.  

this, by the way, is the answer to "what is the largest animal to ever fly?"
it is an azhdarchid pterosaur and they were comparable in size to giraffes
and I'm sorry that you won't be able to sleep tonight.

Traditionally I have helped myself pass the time at work with TV shows and movies.  I have been known to blast through entire seasons in one day if circumstances line up right, and I'm ok with this.  Y'all know I love stories.  And I'm sure I'll go back to watching all the different shows I'm working on (Buffy, Blue Bloods, ST:TNG, The Office, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal, Once Upon A Time, Bones, Supernatural, and Criminal Minds, among others) eventually.   

In my initial enthusiasm I tried out several additional programs that I quickly discarded.  I find that what I really enjoy are the shows that pick a specific idea, theme, or item and dig into it.  Though there are only 6 episodes thusfar, Invisibilia has become my favorite.  It focuses on "the invisible forces which influence human behavior".  Every episode was engrossing!

As I've steeped myself in them for the last couple of days, I have discovered that the podcasts I'm listening to are an entirely different experience than my usual TV marathons.  It must be admitted that I view TV passively.  I almost never break a show down and analyze it.  Rarely is my mind sparked by an interesting idea.  On the contrary, my brain has a tendency to simply shut off and I am mindlessly entertained.  In contrast, I have found myself invigorated by the shows I've listened to this week.  

It's a combination of several factors I think.  I have the initial enjoyment of learning something new, often on a topic I'd never have otherwise encountered.  My secondary enjoyment is in thinking further on the ideas I've just learned about--finding my own implications and possibilities not necessarily elaborated on the show.  And lastly, I am rediscovering my own love of information which has been dormant for kind of a long time I'm realizing.  I listen to these shows and I want to make my own.  Pick my own obscure topics to research and report on.  I'm remembering my interest in fairy tales and storytelling mechanics and wondering if I could put together a show about those things.  I'm writing this blog post after two months of blog neglect.

this has nothing to do with anything, but its funny and I couldn't find
a Heart and Brain about going to the gym.

Sometimes I see people on facebook posting statuses about how they've been slacking on their workouts, but they finally got back in the gym, and it feels so great!  I don't think I'm ever going to be one of those people.  Going to the gym will always suck.  But diving into hours of information for the love of information is reminding me that I do love working out my brain. 

And that I've been slacking on that for a while.  

And it feels really really great give my brain a little stretch.

Anne Shirley is my role model

Over the last week I've been rereading the Anne books.  Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and I've just started Anne of the Island.  In one of the most popular posts on my blog I list 5 books I believe every girl should read before she is 20 (I neglected to elaborate in that post that I actually think every human should read those books even if they've already passed the age of 20 and/or male).  But despite my advice, I realized the other day that I hadn't revisited Anne in years and years.

Returning to Avonlea has been a surprisingly fraught experience.  Of course it has been in many ways delightful.  Anne is very much a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in the very best sense possible (particularly in that she is also a fully developed character) and stepping into her world is  like living the experience of the sad sappy guy in the typical MPDG movie.  You see the world anew through Anne's big, beautiful eyes and you remember how lovely it is.  You feel optimistic not only about the world, but about your potential within it.

And yet, that very optimism became a bit of a double edged sword for me.  This is the first time I have visited Anne, I believe, since before I graduated high school.  The last time I read these words I was not yet 20 myself:

[Miss Stacy] said we couldn't be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid for our whole future life.  And she said if the foundation was shaky we could never build anything really worth while on it.

I'm 28 now, and I confess that, though I hadn't put those words to it, essentially I worry if my foundation is shaky.  I struggle a lot these days with a feeling of pragmatic worthlessness.  Which is to say, sure I have the intrinsic value that all humans on this earth share, but beyond that my life adds very little to the world.  And I mean that very literally.  I produce nothing.  I give nothing.  I accomplish nothing from one day to the next.

