2005-08-09
FYI!
Damn dude,
It's only Tuesday.
My mother, who doesn't read this sent me an article, snipped from the New York Times. It was headlined: "Blogging! The Newest Way to Get Fired!" Above the headline, she had written, with a very sharp and narrow ball-point pen:
FYI!
It sort of looked like something you might get from a kidnapper or a stalker:
FYI!
For the record, and clearly, there is one and it's all hanging out for the world wide web to see, I don't want to get fired. I love my job and everybody knows that. I bitch about things and about people but even if you think you could guess about whom I am bitching at one time or another, you would be vastly under-estimating my cunning. See me after class because you just might learn a thing or two from a girl who grew up with the title of Least Sneaky.
I've changed. I may not be sneaky, but I am goddamn smart.
Increasingly, neither am I naive. So mom, if you're reading this, and that would mean a couple of serious discussions about the state of my affairs is probably are order, please note that I am a thousand times more subtle in print than in person.
I've confounded therapists, evaluators, friends, and lovers and I've been able to do that with the power of my brain. Mother, do you really think that's an accident? You're the one who pointed out that I'm pretty smart.
Well, you were right. And believe me, I over-think things. I over-think to the point of needing to be medicated to fall asleep. If I could turn my brain off and have 10 seconds of actual rash decision-making, I would surrender all $7 in my checking account to the United Way of America.
What I wouldn't give to have my brain turn off for about 10 seconds of peace and quiet. And here they think I don�t consider tings before doing them. I do things because I get so tired of considering that I start to crack into these little pieces of maybes and what-ifs, and oh shits. I quest for that kind of confidence and ease and you know what? I don't have it very often.
So, I am approaching my mother with a renewed sense of righteousness and it's totally liberating. When she gets off the phone really quick after hearing something she does not agree with, I smile when I press the red butting that means, "End call."
When I got an email the other day about going to Thanksgiving in Illinois, I replied simply, "I think I'm going to drive."
There was no reply.
She wouldn't do it, so why would I want to do it? I can�t understand why someone would want to run 10 miles in record time. I find running 2 miles to be more than enough, thankyouverymuch. But I support that she does it.
FYI!
I know I'm 31 years old and at my age, my mother's tsk tsking really should not be such an issue for me but to be honest, I'm tired of it. So tired that I've begun to view my "failings" as being quirky little fun-facts.
"In what year did Sarah make a wide right turn that resulted in jail time?"
2004
"Did Sarah chose to write every day, more or less, and can she be trusted to be smart enough to preserve the job she kind of loves?"
Yes!
"Does Sarah love reality TV, hanging out with her ex-girl-friend, and a successful application of self-tanner?"
Yes!
I don't think it matters how I spend my time or what I do to make my time a positive experience in general. I trust that I'm a good person and that whatever snarky, bratty things I do, they're just that - snarky and bratty and they give me just enough spice to be palatable. Not everything is positive and I don�t have a positive reaction to everything. But I keep getting this message that instead of trusting myself to deal with anything negative that comes up, I get this constant message that what I'm doing will generally result in some kind of major fuck-up.
And that's just not true.
I'm not the fastest runner over 50.
I don't have a house.
I don't want to focus on getting married and installing children.
I like my slightly tattered Favorite Ladies. They're mostly not highly educated professionals and they don't have 401(k)s but they are the people whom I love fiercely. They have too many pets, they have drug problems, they spend too much time on the phone and too much money on silly, needless crap.
It's not that I have some lame idea of, "I just want to have fun!, Yes! Let us live in the glory of galore to be and love and live and love again!" bullshit. I know that motivation is important, as is a little prudence and a lot of providence.
I guess, you know, at the end of the day, I am really tired of my parents treating me like I'm not capable of making my life to be what I want it to be. For a long time, I was much too willing to try to compromise and do for my mom what I thought she expected me to do or say but at the same time, try not to lose myself.
The fact is that the two concepts of personhood and life-living are too foreign to each other. She doesn't want to help me get to where she wants me to be unless I do things her way.
I am not capable of doing things my mom's way.
I'm very different.
If I can't get support on things and the only reason that I can see I'm not getting support is that I didn't follow exactly the formula that my mother would have followed, then I don't need the support.
FYI!
I look at it this way: It sucks to be out there on your own. At least, it sucks for me. I don't like it. So there's some work... the work of daily living. Add to that the task of trying to do things using a model that isn't organic to you and then being either criticized for not hitting the mark of a model you don't get; or feeling like a disappointment when you abandon the model to do things the way that you feel suit you best.
Isn't it easier to bypass the model?
Just get the unreal expectation out of the way and trust yourself to live well. At least then, the failures that we all have are not so devastating. They're just part of the package, instead of being the thing that causes you to be sent to the Rainbow Grocery Outlet, instead of to Albertson's or Safeway.
Although I've said it before and I'm sure this isn't the end of the line, I need to go to a place in myself that doesn't hear my mom. I need to go to a place that completely, intrinsically trusts myself the way only two or three people trust me. I need to puppy-crawl my way back into my own heart and my own psyche and work with what is actually in those heavenly places and pay no attention to the course that my mother wants me to take.
I can't navigate that road and the one I'm one is really rather pleasant, you know?
After 8 months of virtual seclusion and fear and misery and just feeling worthless, terrified, weak, and pathetic, I am NOT going to let myself feel beat because I suck at doing what my mom wants me to do.
I mean, at some point, I'm sure I'll do that but for now?
No fucking way.
I'm not bad and she can be happy with me or be disappointed. All things considered, I'm anything but disappointed today.
FYI!
arizonasarah at 11:45 a.m.