Frustration & Compassion

The past couple of weeks have been especially challenging for me emotionally.  With my guy's visa process in limbo for nearly two months now, every week we hope that this will finally be the week when it will come through.  And while I try to pass the time as well as possible, with friends and family and work and books for company, the disappointment is never far below the surface - which means that my patience is thin, especially for things that stress me and stretch me even in happier times.

There is a common theme that unites the things that most easily scrape off the thin shell of normalcy and expose the irritated flesh below: slapping a smile over suffering.  I'm not talking about optimism, because optimism doesn't deny crappiness, but rather reflects a hope that the state of things will get better, and a gratitude for what persists that is good.  In that sense, I consider myself optimistic.  What irritates me is the lack of acknowledgement, whether by refusal to look, or inability to process, or sheer misapprehension, of the reality that sometimes things just suck.  And for the people going through a tough time, platitudes and encouragement to just look at the bright side are often the least sensitive response a caring person can give.  Sometimes the most compassion you can show is just to recognize the pain in someone else and allow them to cry, rage, or sit quietly while they work through it.  Don't tell them that God's timing is perfect.  Don't tell them it will all be over soon.  Don't tell them that, in the scheme of things, their current pain won't matter.  Let it be, and be there with them if they want you to be, even if it feels awkward and you don't know what to say.  It is not up to them in their time of need to make you comfortable around them or to try zooming far enough out of their reality to make it seem less significant and painful.  Just be there and be responsive to what they need, not what you would want -- this is compassion.

Election

This week has just been brutal.  I try to bear in mind that there are people in far worse perpetual stress, but it does not really make me feel any better (though I don't know why remembering other people's suffering is ever supposed to make anyone feel better...)  Anyway, I don't really want to enumerate the points of suckitude, but just knowing that such a list exists is good emotional context for this post.

So...last night was an election (if you missed it), and I was immensely relieved by the outcome as well as knowing that this means the stakes are even higher for getting things done in the next four years.  I was mercifully spared the vitriol that I hear a lot of other people experienced on facebook today, but there was one post that caught my eye, written by a woman who was a friend and fellow church youth group member in high school (and who, prior to yesterday, had not posted anything election-related):

I dont know why I expected anything different America....but the truth and the hope and encouragement is that before Christs return it WILL get worse ....so looks like the next for years we better spend a heck of alot more time on our knees....Nov.7th I am thankful for the Truth of Gods word- ALL of it....right down to Revelation!!!!! Pray with me!?!?

The thing that really gets me about this is that it's something many people would dismiss as extreme fundamentalism, and perhaps that's true, but it's hard for me to dismiss it because it's where I'm from.  It captures the essence of the thing that bums me out about my hometown, which is that I see a tragically narrow definition of God's love.  There are a lot of extremely eloquent and knowledgeable people who can articulate why I believe this is a misunderstanding  (Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Danielle from http://www.fromtwotoone.com/...I don't think I'm clear and focused yet, so I recommend checking them out.  )

What I really wanted when I read this was to chime in as an alternative Christian voice, at a level of connection and not rational critique.  This is what I said:

I'll pray with you even though I have a very different perspective on the result and what it means for people of faith!

A handful of people "liked" my comment, so maybe there are others that read her post and had the same reaction as I did, because they also were motivated by their deep-rooted Christian values to vote for Obama.  Or maybe they voted for Romney, but value an inclusive response rather than a divisive one.

The comments feed was mum for a while after I posted, and then the woman's husband (also a high school classmate of mine) wrote this:

What it means for people of faith is so so broad. What it means for people who follow the one true God and His laws is that we need to continue to pray for our country and the president as well. But we serve God and His commands trump mans. We should pray that Obama makes Godly decisions but we need to continue to make Godly ones ourselves. 

I don't plan to respond again to this because it doesn't seem the right forum for picking apart the implications of "one true God" and God's commands trumping man's.  The response was a signaled to me that this is not up for discussion (which has to be one of the most difficult things for me to cope with, since I want to discuss everything in detail and get people to understand what their premises are and where they came from).  It's not a surprising response, since I know from facebook context that this couple is a close, loving one with their lives built on the foundation of some of the doctrines that I have found to be dissatisfyingly flimsy bases for my own reality.  They would likely see that as me being prideful and lost, and their response would be to pray for my heart to be changed - a loving response, so I can accept that, if a bit grudgingly.  But I see them as self-limited as well, and I also really hope that with time and experience they might better understand the expansiveness of God's love and the many ways that humans can be and live in that love.

As Shakespeare's Hamlet said (in a couple of my favorite lines ever):

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Ambivalent

I have been ambivalent about blogging lately.  Partly I feel like there's so much to say, so I don't want to start and then lose steam.  And partly I know I have a very small audience, so I'm really writing for myself, which I'm not that motivated to do.  So here we go...

