Sola · Ella

Dear journal -

General tones from recent days.

Monday. A sunny day, after a snow storm weekend. Car is broken, so I spend more time outside walking, and on a bus listening to music. Facilitated a grief support group - they drew turkeys and traced hands for the feathers. On each of the hands, they wrote memories they were thankful for of their special person who died. The five year old was just excited to draw turkeys, and an occassional kangaroo. Chad and Brandon met me in Uptown, sipped on fruit infused vodka at the Thin Man

Tuesday. The shuttle driver remembered my name. Don't remember much of work. Came home to a police car and people standing outside my apartment. The maintenance man, Pedro, was dead inside. He was terrible at fixing things. I would always finish the projects he started. Dan took me out to dinner at a Taqueria. Didn't sleep much, and was grateful everytime I woke up prematurely, because it meant I wasn't going to die prematurely in my sleep.

Wednesday. Another walk through the park to the bus. Learned mid-day of the layoff of my boss of four years. A few weeks ago, I saw her being marginalized from activity within the company, and was strategic to move departments (where soon thereafter my new manager got laid off). An evening followed with Beth. At St. Mark's we fell into the most honest, vulnerable conversation of our lives. The dialogue was even more priceless since the only available seating was wedged between two guys who were clearly pretending that they weren't listening.

Thursday. Shuttle driver remembered my name again. Worked hard, with project plans and mock-ups and deliverables. Sat and stared as the pregnant woman who worked across from me as packed up her belongings and was escorted out. Rest of the day has been a blur.

Confounding variables, really. And every time I hear about another engagement, I feel terrible about myself.

Con amor,
Amy

Dear Journal,

I woke up at 430 this morning, just read what I wrote in my journal - not typical of me to share, but have no reason not to: 

Dear Journal -

After writer's block for the past twelve months, I am back - and I think to stay.

I have so much to tell you, and nowhere seems like a better place than here. The fact that it has changed to a face of anonymity compels me to write... tomorrow.

A

A mind and a body: I don’t know if they are in communion or dispute – primarily because I don’t know the individual identity of each.

I have this body, and I don’t know what to do with it. Fat? Voluptuous? Thin? Fit? Small? Big?

Can somebody please tell me? Tell me more than my body mass index. Tell me if I am exercising enough. Tell me the demographics of those who find my body attractive. Tell me of the girls who are glad they don’t have my body, and tell me of the girls who feel bad about their body when they look at mine.

I have this mind, and I don’t know what to do with it. Sophisticated? Simple? Irrational? Useful? Useless?

Can somebody please tell me? Tell me more than my IQ. Tell me if I am thinking enough, and if I am successfully conveying my thoughts to others. Tell me of those who think beyond my finite reasoning skills, and tell me whose thoughts I undoubtedly surpass. Tell me the type of person who finds me interesting, and those who find me boring.

love,
amyb

Dear Journal -

Here I am! I guess I haven't written because I'm not as interesting as I used to be. The enigma of life seems to have gone missing and I don't know if I should try and find it. I think of what I can say that could be interesting - well maybe not interesting but, at least reflective of this moment in my life.

I'm almost twenty-four. I have never experienced such little stress in my life. I think that I have worked very hard to get to this point. I'm a Research Analyst, and my company pays a lot of money so I can become even smarter.

It's summer, and its hot out. I have my bed under the French windows, looking over the city. I will continue to write in such a terse manner until I feel like I have something important to say.

Maybe I just don't have anything to say right now. Should I force myself to write? Should I write about the things that are happening in my life right now, or the things that I hope to happen? Should I talk about how lucky I am, or how hard I am trying? I want to talk about where I want to be, but I don't want to ignore where I am or where I have been. But, for some reason I don't want to talk about where I am. I don't think its boring. In fact, I'm sure somebody out there is dying to know where I am and what I am doing.

There you have it - a (self-flattering) entry about not knowing what I should write about.

Is this a trough? I want to be at the peak.

Laconically (in thought, but not in writing),
Amyb

Dear Journal,

I painted my cabinets, got a real job and moved my bed under the window.

I want my friends to eat.

I don't want to feel crazy.

I don't want marriage to be the purpose of relationships, and I want new approaches to things that are clearly broken and don't work.

I want more conversations with good souls.

I will mediate situations that I might not be qualified to mediate.

I will make more friends than I need, and then I will ignore people without knowing it.

I'm sure I speak and act beyond my years every once in a while.

Love!
amyb.

Dear Journal,

Tonight was really nice. Tiffani cooked us dinner, and we drank sangria and sat in the park. It was an average Colorado sunset, which means that it was like 100 standard deviations above the norm, when bench marked against the rest of the world's sunsets.

Really, things are really good.

I'm going to California on Thursday. I consider it a tiny little reprieve.

Love,
amyb

Dear Journal,

They say that there is "stereotypical pretty" and then there is the other type of pretty. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who wonders which category she fits into (assuming she fits into this bifurcated structure of looks).

