changes
So when I get stressed out, my Gemini brain will hide it from me, so I can cruise along day by day without realizing anything is bothering me. It never occurs to me that my sudden shoulder stiffness and onset of insomnia may have anything to do with stress. I never factor in that the worst of it tends to occur on Sunday nights, as I prepare to tackle another week at work. I just think, that’s weird…are these things related? And then become fixated on the nearest thing that’s shiny.
But now I’m realizing I’ve been pretty stressed out.
So this is how it started.
Last year I was flying so high. I ejected from a relationship that drove me crazy, not because my partner wasn’t a nice, kind individual, but because it wasn’t It. I realized how easy it could have been to commit to something that’s “not that bad” for the rest of my life, but instead, I left so I could leave myself open to something awesome. I started living like someone with a new lease on life…traveling, standing up to my erratic boss, trying new things (surfing, cliff jumping, Toastmasters). It was electric. Turning 29, I decided, this is the year I make sure that I build my life right for the rest of my life, so I started shedding things and people in my life that weren’t good for me, and welcoming in things that felt more positive and empowering. By the time 30 rolled around, I figured I’d be set. I’d have taught myself superpowers by then. I’d have hired a celebrity fashion designer to design me a cape, because that’s the kind of person I would be at 30. Someone who wears a cape every day.
But then I guess after new year’s, it dawned on me that I’m turning 30 this year and what the hell was I doing turning goddam 30. I started getting some minor anxieties, like why I’m still at the spec level with my writing because I’ve got this perfectionist streak in me of wanting to accrue writing samples like pirate booty before I go out with it, yet I never feel like I have enough to go out. I thought about how I’ve spent 4 and half years at a job I didn’t think I’d last more than two months at back in 2003, because the place is a neverending season of The Office but with more porn and more dirty, dirty sexual innuendos from coworkers than the average professional could possibly tolerate if I weren’t so detached by personality and in love with the witty comeback. Plus, I like that it pays me a lot of money, which in turn, makes me feel like a money slut. I thought about my love of stuff, and if I’ll ever read those user manuals so I can learn how to use my stuff, or if I’ll finally date someone smart enough to program my gadgets for me. And then I thought about my dear attachment to being single.
I think I have a preference for being single because my number one priority is protecting my personal freedom and not getting into any restricting, unfulfilling situations I can’t get out of. I enjoy spending time alone (is any Gemini really ever alone?) and I would rather be my own company than be with bad or even worse, boring company. But I’m open to a good relationship and am willing to settle down if something feels right. And I’m always open to friends. Not small talk friends. But interesting conversation and we-get-each-other friends. But then I look around at this city I’ve spent 9 years in, and I’m so aware of how hard it is to meet people I can relate to, how hard it is to find people you can just be yourself with, even at a platonic level. A part of me longs for the bay area, where strangers are much more approachable and there’s always interesting conversations and ideas buzzing around. I started going up north for the weekends, and as soon as my family caught wind that I’m open to the idea of moving back, it’s been like college scouts recruiting a high school prospect–I’ve got family and friends calling and telling me about the wonderful benefits of living in the bay area, and people giving me ideas of where to search for a job. I feel like I’ve been a big cocktease now if I don’t move back. But I’m not sure that’s the solution.
I’m open to moving up there, but I’m also reluctant to give up on LA. If I move now, I’ll feel like I wasted 9 years searching for something/someone that I never found. I’ll feel like I gave up just as I was on the verge of finding it. But am I just being stubborn, refusing to cut my losses?
This desire to move also comes on the heels of issues at work that have me despondent. I just hit a point of frustration where I don’t care anymore. It’s like drowning. You struggle and you struggle, but at some point, if you just give in, everything goes silent and you find a sort of ironic peace. I’ve decided it’s time to leave, but I don’t know where I want to go yet, because I feel like the next step is a very important one.
Ideally, I want to take time off and travel. I want to do what I like to do, which is meet new people in new places and write about it. Learn about life. About different perspectives. Explore different aspects of myself. Be whoever I want to be at any given moment. Reopen my blog without fear of crazy stalkers. Develop creative business partnerships. Get involved in something I believe in that engages both my business/logical side and my creative side.
So this struggle has been going on…do I stay put, do I move to the bay area, do I find another job in LA, or do I give myself up to my creative, adventurous impulses and go gather the inspiration for my writing by getting myself out and about within life and make money worries secondary. Our am I at an age where it’s too late, because I’m too old for this shit?
I had insomnia all week for the first time in about 5 years. I started having nightmares which is so, so rare. In one of them, I got a call that my grandmother who lives in San Francisco had died (I don’t have a grandmother who lives in San Francisco). In my dream, I’m her only living relative, so I go up north to make arrangements. I spend a night in her small apartment in the city, in this really old building. In the middle of the night, the phone rings and it’s a little boy. He talks to me like he knows me, and I feel like I should know who he is. Then he tells me he’s scared, there’s a ghost with him, another little boy. Then he puts the ghost on and I could hear electrical buzzing as he spoke, the equivalent of chilling the noise frequencies the way ghosts will chill the air. The little boy told me he needed help, and that he was faxing me a picture of himself. I stayed on the line and checked my fax machine, and a picture of a little boy with brown hair came through. Then as another page came through, he told me he was sending me a picture of the ghost. I glanced down at the paper coming through but I looked away quickly because it scared me. All I saw was something blurry, a dark mass, ominous. I started getting really scared in my dream, and had to will myself out of it by telling myself it’s not that scary and that I was in my home in Los Angeles. But it was. Maybe I’ll write something about it. I get a lot of my story ideas from dreams. But I’ve been trying not to think about it. All I know was it made me not want to move into an old building in San Francisco.
I think it’s time for me to get moving again. Wherever I’m going, whatever happens, I think there are some things in my life that need to change, starting with work, involving less Minesweeper, and ending with “pimping harder.”