There are many things that go on inside of a police station that as a dispatcher, I am not allowed to talk about. I even signed some fancy papers so that I can be in trouble if I ever do. There are a few things I can talk about though. Things like how weird the station feels when it's empty. The shot of energy that runs into a body during a call. There is even the whole bit about working with the officers and the ones that become your favorites, and the ones that just sorta tick you off when you are around.
I work in two different dispatch offices. At college, I press one button. I fill out a small piece of paper, I maybe look up a name or two in a database to get someone to move their car. While it doesn't seem like there is a lot on the line working at a college office, you'd be surprised. The officers there are real cops. They are trained, they carry weapons, and they can be in harms way. I know that a lot of people look at campus safety like rent a cops, but they are a hell of a lot more than that. They face threats too. As a dispatcher, you have to be on your toes to deal with it. I remember one night I was sitting there working on a draft of my book and this booming voice comes over the radio 10-80, 10-80.
Well, in the year or so I had been working at that point, I had never had a 10-80 so I didn't have a clue what the hell was going on. It was a chase. It was the first big call I had ever worked on and I spazzed. I mean, papers flying off the desk to find a clear bit of space to write down everything that was going on. The local PD was calling over the radio, on the phone, I was keeping track of times, places, names, and clinging to my calm. That's the first thing they tell you about dispatching. Remain calm. HA!
When all was said and done, I had a list of all the information printed on a sheet of paper that went along with the call card. I impressed the officers because I didn't know what the hell they would need from the incident, sooo...I sorta just gave them everything.
After I graduated college (the first time), I managed with some help to get a job dispatching in New York. They gave me the typical stare down. They tell you lives are on the line, that you are responsible for the safety of the officers. That you have to be steady, ready to handle anything thrown at you. If you can't make it, get out. Well, somehow I managed to get through training, to get my first shift on my own.
My first shifts at campus safety were a set of nervous days when you wondered how things work and if you'll make a mistake and call officer a by officer b's name. My first shifts at a fully functioning police station? Terrifying. They aren't lying when they say there are lives on the line. Things really do come flying at you quick and in rapid succession. You can have the phone ringing, the radio lines for your officers, EMTs and Fire Department all going off at the same time, AND someone standing at the window demanding your attention. To say that it's ridiculous at times is the least that I can say. I will openly sit here and curse out the radio, the ringing phones and answer in the same calm manner I was trained in. I'm pretty sure I've been caught cussing out the multitudes before answering them, or securing locations, or whatever. It helps me. I'll be pretty angry by the time a large call is over, but as I sit and write out the report, I start feeling better that there hasn't been anything else I could have done. I'm not usually mad about a billion people trying to get my attention at once, but more like that I feel that I'll miss something important if I don't hear what is said.
So far, so good. KNOCK ON WOOD.
What is nice about working at this station is that everything transmitted over the air via phone or radio gets recorded. If I miss something, I can look it up and see what it was. I've also learned that I hate the sound of my voice over the radio.
There are perks to this job. Sure, there are the ones everyone thinks about. Oh, you can get out of speeding tickets and other minor bits of trouble, the guys have your back and you work a pretty cushy job when the radio's not screaming (I mean seriously, sometimes I feel like I get paid to sit here and watch tv and facebook). The pay is also pretty damn good.
But the perks I'm talking about aren't the normal ones. I work for a police station in a town that has a village with a seperate police department inside of it. The inner village is home to some of the overly weathy. Even Whoopi Goldberg has a house in there. The houses are huge, sprawling things that seem way to close to their neighbors for what they probably pay. The entire development isn't like that, but it is a private gated area. As a dispatcher, I need to know the roads, know where they meet up or end. I also need to know the gated community, though not as well. So as part of my training, I got to go with an officer up for a ride around the area and see what there is to see. And man, some of those places? Wow.
There are things like nicknames that come into play. When I work at campus safety, I'm Troxell or Trox. When I started there, three Sara(h)s. So Trox became my name. In high school, I hated Troxell. It made me feel like people didn't want to spend the time figuring out which Troxell I was. In college, it made me stand apart. Then there are the names I got working for Tuxedo.
My favorite is probably Roxe, from my last name tROXEll. Then there's pirate girl because I have a bumper sticker that says trust me, I'm a pirate. What's funny is that the officer that gave me this name will every once and a while ARRR over the radio. I'll jokingly call him Capt. sometimes because of it. Our LT gave me a theme song to "Get This Party Started" by Pink. It's a great place to work. Then naturally, you get the officers.
At campus safety, you get a pretty matched set. Some are more friendly, more serious, quieter or louder dependingly. But they are all really good officers trying to get stuff done. There's one officer that used to ask me every time I worked with him how to do something with his email. He sends PARAGRAPHS in text messages now. Then there are officers who won't really talk much unless you talk to them and then it's getting them to stop that's the problem. There are officers who "wanna fight" but you always win. They'll threaten to baton you, handcuff you, or demand you stop answering calls so they can stay warm in the office. All together, a great bunch of officers.
At Tuxedo, the mixing of officers is just that. A mix. You've got the grown up frat boy, the prankster, the serious ones, the good looking ones, the funny and the talkative, the younger and older. There is politics, drama, stress. There are stories told that will have tears in your eyes from laughing and then there are situations that have you cringing in disbelief. There are dads, boyfriends, children, houses to buy, new cars, divorces, and car accidents. There are cookies,
There are pros and cons to each job. One job is more laid back, more stress-free. One job requires more concentration and training and you really have to work to be good. There are people that make each job a pleasure. There sure as hell people that piss me off. There are situations I wish I wasn't involved in, things I wish I hadn't heard or seen. There are things I'm happy to have helped, things I know I've done right, or did correctly that have helped people. I wish that I could always be certain I'm helping people. I am quick and good at what I do. I make mistakes, but I aim to keep them far and few between.
One of the things I was told when I first started dispatching for Tuxedo was that the glass was bulletproof...but if a gun was ever pulled from the other side of the glass, duck under the desk, that was sure to stop a bullet.
6 inches of steel.
Interesting.
December 21, 2010
December 20, 2010
The Walker Speaks Pt. 1
I find sometimes that there is just too much to say. I can't tell you how many times I've started this entry, been distracted, or un-attracted to the words on the screen. How I've struggled to write words that feel real and hold meaning for someone other than myself. I've started to talk about how I never follow through with anything (a few weeks after the entry on Tae Kwan Do saving my life, I quit again). I debated talking more about the 360's and my return home to Roanoke (too painful or complicated). I've started over and over and over and over. There isn't much more left to say about things. In fact, there's just too much to say about everything that is on my mind and I find that I can't say it at all because it becomes jumbled. It's like I took a Scrabble board and just poured the letters out and see what they form. They don't form many things.
So I'm sitting here talking about the future. Yet I feel that in order to properly talk about my future, I want to talk about my past. I want to talk about the name of this blog. I want to to talk about who I feel I am and the things that have gone on in my life that seem strange to me, or touched or created the person who sits here and types.
I know that a lot of bloggers tend to obsess over what they write. They won't post anything until it's been edited or perfected. It has to be read over by a close individual and even then, its under the highest levels of scrutiny. I don't do that. I don't edit, I don't care if I have misspelled something, or if a line seems awkward or long, or contains multitudes of horrible grammar. This blog is an outlet for me. It's not part of my writing process. It's not my book, or a poem, or required for a class. It's not anything other than just a way for me to get writing. I don't expect anyone to read it (and to those of you that have, I feel eternally grateful for the wonderful things you have said to me).