Reading this beautiful story about a beautiful girl who walks through the world actively trying to enrich it in every way she can has made me sad.  Because at 16 Anne Shirley is more of a woman than I am at nearly twice that age. I grew up reading these books about these great women and I wanted to be one of them too.  But I am so far from being an Anne or a Jo or an Elnora.  It is difficult for me to believe I'm even on the path to become like them.   Honestly I'm not sure I can be, at this point.  So while I have loved visiting Anne and Marilla and reacquainting myself with their wholesome, beautiful outlook on life I find myself feeling...hypocritical and disappointed.

One of my coping strategies in life is to remind myself that I have plenty of time left and if I am not perfect today, I still have tomorrow and many days thereafter to work on it.  And that is true.  But 17 year old Anne is reminding me that time is also precious and once it is past I cannot get it back.  And I am regretting that I have spent 28 years accomplishing so little.

Sir Maxwell Octavius and Shaw

basically...these are for mom and aunt Vickie
If you are confused what this post is, then go read the first one from yesterday.

Sir Maxwell Octavius

Role in Story: Mirabel’s best friend

Occupation: octopus

Physical Description: Max is a stuffed blue octopus about 12 inches long that Mirabel has had her whole life. He wears a floppy top hat, monocle, and mustache.

Personality: Sir Octavius prefers to be referred to by his title by all but his closest friends. Mirabel is the only person allowed to address him as Max (though he wishes she’d call him Maxwell). He is a stickler for etiquette and formality. He and Mirabel frequently butt heads as he cannot approve of her “ends justify the means” life philosophy. That said, he is terribly loyal and under questioning by the authorities he will always back her up. He, like Mirabel, struggles to be taken seriously by the people around him. No one but her is able to look beyond the fact that he is a stuffed octopus and appreciate anything else he has to offer. He is, in fact, extremely intelligent and particularly good with the more complex, nuanced ideas Mirabel is often guilty of over-simplifying

Habits/Mannerisms: I’m not sure yet

Background: Sir Octavius was given to Mirabel’s mother by one of her friends from college when she announced her pregnancy. He was the first and only animal to be born of a sewing passion that quickly settled on clothing over toys.

The Tooth Fairy

Role in Story: antagonist? Anti-hero?

Occupation: collecting teeth

Physical Description: dark slinking creatures with long skinny arms and knobbly joints, particularly elbows and knees. Their hands are long, flat, and thin to slide undetected under your pillow. They have incredibly hard, broad, pointed teeth made of something not quite metal nor quite stone, but something in the middle, that is able to crunch up human teeth, and acidic saliva that helps to dissolve the bits. Their bodies are squat and pear shaped. They look like an orangutan mixed with a spider with the hide of an elephant. Their eyes are large, extremely pale, and sunken. They have no hair at all.

Personality: What we call “the tooth fairy” is in fact a race of demons known as Hortz Demons, which eat human teeth as their primary food source. They are extremely solitary, and each has its own territory that typically comprises 200-300 children (as population density varies, so does the geographical size of the area covered by each demon to take in enough children) and if another demon tries to invade their territory they have been known to get into fights—the goal of which typically is to break the other’s fingers, which are very long and spindly, as this virtually guarantees their opponent will not be able to successfully collect any teeth till they heal.
The particular demon of this story is named Shaw. I don’t know precisely who Shaw is yet

Background: In the Dark Ages demons were hunted and despised. As folktales and superstitions waned amongst humans, however, demons were forgotten or rejected. Wary of returning to the days when they were hated and hunted, demons typically encourage the skepticism of humanity. Co-opting stories like the toothfairy have allowed them to eke out a subsistence below human radar. Most of them don’t even leave the money for the teeth anymore as parents, rejecting even the harmless mythos of the toothfairy, have begun taking on that job. Those demons who DO leave money typical steal it out of purses and wallets or under car seats.

External Conflicts: Shaw needs the teeth to stay alive. He also needs to remain hidden from the humans. He has to find some way of stopping Mirabel from discovering the truth about “tooth fairies”.

Notes: I don’t know yet if Shaw is going to be a legitimate villain or if he’s going to be sympathetic. Part of me wants to go unabashedly scary, but part of me wants him ultimately to team up with Mirabel.  

