On Moving
I am going to hijack the blog for a post on my upcoming move. I won’t bore anyone with details, but I feel the need to think out loud, and if one is going to be honest publically, it seems easiest to do so from behind a monitor.
One of the things that I struggle to balance in life is my need for human interaction, and the stories that accompany those interactions, with the fact that I am essentially a private person. Learning a person’s history is exciting. Seeing what makes them laugh, what motivates them, and how they think of themselves is something that I am drawn to. And at the same time I admit that I get tired of always hearing stories from the same people, I selfishly want to feel a connection that I perhaps haven’t earned, that I have not been willing to take the chances to let such a connection grow.
Which means the friends I have are precious to me. In my life I have been a far better friend that romantic partner. The friendships that have been most important to me have taken place at a much more honest level than any sexual relationship I have ever been a part of.
So what does this have to do with moving? I’ve had a week or so to ponder what’s going to happen in my life as I move, quite simply because I, truly, Need a Dollar. The thoughts that have emerged are pretty indicative why it’s so hard for me to move and why it might be difficult for many people to move.
To start with not only will I have to make new friends, which I can do relatively well, but I will say goodbye to people in my life now, and of course lose contact with many of them (I say of course because I know myself). There is a sense of loss in this. People I truly care about will cease to exist as a part of my life. Just as importantly, however, is that so far in my life moving has strengthened many of my friendships. Distance, and the realization that comes that the connections I’ve made are deeper than the challenges it presents, is something I’ve learned to appreciate.
What’s stuck out to me more these last couple of days is not that I’ll have to make new friends, cause that’s pretty damn obvious. But that I will lose the comfort of knowing I can slide into the person I’ve become here. It’s strange but I act the same way with strangers and the people I’m closest to. I’m relatively quiet, I joke less, and I’m far less outgoing. With people I’m just meeting this is because of nerves and an awkwardness that only time with a person can cure. With people I know well it is the relaxing of person I am in public.
With most people I joke a lot. I enjoy it. It also keeps things light and impersonal. When I’m comfortable enough to not have to have everything be light and impersonal is when I find myself becoming a much quieter, distracted, person. The irony of this doesn’t escape me. In moving to a city where I will know no one my actions will mimic the person I wish I was far more, but caused by the very personality traits that won’t let me be that way all the time.
Saying goodbyes are awful, but then they’re over. Starting something that is intimidating because of its newness, will eventually be blasé due to familiarity. Facing the fact that in situations a lot of aspects of myself that I haven’t had to deal with in a while in DC is going to be tougher. There’s no end sight for this, although it will certainly fade into the background.
On Moving (2)
Before I moved I wrote a blog post that quickly turned into a diary entry. Which was kind of great, I got to write about interesting things that I enjoyed thinking about. Unfortunately it was useless as a blog post as it read like a 13 year old wrote it after hearing his best friend AND his cat had both been hit by a car. This is a level of embarrassment that no one wants so you’ll have to deal with this post instead.
I drove from DC to Madison, WI over the last 5 days. I have a job in Madison, my first adult job too (meaning I’ll have things like two different types of coats for different types of cold). Even so it’s been a rather bittersweet trip. I’ve remembered/daydreamed a lot of things over the last few days (no one has saved earth more, had more wonderfully awful schemes to make money, kissed as many beautiful women, or been thought so stoically brave as I have over the course of this drive). One memory that kept coming back was of talking to one of my favorite philosophy professors when I was 20 years old. We were talking about philosophy and literature (I had such pretentions of grandeur) and the Iowa’s Writers Workshop came up. One of the authors I brought up was TC Boyle. He then, rather sheepishly, admitted that because he went to Iowa University for graduate school he took pride in his rather loose association with Mr. Boyle. The line that still sticks with me was when he said “At some point I realized I wasn’t going to change the world and that somewhere along the way I started taking pride in have a connection to someone who did.”
The conversation went on and I enjoyed it. He was an interesting fun guy and we were talking about something I really liked. But that quote has haunted me ever since. In my heart I know I will be no TC Boyle. I’m pretty sure that would be awesome, although I’d prefer to be Michael Chabon (it’s the hair). I look at what I want in life and I am still unsure. In my mid 20’s in many ways I feel like a child.
What’s strange is the people I feel the deepest connection with are in the same boat. I sense the uncertainity that I constantly struggle with in them as well. And rather than figure out answers to our problems I would rather pass the time sharing a drink, or pretending to drink and finding pieces of ourselves in those who walk past us. I wonder constantly, and this is especially true when I travel by myself, at how absurd my life is. How I have so many things that I like, but nothing that I love. It’s difficult to want desperately to love something, because it’s my dearest ambition. To wonder if the only thing I’m cut out to love is people, and how that might be a fool’s game.
This new job will most likely be interesting, but it will probably not be a passion. This is ok. What scares me more is this sense of getting older, and getting older alone. Not alone just personally (although I find myself yearning for companionship more in times of change, at this change to adulthood emotionally) but also without the dreams that I used to have to keep my afloat of a job that is perfectly fulfilling and a life that could easily understand. This move hammered into me a perfectly understood life is not one I’m capable of having. Is it so wrong to think that maybe finding someone else who is in the same boat wouldn’t be a terrible thing?
I wrote earlier about the person I am with my closest friends. Yet it’s bullshit to a certain extent. I’m still goofy, and outgoing, and stupid with the people I love. I think the key is perhaps they can look past that and see that there is a depth there that I don’t often share. I think I take comfort in knowing that someone knows in the world that I’m not some shallow asshole who seems to be confident and with a firm idea of who he is.
After writing this two realizations have kinda come over me. When I’m nervous and have time to engage the world I apparently think too much. And when I write it’s sadder than the emotions I’m trying to express. Maybe, when I ramble it reveals the things I’m most unsure about myself, and those things necessarily scare me. Also clearly this cannot be a blog post as I lost interest in my professor’s quote. God Damn you world.
