So on my way to my chiropractic appointment this morning I was thinking about all of the things I'll get done once school is out. I have about four weeks left of potential calls for sub duty. I started getting angry again about the jobs I've had in the past and resentful over the path my career took to this point. So I asked myself, why am I waiting? I'm not happy. There are no potential full time positions in the near future. They're laying off a couple of grade school teachers this year, in special ed of all certification areas. That used to be the hottest ticket to a job in education because of the rapidly increasing demand for spec ed services.
I don't make enough money to justify the inconvenience this is turning out to be. I have a full calendar of stuff to get done this month by the end of it. I'm halfway through the month and I got sick so I'm already a full week behind my planned schedule. I lose a whole day of potential work on the house or my glass because of being at the school. I only get about 80 to 160 a week. I have to take Wed off due to appointments for me, Bri and at the bank. It's not even economically justified.
The inheritance gives me a chance to take a bigger risk than I could have without it. I'd have to go full-time retail or any other job that I could get my hands on in desperation without it. We were struggling before and with the 700 a month in daycare expenses, we'd never be able to do it on one income.
At the same time, this is the leap that I've been preparing for. My midwife said that babies have a tendency to attract what they need so just trust the universe to provide. She was talking about Bri but I think that might apply to other things. I need to be a little bit more trusting and more open to opportunity.
It took me this long to figure out that there's no such thing as wasted time. Every risk I took, even failures, led me a long my path a little further. I learned things. I met people and gained more skills. I almost have too many skills at this point. It's partly why I used to get so caught up in making decisions.
I also realized in reading the book about how to write your own memoir that I read back in January that I'm the type that tends to get caught up in the planning stage and most of the time never actually gets started. I often talk myself out of doing things. "Someone's already doing it. I have nothing new to contribute. I'm not good enough." So I'm consciously and explicitly talking myself passed that point of paralysis that I used to give in to and return to my day job. It was the voice of my mother. She used to question my plans in an indirect way. Her primary concern was getting a job and being able to pay bills, which I respect. One must be able to support herself. Parents want to see their kids settled in their own house and self-supporting. It takes the strain off of them and assures them that when they die their kids will be okay without them around to rescue them. With my bro I could see how this really concerned both of them. They didn't want to see another one of their kids follow that dependent path.
Despite this I have taken more risks than the women of my family that came before me. My mother used to tell me stories of how I would do something, it would get around the family that I had, and she'd be confronted, how could she let me do that? Like the time I went to CA to visit Ally. My grandmother couldn't get over it. Mom said that she said, "She just went. She wanted to go and she just got on a plane and went." like she just couldn't believe it. Mom was laughing at the time. I think, even though to my face she was always risk averse, with others in the family she was proud of my independence. She enjoyed watching the discomfort of the other women in the family who just couldn't understand how I could move to a strange city with no family connections, get an apartment, travel the country, and start from scratch anywhere with anything.
That was back in 2001. The economy doesn't support that kind of thing anymore. I used to be able to get a job as soon as I handed in the application. There were a couple of times at the turn of the millenium when I got hired as soon as I handed in the app. on the spot. You can't do that anymore, not even for part-time retail. There are too many people looking for work and too many apps for the managers to go through. They can be picky and take their time now. And they do.
When I was in college I was afraid to take risks. I had the bravado of a radical feminist. I would get into anyone's face if they tried to tell me not to do something because I might get hurt. When Russ, Ally's bfriend, told me not to go walking on the nature trails by myself behind Francis Hall, I was enraged. He tried to act concerned that I could get attacked and hurt. I yelled at him that I wasn't going to stop living and doing what I enjoyed because some stupid jerk might attack me. I wouldn't stop my life and change my behavior out of fear.
I did anyway. Not the nature trails thing. I still wandered the woods, off the trails and even in the middle of the night. It made me happy and fresh air was great for the complexion. But in my relationships and in my major and classes I was very fear driven.
I had social anxiety although I didn't have a name for it back then. I almost never spoke up in class. I'd try to force myself to because I knew girls were often overlooked in classes and I wanted to break that trend. Feminist thing again. I tried to get myself to act in ways not typically feminine. It was a decision I had made really young. I recognized early that male character traits were the traits of power and success. So I cultivated masculine traits in myself. I became argumentative, took up space when I walked and sat down.
But in my relationships I was paralyzed with fear. I never made the first move. I never spoke first. Despite the strength and intelligence I know I had then. I had a fearlessness and a joy that I know was attractive to a lot of people. Unlike high school, I was just being my joyful self and people seemed to flock to me. It could have been the laughter that was unusually loud and piercing for a girl. I could silence the dining hall with it.
I'm not sure exactly what it was, but attracting romantic attention was not as hard in college.
But when I was in love with someone, I could never get the words out. Taking that risk paralyzed me. I would get rigid, my throat would close up, and the emotion was so strong with the voices arguing in my head. I had to say something because I knew they couldn't read minds and people need to know how you feel about them. If they think you don't care then they move on to someone who's more demonstrative. This saved me from sexual mistakes but the emotional fallout resonated for years. Each time, with Ally, Dave, Jamie, I choked it back.
In hind sight I don't think it would have made much of a difference in those cases. Ally had some issues with women in general. I don't know even now if she ever really loved me or just enjoyed the attention that she got from guys for being with a girl. It might have been more of a performance for her. But maybe in her own way she did love me somehow. She's mentioned me in her writing a couple of times and she doesn't seem to hold any anger toward me.
