Marry me. Own me.

Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

My big term paper in 12th grade AP English was about Jane Eyre, specifically the concept of love in Jane Eyre. I've been trying to create my home my entire life. I never had one place that I could call home. I had a smattering of locations, and all of them together just wasn't home. But I found a home inside myself that I carried with me everywhere. It was safe. I made forts with pillows and blankets and my pink depression glass lamps I've had my whole life; and I would read The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew. I don't remember a lot of snacks, but my mother often bought graham crackers, so those I remember more than anything else. That was my "home".

I was told that my real home would someday be with a partner, a husband. He would give my life meaning. He would take all of the idiosyncrasies about me and somehow create meaning from them. He, this unknown person, was the only way I could become whole and complete. He was the only way  that someone would care about me the way I imagined was possible. He would care that I hate watermelon and love swings at the fair. He would listen to me when I wanted to talk, because it would be his job to listen and care. In sum, my future husband would love me the way no one else could.

Well I'm 31 years old, and I'm not married. I've never been married. I haven't met this amazing person who is going to save me, change my life so completely I'll finally be whole. So I've had to learn along the way that life is too hard to wait for this person to arrive. Life is too long to wait for someone that may never come.

Whatever the truth, I've learned that one person doesn't "complete" another person, and so to even strive for that is a futile occupation. Don't I deserve to be complete all on my own? Don't I deserve to be loved all on my own? And don't I deserve to be fully known without a spouse? Yes, yes, and a resounding yes.

So I find my home all within myself, and I carry it with me wherever I go.

Haiti relief: Parte Deux

Stoneware mugs made in Romania - Eastern Europe, hollah!

Sometimes I get a pain in my chest when I wish that I could do something that I cannot do, and it usually has to do with helping someone, or teaching someone something. When I have that special moment of realization that I cannot control other people, or change them, or teach them adequately what no one but Life has taught me, I sit in a pool of sorrow, with the chest pain.

The world can be a horrible, awful place. And in my life, I have seen a lot of that awfulness, and I've had to reconcile with it, look it in the face and acknowledge that it exists. This has made me the awesome person that I am today, but it also makes me like eighty-years-old. And I walk around with this knowledge every day, hoping that I could save people from it, save them from war, and murder, and rape, and incest, and the deep lasting wounds in families and people that last for generations. I wish I could save people from ever knowing, because it's an awful thing, this knowing.

But it is in the knowing (about all the bad awfulness) that true peace and understanding can be found, where that inability to control that we all have, can be accepted and owned, and truly felt deep down in our bones.

When we try to spare others from pain, sometimes it backfires, and our best intentions are like water in a bucket full of holes. Sometimes the best things we can do for one another, are to stand in solidarity, to acknowledge pain, and to comfort those who mourn.

Too abstract? Whatever. Peace out mofos :)

BIKRAM #2 (and #3)

 

So Tuesday, I went back to the hot yoga studio. There was a different instructor, and she suggested that I sit out one set of each posture (they do two sets of everything), so I did. After an hour, I thought I was going to die from the heat and I couldn't slow my heart rate down, so I just laid on the ground for the last twenty minutes and willed my breath to keep me alive. I succeeded.

Wednesday (i.e. yesterday), I went again, this time not because I had something to prove to myself or anyone else, but because I really wanted to go back. My job can be stressful if I allow it to be, and it's really nice to look forward to a time where I can let out all the bad stuff that's hanging out in my body. I'm not a big believer in toxins and all that jazz. I'm not going to buy a cleansing kit that does horrible things, nor am I going to go crazy and do the cayenne/lemonade thing. But a regular thing that makes me feel good every day? I think I can get behind that.

I know. I know. Now I'm a crazy Bikram convert. But seriously, I need something to look forward to that is different from everything else. I need something that doesn't mess with my spine or my blood sugar. So, for the time being, this is going to be it. Deal with it haters.

On another note, I moved back home last night. At one point, I had dirty laundry, clean laundry, food, all my eBay stuff, my briefcase, toiletries, and my post-yoga mat and towels all in piles in my super small living room. If the lighting were better in my apartment, I would have taken a picture. It was scary stuff.

Then I cried about turning 30 and laughed while watching Bachelor Pad. All in a day's work.

Olympic Swimming :)

French Lead Crystal Goblets - Pompadour Pattern

I am having so much trouble watching the Olympics. It makes me really sad. I had to have a talk with myself this afternoon to get over the disappointment. I had to figure out why I was sad.

