My Oh My, How Things Have Changed

At last update, I had just been fired, denied unemployment, was seeing my therapist twice a week, and was generally miserable, terrified, embarrassed and ashamed about not having any money, and feeling very uncomfortable with the unknown. The quick and dirty update is this:

1. In April I started working at the Gap Outlet in the Park City Outlet Mall. I barely made any money, but managed to do ok. The employee discount was great, my wardrobe got some great updates on the cheap, I made some good friends, and gained some great experience. It is hard to make money while (as a friend of my roommate Amie's would say) "swimming in the river of desire".

2. Every time it came up this summer that I wouldn't be attending Burning Man this year, I would answer my friends questions with: "I need a money miracle in order to make it happen". I was imagining something like a helicopter flying overhead and accidentally losing $1 Million just as I was taking the dogs for a walk. Or that a cushy corporate job would fall into my lap despite my minimal effort to find a corporate job.

3. Doug came home from work one week (Aspen Achievement Academy) and told me that his employer's sister company, the Aspen Ranch had an Equine Therapy program that I might be interested in. I tucked the information away in the back of my mind.

4. Sometime in early August, on a whim, I called the Aspen Ranch's 800# to ask if there were any jobs. The HR Director told me there were two or three openings that hadn't even been posted yet. What he described made me feel really excited. Within a week I had put together a resume and cover-letter. I filled out their application and sent it by fax. A week later they asked me for an interview. I went in on the first Monday of Burning Man. By Wednesday they had offered me a position. I accepted on Thursday.

This weekend, Doug and I moved to Loa, UT. It is a teeeeeny, tiiiiiny, little town in Southern Utah. Most of the National Parks in Southern Utah are within a 100 miles or so of us. The closest shopping (outside of one little grocery store and a few tourist attractions between Torrey, Teasdale, Bicknell, and Loa) is in Richfield 45 minutes away. We're about 3 hours from Saint George and Provo. That freaks me out a little bit.

I start my new job tomorrow!!!

For now, most of our stuff is sitting in a storage unit and we are staying in a private bedroom in a house that is shared (usually) by many Aspen Achievement Academy staff members. We are looking for our own house where we can take in a friend's cat, get our own dog, and have a bedroom for Doug's little boy. Hopefully this will happen before the 1st of October.

Fear and Doubt

I saw my therapist twice last week, I'll see her twice this week, and I'll continue seeing her twice a week until I know what to do - this was her idea. When my therapist asks me to come back a second time in any given week my usual response is to feel like I'm really in trouble - if my SHRINK is that worried, so should I be. This time, I am unafraid and incredibly grateful that I didn't lose my insurance with this job. This feels like crisis.

I suddenly have nothing but time - my room is in immaculate condition for perhaps the first time since I moved in a year ago. I'm getting enough sleep. I don't feel bad about staying up too late and sleeping into the afternoon, though I am a morning person and I miss the sunlight that comes with dawn. I'm reading books written by people who have perspectives on the world that I want to share with them - about body image, self discovery, becoming comfortable with fear, negotiating life "When Things Fall Apart". I am journaling differently, spending time in the kitchen differently, etc. etc. etc. Washing dishes no longer feels like a waste of the only time I have for myself. I am relaxed and energized. I'm also learning that for the last several years I have been living my life as someone I don't know. I've been myself only in fits and starts, every few weekends or so. How did this happen?

As per usual, when questions like this come into my life and mind it opens a floodgate, and now that I have time to examine every piece of debris that rushes upon me, I'm learning and learning and learning over again that I am pieces of who I thought I was and who I want to be.

I want freedom of expression.

I want freedom to explore myself until I "get it" and then help other people "get it".

I want not to need any money. I don't want to work, and if I have to work I don't want to work in an environment that I will feel trapped in. I was just set free! I want to stay free.

I've started to question events of my childhood again, wondering how they impacted the adult I am today. No longer from a place of blame, but from a place of genuine inquiry. I know that my parents did the best they could with what they had and what they knew, which is not an accusation or an excuse. I think that many things were handled very poorly. My memories can be placed into very few categories - alone/with sierra/with friends and as a behavioral problem (you are not being obedient, why are your grades bad you can do so much better, you are the big sister you know better, I expect more of you). I do have memories of enjoying myself with my parents - making pots with dad, riding horses with mom, but they aren't as many as feeling like I wasn't good enough.

I know now that having clothes to wear, food to eat, a bed to sleep in, a yard and toys to play with are indicators of being loved and well cared for by my parents, but I didn't know that as a kid. I felt like a problem much of the time.

