Like Love

Throughout one of our long conversations, I asked Chris about seeing someone you may have loved before. Would that be weird in any way? I’m probably freaking out about this since I was thinking about seeing any of the people I have cared about. I’m over it. I know it’s over, and yet I still feel kinda weird if I run into them. He said that you never stop loving someone once you begin, and I wondered how akward that must be, if a person has tons of relationships. A lot of our friends are textbook serial monogamists, and I am, wherever I am, but when I’ve loved someone it was hard, and ever more difficult to go through the process of ending it. But with Chris saying that love is quantifiable, I wonder, what happens to all the love out there that’s in little envelopes that say return to sender?

Then I got it. If someoen loves a lot of people and has a lot of serious relationshps, then loving someone could be like Raid. You know, that stuff that kills roaches. Think about it: roaches check in roach hotels, and they don’t check out. Or, they do check out and several minutes later, they die. Raid’s effective because it kills roaches, but also because it keeps on working after they die. So, is love like that? What if someone checks you out, considers being with you for a while, and then they leave. According to Chris’s idea, the person still carries around that love with them, even if they die, and if the relationship dies, then there goes your love. It’s still out there, but it’s useless at this point.

Is love quantifiable? Is there an infinite amount of it? If there is, then why does it hurt so much when someone breaks my heart? I mean, you can get a new one. Then maybe the Raid thing is something to examine. It’s a love that’s unreturned and well…dead in a way, but it’s still present for the one who’s feeling it.

These past few days I’ve considerd how little I take care of myself emotionally and phsychally and how I need to work on that, since I’ll have the time in my schedule. I still think that sex can be given freely, under proper arrangements, but there might be a limited amount of love to go around at one time.

On Haitus

After the last week of school, I usually go to my mom’s house in Vista (which is a little island to me) veg out, eat junk food, read trashy romance novels and watch reality television. It’s more a detox than anything, a purging way to get over the last school year. I just want to take a break from my life. I need one of those more than anything, but I don’t have the time to do that.

I looked at my planner to figure out what exactly I’d need to do over the summer. I have 200 hours left in my Americorps contract, and I have to finished those, along with my Spanish class, find a place up there, end stuff down here, and everything. I have about seven weeks to do all this stuff, and I’m afraid I may not have enough time for my haitus moments when I do nothing at all.

And I just got my grades back from this last quarter. I didn’t do all that well, but I was expecting it. Last quarter was a pain, and I’m surprised I even finished it. I wanted to drop out because the pressure was so great from having to finish. Now I know what it’s like when college students drop out their final quarter.

My grades, including an A- in advanced fiction and an A in Creative Nonfiction, just said to me that I might not like writing as much as I thought I did. I’m tired of it. The workshops, the drafting, the analyzing and re-analyzing every bullshit to make sure it sounds right, feels right, blah blah blah. I’m so tired of all of it. I was going to be published in Mosaic, but there were some complications with that, that I care not to discuss. I think I want to take a break from writing, at least in a professional sense, but I’m not sure if it’s a the smart thing to do. I mean, I like to write, so that would make me a writer, right? I’m not so sure anymore.

I think that what I’m feeling is maybe not the strain of writing, but writing professionally, or for an audience. I don’t like to do all the polishing that comes in it. Maybe I’m just a little burned out. Maybe I need to take a vacation from my life.

I’ve devoted a lot more time to my nonfiction, than I have to my fiction this year, probably because I find so many interesting things to talk about. I don’t find as many in fiction, or at least it’s more difficult to write about them. I’ll probably take about six months off from writing anything and sending it anywhere, mainly because I want to take a break. I want to put my entire life on haitus, because right now, it’s getting on my nerves. I’ll be moving in a few weeks, so I want to focus on getting to know the area and my job, and maybe trying to live without worrying about a workshop or something. At least, that’s the plan.

But has anyone else has trouble with writing for an intended audience? Greg, this could mean you. I need some advice about the haitus thing.

