Self-Indulgence

I have no issues to discuss today. 

Well, that’s not true.  I have issues, they’re just not important in the grand scheme of things.  In fact, they’re trivial and insignificant to everyone other than me.  Still, this is my blog, and therefore subject to my rantings and ravings.  I try to make them as interesting as possible, so as to avoid looking self-indulgent (but believe me, I am). 

Blogs are often criticized for increasing the self-importance of unimportant people.  Apparently people use them, sometimes, to write about issues that no one really cares about.  However, I don’t think that’s entirely true.  Someone out there can relate, and therefore someone cares.  Perhaps one blogger can articulate another’s emotions in a more concise manner. 

I’ve had an “off” week. 

I’m tired, moreso emotionally than physically. 

It seems that things have caught up with me.  It was Saturday, after a rather nice day spent in Niagara Falls, that I realized that I don’t know what I’m going to do now that school is well and truly over.  I’ve been working full-time for seven months, and I have no exciting or alluring job prospects waiting for me (probably because I haven’t really pursued them).

I have an intermittent writing gig for a fund-raising organization, but they rarely require (or perhaps desire) my input or contributions.  The woman I work for is fantastic, but she’s sometimes difficult to get a hold of, and is often at a loss as to how to include me in upcoming projects.  I’ve done one assignment in a month, and am currently working on a “we’ll call you when we need you” basis.  My portfolio is lackluster and pathetic.  I need to start freelancing, but I’m having a hard time motivating myself to do it. 

I didn’t get a promising internship that I wanted.  I’m not devastated, really, but rather a little disappointed in myself.  I believe I’ve missed out on a good opportunity.

I want to move out – nay, I feel that I should move out.  However, that would put a strain on some already strained relationships.  I need a certain degree of harmony in my life to be happy. I need to feel at peace with the people I interact with most often.  I loathe awkward tension and sustained anger.  It’s draining, annoying and discomfiting. 

I think my household would be a little more harmonious without me in it, but I know I’d still be missed (and resented for choosing to leave).  I think, for some parents, it’s hard to come to terms with the idea of an aging family.  Your children are your children, but they’re no longer children and cannot be treated as such. 

I’m not a respectful “tenant” anymore.  I understand that living rent-free obligates me to compromise my adulthood freedoms with lingering parental rules, but I’m no longer accepting it. 

I feel guilty and angry simultaneously. 

I could leave, but I’ll be strapped for money.  I’ll also char – not burn – some bridges that I’d like to keep intact.  To put things in perspective, things really aren’t bad enough to leave.  Yet, staying probably won’t work out too well in the long-run.  I like to come and go as I please, and that’s still difficult for me to do.  My mom isn’t strict per se, but she worries.  If my brother or myself come home late or don’t call, she assumes we’re dead.  She no doubt envisions anguishing eulogies every time she gets my voicemail on my cell.  Excessive worry runs in my family, it’s genetic – like heart-disease or cancer. 

To compensate, I invite my boyfriend over three or four times a week and use my parent’s basement as a hotel, essentially.  The parents are at the stage where they accept it only because there’s no real alternative.  My mom would rather I’d be home utilizing her furniture than utilizing empty parking lots where we’d risk, like, police intervention and stuff.

Still, it’s made things weird.  However, when I bring up the idea of renting an apartment, she backs off with her criticisms.  She’d rather have a desecrated leather couch than an permanently absent daughter.

Score one for the bad guy!

Still, she’s reeling from the sudden death of her father, and I understand that.  The logistics of looking after a deceased person’s disorganized affairs are overwhelming.  She has money to sort out, a will to decipher, lawyers to consult, a house to sell, and grief to nurture. 

To make things easier, I try to stay out of the way.  We’ve been having borderline explosive fights over the new dog (I wanted him, she didn’t – and yet she’s home all of the time and I’m not), and things have been contentious for several months.  I’ve made my share of mistakes, no doubt.  I’m dealing with things improperly.  However, I’m not quite sure how to deal with them properly.

A few days ago, I’d have said the best solution was to remove myself (and perhaps the dog) from the house.  However, last night she countered my suggestion with a, “we just need to spend more time together, that’s all.  Let’s go on a shopping trip soon!”  I like that idea.  Nothing fixes family tension like materialism (seriously, I’m not kidding).  There’s a strange, natural high that comes with over-spending on clothes.

Still, ever since I began feeling detached from the people at home, I’ve begun to wonder who else resents my flighty ways and shitty decisions.  Call me neurotic (I can be), but I feel other people – important people whom I care about – rapidly losing patience with me. 

If any of these fine people read this blog: I’m sorry.  I’m sorry about bailing on club nights and being surly over dinner/drinks.  I’m sorry if I go from distant to whiny and needy in seconds.  This, too, shall pass.  I’ve always been bad with change, and my life is changing. 

