Once More with Feeling

Today, a buddy of mine told me I should consider writing on a blog.

(I say buddy because I am very wary of using the word 'friend'. Read Elie Wiesel, and then tell me how many people you know who are willing to lose the use of their legs to save your life - That, my dear readers, is a friend.)

But I already have a blog, don't I? I had forgotten about this one, my lone, dusty blog - conceived in 2009 by my computer and me, with the blessings of the great magical love of the internet - until about thirty minutes ago when I stumbled upon it and remembered why I stopped writing here in the first place. I stopped writing because I became insecure about sharing my thoughts with others/cyberspace/the world. Such have been the events in my life, especially within the past year, that I question everything. Reliability, trust, safety. Everything.

But clearly, you see, nameless reader, that this kind of insecurity will not do. This backwards-moving kind of paranoia based on unfortunate events, which stick out in my memory like roots perpetually placed in front of my feet, will get me nowhere. I'll have the desire to blog and not do so because of what the crabby critic in my brain will say the next time I reread my entries. Then I'll probably begin to spend hours each day sitting by the window, watching the outside world. The next thing I know, I'll be confining myself to a room in the attic of my parents' New England home, writing hundreds of title-less poems with a lot of hyphens and animal riddles, two verses away from becoming addicted to World of Warcraft or Second Life.

And of course, all of these things have already been done.

So to leave you, dear reader, with my first brave post, I offer a poem, which will also serve as an apology to my aforementioned friend if he finds himself reading this.

the news
by yours truly.

when we awaken, it is one thousand times repeated.
shadows, unexpected visitors, sit in our living rooms,
making themselves at home on old couches.
they read our magazines, check our email, fold our clothes
and take up a part in our bodies, undisturbed.
they eat the yogurt in our fridge,
they replace the toilet paper,
they pour us drinks,
they wait for night

I keep secrets on my bathroom mirror
on post-it notes
mantras to a self that is somewhere under the sex.
while trying to find her,
suddenly, out of the corners of my blue eyes,
I bleed blue, and discover my lips, and see my face.
I touch my fingers to my cheek, and look in the mirror,
and I say, “There you are,”
number 597, “Stay a while.”

Monday morning I trip over recycling in my kitchen
and fall onto the linoleum.
the week before
at a local Thai restaurant
where the food is good, where I have long talks
and hope that my companion
may stay with me a little longer
I use the bathroom
and recognize the floor

Late at night, after I put into my head all that the day has left for me to put into my head, and I examine the scars on my body and within, and decide that the day is through, I think about matters which at 1:28 a.m. are suddenly pressing. Philosophical matters, life matters, love matters. And, matters that have seemingly little to do with the dirty dishes in my sink.

I think about the people I know, the places I've been, my own morality and mortality, experiential evaluation of motives and machinations and manipulations. And after mulling over what really will prove, in the morning, to have been another useless exercise in rumination, I either make a cup of tea, or read. I ignore the dirty dishes in my sink, ignore the dirty clothes on the floor, and ignore the temptation to ruminate on questions that cannot be answered and problems that cannot be solved (and because no one, I must remind myself, will expect me to have the answers to such questions in the morning). In a word, I ruminate.

And thus, ladies and gentlemen, comes today's (perhaps this week's, or this month's) fabulous epiphany:

My habits, not my desires, are what define me.

Simple, I know. However, proverbs cross-stitched on pillows and posters of inspirational quotes featuring kittens don't have nearly as much bang for their buck as internal epiphany. Even if that epiphany must be made over and over again, and feels new every time. (And you're thinking, well, Margaret, you're wasting your time. Have an epiphany, remember it, move on. Not so easy, says I.)

The lure of procrastination, which I so often succumb to, only leaves these unanswered questions about the worth and direction and meaning and poetry of my life open to further scrutiny. The more I abstain from good habits (i.e. doing the dishes, going grocery shopping, getting to bed early, aka being a competent adult), the more I ponder life's big questions.

The other day I found myself holding back in a heated discussion in which I was itching to participate. Very much unlike me until the past year or so, I found myself torn with the prospect of volunteering my point, or keeping quiet. My brain filled with the urgings of doubt and insecurity. Insecurity must look like the token bully of seventh grade, a smirk glued to his pudgy little prepubescent face. He wears smells like ax and has an annoying voice and is an asshole.

Little Damien won this battle, and I said nothing. I knew I would regret it, and I did, and I do. My point would have enriched the conversation with another perspective, another valid point, I later reminded myself.

So, why all the insecurity? As an abuse survivor and the child of an alcoholic who also grapples with a debilitating long-term illness, this may be a loaded question. However.

The dishes are in the sink. Dirty. Ready to be washed. And I spend minutes of precious sleeping time beating life's big questions raw, instead of washing the damn dishes or writing the memoir or practicing the scales.

A Liberal Fart

I'm nearing the end of my undergraduate degree at a liberal arts college. Perhaps I've been watching too much of The Office, perhaps a recent bout of poor health and family death has gifted me with a visionary veneer of gloom, perhaps I feel I've paid too much and have received too little from my soon-to-be alma mater. Senioritis mixed with 'get me the hell out of here' mixed with 'what am I supposed to do now' makes for indigestion, continual bad dreams, and the feeling that, well, I just don't know how much I've really learned. Or at least, I don't know if it was worth as much as I paid for it, and not just in money.

I've learned a lot about social politics, about bureaucracy, about the toll too little sleep and too much Harold Bloom can take on a person. Nearing the end of life-long academic jaunt has left me feeling disorganized, unsure, and unimaginative. I've been in school for so long that all I can think of doing next is staying in school. Owning a small business or working in an office or traveling somewhere and teaching all seem unreachable for me in some tangible, practical way. I feel unprepared to perform normal 'real person' jobs, but fulfilling my stereotypical destiny as a upper middle class white kid from the suburbs, I'm disappointed that I haven't become Lady Gaga overnight.

Is it my dissatisfying liberal arts education that has left me hungry for more, or the continually reinforced unrealistic expectations of what cultural God I can be when I grow up?

Let's be realistic, here. Can I really grow up to be a country singer or an astronaut or a world-class musician? The vast majority of people who may start out as energetic passionate children ready to take on the world become office drones who hate their lives and whose sole excitements every week are their favorite TV programs.

Is this pessimism, or realism? I feel tentative, nostalgic for a time when I really believed I could do anything in the real world, when I didn't even know the concept of "settling" even existed. Is there a word for that other than naivete or stupidity? Perhaps my peers know how I feel - as if I'm so deadened by an academic process meant to engage and impassion students that I can't even remember what I wanted to do with my life.

When I searched for recent articles about the job market on CNN.com, I found an article entitled "How to Make Any Job Better", featuring a picture of coworkers drinking beer. The article also led me to Oprah.com, where I could take a variety of career aptitude quizzes (like the ones you take in junior high) and articles about the meaning of my life (like the ones a 'life coach' gives you).

It's not exactly that I've lost hope. I guess I feel like I've been tricked, duped. Everyone faces obstacles, so I really can't put the blame on my over-restrictive but well-meaning parents, or frequent serious illness. Countless others have come to this place before me. So what's the truth here? Do answers lie in the arts? In consumerism? If I buy more shoes, will my papers be more coherent and intelligent? Perhaps I need to read more English Romantic Poetry, and watch more claymation and stop motion films, and revive my imagination. And buy a Snuggie.

I'm nearing graduation, and am afraid and despondent. Isn't this the opposite of how a graduate of a liberal arts college majoring in the humanities is supposed to feel? Or have I somehow fulfilled my calling?