What I Know
Right now, I should be grocery shopping. My fridge is full of grapefruit, oranges, dying cilantro and salad, a favorite potato recipe I made before I left town 10 days ago, peas. I've almost exhausted my freezer reserves. All that is left in there is veggie patties and frozen fruit for smoothies. I like the sweet things, but I can't eat them constantly.
Instead of grocery shopping today, I napped. I watched an episode of Buffy, I read and re-read a poem I just wrote. I had planned to accomplish all sorts of things after I went to a breakfast talk with a visiting poet at school, but when I came home, I found that Egypt had overthrown their government. The president had stepped down after 18 days of protest. And I found that I could no longer go into the world. I got back into my pajamas. I plugged in my tiny Christmas tree. I sat, watching the live feed on the BBC website, crying. An inexact quote from a journalist on the feed: "For the first time in 8,000 years, the people without orders from their leaders, without organization or conspiracy, rose up and refused to continue. They stood there, and they changed things."
What does one do after that? I thought of inviting my friends over, but then I looked around at my apartment, and it seemed less than welcoming. I posted the feed on facebook, I wished a friend happy birthday. I got an email from my mom telling me about my ill family members, people who things so rarely go right for. I got sad. I read this. I teared up.
I read it again. There is so much wisdom here:
And this one, which I very much needed to hear this week:
You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don't waste your time on anything else.
I was at a conference last week where I saw a guy I'd been twitterpated over last year. I realized that I was no longer really attracted to him, but for some reason, I still very much wanted to be seen as attractive by him. And this compulsion has been troubling me. What's the point? I guess he was someone who I was so interested in as a person, that I still wanted some validation from him. And though we're still friends, I had to confront the fact that I'm just not an important person in his life.
A sister of a friend once said to me, "If a guy's not on fire for you, he's not worth it." And I feel like every day I must convince myself that this is right. The funny thing is that as much as I always want to find someone, I really need to be alone right now. I need the time I have, the space I have, to work on my writing and to work on existing in this life. I have enough love in my friends for the time.
No one should waste time with anyone who doesn't believe they're worth it.
One hot afternoon...you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She'll offer you one of the balloons, but you won't take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.
I am in love with the tiny, beautiful things. They so often have sharp edges, are hard to hold. Today is one of them. I had to write about it.
Instead of grocery shopping today, I napped. I watched an episode of Buffy, I read and re-read a poem I just wrote. I had planned to accomplish all sorts of things after I went to a breakfast talk with a visiting poet at school, but when I came home, I found that Egypt had overthrown their government. The president had stepped down after 18 days of protest. And I found that I could no longer go into the world. I got back into my pajamas. I plugged in my tiny Christmas tree. I sat, watching the live feed on the BBC website, crying. An inexact quote from a journalist on the feed: "For the first time in 8,000 years, the people without orders from their leaders, without organization or conspiracy, rose up and refused to continue. They stood there, and they changed things."
What does one do after that? I thought of inviting my friends over, but then I looked around at my apartment, and it seemed less than welcoming. I posted the feed on facebook, I wished a friend happy birthday. I got an email from my mom telling me about my ill family members, people who things so rarely go right for. I got sad. I read this. I teared up.
I read it again. There is so much wisdom here:
- Be brave enough to break your own heart.
- Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life.
- It's good you've worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again.
And this one, which I very much needed to hear this week: You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don't waste your time on anything else.
I was at a conference last week where I saw a guy I'd been twitterpated over last year. I realized that I was no longer really attracted to him, but for some reason, I still very much wanted to be seen as attractive by him. And this compulsion has been troubling me. What's the point? I guess he was someone who I was so interested in as a person, that I still wanted some validation from him. And though we're still friends, I had to confront the fact that I'm just not an important person in his life.
A sister of a friend once said to me, "If a guy's not on fire for you, he's not worth it." And I feel like every day I must convince myself that this is right. The funny thing is that as much as I always want to find someone, I really need to be alone right now. I need the time I have, the space I have, to work on my writing and to work on existing in this life. I have enough love in my friends for the time.
No one should waste time with anyone who doesn't believe they're worth it.
One hot afternoon...you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She'll offer you one of the balloons, but you won't take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.
I am in love with the tiny, beautiful things. They so often have sharp edges, are hard to hold. Today is one of them. I had to write about it.