…uhhh, a lot. When I started this project five(!) years ago, I wasn’t sure where it was going, and I still haven’t finished some of the pieces it started with—I should probably at least finish the article for The Treaty of Paris since that page apparently comes up in organic search once in a while. But hey! I know what that means now, so I haven’t been wasting all of this time. I remain unsure of where this project is going, but I don’t want to give up on it yet. It is, after all, my first website, and it’s a project that is meta in a very Jerrika way. I’m a bit attached to it.
In 2013, I maybe expected to be in Boston by now, but I didn’t think I’d be here for a master’s degree, and I didn’t think I’d be here alone. My heart’s been broken in a few different ways in the last few years. I wasn’t counting on that, and it was a collection of disappointments. I don’t know if I really got anything out of the heartbreak itself, but it happened. Say what you will about lessons learned and the journey of life or whatever—and I’m someone who believes strongly in not dwelling on regrets—they were not experiences I wanted, and I don’t feel good looking back on them. I try to capitalize on them creatively, if nothing else, but I don’t hope for more of that kind of pain for me or anyone. One of my biggest takeaways from the last five years is that people you trust will let you down. Not always, but your favorites will fuck up, and they won’t always come back from it. In my case that’s been… okay, I guess. It turns out I don’t need them to come back from it, because apparently I can take care of myself better than anyone else will.
That said, to say that I’m “alone” isn’t true in every sense here. Although “learning who your real friends are” is a bit of a cliché, I can say I have, and, again, it wasn’t a test I was looking for, but I am grateful to the inordinate number of people who have stepped up in my life whether I asked them to or not. I’ve made so many outstanding friends, before Boston and in it, and I’m frankly overwhelmed most days by how much I love and admire the people in my life. I feel things all the time.
My family is growing and dividing and redistributing, and I’m blessedly and distressingly at least six hundred miles away from all of it. I’m going to be an aunt in July/August, and whatever tensions are in my immediate family seem to be in some kind of a stasis, but beyond my parents and sisters I have a handful of concerns and relationships that either stay on my mind or disappear long enough to collect a healthy amount of guilt to offer when they return. I feel things all the time.
Alone isn’t true in every sense because I’m not getting enough time to myself these days either. I’m frequently in public or professional spaces for twelve or more hours a day (which may be normal, but I’m not sure, and either way I don’t like it), I don’t think I can remember the last time that I spent two days on my own, and if I’m spending time with one/some of the aforementioned many people I know, I am probably investing a lot of it because I try to form deep connections. One of many facts pointing to a misguided sense of self-preservation is that, despite cultivating significantly more relationships than people around me seem to do, I am an introvert. I like my company, and I like being left alone for extended periods of time. I prefer it. I miss me very much right now.
I don’t know how much of any of it is anyone’s business or interest, but I’m doing a lot. Maybe not by some standards—I have a lot of unpacked boxes in my house here like I did when Non Finito Spaghetti started, I don’t eat well most days because it’s easier to not, and I post a lot more pictures of my cat than I used to post—but it’s certainly a lot compared to my past productivity levels, and I’m tired. I’m getting a better idea of what I have to offer, but I don’t know what to do with it, so I started saying yes to everything to see what would happen because fuck it, if trying to be careful will still land you by yourself (but not alone), why not? That sounds dramatic—rest assured no one’s offering me anything particularly dangerous so far; it’s just that it all adds up. I’m tired.
Samhain gets some good sleep, though.
Non Finito Spaghetti 