Chrissy IRL

I want to capture all the feedback I received during my dinner conversation because I feel like the perspective I have right now, I will need in the future to re-affirm myself when no one is around. To be honest, I wish I had heard this advice a lot earlier.

But I don’t know how we’re going to remain friends. Everyone I talk to, I feel more and more disrespected, more confident that I was being lied to, taken advantage of.

The longer I spend alone with my thoughts, the less I recognize my own sense of reasoning and motivation. It’s great that I learned to be more analytic in my decision making, but I feel like my emotions have been rendered completely useless. Even worse, I feel like when I pushed them into the recesses of my mind in order to act more rationally, I actually pushed them further and further away from my self and now I’m left with a disconnected, empty shell.

I spent so much of this last year making sure I didn’t feel, that I didn’t care. Now all I want is to be overcome with an emotion, though I’m starting to realize that I associate “emotional” only with the negative. The past week was one of the happiest I can recall in a while (save for the disaster that was Saturday morning…) My laughter on Tuesday, ambition on Saturday, the tingly happiness I felt all of yesterday, those we all exceptionally positive experiences, but I just feel more grounded when I’m ruminating on something negative – and I attribute them to very different sources.

It feels like the darkness is inside of me and needs to be let out, whereas happiness is an external force that hits me and I try to internalize. But it has always been my focus to release the sadness and despair I feel, rather than grab the fleeting happiness one experiences in life. So the past few days as I’ve been trying to get in touch with my old self, I’ve listened to music that moves me, written the outline of my heart (rather than writing my heart out) and tried to conceive a wordless project that might express some things that are too difficult to write down.

Perhaps that is the wrong way to go about it. There is an infinite amount of sadness we can create for ourselves, but there is an equal abundance of happiness. Trying to flood the world with my despair is not going to lead to a decrease in my unhappiness, it will only further poison the world and take away from the free-floating moments of unabashed joy out there.

Balance of emotion has been my mantra since I came out of all that mess a few years ago – emotions are a rollercoaster and you ought to go along with the ride. Appreciate the highs, acknowledge the lows. Wallowing (while still where I feel most comfortable/natural) will do no good, but neither will denying yourself of any feelings or attachments whatsoever. Whether I am crying or screaming or laughing, the extremes of my emotions are where I feel the most alive. Perhaps its unstable to always live in those extremities, but it’s where I feel most fulfilled.

I can’t believe I let it happen again.

In the throes of drunken attraction, I let myself get my hopes up. We made plans, we set a time – when I expressed my doubts that he’d follow through, we made a bet. We kissed. And kissed, and kissed. We contemplated every way to conclude the night, explored every option of staying together, but (in perhaps the only wise decision of the night) went our separate ways, texting until we each fell asleep.

This morning was a hungover blur, but each beep of my phone broke through my hazy stupor with such clarity, I reacted immediately. Fortunately I slept until 1:00 so I didn’t have to spend so many long hours conscious, patiently waiting.

My 2:00 phone call woke him up and he sounded like he was in worse shape than I was. He promised to call back once he got himself together, but at this point I have no disillusions and know we won’t speak until next Thursday.

This cycle is starting to wear on me. Flirt all shift, drink too much, steal a kiss when no one is looking, repeat for a few weeks until a night like last night, when we’re the last ones at the bar and no one is around to gossip. It’s so juvenile, that we can’t just have a conversation, that we only talk when life throws us together. I know I could call or text during the week, but each unanswered message just makes me feel like I’m trying too hard and confirms what I’m scared of already: he’s not really interested in me, just thinks he might as well play while he has me around.

I know I can do better than him. I know I can make wiser decisions than this. I know I can stand up for myself when I’m disrespected like this. But I don’t. And I can’t figure out why, why I melt, why I bend on my principles, why I store up all these angry words and ultimatums, but just giggle and agree whenever we talk instead of delivering on my stronger emotions.

