I spent the majority of today being useless. Sure, I tidied up my room, went for a jog, drank coffee, and even ordered my first winter thermal t-shirt online; but after that I lost motivation and fell asleep for several hours. I had every intention of venturing out and finding an aspect of the city to feel like home to me.
After living in Chicago for just over a year; I'm still attempting to figure out what constitutes feeling "at home." I have been missing my family and friends rather horrendously of late; despite never truly feeling content to just be home in my hometown. I'm starting to realize physical location might not be my issue. Moving halfway across the country was never supposed to be a cure-all. I knew that. I also know I have a tendency to live in the past. And on my jog through Palmer Park on an almost perfect fall morning, I thought about moving. Not necessarily moving home, just moving on.
When I get depressed, I often revert to the self-destructive coping mechanisms I adopted as a kid. And I wake up feeling like that seventeen year old girl in the hospital. Lots of bright white lights, a numbness in the chest, the hollow howl of your heart when you realize you weren't able to let loose your grip on that which is holding you down. Maybe the fatigues of memories mellowed by years of starvation, alcohol, and sleeping aren't necessarily for wearing anymore. Maybe they're meant for packing away neatly; only to serve as reminders of why you're lucky - taking up minimal space until you figure out how to haul them to a side street and watch them being tossed with everyone else's emotional excess.
I don't feel so different anymore as I've encountered more and more people with similar scars. But I still have that sense of feeling alone, which I admit is self-inflicted. And the older I get, the more I'd like to lose that feeling. And in order to do that, I have to decide the best way for me to move on. That starts with remembering that at this point in my life - no one hurts me but me. No pawning off of pain, no making someone else responsible. I make a shitty decision, then I've made that shitty decision. I don't have to be forever seventeen and half-dead; I never have to be anywhere I don't want to be.
Because even the littlest birds were meant to fly.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
The Red Flag Article
I'm not much of a dater. In fact, I'm rather wretched at it. But seeing as I'm thirty and not wanting to die alone licking burned cheese off a Lean Cuisine watching "Battlestar Galactica" - I'm making a concerted effort to come across as more "available." And I've got to admit, there are some red flags that I'm just now learning are a testament to whether a guy is going to be a burlap sack full of donkey cocks or a genuinely decent human being. I feel like I should share what I've picked up on -
1. Do not go out with a man who uses emoticons. A semicolon followed by half a paranthesis does not make whatever you just texted more mischievous.
2. Cut it short if he opens with how much he likes the Grateful Dead.
3. I'm done with guys who still own and wear Vans. Get Converse like all the other hipsters out there. Vans make you look like a mental patient and their music tour line-up reads like highlights from a high school journal.
4. Guys who are willing to watch you consume ten percent of your body weight in red meat and/or bacon without being repulsed are awesome. If they encourage it - make sure you get their number.
5. Men who order "bombs" of any kind or anything with the word "panty" in it at a bar - go ahead and leave (with your Mace ready) ladies.
6. Make sure he's laughing because he finds you funny; not because he doesn't know what the word "twat" means.
7. Good banter is hard to find. Relish in it if it happens along.
8. Genuine gentlemen don't make you feel like they are doing you a favor by spending an evening with you. Frack that. Time is valuable, and if you think halfway through the date that your Saturday evening would be better spent eating Lucky Charms in your pajamas and listening to Social Distortion - it probably would be.
9. If there isn't at least one bookshelf (with books) in his apartment - just say, "No."
10. Nice guys will ask you how you are after your dog dies. They will also tell you to have a good week, send you funny pictures to cheer you up, and smile at your shitty jokes then call you out on them.
1. Do not go out with a man who uses emoticons. A semicolon followed by half a paranthesis does not make whatever you just texted more mischievous.
2. Cut it short if he opens with how much he likes the Grateful Dead.
3. I'm done with guys who still own and wear Vans. Get Converse like all the other hipsters out there. Vans make you look like a mental patient and their music tour line-up reads like highlights from a high school journal.
4. Guys who are willing to watch you consume ten percent of your body weight in red meat and/or bacon without being repulsed are awesome. If they encourage it - make sure you get their number.
5. Men who order "bombs" of any kind or anything with the word "panty" in it at a bar - go ahead and leave (with your Mace ready) ladies.
6. Make sure he's laughing because he finds you funny; not because he doesn't know what the word "twat" means.
7. Good banter is hard to find. Relish in it if it happens along.
8. Genuine gentlemen don't make you feel like they are doing you a favor by spending an evening with you. Frack that. Time is valuable, and if you think halfway through the date that your Saturday evening would be better spent eating Lucky Charms in your pajamas and listening to Social Distortion - it probably would be.
9. If there isn't at least one bookshelf (with books) in his apartment - just say, "No."
10. Nice guys will ask you how you are after your dog dies. They will also tell you to have a good week, send you funny pictures to cheer you up, and smile at your shitty jokes then call you out on them.
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