Growing up

I'm not saying anything profound here, just looking for an outlet, a place to say "OK life, I get it now".

Growing up, it's not the same as growing older. When I was a kid, I'd start a lot of sentences with "when I grow up". When I grow up I want to be a writer. When I grow up I'll stay out late and eat candy all the time. When I grow up I'll find out what doing "it" entails. What I really meant is "when I grow older".
Growing older is something that happens to all of us, pretty much at the same rate. We all hit puberty around age 10-14. Our brains finish developing in our mid 20s, our bodies begin to wear out in our 40s, this wearing out process continues until we are elderly, then someday our "growing older" becomes "passing".

Growing up though, is made up of experiences: the kind that leave your cheeks wet, your throat raw, your mind muddled, your expression bewildered.  Growing up is having your brother die, or your baby, or your mother or father. It's struggling through the heartbreak of divorce. It's a new diagnosis of breast cancer, bipolar disorder, infertility.  It's seeing that life has an uncontrollable element that happens to all of us. I look around at friends all the time and think "when the hell did we all get so grown up"? But I know.

When I was a kid I thought being a grown up was a qualitative thing: you were either a grown up or not a grown up. I see now that growing up is like growing older; it's not done until you are in the ground.

10 things to do for a successful marriage blah blah blah

I haven't blogged in awhile, though I have ideas all the time on things I want to talk about.  I usually think of them at work or otherwise away from my computer, so I email them to myself.  By the time I have both the time to write and the computer sitting in front of me, the passion behind my ideas is gone.  So instead of writing a stale blog about the subjects I've recently emailed to myself (cat and dog at night, poverty, Arkansas, gay marriage, and resolutions) I'll write about my most recent thoughts.

If you have ever been on the internet, you've probably seen an article or blog along these lines (especially popular in the Facebook/Pinterest scene): "What to do for a happy marriage" "10 things couples do in a successful relationship" blah blah blah.  I hate advice.  I hate relationship advice, child rearing advice, career advice.  But I also feel there is definite worth in sharing experiences and learning from others.  So if I had to list the top ten most important factors in the relationship between Alex and myself, my article would go something like this:

1. Respect. Respect, I feel, is the single most important value in any relationship. It is important between two partners, parent and child, even human & environment.

2. Friendship. Alex is the first person I think of when I hear the phrase "best friend". He is the first person I go to when I want to share my joys & sorrows. At the same time I know the other friendships in my life are ultimately what allow me to be the friend I need to be to Alex.

3. Physical intimacy. Because a relationship without this is just friendship, folks. Keep it alive, keep it real, keep it frequent.

4. Ability to adapt to change. There is nothing in existence that doesn't change (except maybe styrofoam, that shit is forever). Both partners will change with time and the dynamic between the two will change as well. I think that acknowledging & embracing that fact is important. I keep in mind at all times that change isn't bad, it's different.

5. Ability to see the good. Everyone has bad qualities. This becomes especially apparent when you make a lifetime commitment to them. But don't overlook the good, the big & small. See it, appreciate it, and share it. Sometimes your partner isn't even aware of all his or her strengths unless you point them out.

6. Vulnerability. I think to be successful in a relationship you need to be all in. Of course, this makes you open to a world of hurt if your partner doesn't respect (ah, the magic word) that vulnerability and become vulnerable himself (or herself).

7. Fun. Cause otherwise, what's the point? It doesn't have to be fun all the time (and indeed, don't expect it to be or you may be setting yourself up for failure) but if fun is nonexistent in a relationship it's time to reevaluate things.

8. Work. Everyone says marriage isn't easy and I find this to be true & an understatement. It is work. Just like working at your job to earn money you must work at your relationship to earn contentment. Put in hours, sharpen your skills,  troubleshoot. This car can't drive itself.

9. Distance. I see Alex and myself as two separate entities. We each see things differently & experience things differently. I can't assume that I know what is going on inside of him, even if we are in the exact same situation. Be understanding.
This is why number 10 is important.

10. Communication. Some people are innately better than others at communication, but it is a skill you can practice & improve on. I think communication will keep a marriage afloat during hard times, and can even prevent a lot of hard times from happening.

