On Talking To The Void

Or, "writing letters to someone I know nothing about is a useful coping mech".

I know my Person is out there. They have to be. I was talking to my dear friend Olivia about this about a week ago and she said that she's thought about it a lot too and figures that some people are just meant to be with someone, period. (Olivia, for the record, has been with her boyfriend for nine months and they're pretty sure they're each other's Person and other than the fact that I randomly decided to refer to him as Penguin, I'm pretty sure he's the best thing that's ever happened to her.) It's reassuring, that certainty. At least I have something, y'know?

One of the weirder things I've read on various lists of things for Good Christian Girls to do while they wait for their Prince Charming (those of y'all who've seen such lists know I'm not exaggerating) is to write letters to one's future Person. When I was a little bug who did not believe in love (why that changed is another post), I thought that was the most ridiculous idea ever. Yes, even worse than hope chests, and don't get me started on that. (Thus says the girl who's never dated anyone and yet has her wedding dress already. I have such fun inconsistencies.) Now that I'm older and in the stage of desperately waiting for my blossoming to happen... it's actually awesome.

I'm doing a lot of things for my future Person, which is hilarious considering I don't exactly expect them to show up anytime soon. I'm working on the Beekeeper Quilt nightmare, which remains nowhere near done but I'm trying and maybe it'll be done in four years (I am realistic). I have a nice collection of clearance-rack lingerie, which I admittedly do wear on days I need a confidence boost but honestly no one's going to see it on me for a darn long time. And then there's the journal. The Journal. Ohhhhdear.

I'm not sure why I actually started that project. The journal itself was an impulse purchase of the "things that come home with me when I get stuck on a long Walmart trip with my mother" variety. (Normally that category is occupied by eyeshadow and hairbands and holiday novelties.) I've attempted journaling for myself at so many points starting when I was a tiny and... honestly, I suck at it. I get bored. I generally drop particular journals after something bad happens, and then a little while later I get it into my head that I actually want to do this again and acquire a new one and the cycle repeats. I know I do this. And maybe part of me thought this would happen with The Journal. Part of me wonders if it will, at some point, when my current delusions of preparing for my ascendance are dashed by one more terrible broken heart. But a stronger part of me is pretty sure it won't, because this project isn't for me.

This project is for someone I know basically nothing about. I mean, my Person is most likely male (sexual fluidity nightmare being what it is, unless something major shifts, that's the way those attractions actually go) and most likely older than me. They're hopefully quite a bit different than me and hopefully not the sort of person who spends too much of their spare time wondering about their future Person, because one of us does need to be functional, and if they do have the same cute-but-not-actually-helpful coping mech that's getting me through the uncertainty of waiting, I kinda doubt they're envisioning anything like me. (I'm no one's ideal, I know this, and that is not a desperate plea for petty compliments.) I know that they're loyal and good - they have to be, I won't tolerate anything less - and... that's about it. The stuff that I'll notice first, the stuff I'll fall in love with, I'll discover when it happens. And I'm trying to be okay with that, but I really hate uncertainty. I like knowing things. The fact that the defining relationship of my life is currently a complete unknown is... not good for me.

And maybe that's why The Journal helps, because it's giving me an outlet for my wonderings. I'm writing little love letters to someone who won't see them for years, but I'm also revealing little pieces of myself, things I may not remember to tell them but that still matter. It feeds the uncertainty, yes, but it makes the dark unknown feel welcoming. I am embracing it before I know what it is. I am falling in love with someone I haven't met yet. I am doing what needs to be done for me and, at the same time, doing what needs to be done for them.

I have no delusions of everything suddenly being okay when I find my Person. Most of y'all reading this have met my parents; believe me, that idea got shot in the foot before it had a chance. But I do know that it's going to be magnificent. And when the time comes, I will have a whole lot of stories waiting to tell them.

Song of the day - "When You Sleep", Mary Lambert.

On Liking Things (Things I Didn't Learn In The Bubble, episode one)

Or, "sometimes it's okay to let things in".

A couple of months ago, I did this post on being too jaded for my own good (okay, it was also about how snow brings out the worst in everyone, but there was that element too). While that statement is still accurate, I'm realizing that maybe it isn't as accurate as it used to be. I still expect the worst out of people, but there are a whole lot of lovely things in my life that don't involve direct human contact. And then I got to thinking that it might be cool to do a series of connected posts that don't involve me overanalyzing an underrated TV show, and thus "Things I Didn't Learn In The Bubble" was born. I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do with it, but there are some very important life lessons that I didn't learn until I started spreading my wings and this could be a good chance for me to work through it.