This election season, by which I mean this year, has been rough.  I refuse to be cynical because I think it's the easy way out, a way of disengaging and allowing the negative voices to set the tone.  But it's discouraging to see so much hate and hypocrisy and just utter lack of logic and willingness to reason.  Worse than the ugliness is the ways people justify it with religion - I don't say "faith", because I think there is more human misunderstanding and distortion behind it than an active relationship with God at play.  God is love: there's the litmus test, and it's not that hard to see where the love and compassion are lacking.  Love your neighbor, help the poor, seek first the kingdom of God...none of this, to me, points to an ideology of extreme (and I believe ultimately self-defeating) individualism and letting the free market determine if there's any value in our shared natural resources.  It means listening, trying to understand, and seeking mutual and collective benefit - which is admittedly more intellectually challenging than just trying to yell louder and tell more resonant lies in hopes that we can muscle our way ahead without having to acknowledge the legitimacy of the perspectives of others.

That's all vague, and it's because the specifics are too many for me to deal with right now.  Maybe another post for those...for now I am done.

Frustration

I'm writing in part to keep from continuing my streak of going to bed earlier than the five-year-old upstairs...

The rest of me is writing because I'm struggling with my career once again (or still), and I'm feeling trapped in my current job, stuck in an endless loop of answering emails and demands and never really going anywhere that I want to go.  I don't know if I have the energy to pursue something else for real, but I dread most of what I have to look forward to each day.  The bright spots are the individuals I work with, who are lovely...but I am tired of the tedium of project management.  Already feeling, for lack of a more articulate term, "bleh" about work overall, I got an email from my manager that was a delayed response to a revised project timeline proposal that I sent her.  The proposal takes into account a 3-to-4 month client-driven delay and other complications/adjustments and added 6 months onto the project overall.  Her response was to ask if we could proceed with something more like the original timeline.  I don't even know if it's humanly possible to hit the revised interim deadline with the client, so I am less than thrilled with the prospect of raising the bar further, and I feel frustrated that it's all management and coordination and working really hard during a busy and high priority time in my personal life, on account of first, being verbally committed to something with the client before I can chime in and say if it's really possible and second, not getting a reasonable amount of flexibility due to things outside of my control.  I don't want to spend the next 9 months of my life and beyond on this project.  I would love for it to end on time.  But it just isn't going to happen, and I am reasonably certain that nobody is more disappointed by that than I am.

I don't generally like to gripe about the particulars of my job in this particular forum, but I'm just trying to work through what the reasons for staying are.  I think it's unfair and ungrateful to just trash a job and walk out the door without some attempt to reconcile, especially with colleagues who are generally great, but since there are some irreconcilable differences (like my wanting to work in a sustainability-related role and there being little or no opportunity for that in my company), I see the constructive discussion that I will definitely try to have with my manager tomorrow as a stop-gap, not a real solution for me.  I'm discouraged, because I'm not sure what I really want, and I can see the good in where I am now, but it's ultimately not going to be enough.

Doubt and Belief

I preface a lot of my posts, but a preface to this one seems particularly fitting.  It's unlikely to be a complete take on my view of faith and its role in public life...more likely it's just going to be the rambling start of recording a thought process for me.

I struggle with the idea of faith, of belief.  Not because I think it's a bad idea, but because people of faith often seem to want to nail down the object of their faith (i.e. God) in fairly certain terms -- understandably, they want to know about the one in whom they are putting their trust.  They want to know if God is anti-abortion, or defines marriage and sexuality a certain way, or thinks government should help poor people, etc.  But I wonder how much this serves their own need for closure on each issue in question, versus actually promoting the Kingdom of God (to use a term familiar from my own upbringing).

Two reasons why this has been on my mind:

1. There is an upcoming presidential election, and as usual, there is an attempt to define one party as being for "values voters" - which suggests that if you are a true Christian, you will vote for a Republican, without ambiguity.  This drives me crazy, because I know a lot of Christian Democrats who actually vote on the left on account of their convictions, not in spite of them.  I get the sense that the "values voters" on the political right simply think that everyone else is wrong, lost, warped, sinful - which assumes that they, more than anyone else, are in touch with God and are thus uniquely qualified to choose leaders who will fight moral decay.  I just think, in all of the fear of moral disintegration of society and the opposition to change, many have lost sight of the big picture.  I think that the way we learn and grow as individuals is reflected in the way that society progresses as well -- and a lot of good has been done by pushing the boundaries of what is normal.  We weren't built to be automated robots, and we weren't meant to live the same way as people who came before us.
2. I've become less devout over the past few years...though perhaps "devout" is not the word to best capture what I mean.  The best quote I can think of to describe my worldview is from Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."  Essentially, whatever details people cling to, whatever we tell ourselves, I think we should persistently call into question, test, doubt.  As Thomas Jefferson said, "Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.  Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."  Instead of trying to memorize verses and pore over obscure Bible passages looking for very specific answers to my very specific questions, I more often doubt that there is an easy answer.  This leaves me scratching my head sometimes over how, exactly, God influences my judgment and decisions...but I find it dissatisfying when people match a truism with every question.  I think part of faith for me is that things will be okay even if we leave things ambiguous, even if we don't get them entirely right, even if there isn't an entirely right solution - after all, there are a lot of trade-offs, and what is optimal is not going to be flawless.  A lot of what motivates the way that I interact with people and my political decisions is a sense that none of us knows entirely what's best, and rarely is what's best a universal applied to all people in all contexts, so we need leniency and flexibility.  The same way that it drives some people crazy to leave matters of belief open-ended, it frustrates me when some people are more intent on nailing them down as quickly as possible, because it seems motivated more by fear of the unknown than by serious consideration and knowledge of God's will.

That's all I have in me tonight...possibly to be continued...

Where to start?

I'm such an inconsistent blogger, I sometimes wonder if anyone is still reading!  But just the same, I like writing for the sake of writing sometimes, so I'll try to get back into regularly putting down some of my thoughts.

I guess the best place to start is personal.  After years of hyper-long distance love, my guy is moving to Chicago.  It didn't hit me fully at first, but my excitement and joy keep building as his arrival gets closer.  I know that I'm likely to have some characteristic existential crisis - about being in one place for a while without the assurance of regular travel (which is both awesome and anxiety-inducing), about living with a long-term partner again (also both sweet and scary), about the general "what now?", now that I have the stability to focus on other parts of my life.  I want to build a more normal life with my guy while keeping our flexibility and craving for new adventures - it will be wonderful to take off to new places together instead of traveling around the world to see each other, and it will be fantastic to know that we'll call the same place home.  I'd love to take my career aspirations more seriously and figure out what I really want to do next, to take better care of myself by getting into a healthier routine, to cultivate deeper friendships, to become more involved in my community, and to get back in touch with my creative side.  It's the start of a new phase, and I can hardly wait til he lands here in a few weeks and we begin, officially!

A calling

To begin with, I'm not really a regular follower of the great modern evangelical blogger, Rachel Held Evans, but her post yesterday on egalitarianism is fantastic (you can check it out here).  One bit in particular that I loved reading:

I am troubled by the common teaching from the Church that “motherhood is a woman’s highest calling.” A woman’s highest calling is to follow Jesus Christ. End of story. And she can do that if she is married, single, divorced, widowed, a mother, or childless.

There are a lot of ways to be human, male or female - a lot of great ways.  I think as someone who falls into categories 3 and 6 above, and who at times has a difficult relationship with both of these choices (to the self doubting tune of, "What on earth am I doing with my life?"), I appreciate hearing affirmation of the value of diversity of lifestyle and experience.  My child-free status has been troubling me more than usual lately, and I think a lot of it's probably that I'm thirty and so many of the women my age are mothers or intend to become mothers as soon as possible, and I am still having none of that.  And along with being surrounded by new and expectant mothers, there's also a sort of cult of motherhood that suggests that you're missing something big if you don't have kids, and it's hard for me not to internalize that.  Women who love their children dearly claim they didn't know what love was until they had their children - one photo celebrating parenthood on facebook even claimed that one's "heart would be empty" if not for their children.  Even people who don't subscribe to so-called "traditional" gender roles often adhere strongly to this thinking - that only having kids can fulfill you, and naturally it only follows that if you don't have them, you are making a regrettable mistake that you don't even realize so you had better keep reconsidering it until you come to your senses.  


My natural tendency towards existential anxiety makes my seemingly counter-mommy-cultural (but actually not at all abnormal - as of two years ago, almost 1 in 5 women in their early 40s hadn't had any children) choice a difficult one.  Because so many women derive a sufficient sense of purpose from raising children, or at least claim to, I sometimes wonder if I will be able to find fulfillment while remaining child-free.  Mind you, having a child does not sound particularly fulfilling to me, and in fact I know that in many ways it would be mind numbing, but still - where do I find fulfillment when other people default to parenthood to meet this need?  


Zooming out a bit, I know this is part of my ongoing struggle for purpose, and not knowing if it's ever going to come from a career, or a really wonderful committed relationship, or a continual learning process...or some combination of these and a few other things.  Most of the time I just can't see the overarching point to the brief frenzy of one lifetime.  