Perhaps one of the reasons I speak so freely without thinking of the implications or consequences; the reason I become so insistent about my thoughts and feelings; the reason I get so indignant when people get angry or frustrated with me; the reason I feel unsure about HOW to express myself creatively with my clothing, etc. is because I didn't have a voice as a child:

Nobody listened to me when Sierra picked a fight to get me in trouble for instance - and many of the things I didn't have words for got me in more trouble or hurt people around me.

I struggled with homework as a kid and when my mom sat down to help me with math, she would solve the problems the way she knew how - if it was different than my teacher did it, I got more and more confused and then angry - then she'd get so frustrated with my anger that she'd give up, telling me to figure it out myself if I didn't want her help.

I wondered if anybody even liked me.

Now I wonder if my assessments in hindsight are valid or not. Did I injure myself as a teenager because watching a physical manifestation of pain heal meant that I didn't have to feel the emotional anguish? Was I attention seeking? Aware that hurting myself would freak people out? Was I hoping that they would come to my room and hold me and let me cry and tell me they loved me no matter what? I think it was all of these things, and it didn't work.

I know now that they loved me, I don't think I knew how much they loved me.

Now I am up against a wall - I didn't have a back-up plan. My plan now is to resolve some of the financial nightmare I'm experiencing so that if I choose to take a sabbatical sometime in the future, I will have savings to depend upon.

Without Further Ado . . .

A new beginning!

I always have mixed feelings about new beginnings time. This beginning comes with: anger, happiness, fear, anxiety, optimism, hope, freedom, sadness, and especially relief.

I lost my job on Tuesday (3/9/10) because of some bad judgment calls which brought to light many little things that weren't so good about how I was doing my job. I understand that the choices made, were in the best interests of the company and business - especially in the current economic climate. My heart wasn't in it which made me a bad fit.

I am amazed at how many people have come out of the wood work to tell me how much they appreciated, respected, loved, and cared about me and how much they were going to miss me. I'm a little surprised about who hasn't contacted me, but I'm not invested in it. Part of me can't believe I didn't see all that love and friendship until now. I was pretty caught up in what was immediately obvious to me. For instance, the members of my department and I were not really friends outside of the office, though some of them were friends with each other. I usually felt left out and unaccepted. I have other bits of experience that hurt me very deeply, however it is not worth my energy to re-hash here.

I have hated that job for such a long time, saying things like: "it sucks out my soul". I'm glad that I no longer have to make any decisions about my employment there. I have some regret though. Like, the way my actions made my boss feel. I hope that one day we can both understand each other's point of view surrounding my termination. I really respect and admire her despite recent evidence to the contrary.

Now? I am kind of freaking out - wondering what exactly I am going to do. I don't think I will qualify for unemployment, and I don't think I can afford to be out of work much more than 3 - 4 weeks. I have no savings, and no credit, and no back-up plan. My boyfriend is also not working, collecting unemployment, and an occasional bit of extra money for odd jobs. I have a lot of safety nets between here and destitution - friends, family, etc. So I am not afraid, I'm just not sure what I will do next.

I've been daydreaming of making lattes in a coffee shop I love and going to school full-time. I'm excited for my life to change. My education has definitely taken a back-seat while I worked for this company. The work was incredibly demanding of my mental capacity - my days were spent in a constant critical think/problem solving mode and I had very little energy for school work.

This feels like the chance to make my education my first priority. If I can get it to work financially, that would be simply beautiful. I have a pretty solid idea of what I'd like to do with my life and the schooling will be very intensive. I can finish my undergrad in two semesters if I can go to school full-time (maybe three if I have to take more than two math classes). Perhaps I could get my BA in two years if I can do it full-time. I have my heart and mind set on a Ph.D.

I am also registered to participate in the Landmark Forum near the end of May - I committed to change my life and less than a week later I was canned from a job that I hated. I can't help but believe there is a higher power involved.

Doug thinks it was my Essential Self (as Martha Beck would call it) that kept me in bed last Wednesday. I think he's really on to something.

If I could just stay in touch with the path -

We're getting dangerously close to December again . . .

Last december I had some tremendous break-throughs; you probably remember the lists of things I wanted to do and be and have. You probably remember 'justification for inaction' and my desire for bathtub products that make the body smell like birthday cake.

Here I am . . . winter coming soon, and while all of those goals and feelings still resonate - still belong to me, I don't feel like that girl right now.

In May while I was in Seattle on my business trip, Doug was saying really sweet things to me. I was so excited to get back home to see him. The details are fuzzy now, but we have been inseparable since I got home. It feels so comfortable to be in a serious committed relationship with him and I have never been more sure of anything in my life than I am of my relationship.

I don't have a lot of experience in relationships with good men, but I'm struggling a little. I don't want to be anywhere but where he is. I go to work, I meet up with Doug, we stay at his house or go to mine, we make fabulous dinners, and then we go to bed together. It is absolutely blissful. Now is find the balance time . . . Since May, I don't write, I don't sew, I don't make hair fascinators, I don't see my friends regularly.