I am a verbose woman. These are not short blog entries. I'll apologize to people for how long they are, but truthfully, I don't know a way to make them much shorter. I should probably start breaking things into parts. That's for another time.
This is the time for reflection. When I first decided I was going to start a blog, one of my professors from college had just returned from China. He had these beautiful, colorful, vivid blog entries that had such glorious depth and perception to them. I wanted to try that. I wanted to have experiences that had this feel to them that draws in a reader and makes them read for hours on end (like I did one day at work). I enjoyed this new idea of "blogging" but let us be honest here: a professor living with his family in China is a hell of a lot more exciting then I could hope to be (esp. when I first started this blog). I don't write about the issues in the world. I don't write about what it's like to be an American in China, or a new mother (or a mother a second time over). I don't even have much understanding in who I am or what I do to be good at it.
Like many things, I just gave the blog up and lied to myself that I would come back to it someday. Every once in a while, I'd open up the webpage, start a new post, hate it, and move on again until I got the urge to write again. To share.
I apparently like to share.
I've gotten horribly off topic though from my original thought. I had a lot of issues trying to come up with a name for this blog. I wanted to be something that stood for me. I took all sorts of writing classes. I pull up names for characters in my novels-in-progress with a flip of a switch. I can't name a blog. A really good friend of mine suggested "Visions of A Walker."
It stuck. There is something about the name that makes me float just a little bit above sea level and dance in the spray and foam of the waves. In short, I am a walker in this world. I understand and experience things in a different way then the people around me, as everyone does. These are the things that I see, that I look at and examine. These are my dreams, hopes, plans, and plots. It was perfect.
It makes me feel like a Native American. You know how so many of those old movies laugh and joke about the names of Indians, and mock them for their names like "Runs With Leaves" or whatever. I remember when I was a kid, I used to love dressing up and playing games. Oregon Trail was one of them. My sisters and I used to pack up our dolls and dress up clothes, and some books and whatever else tickled our fancy and run up and down the street like we were spending days on the trail then camp at night in the front yard until Mom called us in for supper. We used to pretend we were Native Americans and I always wore this one dress that had bright blue polka dots on it. I used to call myself Blue Moon in Snow or something ridiculous like that. Who am I now? I'm sitting here in fuzzy green pants and a purple long sleeve shirt. Am I Fuzzy Woman in Grape? I'm not defined by my clothing, but the choices that I make, the things that I do. I'm a visionary (or so I like to think) and I walk this world.
It's funny where this blog goes. I didn't expect to talk about playing dress up.
Then there are the things that touch my life in ways I can't explain. It's no big secret that in high school, I didn't have many friends, and most of those that I did have didn't turn out to be so great of friends anyways. Even my freshman year of college, I didn't really seem to be making those connections of a lifetime, the people I'd always turn back to, the people would would forever change and define my life as time wore on. Then I came to Roanoke. I've talked a bit about the 360's and the friends I have outside of it. I've talked about really random things involving the people I've met. Truthfully, the entire affair baffles me.
I've talked to several people about how I find it weird that for as much as I hate people, I sure do have a lot of friends. Yeah, I have a lot of friends, I know a lot of people. I even have friends in that group of people that really would give the world to me if I asked it and they had the ability. For whatever reason, people find me charismatic, and I apparently seem to be something of a leader. I don't get it. I'm just a dorky girl with lame dreams and ideas that even she doubts most of the time. I'm going to use the word "collected" here very loosely. I have collected around me a group of individuals who really are some of the best people in the world. They are kind, generous, vivid people. They open their hearts, doors, wallets, and homes to people in need (including this writer). I couldn't ask for anything more out of them. They give their all and hardly if ever expect anything in return. I would give them my left and right arm if asked. I don't know if they are just that sort of people, or if I am the sort of leader that people just do that sort of things for. I just know I feel great responsibility within the group, and that I will never be able to fully repay them for the things that they do.
There will probably be more on this later. As for now, It's after 1030 at night and I have to be at work fairly early in the morning. Who knows, maybe I'll even get a post up and going while I'm there. For now, thanks for reading, thanks for understanding, and thanks for sticking through.
-Chaos
Dr. Paul Hanstedt's Blog: www.whiteboyfromwisconsin.blogspot.com
So I'm sitting here talking about the future. Yet I feel that in order to properly talk about my future, I want to talk about my past. I want to talk about the name of this blog. I want to to talk about who I feel I am and the things that have gone on in my life that seem strange to me, or touched or created the person who sits here and types.
I know that a lot of bloggers tend to obsess over what they write. They won't post anything until it's been edited or perfected. It has to be read over by a close individual and even then, its under the highest levels of scrutiny. I don't do that. I don't edit, I don't care if I have misspelled something, or if a line seems awkward or long, or contains multitudes of horrible grammar. This blog is an outlet for me. It's not part of my writing process. It's not my book, or a poem, or required for a class. It's not anything other than just a way for me to get writing. I don't expect anyone to read it (and to those of you that have, I feel eternally grateful for the wonderful things you have said to me).
I am a verbose woman. These are not short blog entries. I'll apologize to people for how long they are, but truthfully, I don't know a way to make them much shorter. I should probably start breaking things into parts. That's for another time.
This is the time for reflection. When I first decided I was going to start a blog, one of my professors from college had just returned from China. He had these beautiful, colorful, vivid blog entries that had such glorious depth and perception to them. I wanted to try that. I wanted to have experiences that had this feel to them that draws in a reader and makes them read for hours on end (like I did one day at work). I enjoyed this new idea of "blogging" but let us be honest here: a professor living with his family in China is a hell of a lot more exciting then I could hope to be (esp. when I first started this blog). I don't write about the issues in the world. I don't write about what it's like to be an American in China, or a new mother (or a mother a second time over). I don't even have much understanding in who I am or what I do to be good at it.
Like many things, I just gave the blog up and lied to myself that I would come back to it someday. Every once in a while, I'd open up the webpage, start a new post, hate it, and move on again until I got the urge to write again. To share.
I apparently like to share.
I've gotten horribly off topic though from my original thought. I had a lot of issues trying to come up with a name for this blog. I wanted to be something that stood for me. I took all sorts of writing classes. I pull up names for characters in my novels-in-progress with a flip of a switch. I can't name a blog. A really good friend of mine suggested "Visions of A Walker."
It stuck. There is something about the name that makes me float just a little bit above sea level and dance in the spray and foam of the waves. In short, I am a walker in this world. I understand and experience things in a different way then the people around me, as everyone does. These are the things that I see, that I look at and examine. These are my dreams, hopes, plans, and plots. It was perfect.
It makes me feel like a Native American. You know how so many of those old movies laugh and joke about the names of Indians, and mock them for their names like "Runs With Leaves" or whatever. I remember when I was a kid, I used to love dressing up and playing games. Oregon Trail was one of them. My sisters and I used to pack up our dolls and dress up clothes, and some books and whatever else tickled our fancy and run up and down the street like we were spending days on the trail then camp at night in the front yard until Mom called us in for supper. We used to pretend we were Native Americans and I always wore this one dress that had bright blue polka dots on it. I used to call myself Blue Moon in Snow or something ridiculous like that. Who am I now? I'm sitting here in fuzzy green pants and a purple long sleeve shirt. Am I Fuzzy Woman in Grape? I'm not defined by my clothing, but the choices that I make, the things that I do. I'm a visionary (or so I like to think) and I walk this world.