That's my list. I know you might be thinking "but she's never been through what I've been through" or "they don't even have kids, what does she know?". That is absolutely correct. Everyone has a different situation, different experiences. I don't think everything in my list pertains to everyone, or even anything on my list to some (except respect, don't care who you are, gotta have it). I'm sure my list will even change as my life goes on, but it's what I've come up with for my current 8 year relationship. So don't take it as advice but rather as a chance to see another point of view & maybe learn from it.

On looking inward

I just finished reading Quiet, by Susan Cain.  I understand that am an introvert, and most anyone who knows me would agree.  I always have been a quiet person, a bit eccentric, but always quiet.  And I have taken the Myers-Briggs test before.  Of course the result was a big fat "I" (introvert).  But what did that mean?  I've never quite grasped it to the extent that I do after reading this book.  In this post I hope to help you better understand what it means to be an introvert.

The best synonym I have found for introvert is highly-sensitive.  The part of the brain that processes emotions  and sensory information is called the amygdala.  Studies have shown that the amygdala in introverts is especially excitable.  This means that for an introvert, a high level of stimulation can easily be overwhelming.  If you consider this, you can see why a large group of people can be intimidating for an introvert.

Now that you understand that, the following characteristics will make sense:

1- An introvert doesn't care for small talk.  Introverts like to talk about subjects of depth.  This could be philosophies, politics, personal problems.  They like to listen and process what the other person is saying and when they speak, they want their words to be meaningful.  Empty words are wasteful.

2- Introverts gain energy from being alone, verses extroverts who gain energy from being with people.  They will often find themselves looking for excuses to get out of social obligations because they simply don't have the energy for it.

3- Introverts like to take in all the information and look at the big picture.  Because of this, many are slow to come to decisions and tend to be more cautious.

4- Introverts tend to be very empathetic and prone to feeling guilty.  Because of this, most are extremely loyal and honest people.

5- Introverts are good at focusing.  As long as an introvert is in a quiet, not overstimulating environment, they can be with their thoughts for hours.  This is why many scientists, artists, and thinkers are introverts.  That doesn't mean that introverts are inherently more intelligent, they are just better at spending time alone, letting their thoughts take them away.

That's all I have for now.  If you want to know more (and you should!). I recommend reading Quiet, both to you extroverts and introverts out there.

On Stephen King's Pen Name

Today I began reading a book written by Richard Bachman, The Long Walk.  The book included an essay Stephen King wrote on his pseudonym (which, by the way, he still occasionally uses.  The last book written by Bachman was in 2007).  If you have a chance you should read the whole thing: http://www.liljas-library.com/bachman_king.php.  From it I fell in love with this quote and wanted to share it:

"The good folks mostly win, courage usually triumphs over fear, the family dog hardly ever contracts rabies; these are things I knew at twenty - five, and things I still know now, at the age (almost) of 25 x 2. But I know something else as well: there's a place in most of us where rain is pretty much constant, the shadows are always long, and the woods are full of monsters. It is good to have a voice in which the terrors of such a place can be articulated and its geography partially described, without denying the sunshine and clarity that fill so much of our ordinary lives"

I read this on the train ride home from work.  It wasn't a hard day, not a particularly long or stressful day, but I was tired and ready to be home.  On one stop a couple of boys (probably six and eight, if I had to guess) got on, along with a gentleman who was having a conversation with them.  I overheard him asking them about how many meals they were getting every day.  I learned that they were on the way to the library "for the books".  They recently found a home in the homeless shelter with their mother.  They had seen something very terrible that no child should ever see (I will not say because that's not what this is about).  They were getting two soupy meals a day.  And they had to get up around 7 am everyday, "even though it's summertime!"  

To me it was an oddly timed reminder the truth that these terrors do exist, both within and outside of us.  You must acknowledge that they are there.  Do what you can when you can.  But don't lose the sunshine that should fill your life.

As far as I got.

Final blog post on the "novel" I wanted to write when I was in high school.

Last one.  This is it, my friends.  As far as I got.  I'm going to tell you what I think about the whole thing at the end.  When you finish reading, you should form your own opinions before you read mine and share by commenting.  It helps to know my strengths and weaknesses and I won't be offended.

         “Come on now, Son, don’t dawdle.  I need to talk to you.”  My father spoke in an eerily kind tone, one that would be on a TV show, the family seated happily around a kitchen table with a plate of old fashioned cookin’ placed in front of them.  The youthful version of myself hurried over to the doorway.

            “Have a seat, Tim,” my father offered, pulling a wicker chair over to him.  The two of them sat on the porch, and timidly, Tim lifted his head until his eyes met Father’s. 

