On Buoyancy and Sad Country Songs

I’d like to believe that my ability to remain buoyant ranges somewhere between “above average” and “excellent.” Both literally and figuratively. (If indeed a scale existed for such a thing.)

I’m at the pool right now in an attempt to not work for a full 24 hours for the sake of my mental and physical health, even though it’s August, which is why I’m thinking about such things.

In the water, I can stay afloat for a long time with minimal effort. Like, to the point where it surprises people. Perhaps some of it is body composition, but I think a lot of it is an internalization of bel canto breathing (holding a store of air in the lungs at all times and refilling air before completely depleting it, which is a singing technique we practice in choir) along with an ability to stay calm in the water.

Figuratively, I’m the person who stays afloat no matter how hard things get. Usually.

But this summer has been hard. My dog got an aggressive disease and is no longer with me. My professional life (which I usually excel at) feels like no matter how many hours I work, I just can’t dig out enough to satisfy anyone who is relying on me for the countless things people rely on my for. I know I’ve made several people mad at me recently, which also is not common. And I learned this week that the man I had a hopeless crush on (who admittedly, never made a move and probably didn’t feel the same way) will not be returning to work where I work, so it’s fairly likely that I’ll never see him again. Which in some ways is closure to my wondering if anything was ever going to happen between us…but also just makes me feel really disappointed. And sad. Which is ridiculous because why should you be sad over someone you never even had the chance to be with to begin with?—but feelings aren’t always logical, so there you go.

I’m like a country song waiting to be written.

I’m still above the water somehow, but I feel like all the air has been sucked out of my lungs. And I just can’t help but wonder how long it takes before the buoyancy ends…and whether I will be smart enough to get out of the water before it does.

On Tolstoy and Apparently Catching Feelings

The other day, an image with a Tolstoy quote happened across my social media feed. The quote was about the sadness of love never realized but lingering in stolen glances and unspoken words and never becoming what it might be. It was perfect. The post said the quote was from Anna Karenina, which I have started twice but never finished.  (Some day…)

The thing is, I think the quote was a fake. A smart fake, like AI knew me well enough to presuppose that I would be inclined to stop scrolling for a quote about love not yet realized and also knew me well enough to know I’m a fan of Tolstoy. 

I’ve tried to find evidence that this quote is real—and it’s nowhere to be found. I know that if it’s real, it’s a translation from the Russian and there could be multiple similar versions out there because that’s how translations go—but I can’t find anything remotely similar in any of my searches.  I’ve decided not to even post the direct quote here so as to not have the Internet pick it up and try to convince someone else that it’s real.

But I can’t even tell you how deeply disappointed I am to find that this quote is a fake. It felt real. It was so heartbreakingly beautiful. It felt like Tolstoy knew exactly how I feel about…him.

The man I’ve tried without success to put out of my mind. The man whose dark brown eyes compel me to meet them even when I know I’ll be lost (and yet also found) the moment our eyes meet. The man whose gaze lingers with mine long enough to make me hope. 

The man who has yet otherwise to make a move. The man for whom I feel as much confusion as I do desire.

I wanted the Tolstoy quote to be real because I wanted it to bring me clarity somehow. It did not.

Along the way, I found another Anna Karenina quote (this one presumably real):

“He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeking her as one sees the sun, without looking.”

This I understand as well. It seems less satisfying than melting into someone’s eyes, but maybe it’s the first step toward emancipation from the spell he casts. 

Or it’s denial.

Why Are Crushes So Complicated?

I don't date much--intentionally.  Case in point: my last relationship ended roughly 7 years ago, and I haven't gone out with a single guy since then. 

And even though I was 100% sure that I didn't want to marry the guy from the last relationship and that breaking up was the right next step, it took time to process the relationship in the wake of its ending and even longer to heal.  If you're a regular reader of this blog, you've seen posts from various stages of that healing process.

When I finally emerged from that fog, I was certain of one thing: I was done.  No more wishing or hoping or trying to find a boyfriend who might become "the one."  I was going to stay single for the rest of my life because I had things to do with my life and dating is messy and seriously, what's the point...?  And if God had other plans for me and wanted to drop someone right in front of me and make it obvious that I needed to change my path, He was sovereign and could do that.  But otherwise, I was done.

And I have been very content in this mindset until recently.

There's this guy...  

I don't even know what to say about him because I haven't talked about him to anyone else in my life--you heard it here first, folks--because what do you say when you are a grown adult and you have a crush on someone and the signals are so very, very mixed that it's literally impossible to tell if he's interested back or if he's just being nice?  

Writing about him makes the crush feel real...but is it real?  Is there even enough there for it to be worth being real?  To be worth second-guessing my I'm going to be single forever mantra?