When I was a kid, let's see, over the past almost 30 years, I have seen many Olympic games. It was always a beloved thing in my family, and every four years, we sat together and enjoyed the solidarity and beauty of the games. As an adolescent, my swim coach brought a television to the pool and we'd watch in between sets. National-level swimming got me through high school, in a way. The idea of somehow rising to that level kept me motivated to train for years on end. The Olympics were like some far-off dream of all that swimming was meant to be. They inspired me to think big, even when those who believed in me most told me I'd never measure up.

And I didn't. I was a mediocre swimmer at best. I was the hardest worker in the pool, and certainly formidable as a high school swimmer in a small country pond, but as a year-round club swimmer, I was always in the middle of the pack, usually on the slower end. The Olympics make me sad because they represent the idea that we each have greatness inside of us, that we each have the capacity to be "The Best" at some thing. But now that I'm an adult, and my competitive swimming days are done (and I'm glad about that), I don't know how I'm gonna find greatness in my life. I don't know how I'm going to prove to myself that I'm good enough. I thought those letters after my name would help, but they really don't.

I imagine that at the end of the day, gold medals aren't that awesome anyway for those who win them. I imagine that they feel amazing for a while, as well they should, but then life goes quickly back to normal, and the winner still has to face their own humanity. That's how life seems to work out for me anyway.

There was a time, a moment in time, that I was crazy fast (crazy stupid fast). And when that moment passed, I was done swimming. I proved to myself that I had it in me, and then I was done. I got out of that pool, and never looked back. So when I have moments like this, like I'm having right now, wishing my life had turned out differently, I remember that moment, and it's all worth it.

Drunk teenagers

Vintage Peanuts bed-sheet - Charlie Brown & Snoopy :)

Yesterday, I hung out with drunk teenagers. It was 5 o'clock in the evening, and they wanted to start roaming the neighborhood, so I accompanied them. We went to the park, swung on the swings, and generally had a nice time. They were overly affectionate and making friends with people they referred to as "hobos", as in, "Hobos sure are cool, Megan." Eventually, I decided I'd had enough and turned for home. Once we were inside an enclosed space, I immediately wanted them to leave. I wanted to sit with adults and eat dinner, and not have teenagers screaming in my ear.

At one point in my life, I too was a stupid drunk teenager. I drank a lot in high school, and by the time I graduated, was pretty much done with the scene. I got to college, and it seemed so strange to me. Where was the fun? Where did I fit in if I didn't drink? How could I be social and well-liked, but not have to go to worship night and sing hymns? It never seemed like there were other options, so I played the part. A close friend regales me with stories of me at parties, drunk and topless, which I have no memory of.

I drank for the same reason most people do. I drank to get away from feeling lost and alone. I drank to fit in. I drank to pretend that everything in my life was okay, and that I wasn't miserable all the time. It worked. But it also brought out my selfishness, and my tendency to be unkind. I was too honest, unfiltered, and passed out quickly. I was like a tornado, spinning quickly through the room, spreading loads of damage, then disappearing into the night.

I don't miss those days. I don't miss feeling so awful, hating myself so incredibly much. I like myself today, and I strive to spend my time in a way that encourages self-love and discourages self-loathing. Oftentimes, I am too hard on myself, and I expect more of myself than I do of anyone else. But sometimes I get it right, and then on a rare occasion think, "Gosh I'm glad to be alive". But that's not today. I'll try again tomorrow.

Peace out :)

Postscript (10/21/12): I in no way contributed to the teenagers being drunk, just in case you worrywarts are having anxiety.

Thrift Share Monday :)

Vintage clip-on earrings - no signature, but aren't they awesome?

I am being really hard on myself right now. I usually assume that everyone thinks as poorly about me as I do about myself. I don't know that this is true. I've been told that it isn't. These moments (and I have them every once in a while) are full of comparisons to other people, and self-flagellation about not being A, B, or C when I reach age thirty less than two months from now.

Laurel Burch "Toucan" earrings - very fun :)

I wish I thought less of myself, as in, thought I was less important. But I was raised to believe that the world's emotional health was entirely dependent upon me, and that's a tough false belief to shake.

I just know that someone out there would love these, just not me.

When we thrift, like as a lifestyle, nothing is ever perfect. We may see it as perfect, but let's face it. Think of all the hands that touched it before you found it. How's that for perfection? I don't know why I allow everything else in my life to be imperfect, yet continue to expect myself to somehow rise above and defy gravity.

I suppose sometimes I imagine that other people need me to be perfect in order to keep loving me, and my love of thrift is my statement to the world that I will, in fact, never be perfect, and everyone just needs to deal with it. Now if only I could get my frontal lobe involved in this operation...

Linking up with Apron Thrift Girl :)