Seeing Single (Trust Me)

When I get to the point where I have an established career, as a writer, or a consultant, or whatever, the first thing I want to buy is an Italian greyhound. I love greyhounds.

Really. No, for real.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, since the beginning of this quarter. Most of my friends are in same sex partnerships, and this spring, at least three have gone to the buying puppy time. You should’ve seen it. When one couple announced, “Well, we’ve been thinking about getting a puppy,” some of my other friends ran over and hugged them with congrats, like they just announced they were pregnant or something. I can’t help but feel a certain pang of jealousy, because I want to be at buying puppy time with someone, and I’ve never been even close.

I should say for the record that I’ve never been in a serious relationship. When I say serious relationship, I mean where me and party have gone, you’re my boyfriend, or girlfriend, or no one’s ever said to me, I want you to be my girlfriend. For a while this used to bug me, because I felt like I should’ve been at the age where I had had at least one serious relationship. Sure, I’ve met some cool folks, and dated some, but it’s never gone to boyfriend/girlfriend status. I’ve always wondered if this makes me a little immature because things never turn out how I want them to.

Then I found this, a radio show that had study on serial monogamy. Turns out, men are happiest in serial relationships, because they can get a new girlfriend every six months, while women are happiest when they are single. This was really enlightening, because I thought that I was going to dwindle into nothing without having a relationship to attach myself to. Reading this blog, I’ve found that there are some times when I like being single. I like not having to answer to anyone, and let’s face it, this isn’t the best time for me to get into a serious relationship anyway.

The radio show did say something about women investing more in relationships, whereas men can get up whenever they want. I’ve spent the past six months thinking and rethinking about my own relationship patterns, and if those have any thing to say as to why I haven’t been in a serious relationship.

To be honest, I used to go for emotionally intense relationships. This seems to be the model I have from the relationship with my mom. Our relationship is emotionally intense, but it’s also draining; she’s controlling and excessively demanding, and I’ve found that I actively engage in these types of relationships, where, although they’re strong, they’re emotionally draining and one sided.

It was like that with my first love. I wanted to spend every evening with him in London, whether it be awake in his bed, on in his lap, or watching him shave, just being near him was enough for me. The thing was that, now, in hindsight, I realize that he used me as an emotional crutch. When things were bad with his sometimes girlfriend, he wanted to spend all sorts of time with me. But when things were all good, I didn’t hear from him. I got tired of the unreturned phone calls, the evasion, the crying myself to sleep wishing I could hold a man whom I subconsciously knew didn’t love me. I wanted to be loyal, but I finally confronted him and we decided it was best for us not to speak. This really hurt, since I wanted to think I could end up with him. And yes, we got along fine, when we weren’t arguing over how he didn’t communicate with me. It really hurt, and whenever the 5th rolls around, I think of him, how it’s been one month, two months, three months since we’ve last spoken. Now I’m in the sixth month, and I broke down.

There was another man too. I met him online and we talked for almost a year, and he asked me to come out and see him. Granted, we never said we were committed to each other, but he did know I was interested in him romantically. What hurt was that he was in the process of hooking up with one of his other friends, and he refused to spend time with me when I got up there. He lied through evasion, and didn’t owe up to an emotional tie.

Both times I was really hurt. There’s a certain uncertainty that goes into relationships which is difficult to navigate. Yes, I invest deeply in all my relationships (this including friendships) but I don’t see any reason to stop that. I’m not as emotionally intense as I used to be, but I think my intensity has waned due to these bad experiences. I’m not as enthusiastic as I used to be.

Part of the emotional investment is in trust. I said in a previous post, that it’s more of a compliment to trust someone, than it is to love them, and that’s especially true in relationships. I need to be with someone whom I feel safe with. With both men, and in other involvements I had this ominous feeling that I was going to get thrown out in a week at the person’s whim. This is from a lack of control and power in the relationship. If I meet someone, next time I want to make sure I can trust the person before I go on. Trust is extremely important to me, and now I realize I have to honor that preference much more. With that said, I like remaining single for now.