Mirabel

Whilst I was in Oregon over Easter weekend I got this idea for a story about a little kid who gets freaked out about the idea of the Tooth Fairy.  I, of course, did nothing about it, but last night as I was falling asleep I suddenly got this idea for just a moment out of the story.  I swyped it into my phone and fell asleep, but tonight I decided to pull out Scrivener (since my mom so very kindly bought it for me last Christmas) and see if I had any more ideas.  And it turns out that if you open a story document in Scrivener it has all these nifty little writing tools, including character sketch sheets.  I just now roughed out my main character, her best friend, and the tooth fairy.  It was great fun and since who knows if I'll ever come back to the story again (my enthusiasm for projects is all too often terrifyingly brief), I wanted to at least share little Mirabel with you because I think she's kind of fantastic.  So here's a cut and paste of her "character sketch" straight from Scrivener.  Perhaps, if anyone wants, I'll post the other sketches later.

Mirabel

Role in Story: protagonist

Occupation: 5 year old child

 

Physical Description: very compact child, small for her age, but solid. Like a little brick. She has very short curly brown hair and grey eyes.

Personality: intense and businesslike. She doesn’t like people talking down to her or not being taken seriously. She has a nose for condescension and flimflammery. She is shrewd and curious and pragmatic to the point of seeming cynical. She wants to know how and why before she does anything.

Habits/Mannerisms: she pulls on her right ear when she gets frustrated. She shakes her head violently when angry. She has a very slow, rare smile. She walks just a little sideways and clutches a stuffed octopus in her left arm. He goes with her everywhere and is her most trusted confidant.

 

Background: Mirabel was born on September 1, 2010 just before 8 am. She lives in an as yet undetermined city with her parents in an apartment downtown just a block from the city library. She has three older siblings, Joshua, the eldest boy who is 15, 13 year old Anne, and 9 year old Schroeder. Schroeder should have gotten over it by now, but he is still a little bit resentful that he is no longer the baby of the family (in fact, in many ways he still is, as Mirabel has no interest in being coddled). As such he tries to ignore Mirabel whenever possible. Mirabel’s mother teaches 2nd grade and her father works as a middle manager in an advertising company. Mirabel has just started kindergarten this year and is not entirely sure how she feels about it.

Internal Conflicts: Mirabel is very confident and sure of herself, but no one, not even in her own family, takes her seriously. She can’t figure out how to make them listen to her. In her attempts to gain legitimacy she once took her mother’s sewing scissors and cut off all her hair after she heard someone say it made her look like such a doll. This has gained her a reputation as somewhat of a problem child and, contrary to her hopes, did not inspire the people around her to treat her like an adult.

External Conflicts: Mirabel is very uncomfortable with the idea of someone or something coming in the night and stealing away her teeth, even if it does leave her her some spare coins in exchange. Thus, on the verge of losing her first tooth, she is on a quest to discover just who or what this tooth fairy is and what exactly it is doing with all these teeth. 

The Objective Value of Strength or How I Discovered I Am Just Like Spock

So I had an interesting experience last week and I'm not entirely sure what to think of it so I'm going to post it here in the hopes that someone will have some sort of revelatory insight to offer me.

I don't know if I had mentioned that the reason I have been able to go see ye olde therapiste is because my ward was covering the cost.  But with the decision to officially emigrate out of the old ward it became necessary to broach the topic of continued subsidization with the new administration.  

So last Wednesday I stopped in to visit with my new bishop.  Aside from a brief handshake and hello my first Sunday, this was my first introduction to him.  After the obligatory "getting to know you" chitchat I broached the topic of Alan and my enigmatic therapy.  

It must here be noted that I have remained somewhat ambivalent about my therapy with Alan.  The man himself is perhaps the second sweetest and most earnest man I've ever met (the first being my Russian 101 professor Tony Brown).  But I have struggled to quite get a handle on his therapeutic style from the beginning.  And when I brought this up with him again during our last session we momentarily touched on the possibility that his laid-back style wasn't quite right for me.  But every time I've considered that idea I've left the thought with a vague feeling that I should give Alan's style a little more time.