I went to Burning Man again this year and spent most of the week heart broken because Doug wasn't with me. My friends did their very best to pull me out of the shell, but I felt disoriented and mostly refused. I spent almost the entire burn in camp. I had a great time when I did go out with my friends, but I did not take full advantage of the opportunity given. No catharsis. I learned that I don't want to figure out my life without Doug.

It fills my heart to the brim when I think that I have found the right partner for my life. I feel so secure and safe, so delighted, so loved.

But the path??? It's obscured by the gooey, gooey love among other things. We are too busy making eyes at one another to look at much else.

The other things are the same impulse control issues I've always had . . . though now they are easier to identify. Margo says that I need to put my priorities in order and make all my decisions in accordance with those priorities. She's right, and this is how to get back on the path.

It feels like they haven't changed much:

Better money management so I can get out of debt . . . this would give me the freedom to pick up and move away from SLC if the opportunity were to arise. Doug and I both want to live closer to his little boy in Colorado Springs.

Better relationship with food and my compulsions toward eating . . . would improve my self-esteem immediately. It would help me get healthy, lose weight, be more active. I want to learn to rock climb, I want to spend my summer on the river, in the mountains, and in the desert. I want more energy, more stamina, more endurance.

Better time management would help me be a more successful student and employee.

I feel like it has to do with discipline . . . something I've never had much of.

I don't want to be a victim of my own lack of impulse control anymore.

No rest for the wicked

I landed in Seattle at about 1:00 PM today. By 2:00 my clothes were up in the closet. By 3:00 I was headed out to get on a bus and go downtown, feeling like I was going to take this town on all by myself . . . . I didn't need anyone to show me around.

Yenn helped me work out a bus route - then the bell boy sent me in the wrong direction. I walked 20 minutes one way before I realized I was in the wrong place. I almost called a cab to come rescue me. When I got back to the hotel, I spoke with the concierge who pointed me in a better direction, but when I got to the bus stop I realized I only had a $5 and needed to break it into smaller bills. By that time it was 4:30 or so. I'd had coffee to drink and not eaten all day. Yenn and I were working out how I'd get back on the same route when the dead battery beep sounded off on my cell phone.

That was how I ended up ordering room service. It wouldn't be an adventure without wrong turns, but part of me blames the bell boy for giving me bad directions to the address I gave him. I wish that I was someone who could take it in stride. I wanted to feel totally independent and instead I feel like I failed.

I got hung up on wishing that when I booked my flight several months ago, I had advertised to my friends that I was coming out here . . . It would be nice to have someone to spend my evenings with, and Yenn would have most likely been able to.

Thing that's bothering me the most is that independence thing: Just a few days ago I was in a canoe that flipped over in the Colorado River. It absolutely terrified me, but I got myself out of the water without any help. It felt amazing! 

I wanted that feeling back. 

To beginnings, as well as to the end

My last day of class was yesterday. I am relieved about all the pressure that has been lifted suddenly (though I am still finishing up an essay and have one more assignment to post - both of these things are enjoyable for me). 

I've decided to take a 6 month hiatus from school.  This decision feels good, but it also makes me slightly nervous. I know I will go back for more; having the degree is too important to me not to go. I also know it doesn't matter how long it takes. I'm only 23 years old, I have the rest of my life to learn, but the critic is whispering that even though it feels good, it's bad.  It's not good enough, it's what quitters do. I'm a fool for giving up - I should stay in school until I get good at it. 

She also tells me that I won't actually do the writing that I want to do for myself over the next several months - she's setting me up to feel guilty for something new. My life wouldn't seem to be complete without overwhelming guilt about something.

My compulsions have their own compulsions and if left unsupervised, I'm likely to eat the entire house down, so I'm packing up my stuff and heading to Goblin Valley with some of my people. I hope the time away will help me figure what I'm actually eating, because it's not just a bag of potato chips.

The interesting thing is that this doesn't feel like the pit. It feels like I'm on the surface and a storm is raging on over my head. I've been really angry on and off for the last few days. Angry about food, angry about my childhood,  angry. It's kind of nice to not be sad anymore. I feel like in my life I've been served some emotional injustices and I'm SO GLAD to see that they weren't my fault.

Sin Nombre

Aside from being a stunning directorial debut with incredible shots, beautiful lighting, and amazing scenery. . . this film is perhaps one of the most beautiful I've seen this year.

I want everyone to see it. I want everyone to know that during this film, my only feeling was to take these people home, give them my shower, a home cooked meal, clean clothes, and a comfortable, warm bed to sleep in.

I hope that American's can stop treating immigration like an 'issue' and start thinking about humans.