“Now Timmy, I know that I made a mistake, but we all make mistakes once in awhile.”  Tim nodded.  “And we will be much better off now anyway.  I can spend more time with you, and we won’t have to do those awful chores, won’t that be great?”  A small giggle escaped Tim, as he continued to nod, a giggle that sent chills up my spine. 

Father continued, “You just have to promise me one thing.”  Tim’s smile faded away quickly.  “You have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone.  Not a soul.  And if you do, I may have to make another mistake, only this time it would be with you.”  Those words echoed in my head, and vaguely I remembered hearing them before.  Tim only nodded, looking in the direction of his feet.  Father’s voice rose, “Do you understand?”

Again, Tim nodded.  Turning red, Father screamed at him.  “DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”  Tim raised his eyes to meet his father’s in a hard glare, and sternly, he answered the question.  “Yes.”  The power of the young boy’s voice made my jaw drop, and Father retreat to the inside of the house.

            I awoke to an odd little man mumbling something about dinner, sliding a plate of bread and grits under the door, accompanied by a plastic cup of water.  I rolled over with a groan and let myself succumb to sleep, once again.

            A new picture formed in my mind.  This one came more quickly, but was less vivid.  The same young boy, I, was sitting in front of a black and white TV, shoveling cheerios into his mouth.  A stream of milk ran down his chin and back into the bowl.  On the television a stout man with a toupee broke away from a commercial involving singing socks and laundry detergent, talking intensely into a microphone.  Tim instantly sat up straight and all attention was on the news broadcast.

             “Today, in the small town of Greyville, the body of twenty-six year old Kathryn Deleroy was found in Larson Lake.  Scott McCoy and his daughter were fishing when they came across a badly mutilated body. An investigation was put into action immediately.  No evidence has been found, but the police are determined to find the person who so brutally killed this woman.  Now available to us is an interview with

the husband of the victim, Matthew Deleroy.”  Now I was watching just as intently as Tim, shocked out of disbelief, and yet not surprised.  Little Tim was staring, expressionless, at the television.  A single tear trickled down his cheek and off his chin, following the stream of milk into the bowl of cheerios.

            “I am heartbroken.  I hope whoever did this burns in hell.”  The voice of Father, Matthew Deleroy, floated across the room and I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling of nausea. 

            “Thank you, Mr. Deleroy.”  The cameras went back to the reporter as he wrapped up the report.  “The prayers of this small town go out to Mr. Deleroy and his seven year old son, Timothy, in hopes that police will find the murderer and the family may sleep more easily.”

            This time I awoke to find myself vomiting violently over the side of my plywood bed.  My stomach wrenched, and I felt that every organ in my godforsaken body might just come up.

Ok, my thoughts.  First off, for some reason the formatting got messed up somewhere between copy and paste, so I'm sorry.

The good:

-I feel like I was pretty effective at writing a creepy little story, or the beginning of one at least.  I felt a little insecure posting it because I didn't want anyone to think that it reflected me.  Stephen King days.
-There were a few spots where this is not true, but for the most part I did a good job at avoiding redundancy.
-I could see some of my descriptions.  So that is good.

The bad:

-Commas everywhere.  Like I said before, I love them and I somehow need to learn how to cut back.  I'll just put all the "had"s here too.  Maybe they just bugged me.  And I'll lump any grammatical/formatting error here too.  I remember struggling with sentence comp in dialogue situations.
-Dialogue in general.  It has always been a struggle for me to write a dialogue that didn't feel forced or awkward.  Maybe because I'm not eloquent when speaking for realzies either.
-Dramatic.  Geebus.  A bit cheesy too.
-I did not write an outline for this story.  I had no idea what would happen.  This is always my problem.  Directionless, plotless.  I can put a pretty sentence together, and maybe string a few of those together to make a pretty paragraph, but the real essence of a good writer is plot.  Right?  This is THE BIG ONE for me, the reason I failed with this story then and continue to fail even now.  This is why I will never be a writer.

Observations please.

Novel page 3 of 4 plus TRAX adventures

You know it's a good day riding public transit when you see:

1) An adult carrying around one of those American Girl dolls that you can design to look like you.  Said adult was also wearing a matching outfit.

2) One of the largest men you've ever seen with one of the smallest dogs you've ever seen.

