The other day, I was talking to Rob on Skype and he mentioned that he might move here earlier than expected. Maybe as soon as February. My initial reactions were shock, surprise, and joy. Then he explained that his early move would be because his mom has no company to the Philippines, and that she's insisting he go with her and they stay at a hotel in Manila (about 1 1/2 hours away from us), and I dunno. My elation deflated. Because I wouldn't be getting the amazing reunion I'd expected. Because Rob would be in the Philippines, but for the first few weeks, he wouldn't be with me and Riley. Because this only proves that Rob's a momma's boy and can't stand up to his mom.
I should just be happy that he's gonna be here, right? I mean, that's the normal reaction, right? Instead, I find fault with it. I just can't help it. Why can't it be the perfect reunion? Riley and I pick him up from the airport, shuttle him back home, and we fall into domestic bliss - that would be ideal, and so simple to achieve (okay, everything but the "domestic bliss" part is easy).
Maybe I'm never satisfied. Maybe I crave the meeting of expectations that Rob has never been able to give me (this certainly rings true). Maybe, like I wrote in an email to a dear friend, I just don't know how to stay happy. Happiness, after a while, makes me sick to my stomach. I need complication, problems to solve, reasons to act out. I need to travel and write and know strange people. If I'm honest with myself, I know that this is part of the reason I want a big family: I feel like my kids' lives will be anything but normal, and they'll need each other to validate and acknowledge their life experiences.
I dunno, J. I'm in the middle of a 2 1/2 week break from school, and aside from a trip to a mall (which reminded me so much of the States!), I'm feeling in a rut. I need desperately to go out and make a scene. I want so badly to be doing things instead of writing about them. Even if what I'm doing is reading, I feel like being a spectator of someone else's ideas is more active than living my own life in my head via writing. I've been blogging and writing incessantly for almost a month now, and it's taking it's toll. I'm out of touch with reality. I feel cleaved from everything I know. I feel spent. And yet, this is what I've always wanted to do for a living: write. Maybe I feel spent because I'm on vacay and therefore don't have academics to balance out my brain. Maybe I feel spent because I've been writing non-fiction, and it's more exhausting than writing fiction. Maybe it's for the same reason that I'm second-guessing my feelings about Rob being here: fear, doubt, suspicion that he may not be what I want.
Things seemed so much simpler back in New York. Even as I was leaving. Even as I was readying to irrevocably change myself. Even though I knew that that place in time was fleeting and oh-so temporary. It still felt comfortable, it still felt real, and it still felt like home.
I miss that feeling.
Maria LOL! Shame on you! What a terrible picture! I look like an angry potato with down syndrome that got kicked by a passing farmer.
ReplyDeleteThat was a hysterical night. I hung out with Dej this weekend too, she woo'ed me with her curse words and kung fu. Well... I left before the kung fu.
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response via blog post.
I miss Dej! I wish I had a pic from that night with the 4 of us, but alas my sorry-ass camera didn't wanna work. :(
ReplyDeleteDon't worry! None of us look like a supermodel, and the blurriness doesn't help either LOL
Hi beautiful,
ReplyDeleteHas it really almost been a fucking month since this post? REALLY??
That paragraph, the part about you writing incessantly and it taking its toll, struck a chord of anxiety in me. (Not anxiety in the "nervous" sense, I meant in the general vibration of discontent that I cant quite place.)
I kind of feel that before, writing for you was a response to the world, almost like a written emotion, a reaction. You were exactly what you wish to be - a spectator, though not to others lives as much as your own. But from what it soudns like, it's now been thrown to the forefront, and is being used to construct a foundation, preparing to build a house atop it.
Does that make sense? I could be wrong, but it's almost as if there were a... need? driving this writing thing. Like you're trying to get it to cry uncle. Or get it to admit something to you. I'm wary, but girl you already know how my suspicious mind works!
I don't have much faith in using emotion as a support system. Could I be wrong? Perhaps that exhaustion is not a bag thing, rather it's more like the delicious exhaustion you feel after exercise, or sex? You've been expressing a mild sense of frustration, and as a friend, I worry.
Love,
J
bad thing*
ReplyDeleteIt's been *almost* a month. LOL Those 6 letters make a big difference. :P
ReplyDeleteThankfully, I'm back at school, and studying diligently since midterms start in 2 days, so I'm no longer feeling any of the anxiety about being in a rut. Still, I gotta say: You're right! Writing was much more instinctual before, and a lot less disciplined. I wrote whenever I wanted to write, and picking up a pen always left me feeling satiated.
These days, writing is much less reactionary, and much more mandatory. I'm trying to discipline my art, make it so that I can write *well* and also write *often*. And when I say "often", I mean "daily." I want to raise it to a level that exists only in my dreams, because that's where I'm at right now: trying to make all of my dreams into realities. But it's so much harder, now that I don't react strongly to as many things as I used to. These days, I'm about sustaining the awesomeness that I have, as opposed to adding onto my level of awesomeness. That means making sure that I'm in constant contact with family and friends. That means keeping up my grades. That means being the best mom and girlfriend and daughter and sister I can possibly be...
Man, I could write a novel to you right now, LOL But I think I'll just leave it at that, and maybe another post will find itself up here sooner than I thought.