The inexplicable phenomenon that happens when our eyes meet is amazing.  Electric.  (Is that what chemistry feels like?  My last relationship had other positive qualities, but chemistry was not one of them, so I don't know.)  But this guy and I are so very, very awkward around each other otherwise, and I just don't know how to read it other than to try to ground myself by asking, "Has he asked me out?  Because if he hasn't, maybe he's just not that into me." 

And he hasn't.  Maybe that's the answer.  But something in my gut still wants to believe otherwise.

We had a couple good interactions earlier this month that gave me hope that maybe he was interested and something would happen.  But then...crickets.  And when I ran into him today, it was not great.  He talked about the weather and then he pulled out his phone and then someone else said hi to him and he started talking to them and that was it for that conversation.  Ouch.

I hate that I care, but I do.

I made a meme earlier this week that said, "I deserve more than maybe we'll run into each other in passing."  I didn't post it anywhere, but I'm trying to remind myself that it's true.  

That mixed signals probably aren't worth the emotional energy.  

That actual love involves both people giving and receiving and is not one-sided.

But ugh...why are crushes so complicated?

Fair or Equal—And Stuck in the Middle

 You would think that after 14 years of your parents being divorced, you would no longer feel caught in the middle.  

And mostly, that’s true. But every now and then it pops up when I’m visiting: which parent are you spending today with?  What happens when both parents have expectations for your time on the same day but neither communicated clearly until you were to a point where it was going to end up awkward for someone regardless of the outcome?

It shouldn’t matter.  I am an adult whose parents divorced after I was out of the house, and I should be fully capable of setting these boundaries and choosing what I want to do.  Which I do (and did again today).

But I never signed up for this.  They may both be happier now not married to each other (which I fully believe is true), but they didn’t exactly consult me when they split.  I never got the opportunity to negotiate terms.  I’m just…stuck in the middle. 

Anyway.  I’m going to go out now and have a great day with the parent I said “yes” to and try not to feel guilty about the parent I said “no” to and try to remind myself that “fair” and “equal” are not the same things (and that nothing about this is fair, regardless).

To my random readers who haven’t given up on this blog, thanks for listening!

Being Alive

Few people are writing about how it is, actually being alive, post-COVID. 

It's a bizarre sociological phenomenon.  Extract from your world the nay-sayers and anti-maskers and you find yourself surrounded by people who are afraid and rules that are meant both to manage that fear and to manage a public health crisis.

I read an Atlantic article recently that dealt with reasons why some people hide their COVID diagnosis from those in their world, which I found fascinating.  One of those reasons is the idea that somehow to be sick is to be lacking in virtue.  If you are sick, something must be wrong with you.  If you are well and strong, all hail the conquering hero.

Well, I'll tell you.  I am a healthy person--sick maybe once a year, if that.  I am also a rule-follower, which means that when my city and my place of employment started issuing recommendations for COVID safety, I was all in.  I was careful.  I was safe.

It didn't matter.  

I came down with the plague near the beginning of November.  I maintain that it happened on election night, when a friend and I ventured out to our favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant and then this man ended up spewing his political propaganda over us, unmasked, throughout our entire dinner.  The symptoms started a few days later.

People ask me what it was like to have had COVID.  The first thing I tell them is that while I can describe my experience, the most notable thing I've observed is that literally everyone who has had it has had a different set of symptoms.  It is a weird, weird disease.

The hard part for me wasn't the illness--or even the fatigue, which yes, was awful, and took about 6 weeks to completely disappear.

What was hard was what came after. 

When you first go back into society, people keep their distance.  They aren't trying to be unkind, but they are afraid, and even when they know you're past your isolation, they don't really know that they are safe from you.  You take a nap in your car because your office floor is hard and you're afraid people will be scared of your germs if you nap out in the open on a faculty lounge sofa.

Everyone else wears a mask to be safe, whereas you wear your mask to make them feel the illusion of safety.

You wish you had a sign (or a T-shirt) that said, "I've already had it" so that people would know they're safe around you.

You carry your documentation of diagnosis on a plane just in case a rule changes while you're traveling and you have to defend...something.

And even once these things pass, you realize that your world has changed and the way you view it has shifted.  The world is hyper-focused on getting the vaccine (which yes, you'll get at some point, but where's the rush if you already have antibodies?) or staying vigilant against the virus, and you no longer worry about these things.  You wear a mask to help others feel safe, and you social distance because, well, you like to do that anyway.  

But being alive post-COVID comes with a different set of fears.  Someone you know dies unexpectedly from a heart attack catalyzed by post-COVID inflammation that he didn't know he had.  You get on the treadmill for the first time in months and all you can think is, I feel strong enough to do this, but what if that happens to me, too?  

