Reflection

Saturday Morning Musing

Wren Leave a comment

Growing up, because my parents were a single-income household and they had four children, most of our vacations were trips to campgrounds, the lake houses of my grandparents, or to visit family friends. There were a few exceptions, of course, like my trip to Boston with my mother so I could check out the Mount Washington Observatory because I was a weather nerd as a child and the entire family’s trip to Montana and Washington. I’ve never been to Disneyland and my memories of the Mall of America are vague and distant because I’m pretty sure they happened before I turned six. Probably much earlier.

I’m not complaining. My vacations were just different, not necessarily better or worse. The parts I remember most fondly aren’t even the vacations themselves, but the things around the vacation. Getting excited for the upcoming trip and the books, audio books, and GameBoy games I’d line up for what seemed like car trips that lasted forever. Getting takeout the night before so there were no dishes to do and no mess to clean up. Getting woken up at 4 in the morning by my dad because I was only kid who wouldn’t try to go back to sleep and could be trusted to get myself into the car. When I was younger, getting wrapped up in blankets against the chilly morning air and bundled into the car amongst our bags and coolers so that I got to spend the entire car trip wrapped in a cozy cocoon. The sense of safety and warmth I felt as my dad drove us through the dark early morning hours of the day and I knew that I could sleep safely because he’d never let anything happen to us. The fascination I learned staring at the horizon as the sun rose and at the sky or horizon as the miles passed. The satisfaction and comfort that came from being my dad’s copilot when I was older, the person trusted to stay awake and sit in the front seat because I would talk and could read the map.

Trips are different now. I still love the sun rises, leaving early in the morning, and watching the horizon as the miles roll by, but now I take my trips mostly on my own. I drive to my grandparents’ cottage or to visit friends in different cities. Occasionally, I drive someplace for a camping trip or to visit family. The feeling of wonder and other-worldliness is gone, replaced by a mental checklist of things to bring, where my gas station stops will be, and where my turns are. I think I’m starting to understand how my dad felt when we prepared and went on trips, perhaps minus the sense of responsibility for all the other occupants of my car as there are none.

These days, my vacations tend to focus more on resting and recovering than going somewhere. I don’t really have the money to take short trip to Portland or Seattle. Leaving the country is incredibly complicated and even more expensive, so that’s out as well. I could go camping, sure, but I usually only take vacations when I am in desperate need of relaxation and rest. Then, I generally want to stay around my apartment and save money because going places, doing things, and trying to figure out how to squeeze money out of my budget is exhausting.

That’s what this week’s vacation was. I did a single day trip to visit some college professors and friends, and then stayed at home the rest of the time, doing little things around the house and trying to focus on sleeping well, eating well, and doing some maintenance work on my life. Clutter clearing has been going well and I’ve completely cleaned my room. I also reorganized my bookshelves, so I’ll hopefully be able to handle new books without having to move pretty much every book I own for at least the rest of the calendar year. After that, all bets are off.

We’ll see whether or not it worked as time goes on. Going back to work after a vacation is always difficult and I’m struggling a little harder than usual because my soul yearns to write constantly. I had a taste of the freedom that sort of life could afford me and I’m going to be fighting myself when it comes to going in to work on Monday…

 

My Voice

Wren 1 Comment

My voice can fade from lack of use.

My neck is caught up in a noose
Built according to my own design.
There never was a loop so malign
As the fears so doggedly adverse
And twisted into this evil curse.

The end of the cord lies in shaking hands
That seem to have their own firm plans
Of when to tug and when to let be
Because this rope is not to kill me.

I wove this rope of silence and fear
Of the loss of all that I hold dear,
Despite insisting all of the while
That my thoughts and truths were not on trial.
Lies told by my insecurity
To preserve my sense of maturity.

This lesson I learned as I have grown:
My silence belongs to me alone.

A Title Would Definitely Help This Post

Wren 4 Comments

I’ve had a busy couple of months. Adjusting to my job followed almost immediately by the new Legend of Zelda game. I did nothing but play on my Nintendo Switch for about three weeks and then spent another week avoiding my TV and computer and Switch as much as possible while I recovered from my binge. No regrets, though. I’ve already started a second play-through and have a third planned that I might either record or stream. We’ll see when the time comes. I’ll eventually review the game as well, probably as my next post.

While all this has been going on, I’ve been taking the opportunity provided by not having my soul drained as a result of my day job to spend some time reflecting and growing, something I’ve apparently ignored over the three years I held that awful job. Its been interesting to see just how much I’ve changed as a person. I’m a lot less likely to take abuse (which is probably a direct result of said awful job), I’m a lot less likely to cling to the past, and I finally stopped holding onto stuff for no other reason than it stirs a strong emotion in me. Almost all of those strong emotions weren’t positive ones, to be honest. I was pretty subconsciously masochistic, apparently. It explains a lot. Coincidentally, my closet is now emptier than it has been in years.

All that being said, I don’t feel like I’m in much of a different place than I was when I last updated. I’ve only just started working on my writing again. I still don’t know how to push back against the insanity infecting the world and some of those around me. I still feel like I’m drowning in a sea of student debt and self-inflicted problems. If anything, I’m a bit less worried about it all and a bit more restrictive on how long I’ll let myself freak out about anything.

I do know I tend to feel tired more often, but generally in a much more balanced sense. My old job used to emotionally drain me or intellectually drain me. I never got a nice, well-rounded exhaustion from it like I do from my current job. Today, after spending almost 8 hours trying to figure out settings and hardware setup, I finally managed to get everything working and do the one hour (if that) of work I needed to get done today. It was frustrating beyond words. I nearly burst into tears when I made the adjustments I needed in order to add another piece of hardware to the system and everything worked on the first try (previous attempts had added at least an hour per additional piece of hardware).

It was exhausting physically because this hardware isn’t light. It was exhausting emotionally because I’m new and half the problems were me screwing things up. It was exhausting intellectually because I had to learn as I went and try to remember everything my senior coworker taught me. Now, I can barely make myself get out of my chair and the blog entry I’m writing feels like a rambling, barely coherent mess. But today, as I went to the grocery store to buy myself a bag of my favorite chips, I wasn’t buying them because I was tired and exhausted and my day was rough. Today, I bought them as a reward for solving a really tough problem, for being recognized by my coworker for doing a good job with a complex issue, and because I deserved some kind of self-recognition for succeeding when I wanted to quit.

That little change in mindset makes all the difference. I may not have the solutions to the world’s problems, I may be actively considering giving up my dream of being a successful novelist for the more practical goal of just being really good at my current job, and I may have very little desire to ever move from this spot again, but I did good today. I can say I gave 100% of my effort into something that was ultimately rewarding and fulfilling. It feels good. It is what will push me out of this chair in another ten minutes and it is what is going to sit me down at my computer after dinner to spent two hours or more working away at my current book project.

I may not be happy right now–I’m definitely grouchy bordering on almost hysterically tired–but I’m feeling more fulfilled than I’ve felt since I wrote the end of a story for the first time. To me, happiness comes and goes but fulfillment is something that can stick around forever. As long as I feel fulfilled, nothing else really matters to me.

I suppose I might be in the same place I was a few months ago, but I definitely know I’m headed somewhere new.