Post-Crisis, Pre-Thirty

Dear Blogging Community Who Patiently Deals With My Oft-Sporadic Posts,

I'm giving you a fair warning.

December is going to be batsh*t crazy.

I looked at my calendar for the month of December, and there are TWO (yes, TWO) days where I have absolutely nothing planned.

And I already turned down a housewarming, a Christmas party, a baby shower, and plans with my own mother because I was starting to feel crazed.

I'm grateful for the busy-ness, of course, and most everything planned is fun. Some is not so much "not fun" as it is sort of "chore-like;" but awesome chores like, "Get international driver's license." That's a pretty sweet chore to have on your list, don'tcha think?

Last night, I had the opportunity to watch the "Monumental Occasion" 40th lighting of the Washington Monument in Mt. Vernon from the newly-erected roof balcony of the building where Donna's used to be before the terrible fire last year. A friend of mine from high school (who is basically awesome) scored invites for herself, The Gentleman, and me. Open bar, catering by Donna's, heaters keeping us all warm, and the best view of the monument in town. Not only that, it was fascinating to be inside the building where they are now renovating so Donna's can reopen post-fire. It's such an old, beautiful building and was thankfully saved from complete destruction. Because this friend is an architecture nerd, we got to learn a lot about the interior of the building and the plans for its future. Also awesome.

In catching up with this friend, she told me that she reads Ye Olde Blog religiously, and how the content change over the years has made her feel like there's a sense of watching transformation. That meant a lot to me.

Three years ago, I was lamenting boy drama and crying about my future onto this blog. Which made it highly readable (and now, highly embarrassing...kind of like having your high school diary published in the yearbook). Now, the high highs and low lows of life seem to have evened out a bit more into a general sense of happiness about life, my blogging gets kind of sporadic.

I once had a guy I dated ask me if I was ever happy (I guess he meant content), would I stop finding things to write about? I guess I like to think that in my happiness, it's not so much that I don't have anything to write about, it's just that I have different things to write about. It's not about failed relationships, career mishaps, and the rocky life of a twentysomething feeling like the victim all the time.

What is this about? Well, I'm still the same emotional, highly neurotic person I always was, my life is just ten times better now. I still cry senselessly in public, embarrassing The Gentleman, and I certainly still do stupid things, like getting a hot stone massage while hungover and sunburned in Vegas.

If there's one thing I could say to the earlier me, to the me that was in years past, it would be this: you will become exactly the person you want to be, for better or worse. You'll make decisions you never thought you'd make, you'll wind up living a life you thought you couldn't have here or now or in the here and now, and above all- you will reclaim that unquenchable thirst for life that drives you to rebuild houses in post-Katrina New Orleans and snorkel with sharks in the Keys. And run a half marathon. And sign up for another.

It's not really a blog about the quarter life crisis anymore (especially because I'm six months away from 30, so damn well better not be!), or about awkward dates and failed jobs, and started and stalled careers. There's nothing to say it won't revert back to any of these things at any time, because - let's face it - the economy means no one's job is safe and I still stare quizzically at The Gentleman trying to figure out where along the line I got so lucky as to land this guy. But it's more than that now. Somewhere in there, when the drama of things that seemed so huge at the time began to fade away and I made decisions that made me feel confident, my real life began. The one I thought I was meant to be living a long time ago. The one it took many twisted paths to find. I think that feeling is universal to anyone who's tripped and stumbled and somehow regained footing. I certainly don't feel like my experience was unique in any way. I'm just the one who wrote about it publicly.

And now my days are filled with running, with working my ass off at a non-profit where I hungrily devour new projects that require me to do things like learn web design and write grants, eating and drinking my way around Baltimore, watching American Horror Story (amazeballs!), planning our trip to Amman and Istanbul, laughing with Book Club and good friends, and spending time with the best guy I have ever been lucky enough to meet.

So yeah, a lot of things have changed. Damn well for the better.

And now, onto December. READYSETGO!

Well Hello There, 2011!

"2010 was a...'Rebuilding Year'," Jaunt said to me last night. It came out with a mix of affection and exhaustion with a slight pause to emphasize that, for all of us it seems, 2010 was a bit of a tornado that picked us up and dropped us off in some entirely different location then where we started the year. Some of us a little more scathed then others, but mostly in one piece.

