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

Seattle

Holy crap, I just moved to Seattle. Ok, "just" isn't quite the right word. Matt and I have been here a little over a week. The first few days we were here the basic getting stuff unpacked and wrangling of pets kept us occupied. We're still not completely unpacked. The house is beautiful and bright every room has a massive window (or four) that keeps the whole house well lit even on cloudy days. The weather hasn't been perfect, but it's nothing to complain about. The neighborhood is lovely and quiet, except for the occasional playing child.

So here's the thing: I'm terrified. I just moved away from a city that I'd grown to love over the past six years. I had just reached a point where I felt I could drive just about anywhere and not get too lost. Suddenly I find myself in a city whose traffic I despise and whose layout is so completely foreign as to make my head spin. For the first few days we were here I found myself getting panicky when we left the house. I got scared when we just took the dog for a walk, but when we hopped in the car for a quick trip to the grocery store, I would watch the scenery rush by and take me further from things I recognized.

The other day I went grocery shopping by myself. The drive itself wasn't so bad; I was concentrating enough on driving Matt's truck (which is a difficult task) that I couldn't get too wrapped up on the distance from home. I grabbed a cart and checked my list to see what I needed. The map at the door showed me where to find food items, so I got rolling. I was halfway through the vegetable section when I felt that panic again. The whole place was completely foreign and so very familiar at the same time. I thought about the grocery store that is near our old place in Portland and how it took me a while to get used to it. I will probably never shop there again. There is nothing familiar about things that used to be routine. It's a different store in a different state filled with people who are Washingtonians and not Oregonians who can clearly see that I don't belong there.

I decided not to panic. Instead I bought my groceries and went home. I felt triumphant when I got back. I beat the grocery store monster! And we made a nice dinner at home.

It's been six years since I last moved to a new state. Last time I did I tried to convince my parents that it was a bad idea and I shouldn't go to college after all. I'm handling it slightly better this time, I think? But here's hoping that the grocery store feels familiar soon and I can settle into a comfortable routine to keep my head on straight.

for the record

The other half of my worries about making new friends is all of my worry about leaving friends behind. I'm historically bad at keeping in touch with people that I don't see on a regular basis. So the plan is to be better about making telephone calls and emailing people more often.

making friends

On the way home from work tonight I was thinking about how to make friends. I'm going to be moving to Seattle within the next month and leaving behind everything about Portland that I love. I've lived here for six-ish years and I've made friends with all sorts of people, restaurants, and views. It would be pretty great if I could take them with me, but I know that's not possible. After stressing on this topic for a few minutes it occurred to me that it's really not that hard to make new friends.

In high school and college it was easy to make friends because I was thrown into situations with them. Sitting at a lunch table every day for a year with the same people will force familiarity, if not friendship. I'm still very close to my freshman roommate (we ended up living together in some capacity for four years). I'm engaged to marry a man that I met through an online dating site. But what's important isn't where I met them, but how well we clicked once we met.

So here I am sitting around stressing about meeting people in clubs, choruses, etc, or going out and trying new restaurants. I have to remember that everything and everyone that I'm attached to had to start out as something scary and unknown at one time.