It's funny where this blog goes. I didn't expect to talk about playing dress up.
Then there are the things that touch my life in ways I can't explain. It's no big secret that in high school, I didn't have many friends, and most of those that I did have didn't turn out to be so great of friends anyways. Even my freshman year of college, I didn't really seem to be making those connections of a lifetime, the people I'd always turn back to, the people would would forever change and define my life as time wore on. Then I came to Roanoke. I've talked a bit about the 360's and the friends I have outside of it. I've talked about really random things involving the people I've met. Truthfully, the entire affair baffles me.
I've talked to several people about how I find it weird that for as much as I hate people, I sure do have a lot of friends. Yeah, I have a lot of friends, I know a lot of people. I even have friends in that group of people that really would give the world to me if I asked it and they had the ability. For whatever reason, people find me charismatic, and I apparently seem to be something of a leader. I don't get it. I'm just a dorky girl with lame dreams and ideas that even she doubts most of the time. I'm going to use the word "collected" here very loosely. I have collected around me a group of individuals who really are some of the best people in the world. They are kind, generous, vivid people. They open their hearts, doors, wallets, and homes to people in need (including this writer). I couldn't ask for anything more out of them. They give their all and hardly if ever expect anything in return. I would give them my left and right arm if asked. I don't know if they are just that sort of people, or if I am the sort of leader that people just do that sort of things for. I just know I feel great responsibility within the group, and that I will never be able to fully repay them for the things that they do.
There will probably be more on this later. As for now, It's after 1030 at night and I have to be at work fairly early in the morning. Who knows, maybe I'll even get a post up and going while I'm there. For now, thanks for reading, thanks for understanding, and thanks for sticking through.
-Chaos
Dr. Paul Hanstedt's Blog: www.whiteboyfromwisconsin.blogspot.com
September 8, 2010
The 360 Family, or Why I'm A Matriarch.
The room is dark save for the green glow of my gaming console and the blue-white light coming from my television. The room seems silent, save for the rapid clicking of my controller, the crinkle of the bag of Oreos at my left knee (do you know they have double stuffed vanilla ones now?!) The dimmed down light from my bedside radio claims the time is a little after 1:30 in the morning. Through my headpiece, I'm hearing laughter, both light and joking, as well as slightly sinister and gleeful. I put my own two cents in as I pull a trigger and groans of disappointment from whomever I just killed gets followed by one of my own as I get destroyed from behind. I take a swig of a warm soda, munch on a few cookies, and sweep the rest of the game joking with the people on the other side of the headset.
This has become a fairly regular occurrence in the little more than a year since I graduated from Roanoke. After a horribly failed attempt at moving down there and getting a job last October, I reluctantly moved back from my faerie home to the caged life in Warwick. I got a second job a few months back, and try and make all the ends meet without wanting to meet my end. I've become increasingly depressed, but I manage to find a way, even if the road is far rockier than I originally intended, and after all, I am clumsy, so this hike I've been on has been kicking my ass.
I don't really miss going to class, and I certainly don't miss doing homework, studying for exams, stressing out about my grades, and then just feeling like giving up and skipping class altogether. I never really miss sorority or fraternity parties, though I do miss APO from time to time. I miss my old dispatching job, I miss my co-workers. I miss pool in the game room, fighting for the chairs in Kresge, late nights laying on the quad, and Grav Hammer nights with two or three rooms full of screaming, fighting people. I miss those screaming, fighting people.
A few years back, during my one and only trip to Connecticon, Kayla said something along the lines that I was the mom of the group. From there, we evolved into who my children were, who my husband was, so forth and so on. Originally, it was sort of a joke, a little lighthearted tease between a group of friends, we had maybe 10 members. That was in 2007. It's July 2010, and the family has grown a little....drastically. We currently have 34 members. For the most part, it's just a group of friends. Some are closer than others, some are a part of it because they are dating members, or were dating members, and some live very far away from the core group. A majority of the time, we are nothing more than an largely intertwined group of friends, who likes video games, movies, all things otaku, and then some.
Then there are the times things are bad. While I didn't realize it when I first really got the ball rolling, I created a support group. If you were to look at the set of us from the outside, we are the kids most people only give a second glance to because we are dressed strangely, or super loud, or just one of those weird kids you steer your children away from. Almost without fail we eat most of our meals in the back room of the Commons, or 'the toolbox' as many lesser beings refer to it as. In the back, we don't have to really deal with people making fun of us to our faces, and to be honest, it's quieter in the back (unless we are in there, then we get those looks again for being so obnoxious). Family meals generally mean either taking up two of those long tables, or adding tables onto the tables we've already taken up.
There are some things that can't really be put into words. The feeling I get when I see the family for the first time after some time apart. The relief I feel when I get text messages from the members that I hardly hear from. The heartache knowing that there are things I cannot do to help them, regardless of what I try. I even know that there are members of my family that don't really care for me at all, that they are members because they have been for so long, or their friends are all involved, or they just don't want to face me and say that they want out. I know this for certain because I can tell when things change. I'm not sure if they are reading this, but if you really hate me for whatever reasons, and you don't want to tell me about them, or hear my side of whatever it is, that's fine. I'm not petty enough, nor do I have the energy to hate you for not wanting to be a part of my family. All you have to do is ask.
There are certain things I am not allowed to put into words. Secrets, lies, promises, things I would never risk revealing for all the world. I feel that while my primary role in this family is being the matriarch, holding them together, planning family events, and so forth and so on, my real role is confidant. I have an open door policy. Day or night, regardless of time, call or text me and I will be there before you can say "the rain in Spain." I feel that in some way shape or form, helping my Family is the only way to help myself. I'm a worrier by nature, I worry, and I worry, and when I'm done worrying, I worry some more. I know that some people (yes, you, I am talking to you) don't feel like unloading on me because they don't want me to worry, but honestly, I'm gonna worry anyways, and if I know something is up and nothing it said, I worry even more than before. Having an extremely overactive imagination makes thinking about something I don't know the details for all the worse.
Then there are things that I can talk about, things I know what to say, and how to say it. To start off, and put lightly, fuck with my Family, and you fuck with me. I may seem mostly quiet or unassuming from the front, but anyone who has known me for a length of time knows that once the fire is lit, it consumes. I don't follow through with a lot of threats, because in the end, they will hurt the people I love. But I will go out of my way to make you feel as uncomfortable as possible about what you have done. I will not play nice, or be pleasant. It takes up too much energy to put on a facade for the benefit of someone I don't see was worth the time or effort. Certain things have happened to members of the family that I will never let go, even if it seems like its little to them now. You hurt the people I care about, you hurt me, and I don't sit back and take it like a good girl.
So I started writing this at the end of July. It's currently 10:07AM on September 8, 2010. I started writing this in an uncomfortable chair in the Tuxedo Police Department. I'm finishing this in an uncomfortable chair in the basement of Trexler computer lab.
I am home.
This has become a fairly regular occurrence in the little more than a year since I graduated from Roanoke. After a horribly failed attempt at moving down there and getting a job last October, I reluctantly moved back from my faerie home to the caged life in Warwick. I got a second job a few months back, and try and make all the ends meet without wanting to meet my end. I've become increasingly depressed, but I manage to find a way, even if the road is far rockier than I originally intended, and after all, I am clumsy, so this hike I've been on has been kicking my ass.