It’s been so long since I’ve had a crush like this. And that is really all it amounts to, a crush. There has to be a better way to handle it, but I can’t see the situation clearly enough to know what that is. And I feel like I’ve irritated all my friends familiar enough to give me advice. It’s so embarrassing talking about him, to anyone. I feel like I lose their respect the instant I bring it up; I can tell I’m not being true to myself and they all just think I’m pathetic for caving to this asshole just because he’s cute.

I just want to tell him off and move on.

there was no show scheduled tonight, so for the first time since i started my second job i had a sunday completely to myself in dc. and it was productive: i taught an aerobics class this morning, went grocery shopping, did two loads of laundry, organized my room, cleaned the entire kitchen (which i’ve been wanting to do since i moved in), and watched three episodes of friday night light with a tombstone pizza and a beer (what? i taught an aerobics class this morning).

the funny thing is i could have accomplished all of that and made it to work by six – except for the tv and dinner, obviously – but i know i wouldn’t have. the reward of being able to relax, enjoy time to myself and actually get a good night’s rest provided some hope at the end of a physically exhausting tunnel to get through. true, i like having a clean apartment, but i lose the drive to do all that work when i’m going to go into work in a few hours to do the same thing for other people.

when i started working in the service industry, i used to think that the line cooks’ families must have eaten great meals all the time. but then i realized the last thing a cook (not a chef, there IS a difference) wants to do when he gets home is make more food. and now i am in the same situation with housework. but it was nice to have the reprieve from work to get my own life together.

i’m really conflicted about taking tuesdays off for the rest of my time at the partnership. but after today, i think it will actually turn out to be a very enjoyable and healthy decision.

those have become the most difficult words i’ve had to say to people over the last two weeks. if the initial rejection is the puncture wound, these words are the salt that i smear over the sore every time i have to admit – and revisit – my defeat.

everyone knows i’m looking, actively.
everyone asks about the process, constantly.
everyone consoles me, inevitably.

i just do not understand how i am so unemployable. and i fear that the longer i stay at the partnership, the worse it will look that i didn’t get a job here. and what if i have to go back home? start over? i have no idea where i’d even start. i know i’m an off-the-beaten-path kind of person but i’m so terrified that i have gained no useful skills and learned nothing of value through my entire 23 years.

i’m supposed to start round two today.
but i just want to crawl in bed and cry.

i find myself with yet another crush that i can tell no one about. i like kalee. a lot.

every time we joke around about being overly sexual, or it ends up being just her, me, and tyler, i want to make a suggestion that we all hook up together or that she and i run off and seriously explore ourselves alone, but after my last experience with a “straight” girl, that seems unwise.

i wish i could describe what it what. but this realization and confession feel a lot like the process i felt with sasha. thought kalee is about a million times more mature. i feel like these feelings could come out in a drunken conversation and be reasonably dealt with. the problem is i feel so UNreasonable each time we’re together. i am anticipating a moment when we are alone so i can tell her my true feelings, but those are always too fleeting to make any real impression.

she is such a fantastic friend and has indicated she wants to connect beyond the improv. i doubt she had interests as involved as mine, but i’m sure she would be open to the suggestion. i really hope alex would be ok with me sleeping with her and tyler, because i think that would just make me so happy.

it’s been a while since i’ve felt such a strong and natural attraction to a woman. but this crush is beyond real at this point. i just have to find a way to keep it under wraps and not fixate each time we’re in that basement together.

I have no energy this week. I don’t know if the luster of the communications position is wearing off, if the exam yesterday took the wind out of my sails, or if I was doomed from the start; the overwhelming prospect of how busy this week would be clouded my judgment and my alertness.

I think it’s a combination of all three and I have to learn how to push through difficulties such as what has happened this week.

I really just want to make sure I gain it all back by Friday at 12:00.

“To be a strong woman you have to be okay with people not liking you”

According to Google Analytics, these words lead someone to my other blog. At first, I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. The purpose of that blog is to make feminism accessible to everyone, not incite dislike.

But upon reflection, it ties back to a problem I’ve always had: I admire people with conviction, people who are opinionated and outspoken. I want to be like them and try to emulate their actions, but I am always held back. My overwhelming shyness takes over and it feels more comfortable to just stay in my place.

