Life is Busting out ALL Over!

I’m really trying to listen, listen to the mistakes, listen to those who enter my life, if only briefly, listen to my heart, stretching my ears to hear something I might be missing. The silence is deafening at times, the loneliness is deep, yet all of it is familiar. I take comfort in the hard way, which has become my way.

I’m missing it, alright, and I can’t figure out what it is. I will not panic, I will not act out of insecurity and anxiety. But I’m going to take a step back. I will shut down my senses, and listen to my gut. What is right, is right around the corner, this I know.

Now, all that is left to do… is believe.

Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I made a trip up to the the homeland at the end of last week - got to sleep in my old bed and see my parents for the first time since Christmas, got to drive in Chicago rush hour (god, I miss the racetrack driving of Illinois’ drivers), and I had my BIG interview on Friday, only to drive back down to Indiana Friday night.

It was a good trip and per usual with Mom, I didn’t leave without a present. However, this time I was pleasantly surprised. I can’t tell you how many pens I have with my name on it or pads of paper with the first initial of my first name - and then once I got a cat, it became trinkets and junk with cats on it. I know that she longs to still be a big part of my life and this is her way of showing me she cares - and I do appreciate it, but once you have one pack of “lifeisbusting” pens - haven’t you had them all?? Anyway, we tease her about her habit, and I still get random packs of cat post-its for Valentine’s Day.

However, this time, when she told me she had a present for me, and I cringed while trying to muster up some greatful response to magnets and office supplies… she gave me a car air freshener. Not just any car air freshener - but an OBAMARAMA air freshener!! It was amazing. Mostly, because I grew up in the most Republican city in the most Republican county in the state of Illinois, and while I’ve broken free from the chains, my parents have taken their time to see the light (although my dad will vote independent at will). So this is kind of a big deal, that Moms thought to buy me a Democrat - and at least she got the right one!

Also, the Senator is pretty rad, although to be honest, the picture frightens me a little. It’s just so CLOSE up - and there is a mole that is quite apparent, which alarms me a little. His picture is on both sides so he’s always looking at me. Also the fragrance is kind of foul, it actually smells like this crazy/amazing lotion I once bought at a sexy time party. According to the package, it’s supposed to get rid of the Republican stink. But that aside, it was cool to have the Senator hanging from my rear view mirror. I’ve never had anything hang from that in Apple (yes this is my car’s name - she’s red, and if Gwenyth can do it…).

I found myself relying a little bit more on the Senator during my car drive. When we were stuck in Friday evening Chicago traffic and I was thinking about the 4 more hours I had left go, I wondered outloud if I could really do this, and then I’d see him looking at me and I’d say “Yes, I Can!!”. Then there were the too often times when my thoughts got rather deep (as they tend to do while driving alone) and I was getting a little sad, and I’d catch the Senator’s big toothy grin, and I’d smile too. There were also the times when I got lost trying to take a short cut back into my Indiana town, and my heart would stop because I thought I would catch a reflection of a ghost in the dark, DARK road, and then I’d realize it was just the Senator swirling around on his string. He totally punk’d me on that one. It’s so cheezy and a bumper sticker would be more effective in amassing the votes, but I rather like the tacky foul smelling Obama air freshener in my car.

I should have brought him in my house and hung him around my neck because the rest of the weekend was emotionally heartwrenching and exhausting. No matter how hard I try, and maybe I’m not trying enough, I’m still not over the Ex. I don’t think it helps we still talk - and this weekend we had a two day conversation about what we both want. It seems we both want to be with each other - but our definitions are QUITE different. I’m refusing to compromise and rather than listening to what I had to say, he would rather deconstruct my argument based on the dynamics of a debate and tear it apart. And I refuse to let it die. I don’t know WHY. (but there was a guy, who said he could fly, so he baked a pie… I’ll stop, I blame Happy Gilmore) I’ve pretty much pushed him away, and I went for his sore spot - something I’d be dying to say for YEARS, and took the brutally honest approach (which although in theory sounds good, never, never works). So now it’s strained and I’m sure it’s probably a good thing. Maybe now I’ll get the clarity I need. I just don’t think it has to be this hard. Sure, good relationships are work and they should be, but I don’t want to feel like I’m fighting for it all the time. I want a guy who KNOWS he wants to be with me, and move past the baggage to do it. I’m tired of feeling like I have convince him that it’s his own idea to want to be with me.