I don't really miss going to class, and I certainly don't miss doing homework, studying for exams, stressing out about my grades, and then just feeling like giving up and skipping class altogether. I never really miss sorority or fraternity parties, though I do miss APO from time to time. I miss my old dispatching job, I miss my co-workers. I miss pool in the game room, fighting for the chairs in Kresge, late nights laying on the quad, and Grav Hammer nights with two or three rooms full of screaming, fighting people. I miss those screaming, fighting people.
A few years back, during my one and only trip to Connecticon, Kayla said something along the lines that I was the mom of the group. From there, we evolved into who my children were, who my husband was, so forth and so on. Originally, it was sort of a joke, a little lighthearted tease between a group of friends, we had maybe 10 members. That was in 2007. It's July 2010, and the family has grown a little....drastically. We currently have 34 members. For the most part, it's just a group of friends. Some are closer than others, some are a part of it because they are dating members, or were dating members, and some live very far away from the core group. A majority of the time, we are nothing more than an largely intertwined group of friends, who likes video games, movies, all things otaku, and then some.
Then there are the times things are bad. While I didn't realize it when I first really got the ball rolling, I created a support group. If you were to look at the set of us from the outside, we are the kids most people only give a second glance to because we are dressed strangely, or super loud, or just one of those weird kids you steer your children away from. Almost without fail we eat most of our meals in the back room of the Commons, or 'the toolbox' as many lesser beings refer to it as. In the back, we don't have to really deal with people making fun of us to our faces, and to be honest, it's quieter in the back (unless we are in there, then we get those looks again for being so obnoxious). Family meals generally mean either taking up two of those long tables, or adding tables onto the tables we've already taken up.
There are some things that can't really be put into words. The feeling I get when I see the family for the first time after some time apart. The relief I feel when I get text messages from the members that I hardly hear from. The heartache knowing that there are things I cannot do to help them, regardless of what I try. I even know that there are members of my family that don't really care for me at all, that they are members because they have been for so long, or their friends are all involved, or they just don't want to face me and say that they want out. I know this for certain because I can tell when things change. I'm not sure if they are reading this, but if you really hate me for whatever reasons, and you don't want to tell me about them, or hear my side of whatever it is, that's fine. I'm not petty enough, nor do I have the energy to hate you for not wanting to be a part of my family. All you have to do is ask.
There are certain things I am not allowed to put into words. Secrets, lies, promises, things I would never risk revealing for all the world. I feel that while my primary role in this family is being the matriarch, holding them together, planning family events, and so forth and so on, my real role is confidant. I have an open door policy. Day or night, regardless of time, call or text me and I will be there before you can say "the rain in Spain." I feel that in some way shape or form, helping my Family is the only way to help myself. I'm a worrier by nature, I worry, and I worry, and when I'm done worrying, I worry some more. I know that some people (yes, you, I am talking to you) don't feel like unloading on me because they don't want me to worry, but honestly, I'm gonna worry anyways, and if I know something is up and nothing it said, I worry even more than before. Having an extremely overactive imagination makes thinking about something I don't know the details for all the worse.
Then there are things that I can talk about, things I know what to say, and how to say it. To start off, and put lightly, fuck with my Family, and you fuck with me. I may seem mostly quiet or unassuming from the front, but anyone who has known me for a length of time knows that once the fire is lit, it consumes. I don't follow through with a lot of threats, because in the end, they will hurt the people I love. But I will go out of my way to make you feel as uncomfortable as possible about what you have done. I will not play nice, or be pleasant. It takes up too much energy to put on a facade for the benefit of someone I don't see was worth the time or effort. Certain things have happened to members of the family that I will never let go, even if it seems like its little to them now. You hurt the people I care about, you hurt me, and I don't sit back and take it like a good girl.
So I started writing this at the end of July. It's currently 10:07AM on September 8, 2010. I started writing this in an uncomfortable chair in the Tuxedo Police Department. I'm finishing this in an uncomfortable chair in the basement of Trexler computer lab.
I am home.
July 7, 2010
Soom Sha Gi.
I'm not sure how to start this post. I feel like it should come easily like my previous entries. Maybe something dramatic, sweeping, that in one single line of typed text explains everything, prepares the reader for what will be coming. Instead, I find myself out of words, out of ways to thrill and explain. So instead, maybe I'll write exactly how I feel.
Last week, a friend of mine passed away. Her name was Renee, and she was a beautiful, talented young woman who had a smile the sun was often jealous of. Many of you who I know read this blog will have heard and possibly known her yourself, and you know what I am talking about when I say the world seems to have a little less magic in it.
Since I was a teenager, I worked in an adult retirement and rehabilitation center. I've known death, which is likely to happen at any time to the residents who live there. Some I've known well, some I've found a sense of relief, some I've just felt sad about because death happens, and sometimes it happens to really good people. One of my coworkers passed away in an ATV accident, he was about my age now when he died. He had a son. I felt sad after, but it wasn't something that really changed how I moved through the world and how it seemed to me. I've had grandparents who passed away, but I was so young, that it didn't seem to really faze me.
So Renee's passing, sudden as it was, leaving me with a lack of closure, of understanding, is the first death I've really ever had to experience in my adult life. Someone I knew, someone I spent time with, loved, searched for hugs from, adored, and admired. It wasn't something explained, an ATV accident, old age, drug or alcohol abuse. It came from no where, and I don't know how to handle it. I know that all I keep doing is thinking about her, wondering if she's out there, pole vaulting into clouds, or if she's standing behind me, smiling as she reads me typing this over my shoulder. I wonder what is really in the afterlife. Is there anything? I suppose a lot of people question these things after someone they know passes, and I know I've wondered this on many separate occasions. It is partially why I want to be cremated and thrown into the ocean, so that if you have to spend your life in a hole in the ground because there really isn't anything after this, I'd rather nothing be gnawing on me, or me melting, or something weird. Gee, that seemed less morbid when I was thinking about it. I'd much rather float around in water for the rest of my non-life, perfectly content.
Yet Renee's death made me realize something else, and I'm sure it's probably coming to me a lot later than it usually does. I won't live forever, and I can't stay young. This feeling that my mortality is actually fact over fiction is in itself a bit of a slap in the fact I'd have not experienced. I like living in my little fantasy that I will be young, beautiful, and find a way to be perfectly happy. I'm not sure how to view the world now. I'm not sure how to handle it. I don't have closure, I don't have means to understand.
I just remember sitting in Tae Kwon Do after the weekend from hell, breathing in, breathing out, and remember Mr. Adams on Friday, sitting in class, attempting to meditate, while, unknowingly, the world I know is about to change, he says "take some time for yourself, maybe the only time you've had to do so today." So, on Tuesday, I do. In. Out. Soom sha gi.
Breathe.
Last week, a friend of mine passed away. Her name was Renee, and she was a beautiful, talented young woman who had a smile the sun was often jealous of. Many of you who I know read this blog will have heard and possibly known her yourself, and you know what I am talking about when I say the world seems to have a little less magic in it.
Since I was a teenager, I worked in an adult retirement and rehabilitation center. I've known death, which is likely to happen at any time to the residents who live there. Some I've known well, some I've found a sense of relief, some I've just felt sad about because death happens, and sometimes it happens to really good people. One of my coworkers passed away in an ATV accident, he was about my age now when he died. He had a son. I felt sad after, but it wasn't something that really changed how I moved through the world and how it seemed to me. I've had grandparents who passed away, but I was so young, that it didn't seem to really faze me.