Which brings us back to my meeting with the bishop.  When asked how I felt therapy was going for me I completely unsurprisingly struggled with my answer.  Which is why I was so surprised by the visceral reaction I had to my bishop's statement that he thought I should "give Alan the boot".  I immediately started feeling anxious and a little panicky.  When I finally made it out to my car I started crying.  Driving from church back home I proceeded to have a micro anxiety attack.

I must, however, again pause my narrative for another bit of background.  I had spent some time last Sunday considering my relationship with the divine and I had come to the conclusion that, while I have a somewhat unorthodox (for a Mormon) relationship with God, my personal system of applied belief rather skips over the idea of Christ.  When I pray I pray to God; in the idea of heavenly communication God is the one I am talking to and listening for.  It occurred to me, then, that perhaps I should look into cultivating some sort of direct relationship with Christ.  Mormon theology places him as the intermediary between God and man, after all.  

So, returning to last Wednesday night, as my anxiety persisted it seemed as good an opening as any to begin that cultivation.  So I sat down on my futon and said a quick prayer.  It consisted essentially of me telling him I was upset, I wasn't completely sure why, and I needed some help.  And in a true New Era moment, I can honestly say that I stopped crying almost instantly.  

I cannot say, however, that I necessarily felt comforted.

What I felt, for lack of any better way to explain it, was more like myself.  

See, the thing about me is that pretty much all of my adult life I've felt like I'm really two very different, almost opposite, people crammed together into one.  One half of me is the person who comes up with the topics for most of my blog posts--all about my insecurities and worries and struggles.  It is the part of me that is responsible for the infamous anxiety.  It is all sensitivity, passion, insecurity, and fear.  Fear of so very many things.  The other half of me is the one who takes all those whinging neurotic blog topics and writes them either with detached analysis, or makes them funny.  In simplest terms, it is the Vulcan part of me.  Because I just realized literally as I was writing that sentence that I'm basically Spock, divided between emotion and reason.  This second half of me is logical and reasonable and calm.  And most of all, it is strong, with a burdensome strength that never allows me a moment of cathartic emotional weakness because it sees no purpose in such indulgences.  At the end of our meeting the Bishop mentioned how surprised he was at the topic of our conversation; I was much too calm to suffer from anxiety.  He said this to me as I was in the initial stages of an anxiety attack.  

Which is what I mean when I say that, after I said my prayer, I felt more like myself.  I stopped crying.  I stopped panicking.  I stopped caring at all about what would happen if I stopped going to see Alan because I knew that I would be fine either way.  Because I'm always fine.  I felt, for a little while, like half of myself...wholly.  If that isn't too confusing.

It is important to note here that the motivation in many of my decisions lately has been a desire to better balance of these two halves of myself.  Not to be too dramatic about it, but I feel like the emotion and sensitivity of the one is being slowly smothered beneath the rigid stoicism of the other.  Only the most negative aspects of that part of me make it out at this point.  The insecurities, anxieties, and fears.  They are the only parts strong enough to break through.  So, as I said, I'm trying to find some way to relieve some of the pressure.  Because sensitivity and emotion aren't bad, are they?

And that is why I am confused.  Did I receive a true answer to my prayer?  To a person who can't say with surety that she's received an answer to her prayers since she was a teenager, that would be momentous.  But if I did, what does it mean that that answer was to be snapped back into my Vulcan self so hard the other self was practically gone (if just for a while)?  Have I been working toward the wrong goal?  Instead of trying to cultivate a balance between Vulcan and Human should I simply be striving to become pure Vulcan?  

I honestly don't know.  I'm hoping that one of you will have an idea that will help me to make some sense out of it all...

Nesting in the Nest

Well, as it's been just shy of two weeks since I moved into my new place, I suppose it's time I posted an update about it.  I tried to come up with just the right name for it and I was drifting towards "treehouse" but then I remembered that my friend Katie Pilkington calls her place her treehouse and even though I'm sure she wouldn't mind me using the name too (especially since she lives literally all the way across the country), I still felt like a fourth grade copycat.  So instead I've settled on calling it my nest.  And while a part of me rebels against that name as being far too cutesy for me, another, louder part of me says that cutesy can go screw itself because I can use whatever words I want.  So "nest" it is.

And guys, can I just say...I absofreakinglutely love it.  