I think Stereotypical Pretty is only a very average face that requires the brain's cognitive process less time to see that it is a face, and therefore signals a quick, and strong, emotional response to the onlooker.

I guess the other type of pretty is acceptable, but do you wonder if you are pretty only because your look is novel, or it's a look that elicits an unrecognized sense of pity, or perhaps a look that suggests less competition for obtainment over an individual with the stereotypical attractiveness?

This conversation is purely academic, obviously.

They listen to bad music, they make bad decisions, and they treat you bad.

You still cling onto their perceptions of you, even though their perceptions of themselves are unclear. You beg them to tell you who you are and how much you matter, but they can't tell you because they are too disoriented.

The situation delineated above is actually funny if you think about it. I can say this because I'm so disconnected I can't acknowledge how true it actually is.

Amy

Dear Journal,

1:49 London time and I can't sleep. Unrelated, I tell myself that dormancy is natural and anonymity is sometimes healthy. 

I will write when I feel like it.

love,
amyb

Dear Journal,

It snowed today, but I didn't even notice it. I guess I drove through it to get to work, but then I was at work - with formulas, graphs and deadlines. And then I went to Boulder for a non-essential sexual harassment training, which makes it sound like I am being trained to sexually harass; which I may or may not do.

I miss things like Peru and the Dominican Republic. I miss the little boy falling asleep in my arms, and then sitting with the other boy who wanted me to be with him when he fell asleep. I don't know why I miss it, because I don't want those situations to exist at all. Its utterly ugly (or completely beautiful?) that a six year feels that any woman that feels safe will do as a mother for a night. 

I miss the Andes mountains, dangerous buses and abrasive yet affectionate relationships. 

I don't even like third world countries. I don't like violence towards women and public groping. 

Equivocated? Vacillated? Prevaricated? Oscillated?

Con Amor,

Amy

 

Dear Journal - 

Goodbye, Seasonal Affective Disorder! Light after the workday is cause for celebration.

The changing of seasons produces rhapsodic emotions.

Ephemeral rhapsody. 

Here's to the new year! I'm tabling subjects and diving into other areas of investigation (e.g., how to write [creative] dialogue while maintaining a sense of classical style). 

Love,
amy

Mi Amor ~

A real update for real friends who really, uh, care.

I have much to accomplish within the next 7 weeks, the end of which signifies a new quarter and my departure to Europe. Upon my return, I should have a new job, with a new job description and little things called health-care, vacation time, salary, and everything else that makes me wonder why people are so rough on corporate America.

On the anniversary of leaving for Peru, I was feeling a little down--as were airfares. The result, I would like to announce, is that Brandon and I are the first known individuals to travel on a non-stop flight from Denver to England (i.e., we are treating DIA like the international airport is was intended to be).

In the meantime I have some things to take care of:

-    Think only positive thoughts towards air travel (I am considering a rubber band on my arm so I can snap myself every time my heart palpitations begin, or when I look up in the sky and think, I wonder when it is going to fall down.).
-    Re-learn arithmetic, continue to learn big words, and take the GRE so I never have to think about it again (unless I get very sidetracked in my life and five years pass before I get around to grad school).
-    Prove to a Portland[ite] that Colorado is a more satisfying place to live than Oregon (I will be the first to admit that this will be a challenge)
-    Spend time in Colorado, the state, not the office/apartment within the state (that made me sound boring, which I’m not)
-    Edit/apply doctors’ edits to meet the April deadline of a 6th edition of a healthcare encyclopedia (that made me sound boring, which I’m not)
-    Develop my perspicacity
-    Differentiate indolent, insolent, and impudent one last time

Until Soon,
Amyb

Dear future child who will have some part of my genetic composition unless I adopt you,

I have some things to tell you, and I will assume you are a girl:

-  Don’t listen to people who are too conscious about what they eat; it will inevitably influence your thoughts about yourself.
-  If I cause some type of serious family stress, do not feel any obligation to fix anything
-  If you act equivocated about things, you better be ready to answer a lot of questions or lose a lot of friends
-  I don’t want you to view marriage as “putting all your money in one stock and hoping its not Enron,” but I won’t tell you to what degree you should disagree with that statement
-  Selling-out and becoming overweight occur in the same way: you don’t realize that either has happened until it has already happened (neither has happened to me).
-  Even if you have people in your life who are more important than life itself, there will still be many-a-nights where you fall asleep alone and lonely.

I love you (but I haven’t decided if I love you more or less than myself),

Amy

Dear Journal,
You are alive and you know you can die any second, but you are still alive.

And you will never make enough money, but you are still able to eat and drink and so you are content.

You are confused, but your relationships couldn’t bring any more pleasure, so you keep living where you are living.

In this place where you are living, there aren’t enough things in the world to make sense of who you are and what you are supposed to do, but you don’t care because you are fine.

