Two of Swords

I started this blog initially to be somewhere I could write about rediscovering myself. Since starting, I've found that the things I'm discovering are so intensely personal that it's hard to talk about them, so here goes:

Suburban Housewives:

In my current job I'm working a lot with suburban housewives. They live in particular little boxes that make me wildly uncomfortable. As an example, they described a former coworker as "weird" because she was a little quirky and dressed a little gothy. By my usual standards, this woman was quite tame. By the standards of the people I'm working with, she was so ludicrously weird that they had no way of interacting with her.

Somehow I find myself tucked into an office with these women as if we have things in common. Yes, in some ways we do; I enjoy spending time with them and joking about things during the day, but I suspect that they would look at me even funnier if they knew anything about my personal life. I look at the Suburban Housewife archetype and I'm sort of horrified. Do I want to be a wife in that sense? How much do I want to be defined by cultural norms?

Heteronormativity:

I got used to being one of a crowd of mostly queer people and queer allies at Reed. Since graduation, with one notable exception, I've been thrust into a completely heteronormative world. It feels like I've lost something. People I spend time with now are all traditionally married or trying to get to that point. I know very few queer people (as friends) that I met after college. I barely feel comfortable talking about queer issues with the people I'm around now.

Loss of Self-Confidence:

I spent a lot of time in high school trying very hard not to fit in. Somewhere along the line I decided that the better bet was to hide how different I am with good clothing and grooming and let people discover my quirks later on. I think it was a financial decision, since it's hard to get a job if you dress funny and talk about your religion a lot. I noticed that people take you much more seriously if you establish yourself as reasonable before they learn about your atypical ideas. The unfortunate side effect that this change has had is that I find I have little confidence in identifying what is and isn't me.

I've found myself agreeing to do things that I wouldn't have otherwise, just so I don't stand out. Just the other day I agreed to order a dessert at a restaurant because everyone else in my party said they would like a bite of it. Generally, I don't like to order desserts in restaurants, let alone share them.

So where did I go from being stealthy about my differences to uncertain about what I actually like? I'm not sure where the change happened, but I most certainly need to change it back.

Conclusion:

So the point of all of this is that I need to make some major changes in the way I'm living my life. I made a promise to myself in January that I would spend more time with friends this year and that hasn't quite worked out, partly because of the move to Seattle and partly because I've fallen into unhealthy patterns. So I'm going to have to call people instead of seeing them in person. :) I also need to take more time just for me and nobody else. And hopefully I'll find more that I can write about in this space.

Next steps:

1) Spend more time with friends (in person or on the phone)
2) Eat healthier and cook more
3) Pray more, do more tarot readings, etc.
4) Analyze and identify my own likes and dislikes
5) Be more selfish