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3 octobre 2023
I’m really stubborn. Often to my detriment. I mean – just, stuck in my ways, fighting every inch against change stubborn. I have to really marinate in new ideas, chew them up in my brain, twist them inside out.
And then, when I begrudgingly accept change, I feel better for it. Because I came to my conclusion the old-fashioned, hard won way. I accept that maybe, it’s not the easiest way. But I need to see things from all angles. Make sure I believe what I believe because I chose it knowingly and with understanding.
I’m not a great debater. I ask a lot of questions but I’m not looking for a painful argument. Just like I don’t shop to shop, I don’t argue for arguments sake. I have friends who love a good debate for no reason (“let me just play devils advocate for a minute” is never my favorite sentence) but me? I’m out.
I want to discuss ideas. I want to hear different points of view. But I am gathering information, not trying to convince anyone or sway anyone. That’s not my jam. Some years ago I read a sentence (or heard, I can’t remember) – Everything you believe is because someone said it to someone somewhere sometime. And since then, I’ve questioned everything I believe.
Some things are harder to let go than others. We are raised with baked-in ideas and morals and values. Everything that forms our worldview was taught to us – either deliberately or by example. We are observant as children, collecting data to understand our surroundings, different things making different impressions.
I was raised by a mother who told me – explicitly and tacitly – to never have children. She said to live my own life, have my own adventures. Having children did not need to be a part of that. I did not need children to be complete. In fact, having children would forever render me second and she didn’t want that for me.
Which, honestly, is still kind of a radical point of view – even in 2023. Society tells a much different story, and so many women, my elders, my contemporaries, probably think I’m “less” for not being a mother.
But does that matter? Should it matter?
Or does it only matter if that is what I think of myself.
It’s an interesting thought to ponder. Does what anyone thinks of me matter – in regards to anything – if I don’t buy in?
I saw a social media post by a friend recently and in it, she self-identified in a way I have NEVER seen her. Like, kind of blew my mind a little bit that she saw herself that way. But it made me think – does my opinion even matter if that is how she sees herself? And my answer to that is – no. My thoughts and opinions don’t matter. In *my* world, she is different than how she described herself, but my world shouldn’t matter to her. Just like, in reverse, her views of me shouldn’t affect who I believe I am and how I choose to exist in the world.
I’m not sure what this blog post was about, but maybe stream of conscious writing.
Xox, g
2 mars 2023
I keep thinking that I will somehow get my life organized … tomorrow. But then, tomorrow arrives and everything is still hectic and busy and I’m still digging in Tupperware containers trying to find a shirt *I know* I own and yet cannot find … and then tomorrow and another tomorrow and all of a sudden it’s March and life is steamrolling along and I’m getting whiplash trying to keep up.
It is not for the faint of heart.
I think of my mother often, and how she managed to move us every few years, just packing and unpacking and also driving us to sports and activities and smiling and listening … and I feel overwhelmed with a fatigue that seems deeper than MS fatigue (which I did not think was even possible).
A few days ago husband and I were in Philadelphia for an appointment at Fox Chase Cancer Center and we also had to take the Volvo to the dealership for service (the dealership near our new house closed and the closest one is two hours away so … West Chester it is). And somehow, our timing worked out and we snuck up to KoP and into the Apple Store to look at iPads.
I didn’t really know I wanted a new iPad until I realized that my computer is about nine years old and my iPad not much younger, and all I craved was tech that reliably worked for the things *i* needed it to work for — not husby, or work, or what I read online somewhere. But actually, truly, what I was needing. A place to write that travelled with me. That allowed me to watch a movie or two if I so chose … it sounds trivial and small and something I could figure out with any of the other devices I owned. But for some reason, a new piece of tech, that was all mine, for my use purpose — and not a computer that I was given by work or an iPad that was re-homed when hubs got a new one …. It felt too intriguing to pass up.
And so today, I am finally sitting down and typing away at my new iPad. No, I didn’t get a laptop. I don’t need a laptop. I need something that’s easy to use and a keyboard that is comfortable to type on and something that has a bit of memory for everything I’m not storing in the cloud.
She’s beautiful and I love her and I look forward to many years of happy companionship between my iPad and me. And now I have written a bit, even though it’s trivial, and I have marked the occasion. So I feel at peace.