I don't really have a better ending than that, so that's all for now.

Excitement

I'm excited these days because there are a lot of great things going on:

1. My guy is coming to visit in June, after four months in different hemispheres.  I am beyond excited, especially since we're planning to do some traveling while he's here, and we'll also spend time wiht my family.  Then we'll go together to the UK for a week and see his family, who will be gathered as his sister gets her Ph.D., and then I'll head back to Mumbai with him and stay there for about 6 weeks.  I'm looking forward to having a good extended period of time together, since we're still not sure how our permanent arrangement will work out.
2. My friend, Erin, and I made hula hoops on Saturday.  I was skeptical, but it was super fun, as was spending the day with her.  We had a great lunch at Eleven City Diner, and always have good conversations about life.
3. My sister, brother-in-law, and niece are coming to visit together in a week and a half, for the first time since fall of 2009 (though my sister has been up once since).  I am excited to hang out with them and for Caitlin to get to see the city, beach, trains, and all.
4. I've been reading a lot lately - and really loving it.  I am always looking for my next reading break so I can get back to my latest book.  I love anticipating the others in the stack that's waiting for me when I finish my current one (a biography of Marie Antoinette).
5. My parents just had their 40th wedding anniversary, and they are going to Hawaii in a couple of weeks.  I have to admit that even though I have done and am planning more travel of my own, I'm a bit jealous. :)

Learning to Love

At times lately I've thought of how much less romantic more mature love seems versus the celebrated "young love".  There was something lovely and pure about being in love when it was new and my frontal lobe wasn't completed yet.  But now that I'm a little bit older (though not actually old, at least by today's American standards) and a lot of my naivete has rubbed off through the course of life and relationships that have not worked out, and now that I've also got a clearer sense of and respect for myself, I am enjoying a new depth of love.  I just don't think I was capable of it even a few years ago.  I'm hoping it's a trend, that in the years to come I will only learn to love better than I do today, with more wholeness and less insecurity.

Happiness

I am happy.  It might be hard to tell much of the time, because I go through periods of low moods, worry about the future, and get frustrated with the status quo, and those are the things that I am most apt to talk about.  I'm by nature someone who has to try pretty hard to remember to say it out loud when there's something good or right or wonderful - these things aren't problems, so I don't bring them up very much.  I'm more likely to stay silent until I notice something not right, and then I am on top of it, sometimes in a pounce.  It's something that I would like to be better at - giving compliments, encouragement, and generally reflecting positively on the world around me in a more outward way.

At the same time, there is also a sense in which my own experience of happiness and joy is so deeply felt and so close to everything I value that it is more difficult to express, both because it is hard to articulate and because some things can only be shared with a person who empathizes or reciprocates them.  And I also have this feeling that what I hold dear, my experiences of love and connection and insight that bring me joy and exhilaration, are things that not everyone values, and I don't really want to share them with people who don't appreciate them because it will disappoint me .  I crave depth and complexity, and revel in things not being too tidy or easily understood - I love the striving, the intricacy, the challenge of the incomprehensibility of things.  I'm suspicious of the simple and dislike the sugar-coated, because I think very little in this world is simple or purely sweet, unless we are ignoring a lot.  I want a wide-eyed view of reality, bringing the periphery and blind spots into full view, beautiful and ugly, familiar and foreign, and I want to soak it all in because it's all part of one big, connected reality.  I want the kinds of things that are good beneath the surface, in their essences - I love surprises, what's hidden inside to discover, eclectic collections of anything - people, buildings, books, art.  The possibilities that come with embracing and making change are enough to make life worth living.  These are the things I love.  Convenience, ease, and luxury may be nice in some ways, but ultimately they are not satisfying goals, and I'm not interested in pursuing them because they are oriented toward avoiding effort instead of investing myself in something that matters and seeing a return in happiness.

And now that I'm not sure how to conclude, I'll just say it again: I am happy.

Addendum to my last post

Also on the topic of women and babies, this made me smile:

http://thehairpin.com/2012/04/on-the-happiness-of-procreation?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thehairpin%2FBdYj+%28The+Hairpin%29

Trusting Women

I've found it astonishing lately how much distrust there still seems to be in women to make decisions about their own bodies, particularly when it comes to reproductive health.  I'm not astonished because this is news to me, but because I am frustrated that as a society, we can't seem to reach a consensus that mandating very personal decisions for women is demeaning and coercive.  I can't help thinking that at the root of so much of the ideology around abortion and birth control and women's sexuality, there is a belief that women are meant to be mothers, that they should want to be mothers and welcome even unexpected pregnancies as some sort of unplanned blessings.  Women having sex for pleasure and not wanting children runs counter to the patriarchal idea that women are, at their core, meant to be nurturers, pouring their lives happily into their progeny.

