The caged bird is being a drama queen

Being happy in your present circumstance I firmly believe is an act of will. I do not believe it to be a trait innate to man. We would have never created the things we have were we innately content. Since walking Baloo this morning, wispy clouds of panic, dread, sadness, and despair have started to form around my thoughts. I will drop Ashley off and then I will be alone. Yesterday it was 'yay!' Today I will miss her. I'm sure I will be fine but I wish my Soul Twin were in town so I could go visit her for the New Year or at least talk to her. If I were in Tennessee right now, I am sure I would be craving space, craving my friends, wishing I were somewhere I wouldn't have to make empty promises to visit more often, feeling bad for knowing I don't even make it to the places I actually want to go, and wondering how will I ever be content when I never set a bar I can reach. I am berating myself for the plans I didn't make for this time off and sad because I don't even know what those plans would be.

The caged bird sings because it has boundaries. Because it already knows everything it ever needs to know about life. No one will move their cheese or send them off to make their own way in the world. They can be at peace in their circumstance because they have no capacity to change it. There is a certain freedom in that. There is no 'out there', no opportunity or disappointment over the hill. There is no feeling, 'if only I left the cage every now and again.' It's why they swaddle infants, why the latest craze in curbing dog anxiety is a compression jacket (true story-it's called a thunder jacket). If my boss had been at work today, I would have gone there and until I succumbed to a late afternoon nap, there was a chance I might go anyway just because I really didn't otherwise know what to do with myself. I've let work become a cage. Not unlike a crate for dogs or cage for birds, it's become a refuge. An unsatisfying refuge but a refuge. Something I can be sure of, even if I'm sure it's going to suck. Though it would perhaps have better connotation if I referred to it as swaddling instead of a cage, I think we all seek something, marriage, career, hobbies to provide us a sense of stability in an otherwise forward marching always changing existence.

The poem that inspired the title of this post and the Maya Angelou autobiography bearing the same name evokes images of slavery, being bound and oppressed.

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –
I know why the caged bird sings.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

What can I say of a time I didn't live? What I do know, unbound with nothing but opportunity before me is that I'm shopping for cages.

WWBD

It seems to be a law in my universe that I must have an object of fixation, something or someone to place at the center of my world to be my point of reference and emotional ground. Needing or seeking this is probably worthy of it's own exploratory post but I am convinced most people have someone or something like this in their lives. Parent, spouse, celebrity, friend, artist, deity, we want to identify with something beyond ourselves.

For the last 6 months or so, that point of reference, that object of fixation has been my boss. I want his mindset. I want his focus. I want his zest for living. I want to emulate what I understand to be his life. I don't understand how he does it. I don't even really understand who he is. It matters to me what he thinks of me. If I know he is going to be in the office, I want to be there. I enjoy his company and watching his frenetic caffeine fueled dispatching of his to do list. I am surprised by the things that get to him. I am amused and obsessed with how he never heats his leftovers, how he recycles and doesn't like to unnecessarily print out things, how he will spend 2 hours riding back and forth on the train to come to work for 3 hours, how undisciplined he is about some things and how disciplined he is about others, how smart he is. He's a walking contradiction with such a fascinating decision flow chart that I could set up shop in his life and simply watch it unfold. I find myself wishing I had a cool spouse that he liked so we could be a part of the fold outside of work. To me right now, he is the world's most interesting man.

I tend to become fixated with people I don't understand. I want to understand what fuels his life because he seems to have something I don't. Even from afar his life seems chaotic and at times, tragic. He's the kind of person who goes on vacation for a week during a month when he has so much work travel planned, he won't be in the office more than 3 days. My head would literally cave in and I'm not even married with kids like he is. There is an animal-like mystery to him. I know Baloo will come to me and will solicit belly rubs and expects me to attend to her needs but I really don't know how she feels about me. I don't even know her capacity to feel or how it does or does not motivate her decision making. It's something I infer. I feel exactly the same way about my boss. When he says 'good job' I'm over the moon for days. That's what fuels my engine and a part of me feels weak because I can't self-generate that feeling, it has to come from someone else. Makes my life harder than it needs to be I think because I outsource a part of my self esteem/worth which puts me at the mercy of things I can't control.