To call it a "Rebuilding Year" is entirely accurate and, because it's Jaunt, it's also a quite intelligible and poetic way of referring to said tornado. I've felt more change in the air- with friends, family, and the world at large. Change is riddled with difficulty, excitement, and a certain degree of learning when to dig your heels in and when to simply let go and allow the winds to whip you as they will.

In 2010, I went to New Orleans and helped rebuild a little corner of it. I started running and completed 4 5ks and the marathon relay. I started a new job with a nonprofit whose work makes me proud and is fulfilling to me in a way I didn't know a career could be. I got simultaneously angry at the state of affairs in this city that's become my home and elated that there is change happening on so many levels to address things. I went back to one of my favorite past times- kayaking, and explored waterways in Annapolis, the Eastern Shore, and Gun Powder. I reconnected with some old friends, made some new ones, and had more fun with my big band of merry girlfriends then really should be legal.

And I watched change in my friends too. I watched broken hearts and new beginnings, big moves, engagements, break-ups, marriages, pregnancies, new jobs, sicknesses and healths. I've started paying more attention to these things, realizing that our problems are shifting as we are all getting older. The things that are most important to you begin to change over time, and the things that bothered us in the past begin to fall away a little easier with these shifts in priorities.

And 2011? Well, if 2010 was the "Rebuilding Year," then perhaps 2011 is the year to experiment with our new selves. Test the steadiness of the foundation, feel the strength of new roots. Shift the focus away from the skeletons we've been building and start to flesh out the aesthetics a little more. Begin to move around and enjoy the fruits of our labors. Face new issues, build stronger safety measures, and perhaps use some of our newfound architecture as a launch pad.

I don't really have any grandiose resolutions- aside from the fact that I intend to train for and run the half-marathon in October- but I do promise to go a little easier on myself. After so many years of breaking and bending and testing, I want to live 2011 a little more comfortably in my own skin. Don't we all?

Cheers, 2011.

Vay-Cay

Oh, Friday, you simply could not come fast enough for NG, here.

Hurricane be damned, I'm beach-bound this weekend! The break is more than appreciated. Since the Fourth, I've been in gogogogogogogogogogogogogogogogo mode between New Job and Old Jobs and Book Club and Trivia and friends and boys and all of those things that make you stop and go...."What happened to August? Was there an August in there? Have I slept at all since the beginning of July?"

Answer: Not really.

So I'm skipping town to unwind my head and body from these knots they've been in. It can rain all weekend for all I care: I have a Jane Green and a supply of sauv blanc from my new most favorite place on earth, and that should keep me occupied for awhile. I am hoping to get a kayaking trip in at some point this weekend. Do hurricanes cause riptides in backwater Eastern shore creeks? We shall find out.

In other news, Stephen Hawking is stirring up the science-religion debate with his suggestion that "the universe can and will create itself from nothing [...] It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [fuse] and set the universe going." Oof, Hawking. Surely you anticipated the world's reaction to that.

Those who never believed in God in the first place jump all over the argument as testament to their beliefs (because atheism is a belief structure that requires just as much faith as any other religion), and those who were on the fence might find the statement an easy "out." Those who did- and still do- are picking apart Hawking's wording.
"Hawking's god is a god-of-the-gaps used to plug present gaps in our scientific knowledge. Science provides us with a wonderful narrative as to how [existence] may happen, but theology addresses the meaning of the narrative,"commented Denis Alexander, director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion.

That's the real missing gap, isn't it? Meaning, I mean. We can postulate away the hand of some God in creation, we can find a thousand theorems to prove that there is nothing out in the universe but endless dark matter and cosmic dust, but the fact remains that we will derive no joy or feel for existence from solving complex math riddles. I agree with Alexander's assessment that Hawking is discussing another god, a sort of random factor that scientists once attributed to some divine intervention. But Hawking can't explain away the existence of faith, and I don't think he's trying to. In the search for the spark of existence, while science can measure and attest, there's no logical formula for meaning, thought, beauty, art, and all of the things that conjoin to form our human assessment of life via spirituality. This God is a separate God-- and if you are monotheistic the only God--and Hawking's statement that God's hand in creation is unnecessary does nothing to devalue the ultimate poetry. If you believe, that is.