College has obviously changed that about me. I am far more assertive and likely to stand up for myself when I have truly been wronged, and that age old timidity sneaks up right when I am about to cross the border into “preachy.” The meek/overbearing line is always a difficult one to walk, but I think I do a reasonable job keeping my balance as I move forward.

Even as a reasonable, even-handed person, I realize that the search term above is correct; I have rubbed people the wrong way. Whether this is because of my feminism or my other opinions, I cannot tell. Most of the time I do not care. I have worked hard to obtain the conviction of those whom I once admired and enjoy this feeling of solidarity to myself and acceptance of who I am.

I think all-in-all I would have to agree with this anonymous Googler, but with one slight alteration. There is always a chance someone will dislike you, but I think that being a strong person is what intimidates them. Confidence, passion, and drive in anyone can make their peers seem insecure. Maybe it’s because these traits are less “feminine” that strong women are more strongly disliked. But in any event, I plan to soldier on for the Type As, the goal-oriented, the strong-willed, and the awesome.

My father and I have an interesting relationship. We lived in the same house for 18 years but have such different interests and values, it’s as if we spent most of my childhood apart. Really, it was our proximity to immigration that so completely shaped the way we viewed the world.

Both of his parents came to America with the hope of achieving the American dream, or at the very least that their children would do so. There was a clear path set for immigrants to achieve success (school, job, marriage, savings) and, to his credit, my father passed each milestone with flying colors.

I came into this world with that dream already realized by my parents. Success – specifically in the case of financial stability – was not my concern. Both my mother and my father worked hard to ingrain fiscal responsibility and independence into my character; not an easy task given the affluent suburb in which they settled. In this and many other moral objectives, I think they did a great job.

The main source of friction between my father and I has been my passion for the arts and my political opinions. It’s not that he actively dislikes either of those things (actually, with his recent penchant of watching Fox News everyday, that may not be true anymore) but he doesn’t see them as worthy of being a person’s driving force in life. To him, science and math make sense. They have an answer and you can always find it. Innovations and change are not outcomes that are useful or worth striving for. The root of this distaste is something more fundamental and even more opposed to my beliefs: he hates change.

He went to school very close to where he grew up. He lived at home every summer. He build two houses and a family less than 30 minutes from his mother and sibling. He does the same job he’s been doing since high school. He does yardwork and DIY projects on the weekends, watches sports every night, and never travels. What’s more, this makes him happy.

It’s difficult for me to be OK with this. But whenever I talk about it, I try to make sure he gets all the credit he deserves. He came to my dance recitals, he payed for my schooling, he has tried to understand what I am interested in and connect me to people that could be helpful. But it feels like I’m speaking to someone who isn’t fluent in my language. He drops a lot of the right terms, but it’s clear that he doesn’t have a thorough understanding of what those things mean.

But one thing my father has instilled in me is faith. Though our religion has also been a point of contention, I think he has taught me to believe in people, most importantly myself. He told me many times my senior year of high school that he didn’t want me to attend his alma matter because he “knew [I] was smarter than he’d ever be.” His unwavering confidence in my intelligence and ability to achieve whatever I set my mind to has kept me moving forward at times when I wanted to throw up my hands a quit.

I still beam when people meet my dad. He is so cordial, so polite, so engaging, most are willing to overlook his terrible puns. He’s an all-around good guy and I love that I have such a classic gentleman in my life to show me the way.

Dinner, Drinks, Friends.

That’s what I thought I was in for last night. And it’s how my evening started out. But when we made the decision at 1:00am to head down the AdMo strip, I had no idea what my night would turn into.

We stepped onto the dance floor, packed with bodies releasing the stress of the week. But almost immediately, I felt all of the released pressure was redirected to me. The weight of every body in that space was pressing directly on my chest. Maybe it was the pepper in the liquor, or the sloshing pink of the wine mixing in my stomach, but I was suffocating. A few inches removed from myself, I could only watch my movements, not control them.