Ironically I go to great lengths to project the opposite. I'll be damned if I let you know you matter to me at all when I care that much about what you think. Don't get me wrong, there are countless people who I truly and honestly do not care two shits how they feel about anything at all and especially not how they feel about me. Countless. But my boss is not one of them. I do care and I do build my work world around him and I do invoke him as a reference point in my personal life as I try to be a more interesting person by doing more and thinking less. In a phrase I think he personifies the adage, 'perfect is the enemy of the good.' I am never going to be him and I value myself enough that I don't want to be him but like all the important people in my life, I will try from time to time to channel him; WWBD (What Would Boss Do). I am glad we had the opportunity to work together, to know one another, and for what I gained personally and professionally from knowing him.

Sister

Oh my God, I am so stressed! Why did I agree to this? My sister, who despite everything that makes her a hard roommate is the coolest girl I know said this to me tonight as she prepared for her trip to Memphis. She's been snapping at me all evening and it's cracking me up. She's going on this trip for me, instead of me and that is a great gift. We cut up her shitty 15% interest credit card tonight and she texted me on the way home from work to tell me she was picking up sushi to ask if I wanted anything. If she were neater and less destructive, she would be a perfect roommate. Those are big ifs but when it comes right down to it, she makes me laugh, introduces me to things I would never seek on my own, and somewhere deep down in her chameleon soul, she even likes me. I like her too though she insisted recently it wasn't important that she likes me since she has to love me. Whatever dude.

Some alibis and some groundwork

Going back to yesterday's post I have a few postscripts to apply. I am a little like God in that I am always the same; whenever someone I haven't seen in a while asks what I've been up to, the answer is always the same. I've been working, every few years or so, I've been moving, and I still have Baloo. There are no significant others or milestones like anniversaries, first days of school, pregnancy, promotions. I just am. On any given day I may have had a strange encounter with an out and about homeless person or old man on the prowl but it's always 65 and partly sunny in Ava land otherwise. Many of my friends are moving forward, they have started families or had them when we met, and they are absorbed in that life and frame of reference for everything they do. A frame of reference I can empathize but ultimately can not relate with. Their closest friends are now people they can share their current life experiences with. Someone who probably has extra diaper wipes, who can relate to the trials and tribulations of marriage and parenthood. I know I'm not that friend for you and you aren't the friend for me who is available to talk every day about nothing at all or who even routinely picks up when I call. That's just not where life is at for you right now. Best we can do is keep our contact warm, see if we weather the transition, and wish eachother the company kindred spirits for where we are at right now.

Also, I'm crabby and I know I'm crabby. I feel I am under siege. Hopefully I will find a way to reset and recharge because I fear I will make decisions, big decisions that are more of a reflection of my need to take a break than they are sound career choices.

I was reading my old blog which because Apple sucks, I can not archive here. I was far more honest there. Perhaps because only Teresa was reading so I felt l was writing letters to an old friend. I don't know if it's nostalgia, narcissm..I just kind of missed those days. 2011 assessment/plans coming soon. It's been real Philly but the countdown begins.

Home Alone

It's going to be great. I will have the house to myself, I will clean things and they will remain that way until I render them dirty. I will control the remote.

I won't know what to do with myself.

But I'd like to try.

I am sending my sister to Memphis in lieu of yours truly. We talked about it on the drive down for Christmas. I really don't want to go. I really don't want to go anywhere. I am feeling very spoiled and very single. I am starting to value the single friend over other friends because we have more time to be a part of eachother's lives. Available to one another. We aren't just footnotes appended to husbands and kids who take precedence. And they should take precedence, but I shouldn't feel bad if I don't want to figure out a way to shoehorn into that. If I don't want to start a conversation because you never really have to the time to finish one. That's what life is for 90 percent of the people I know and I just realized there is a flip side to my gratitude for their efforts to include a relationship with me into an already full dance card of relationships. I want to stop feeling bad because as the single one, I don't visit as often as my relationship status implies I should be able to. I haven't taken a vacation since 2001 and as lovely as it always is to see the people I love and as deeply as I am truly touched to be considered a part of the family, I came for you and you are not available to me. Worse, I am yet another person vying for your attention and time and it's hard to be in the middle of a story or discussion that is interrupted with a phone call, a cry, a tug on the sleeve, a sidebar with the spouse. It's hard not to just drop it. Drop it until the kids start school or the husband is out of town, just push pause on the participation grade in our friendship until you need me again. Better to acknowledge and live that I think maybe than try to make something fit where there is no room right now.