Maybe I should dedicate Sunday afternoons to writing a sexually explicit novel about ridiculous and improbable things.  I’ve always wanted to do that. 

For those poor souls who may or may not have read this entire entry, I apologize for boring you with my meandering musings.  It was very “emo” of me, and I’m a little embarrassed.  At the same time, I needed to waste time at work writing about nothing.  Doing that almost always makes me happy.

Who Brought Butter Tarts?

Some asshole, that’s who.

There’s a downside to weight loss, one that no one talks about on Oprah.  That pitfall is the constant fear and anxiety that accompanies the downsizing of your pants.  Every time someone says, “wow, you look great!”  I hear, “don’t fuck it up by eating shitty food again.”

Now, I wasn’t a fat person before.  At least, not in the clinical sense of the word.  I was certainly hefty by Hollywood standards – but honestly, who the fuck isn’t?  Still, I’d always wanted to lose 15 pounds, and never really got around to it.  One day I decided to switch from pop to water and cut out all junk food.  The Weight (deserving of capitals, I think) just fell off. 

I didn’t start dieting, but rather altered my diet.  I didn’t start exercising either (and I’m not bragging, just stating a fact).  I marginally decreased my portions and started packing healthier lunches and avoiding late-night meals.

Now, whenever I’m tempted to eat something bad, a tiny voice in the back of mind starts shrieking about fat sides and ill-fitting jeans.  I’m reminded, harshly, of every bad – re: fat - picture I’ve ever taken. 

I think this anxiety is good for my physical health, but it’s anxiety that I don’t need or want at the moment.  It’s especially unwelcome when a kind – or evil, I suppose – soul brings mini-butter tarts into work.  I love butter tarts, and they’re a rare delicacy for me.  I seldom get to enjoy them, for they seldom appear in my kitchen.

Why, when I’m nursing guilt over the two brownies I had last night, would someone dare offer me a goddamn butter tart?

I had one, of course. 

Ah well.  There are some things in life that simply aren’t worth giving up.  One must exercise restraint, but one must also be content.  A life without the occasional butter tart is a bleak life indeed.

Yesterday was a trying day, albeit less trying than I originally expected it to be. 

My grandfather died last weekend.  It was unexpected, but not entirely surprising.  He’d been ill for awhile, and wasn’t going to get better.  He’d been suffering from a chronic lung disorder for several years, and his debilitating inability to breathe was attributed to it up until a week ago.  Further – and long over-due – tests revealed that he was being slowly suffocated by late-stage lung cancer, not merely COPD.  After hearing the news, and learning that a long-awaited lung transplant was no longer in the cards, he passed away quietly in his sleep.

I’d say his final cause of death was hopeless resignation.

Yet, I’d say it took courage to accept the truth and will himself to pass on.  He didn’t give up so much as he let go.  His suffering is over, and really, that’s the only thing that matters.  He wasn’t happy being hospitalized and immobile. 

I’m glad that my last memory of him didn’t include him lying in a hospital bed, but rather him bellowing – in a kindly manner, I must add – out happy stories from happier times.  He was sitting at the table on Thanksgiving, mildly intoxicated, talking about going to bars with his then-wife (he and my grandmother divorced 10 or so years ago) and hitting up 24-hour restaurants afterwards.

Those moments, common enough among the young, are deceptively beautiful.  They are what you look back on when you’re older, lonelier, and sicker.  Drinking, dancing and eating fatty food with the person (or people) you love is something people often take for granted, because the assume the next time won’t be the last.  There will, however, come a day when you can’t pass the night-time hours at a bar or club, or saunter in your front door at 6 am.  There will come a time where work is more important, and responsibilities take over.

I also realized that the people whom you’ve always seen as old were once young.  They led lives as exciting – perhaps more exciting – as your own.  They drank, they smoked, they had hours of sex.  They danced and laughed and stayed out all night.  They fell in and out of love.  They had legendary, “oh shit, remember when – ” nights with friends. 

It was so rare to hear my grandpa talk about a happy time in his youth, and it was a really profound moment.  I saw him in a different light, and I felt a new kind of warmth for him.  There was a time when he and I weren’t so different.  Most importantly, there was a time when he was carefree, healthy and happy. 

People sometimes throw away their health and their happiness.  They abuse their bodies, work too much, worry too often and love too little.  They give up too easily, on themselves and on each other.

It pays to be responsible, no doubt.  We all have to do things we don’t want to do.  We all owe other things and people pieces – sometimes substantial pieces – of ourselves and our time.  We have to make sacrifices, yes.  Yet, we cannot stop enjoying being alive.  It’s not something we’ll be able to take advantage of forever.  Once it’s over – well, it’s over. 

I’m glad that I got to hear my grandpa talk about a time that truly brought him joy.  I can only hope that when I’m partially deaf and half-drunk, I’ll shout out gleeful memories of whisky and pancakes during Thanksgiving dinner as well.