Dave was only after one thing so the fact that I froze up emotionally and sexually on him saved me from a mistake. It actually helped. I'm grateful for that. Years later, I met a guy, Frank, who looked so much like him it was scary. I went on a couple of dates with him. I closed him out because he was moving way too fast. Obviously he stopped returning my calls. One night I tried to call him and actually had a crazy girl moment. I got hysterical on the phone. I think I may have actually had a flashback to Dave in that moment.
I never spoke to the guy again intentionally. Embarrassed on one had and out of self-awareness on the other. When I got a hold of myself after a good cry, I realized that I might have been trying to relive what I had had with Dave with this new guy. I was taking all of my unresolved stuff about Dave and dumping it on Frank.
Not fair to him and not fair to me.
I did a ritual to release what was left of the pain and love I might still hold. I can honestly say that was the final time I dwelt on Dave. That experience completely exercised the crazy love crap I had had for him.
That relationship was nuts.
Dave and Ally need their own entries. There's too much to cover to get into it in this one post between the two of them.
My relationship with Ally spanned all of my time at SBU and about a year afterward. Dave was in my life during my sophomore year. Jamie came on the scene my junior year. It was my first experience with online dating. Computers were still a new thing 1997-1998. We had just gotten out of pegasus mail and into Windows 95 my sophomore year. We only dated a little over a month.
He was perfect, or so it seemed. Our first date was at his uncle's wedding. He attached himself to me emotionally really fast. I held back as usual. I could have had a really intense relationship with him if I had thrown myself into it. It was just really fast and it made me nervous. He told me he loved me after a week.
We had a few weekends together and then he just dropped off the face of the earth. I didn't hear from him for three weeks. When I finally did get him on the phone he told me he was joining a seminary and becoming a priest. I was pissed. I really thought he was lying. It didn't make sense. Now I look back and I can kinda see the signs.
I really thought at the time he had just found someone else and needed a good story. Now I think I get it.
He was really wrestling with it and this chick he had just met a month ago was not priority. Being a man he didn't know how to talk about it either. Men really don't have a great grasp of emotional language nor do they like to analyze or discuss their pasts with anyone. Sometimes not even themselves. Some of it is simply fear of being gay since sensitivity and talking are seen as girly and thus a man that does it must be gay. Silly boys. So much grief could be avoided by being more explicit with the internal decision making process.
I can't guarantee that I would have been more understanding if he was capable of it. I probably still would have been a bitch toward him but I'd have more answers and maybe would have let the anger go faster.
So those four years of college developed a pattern for me. I didn't open up to people easily. My romantic relationships taught me I was rewarded for not doing so since they all turned out to be dishonest and not trustworthy. Just when I thought I was safe and could exhale, my secrets and vulnerabilities would be used as weapons against me. That's mostly from Dave and Ally.
The female friendships I had were not that different. I really only had one friend in college, Amy. The others were more on the periphery and not really mine but her friends. I got pulled into a major dispute between Amy and Danielle when they started fighting. Amy and I were sharing a dorm room at the time. That was the worst blow up I think I've had.
She was my partner for my radio show and decided after two weeks not to show up anymore. She wouldn't get out of bed. Her boyfriend started staying over and they'd be up late. I was really ticked as a result and our show suffered. I'd done shows by myself before and they'd always been good but my resentment of her bled into the show and so I wasn't as chipper and chatty as I needed to be for a good morning show. I got offered a crap time slot the following semester so I turned it down.
We got into enough yelling matches that she eventually stopped coming back to the dorm. She hid out at her parent's house and even avoided classes. She almost didn't graduate. Things were so intense and sickly between us I managed to get a dorm in Francis again. I had been there since freshman year and only took a dorm with her because we seemed to get along so well. Totally backfired.
There was this one incident when Amy and I were still talking that she and Leah came over to the table in the dining hall to sit with me. I suddenly felt this rush of hot emotion and it felt like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed the blood from my heart. I felt light headed and actually blacked out for a few seconds. I couldn't breathe. I had asked her about it later when we walked back to the dorm. Was Leah pissed at me? and I told her what I had experienced. She said no. She seemed surprised when I asked. I found out later she had been fuming at me for weeks at that point. I guess she'd reached her breaking point with me and I just picked up on the energy.
SBU was a great college and I grew a lot there. My relationships were all failures and I didn't learn much from my mistakes until much later after a few more bad ones when I moved to UB. I think I'm finally starting to put the pieces together. But I left having had some great religious and spiritual revelations and lessons.
I came to really know Wicca, to develop confidence in my abilities with energy, began moving away from trying to live up to others expectations. Thank You Titanic movie.
It was the spring before my junior year I saw that movie and I made the decision to change majors. I had been struggling in a biology major and not doing well, and not being happy. I was so focused on being successful that I was not in touch with what I wanted and what I was good at. I let mom talk me out of teaching English and I went into Journalism instead. More chance of making a living out of it. She was ever practical and I was still impressionable. But I finished that degree and developed the confidence to leave journalism for education and applied to UB. I wouldn't let her talk me out of it that time.
It's been a progression of developing confidence in myself, breaking out of barriers placed on me by my parents fears and skepticism of who they thought I was, and trying to overcome my own fears. The true break came with moving to a new city and dealing with a sabotaging and abusive relationship with Scott.
That's definitely a story for another time. Too much stuff.
So today I'm taking a leap. I'm developing a habit of challenging myself to ask Why Not? Why wait?
I'm moving beyond the planning stage and into actually doing something for a change. I'm not letting myself get paralyzed with doubt and fear. Even trying and failing is better than "what if?"
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