Ramblings of a 30 something

Monday, June 16, 2008

Befuddled.

So, I'm a bit surprised at myself. After posting my last blog about wanting IRL friends, my daughter woke up from her nap. After a snack and hearing a boy from downstairs outside playing, she wanted to go out. I noticed a couple other moms out and about, but I really just did not want to go.

What gives? What about IRL friends? Sometimes I don't mind going outside, but I wish I could first put on my invisibility cloak. I don't want to have to make conversation when it's so painfully apparent that my conversation doesn't measure up for 3-5 year olds. I came away from Japanese class today just wondering what I had spent the last 90 minutes doing.

I'd like to believe that it's all language related, but some of it is just that I'd like to be outside of my apartment and yet in a private domain. That does not exist. I don't know if we lived in a house if that would be the case or not, but I like to tell myself that I could do whatever I liked in my own yard without having to make chit chat.

I am a study in contrasts.

IRL.

IRL, in real life.

I spend far more time on the computer than I wish to. I feel like I am often sitting down, and hours later (with bits snatched here and there) I emerge with no real communication achieved or information learned. I shudder to think how much time is spent in front of it.

I am wanting more friends IRL than online. I can't seem to keep up with my friends IRL, so what makes me think I can be a friend to someone online? Is it because expectations are vastly different? I don't know. I just feel a bit disconnected, and I feel like my inbox taunts me with all the information that arrives each day. Some of it is useful, some of it is information, and very little of it is real communication.

I'm trying to figure out what it means for me. I seem to have something on my calendar for each day of the week. With a small child, I feel that I cannot traipse from one event after another in the course of a day. I do it at times, and I feel the effects of a missed nap. And, if I do something out with someone, then other things have to fall by the wayside as a result. I was hoping for a more laid back week, after this week, I told myself. Just push yourself through to next week, and life will slow down. No, it doesn't happen, without me putting on the brakes and having to say "no".

"I'd really like to get together with you, but I'm busy this week. Next week I'm free on Friday. How about that?"

"No, okay, well the following week I'm free on Tuesday and Friday," blundering around trying to make myself more available.

Does it feel like a blow off to the other person when we have to schedule so many weeks in advance? On the other hand, I feel like I'm blowing off myself when I schedule so much that naps are missed. The tantrums begin and I look forward to bedtime with a hint of remorse that I've missed my daughter in the course of the day and what she needs.

Maybe I'll figure out the balance IRL.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Lack of Acceptance.

Recently I've found myself in many a funk, and the central issue is my lack of acceptance of reality. While I would like to hide away, isolate myself from others while I hunker down and try to wrangle out an appropriate response, believing that no one else feels the way that I do or would understand or perhaps it's a personality fault that would be cured with a little more faith or a little less critical thinking on my part, all of those coping mechanisms fail. Why? Because slowly I am realizing that it is the human state.

I've recently been reading a book of essays and Johnathon Franzen writes about his experience growing up with the Peanuts comic strips. He relates that he learned about disillusionment from Charlie Brown when he was spurned by the little red-haired girl. He is sitting with Snoopy and says that he wishes he had two ponies so that he and the little red haired girl can go for a ride together. After some thought, he looks at Snoopy and demands, "Why aren't you two ponies?"

While my rendering lacks Franzen's eloquence, it seems to be the way that I relate to various issues in my life. Why can't my spouse be more communicative? Why doesn't my work fill me with confidence? Why can't I make that leap into a new level of Japanese language? Why? Why? Why?

I've been reading another book some nights before my eyes give out on me and the book falls, whacking me on the nose and forcing me awake. In it the author writes about simply letting go and accepting people and situations for what they are. While it is a simple solution, he states that obviously it is not a simple task. But, what do we gain by weighing in on our judgment of situations? Does it change anything? Do complaints, arguments, or obstinance change persons or situations?

Food for thought.