To make matters worse, I emailed my best friend about what I was thinking and what I was going through, and she took two sentences to give me her thoughts before she went on about her love life. Now, she’s always made it about her but she can balance it well. But she’s in her first serious relationship. They’ve been dating for two months, and she moved in. For financial reasons, before they met the parents, before they said I love you (although that has since happened). And I love her and I love that she is happy but OMG, seriously??! Seriously. And I can’t say anything, she’s in charge of her own life - although if the situation was reversed… I don’t know, this is probably an additional post. I don’t want to be a whiny and poor me, and I know that I am probably bitter and jealous, which makes me feel worse.

I know it’s just a matter of time, before everything is revealed to me, with the job (please, a job!) and the location and I’ll look back at this and be happy I went through it, because it will bring me to place I only prayed would happen to me. But right now, I’d rather just sleep until I can wake up and everything feels normal again.

*Driving back, I thought of numerous other phrases like:

- What would Obama do?

- Obama is my homeboy (which is not original)

- Obama is the passenger in my car

- Obama 3:16

I had my final counseling session today. It was actually supposed to be last Thursday afternoon but I spaced and missed it. I was thrown off by a surprise phone interview complete with asking for a salary range. Who does that on the 2nd interview?? Apparently I was reading blogs or writing blogs or something and didn’t realize I had missed it until I got in the car.

I felt more stupid than anything. 1) One of the small changes I’ve decided to make in my life, and therefore PROCLAIMED loudly every session, was to utilize my planner so that I can exert a little more control. (or feel like I do) To the point that I become one with it. As in if there was a fire in my house, I’m grabbing my cat, my wallet and my planner. To illustrate this point, I brought my planner to every session after my proclamation. So to FORGET and just not show up to an appointment… what kind of progress is THAT??

2) I knew that my counselor would be doing an evaluation of me as part of her training and I REALLY REALLY didn’t want it to state “Client was making very good progress but failed to show up for her last session. Clearly she has resorted to coping mechanisms and therefore I am unable to properly evaluate her”. Or something. I wanted her to be able to have an complete evaluation and basically I wanted to finish strong, or some other competitive metaphor.

So I rescheduled and went back in today. It was good and nice and whatever but I’m a little bit annoyed. My counseling is done on campus and is free. Therefore I have a doctoral student who is my counselor and I’m sure does some sort of evaluation on me as part of her training. I really don’t mind she’s not licensed. For one, it’s a strong program here and two, I kind of like her. She’s a great listener and she really came around and started hitting me with the heavy stuff a couple months ago. I was scared we’d be on the break up FOREVER (although… probably still needed).

Anyway, I’ve noticed progress and a change within myself. I can FEEL it. I’m starting to release this control grip I have over everything and I’m starting to trust. It’s been good.

But today, we are literally 10 minutes from the end of the session, and I ask if she can help me process through a fairly large (on a grad school budget) frivolous purchase (which I’m embarrassed to admit here but I’m sure you will be able to figure it out soon) I am thinking going to make. I sort of discuss my reasons and thought I made sense. She countered with some other valid points but I still held my ground

And she goes… “Well, I do think that you have been and are consistently motivated by external factors, whereas you should be motivated internally”.

HOLD THE PHONE. What??

A) She is totally right. I am motivated by external factors, I don’t put myself first, yada yada, it all makes sense to me. In fact, I think it’s the missing link.

B) This is the FIRST thing she’s done in all of our sessions together that remotely resembles a challenge from her to me. A challenge I could really dive into and explore.

Then she finishes her thought, with my mouth agape trying to register and linking everything in my life together, and looks on the clock and states, “We’re out of time”. She smiles and wishes me luck and that’s it.

That’s IT!! Done.

Totally well worth it, love the concept of self exploration, value counseling and psychology, but seriously, could we have gotten to this in March??

Since I will be embarking on this self exploration alone this summer, maybe I should also explore why I’m so competitive with my own counselor?? I mean, coming up with conclusions before she does, holding my ground, countering her points with more of my own… really? There’s no winners in therapy, right? Aren’t we all winners for even making the effort??

1. Although I am great at organizing bar crawls, I now suck at participating in them. My body literally did not WANT a gin and tonic. I almost wept. (seriously? I put “weeped” and had it there for hours. You know when it’s finals week when….)

2. My tolerance for friends who become annoying when intoxicated is quite low.

3. I live in a world (no less a town) where a jukebox exists in which it is PAINFUL to find 25 decent songs (Why I put $5 in, I’m not sure.. probably because I’ve never been LET DOWN by a jukebox before).