People will undoubtedly line up on all sides of this debate to debunk, refute, support, cry out, uplift, embrace, or even completely ignore Hawking's new work. At the end of the day, however, it comes down to a question of faith.

On that note....tying up loose ends here and then packing up the car to head to the shore! Peace out, Glitteratis, and enjoy the holiday weekend.

Run, Baby, Run

And she's pictured all the places
Where she knows she still belongs
And she smiles a secret smile
Because she knows exactly how
To carry on
So run baby run baby run baby run
Baby run
"Run Baby Run," Sheryl Crow

may I be I is the only prayer--
not may I be great
or good
or beautiful
or wise
or strong
- e e cummings

It was pouring rain on Saturday morning.

I mean, pouring.

Like the kind of rain that comes down in movies, the kind you scoff at and say "There's no way that's real. It doesn't rain like that in reality. That's totally production."

That kind of rain.

It was raining, and it was humid, and I was running an unfamiliar course. An unfamiliar hilly course.

Baltimore City does not have hills. Unless you count Fort Avenue, which I do, but only when I am physically in the process of running it. I'm told the Mt. Vernon route has some elevation but, again, this is more of a long incline. No doubt tough on the leg muscles, but not what I'd consider to be...hilly.

This Annapolis course, however, was hilly.

And wet.

So, within the first quarter mile, I made a deal with myself. I was exhausted, having completed my first week back at a 9-5. I hadn't been able to train as hard as I would have liked, I felt a little unprepared, and I didn't know what sort of skill level I was up against. This wasn't like the Baltimore Women's Classic, with 2,500 women racing through the streets of Locust Point. There were only about 200-some women running this race and, very shortly after the gun (which was a verbal ready, set, go!), we had disbursed enough so that I found myself running alone with no one to which to match my pace.

I made a deal with myself to finish the race with the understanding that this would not be my best time. I would push through, knowing that I probably couldn't beat my previous record of 26:33. It's only my second race, I reasoned. There is time for improvement.

I lengthened my strides the way I'd been told, to take some of the exertion off of my upper body in the humidity. I kept my head down to keep the rain out of my face. And I pushed forward, through wall after wall. It was a hard race for me.

Along the river, branches heavy with rain dipped low to the ground. Beautiful homes tucked back along the water, trees taller than the buildings that normally surround me. I had forgotten what it was like, greenery. You live in Baltimore long enough, you become accustomed to the random splotches of scraggly trees poking up from the sidewalk. You forget what real trees are, how they arc and branch upwards so heavy with leaves it forms a ceiling. A living, breathing ceiling.

It was like running at the beach. A new perspective. The light is different, the sky is different, and as much as you're focused on the path in front of you, you can't help notice the scenery.

I started to enjoy the race. I was still pushing; pushing through those walls. When I run, I hit mental and physical walls. They come in a series, and I feel them start to hit and I feel myself pushing through, and I feel them dissipate. It's just a wall, I tell myself, and on the other side of it is a new rush.

I ran past the home of a childhood friend. We used to play in the woods behind her house; games that involved witches and magic powers and sticks that yielded spells and rocks that were secrets. I hadn't seen this home in....fifteen years? At least. It looked the same. Smaller, maybe. I hit another wall. It rained harder. I kept running.

In my mind, I could see the finish line. Who is this person? I suddenly asked myself. Who am I? I have pushed through so many walls, mainly self-inflicted, in the last six or so months. I have pushed, I have worked, and I know that I can do this. I never knew that before. I know that the finish line is coming, and that I'll cross it, and that no matter what the time is, I will be proud of myself for finishing. I will not stop and walk, I will not slow down. I'll just keep going. Because the walls will fall apart and the finish line will materialize.

And there it was. I sprinted the last 50 or so yards and crossed the finish line.

At 24:55.

More than a minute and a half off of my personal best record.

Some mornings I wake up, and I do not know who this person is. This person who gets up, excited for the day. I get up, and I smile at strangers, and I make conversation with cashiers. I comment on the weather to passersby. I have no idea where I found this peace, this solidity. I know, somehow, that it has something to do with the running. With the goals and the accomplishments and the training and the diligence. Somehow, this is all connected.

I am getting to know this new person. I understand that I am not always Zen. I know there are walls to push through, still and always, and patterns of thought that must be broken.