I never realized just how disconnected I've been from all of my communal homes until I had one that was all mine that I could really invest in.  It actively makes me happy to wash my dishes and to fold my laundry and to do all the other chores I've typically hated.  Because I know that I am doing them for myself, and if I leave and come back home, everything will still be in exactly the same state I left it.  It is seriously unbelievable what a difference it turns out that makes to me.

And part of my love is the specific apartment I've found.  If I was in a generic modern place I don't think I would feel half so happy.  But I'm not in a generic cookie-cutter apartment.  I finally stopped a few days ago and actually looked at the historical plate beside the door.  This building was built at the end of the 19th century.  That's right, not the last century, but the one before.  That is amazing!  And as a person who has always dreamed of living in an old building, I cannot imagine a more perfect place for me.

Which is not to say that my little nest doesn't have it's...eccentricities.  As I've said several times, the small irritations make the overall enjoyment all the sweeter.  And my little nest does indeed have it's few annoyances.  Mostly these exist in the bathroom, the one aspect of my little home that I find difficult to deal with.  I was going to enumerate on this point, but I decided that if you really want to hear my struggles, you can just ask me.  Otherwise we'll just say...it is an ongoing adjustment, and leave it at that.

Interestingly, a very large part of what I love about my place is all the plans I have for improving it.  Every time I think about this I hear the line in Leap Year when Amy Adams is talking about the apartment she's trying to get and she says "It's perfect, and I already know exactly how I'm going to change it."  But I think the prospect of being able to have home improvement projects is a significant part of the appeal of this place.  All part of that investing I was talking about. 

Anyway, currently, my list of major projects for this place is as follows:

• paint the main room
• build a loft stand for my bed
• either buy a bookshelf or install shelves to get my boxes of books and movies off the floor
• put shelves in the bathroom

The last item is important, but not pressing so I don't really worry about it.  But the first three have been stressing me out since I moved in.  Obvious as it seems, I had to sit down the other night and specifically list out and order my projects so that I could start to come to grips with them.  Simply realizing that I had to paint first before I did anything else was a big deal.  It gives me a place to start and a timeline: I want my dad to help me build my bed stand, and my parents are planning on coming down for a visit in May, so that means I have to get my apartment painted by the end of April.  Ok.

So that is where I am right now.  My plan for tomorrow is to go to the Sherwin Williams next door and pick out the colors I want to paint and bring them 'round for a final sign off from my landlord (if she approves my colors then she will reimburse me for the cost of the paint).  I'm also hoping to start the process of taping everything off tomorrow.  Possibly.  I might just get the colors finalized because baby steps help me not get overwhelmed and just give up.  If I can break the painting task up into micro tasks then hopefully I can actually accomplish it.  But I will say, it is nice to have actual projects that have actual value and discernable results.  One of the perpetual struggles of my life the last few months is an overwhelming sense of "what is even the point of this???"  But fixing up my apartment?  I can definitely see the point to that! 

So...yeah.  That's what is up.  Unfortunately, it's kind of impossible for my place to look clean and neat right now, so I don't really want to post any pictures yet.  Not till they can be the before of the "before and after" series.  But eventually, if you are interested, you shall have some.  

If you're not interested then I have to ask you why you're even here reading this post...?

Therapeutical Musings

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I mentioned in an earlier post that I've started going to a therapist.   I've now been to see Alan 3 times. Each time has been unique, and at any given moment my mind might have changed about how I feel about the endeavor overall.  But if you all would indulge me, I’d like to share some of my thoughts about it.

My first visit I had no idea what to expect.  The Bishop told me to go so that we could determine whether or not I have anxiety and, if so, get me some medication to fix the problem.  I was pretty sure I didn't have clinical anxiety, but why not check.  I then proceeded to have one of the worst, most anxious and stressed out weeks of my entire life just a little while before going in for my appointment.  It was really superlatively awful, but it sort of primed me to think that maybe I DO have prescription-level anxiety issues.  So I went in incredibly nervous about so many things.  Alan was very nice, but nevertheless, I left feeling absolutely emotionally disheveled.  I felt as though I'd just spent an hour having someone poke and pick at me and try to break me down into my constituent bits and I absolutely hated it.  Full disclosure: I sat in my car and cried for several minutes afterward, and spent the entire drive down to work fighting to regain my composure.