Now, off to see Creed III.
Xox, g
23322
I broke my streak yesterday.
I realized it at 11.45p when I woke up (for the second time) my headache throbbing with no sign of abatement.
I feel as though I’ve been sick for the entirety of 2022. It’s probably not the case, but every few days I’m down and out and I can‘t seem to get my feet underneath me.
I don’t want to lose writing momentum. I have worked hard to get into the habit, to get into the mindset. To assure myself that I won’t lose track of my dreams and goals every time I hit a road bump. (This is hard to comprehend because when I hit a road bump – aka get sick – I am certain in the thick of it that I will never recover or feel human again).
I’m plugging away at teacher training. I’m plugging away at French. At some point I’ll turn the corner on this blog and know exactly what I’m writing about and why.
That day is not today. But I blogged. And that feels like a win. I’ll take it.
Xox, g
21322
I’ve been wondering lately what it is that I have to say exactly. What is my contribution to the conversation?
Every time I *think* I know, life happens and it either irrevocably changes the conversation or renders my thoughts obsolete. So I’m here, blogging every day (whoo hoo – it’s Day #80 of the new year and I’m still going!). But I’m not sure what my point is or what I’m trying to say.
That I’m alive? That I am doing this? Last year I wanted to get to Day #66 because the idea of doing something for 66 days to create a habit has worked pretty well for me. But I stopped blogging around the time I finished reading “Why Buddhism is True” and went back to yoga. Once I was back in my routine of yoga, blogging got forgotten. I got sidetracked by something else … Blogging became an afterthought.
The past two years have been strange and difficult and … uncomfortable. If Covid had never happened, where would I be? Would I be the same person – would my path have been the one I have walked these past few years? I wonder all those things, and I wonder often if I have anything at all to contribute to any larger conversation, or if I just like talking and the attention of centering things around my story.
This year I have successfully gone to yoga and managed to blog and I even started my French lessons up again (something I was doing really regularly in 2019 and then … couldn’t manage to keep up when when we got home from Japan). I began yoga teacher training again (what?!?). I make dinner some nights. Life has begun to get back to the hectic pace of “Before.” I have eschewed rest for MORE STUFF.
Mostly it’s rooted in the idea that life is precious and I don’t want to waste a minute. I want to pursue my passions and travel and kayak and learn how to paddle board and eat good food (and also lose weight because I was born last century and I am perpetually hung up on the scale and envy young women now who seep self-confidence out their pores). I want to read books and talk about ideas and listen to live music and get eight hours of sleep and drink water and laugh and hold my husband’s hand. And *also* have something relevant and thoughtful and provoking to say.
I want all the things.
Xox, g
25jan22
January 25th is Rabbie Burns Day. Well, I mean, sort of.
Who?, you ask.
Robert Burns was the poet laureate of Scotland – I believe the only one ever. And his birthday was January 25th. He’s been dead quite a long time but has left a lasting legacy through his poetry. Before my mother died she began a tradition of doing Burns Night Supper. This involved haggis, neeps and tatties, cranachan, poetry recitation and lots of whiskey. The Scottish kind, so I believe it’s spelled whisky but I’m not completely sure. Maybe I got that backwards? (I don’t have my phone to google and check so I apologize, this is staying as it is).
One of the great things about Burns Supper is the poetry. John and I hosted once, years ago now, when my mother was still alive, and every guest was requested to bring a piece of poetry. As we all ate our Scottish grub, one by one we read our pieces to the group. It was sort of magical because everyone’s selection reflected who they were – original works, Rumi, T.S. Eliot, etc.
John and I began our poetry collection because of Burns Supper. This year I bought him a collection by Amanda Gorman. Last year he bought me Rupi Kaur. There’s something other-worldly about poetry. It makes the mundane seem magic somehow. It is the perfect illustration of the power of language.
This wasn’t what I was going to blog about at all. I was going to talk about how Ally Love re-posted one of my Instagram stories, and how incredible it felt to be ‘seen’ by a woman i admire so greatly. But then I typed the date. And all the memories of Burns Supper came flooding back. And my mother felt closer. And that felt soothing.
Anyway. Happy Burns Night America.
