the love/hate, in all its degrees

I know one day I’ll look back and miss the cute puppyhood, but right now floyd is getting on my every last nerve– and I’m kind of looking forward to the middle-aged lap dog he’ll be.

I expect it to be an occasionally similar thing with kids– not-as-young-as-they-might-be parents kind of daydreaming of one day being emptynesters. I expect kids, if I ever have them, to kick my ass. it’s one ass-kicking I welcome, and it pretty much terrifies me.

ah, that thrill ride of caring a lot, about people, things, the work we do in this world, whatever.

I am absolutely hating being kind-of indifferent to the work I do daily. it’s not even the days that make me crazy that make me crazy– ultimately it’s simply not caring enough. I really miss feeling like I was in a position to effect the way forward in substantive ways. wouldn’t it even be nice to find one’s work meaningful? well, there’s reaching for the stars… but, concretely, I miss the high tech world and working in teams of targeted aptitudes. I miss intelligent organization and management. I miss california and north carolina for those things, and some other things.

which leads to nostalgia and the oh-so-long list of the things missed for various reasons– things, of course, from the past, rendered seemingly tame in retrospect.

the present has these intense pockets of authentic feeling and then stretches of … caring less.

I want to care more, I want more. and I stop myself continually in a hundred different ways out of the fear of change and the unknown. I’m not so much afraid of feeling a lot. I am learning that I fear being and appearing stupid (there is ego in it). and I have a concrete fear of being downright dumb. not trusting myself not to render disasters. I feel I have wrought them. the mistakes I’ve made have been rather doozies. I guess it’s the risk you run.

who wouldn’t like to be smarter and more skillful? better liked? charmed and charming? though I’ve seen those with silver spoons choke themselves with them. the risk they run.

we work with the tools we have– or we muffle our own hands with hesitation.

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0 Replies to “the love/hate, in all its degrees”

  1. sometimes you have to just close your eyes, hold your breath and fall into the deep end of the pool.
    of course, after you do that you'll hate the fact that you're constantly treading water.
    xoxo

  2. you guys both strike me as being good at the jump– probably no longer even feels like leaping to you. my fear of change is weird– I manage to do it in large, bold gestures, but daily life tends to accrete around my ankles like so much sludge, hardening gradually into something immovable– it's gradual, creeping, until I find I can barely draw breath. has happened over and over again. the key, I think, is in the *daily* doing of uncomfortable or frightening things. mine is a form of self-burial through procrastination, and I loathe it.

  3. If I am good at dealing with change it's not by design but by necessity. Nothing will foil a good plan like a child. Think you're going to do grocery shopping today? Think again. The baby is sleeping. The baby is not sleeping. The baby must eat RIGHT NOW. The baby has just spit up on your favorite shirt – and your friend's couch. The baby has tripped and has a boo boo. Oh my god she's actually bleeding – and howling. The baby has a fever. The baby is sick but does not have a fever. The baby has croup and needs to sit in the shower for an hour at 3am. No, sadly, you can't just leave her there until she feels better. The baby has broken something (expensive) at a store, at her aunties, at your office.
    Raising kids is a perpetual exercise in recovery and Plan B.
    :-)

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