Tear

Tear is one of the hardest words to hear. It comes with unpleasant sound and sensation - the sound of an long stream of rrrrrrs propelling towards a conclusive crx -- the feeling of tension releasing with pain. A tear is when strength fails, and when an irredeemable fragility is revealed. A tear cannot be repaired the way a break can. 

Tear is also not the easiest word to read. Should I pluralize? Is tear two words? Of course, you should know from context in the first sentence which one is being written, because tear is a beautiful word. Tears are overflowing emotion. Tears are the clear blood that flow from your body into the world, bringing your insides out. Tears are for goodbyes and reunions, for all the love and beauty you hold and release. 

And for pain. Nothing is all good, and nothing is all bad.

This idea won't translate well. It's not really an idea anyways. Just a coincidence.

(It's tearrifying!)

(This pun has torn through the seriousness of this writing. Ouch.)

More life in years.

This post is from January 1 of 2014. Now it's November of 2021. There are a couple more years to fill in.

2015 - Fall in love for the first time. Graduate from college. Take trains across China. Move to the Bay. Start my first job.

2016 - Grow into a post-college person. Sort of thrive in my work, sort of hate it. Navigate the continuation of my first love; on and off, almost falling in love with someone else, and finally moving in together in SF.

2017 - Quit my first job! Raft the Grand Canyon, make clay in Cuba. Move to Santa Cruz and do improv and run through the woods and along the coast. Fall in love for the second time, and slowly end my first long-term relationship. 

2018 - Move back to Oregon, then to Washington DC. Self-study energy policy. In some ways, the most free I've been. Job hunting is a major stressor.

2019 - Find my first energy jobs - a startup that implodes 6 weeks after I join and contract communications work at a trade association. 

2020 - A pandemic starts and I start a contract with a very influential energy policy person. I run through the cemetery, and play Age of Empires. In the Fall, I get a full time job with said influential energy person.

2021 - I work a lot. I finally go back to Oregon for a spell. The pandemic wears down my sense of self and time. I finally start working on regaining it now, through occasional therapy, reading, career coaching, friendship-building... 2021 is almost over, but I still think I will need to rewrite this in 5 years with some perspective. It is not a lost year, but it's about as close as I can imagine getting. My allergies destroy me for multiple months in the spring and fall. I can't let that happen again. I will move to the ocean if I have to.

"That would have been the advice to my younger self: be naive and open-minded."

This is a quote from an interview with Daniel Craig doing promos for his new Bond Movie.

I finished On Freedom this morning. Maggie Nelson writes about how exploring freedom meant facing down anxiety - that rang so true. I spend so much energy looking for what is essentially a system of constraints: my own value structure. The task that should follow, but that I instead have to do in parallel, is to build a meaningful life around it. This is to mitigate the otherwise boundless freedom that I feel I have, and the lack of purpose or connection that I feel if I exercise it.

Another feeling I had when reading it was how thrilling it is to think about big ideas, but how rarely I do it. I don't give my ideas their proper value; I worry about them being wrong; I worry that thinking them through will be unpleasant, when in fact it is the most thrilling thing that I can do with my life! 

I could have such beautiful ideas. My ideas could inspire other people. My ideas could create new systems and institutions. My ideas could be prescient, or off-base, and they would still have had value.

Yesterday at DnD, Grace asked what I did over the weekend. I drew a total blank. I had nothing to report. I couldn't picture a single moment from the weekend. A few minutes later I realized I had seen Dune with two of the other people at DnD! I had gone to a housewarming party! I had walked across town with Rennie talking about how we value and struggle with our long-term romantic partnerships. These were all really nice experiences, from deep interpersonal connection to excitement and awe to the sun on my skin and a drink in my hand. Even riding my bicycle to the party was a blessing. Getting dressed for the day was a pleasure (lately it is frustrating, because my boobs are so big and many of my clothes don't fit right anymore, but that day it was a pleasure!).

It's so frustrating that I had lost all memory of that in a matter of 4 days! The good things! Gone!

My job is so draining these days. I start the day stuck in my bed, feeling that if I leave it (even if I have two hours before I would start work!) then the obligations begin. 

I end work with nothing left in my tank; I lay on the couch and watch TV or Age of Empires (or I play Age of Empires, which does give me a feeling of having creative energy without having to tap any internal reserve.)

I find myself frequently thinking that I should delete Instagram and Twitter, but they are the main way that I procrastinate on work, so how can I do that?! If I go out for a walk for 15 minutes I feel so much better than spending 15 minutes on Instagram. 

Welp, I just deleted Instagram and Twitter from my phone, so that should help. At the very least, if I want to waste time on my phone, I'll have to practice Chinese on Duolingo. Or I'll go on LinkedIn or Facebook but I don't waste that much time on either - I think we can live with those.

I really need to use this blog more. 1) I can try out my big ideas 2) I can remember what the fuck I did two days ago 3) it scratches a vague self-actualization itch, probably by doing 1 and 2. Maybe there are just two reasons.

So strange to start this writing-and-thinking moment saying "I'm so free" and end it by saying "I am a slave to social media and work!"

But, like working on freedom invites anxiety, to be anything is to be sensitive to its opposite, I think. We simply deal in contradictions constantly. Life is discovering new contradictions to inhabit.