You take deep breaths, frequently, just to remind yourself that you can.  You wonder if you will ever be able to sing, really sing, again, or whether you are destined for coughing fits to interrupt it for the rest of your life.

You feel grateful it wasn't worse.  And you didn't infect anyone else (that you know of).  You find a renewed purpose in life because you could have died and didn't and that has to mean something.

But you are alone.  Even when you aren't.  Because relatively few people get what it's like to be on the other side of this.

This is being alive in the aftermath.

"Thank You, Thank You, Silence"

It's been a month this week, hasn't it?

This will not, I fear, be a well-crafted or particularly deep post, but I feel like I have to decompress from this week somewhere and my personal FB circle (most of whom are truly lovely people in real life) has turned into a whirlwind of political rhetoric and knee-jerking, and I just don't feel like I can write freely there right now.

In R.E.M. terms, the week started out very "Shiny Happy People," didn't it?  

It did for me.  I was coming off the first real rest that I've had in a year (thank you Christmas break), and for the first time, I felt like I was truly past the weeks upon weeks of post-COVID fatigue.  I stepped back into a critical work week with energy and vision and joy.  For a couple days, anyway. 

And then Wednesday's sh*tshow at the Capitol happened. 

And suddenly we devolved into "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

I try not to write about political things, particularly in a public forum, because it never ends well.  So, I'm not going to say all of the things I'm thinking.  You can guess or read between the lines.  (Or search for memes about the recent departure of the Secretary of Education.)

But I hate being right when what I'm right about is a bad thing, and boy, was I right about this one.  Everything that happened on Wednesday....  How did more people not see that coming?  It's been stirring for months.  Of course it was going to happen.  (My mom and I, who deeply disagree on the topic of our current leader of the free world, had this conversation while I was home for the holidays.  I tried with everything in me to convince her that he was stirring this up and it was coming, and she was so sure I was wrong.  But I digress.)

I'm grateful the mob's attempts were ultimately unsuccessful.  Though I still fear for our country.

Wednesday night, all I could do was watch the news.  (I hate the news.)  When it was clear that we hadn't even made progress on Arizona by midnight, I went to bed.  But my brain wouldn't stop.  So, I did what any self-respecting over-thinker might do and started creating new Spotify playlists.  Because that's an important use of time.  I actually really like the two playlists I put together, too.  They give me joy.  (They did not, however, give me much sleep.)

Thursday and Friday were a storm of online term launch activity and student petitions.  Nonstop.  The decision fatigue is real.  Seriously, don't ask me anything right now.  The answer is "no."

But the true bright spot in my week occurred Thursday night when a dear friend introduced me to Netflix's new series, "History of Swear Words."  You guys.  If you are the sort of person who is not offended by profanity, you simply must watch it because the catharsis is real.   Especially this week.  It's the perfect combination of etymological education and comedy, and I found myself laughing deep, full-body laughs.  As well as saying lots of...well...words that I'm not writing here. 

And those words make me think of free speech, and free speech makes me think of the fact that today, a couple of prominent social media platforms finally suspended a certain political figure's accounts--an action I have been longing for over the past four years.  

In the words of one particular non-R.E.M. song that, yes, did end up on one of the new playlists: "thank you, thank you, silence."

Keep Your 2020 Vision

It seems like a lot of people view "2020" as the personification of their pandemic problems.  Maybe that's how we cope with uncertainty, fear, and change.  We give it a name and make it a scapegoat.

Hey, 2020, give us back our toilet paper!

Hey, 2020, please put your mask all the way over your nose.  That's it.  Good.

Hey, 2020, I think you're on mute.  Could you just click the...?  Yeah, that's better.  Thank you. 

Everyone I know is ready for 2020 to be over.  Including myself.

Yet as we wrap up this past year, and as I write this for posterity, there are a few things about 2020 that I hope we never forget.

We were resilient.  We stood toe to toe with hard times, and we found ways to fight past them.

We were creative.  We solved problems we hadn't even dreamed about with very little notice and often limited resources.

We embraced technology in a new way.  We had to step out of our comfort zones, but look at us now on Zoom and Teams, in our LMS's and our Google classrooms.  We have expanded our reach without even realizing it.

Yes, 2020 needs to go.  (Don't let the door hit you.)  But I hope we don't lose our 2020 vision.  The world has changed, and we have changed, and we shouldn't allow ourselves to be trapped into merely going back to normal once the pandemic subsides.  We need to take what we've learned and continue to move forward: to be better and to do better and to be the agents of positive change in the world.

Let's hold onto our 2020 vision as we move forward into our new (and hopefully post-pandemic) future.