To be clear, I know a lot of wonderful, nurturing women, who find fulfilling roles in caring for their families - no easy task, and not one that gets them a lot of accolades.  But because I find myself more often feeling a sense of dread than a sense of possibility when I consider having children, and I have felt this way consistently through my 20s and still now that I'm 30, I find the pervasive, idyllic image of contented motherhood really creepy.  Not because motherhood is creepy, but because choosing non-motherhood isn't a fully accepted choice for women, and there's subtle and not-so-subtle ways that women are pushed to have babies or do a lot of answering for themselves.  I wish I were one of the women who either has always known she wanted children or has known, unequivocally, that she never wants to be a mother.  I have been pretty far down the "no, thanks" side of the spectrum for years, but I still have my moments of wondering, "What if?", so it doesn't help that most of the comments I get are uncritically pro-baby.  There are some people who are just fine with the decision to not have kids, but there are others who clearly don't understand.  The fact that it's so shocking to some people is testament to the fact that people assume that a young woman without children just doesn't have children yet.  A couple the most frustrating reactions and rationalizations I've gotten:

• "Maybe in a few years."  I got this response when I was 23, and I still get it at 30.  It basically says, "You are too young to know what you actually want."  I'm fairly confident that most women having babies in their early 20s don't hear, "Are you sure you want to be a mother?"  This one really makes me feel like my judgment isn't trusted, because the logic seems to be that if I had good judgment, I would decide to have children.
• "It's different when it's your own child." or "Everyone who has kids says they are so glad they did, even if they didn't want them before."  I don't think having a child because I probably won't regret it is a good reason to create another person.  And I'm also fairly certain that anyone who does regret having kids is disinclined to share that with the world.

In the end, I just want to make my own decision without other people's views having undue influence, and I want other women to do the same.  I came across this op-ed today and thought that it and the reader comments that followed included a good set of perspectives: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10786279

Minimum Age

I have a lot of opinions, but I generally don't like giving advice.  But if I were to pick one piece of advice to broadcast to the world, I'd say: Don't make any big life decisions before age 25.  After getting divorced, I found out that divorce rates drop sharply when people get married after 25 (I was 24 when I got married).  And it turns out that there is some science to back up my "hold off til after 25" rule: http://www.hhs.gov/opa/familylife/tech_assistance/etraining/adolescent_brain/Development/prefrontal_cortex/index.html

Miracle

A week ago, a new friend (or friend in the making, since I've still only met her once) assessed my relationship with my guy to be a "miracle", both because of the way we've sustained it across an uber-long distance and because, as far as she can see, we have nothing in common.  I smiled, because I can see what she means - our interests and temperaments are quite different.  He's laid back, generally quiet, leisurely-paced, and doesn't worry about much (except when it comes to sports), while my desire to control my circumstances and enact change pushes me toward anxious rambling and occasional jarring decisions.  I am much more intense in my beliefs and in my moods than he is - he's not at all ideological.  But as I told my friend in an intentional understatement, I'm quite fond of him, even though we are different - even because of the ways we are different, because for the most part, so far we have been able to use our differences balance and complement each other rather than clashing.

And it isn't actually true that we have nothing in common - we are both some sort of math nerds, and a lot of our preferred style of living is the same - straightforward, avoiding pretense and striving to be true to ourselves.  Neither of us easily accepts anything as not possible or too difficult to try - we crave new experiences in new places, and in this I can see some of the passion beneath his calm surface.  A key theme for us is a shared sense of "why not?"  As in, why not try to be in this improbable relationship?  Why not pursue this surprising but wonderful connection that we have, as far as we can take it in this life?  We know it's uncommon in some ways, and that's part of what we value about it -- that it's not socially automatic or instinctive, but at the same time there's something really universal about us as humans that enables us to connect across traditional boundaries.

I guess all this is to say, I'm quite fond of him, and I'm excited about what we've started together.

Growth

I took some time today to read through my blogs throughout the past three years.  It wasn't really fun reliving some of the more difficult emotions, but I did realize a couple of things.  First, I have come a long way and grown a lot, in ways that are both on the surface in what I've written and in ways that are not explicit but that I can feel.  And also, more than ever, I realize that there's a somewhat limited part of me that I share on my blog, which is generally me at my most rational and reflective -- which is part of why there are so many ways that I've changed that are harder to track on the blog - so much of my growth has been emotional.