Which isn’t to say I’m not dating. In fact, I’ve done quite some dating, and met some people I liked and had some amazing experiences. I’ve been going out with a particular guy, but I’m wondering if I hold him at arms length because of this trust issue. But that’s another post.

I guess I’m just saying that right now, I like having control of my life, as opposed to giving control over to someone who’s love might not even be true. I think that when I get involved with someone who’s more honest, and I can learn a little more about myself, I’ll be prepared for the healthy relationship I desire. I’m getting my little greyhound single or in a couple.

This Class Sucks

I lied awake this morning with my mom and little brother in bed, waiting for the alarm to go off at five a.m. There was a reason why I was up this early, on a Saturday. My commencement was at 8 a.m., and that included ironing, showering, hair curling and dressing, talking, talking, too many conversations on the cell phone with people who didn’t know how to get to my house. Yes, Calvin you turn on that street. Or No, you went too far I felt my voice straining to the get sentence out. My voice has left me on and off a gain for quite some time now. And even during the ceremony, I almost didn’t hear the pomp and circumstance, almost didn’t care I just had my robe while other people had stoles and multicolored sashes I couldn’t gotten as well. I almost didn’t take the picture before they announced my name, last name pronounced correctly as I stumbled up the platform in adorable gold wedges that I almost fell in. I shook a man’s hand that wasn’t even a hand, and meekly accepted the Chancellor’s half hearted handshake. No one took a group photograph with me, and when I spoke to my mom in my living room, adorned only with a safety orange sofa, she said she almost cried but she barely heard my name.

Barely. This seems to be the bane of my college existence. I actually have one more class to take, but after that, I am done, and officially a college graduate with a bachelor in the arts in Creative Writing. I can change my myspace profile, and join the ranks of the 20% of the rest of the nation. But most of this ceremony seems skipped, like I missed some stuff. Hell, I didn’t even want to go. I just want to get my degree so I can get out of here. But then I heard that Billy Collins was the keynote and besides, I wanted to do this for my family. If I had blinked, been sleeper, been quieter, which isn’t possible, I would’ve missed everything.

So what did I get here? Or better yet, what’s so different from this and other ceremonies? The concept of ceremonies is a tricky one, because it’s highly performative, as exists for the sake of others. My grandfather died last week, but that funeral was for the living, to reconnect, to possibly see if they have any life with each other. The man hasn’t spoken to me in years, and has never called, even though he has my number. I wasn’t a part of his life, so I didn’t see any reason to partake in his death.

I wasn’t always like this though. Five years ago, I sat in a foil colored robe at the Pacifica center for the Oceanside High Class of 2002. I had on a black dress and killer heels and a 200 hundred dollar weave, ready to reclaim my life for my own. I was going to be 18 soon, and it was mine. All mine. I figured I was moving on to UC Riverside, even though my mom didn’t want me to, even though I didn’t know anything about Riverside, but I knew everything out there was much better than high school. I had thought, this class sucks, and as soon as I graduated, I would be amongst the elite, the intellectuals like me, who thought the same thoughts and wanted the same things. Graduating would change my life.

If only I knew that the people I went to high school, are the same people I went to college with. That was a slow realization that still hurts me to this day. No one has the same thoughts or intellect as I do, because there’s only one me, and sometimes the ephiphany of that loneliness hurt. I did do more in college than I did in high school. I made Deans List, found a life long friend, developed some weird and writable relationships with faculty. I’ve left the country, left the state, participated in conferences and leadership roles, had my first kiss, lost my virginity (both of them) fallen in love twice, cut myself, considered suicide, gone on meds, got off meds, been rejected, turned down for jobs, questioned my own career decisions and life choices. I did a lot of stuff, but none of it made me happy or satisfied, the way I thought I was going to feel at my high school graduation.

And now all of this stuff is just barely. This quarter was perhaps the hardest for me to finish because I was so tired, with working, and schooling, and thinking that I thought I was going to pass out from exhaustion, and instead I took tons of naps. Instead of ending it with a bang, it was a whimper, a list of barelys. And I think that’s because I don’t know what the future has for me now.