I tried to figure out what made that first visit so stressful and unpleasant and I came up with a few ideas.  I kept fixating on this one moment as I was leaving when Alan patted me on the shoulder and said “you did great”.  The sort of thing you say to someone who is clearly on the verge of melting down (which, annoyingly, was basically what I did as soon as I left his office).  He had said it because he could tell I was barely holding it together.  But why was I barely holding it together?  Why had I been so nervous?  I decided that I shouldn’t be nervous.  I decided that I should take charge on my next visit.  I wasn’t a person who struggles to hold it together.  I’m not a person who cries in my car.  He hadn’t really seen the real me.  So next time I was going to go in there and make it very very clear who the real me is, and let him know that I’m really a normal, well-adjusted human.  And that is exactly what I did.  I told him I was fine, things were fine, the world was fine, and his time would probably be much better used helping people with actual real problems.  And at the end of the visit he basically told me “If you actually want to work on anything then I’m more than willing.  But if you don’t then why come in again?” 

That was a very good question and I thought about it for the two weeks till my next appointment.  And the more I thought the less I knew.  On the one hand, I am by no means so arrogant as to think that I am the one person on earth who wouldn’t benefit from going to therapy.  And I certainly do have my fair share of issues I’d like to figure out.  On the other hand, I was having a really hard time understanding how talking to a random guy I’d met twice before in my life was going to help me.  What was he going to tell me that I hadn’t already thought of?  In spite of these doubts, I decided to go back for my third visit.  And in deciding I also decided to commit to opening myself up more like my first visit.  I just saw an episode of Blue Bloods where Frank goes to see a therapist and after several attempts the therapist says “Frank, you’re a very intelligent man and I have no doubt you’d be able to successfully evade my questions all day.”  In my case, it proved nothing to sidestep questions, and refusing to be at all vulnerable would shut me out from any kind of growth.  So I committed to letting myself be at least a little vulnerable. 

And I did.  I went back for my third visit this week.  I talked through many of my concerns and doubts about continuing to come.  Alan was able to explain to me more clearly the format he adopts in his sessions.  He believes that there is value in simply experiencing emotions with someone, and then understanding the whys and hows of those emotions and growing from them.  Very very foreign approach to me.  But I figured that if I was going to try then I had to trust him.  And perhaps his style, so very very different from mine, will be good for me. 

Alan’s format is, rather than to ask specific questions or address “assignments” from before, to have me simply tell him about my life and my concerns and what has been bothering me.  I was kind of shocked by how hard that ended up being for me.  Some of my friends, like Matt or Kara or Caleb, know that I can definitely vent when someone or something is annoying.  But to simply start talking to a relative stranger about all the negative things that I had thought and felt for the previous two weeks?  It was unexpectedly formidable.  And even though I’m trying to trust Alan and his system, I am still having a hard time reconciling myself to the idea.  To me, it feels like I am indulging in the worst aspects of my nature.  The parts of me that I should be working to change.  If I give voice to them then that is giving them that much more legitimacy. 

When I brought this up to Alan he had some explanation, but he also said that I don’t have to worry because he knows I’m a good person and nothing I say is going to make him think differently.  When he said it I had one of those uncomfortable moments of realization that yes, in fact, I am exactly like every single other human out there.  Everyone worries about making themselves look bad.  You don’t share your secrets with strangers because you don’t trust that stranger to judge you rightly.  So Alan was giving me the assurance that I didn’t need to have that worry; that he was going to judge me rightly.

But on the other hand, that didn’t feel like the whole problem.  I understand that this is Alan’s job and that he knows how to listen to people without judgment. 

But what about me?

If I start telling someone else all my struggles and all my emotions then how can I continue believing that I am a good person?