So Renee's passing, sudden as it was, leaving me with a lack of closure, of understanding, is the first death I've really ever had to experience in my adult life. Someone I knew, someone I spent time with, loved, searched for hugs from, adored, and admired. It wasn't something explained, an ATV accident, old age, drug or alcohol abuse. It came from no where, and I don't know how to handle it. I know that all I keep doing is thinking about her, wondering if she's out there, pole vaulting into clouds, or if she's standing behind me, smiling as she reads me typing this over my shoulder. I wonder what is really in the afterlife. Is there anything? I suppose a lot of people question these things after someone they know passes, and I know I've wondered this on many separate occasions. It is partially why I want to be cremated and thrown into the ocean, so that if you have to spend your life in a hole in the ground because there really isn't anything after this, I'd rather nothing be gnawing on me, or me melting, or something weird. Gee, that seemed less morbid when I was thinking about it. I'd much rather float around in water for the rest of my non-life, perfectly content.
Yet Renee's death made me realize something else, and I'm sure it's probably coming to me a lot later than it usually does. I won't live forever, and I can't stay young. This feeling that my mortality is actually fact over fiction is in itself a bit of a slap in the fact I'd have not experienced. I like living in my little fantasy that I will be young, beautiful, and find a way to be perfectly happy. I'm not sure how to view the world now. I'm not sure how to handle it. I don't have closure, I don't have means to understand.
I just remember sitting in Tae Kwon Do after the weekend from hell, breathing in, breathing out, and remember Mr. Adams on Friday, sitting in class, attempting to meditate, while, unknowingly, the world I know is about to change, he says "take some time for yourself, maybe the only time you've had to do so today." So, on Tuesday, I do. In. Out. Soom sha gi.
Breathe.
June 22, 2010
Meditation, or What I'm Doing Instead.
The floor is squishy under my legs, the cool, rubbery feel of red and blue squares that line the floor of the mostly square shaped room is a welcome relief after a long day in a steaming hot kitchen. The wall to my left are covered with various weaponry, targets, and Korean symbols I don't know the meaning of. A candle glows, sitting on a little plate to the front and left of me. I shouldn't be looking at the candle, I should be looking at the inside of my eyelids. To my right, the walls are lined with mirrors, 6 or 7, but I won't turn my head to look at them, that'd just be drawing attention to the fact that I shouldn't be looking at anything but my inner-self. Above the mirror, words in bold black have been set onto the wall. The tenets I should be focusing on from my cross legged position. I keep my back as straight as I can, my fists lightly closed, hanging over my knees, with a sigh that could be mistaken for a deep, cleansing breath, I let me eyes close, and study with intensity the inside of my eyelids.
I used to be really good at shutting down for meditation before and after class. I knew how to focus my attention to clear away everything that's been going on in my life. A white room, a big box, just a completely, empty, thoughtless place. If I thought of anything, it was related to the class, settling nerves before a class I knew could push my levels of endurance, hoping I didn't look like that idiot black belt who screwed up a really basic poomsae, or form. I sit there, looking like a giant white puff in my brand new, recently washed dobok that still has that rather satisfactory 'snap' when you punch or kick. My belt sits tied around my waist, still too solid to be very comfortable. It's been at least 4 years since I sat in this place, surrounded by the dedicated men and women who practice Tae Kwon Do. The last time, I was an instructor who loved being surround by the children she taught. I was strong and secure in my knowledge of my poomsae, my ho sin sool. I felt full of energy, I knew calmness in the face of the things that scared me, I could do anything I put my mind to. I was physical fit, mentally strong, and then, like things so often happen, I got swept up in life.
I left New York, by myself, for the first time in my life. I fell in love with the wild green grasses of Virginia, I grew to love the southern food I found myself surrounded by. I met new people who will be with my for the rest of my life, I did more public speaking then I thought I could handle, I was involved with prank wars, dinner parties, formal dances, and did homework and studied until I couldn't have remembered anything else if I tried. While it was the best three years of my life, I let my life be full of "fun" and "school" and didn't leave any time for "stay in shape". Admittedly, it wasn't for a lack of trying. There was a great gym on campus, and open for a large variety of hours, so not being able to get there before it was closed shouldn't have been an issue. I joined Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that hides techniques through dance-like movements. I took kickboxing for my required gym class. Each and every time, I didn't follow through with it like I should have. I half-heartedly kicked through class, I quit Capoeira because I wasn't thrilled with the instructor and the requirements were overwhelming, and I hated the gym because it just "wasn't my thing".
Following graduation, I move back home, firmly believing I'd be back in Virginia before Thanksgiving, secure in a job, surrounded by my friends, and life would be as I wanted it to be. Instead, a year later, I'm working two part-time jobs, struggling to pay off my college bills, my car insurance. I found myself wanting to be no where but in my room, playing video games online with my friends, chatting, snacking, and just generally shutting myself off from my family, and anything else I didn't want to deal with. I didn't, and still don't, to a certain degree, that I needed to get out of my room. She wanted me to be more active, eat right, see a therapist, spend more time with the family. She offered to pay for me to return to Tae Kwon Do, which I readily agreed to. I had wanted to go back for a while, but I couldn't afford the classes. I figured if I did part of what she wanted, I could get away with everything else she requested (which, really, didn't work out as planned, but that's not what this particular entry is about).
So there I am sitting, cross legged, supposed to be myuk sang-ing (meditating), and all I can think about is what has brought me back to this point in my life. This particular class isn't the first one I've taken since I've restarted classes. It's maybe the second or third. The pain of that first class though is still lingering in my legs and torso, the ache stretching with every breath I take. I'd like to think that is why I can't focus on clearing my mind, but I know better than that. I should be thinking of the tenets written above the mirrors, I know I can shut my mind off to focus for class. I feel annoyance growing, tension wanting to move through my arms, clenching my fists that should be lightly closed over my knees.
I'll take the time to explain these tenets I should be focused on while sitting there. Do forgive me if the answers aren't complete precise, or accurate. This is coming from a woman who has been out of practice for 4 years, and without studying, or looking up the official meanings. Courtesy is pretty self-explanatory. Be respectful, do unto others, and so on and so forth. We've heard this "golden rule" type thing a million times before so I'll go by it. Integrity is also pretty straightforward, be honest. Well, while a lot of people remember to be honest with other people, we aren't always honest with ourselves. This my problem. I am honest with the people around me, but just like I don't agree with my mother on what needs to change in my life. If I am completely honest with myself, I know that her advice is sound, but I am very stubborn and resistance to change. Perseverance is the next tenet. It follows the idea that you should always finish what you start. That once you commit to something, follow it through to the best of you ability. Clearly, a tenet I've had some problem with over the last few years, especially when it comes to staying or getting into shape. Next, we comes Self-Control. I always found this one of the easier tenets to understand, and one of the hardest to follow. When you are sparring, or even doing practice without targets, intending to strike towards, but not contact the body of your partner, it teaches you not only where to strike, but to control yourself enough as not to cause harm. For me, this was easy. Sure, sometimes people walked away with an ache, but I have too. Split lips, bruises, one time I had a gash on my leg, but mistakes happen, and you learn from them. Self control in other aspects of my life is a little harder. I went to college. I drank more than I should have, I stayed up late, I got into trouble, I had fun when I should have been studying. I got angry and blew up at people I shouldn't have.