4. I still believe in fate

5. The best pictures of me are taken when I’m not expecting it or looking at the camera.

6. My cohort’s nickname for me is Aerosmith. It’s official. My first name does not exist any longer. I brought this on myself, however, in an effort for people to get my last name right I say “Kind of like Aerosmith”. There you go. And worst of all, I kind of/really like it.

7. Chicago or Boston. Boston or Chicago. I’m releasing the next steps of my journey to a higher power because He/She has never failed me, although I continually forget this.

8. It’s probably best that I never eat Taco Bell again.

9. My little sister is my teacher. Never saw that coming.

10. Gentle falling rain makes writing easier.

7% of the state is counted, and they can call it already??!! Is this a democracy or a generalization??

Fear not, Indiana is in two weeks and guess who has changed their voter registration and is voting early??

Yup, that is right. Sorry Hills, you might have gotten the bitter voters in Pennsylvania, but the bitter Hoosiers understood what Senator Obama meant, and they’ve seen the light

You can buy votes, but you can’t beat the fierce urgency of NOW.

Life is moving so fast, sure things falling away by the second, that I am literally left silent.

I know years from now, I’ll be able to look back and see how the pieces fell into place but for the meantime, I am content to watch, unable to describe this current.

“love builds up the broken wall
and straightens the crooked path.
love keeps the stars in the firmament
and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides
each of us is created of it
and i suspect
each of us was created for it”

– Maya Angelou

1. EARTHQUAKE + AFTERSHOCKS + INDIANA (Fine, Midwest) = WTF????

First of all, can I just state how flipping exhausted I’ve been this week? My two major projects of the semester due last Tuesday, then one flight and long job interview over two days in GA, next day 5 hour drive to Chicago for another one and back (You ain’t ever experienced boredom until you’ve driven through Indiana. I’m seriously thinking of trademarking this phrase), crashing before 10pm that night, and then getting flipping woken up by an earthquake at 5:38am the next morning. And of course due to my love of Breaking News/Special Reports, I was up for the rest of the day. Seriously, I needed sleep!! It was kind of like the time my freshman year in college when my new member class slept for a week at the sorority house and the fricking fire alarm went off at 4am after we had been out all night - all of us sleeping on the living room floor, walking out of the house wrapped up in our blankets, thought they were hazing us until the fire trucks showed up, because it was a risk management DRILL. Yeah, it felt like that. Jerks.

Anyway, I’ve always maintained to others (because *I* have conversations like this) that when you compare this country with natural disasters - West (Earthquakes), Midwest (Tornadoes) and East (Hurricanes) - that I would take Tornadoes any day of the week, even though they are nasty next door to my hometown destroyer fuckers - at least we have a warning system. Even if the sirens fail, we still have clues: 1. Green sky 2. Wall Cloud 3. Hail 4. Duck for your life. Earthquakes, out of nowhere, and hurricanes are so fickle you end up doubting it or proving you can outlast them. See, rock, paper, scissors, we win.

But now*, the experts are saying this is Mother Nature’s warning call?? Tornadoes AND earthquakes. Awww… HELL NO!!

2. ARTSY COLLEGE TOWN + LIFEISBUSTING = TRUE LOVE FOREVER??

Not in the major path of any of these natural disasters has now been included in my pro/con list entitled, “Where the hell am I going to live?”. I had THE MOST amazing interview at the University of Georgia. Holy hell, I love that town - it is an arts town, a CREATIVE town and creative/spiritual/imaginative peeps are my favorite kinds, we love each other. Athens, call me!! It is in the field I am most interested and where I think my heart belongs. I felt like I rocked the 8 HOUR interview process including a 30 minute presentation. THAT I WROTE THE NIGHT BEFORE. Yikes.

But for real, the staff was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever been somewhere interviewing where the future employer tries to woo you as much I try to woo them on me. And the job. Oh my god the job. Pays like crap but holy heck, I’d even get to teach a class. I want to marry it. Two positions, four candidates (met them all, very nice and I’m the only non blonde - TEAM BRUNETTE!) and stated the toughest decision they have to make. I feel like I could crack the top 2 but I can see it going either way.

However, my gut is telling me it’s where I’ll go. My gut is much smarter than I am. So I hope it’s right. Plus, I could feasibly go out to a bar, have a beer while reading a book and meet Michael Stipe. I MEAN, HELLO. Automatic for the People made this little 14 year old lonely kid fall in love with music and like someone finally got it. Which, I sort of blurted out like three different times in various interviews on Wednesday, because I’m cool and like to BLURT random stuff out all the time like people care. Uh….. Hey, Athens, I promise I’ll watch all the blurting. For real. I’ll just go hiking in the mountains and blurt stuff there.

