and now

I graduated from the University of Nebraska on May 3. It was my half birthday; exactly 27 and a half and I felt every year of it.

I don't know what to do with myself anymore. My life feels not- empty, but no longer compelled now that I don't have school to demand my attentions. I have no more milestones to overcome and I have no more deadlines to meet with gusto. In some ways I might flounder for a while. I can't quite concisely assess why the prospect of this is so disquieting, but I can't sleep any more anyways.

Something about a divine and innate need to make progress, to keep growing, to keep learning and to keep gaining. This is the worrisome and uncomfortable part.

Beets and peas are growing in the back yard so I guess things are ok.

And sometimes I get to touch boy's forearms and hands so I guess things are ok.

And I have a plane ticket and a strong heart that knows a lot of different weather so I get to hope that things are ok.

I go for much longer drives alone now than I ever did before. Never mind. I have always gone for long drives; the difference is now I can do them unrepentantly and without restraint.

We're going to have a baby and it's really really scary and a little sad, I think (maybe more on this later).

Nebraska is the most pretty when you can forget all of the sprawl and just see the clouds and dirt and grass.

I think I will always find a way to love tall grass.

This is all I can muster for now.

some of the times

but not ALL of the times, you see,  it's real hard to be a good Mormon/example/disciple/person.

(there are so many things to be said.)

honest

For the first time in some time tonight, I was completely honest and up front and open. And it felt completely terrifying and scary and vulnerable-making.

And I cried harder and more than I have cried in some (great) time.

But it think things are going to get better.

I think I am going to learn how to be more deliberate.

Some few people whom I have loved in my life told me that they loved how I "live deliberately". I never knew what that meant, and I have to confess that I wasn't really ever living deliberately; rather I was living insecurely. I was living so that things appeared deliberate. In actuality, I was mostly scared that people would see that I was scared of not-belonging, that I wouldn't feel loved, that I wasn't smart, that I wasn't right, that I was ugly or that I was needy or that I was weak. I was scared that I needed too much validation and that I needed too much love. I was scared that I wouldn't be forgiven.

I got really good a keeping that to myself.

But tonight, I was really honest, and I really cried, and I really said all of the things that needed to be said. And I'd be lying if I said that I felt great after getting it all out. In actuality, I think I will just go to sleep now and probably cry some more, but it's a start. It's a cleansing. I remember in some movie with Nick Cage (ummmmm...), where he is talking about how it's remarkable that humans cry. And yeah. It's super cheesey, but it's maybe also true. Also, Nick Cage. Anyways- maybe it's the first step to let some of that go.

I am going to congratulate myself on expressing my needs and my expectations in a really grown-ass way. I am not going to feel bad for crying. I am going to feel proud that I respect myself enough to say what I need and to explain where I'm coming from. And I am going to feel good about being vulnerable. I am honest. Sometimes that hurts the worst, but I find solace in believing that it's for the best. I promise I'm not trying to be mean. I am learning to trust, and I am learning how to have faith. I am learning about love and about how sometimes, it's really, really hard to do love things. It's hard to be in a family. I don't really know how to not, though, so here I am.

too proud for love

I know that both of these songs (CLICK! CLICK!) are so incredibly old, but I feel them both so much right now. I am going to bed tonight feeling confused, apprehensive and maybe even a little bit worried. I miss feeling comforted.

A wise woman told me to try to have more charity today. Another one encouraged me to have more faith. What's left? Hope. I have a lot of hope, almost in absurd quantities that should perhaps give cause for concern but rarely do.

I think I am going to get those other two working better/more for me. I've heard they work best together.

 

I apologize, I don't know where this image actually came from , I have had it saved on my hard drive for a very very long time, but it basically epitomizes my feelings at this moment. Like... all of them, especially that tornado and that heart.

sometimes i go

to parties and give mathletes my number when they ask me for it.
and sometimes i get texts which simply say the word "TITS" while at those parties.

and other times i am pretty sure that I will end up like this guy, minus the "flakes".
my skin is very soft and well- moisturized, don't worry.

Crossroads (But Not The Brittney Spears Movie)

  My mom keeps trying to get me to try online dating. The concept feels so inauthentic to me that I hardly give it a second thought. After telling her about my stresses about school, being awoken by gunshots at 4 AM, and the terror of having a human body found near my house, she wanted to know my romance-related woes. Could the demons lurking under bridges in my neighborhood and in my intellectual spaces not satiate her? She needed more. Like a soap opera to which she is addicted, She wanted me to tell her everything (about one narrow topic, hitherto only a small sliver of a [my] very rich life). 

  I told her everything there was to tell. I spare no detail with her sometimes.

  And then she (again...) asked if I thought online dating wasn't a good idea. After all, she found her last few boyfriends on various websites. My sister chimed in, for she too was an internet success story. They even offered to craft an online presence for me. While I think their concern is somewhat warranted and their offer indubitably kind, I'm just not convinced that a website will fit the bill.  Is this what we have come to as a people? Are we so replete with authentic human interactions that we are capable of boiling ourselves down to a webpage and advertising the hell out of ourselves, pimping our education and our favorite films, music and qualities about ourselves? I guess I just think some things require actual interaction. Some things must be felt.