And they tell you of great things you can do, and you will do some of these great things, but you won’t all of these great things - and nobody really cares if you don’t do all of the great things, because they are too concerned doing great things themselves. You tell yourself that what you are doing is above average, and so you keep on doing it.

Every once in a while you have a glimpse into what you wanted to do when you were young, and you tell yourself that you are still kinda on the same road and that you are still young. And you do a great job of convincing yourself and so you keep along the road that you are on.

He doesn’t really like her; he doesn’t even talk favorably about her. But then he meets other women and he talks to all those women and he realizes that maybe she isn’t that bad after all.

You clearly think that he isn’t good enough for her, but you can’t tell her. And you see that he makes her happy and so you decide that he’s not as bad of a guy as you first thought.

The compromises keep us alive and keep us friends and keeps us not hating ourselves or others.

And Jesus said to love your enemies, bless those who curse you.

Love,
Amyb

Dear Journal,
Happy 2009, and [the only thing that rhymes] drink some Wine.
The ease of 2008, I hope its great makes all subsequent years' rhymes a letdown.

I suppose I could try a couplet: 

Happy 2009 I hope it is great
Much much better than 2008!

Love,
amb

Is there anything better than treating the weekend like any other set of days in the week? Is there some form of self-actualization when one doesn’t favor any date more or less than any other date?

I have learned to self-sooth when I am lonely. This is a term is usually applied to a child’s ability to calm herself on her own (i.e., she wakes up crying in the middle of the night and she can calm herself down and fall back asleep without mom or dad tending to her). I have learned not to yearn for things to be different, for people or circumstances to change. Therefore, I have no need to look forward for tomorrow because today is just fine. I hope all people go through this “learning” phase. I can’t image what it would be like for my divorced parents to feel such intense feelings of both loneliness and togetherness as I did four years ago. Dear God, please don’t let them feel the way I used to feel. But I also remember those acute and vivid emotions of (a) missing somebody and (b) not being able to wait until he came home. Maybe youth and yearning and not being able to be okay when alone should be cherished aspects of life.

My friend Joel told me that it seems that when I was about ten years old, I decided my life’s course, and since then I have followed it – not necessarily the career, location, etc. Rather, I predetermined the overall theme and color of my decisions and behaviors, and have stuck to them.

Tonight, as I watched the movie regarding Benjamin Button [a film full of those obvious moments that are intended to be the subtle moments, but the writers wanted them to be obvious enough to elicit the audible gasps from the older generation who have realized they have already lived the majority of their lives and want to desperately feel as much as they can before the depart, and one venue from which they try to feel is striving to obtain all the suggested aphorisms available within a major motion picture], I thought about how it seems that I also started out an old person.

There are benefits to starting out as an old person, but I’m not sure that avoiding bad decisions is one of them. Simply because I don’t think one really knows when a decision is actually a bad decisions. And if you learn from bad decisions and they make you a better person, are they still bad decisions? And then I thought that maybe my current choices might actually end up being bad decisions. These decisions are the worst types of bad decisions because they drag a lot of time and people into them… and they sneak up on you because you think are you are carefully making good decisions. Yet, you might actually be making good decisions.

“Let my past be your muse,” he says.

Love,
Amyb

 Dear Journal, 

Gosh, I'm trying to understand myself. I almost feel as if I am not communicating with myself. But it might just be that I am tired of hearing myself talk all the time. 

I don't react to things the way I used to, I don't feel the way I used to, and I don't think the way I used to. I don't perceive things the same way and I don't care to go on vacations anymore. I spend a decent amount of time alone, reading mostly. I spend a decent amount of time with friends, enjoying myself always. And I spend too much time, but really much less than the average working American, in a office. 

Office jobs are easy. Emails are brief - the first sentence should summarize the entire email. You should never assume the respondent will ever read the entire email. Add <BR> through the email so that all is symmetric, and blank spaces between sentences can make the email look more professional. 

Friends are a little harder. As I grow old, i am realizing that relationships end. This is fine when two parties mutually acknowledge that a friendship is no longer working and it seems like it is in the best interest if both move on. Its a strange realization, though, when you realize that a relationship ceased to exist and you don't know why. Its a more strange realization to realize you have best friends in your life that are not an active part of your life when they are not in your peripheral. How can a person make you feel so alive when you are around them, but the moment you have your mind on other things, the impression they left on you the night before is evanescent?

Being alone has become scarily easy.  I live alone and I don't get lonely. Time goes fast alone. I can't tell if this is good or bad. 

Oh - and I'm not a monomaniac, but I did want to leave tonight with a quote.
Whatever life might be, it could not take away death, the inhuman transcendent death. Oh, let us ask no question of it, what it is or is not. To know is human, and in death we do not know, we are not human. And the joy of this compensates for all the bitterness of knowledge and the sordidness of our humanity. In death we shall not be human, and we shall not know. The promise of this is our heritage, we look forward like heirs to their majority. 
Mr. Lawrence 

Love,
Amyb

Next time: How do I explain that time feels different than it did... to me, not to itself (because time is v. constant)