In which a very good question is asked.
The whole maternal side of my family is converging on the ancestral home in Walla Walla, WA next month for Grandma’s 80-somethingth birthday celebration. In email discussions, both my aunt and my grandmother have mentioned that I might like to ‘come home.’ Gramma informs me, “You might find something interesting to do here. The town has changed a lot the past few years. Wineries, fancy restaurants, bedroom community for the bigger cities etc. so employment picture has changed. I still have a spare room.”
Last night AmmZon came home hot and tired and verging on cranky and couldn’t decide what she wanted for dinner, so I made nachos because it was the only suggestion she didn’t crinkle her nose up at. While I was cooking and she was snapping beans, she asked, “So, really, like, what are your plans? Do you have any goals for yourself?”
I’m such a piece of shit that my first – and ruthlessly rejected – response was, Why? What, do you want me to move out now that I’ve finally quit thinking of this place as temporary? But I didn’t utter my first reaction because not only was it defensive and confrontational, but I know that most of my first responses are crap and have trained myself to discard them. Instead I said, “Well, uh, a full-time job, I guess. I need money. I’ve been separated from The Ex a year this month, and I just started feeling better a few months ago. I didn’t realize I’d been clinically depressed until I stopped being depressed, but I think I’m ready to get my shit together now.”
Soon the topic changed, but I spent the rest of the evening trying to look truthfully at my life: I’m nearly 40, I rent a room in someone else’s house, I work a part-time job totally off of my career path, and I drink vodka and read and sleep a lot. Sure I have great friendships, and I feel strongly about the music The Seventh Ray band is making, but other than that what am I doing with myself?
What I’m doing is nothing. Nothing at all. And to be fair that was the point for the past year: rest and recuperate, relocate myself. I was depressed, had been depressed for a few years, and didn’t realize how badly until the fog lifted a few months ago. (Lately I’ve been having moments during which I’m suddenly overcome by how cool my life is, how wonderful it is and how very much I dig it, and these moments amaze me because I used to always have them but they’d been gone for years.) I’m verging on being well again, being the active and life-loving and positive person I used to be, and this little nest I’ve made for myself is starting to feel less like safe and nurturing and more like lazy and cowardly.
Home. I’ve considered Fairfield to be my home for a long time, but I was born in Washington state and lived my whole life in the Northwest before moving to Iowa in ’91. (I went back out to the West coast in the late 90’s and spent a year in Walla Walla, but there wasn’t any work – after much pavement-pounding I landed a job at US West as a directory assistance operator, but got laid off almost immediately – and I came back to Fairfield via six months in San Francisco. Other than grandpa’s death in 2000, I haven’t been home for so long.)
I’ll check the papers and look around while I’m visiting both Portland and Walla Walla next month. I’ll check out the vibe, too, and see how it feels – in the city, or up the gorge? What’s my speed? What feels like possibilities and comfort combined? Is going home the right direction?
Of course I see now that I probably should have left town last Fall when I’d cashed out my IRA and had some money, but I was too tired and broken at the time to have been able to decide even which direction to go, let alone get a job once I got there. The prospect of doing something seemed so hugely impossible then… Now, though, I’m ready enough to end the mourning/healing process that I was ashamed when I suddenly discovered I didn’t have a good answer to the question of what I’m doing with myself.
Of course, I reserve the right to do nothing useful at all. I’ve been to school, been married, bought property, been a rock star, and had several careers. It’s not like I’ve never done anything; what am I, twenty, that I have to have a game plan? But it does seem likely that I could at the very least be of use to my family by moving in with gramma, and perhaps to myself too by moving out of this un-challenging life I’m leading.
Hmm. Things to think about, eh?
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I just like saying “Walla Walla Washington.” So it would be totally cool if you moved there, because then I could be all “My internet friend, Mush, who lives in Walla Walla Washington weally wikes Wombats” or something like that.
Sadly, I prefer fruit bats to wombats. They’re cuter. But it’s not like I’ll ever know what you’re saying about me, so you can say whatever you want! -m
I know exactly what you mean!!!
After leaving my eX (following the blow-up that in a very real way was the end of our communicating), I’d realized that I’d been depressed for YEARS.
Spooky, right?
When you first get yourself back, it’s nearly impossible to answer the “Who are you and what do you want?” questions – very much because you’re just rediscovering yourself and have just gotten rid of everything you *don’t* want.
A quote from Cat Stevens (hehe!): Take your time, think a lot, think of everything you’ve got – you may still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.
And – (psst), if you were in Walla Walla, you could come over to the south end of Seattle and hang with my musician friends. And me. Whenever you wanted, practically. 😉
GOOD POINT!! -m
i see no point in being ashamed of not realizing something that you weren’t in the position to realize before. it’s just more beating yourself up, right?
perhaps moving on to washington state is something you need to bloom some more. you can check out job possibilities before you even go there. the internet is a wonderous place (as is witnessed by my finding the ribald scotsman song) 🙂
i hope you find the path you want to be on.
Me too! Thanks, hon. -m
What about the book you’re writing with BGHead?