Today's installment - it's okay to like things.

I know, this should be instinctive. To someone who has a more normal background, it probably is. For me, it was a realization that has taken place over several years and finally, finally I am accepting it. (2015 is turning into the year of me accepting things and I love it.) And, strangely, this has happened because of a cute little radio earworm. If by some chance you have not heard the absolute wonder that is "Uptown Funk", please go here and watch the vid (which is pretty awesome and that from the perspective of someone who normally doesn't like music videos that don't involve a certain redheaded goddess, but that is another rabbit trail). You can open it in another tab and go on with whatever else you're doing - trust me, you only need to listen to it once, it will be stuck in your head for at least a week. Consider yourself warned.

So what does a catchy dancey pop song have to do with a major personal realization, you ask? Simple - because it's the latest example of me trying not to like things for no particular reason.

One of the main principles of the community I grew up in is that normal = bad. This has manifested in a lot of ways and I have neither time nor energy to list all of them, but the main way involved media consumption. (Admittedly, certain people have calmed down a lot since I was a tiny, but the general awfulness is still there.) If it was not Explicitly Christian, it was bad. Period. On paper, not such a bad idea... until you remember that there are impressionable tinies and catty middle-aged women involved and my mother routinely got called a bad parent because she let my siblings and I watch Disney movies. (Conversely, nobody batted an eyelash when my then-six-year-old sister could fluently quote LOTR despite the fact that she had nightmares about Gollum in our closet for years. Double standards, thy name is modern evangelical Christianity.) After that snafu, my family in particular practiced a duplicity that, while obviously not an ideal scenario for any parties involved, at least kept reputations intact. Mostly.

Unfortunately, this all occurred during the glory days of crime shows in the early/mid-2000s. My dad has never held to the same strict media standards (see also - how then-six-year-old sister ended up watching a certain trilogy in the first place), and for a couple of years, he loved CSI. Now, had anyone we knew at the time ever found out about this, there would've been canaries. Same went for the absolute glory that was Alias, which in hindsight was the first TV show I ever got attached to. Was it appropriate viewing for a ten-year-old? Your mileage may vary, but it didn't screw me up in any notable ways so not exactly a disaster there. Did it contribute to my total inability to talk media with anyone in a face-to-face setting? Yes.

Then my freshman year of high school happened. That's one of the years that a lot of my various issues and tendencies trace back to, and with good reason. First, it was the year I was allowed to read what I wanted because my mother was preoccupied with other stuff and couldn't be bothered to check everything. Now, being as socially inept as I was during those years, I basically inhaled books. This also happened in late 2007, around the beginning of YA futuristics being a Major Thing. Thankfully, by now I had learned to keep my trap shut. Reading what I wanted was all well and good, but telling anyone about it? Nah. My suicidal inclinations still had a few years of development left. I behaved.

Music also became a part of the problem in the same year. Previously, my auditory delights had been limited to the genres of classical, Christian, and jazz (don't ask). That door wasn't consciously opened, but I still remember the first "normal" album I bought - How To Save A Life by The Fray. Seven years later, I still like that album, so it was a good call on my end. (Maybe not the most normal choice for a fourteen-year-old girl, but the title song was all too relevant following the death of my birthmom and I was a morbid little creature and I swear it made sense at the time.) Music, I didn't need to be told not to talk about. I could listen to what I wanted and use it as inspo for my little stories, but God help me if anyone from our homeschool group found out!!

For years, the duplicity continued. I liked things, but I liked them quietly. There were a few exceptions - my high school graduation, for instance, for which I picked Florence + The Machine's "Dog Days Are Over" as my slideshow song (had I known they would cut it at the two-minute mark, I actually would've done something even more out-there) - but it was my double life. When I got into TV again a few years ago, that too remained something I didn't talk about, not even the shows that have heavily impacted me for the better. But lately, I've gotten really sick of that.

I am allowed to like things, dammit. I am allowed to be amused by things that don't have a lasting impact. I am allowed to sing along at the top of my lungs to a harmless dancey radio song for no reason other than that because I like it. There's nothing wrong with me. I know that some of what I like has problematic elements (and I hate that phrase but I can't think of a better one), but I'm careful. I know what affects me and I'm careful with that stuff. But mostly... I'm okay. I'm immune. I'm allowed to have fun.

And hey, if my version of fun involves rolling the functional window down on my car and feeling on top of the world for a few minutes, I don't think I'm doing all that badly.

Song of the day - "Uptown Funk (featuring Bruno Mars)", Mark Ronson.