Xox, g
24jan22
I made an unspoken deal with myself this year. I said, ‘Self, let’s try to blog every day again. But let’s not talk incessantly about how tired you are. Let’s just agree that being exhausted is status quo and therefore unnecessary to pontificate on.”
Whether it seems obvious or not, I have actually tried not to blog about headaches and fatigue and all the things that are part of my daily life. I have tried – with varying degrees of success – to blog about my thoughts or other, possibly more interesting, things.
I am tired tonight. The kind of tired that starts with a burn in my shoulder and progresses to bone deep cold and culminates in brain fog and the loss of any sense of balance. I’m just reaching out for something to hold onto to keep me upright.
I meant to blog earlier today (as I often do) but life happened – family drama and bookkeeping and laundry and dinner. You know the things – the things that have to be done but take up time and energy. The latter of which is in very short supply for me.
Anyway. My hope is that I read this blog post tomorrow and it makes some sort of sense. Right now, I’m going to put on pajamas and climb under multiple blankets next to a space heater and hope to stop shivering and fall asleep.
Xox, g
13jan22
I went back and read some of my blog posts from January 2021. I was definitely taking blogging more seriously and I had some pretty interesting things to say (to me, at least!). After last night’s blogging fiasco (well, to be honest, before then but the incident amplified it) I have made a conscious effort to write today before the end of the day and not about blogging or my day or anything painfully mundane.
As I drove to Barnes & Noble this morning my mind was filled with ideas and thoughts. I thought – I can write about anything I want to write about. It’s my blog, it earns no money and has no readers. The post is my oyster. If that makes sense to you. It makes sense to me ….
I could write about how being in State College is haunted for me – haunted by memories and people and choices I made a long, long time ago. I both love and dread being here, love and dread remembering that me. I walk down memory lane over and over again; affectionate towards those old memories but also cringing, knowing what’s coming, knowing how it all turns out.
I could blog about how strange it is to transition from writing on my iPad to writing on my computer. I keep reaching for the screen as though it’s touch screen … it’s not. But the keys are definitely easier and I find that comforting.
I could write about perspective – how driving along Benner Pike, skies blue, air cold and crisp, snow iced across green fields makes me feel, and how that feeling is both the same and vastly different from how the same moment affects my husband. How he looks at fields and thinks about working them in his youth and hunting similar landscapes throughout his life and I look at the these fields and think of paintings and long walks and horses. Both realities a reflection of our lives, our experiences. Both true to us, but simultaneously not true for the other.
I could write about how this Barnes & Noble is my ultimate favorite Barnes & Noble. How I used to come here when Seattle’s Best Coffee was the cafe. How I’d find a big chair and curl up, reading text books and history books and books for pleasure. How I can still remember specific days, watching people walk by, browsing and purchasing books, as I read Pliny and Agatha Christie.
I could write about Starbucks. Oh how I could write about Starbucks! Have I ever done that? I can’t remember. I would assume I have. I have loved Starbucks for as long as I’ve known what Starbucks is. And I have drunk the same drink since my college friend came back to school after summer break and introduced me to the soy chai. He’d worked at the Starbucks in Chestnut Hill (a store I am familiar with … now, but not then) and with his return came a wealth of Starbucks knowledge. I can fall down the slippery slope of all my Starbucks memories throughout my adult life because it has been a constant, a place I’ve always found comfort and respite from the thrashings of the outside world. Happiness in a Cup. That is what my Starbucks Soy Chai is, has always been and will always be.
Mostly what I wanted to do was write. Because tapping out a few paltry (and frankly pathetic) lines after eleven at night isn’t a testament to what this exercise is all about. This exercise is an attempt to teach myself the discipline of writing – the ritual, yes, but also the slogging, when it isn’t easy, when I have nothing to say. When I am not ‘inspired’ to write but do it anyway.
Husband found headphones for me (I forgot my ear pods at home) and I have a song on repeat — something that works for me when I’m writing because it sets a mood, a tempo, a feeling. It helps me keep track of me, and that’s a Herculean task. I have a chai and I have a table. The rest is up to me.
As I sit here, in a Barnes & Noble that was my past and is now my present, as I prepare to head home earlier than anticipated, I marvel at where my life is now. How did that twenty-something girl from her first tour of State College become the woman I am today? How did I connect the dots to become me, to get here?