I pushed my way out of the throbbing, sweating mass of people to catch my breath. By no means was I drunk, but my head was rapidly draining of reasonable thoughts and as I sat trying to respire at a normal rate, I felt the air take the place of these missing thoughts. It was all I could do not to doze off and it took all of my energy to stand up, the weight of the dance floor patrons still sitting heavy on my chest.

Swimming upstream through the hoards of 20-somethings, someone dared to grab my arm. Being in no mood I cursed him out and moved on. I parted ways with my company at the delta of the stream to get back to my bed and feel some semblance of normal, some security in my own space. With my head held high and my eyes locked forward, I prepared for the journey to solace.

Unfortunately a group of men saw my intent strides as sensual strutting and had the audacity to ask where I was going. When I screamed at them to let me be (and followed up with a simple “Fuck off” when my first attempt only merited whoops and hollers), they started to match my pace, just a few feet behind.

They were yelling profanities, calling my all sorts of names, homo- and heterosexual slurs, but the worst was the noises, the laughing. The one time I turned to see if they were truly following me they collapsed in hysterics. I did not let my vision linger long enough to confirm that they began walking faster.

I have no idea why they did not make it to my doorstep. It may have been the two other men on the bridge who asked me what was wrong. It may have been the fantastic lighting around my building. It may simply have been the fact that I lived farther than they were willing to go to get enjoyment out of harassing strangers.

The moment the elevator doors closed, I let it all go. At first, I was just gasping for air, still recovering from the asphyxiation induced by the club. But I couldn’t stop. Each time I tried to settle my chest into a normal breathing rhythm, it rebounded and pushed even farther out. Tears formed in my eyes; tears of exhaustion, tears of fear, tears of thanks.

Reeling in my own space, I could not calm down. Something had cracked the rock hard exterior I worked so hard to build up. It felt like all the stress I absorbed at the club and the additional pressure I created on my solo walk home was being released through a gash in my side, and would not stop pouring out until an equilibrium was reached.

I restlessly put myself to bed and tried to stop my mind from racing and grasp onto a coherent vision of what had just happened. Eventually I was drained, of everything. Without emotions, without tears, without breath, I drifted off to another, more peaceful, world.

…it certainly does pour.

I am very disappointed in myself for the two day lapse in writing. The first was because I was discontent and could not find the patience to deal with my computer, my thoughts, and my life. The next, however, was missed because my elation could not be harnessed to create a coherent entry, and because that energy was focused on other efforts.

Monday evening I paced the streets, inhaling the sharp air over the bridge and frantically trying to grasp onto something to help me avoid the pit of despair I felt I was waywardly dangling over. My mind was fervent and I had talked myself down so much that I couldn’t conceive of applying to jobs, of putting words on a page, or even try to grasp the meaning of words already on a page.

A toddler’s bedtime and plenty of rest had me wake up refreshed the next day and just as I took a deep breath to create the most professional, poised representation of myself, I got the news. I had an interview. And not for just any job. This was the Big One. I shuffled through the office, try to contain a smile that threatened to snap my face in half and unleashed the electricity brewing inside me on the greatest friend who would understand.

Then yesterday, I got another opportunity. It was for a position I was less committed to and I intended to take the interview as a warm up for The One. But after speaking with the hiring manager, I am really going to have to see what happens and think about my priorities.

It seems that my hiring timeline that I defined almost a year ago is proving accurate once again. Right when you’re at a breaking point, the world has a way of restoring your faith in yourself. Around this time last year, when I had been through the rejection cycle once and pulled myself out of that pool of self-doubt, I remember saying to myself “I am landing one of these jobs, because I simply can’t put up with this any longer.” and that is exactly what I intend to do. I don’t want to burn any bridges at the Partnership, but I have to move on to something bigger and better to give myself room to grow.

The one undercurrent to this wave of opportunity has been my worry that I am getting ahead of myself. I want to remain confident and prove to these employers that I am competent, but I don’t want my optimism to give me false hope. I’ve been reticent to tell anyone too many details for fear I may jinx myself, but this time around I really do feel more secure in my abilities, my professionalism, and my fit for the jobs. I just have to make sure that I communicate it in a way that the employer sees it too.