I could’ve taken the easy way out and applied for grad school, but being an undergrad has made me cynical enough, and I need the break. I decided to work, so in about six weeks I have to finish my Spanish course, finish my 200 hours on my contract, pack, go to the dentist, find a place to live — in Oakland. I’ll be spending my birthday in Salt Lake City or Atlanta, wherever my job orientation will be. I’ll have to learn a new city completely.

Billy Collins said we should do something that doens’t relate to our degree totoally, and we don’t get comfortable and complacent, and that it doesn’t matter if we go East, West, North or South, just go, get away from here and explore the world, because we’re at the age where we can depend on luck, and the world will catch us with its arms. We won’t have this much luck, health, and freedom with us more than any other time in our lives.

And tha’ts how I’m thinking about this job. This wasn’t a plan. This wasn’t something I had on my mind for years and years, it was just something I gently hurdled towards with tons of jobs, hours, and trying things out. I don’t even know if I’m the right person for this job. What if I suck at it? What if I’m overwhelmed? I had refuse other offers and my heart broke, explaining why to potential employers, because this decision hurts me. I liked all of those jobs.

I was talking to Anita yesterday about the new job. She had this to say:

me: i’m so nervous. what if i make the wrong decision?

anita.jath: its ok
its yoru frist job
I can always rely on the wisdom of friends to get me through. So even though I am now, sitting

front of my computer, blogging, without a real idea for what’s going on today, I can take a deep

breath and stop worrying. Relax darling, you’ll be fine because the world is there to catch me.

Even though this is scary, I know I’ve gotten what I need to go on and I am ready to leave. I can

take a break from writing, and try to live for a change. Take a dance class. Learn a new

language. I’ll make new friends, and if I chose, take on a lover. Releasing the apron strings of

education is tough, but I’m prepared. And to the UC Riverside, all those hard times, those

moments I spent becoming something, I want to just say to everyone, I mean everyone:

I thank you. I love you.

The New Fabulous Job Search

This week has been filled with finals, working, Glucking, studying and writing, and I am happy to say I’m done with it all. I don’t think I did as well as I wanted to, but I’m done. I recently finished all of my phone interviews for VISTA positions, and I’ve reached quite a dilemma. I was accepted for quite a few positions. I had a feeling it would be between the Berkeley and Oakland job, but I wasn’t sure. So, being judgemental person I am, I did some research, asked some folks, made a list of all the things I would want in a city or a job. I came up with this chart:

My New Fabulous Job Search
	Cities
Factors	Berkeley	Oakland	Hayward	Vallejo	Marin County
Cost of Living	50	60	90	90	50
Aesthetics	90	70	70	20	100
Setting (Urban/Suburban)	40	70	30	20	45
Proximity	100	90	70	20	50
Diversity	50	80	90	40	40
Culture	80	70	40	35	50
Job/ Longevity	40	80	75	75	70
Independency	30	90	75	75	85
Company Growth	20	80	75	75	70
Support/Training	60	85	75	75	70
Job Skills	70	80	75	75	85
Social Scene	80	80	30	25	60
Noise Level	70	30	80	90	90
Crime	80	30	70	60	90
Where I’d want to live	100	70	50	40	60
Raw Score	960	1065	995	815	1015

Each score is out of 100 points, so the higher the points the more desirable quality it was. For example, ‘crime’ is 80, which means that it has less crime, compared to other cities like Oakland. Looking at the raw scores, Oakland is probably a better choice, but oddly enough, Marin was kinda high. I already for the offer for the Oakland position, and it was between that one and Berkely. I think I’ll take Oakland, because the company offers career longevity and is opened to hiring VISTA members long term, and the Berkeley one was not. Oddly enough, I would’ve been pretty happy in Marin or Hayward. Something told me I was going to take the Oakland one, but it helps to see a visual of it. I’m going to sleep on it, then call the employers with my decision. Anyway, I should go to sleep for a few hours at least, then get up and clean because my mom is coming over tomorow. I can’t believe I’m walking tomorrow. This is so exciting!