seems as though general boredom and major apathy have advanced and setup camp in our collective blogosphere. my sense of connectedness to friends and acquaintances is slip sliding away. you austin folk seem to not like the internet anymore. i don't blame you.
saturday, i called elizabeth. my mood was strong and ready for a great weekend exploring seattle and hopefully seeing good people. we talked a bit and quickly realized she was tired, so things probably weren't gonna happen with casa luna taking a trip to folklife. she then tells me that she was offered the doula position with americorps (more on the intracacies of that in a bit). such great news, as that was exactly what she wanted to do. i offered to take her out to lunch and she replied with "i don't think so, i'm tired." without warning, tears formed in my eyes and i couldn't see. what the fuck? spontaneous tears? i got genuinely sad at such casual rejection. how absurd.
it seems the big picture of emotional outbursts rests firmly in my lack of tribe. i am actively pursuing making a place for myself here, but it just seems almost inhospitable. i feel outdated, as though my ideas and way of interacting are past their shelf life. since i've been back in seattle, i have had many visitors and had fun with many people, but i've not spent any significant amount of time with anyone but elizabeth.
liz (not elizabeth) bailed on me today. given the circumstances, i completely understand, but i had really hoped to finally see someone, anyone, a second time.
had brunch today with some people from work. it was great to get out and meet new folks, especially in a setting other than work. all was going well until a discussion about elliott spizter turned to governement and politics. one of the women there was a libertarian and thought socialized anything was bad and economic growth was good. i went back and forth with her for a bit, which ended up in her defending her ideas, almost shaking as she did so, and spouting off that she didn't go to brunch to talk politics. i felt bad that i was part of an akward situation, especially as a guest/the new guy. but i'm a socialist and i make no apology for that.
saw star wars today. thought it was pretty crappy. dialogue sucked. hayden christiansen in the darth vader gettup seemed lame. i wonder how much lucas paid james earl jones to talk in that role.
becca is in seattle now. back in new england, she's been a on a couple of dates with someone she just met. of course she has. and of course she will. why do i let myself even think about her?
talked to jason for about two hours tonight. nice to catch up with him and talk about our collective difficulty in finding/building/developing tribes. he also walked me through using the rss feed features in thunderbird. mark phillip will understand.
while some good came out of the weekend, i have to give it 2 thumbs down.
how do you all out there deal with being alone? i find myself frequently talking to old friends, but it is not the same. i mean that in the sense of physical proximity, but also in the sense of living differently. i notice this everytime i talk to jeff beebe. his life has progressed so much since i left and i feel like i've been spinning my wheels. nothing has happened for me. do i write that because i don't have a tribe or because i don't have a partner? hmph. i don't know.
i feel like i am missing some fundamental aspect of being human - notably not having a local village/tribe/family/community to speak of. and knowing how difficult it is for me to be alone frustrates me. i see people together, in pairs or in groups, and i feel rejected. i see women turn away when i look at them and i wonder what they are thinking. are they thinking "oh god, i hope he doesn't look this way or try to talk to me, or worse yet, try to attack me."? i hope not, but a friend of mine once told me she always thinks that when she sees a guy walking by himself. it seems that's all i ever do these days. walk home from work. walk to fremont. walk to the u district. walk to ravenna. walk home. alone.
2 comments:
See, you stole "tribes" from me (not that I mind):
Friday, October 15th, 2004: "[Chris and I] had a good time talking about what there is to do in W. Lafayette and Bloomington and how odd it was that we had found each other. I told him about my recent tingly feelings. Then I told him about how I had considered lessening my elitism to meet more normal people. Chris said he had had conversations with Nathan about my elitism and quickness to call someone a dumbass, haha… But then I told him that after talking to Shannon I just don't want to waste my time with normal people. So, I told him that I am on the search for members of my tribe and family of choice."
Saturday, November 20th, 2004: "In tears I told my sister that I had been wishing I could just be normal. She told me that that was a terrible thing to say, and it is. I've never really felt this way before now. It's something about this town and its lack of members of my tribe. I told Jacqui that even though there are a bunch of atheists here even they haven't had the same experiences I've had so we don't necessarily have that to share."
Friday, March 18th, 2005: "In other news, I'm a bit down inside. I cried on the way to Bloomington on Friday thinking about this line from John Calvin about Christians being exiles on earth and then Augustine writing about citizens of the City of God being pilgrims on earth. I don't think I'll ever find my tribe and those thoughts found an odd resonation with me. I have happy moments but I always experience them as explicit moments of respite. Short holidays that I know I'll have to return from. And I know now that I could never be normal, so that is not an option."
Now you just need to start talking about Normals. Only, it is scary that you're having trouble forming a tribe there as well...
yes, i know you use "tribe," and maybe i adopted it... but i like it. i remember thinking about my "tribe" when i watched dune as a 4th grader (do you remember you had the graphic novel/comic?). the lynch version refered to the fremen sietches as tribes. while studying old testament perspectives, i was fascinated with the 12 tribes of the jews. i modeled my thinking along such lines as the heirarchy of my ideal tribe. so much so, that i would refer to house meetings (in undergrad and grad) as pow-wows. but i think anthropology studies at tamu (yanomamo specifically). regardless, i'm glad to have the common vocabulary.
i think forming a tribe will just take time. i expected to be further along the process, so maybe this is a signal to practice patience.
Post a Comment