You know that feeling that they say we all get, that we are pretending in a world full of people who actually have it together?  That voice, telling you that you are a pretender, it is the voice I am so afraid of.  It is the constant conscience who will not be silenced.  The one who evaluates everything you are and finds it wanting.  The one that hears other people praising you and whispers “but they don’t really know…” 

All of the things that Alan wants me to share, they are the fodder for that voice.  If I keep them locked up and never allow them the life of another person’s hearing then I can keep the voice quiet enough to ignore most of the time.  I can go on believing myself to be strong and intelligent and sensible and together.  Yes, I have this endless litany in my head of all the ways that is not true, but I never speak them, I never let them out.  I never dignify them with acknowledgement.  I am terrified that if I do I won’t be able to ignore them anymore. 

I’m not worried that Alan will think I’m a bad person, I’m worried that I’ll finally believe that I am. 

No one wants to think that there is something wrong with them.  We all want to be well-adjusted, fully functioning human adults.  But ultimately I don’t think there is any person so normal and so happy and so sensible that if you look closely enough you won’t find that they are a little bit broken somewhere.  I know this.  So I guess talking to a therapist is supposed to reconcile me to it in myself.  They say the first step is admitting you have a problem…

Therapy session: Residence Upheaval Edition

According to my therapist (cause I have one of those now) I need to work on forming connections with people that involve more trust so that I can go to those people when I'm having all the anxiety because that is how you're supposed to deal with anxiety.

I respectfully disagree with my therapist.

See, I agree that I don't really talk to people when I'm in the midst of an anxiety-induced meltdown.  But that is because there is no point.  I mean, sure, talking to people about issues is probably a good thing, but only if you're in a state to use their added perspective and insight.  And mid-panic?  I'm not in a state to do or use anything.  Hence, as I told ye olde therapist, I will talk to people before a freak out, and after a freak out, and even when there are no freakouts in sight fore or aft, but not during.  During I just lay facedown on the bedroom floor and breathe deeply.

But because there's no point going to see a therapist if you just dismiss what he tells you, I am writing this blog post as an initial foray into the sharing my feelings mid (or rather, on the tail end of) a major stress out.  That said, this is likely to be superlatively boring, so feel free to move along.

Today's stress is brought to you by the letter M, for Moving.

Tomorrow I sign a contract on a new apartment.  A faux studio apartment (technically there is a separate kitchen and bedroom/livingroom).

First, let us establish the advantages of this decision.  The apartment is very cool, located in a historic building, with oodles of personality.  And it would be mine exclusively.  I would, for the first time ever, have a home that belonged to no one besides me.  My own bathroom.  My own fridge.  My own sink with no dishes in it but the ones I put there.  And speaking of dishes, the only person to break or lose them would be me.  Indeed, there would be no one to break, ruin, or damage ANY of my stuff besides myself.  I literally cannot express to you how amazing that sounds...

But now for other side of things.

This place is small.  I mean, seriously tiny.  My current bedroom might very well be bigger than the main room.  And there is no other additional storage space.  When I try and think about condensing all of my stuff down into one very tiny room my brain just blanks out.  I have a few vague ideas but ultimately I'm not actually sure it will be possible.  And while I can probably get rid of a lot of stuff, there is a lot of stuff I can't get rid of.  Like the boxes of stuff from my grandma.  Like my books.  I don't know what I'll do...

The rent, while incredibly reasonable for a one-person place, is still a significant increase from what I'm paying now.  My disposable income is basically going to be decimated.  This includes my food budget.  I'm going to have to make a major adjustment in my lifestyle...though honestly that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Just difficult.

The apartment will be available at the beginning of March, which means that I have less than a month to figure everything out and get all packed up and ready to go.  Which leads to to the final and most stressful of all the problems.  Thusfar, all my issues are things that ultimately I can figure out.  It might take some work, but I have the power to manage them.  The last problem is somewhat less under my control, and that is the problem of my current contract.  Just after I put in my application for the apartment I found out that my old roommate Callie was moving back to Provo through August and we both got really excited about her buying my contract.  But as it turns out, it probably will make a lot more sense for her not to buy it.  Which is awesome for her, but rather drops the floor out from under me.  I now have only 24 days to find someone to buy my contract and I am seriously stressed.