But I find, existing in between all of these walls and maybe even in the walls themselves, this happiness that I did not know existed. That I felt had somehow alluded me for all these years. It was as though I finally plugged into some stream of consciousness or some energy flow that finally lit up my personal light bulb of a soul.

Run, baby, run.

Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg.

"the art of concentrating strength at one point, forcing a breakthrough"

Who Are You Not To Be?

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most.
We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?"

Actually, who are you not to be?
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

-Marianne Williamson

Viva NOLA

A thousand thanks to Jaunt for the quotes.

There was- and always has been- another tradition that stretched from the days of the country's founding to the glory of the Civil Rights movement; a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.
-President Barack Obama

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
-Anna Quindelin

Wherever you are, be there.
-Emerson
(I wrote this quote on the paper beneath the siding boards that we nailed against the house, and dated it. For as long as the house stands, a little piece of me will be there.)

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
-Anne Frank

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
-Charles Dudley

The secret of success in this life is to realize that the crisis on our planet is much larger than deciding what to do with your own life. The only work that will ultimately bring any good to any of us is the work of contributing to the healing of the world.
-Marianne Williamson

Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.
-Sally Koch

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
-Robert Ingersoll

We don't accomplish anything in this world alone...and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.
-Sandra Day O'Connor

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can't prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you're presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power.
-Blaine Lee

Life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences, but rather, it's a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite sublime plan.
-Serendipity

It always seems impossible until it's done.
-Nelson Mandela

The most profound joy has more of gravity than gaiety in it.
-Michel de Montaigne

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy.
I think the purpose of life is to be USEFUL,
to be responsible,
to be compassionate.
It is above all
to MATTER,
to COUNT,
to STAND for something,
to have made some difference
that you lived at all.
-Leo Rosten

Risk

Risk management: the effect of uncertainty on objectives (whether positive or negative.)

2010 was supposed to be a year of risk-taking.

Not like risk-taking in the past, which usually involved some sort of ill-conceived plan of mischief or giant leaps into abysses. I don't think there's anything wrong with a giant leap into an abyss every now and then. Good for the soul, especially when you have to climb your way up and out.

But 2010 was supposed to be a year of risk-taking that encompassed discovering new paths, new ways of thinking, and new life experiments. New Orleans will be a part of this; a week with strangers is far outside of my comfort zone, and I am not exactly a master carpenter. But I'll learn.

Stephanie Klein, for whom I still have a serious soft spot and a much greater tendency towards creating personal boundaries thanks to her homegrown and iron-clad brand of stating what you will and will not stand for in your life (you teach others how to treat you), recently wrote a blog post aimed at creating a new career mid-life. Specifically, it was about starting a writing career. I've started so many writing careers I can't keep track.

Her advice? Get the full-time job, and make it work for you. Find out how to get your employer to pay for extracurricular classes, use your vacation time to pursue your life's loves.

It isn't bad advice, certainly, but it sort of sails over my head because I've stalled out on that front: getting the full-time job. Apply, apply, apply, fill out more applications, talk to everyone you know, write your resume ten different ways in ten different fonts and scatter them to the winds. Searching for a job is a full-time job, and you're supposed to treat it as one.

Except it's the most thankless, exhausting, draining full-time job you could ever have.

Still, I read her blog post and realized that the thing that she was saying without really saying it had a whole lot to do with my ideas about risk: do what you gotta do, and find a way to make the doing a part of the greater process. Sometimes it doesn't look traditional, sometimes it's not exactly what you thought it might look like.

But you've gotta be doing something. And that's the risk. Inaction is laziness, it's safe, it's protecting, and it's also a very poisonous and stagnant way of being. Inaction leads to stultifying fear of taking a step in any one direction. I've found, in the last three or four years, that I'll be inactive for a great period of time before I'll finally just say, "Screw it," and jump. And the jumping is always somehow so much easier than I thought it would be. Mid-air, knowing not where I'll land, I somehow always find myself with this thought: "I should have done this a long time ago."

Whether it's a move, a career change, a new way of thinking- 2010 is the year of risk-taking, and it's time for me to get on that. I've been trying too hard for too long to do things the traditional way, and it's not working out. So let's approach it from a different angle. Find an internship. Volunteer. Get yourself in there, learn what you need to learn, and get out of this rut.

But, above all, make it work for you, not against you.