Wasn't thinking this post was going to turn into the Spinster manifesto but I guess that's where I'm coming from tonight.

Sleeping with the light on

When things in my life start to pick up downhill momentum, I start falling asleep with the light on. I'm so overwhelmed I can't fully commit to rest by turning the light off. So I lie to myself as I yield for 'just a few minutes' to my heavy eyes, the light my insurance and assurance I have not given up for the night. I rose this morning cotton mouthed with a headache for the 3rd night in a row, annoyed at the money I waste leaving the light on all night, mind racing and no more prepared to deal.

The printer, the sink, dad's gift, all that is left undone at work, laundry, rebate forms, virus protection for the computer, cleaning house, donating clothing, Baloo's medication, Baloo's new lumps, mom, should I return to Tennessee with her in 5 days for the first time in 8 years, why it's so hard and stressful to 'go home', what it means that I would almost rather not deal with the complication of their lives intersecting with mine, creating another set of obligations to add to the ones I already biff on a regular basis, why it makes me so sad that my boss is leaving, how disappointed I am that I've not left the east coast or visited anyone who doesn't live in New York or D.C., how bummed I am that I didn't meet a great guy here or even a great girlfriend (though I honestly have the girlfriend piece covered in spades--I've got the best out there, they just don't live here). *breath*

It's just been a month or so of losing traction and unfortunate events; personal and professional hiccups that I let snowball into the regressive sleeping with the light on phase I'm currently wading in. I hope after having this cup of weak coffee in my Winnie-the-Pooh cup life will be just a little less daunting, my headache's sharper edges will be blunted through the miracle of caffeine and Sudafed Sinus headache, and something will give way in that list above to make it easier to turn off the light at night and rest easy in the accomplishments of the day.

Well you just picked right up where we never left off

I had a completely different post in mind when I fired up this computer two Tylenol and several hours ago. A post about a guy I could see myself with in a parallel universe. It would either be the most amazing thing that ever happened for both of us or a profound disappointment. But it's not a universe I have to consider, I can just soak up how much he celebrates Ava being Ava and indulge in the occasional daydream when I feel otherwise unwanted.

But instead I'm replaying a reel from bad decision theater of a conversation I just had with a guy I haven't spoken to in 6 years, who was never a friend or a romantic interest, who I in fact found insufferable. That guy, I invited to sleep over at my house for Christmas eve. Jamie Foxx can blame it on the alcohol, I blame it on the terrible headache and the Tylenol. This is the kind of guy who reminds you of his PhD--no he's the guy who actually did mention his PhD during our conversation. He asked if I ever visited New York and when I said I did, asked why I never called when I was there. I told him I didn't have his number nor would I have thought to ask for it, so unless I was supposed to just stand in the street and scream his name, that's why he wasn't aware I was in town. He laughed. He asked about my relationship status but I don't think that's where he's going with this weirdness even though he commented that it was good news I wasn't married, engaged or otherwise attached. (By the way, who says it's good news that you are all alone?) I think he's just trying to visit Philly on the cheap and remembered I was here.

Today I will try to undo last night's mistakes and withdraw the invite. Not because I don't want him to stay. I'm very interested in the story he will bring. He is an interesting and unexpected twist in the sitcom that is my life and I want to see that story play through. It's just too much for this particular week. My house is chaos, my work is chaos, and I am tired.

This is a weird week. I just saw a man in the park wearing yellow socks and black middle aged lady pumps, sitting on the bench sipping his mountain dew. It's possible he is homeless though most have gone to ground during this cold holiday season but he looked otherwise normal until you got to his feet. This has definitely been a weird week.