Everyone keeps telling me that it won't be a problem.  I'll be able to sell it so so easily.  But the fact is the one time I ever tried to sell a housing contract I ended up paying double rent for three or four months before I managed it.  I was fortunate to be able to manage it then, but there is literally no way I can do that this time.  And I have a lot less cushion before that becomes an issue this time, too.

In addition to all that general stress, I had the particular stress of trying to figure out how, by tomorrow, I was going to pay $360 of rent for my current place plus $450 of deposit for the new one, and I only had $273 in my checking account.  This problem swerved into a detour of hunting desperately for the checks I ordered last year that truly seem to have dissolved into their constituent atoms because I have literally searched every single place they could possibly exist.  Luckily, during my 2nd or 11th hour of searching, Blair informed me that I can go to the bank and pay them $1 per check to print them out for me right there.  I am not exaggerating when I say that this information brought tears to my eyes.  And with it, I am able to MacGyver my way through to Friday when, mercifully, I get paid.  Timing has not worked out for me this week...

And there you have it.  I am sharing my anxiety with others in the hope that doing so will somehow alleviate it.  And, score one for the therapist, I'll admit that on most of the points I do feel marginally better for laying them all out.  Selling my contract remains the aggressive gorrilla in the room, but the rest has diminished to conceivable proportions.

Or perhaps I've simply run out of energy to continue stressing tonight and will begin afresh tomorrow.  Only time will tell...

The philosophical ramifications of external versus internal perception

Tonight I was told, for about the zillionth time, that I am intimidating.  In this instance the description was used as a compliment, but that hasn't always been the case.  I have been told by a relatively large number of roommates that they found me intimidating, even to the point of frightening, for months of living together.  Bishops, friends, and people I hardly know have all described me this way.

This phenomenon is fascinating to me in a very weird way.  I do not feel intimidating.  I do not think of my self as even slightly scary.  On the contrary, I think of myself as the person being intimidated and the person who is afraid.  I spend my life oscillating gently between anxiety and awkward confusion.

My friend tonight tied my aura of intimidation to my utter lack of bothers given, my confidence in my self and my own decisions, and even the way I carry myself.  Bless his heart.  I guess that does imply that I'm not losing my eternal battle with my posture quite as badly as I thought I was.  But aside from that, the rest of his explanation is a pretty constant theme from others I've spoken to.  People tell me I brook no nonsense and put up with no bullshit.  They tell me I'm confident.  So many people tell me this.

I, on the other hand, feel like I am a person who will accept rather a lot of both nonsense and bullshit.  I mean, I like to say that I don't put up with it, but it is one of those "say it and maybe it will come true" situations.  And confident?  I question pretty much every decision I ever make.  Endlessly.  It is exhausting.

So who do I believe?

That I have these feelings is significant.  I create myself, and my thoughts and feelings are the molecules I use for that creation.  I can't exactly experience life any way but the way I experience it...if that statement wasn't so recursive as to implode on itself.  Basically, to see myself as a particular kind of person is to be that kind of person.  

But at the same time, I must distrust my own opinion of myself.  I've talked about my struggles with self-image and confidence and self-love.  I know that I am a sufferer of mental dysmorphic disorder (which is a thing I just made up) wherein the image I see in my mental mirror is not necessarily accurate to the truth.  I'd like to think that there is an intrinsic me that is independent of my awareness and opinion of it.  But are the opinions of the people around me the way to discover that immutable part?  Does the constancy of the feedback lend it credibility?  I suppose it must, at least to some extent.  

Do I want to be intimidating?  My friend told me it was a good thing, and I do strive to live my life accountable to no one but myself--successfully or not.  But shouldn't I be able to do that without frightening people?  

Another friend once told me that he would rather intimidate people than risk not being taken seriously.  I'll admit, there is a certain gratification in knowing that people so far from seeing your insecurities, see the reverse.  But I'm not sure that I agree with my friend.  That is, I certainly wish to be taken seriously, but I don't think that intimidation is the only or even the best way to achieve that goal.  And while I do like to believe in that immutable core of the self existing independently of the conscious and reasoning mind--which sometimes perceives inaccurately--somehow I also believe that that core is capable of change and growth.  Or at least, I can change the way I express it.