I would call myself (gratefully) inconsistent, but I think a better descript=
or would be consistently changeable. I feel strongly about things, and then a=
month later I feel the opposite, but equally as strongly. For example, a mo=
nth ago I was ranting on and on about how my job is fake. Walking through a b=
uilding of elevators and cubicles and computers with identical login screens=
=E2=80=94 it feels like a weird adult playground of make-believe importance=
, like it=E2=80=99s all irrelevant and completely intangible.=20
This month? I=E2=80=99m delighted that, over the years, I=E2=80=99ve achieve=
d this status of =E2=80=98being a businessman=E2=80=99, like the ones I alwa=
ys saw in formal button down shirts on the plane, cuffs rolled up showing a s=
exy hint of muscled forearm, typing away on their computers with Things To D=
o, bringing home lovely paychecks. That=E2=80=99s me now. EEEE. Girly squeal=
.=20
I was thinking of that this morning, and remembering how it used to feel wor=
king flights =E2=80=94 like my brain was hungry and was rotting away. There w=
as nothing to achieve, being a flight attendant. The whole point is homeosta=
sis. No wonder I began studying 7 different languages during that time. I sp=
ent a lot of time on the plane trying not to be as OCD as my instincts wante=
d. Does it really matter if Sally Coworker wants the coffee jugs placed on t=
op of your shared cart in a less efficient (read: stupider) position? No, it=
doesn=E2=80=99t. So you swallow your tongue and let her rearrange your shar=
ed service items the dumb way, and you focus on serving people, because that=
=E2=80=99s your job, and ease in your working relationship with your coworke=
r matters far more than having to reach your hand a weird way to lift the co=
ffee. Besides, once you=E2=80=99ve accepted the parameters you=E2=80=99ve be=
en handed, is anything else really too difficult? The rejection of your real=
ity is always what makes things most difficult.=20=
I have been a serious fanfiction reader for about the last three years. I ha=
ve received nearly excessive amounts of enjoyment from it. Entering the onli=
ne world of fanfiction is not only gaining yourself access to a practically i=
nfinite amount of free reading material, it=E2=80=99s also joining a communi=
ty that delights in the same things you do, and delights in discovering and c=
reating new ways to be delighted together.=20
That being said =E2=80=94 the grip that this alternate reality has had on my=
focus and consciousness for the last several years has been intense and unr=
elenting. Finally I feel it starting to ease. I am starting to read publish=
ed literature again. Increasingly, I am beginning to experience moments of b=
oredom or annoyance with fanfiction stories. And this has given me some of m=
y freedom back =E2=80=94 my focus. Thank god. Life is becoming real again in=
a lovely way that I don=E2=80=99t want to avoid.=20
I have been awaiting this moment. When I was a new flight attendant, I loved=
the biscoff cookies on the plane, so I ate endless amounts of them for abou=
t the first 8 months on the job. This only ended when I got sick of them. I h=
ave been waiting for my obsession with [addiction to?] fanfiction to wane in=
the same manner. Only, it has been about 3 years instead of 8 months, and I=
still occasionally read some of them.=20
I am not a hard-stop cold-turkey kind of person. The most genuine change wit=
hin me happens when I shift things in my life gradually, and based on how I=E2=
=80=99m feeling. All parts of me, especially my feelings, need to be united f=
or any change I make to be real.=20
That=E2=80=99s why my change in interest in this instance has me so pleased.=
My inner motivations, my pleasures, are the most difficult and most importa=
nt pieces of me to shift. And here they are, shifting on their own.=20
Let=E2=80=99s celebrate.=20=
Watched the documentary about Hedy Lamarr last night with Tim. Was absolutely blown away. Left reevaluating my approach to life – too accepting. Too defeatist. Is my life easier than Hedy's? By all accounts, yes. And no wonder – I accept what I am given. I appease others until I can disappear into my own home and mind and activities. (But it is possible that I'm more discontented in some ways than Hedy was. How can I deserve to feel so discontented when I am not taking action? It seems like Hedy took action her entire life.) What I am doing is surfing on the waves of my life. I can't help but feel it wasn't in Hedy's nature to accept and surf. She seems to have been far more daring.
She did not limit her own imagination so that she would better fit in with her perceived parameters of her life. Her life's parameters grew with her ideas and desires.
I also can't help but admire the groundbreaking courage it takes, the absolute self-loyalty, to marry and divorce six or seven different partners. The self-loyalty is the real sticking point for me. Me, with a history of sparing unending amounts of loyalty for others who would not show me the same in return, while I spare almost none for myself.
The self-loyalty, the ability to pivot, and not only the willingness to try new things, but the absolute conviction that she deserved to succeed at whatever she truly wanted. That's some of what I admire most about her. That's what I want for myself, of myself.
Have been in and out of half discontented, half hopeful daydreams all day, trying to imagine what I'd like to pivot into. Can I pivot? Must I stay in this soul frustrating job? Is having a baby and being a mother what I was actually meant for? Is everything else simply a small sideshow? That's not the reality I want. Do I have to have my current career for a long while? How long? Do I ever get to leave this and be fulfilled doing anything that actually matters instead?
Left with the impression that we didn't choose to be alive here solely to get as much fun and bliss out of our physical lives as possible. Having a blissful easy life isn't the point. We aren't supposed to suffer the whole time either. But I can't help but feel like I came here to do something. Something that matters, something to help people, or to fix some wrong.
And here I am, not doing anything like that. It would take severe mental gymnastics to pretend that I am. (Except when we foster cats – that really helps and matters a lot to those precious creatures.)
The spinning head of a quiet morning after a day filled with books and a astoundingly thought provoking movie — Saltburn. Continued to feed the absorbing fire and read some analyses of it just a bit ago. Head so spinny with thoughts, remembered impressions, visual sensations; hard to center oneself.
Thinking of Alan Rickman now — his tendency to say so little in his diaries, like he was too afraid to put his most honest feelings into words that he forgot that is generally the whole point of keeping a diary in the first place. Let it not be said about me that I was too frightened to slip the blunt clarity of my deepest thoughts and feelings into whatever journal I am keeping at the moment. Perhaps Alan Rickman was more blunt with people in person than I am. It would not be difficult to believe him more openly honest than me. I find myself seeking and noticing ruffled feathers, and am always more likely to soothe them than to disregard whether I am adding to their disorder.
Very little in my life seems fixed, permanent. My view of the kind of person I want to be, however, seems consistent enough. That is to say, consciously, I cannot keep my interests or goals consistent. But my unconscious tendencies and desires appear quite solid and predictable.
Enough. If words were colorful felt tip pens, I have doodled all over the page, and it's starting to get inconsistent and out of hand, reaching. I am, believe it or not, not here to kick back and listen to the sound of my own voice drone on and on. Realizing that I was doing just that, and that I was intensifying my damaging fixations, is why I stopped journaling for many years after I graduated college. I have not returned to make the same mistakes.
I sincerely hope.
Sammy grooms himself, snuggled up in the velvet blanket lined cat bed by the window, his back to the view. The backyard panorama of naked trees, sharp with warm winter sunlight, tower over him from beyond the window.
Tim is absorbed with his game, and gradually sinking a centimeter lower each minute he reclines in our massive beanbag chair, the gentle clicking of his controller and the occasional sniff the only evidence of his activity.
Toby, tail held high and bossy as ever, meanders into the room and hops up to sit against Tim's arm. Pet me. Pet me, and I will purr, and I will be satisfied. And then in a minute I will bite you, and I will still be satisfied, but you will probably bleed a little, but you are fine, don't be a baby.
