Filling the void

I'm going to try and be more active here again. I think I may be able to succeed once my week-long hiatus from all electronic communication in a couple of weeks is over. I'm going to visit a friend in Portland, OR and have decided that while I am there, I will not check email, facebook, or twitter. For a whole week - rapid detox on social media. I am taking wagers on how well I will succeed. Of course, knowing Brett & Jessie, if I tell them "do not let me use the computer for anything other than maps, transit and flight updates" I'm sure they'll oblige. If someone needs to find me during that time, they can text or {gasp} call me.

As much as I do LOVE facebook - it allows me to interact with a lot of people that I otherwise wouldn't be able to on a fairly regular basis - I am on it way too much. And my recent experiment with twitter confirmed the same - it was just far too distracting. I need to limit myself, which is difficult because I sit in front of a computer all day and it's so easy to just log onto facebook when I'm bored, or can't concentrate, or need a break. But then it turns into an obsession of sorts - so-and-so commented on this-or-that - oooh, I have to check that, and maybe reply! It has allowed me to get into contact with a lot of people I lost touch with, for various reasons. I am not the type of person who "friends" people I don't actually know or want to know. I don't understand that at all.

That was part of my conflict with Twitter. Aside from following various celebrities or news outlets or businesses, all it is, is pushing my brainfarts into cyberspace. I didn't have a lot of "followers" so, therefore, I was pushing those thoughts to a subset of people already on Facebook - so why not just use that? And it seemed oddly anti-social to me - a facade of interaction. I was discussing with with someone who said "Yeah, but actual conversation requires more time and effort. A quick tweet doesn't interrupt anything". Exactly: The absence of time and effort. I'm not interested in "tweeting" with perfect strangers, and all those with whom I want to be friends, I require a certain level of effort and time for them. If my only interaction with someone is through 140 character snippets - that's not a friendship. And right now, I really am craving more interpersonal connections.

I've found that now that the dust has settled, I've reached the "OK, now what" phase of this stage of my life. I want to get out and meet new people, foster relationships (new, old, and newly-rediscovered) but I often don't have the time (or money) to do that as often as I want. Socializing often costs money, especially the kind of socialization I enjoy (the ethanol kind). I'm at a crossroads. How do you meet new people (friends or 'more')? I'm going to a little singles event next week called "Nerds at Heart" --

- OK you done laughing? -

Seriously - it looks like fun. It's not a corporate/yuppie speed-dating thing. I couldn't handle that. There's no way I could "present" myself to a guy in 2 minutes or less. This is a laid back, social event where people who are other self-identified nerds (i.e., they actually LIKE smart women) get together for trivia and party games, a few drinks, and yes, to maybe meet someone they click with. The games are natural ice-breakers - no pressure in trying to think of something witty to say, or the right "getting to know you" question to ask. I'm going with a new friend I just met through some old friends for moral support. I'm both excited and terrified.

Speaking of old friends... I've recently re-connected with a whole group of people with whom I lost touch many years ago. Most of them are high school friends, and a few who I met in college (the two groups kind of merged). Part of the reason I went AWOL is that I had a falling out with one "core" person of the group - or so I thought. Turns out after all these years of thinking he hated me, he actually missed me. I can't even remember what the argument was about. Another reason was that they all moved out to the burbs and I was left in the city, with no car, and everyone stopped coming to the city. Not that I minded taking public transit to certain places, but I was always the one going out of my way and busting my ass to get places when they were all much more mobile. It seemed unbalanced and like my participation was expendable. I felt hurt and a bit abandoned by that. (Ironically, after reconnecting with this group, the exact same phenomenon appears to be happening with my current group of friends. Life is oddly cyclical sometimes).

Now, quite a few of these folks work downtown and we've been getting together occasionally for a happy hour, plus many of them come into the city for various things or choose locations that are accessible to CTA so it's much easier. And, of course, now we have facebook and such to keep in contact between those times. Last weekend, I went to a BBQ with a few of them, and some of the newer faces in the crowd and met some really great people. I'm truly glad to be "home" so to speak.

I've started knitting again. I finished a skirt for myself and now I have to move on to something else that I can bring with me on the plane to Portland.

OK, that's all I have time to write for now. And actually, I wrote more than I thought I would. I guess I really am starved for expression.

What is family?

I was having a discussion with someone last week about this who was very curious about my decision that I don't want kids. He'd never actually met anyone who had been so decisive about it and was just curious. At first I got defensive, because historically I've always been put on the defensive about this - because, you know, there must be something wrong with me if I don't want what society expects me to want. But after a few minutes it was clear that it was innocent curiosity, not an interrogation. The subject of family, and what that means to someone with no children came up. I guess it is typical that most people think parents + children, or at least blood relatives when you say "family."

As usual, my answer was pretty out-of-the-box. Forget for a moment the choice to not have kids - just consider people who don't - for whatever reason. Are they "family-less?" Of course not. I consider two spouses (of any gender) to be each-other's family, regardless of whether there are children involved. I also include "chosen family" in my definition. By this, I mean those people we choose to let into our inner circle. There are many people I know who have very little, or no blood family (either because they're dead, or because through choice or circumstance they have no contact) and have filled their lives with "chosen" family instead.

I have done the same. As an adult, I've grown more distant from the bulk of my extended family, with a few exceptions and the obvious exception of my immediate "nuclear" family. I barely know most of them and most of them don't really know me either. We have very little in common. Am I still supposed to consider them to be as important in my life as my very close friends with whom I have stronger emotional bonds and common interests? Why? Because society says so? I mean, sure, if something happened to them, I would be emotionally affected, and I would do what I could to help. But if I'm brutally honest with myself, I can admit that it would probably not be as much as if the same thing happened to one of my "chosen family" members with whom I am much closer.

