I am tempted to delete this post because it is probably the most personal post I've written in a very long time. I'll keep it up for awhile. Don't worry about me. I am okay. I just have some work to do.
I can't sleep tonight. I have been thinking about an email exchange I had with someone tonight who was wondering how I was doing now that I was back in Oregon. I started thinking about how I came across to him when he knew me back in NY. I was almost at the peak of my frustration/sadness/fear and this was only when I had been in NY less than a year. I said that I was trying to find myself again. I guess I can't sleep because I wonder...who am I? I'm not the scrawny (yes, at one time) kid who had a wild imagination, a troubled adolescent, indecisive young adult and so on. I just have these pieces of memories where I have felt either tremendous joy or sheer pain. All of it has made me who I am but I sometimes wonder which side will take over.
Exiting the Holland Tunnel and entering New Jersey for the very first time in my life.
Watching Cate Blanchett perform as Hedda Gabbler and thinking I had died and gone to heaven.
Seeing the last performance of Sleater-Kinney at Webster Hall
Celebrating the first holiday together
Wanting to destroy the person on the other end of the computer who was working on our implementation and then mocking her with co-workers
Never ending drama or fires that had to be put out at work
Sitting at my computer without any dinner and just trying to catch up on email from a day when I had been in solid meetings.
Wondering if I would come home to a note or a conversation that I dreaded with very bone in my body
Looking at a building where Matthew Brady had a studio
Seeing Elston overjoyed when all of the humans were home
Just feeling consumed with anger at my job
Looking across the Hudson River from Weehawken
Weekend with S and B - Chinese New Year and hanging out at the apt
Listening to Burning Spear say, "talk to me people, talk to me" over and over
Hanging out at Cedar Tavern with co-workers
Drinking Mint Juleps in Peter's backyard
Just feeling so safe and comfortable like never before in my life
Passion, laughing, and comfort
I don't know. Last week, I changed the subtitle of this blog after Mary said that I had my soul back. I really wonder if that is the case. I have everything in neat little compartments that are rarely examined. Reality? What is that?
I hope I have my soul back but I also have to figure out what I want. What did someone tell me recently - oh yeah, my mental cul-de-sacs.
1 comment:
Thanks for leaving this up until now, E. It is so hard to get perspective, and to have a soul (or get it back), when the daily grind takes so much energy. Today, one of the early copy catalogers came up to me and said he was going to put a sign up at his desk to leave him alone. It's almost harder to understand that holding up for approval than the misbehavior in the first place. This isn't a play we're in, it's the real thing: life.
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