In spite of the persistent moments of anxiety about how things will ultimately turn out, I am feeling more relaxed than ever.  At the very least, even if my circumstances suck at times, I am much happier with myself.  I love myself, and I can even manage to cut myself some slack for being human and making mistakes.  I'm comfortable in my own skin, more understanding of my own needs, aspirations, motivations, and reactions.  I'm not driving myself crazy with self criticism anymore.  Two years ago when I left my marriage, I had a lot of self doubt, but within a couple of months I was experiencing some glimpses of the happiness that comes from being honest and taking a risk on behalf of myself.  Now that my view is largely retrospective and the acute pains have been replaced with occasional dull aches, I am glad I did what I did.  It turned out to be the right thing to do.  It's hard to imagine that I'd be anywhere near as happy as I am now if I'd chosen differently.  I still experience plenty of hurdles and pains, but I can vouch for the blessings that can come from taking a leap of faith.

I'm living a pretty fantastic story, one with great love that persists against all odds.  And if that weren't enough (and it really is), I have gotten to travel, meet new people, and learn a ton in the process.  I have a lot to be thankful for.

Untitled

If you ask me what I want most right now, I'll tell you I want to live in the same place with my guy.  I want to be on the same side of the planet, in the same city, in the same apartment.  I want to spend my days with him.

During the past couple of weeks, he has talked with a couple of hiring managers within our company in the US, as well as having a follow-up chat with HR about his interest in the positions.  Of the two positions he's heard about so far, the one he is more interested in is in Chicago, so he will likely proceed with interviews for it.

It would be perfect, right?  Since I'm in Chicago, and he might get to join me here?

But I don't feel very excited - I feel anxious.  Partly it's just, whoa...this could really, actually be happening.  I'm uneasy about the transition from the difficulties of an ultra-long distance relationship to the challenges of a live-in partnership.  It sounds like a nice set of challenges to have, considering the fantastic scenario in which we get to be together in the same place indefinitely.  But every step toward a real, long term commitment will be both thrilling and terrifying for me, following on the past couple of really transformative years.

The other part of my anxiety comes from staying in Chicago.  I guess I just got used to the idea that we'd probably both be relocating, and I was looking forward to starting over together in a place that would be new to both of us.  If he comes here, my home for the past 8 years and the stage for a lot of the past I've been working on leaving behind, then I'll have to adjust to staying put and having him become part of my life here.  I know we can find ways to make it new and make it ours together, but the emotional reaction I've been having to the idea of staying is tipped way more toward disappointed not to get to relocate than it is toward relieved not to have to move again.

Nothing is certain at this point, so really I shouldn't be so worried yet.  But just the possibility has got me feeling anxious.

Disconnected

I've had a lot of solo at-home time this weekend, which is not totally out of the ordinary for me, but it was magnified by my Saturday plans falling through and an inexplicably sore foot that kept me on my butt more than I'd have preferred, rather than out enjoying the weather and thrift shopping, among other things.  This morning, I did get out for a walk, and it was wonderful - in the low 50s, but without the wind that's been around for the past few days and with plenty of sunshine.  As I walked, I saw so many people out with their dogs and their little kids, running on the beach, walking on the sidewalks, and playing in the parks.  I enjoyed seeing them, but it also made me wish I could be with someone I care about just as much on such a lovely spring Sunday morning.  I feel pretty isolated, without any real closeness or connection that I experience on a daily basis.  I know I've been away a lot, but even without that, I think the situation would be similar.

When I first moved into an apartment by myself a couple of years ago, I knew that I was changing lifestyles and would be spending more time on my own.   I just sort of accepted it as a matter of fact, something I'd have to get used to.  But now, I think there's something not working right in the way that I live, and I think it stems from how much of American society functions.  Overwhelmingly, we are individualistic and think that each person should be free to pursue happiness according to their own definition and using their own means.  And I tend to be very independent-minded and resistant to any feeling that I'm being guided or coerced against my will - I wouldn't want society to be such an overbearing force that my or anyone else's individualism would be stifled.  But I think we are at the other end of the spectrum from that - our political debates often seem to me to boil down to, how much do we think people are entitled to do as they wish, without any necessary regard for others or sense of being connected as a society?  And we tend heavily toward the conclusion that everyone should do what they want as long as it can't be said to actually harm others - to some degree, the ethical consumer movements (organic, fair trade, local, etc.), which I've been a fan of for years, are aimed at "do no harm", and not a sense of responsibility to actively do something good.  There can be a big effect from people doing the same basic things in better ways (e.g. we all have to eat, and there are better and worse ways to do that).  But there's part of me that would really love to see us more at ease with interacting with each other, face to face, connecting with people in our community, and focused on creating rather than just consuming better.