We then got into a discussion about what was wrong with me. 

  The topic did not help me feel too nice.

  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!??! 

  Time to say farewell to my pride. Yet again.

 Historically speaking, my family hasn't really been one to put much pressure on us for not dating or being in a relationship or being married. I have spent time being grateful for the breathing space. This was especially poignant after my parents' marriage dissolved after 27 years. I too needed to give myself time and mental hiatus. But looking back, I think I may have stopped pushing myself, stopped progressing and learning how to trust and interact appropriately with the male sex. I have installed mental blocks that are making it really, really hard to jump beyond myself. I want to jump, but those blocks are making it hard for me to see that I might land on the other side. They make it hard to see if it's worth it to try. I am not interested in blaming others for my lack. I want to feel empowered to act on my own behalf.

  And maybe now, my parents are beginning to feel the fact of the time-lease that is their daughter's female body. My body. The prospect of progeny is an enticing one for them, it seems; perhaps I do not provide them with enough charm any longer as a 26 year old child.

  I read an article about the word gals. The word, as the article's author seems to understand, is... well... stupid. But she makes a point in saying that, 

that mantle of womanhood can be too heavy—many of us who are the right age to have sympathized with Britney Spears when she sang "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" in 2001 are still stuck in between (I was 16 at the time that song came out) . As a 20-something female, there are moments, romantic and professional and Shania-Twain-approved, when I feel like a woman. Other times, I really do feel like a girl (though not as often as I am called one). I never feel like a lady except in announcements made also to gentlemen and I only feel like a dame when I watch old movies. What I feel like most of the time is a guy. A female guy.

  This comes, appropriately, on the heel of hearing a lecture last week entitled "Guyland" at a gender studies conference at which I was a (grown-ass-woman) panelist. The lecture was largely casually written off as pop-sociology. But to some extent, my attention was caught in the idea of extended adolescence and the allure of irresponsibility, ad infinitum. The prospect of being a "forever-dude" is certainly an entertaining one that smacks of fountains of youth and promises eternal springtime filled with "going to shows, bro", and staying up until three AM eight nights in a row. Filled with the stuff of college and flexing your wings for the first time, rather than learning that wings were meant for long-distance, stamina- requiring flight. Wings are meant for adult things like paying bills on time and regularly brushing your teeth before going to bed. Wings that are meant to bear and teach babies.The guyland appeal fights with my determination to age honestly and gracefully into a wise, wizened, and self- actualized old woman one day. I can see myself as that: I'm old and wonderful and kind.

  But for now I am 26 years old.

  Today.

  And today I wrote a professor from my undergrad to see if there would be a teaching position for me in the summer. That's right. That's me today: actualizing real, grown ass-woman, careersy aspirations. I don't know if I will get the job. I will keep you posted on that, but I am making strides.  This is one of those "Shania-Twain-approved" occasions. My mom never asked about it. I didn't push the topic.

  I understand that my zeal for education and a career might seem antithetical to the accepted roles outlined here. I don't know to what extent I am prepared to submit to those fully just yet, but I think that I want a family. I sometimes see babies and want to cry at how much I want to touch them. I think I would be a good mom. I think I have the capacity to love small things and make real food for real small humans. I am good at comforting babies and helping them feel loved. I am good at teaching them about the world, how wonderful and full it can be; I am good at inspiring wonderment and imagination. I am good at playing with them and helping them laugh. I want to make real promises to a real man human and make real things happen with him. I want to do that in a certain sacred place, wherein we will incur the permission of Heaven. I really do want that.  I feel it very deeply and feel powerful in writing that down.

  But I also can admit and embrace that my career-related aspirations might be somewhat intimidating to real human men/potential marriage prospects (this isn't the appropriate place to discuss my opinions about men who are intimidated by successful women, but know that I have a few). And my object in clinging so desperately to the hope of career opportunities is not grown from subversion, rebellion or even in doubt or fear. It's rooted in the feeling of ability and control (it is somewhat vulnerable-making to explain this here). 

  My career is the only thing in which I feel validated to satisfactorily control. It is the one thing in which I feel a degree of autonomy based on my own abilities and skills; the arena in which I can thrive at being ambitious and definite in pursuing the thing that I want. I do not feel this validation in my relationships with men, nor in my friendships with human beings of either gender. I frequently take the role of passive acceptor. This role often leads to being alone, and sometimes (not always, but sometimes) being alone leads to being lonely. I am learning that I cannot be antonymous on a project which inherently requires the contribution of two. There is certainly pride tied up in the focus on education and career. Pride, of which I am leery, as I know the dangers and pitfalls of pride intimately well. I read stories about it every day from this book that I'm kind of in to. I need to move and be moved, see and be seen. Perhaps that is the key to finding a successful relationship; admission that I cannot control things/others/fate?

  It's time to say farewell to my pride again. 

  How do you submit to waiting?

  Is there a better location than Guy/Gal Land? My lease here might be up; rent certainly is cheap, but there are too many dead bodies showing up in ravines and shooters lurking in the neighborhood.