(no subject)

I feel…place-less of late. Which certainly isn't a new thing, but seems to have crystallized a little bit. I'm obviously and joyously both defined and tethered by my marriage, and I wouldn't trade that for the world. My cats, my cookbooks, my brothers.

But my childless choice chops of one set of self-definition, my lack of anything after a bachelor's, another. My job, while pretty awesome, heightens my sense of adriftness, there's a lot of social undercurrents I'm just not figuring out how to read. (though I did finally have a cards on the table with one of the other women there, and she said yes, everyone but she and I have definitely drunk the koolaid). And I know this is an ongoing lament, and that everyone eventually either chooses their labels or gets over themselves, or never questions it in the first place, but I envy those with that ineffable sense of who they are, where they're going and why.

My tendencies towards isolation, which I feel like I'm in constant battle with, seem to be winning out over my desire to make plans and I wonder exactly why I keep fighting this battle. Sure, I like my friends, but I also like my solitude and maybe in the end, I don't need to be an apologist about either tendency. And I think in part, I fight my antisocial tendencies because I hate how I feel when a post or a status update goes uncommented-upon, and I think that if I find the right set of behaviors, of friends, that I'll finally feel full up of attention, and that once I get enough, I can then figure out how to be calm in my skin.

We're couchshopping now, trying to find the perfect arrangement that will somehow magically maximize seating potential without leaving me feel like the room is insanely cluttered. This isn't an easy pursuit when the two people involved have not just vastly different ideas of what furniture shopping should entail, but vastly differing lengths of leg to boot. Light claims he would have just gone into a store, picked something out the first night, and dealt with it if it didn't work. I, on the other hand, want the Right Couch, some platonic ideal of couch that will keep forever, repel cat hair, allow six people to sit comfortably in space never designed to fit six people and magically help me reach the decision of what color to paint my entire house. I would, however, settle for just one of those attributes.

I'm nesting, in a crazy intense way, though it's not actually manifesting as anything other than bookmarking websites and flights of fancy. Eventually I'll need to take the first step, but these February days I can barely convince myself to hang up the clean laundry, much less paint anything. Your time will come, giant blank white walls, your time will come. I'm hoping, on more levels than one, that March will be a month of planning, and April will be a month of doing.

(no subject)

I feel…place-less of late. Which certainly isn't a new thing, but seems to have crystallized a little bit. I'm obviously and joyously both defined and tethered by my marriage, and I wouldn't trade that for the world. My cats, my cookbooks, my brothers.

But my childless choice chops of one set of self-definition, my lack of anything after a bachelor's, another. My job, while pretty awesome, heightens my sense of adriftness, there's a lot of social undercurrents I'm just not figuring out how to read. (though I did finally have a cards on the table with one of the other women there, and she said yes, everyone but she and I have definitely drunk the koolaid). And I know this is an ongoing lament, and that everyone eventually either chooses their labels or gets over themselves, or never questions it in the first place, but I envy those with that ineffable sense of who they are, where they're going and why.

My tendencies towards isolation, which I feel like I'm in constant battle with, seem to be winning out over my desire to make plans and I wonder exactly why I keep fighting this battle. Sure, I like my friends, but I also like my solitude and maybe in the end, I don't need to be an apologist about either tendency. And I think in part, I fight my antisocial tendencies because I hate how I feel when a post or a status update goes uncommented-upon, and I think that if I find the right set of behaviors, of friends, that I'll finally feel full up of attention, and that once I get enough, I can then figure out how to be calm in my skin.

We're couchshopping now, trying to find the perfect arrangement that will somehow magically maximize seating potential without leaving me feel like the room is insanely cluttered. This isn't an easy pursuit when the two people involved have not just vastly different ideas of what furniture shopping should entail, but vastly differing lengths of leg to boot. Light claims he would have just gone into a store, picked something out the first night, and dealt with it if it didn't work. I, on the other hand, want the Right Couch, some platonic ideal of couch that will keep forever, repel cat hair, allow six people to sit comfortably in space never designed to fit six people and magically help me reach the decision of what color to paint my entire house. I would, however, settle for just one of those attributes.

I'm nesting, in a crazy intense way, though it's not actually manifesting as anything other than bookmarking websites and flights of fancy. Eventually I'll need to take the first step, but these February days I can barely convince myself to hang up the clean laundry, much less paint anything. Your time will come, giant blank white walls, your time will come. I'm hoping, on more levels than one, that March will be a month of planning, and April will be a month of doing.