The city is a tough place for this, but it's not just urban-ness that creates social distance and anonymity.  Having spent a lot of time in Mumbai, which is uber-urban, there is much more of a sense of connection with friends and family among people I've met there.  I find myself sitting home, ridiculously Googling community organizations in my neighborhood, because I'm not aware of that much of what's here and I don't know an actual human being to ask in order to find out.  And it freaks me out a bit to be looking for such basic information and considering showing up somewhere that's part of my neighborhood but where I still know nobody.  It doesn't help motivate me that I'm not sure how much longer I'll even be here.  But ultimately, I know that I won't be happy in the long term if I don't have a meaningful connection to where I live, both on a local level and I hope globally as well.  I watched a documentary tonight, "Happy", which only reinforced what I already knew, that the corporate salary and all the things it enables me to acquire is woefully insufficient to make me happy - I need the connection with other people, and that's what will give me a real sense of purpose.  Boy, do I miss my guy these days...when I'm with him, he's like my family, and I feel like the whole world expands around us together.

I know this has been all over the place, but to finish, I'll go back to politics for a moment.  I can't help thinking that maybe part of the reason that the American Democratic policies of social spending have a reputation of being wasteful or at least inefficient is that we just don't have a national ideology of compassion.  It's all about individual effort and responsibility, which comes with opportunity but also with competitiveness and self-seeking - that's the basis of capitalism.  So in that sense, I think capitalism needs to be regulated so that it doesn't undermine our basic human compassion, because it's bound to make us less happy and for me, that defeats the entire purpose of the free market of exchange to begin with.  The ways in which government spending is actually wasteful or inefficient should be fixed, but they should also be reinforced by the strengthening of our sense of connection to each other, so that we aren't just blindly throwing money at people to try to solve their problems but really engaging with them as fellow humans.

And with that, the rambling and sermonizing are done for the evening.

Real love

I have a long-standing and consistently (perhaps annoyingly) vocalized disdain for girly, romantic things.  So-called "chick flicks" induce eye rolling and sarcastic commentary on the predictability of the happily-ever-after outcome.  Twilight is beyond the pale (no pun intended since it's about vampires and all.)

But since I find myself very much smitten, and in long-term love, I have to reconcile my gag reflex toward pop romance with my real amorous feelings.  And I think what it is, is that I revel in real love - the kind that is in the details of everyday interactions, moves with the ebb and flow of situations and feelings, and yields the sense of a common purpose in building something together.  It's not pretty, real love, but it is beautiful.  It results in movie-worthy moments basking on a beach in a tropical sunset, but it also persists through the times when the future of the relationship is uncertain and there is emotional distance.  The problems are real, and they don't resolve before a blissful forever.  The blissful forever and the problems have to coexist, and I don't think I'd change that.  I don't want love that is easy, I want love that is tested and true, and I am certain that's where I'm headed.  Taking the long view, it's incredibly romantic, in a much more real and human way than the fantasies I've been so dismissive of.

What I've been trying to describe reminds me of a sonnet by Shakespeare, which I'll finish with:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Stuck

For the first time in over 2 years, I don't have any travel plans on the horizon.  It's strange and I haven't quite acclimated to the idea that I'm likely to be in Chicago, or at least Illinois, for at least the next few months.  It's something I've said I wanted after the toll that so much traveling has taken on me, but now that I don't have a ticket booked to somewhere else, I am already starting to feel itchy.

I feel like I'm waiting for whatever comes next to come and find me this time, after years of seeking and finding a lot for myself.  I'm hoping that my guy will get to relocate somewhere that we can live together and be happy.  I'm waiting for the solution to be found.  I'm uncomfortable sitting, hoping, and trying not to hope to hard lest I set myself up for disappointment.  It doesn't sit well with me not to be taking matters into my own hands and figuring out how to make it work.  I don't like that I don't think there's much that I can do anyway.  I'm not living in the moment the way that I think I should, because it seems like such an idle moment, and not a very enjoyable one - it doesn't even feel like a moment, really, but a time between moments.  I feel more angry than ever at times, and indifferent at others, and then there are relatively few that I really, deeply enjoy.  

I don't want diversions to take my mind off of the things that are important to me, I want to live the life I've been working toward for the past couple of years.  I don't want to wait for the wheel of fate, or someone else's will, to spin me toward my next destination and mission.  I'm ready to move forward, but I feel like I've been pinned down in a limbo of mediocre options.