3. JUST BECAUSE YOUR SCHOOL LOOKS LIKE HOGWARTS DOESN’T MEAN IT’S AS AWESOME ON THE INSIDE

University of Chicago = meh. Granted it’s not a position I’d fall on my sword for but I was interested, until I met the staff devoid of all personality. Not sure that’s for me.

4. YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN??

I’m actually moving along with Northwestern for a position that interests me outside of Career Services. And I’m pissed because I have been having an internal struggle on whether or not I want to go back to Chicago. I know I’m going to have this big of a decision, it’s how my life works. Just when I had decided I was ready to move on and that *my* Chicago wouldn’t be the same Chicago (and really hasn’t been for a couple of years) to which I would return, flipping NU calls. The ONE town, the ONE place that could change everything, did. F.

More on the spewing of internal struggles to come, I’m sure.

5. SLEEP IS FOR WIMPS

I’m averaging about 3 hours a night now, due to workload but also stress. Also, I’m breaking out. So that’s awesome. I also proved to myself that I can give a one hour presentation on no sleep and not eating for about 20 hours prior. Sure, I spew random stuff and blurt out some horrible sounds, but I got through it.

6. 70 DEGREE WEATHER RULES

Enough said.

* Growing up in the burbs in IL, I’ve known about the New Madrid fault line. In 7th grade, some doomsdayer/geologist predicted there would be a CATASTROPHIC earthquake, similar to the one in the 19th century that shifted the course of the Mississippi river, along this fault line. He had predicted the exact day and time. The news went apeshit over it (SHOCKER!). All I remember was it was in December of 1990. And it was supposed to hit after school. That day, I had musical practice, and because I was always made “Girl #3 from the right” and not having to really do much except stand there, I was watching and watching and watching the clock for the earthquake to hit. It never did. You can only imagine the disappointment of a nerd/girl-who-would-go-on-to-be-named-7th-grade-Geography-Whiz-Kid. Let’s just keep this story close to our hearts and not tell any future love(s) of my lives, mm’kay?

Do you see that there? That is the gym in the rec center on campus. See the top where the chairs are all centered around? Tomorrow morning Barack Obama will be standing THERE. And I’m not going. BOO! But like 6000 people got in line and stood for 5 hours and 4000 of them walked away empty handed. But yay for Obama (yes, I’ve made up my mind! It was the speech in Philly several weeks back that did it for me. IN!)

Taking this picture from the balcony this morning was the closest I got. Unfortunately, I was trapped/guiding a group of low income middle schoolers on a day of college awareness so they can start to dream and achieve now and persist through high school and hopefully college.  God bless middle school teachers I have no idea how they do it.

I made a friend with one kid who used his free $5 lunch card to buy 20 packs of gum. His response? “I love Gum.” Um, yes you do. Then I was walking back with another kid and was telling him the first kid really likes gum and he told me that the gum kid “is a huge nerd”. Then I got into a quasi-argument/discussion about how it is okay to be a nerd. I’m pretty sure it ended with me saying “yes it IS!” and the Nerd Hater was all “No, it isn’t!” back and forth and over and over the entire time across the quad.

But I also reassured a little girl that middle school sucks donkey balls and it will only get better from here. I think I made her happy, so I earned my wings (as well as totally LIED!! Because high school can still suck too if you are still socially awkward but let’s hope she outgrows that phase by then).

it is that I do like change, but mostly when it comes to little things. And I love, love, love, LOVE to customize! I’m very much a Gen X-er but the customizing is only Gen Y part of me.

So redid the blog’s layout and updated a header.

I also like to find my name used as inspiration for things.

And while lilies remain one of my favorite flower families, this one is called the ‘Megan lily’. OMG. I love things named after me (and other people who share the same name and had more influence than I and more rightly should be a muse). Finding stuff like this reminds me of the excitement I would get when we could go on family vacations and at some truck stop in Ohio, I’d find a plastic license plate with my name on it, or a coffee cup, etc.

Granted it’s not the song - which I thought was the greatest thing EVER when I was in high school and now, I think the lyrics are kind of lame. But I love that it is my name. Sidenote: Annie Lennox’s old school song, Would I Lie to You? has a part where she sings “I’ll Make It, Make it” over and over. Growing up I used to think it was “Oh Megan, Megan” because I am self centered like that. I still sing it that way and I tell my friends and make THEM sing it too. 9 out 10 people think her British accent allows you to think that she’s saying my name, so I’m not crazy.