We’re writing it using a 37signals online interface (all our notes, links, references, etc. are stored there), so location is irrelevant. -m
You’ll miss Fairfield, though. But you can always come back for a visit.
Yeah, I would. But, well, it might just be time to get the hell outta Dodge for awhile. It’s entirely too easy to live here and do nothing. It’s cheap, safe, comfortable… if I had kids or a relationship or was in the dome twice a day I’d have a valid excuse, but I don’t, so maybe I need to go do something else for awhile. -m
Like you’ve told me before, just keep the faith and things will work themselves out. Am really glad to hear that you’re finding your old self again, the girl that used to look at life and be amazed by it. When I have those moments, I get close to tears.
Yep, that’s the whole point..to do NOTHING. Doing that sometimes is the best thing one can do for him/herself.
Ya know, just reading the post makes me wanna hug you. But the most I can do is a virtual one, so HUGGSSSSSS
You are such a SWEETIE! *smooch* -m
It’s depressing how so many people I know pride themselves on being spiritualy oriented with spiritual (i.e. non-material) values but then judge themselves (or someone else) as being “lesser than” for living within modest means. Not just picking on YOU, Mush, but this is just so……..so American. Reminds me of how some (myself included) maintain that if Jesus were to appear in the US he’d be shunned and judged and marginalized by devout christians and “spiritual” people for not having a house mortgage and a new car and a “career path”. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with those things (because there isn’t) but hasn’t every master in history been trying to tell us that it is not these things that define us? Why are we so quick to abandon the spiritual values many of us have worked so hard to cultivate?
I’m not suggesting that suffering is proof of success, and I get your point, but let’s not confuse doing nothing with being spiritual. Modest living isn’t a virtue in and of itself: doing no harm is not the same as doing good.
Laziness is warned against by every spiritual authority I’ve ever studied, and my love for sleep is probably doing me more spiritual harm than all my other bad habits combined. (Idle hands, Devil’s work, blah blah blah.) I’ll be the first to admit that sitting around in Fairfield nursing one’s chemical addictions is way fun, but it’s not exactly a noble use of one’s life.
And while I’m not about to claim I’m going to make a truly positive impact on the world at large (precisely because I am so very lazy), I do recognize at the very least I should, now that I’m able, cease to be a drain. -m
Oh, I understand all that. I wasn’t trying to suggest that spirituality was synonymous with laziness. But neither is it synomymous with maintaining career paths or choice of housing. Just seems like people need reminded of that a lot and hence I’ve become accustomed to looking for and expecting queues in that regard i.e. such as being down on one’s self for renting a room as opposed to owning a your own house or whatever. I guess, in context, I could have read that as “I feel bad about the laziness that renting a room – as opposed to owning a house – REPRESENTS…..for ME” and not “People suck if they rent rooms and I rent a room and therefore I suck.” You had me a little worried there for a minute.
Renting is irrelevant. (I may never buy again, because it’s a stone cold goddamned hassle, let me tell you what!) I meant that living in a halfway house isn’t exactly the best environment for inspiration. Sometimes one needs a deadline to get that term paper written, know what I mean? I didn’t actually say anything at all about joining the rat race or acquiring material goods: I said I need money. I’m probably about $50k in debt – I have unpaid student loans, and all the bills from the marriage are in my name. I’m responsible for that shit. Time to suit up and play.
I think I’m partially reacting to a recent incident where someone whom I thought was a good friend and an evolved, non-superficial human being got into assassinating my character specifically because I was temporarily renting a room from a friend in Austin. I’ve got no use for such missguided idiots.
Ah, I see. I thought maybe you’d read something I didn’t write! I know I do that. -m
Doing things that make you happy and fulfilled = GOOD
Beating yourself up because you’re not exactly where you/others thought you’d be = BAD
Going forward no matter what = BEST
Having suffered from varying levels of depression my entire life, I know all too well that the only goals you can have in that state are the “try not to get evicted”, or “don’t end up in a gutter somewhere” type. Just exsisting is success enough.
I’m glad that’s passed for you, as I am that it has for me.
I’m happy enough with my life, I’ve done more that I could ever have imagined 10 years ago. And I’ve learned to give myself a goddamned break, which is the hardest lesson of all.
You rock.
Portland is super cool. I’ll keep my ears peeled for ISP type jobs.
I’m from Portland. It was super cool when I left… SIXTEEN YEARS AGO. Last two times I saw it, though, I didn’t recognize the place! -m
Congratulations on finding your energy again.
Not having a “plan of action” is not a bad thing even when you are 20. The best plan that I think anyone can have is to be in touch with their intuitive side (gut feeling) and maintain their personal integrity. Everything else follows and slowly falls into place.
Portland is even cooler now…
Uhhhhh…..i’m depressed???? HOLY COWSHIT BATMAN!!!
Go east grasshopper, go east
I think that it’s actually quite stellar that you’ve come to this sort of conclusion, or at least begun the process of finding a concluding statement. There’s only so much time one can spend in that holding-pattern of recovery and readjustment before it becomes practically entropic. There’s never really a “right” direction–it’s more a matter of finding a direction first. Once that happens, a lot of things start sliding into place.