Here and There

The last couple of weeks have not been great.  I came back from Mumbai almost three weeks ago, and for a week or so I was feeling numb, not thrilled with being back.  And then when the numbness wore off, I just became irritable, even angry.  Some of it has been a non-stop work and social schedule, but I know most of it is that I miss my guy and Mumbai.  My level of tolerance for anything mildly annoying is virtually non-existent, and there are plenty of things that are more than mildly annoying (e.g. Republican Presidential primaries - what a horrible set of human beings).  And I don't want to talk about it with anyone, because I know that while I have good friends and family who would have only good intentions and try to make me feel better, there's nobody around who will understand, and I don't want to hear platitudes about the importance of a social life in working through a difficult transition or how it will all work out in the end, it's not that long before I'll see my guy again.  It all misses the point for me.  I don't want to force myself to get over it, and I don't think I could even if I wanted - I just want to feel the way I feel, live how I need to right now to get by, and be allowed to be honest about it.  I actually want to be in two places at once, not just so I can be with my guy, though that is at the top of my list.  But I also felt for the first time, after my latest visit to Mumbai, that it was like home to me.  It's familiar, and there are comforts there that I can't have here, the way that it is whenever a place feels like home.  I'm tired of traveling, but I'm sad not to have a plan to go back and visit anytime soon.  I hate not feeling rooted anywhere, but I don't want to have to choose somewhere that means I have to leave the other place behind.  I'm frustrated with the ways in which I think America is lame, and with the ways in which it is simply not Bombay.  I don't idealize India - the place pushes my patience to the breaking point and beyond at times - but I miss it, and I feel the ways in which Chicago fails to give me the things that I so want at times.  I miss having people around who know what it feels like to be in Mumbai, who don't have only a vague and stereotypical picture of it in their minds.  The other day I was seriously considering getting in touch with my guy's friend from his hometown who is staying in Milwaukee, whom I've only met once, just so I can spend time with someone from "the other side".  And I know that if I were in Mumbai, I'd be irritated by the ways that Indians stereotype Americans, or criticize our government or culture without really knowing enough to be able to form an intelligent opinion.  In India as well, I crave contact with people who understand both sides.  So I'm constantly torn, wherever I am, and I have to shape-shift every few months while I move back and forth between two very different places, which takes more than a couple of weeks of acclimating and a positive outlook.

Mumbai Love

I leave Mumbai and return to Chicago in just a few days, and I am really dreading it.  I've been thinking about how much this place has become part of me in a way that I can't really explain to my friends in the US.  Even people who have visited India have generally come either for a few weeks as tourists or for work, and I feel like I've gone beyond that point now, so that Mumbai has started feeling just a little bit like home now (though it's complicated, because my body and my brain are still so American).  People in the US are thinking about Pinterest and Republican candidate debates, and while I'm sort of keeping up with things there (thanks to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart), my mind and my heart would really rather be in India.  I'm involuntarily using the Indian side-to-side head nod.  I'm craving fresh lime soda and Sunny's Kerala-style beef fry and chikki and berry pulav and kala jamun and tender coconut juice and clam sukha and Goa Portuguesa's amazing pork and Theobroma's cherry cheesecake and Moshe's lemongrass cooler and Rustom's wafer ice cream and Tea Centre's Darjeeling and scones with cream and so many more things.  I want to get carried away shopping at the Kohlapuri chappal stalls on the road in Bandra and Colaba.  I want to spend hours sifting through the beautiful fabrics of Fabindia in Kala Ghoda.  I want to dance and sing ridiculous songs with Ayeshea.  I want to sit by the sea on Marine Drive at sunset with my guy at least once a week.  I want to ride with him in a taxi from Colaba to Chembur at 11:30 pm, when the traffic has finally died down and we can soar across the JJ Flyover with the windows down and the cool night air blowing smog-filled air against our faces.  I want to wake up next to him to the sounds of engines and honking that mean we've slept in and the city is up and running without us.  This is, after all, the city where we met, where we fell in love, and the only one that has been, in some sense, a home for both of us.

It feels like there's so much more for me here.  I want to learn more Hindi now that I recognize more of the words that I hear people using in conversation.  I know how to get where I want to go and how to get there, for the most part, and I know how much it should cost, so I can argue with cab drivers when they misidentify me as a clueless tourist.  My eyes aren't feeling as overstimulated as they used to when I visited in the past - the open air grocery stores and medical stores and barber shops look normal, the apartment buildings look welcoming and home-like instead of standing out in contrast to the buildings in Chicago.  The poor are still shockingly poor, but they're not only that - they are just people, in a way that it was hard for me to process before.  That is, they're not just objects of pity but part of the 20,000,000-plus-piece always-moving human puzzle that is Mumbai.  I have first world problems (http://first-world-problems.com/) but also laugh at how ridiculous they are.  I want to have more conversations with Mumbaikars of various backgrounds about their experiences, worldviews, and opinions on current events.  I want my two worlds to collide so that I can have them both and don't have to miss one of them so terribly all of the time.