The final tenet is one that always seems to strike me. I'm not sure if it is the way the instructors I've had the greatest pleasure to work with said it with awe or reverence, or if I just imagine the importance in my head. Indomitable Spirit seems to follow this idea that you never give up, you never surrender. I'd like to think I've followed this better than any of the others, but I know it's not true. I'm full of self-defeat, I give up on everything too easily. While I believe I'm going to keep this blog going, I know how often I give up on writing. Writing seems to be the worst. It is what I want to do with my life, I want to be as famous as Tolkien, and three times as successful. I've given up on friendships, relationships, goals, activities, hopes, and dreams.
Tae Kwon Do probably saved my life. When I was in high school, I experimented with self-mutilation, I suffered from manic depression, and minor social anxiety. I dyed my hair so often that I actually met people who didn't know my natural hair color. I was a goth kid, an ska kid, and once just "that blonde chick". I had friends I'd later lose because I was pretending to be someone I wasn't. Sure, I still love strange music, and dark clothing, and suffer from a bad bout of depression from time to time, but it isn't what defines me anymore.
It was at Tae Kwon Do that I became someone I enjoyed being. It was, and still is, one of the few things that really seemed to come naturally to me. Some people are good at baseball, or painting, or writing wonders. For me, it was dance and Tae Kwon Do. I could feel the energy of a form, I could use it to hold myself in place, to not get lost in the thoughts that chased me away from sleep, and into harm. I was a good student, and a passably good instructor at one point. Going to class was the highlight of the day, I felt like I was a star, I had amazing form, I was dedicated. Man, there was nothing better than the praise of my fellow students and instructors. I would like to say I was humble, but I know better. I was more than a little cocky about it. I never outwardly would say anything, or, to my knowledge, smirk smugly, but there was more than a little delight in showing off my amazing skills. It was something I could truly take pride in. I found peace, calmness, in the same room I sat attempting to meditate in now. I loved the smell of burning incense, the feel of the squishy floor, the ebb and flow of energy through my body. Where most teenagers would have pouted and groaned about having to sit still for a couple of minutes and clearing their mind when there were parties to go to, or phone calls to make, my life centered around that calm.
I suffered through insomnia, and I found that through meditating every night before I went to bed, I could fall asleep without a problem. When I hit college, I lost the trick of it. When I tried to meditate, I'd just get more thoughts in than out, or would just not try at all, and suffer through the sleeplessness. When I felt the darkness pressing, meditation of a bright, white room where all my shadows disappeared. In a way, the things I learned in Tae Kwon Do, the tenets, the meditation, the self-confidence, and yes, even the pride, saved my life. It gave me goals, something to work towards, and gave me the means to work towards it. I had a place in the world, a way to find happiness, and success.
Four years later, $80,000 in debt, single, unsuccessful in finding a steady, full time job, and mostly friendless in this horseless town, I find myself sitting in this room again, frustrated at not being able to shut my mind down, to find my center of peace. My mind if full of thoughts at how much of an idiot I'll make out of myself this class, how much pain I'm in and going to be in again after I get home. I'm thinking about my faerie home, I'm thinking about tonight's Halo matches. I'm considering if I want Twizzlers or some sort of cookie for a snack, if it's a good idea to run by one of my jobs to grab my paycheck. I'm thinking about my best friend, what she's doing right now, and if she misses me like I'm missing her. I'm wondering about my friends and if their summers are going well, if they got the jobs they were trying to get. I'm wondering if I'll be able to look myself in the mirror tomorrow, I'm wondering if I'll be able to crawl outta bed. I'm trying not to cry as I look at my life. I'm trying to figure out if I'll have the strength to smile, to wear the mask, to do all that I need to do.
I should be meditating.
Instead, I'm sitting here wondering if Tae Kwon Do can save my life.
I used to be really good at shutting down for meditation before and after class. I knew how to focus my attention to clear away everything that's been going on in my life. A white room, a big box, just a completely, empty, thoughtless place. If I thought of anything, it was related to the class, settling nerves before a class I knew could push my levels of endurance, hoping I didn't look like that idiot black belt who screwed up a really basic poomsae, or form. I sit there, looking like a giant white puff in my brand new, recently washed dobok that still has that rather satisfactory 'snap' when you punch or kick. My belt sits tied around my waist, still too solid to be very comfortable. It's been at least 4 years since I sat in this place, surrounded by the dedicated men and women who practice Tae Kwon Do. The last time, I was an instructor who loved being surround by the children she taught. I was strong and secure in my knowledge of my poomsae, my ho sin sool. I felt full of energy, I knew calmness in the face of the things that scared me, I could do anything I put my mind to. I was physical fit, mentally strong, and then, like things so often happen, I got swept up in life.
I left New York, by myself, for the first time in my life. I fell in love with the wild green grasses of Virginia, I grew to love the southern food I found myself surrounded by. I met new people who will be with my for the rest of my life, I did more public speaking then I thought I could handle, I was involved with prank wars, dinner parties, formal dances, and did homework and studied until I couldn't have remembered anything else if I tried. While it was the best three years of my life, I let my life be full of "fun" and "school" and didn't leave any time for "stay in shape". Admittedly, it wasn't for a lack of trying. There was a great gym on campus, and open for a large variety of hours, so not being able to get there before it was closed shouldn't have been an issue. I joined Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that hides techniques through dance-like movements. I took kickboxing for my required gym class. Each and every time, I didn't follow through with it like I should have. I half-heartedly kicked through class, I quit Capoeira because I wasn't thrilled with the instructor and the requirements were overwhelming, and I hated the gym because it just "wasn't my thing".
Following graduation, I move back home, firmly believing I'd be back in Virginia before Thanksgiving, secure in a job, surrounded by my friends, and life would be as I wanted it to be. Instead, a year later, I'm working two part-time jobs, struggling to pay off my college bills, my car insurance. I found myself wanting to be no where but in my room, playing video games online with my friends, chatting, snacking, and just generally shutting myself off from my family, and anything else I didn't want to deal with. I didn't, and still don't, to a certain degree, that I needed to get out of my room. She wanted me to be more active, eat right, see a therapist, spend more time with the family. She offered to pay for me to return to Tae Kwon Do, which I readily agreed to. I had wanted to go back for a while, but I couldn't afford the classes. I figured if I did part of what she wanted, I could get away with everything else she requested (which, really, didn't work out as planned, but that's not what this particular entry is about).
So there I am sitting, cross legged, supposed to be myuk sang-ing (meditating), and all I can think about is what has brought me back to this point in my life. This particular class isn't the first one I've taken since I've restarted classes. It's maybe the second or third. The pain of that first class though is still lingering in my legs and torso, the ache stretching with every breath I take. I'd like to think that is why I can't focus on clearing my mind, but I know better than that. I should be thinking of the tenets written above the mirrors, I know I can shut my mind off to focus for class. I feel annoyance growing, tension wanting to move through my arms, clenching my fists that should be lightly closed over my knees.