It’s what’s on my mind. It’s why I’m writing.
xox, g
11jan22
First, I need to stop blogging as I’m going to bed. Because by this time I’ve completely given up on critical thought and all I’m truly focused on is falling asleep (and staying asleep) for the rest of the night. But Stephen King wrote in On Writing that best practice for writing is to write … every day. So I’m here, writing every day. Like I did last year. Hoping it sticks better this year. Hoping at some point it stops being about getting it done and starts being about having something to say.
The truth is I have many things to say, I just haven’t found the personal discipline to sit down and put my thoughts to paper in a cohesive, understandable way. It’s much easier in theory than in practice. As most things are.
Husby and i have been watching the show “Station Eleven” on HBO. We are caught up and now anticipating the finale on Thursday. It has been a confusing, intriguing, layered, troubling, uncomfortable, enlightening series. As I watch it I wonder – do I have anything this powerful to share? Does my creativity hit this level of brilliance? … No one – least of all me – will ever know if I don‘t finish something. That’s the truth.
Anyway. It’s later than I want it to be but I’m going to bed now. I have written for today.
Xoxo, g
9jan22
Here’s the thing about resolutions — the only person who gives them any power, any weight, is the person making them.
This is what I thought as I lay in bed, so proud of closing my eyes before 9.45p (my designated bedtime) having accomplished all the things I needed to do before bed.
And then, as John and I talked about life and our upcoming week, and how lucky we are to have each other, and how much we love Fellowship of the Ring my eyes – newly filled with eye ointment – popped open and I said “I forgot to blog.”
A thousand things ran through my brain at once and I came to the sad and inevitable conclusion that no, while it did not truly matter if I blogged or not, yes, it actually did matter a great deal to me. I managed to blog most every day at the beginning of last year and last year’s beginnings were much more bleak than this year. If I can’t manage to follow my own prescribed discipline and my own rules, then what am I even doing?
So here I am, talking about nothing because today was a lazy day filled with football and spiralized sweet potato and freezing rain and strange television. And even if I’d had a brilliant blog post idea, right now all I want to do is stop squinting through my eye ointment, lie down and go to sleep.
But I did blog and even though it’s nonsense it means something to me. These words, this blog. It means something to me.
Xoxo, g
4jan22
Last year I decided that spending time trying to think of blog post names was unnecessary. The point, I rationed with myself, was that I needed to blog. And I needed to do it more consistently. I could write about anything or nothing but I had to write.
Those are my parameters this year – I just need to write. I need to be consistent. I need to remember how to be disciplined. To introduce, provide content and then summarize everything in a tidy conclusion. Some of my posts last year did that – some were even good. What mattered to me was that they existed. That was all. And that’s what still matters — although the good ones do make me a little proud.
Today, as we drove from one house to another, certain thought patterns played over and over again in my head. Pennsylvania countryside sliding by, bright winter sunshine and frigid temperatures. Chris Stapleton in the background. I thought about how I didn’t acknowledge the new year, how I didn’t acknowledge Ben’s last Pittsburgh home game. How would people know that it mattered to me if I didn’t post on social? How would they know?!?
And then I reminded myself that people — whoever they are — don’t need to know and I don’t need to tell them. It doesn’t matter if strangers see a social media post of mine proclaiming a great afternoon lunch or a sports team allegiance. My life should just be my own and my joy should come from my own genuine enjoyment of whatever I am doing — without the need to tell the world and — either consciously o r unconsciously — ask for ‘likes’.
It’s a very hard lesson. I haven’t successfully learned it. I find comfort in the feedback — the public’s approval of my curated online life.
Blogging feels different for me – a little piece of my soul, my words. And people don’t read blogs anymore, anyway. Too much content, too much time commitment. Twitter is better – podcasts are better.
That’s okay. I find comfort in writing. I find comfort in screaming into my particular void — this blog, this platform that no one reads. (Well, I read it. It’s like re-visiting different versions of myself through time).
Anyway. We’re ‘home’. Y’know, our other home. Which is weird but also joyful. Tomorrow life revs its engine and Thursday it shifts into gear. Back into routine, husby back to work. Me back to trying to figure out what I’m doing and what I’m working toward.
Don’t worry, I’m figuring it out. 🙂
xox, g
D5 Creation