So I guess my answer is this: There's two definitions of family - there's those with whom you share a genetic or legal bond with (in-laws, adopted and step-children, etc), and those to whom you are emotionally bound. Sometimes those two groups overlap, sometimes they don't. I define family as any group of people with whom I have chosen to share my life with and who I let get close to me and vice versa. They're the people I would move heaven and earth to help if I could. Sure, the members of this group can and do change over time - and maybe that makes some people uncomfortable because they feel "family" has to be some constant. But I really think genetics has nothing to do with it.

Opinions? Just curious.

Books & Contemplation

So a friend of mine lent me a book last weekend called "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I haven't finished it yet, and I'll post a full review after I do.

At first, I thought it was going to be way too 'touchy-feely' for my tastes, and while there are parts where I just roll my eyes and go "ugh," for the most part I like it - and here's why. Except for the obvious differences between the author and myself (like she has the means to travel the world for a year and "find herself"), there are a lot of similarities in our stories. When in her early thirties, she was very unhappy and realized that her marriage wasn't working (because she didn't want kids and her husband did). One thing struck me about her realizations about children (contemplations that I had with myself several years ago when I finalized my decision that I did not want kids) that I'd like to share in an excerpt here because they are so eerily similar to the thoughts I had - which were, themselves, an attempt to reconcile social pressures/expectations/assumptions vs. what I really wanted for myself. Also, her experience of divorce (though hers the typical contended, bitter rivalry and mine totally not) have their similarities as well:

Getting out of a marriage is rough, though, and not just for the legal/financial complications or the massive lifestyle upheaval (As my friend Deborah once advised me wisely: "Nobody ever died from splitting up furniture.") It's the emotional recoil that kills you, the shock of stepping off the track of a conventional lifestyle and losing all the embracing comforts that keep so many people on that track forever. To create a family with a spouse is one of the most fundamental ways a person can find continuity and meaning in American (or any) society. I rediscover this truth every time I go to a big reunion of my mother's family in Minnesota and I see how everyone is held so reassuringly to their positions over the years. First you are the child, then you are a teenager, then you are a young married person, then you are a parent, then you are retired, then you are a grandparent - at every stage you know who you are, you know what your duty is and you know where to sit at the reunion. You sit with the other children, or teenagers, or young parents, or retirees. Until at last you are sitting with the ninety-year-olds in the shade, watching over your progeny with satisfaction. Who are you? No problem - you're the person who created all this. The satisfaction of this knowledge is immediate, and moreover, it's universally recognized. How many people have I heard claim their children as their greatest accomplishment and comfort of their lives? It's the thing they can always lean on during a metaphysical crisis, or a moment of doubt about their relevancy - If I have done nothing else in this life, then at least I have raised my children well.

But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me?

Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.

I'm lucky that at least I have my writing. This is something people can understand. Ah, she left her marriage in order to preserve her art. That's sort of true, though not completely so. A lot of writers have families. Toni Morrison, just to name one example, didn't let the raising of her son stop her from winning a little trinket we call the Nobel Prize. But Toni Morrison made her own path, and I must take mine. The Bhagvad Gita - that ancient Indian Yogic text - says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So now I have starting living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.

Those last two lines especially resonate with me. Because, let's face it, I didn't expect to be where I am right now 10 or even 2 years ago - but here I am. The best I can do is live my own life as best I can, and be true to myself.

Two way streets and personal priorities

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Several years back, I lost touch with a lot of people from my childhood. Back then, it hurt - a lot. I felt left behind, and not in the cheesey Kirk Cameron sort of way.

Now, I now only think of most of those folks in terms of "gee, wonder whatever happened to..." and others, I don't think of at all unless something or someone else triggers me to.

It's part of life, I know. Priorities change, life patterns change, etc. I've gotten back in touch with a few people lately, and most are now just e-mail friends and we never really get together. Those that I did really have an interest in reconnecting with, I have put a lot of effort into trying to make that happen. But life is cyclical in a way, and that process of reconnection made me think of the past.

I used to blame myself for losing touch. I should have done this, that, or the other. Should have tried harder, put in more effort. But after several years of contemplating this, I realized - no. I did what I could, and friendship is a two-way street. Why should I constantly have to be the initiator?

Sure, everyone has their own lives and priorities, and in a few cases there are geographical issues. But I've always tried to place my friends at the top of my priorities, and I generally don't see the same in return - with very few exceptions.

Of course, the more hurtful edge of this sword is wondering why I constantly have to be the initiator with some people. It makes me question the quality of the friendship and wonder if those who fall in this category really should be demoted to casual acquaintances rather than carry the term of endearment "friend".

I obviously had concerns about posting this, since it's possible those that evoke these feelings in me may read this. It is also possible that who do not will mistakenly assume it is directed at them and Three's Company hijinks could ensue.

But it's something I had to get off my chest.

I'm just wondering - what's your take on all this?


Editor's note: I think after contemplating this a little more, I've decided that this really has more to do with friendships where I feel I put forth a great deal of effort, a great deal of time, and often bend over backwards, only to feel like I am not much more than a side note to the other person. There are plenty of instances where neither person has much free time, or schedules just don't line up. But it's an emotional blow when you realize that another person doesn't seem to value you as much as you value them. I don't know if that makes sense or not.