I'll take the time to explain these tenets I should be focused on while sitting there. Do forgive me if the answers aren't complete precise, or accurate. This is coming from a woman who has been out of practice for 4 years, and without studying, or looking up the official meanings. Courtesy is pretty self-explanatory. Be respectful, do unto others, and so on and so forth. We've heard this "golden rule" type thing a million times before so I'll go by it. Integrity is also pretty straightforward, be honest. Well, while a lot of people remember to be honest with other people, we aren't always honest with ourselves. This my problem. I am honest with the people around me, but just like I don't agree with my mother on what needs to change in my life. If I am completely honest with myself, I know that her advice is sound, but I am very stubborn and resistance to change. Perseverance is the next tenet. It follows the idea that you should always finish what you start. That once you commit to something, follow it through to the best of you ability. Clearly, a tenet I've had some problem with over the last few years, especially when it comes to staying or getting into shape. Next, we comes Self-Control. I always found this one of the easier tenets to understand, and one of the hardest to follow. When you are sparring, or even doing practice without targets, intending to strike towards, but not contact the body of your partner, it teaches you not only where to strike, but to control yourself enough as not to cause harm. For me, this was easy. Sure, sometimes people walked away with an ache, but I have too. Split lips, bruises, one time I had a gash on my leg, but mistakes happen, and you learn from them. Self control in other aspects of my life is a little harder. I went to college. I drank more than I should have, I stayed up late, I got into trouble, I had fun when I should have been studying. I got angry and blew up at people I shouldn't have.
The final tenet is one that always seems to strike me. I'm not sure if it is the way the instructors I've had the greatest pleasure to work with said it with awe or reverence, or if I just imagine the importance in my head. Indomitable Spirit seems to follow this idea that you never give up, you never surrender. I'd like to think I've followed this better than any of the others, but I know it's not true. I'm full of self-defeat, I give up on everything too easily. While I believe I'm going to keep this blog going, I know how often I give up on writing. Writing seems to be the worst. It is what I want to do with my life, I want to be as famous as Tolkien, and three times as successful. I've given up on friendships, relationships, goals, activities, hopes, and dreams.
Tae Kwon Do probably saved my life. When I was in high school, I experimented with self-mutilation, I suffered from manic depression, and minor social anxiety. I dyed my hair so often that I actually met people who didn't know my natural hair color. I was a goth kid, an ska kid, and once just "that blonde chick". I had friends I'd later lose because I was pretending to be someone I wasn't. Sure, I still love strange music, and dark clothing, and suffer from a bad bout of depression from time to time, but it isn't what defines me anymore.
It was at Tae Kwon Do that I became someone I enjoyed being. It was, and still is, one of the few things that really seemed to come naturally to me. Some people are good at baseball, or painting, or writing wonders. For me, it was dance and Tae Kwon Do. I could feel the energy of a form, I could use it to hold myself in place, to not get lost in the thoughts that chased me away from sleep, and into harm. I was a good student, and a passably good instructor at one point. Going to class was the highlight of the day, I felt like I was a star, I had amazing form, I was dedicated. Man, there was nothing better than the praise of my fellow students and instructors. I would like to say I was humble, but I know better. I was more than a little cocky about it. I never outwardly would say anything, or, to my knowledge, smirk smugly, but there was more than a little delight in showing off my amazing skills. It was something I could truly take pride in. I found peace, calmness, in the same room I sat attempting to meditate in now. I loved the smell of burning incense, the feel of the squishy floor, the ebb and flow of energy through my body. Where most teenagers would have pouted and groaned about having to sit still for a couple of minutes and clearing their mind when there were parties to go to, or phone calls to make, my life centered around that calm.
I suffered through insomnia, and I found that through meditating every night before I went to bed, I could fall asleep without a problem. When I hit college, I lost the trick of it. When I tried to meditate, I'd just get more thoughts in than out, or would just not try at all, and suffer through the sleeplessness. When I felt the darkness pressing, meditation of a bright, white room where all my shadows disappeared. In a way, the things I learned in Tae Kwon Do, the tenets, the meditation, the self-confidence, and yes, even the pride, saved my life. It gave me goals, something to work towards, and gave me the means to work towards it. I had a place in the world, a way to find happiness, and success.
Four years later, $80,000 in debt, single, unsuccessful in finding a steady, full time job, and mostly friendless in this horseless town, I find myself sitting in this room again, frustrated at not being able to shut my mind down, to find my center of peace. My mind if full of thoughts at how much of an idiot I'll make out of myself this class, how much pain I'm in and going to be in again after I get home. I'm thinking about my faerie home, I'm thinking about tonight's Halo matches. I'm considering if I want Twizzlers or some sort of cookie for a snack, if it's a good idea to run by one of my jobs to grab my paycheck. I'm thinking about my best friend, what she's doing right now, and if she misses me like I'm missing her. I'm wondering about my friends and if their summers are going well, if they got the jobs they were trying to get. I'm wondering if I'll be able to look myself in the mirror tomorrow, I'm wondering if I'll be able to crawl outta bed. I'm trying not to cry as I look at my life. I'm trying to figure out if I'll have the strength to smile, to wear the mask, to do all that I need to do.
I should be meditating.
Instead, I'm sitting here wondering if Tae Kwon Do can save my life.
June 21, 2010
I Always Get Back To The Oatmeal.
Have you ever let oatmeal, or a cream of wheat sort of hot cereal cool down in the container you had it in, then you shake it, give it a good, hard wiggle and it has the shape of that container, now sitting, moving not unlike Jello, in the palm of your freshly gloved hand? Where it shivers and shakes, a little cool to the touch, and you know its moist, even through the thin veil of latex or vinyl you've slid over your skin to protect it from the alien-like, once-hot breakfast cereal. You toss it into the garbage can, where it partially splatters against the far side of the can, the remaining mass still bobbing in place, almost cheerful. You hate that stupid little blob, so you pick up the next small round maroon colored bowl, flip it upside down so that the cooled cereal dangles over the vast, filling pit of life and sure destruction that is the garbage can. You wiggle it, give it a few nice, firm shakes, whack the bottom of the bowl with the palm of your free hand, and with a shilik! and the snapping of a few long, wet strings of cold cream of wheat let go and fall, spiraling, laughing through the air, landing on an empty All Bran box and jiggles there, solid, channeling the spirit of the strawberry Jello you had to serve for the second time in four days as it settles into stillness.
This makes a lot more sense with a little bit of background. I've worked for the last six years in an adult retirement and rehabilitation facility. I've run the gambit between baby-puke colored, pureed green beans, unidentified substances long hidden behind removable silver panels, suffered the agony of rapidly melting frosting on a once-frozen cake, and the ever un-enjoyable task of working a major winter holiday. I've seen residents come into the rehab center for a fall and bounce back into independent living in a matter of weeks. I've seen the same type of injury take a toll they can't pay. A woman lives there now, given something around 73 hours to live. That was over three months ago. I've seen people survive on vanilla milkshakes, and a man who looked pretty good yesterday gone by the end of the day. I've seen families visiting, and I've seen, or should I say, I have not seen, the families of other residents only show up to clean out the rooms of the recently passed. I've seen families not even show up to do that.
For three of these long years I've worked, I attended a college eight hours away, nestled snug in the Roanoke Valley. I'd come home at school breaks, and I'd be given hours, and I'd work my ass off, then go back to the place I was rapidly considering my true "home." I made an amazing group of friends (many later blogs, I am sure, will involve them, including a large explanation of our inter-workings). I had a wonderful job, challenging classes, interesting (and occasionally dull) professors, and some pretty damn incredible adventures. I found, and lost loves, I knew fear and sadness during the tragedy at Virginia Tech, I knew intense joy and freedom in the light of the sun through the trees, in the cool, well-tended grass under my feet. I felt magic. Roanoke was my faerie home, my sanctuary. The way the red and gray bricks warmed in the sun, how the snow glinted outside my toasty warm room. I can remember my first party, my last night out, my first impressions, and last words. I remember crying because I never wanted to leave.