3) People from Honduras traveling to the Real stadium to see the U.S. Men's National vs. Honduras game.  Cool.

And here's a continuation of my story.  I'm a bit embarrassed that I decided to put this on here (the last two posts too) because I was so dramatic and cliche, but better here than on my old hard drive, never to be seen.

All was darkness, and the black was unbearable.  I was frightened and confused, lost in the shadows.  Just as panic was setting in, I caught a glimpse of orange.  Twisting together and unraveling again, teal and violet came into view.  Yellow swirled about, teasing the other colors with its vividness.  Gradually, more colors came out of their hibernation until every color imaginable danced together, to a hypnotic beat.  They were one and I was their offspring, gazing up at them with amazement and awe.

These colors gave birth to a new earth, an earth with crimson oceans and more beauty than ever known.  Warmth radiated from the soil and bathed my body in purity.  It was clear to me that I was in the wrong place.  Yet, I couldn’t turn away.  Something grasped my eyes and held tight, not that I put up much of a struggle anyway.  There was something about this heat, something familiar.  I pondered this warmth with a quirked brow.  The answer came to me in an almost eerie whisper in my mind.  It was love.  This was a world of affection, one not of hate or enemy’s blood.  I suddenly felt out of place and uncomfortable.  Sure that I was not supposed to be here, I searched for a way out.  Then, from this world a universe exploded, and light was shot from the heart of the explosion to every pore of my poor soul.

As this blinding light broke free, a sound began from the distance.  It was faint, but I could make out a melody.  Growing louder, the sound transformed into a tantalizing song.  Harmony combined with the melody as I was lured into captivation.  The serenade convinced me to stay, and stole from my mind all previous thoughts.

The colors settled into a picture, and in this picture I saw a grass field, very familiar to me, yet I couldn’t place it.  The music transformed into a voice, yelling a name I couldn’t quite make out.  I watched a young child scamper around, bounding through the long, lush green grass.  His laughter was much like the music, and it captured me as well.  My heart was lightened with the joy of this boy and in my mind, I thanked him.  Suddenly, the boy looked up at the source of the yelling.  My eyes drifted in the same direction and when the source was found, they grew wider as I saw my childhood home.  My own father was standing in the doorway, bellowing my name.  My younger self looked away quickly to avoid eye contact with the man, but I stared into his eyes with rage, and I felt my fists clench.  He gazed past me as if I was the soulless wisp of wind that I was, his eyes preying on the boy.  The boy shook with fear, but took a step toward the house. 

My first novel-continued

I've decided to post the whole thing on here-don't worry, I only made it to about five pages total.  I'll just split them up because I know long posts = people not having the time or interest in dropping everything to read.

Also, I have not edited this in any way since the last edit date on the file: 11/22/2003.  I know the too many commas (I still have a problem with this, I just love them sooo much) and the too many "had"s etc. can make for a painful read.  Too bad.

The dimly lit room was painted a fleshy color, one that had always made me nauseous.  I could hear a dripping sound coming from the corner of my 7x7 foot box, and I hoped the bucket put there to catch the falling liquid had not overflowed.  I stumbled over to the bucket and sure enough, water was gushing over the edge, reminding me of an open wound.  My food landed in the puddle nearby, and any sense of balance I had was lost as I crashed to the hard, unsympathetic ground.  A deep groan escaped me as I lie there, writhing in pain. 

The light bulb flickered, threatening to go out.  Sighing, I rolled onto my stomach and rancorously pulled my knees inward toward my chest.  Then, biting my bottom lip to contain the yells, I pushed my weight off the deathly cold floor with my arms.  Gingerly, I crawled over to my bed, limping as if I was a hunting dog injured during the chase. 

When I reached the bed, I paused to gaze upon my place of respite.  Four pieces of plywood, here because they were rejected by any standard of acceptable lumber, formed my mattress.  On top of this mattress rested two wool blankets; one to keep me from freezing to death during the night, and the other to prevent slivers in various locations.  Sadly enough, I had experienced some of these slivers in places that shouldn’t be mentioned.  The pillow was only a thin cotton one, but the smell of freshly cleaned linen found its way to me and I smiled.  I hoisted myself up to this resting-place, and buried my face in the pillow.  My head pulsated in agony, for the fall had worsened my headache.  But soon I found myself drifting to sleep, and any sleep light as it may be, was welcomed warmly.