That brings me back to the oatmeal. The maroon bowl seemed suddenly symbolic once I went back to work after my graduation. (Six months, I told myself, I'd have a real job back in Roanoke, near where my heart wanted to settle for a couple more years, and yet, over a year later, here I sit). The cereal felt like it was laughing at me. Here I was, pulled away from where I had settled, in the form of one thing, like a bowl, and sent to a doom in the pit of All Bran boxes, and garbage cans. This was the real world? Send me back. It's the sound of it that gets me. The shilik! It's a moist noise, and I just think about a soul, sucked out though the tiniest hole in the body with a super vacuum. Shilik!
Now I have to admit I shamelessly stole the idea for this first entry's title. While I can't remember who wrote it (says the now-graduated, super proud diploma-displaying English major, with a slight blush, voice full of sorrow and shame), there was this poem a visiting writer read to us. I had hated it when I read it. I found it dull, and useless, like most poetry, to be 100% honest with you, I'm very partial to what I like, and little else. But when the author read it to us, it was full of emotion and energy, and about things coming around full circle to me. I remember I gave her my email address, hoping she'd get back to me and share her thoughts (meanwhile, I'd later reveal what I thought was my best poem of the year An Ode To Cheese, which may end up posted here later, because I still think it's pretty damn awesome, even if no one else thinks so, but anyways, I read a poem about cheese in front of her and she even mentioned it, so I felt memorable, at least). The last line of the poem was, and do pardon me if I got this wrong. "But I always get back to that toaster, how you held it like you knew how to love something."
Do I know how to love something? I don't even love myself most of the time. I don't know who I am, or where I am going, so I stick to the round maroon bowl I let myself meld into. I have my heart and soul wrapped around this life I built for myself down in Roanoke, but reality decided to flip the bowl over, wiggle it, give it a few nice, firm shakes, whack the bottom of the bowl with the palm of it's giant cosmic hand, and let me fall into the vast garbage pit I've let my life become. What is this? What did I do in this life or the last ones to let me have this life I hate to lead? Where I get up in the morning, just wanting to go back to my nice, safe, perfectly working maroon bowl, and with my simply glorious sort of luck, end up on the All Bran.
I've tried thinking positive. I have tried writing, reading, laughing, working out, dancing, drinking, sleeping, gaming, drawing, dreaming, screaming, and scheming. I haven't been able to find my way out. I haven't found my true release. I thought that finding my telos, my ultimate life goal, was set in stone. I was wrong, I was so wrong, to the point where I'm hoping when I look over this after I've gotten some sleep, I don't weep like a child at finding Santa doesn't exist (I work two jobs, often back to back with less than 4 hours between sleeps, for up to 20 hours before I get sleep from the time I wake up to the time I get to sleep. Like tonight, it's quarter after 4 in the morning, and I'm half dead sitting in this chair with the overwhelming need for sleep and the restroom). All I know is this:
Over a year later, and I still get back to the oatmeal. Shilik!
This makes a lot more sense with a little bit of background. I've worked for the last six years in an adult retirement and rehabilitation facility. I've run the gambit between baby-puke colored, pureed green beans, unidentified substances long hidden behind removable silver panels, suffered the agony of rapidly melting frosting on a once-frozen cake, and the ever un-enjoyable task of working a major winter holiday. I've seen residents come into the rehab center for a fall and bounce back into independent living in a matter of weeks. I've seen the same type of injury take a toll they can't pay. A woman lives there now, given something around 73 hours to live. That was over three months ago. I've seen people survive on vanilla milkshakes, and a man who looked pretty good yesterday gone by the end of the day. I've seen families visiting, and I've seen, or should I say, I have not seen, the families of other residents only show up to clean out the rooms of the recently passed. I've seen families not even show up to do that.
For three of these long years I've worked, I attended a college eight hours away, nestled snug in the Roanoke Valley. I'd come home at school breaks, and I'd be given hours, and I'd work my ass off, then go back to the place I was rapidly considering my true "home." I made an amazing group of friends (many later blogs, I am sure, will involve them, including a large explanation of our inter-workings). I had a wonderful job, challenging classes, interesting (and occasionally dull) professors, and some pretty damn incredible adventures. I found, and lost loves, I knew fear and sadness during the tragedy at Virginia Tech, I knew intense joy and freedom in the light of the sun through the trees, in the cool, well-tended grass under my feet. I felt magic. Roanoke was my faerie home, my sanctuary. The way the red and gray bricks warmed in the sun, how the snow glinted outside my toasty warm room. I can remember my first party, my last night out, my first impressions, and last words. I remember crying because I never wanted to leave.
That brings me back to the oatmeal. The maroon bowl seemed suddenly symbolic once I went back to work after my graduation. (Six months, I told myself, I'd have a real job back in Roanoke, near where my heart wanted to settle for a couple more years, and yet, over a year later, here I sit). The cereal felt like it was laughing at me. Here I was, pulled away from where I had settled, in the form of one thing, like a bowl, and sent to a doom in the pit of All Bran boxes, and garbage cans. This was the real world? Send me back. It's the sound of it that gets me. The shilik! It's a moist noise, and I just think about a soul, sucked out though the tiniest hole in the body with a super vacuum. Shilik!
Now I have to admit I shamelessly stole the idea for this first entry's title. While I can't remember who wrote it (says the now-graduated, super proud diploma-displaying English major, with a slight blush, voice full of sorrow and shame), there was this poem a visiting writer read to us. I had hated it when I read it. I found it dull, and useless, like most poetry, to be 100% honest with you, I'm very partial to what I like, and little else. But when the author read it to us, it was full of emotion and energy, and about things coming around full circle to me. I remember I gave her my email address, hoping she'd get back to me and share her thoughts (meanwhile, I'd later reveal what I thought was my best poem of the year An Ode To Cheese, which may end up posted here later, because I still think it's pretty damn awesome, even if no one else thinks so, but anyways, I read a poem about cheese in front of her and she even mentioned it, so I felt memorable, at least). The last line of the poem was, and do pardon me if I got this wrong. "But I always get back to that toaster, how you held it like you knew how to love something."
Do I know how to love something? I don't even love myself most of the time. I don't know who I am, or where I am going, so I stick to the round maroon bowl I let myself meld into. I have my heart and soul wrapped around this life I built for myself down in Roanoke, but reality decided to flip the bowl over, wiggle it, give it a few nice, firm shakes, whack the bottom of the bowl with the palm of it's giant cosmic hand, and let me fall into the vast garbage pit I've let my life become. What is this? What did I do in this life or the last ones to let me have this life I hate to lead? Where I get up in the morning, just wanting to go back to my nice, safe, perfectly working maroon bowl, and with my simply glorious sort of luck, end up on the All Bran.
I've tried thinking positive. I have tried writing, reading, laughing, working out, dancing, drinking, sleeping, gaming, drawing, dreaming, screaming, and scheming. I haven't been able to find my way out. I haven't found my true release. I thought that finding my telos, my ultimate life goal, was set in stone. I was wrong, I was so wrong, to the point where I'm hoping when I look over this after I've gotten some sleep, I don't weep like a child at finding Santa doesn't exist (I work two jobs, often back to back with less than 4 hours between sleeps, for up to 20 hours before I get sleep from the time I wake up to the time I get to sleep. Like tonight, it's quarter after 4 in the morning, and I'm half dead sitting in this chair with the overwhelming need for sleep and the restroom). All I know is this:
Over a year later, and I still get back to the oatmeal. Shilik!
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