Sunday

I'm sitting in my yard right now on a folding chair with my feet up on another folding chair. It's December and it's 63 degrees. I'm right next to a little stand up fire pit that I used for a fire with friends on Friday night. The neighbor's cat has crossed into my half of the yard and is under my tree sunning herself. My wifi works out in the yard so I can write this blog right now. I'm listening to Polyphonic Spree. Things are good.

I moved just over two weeks ago. Today has officially busted into the beginning of my third week. It's a little unreal. I have to keep reminding myself that I get to stay here as long as I want. This 63 degree day has me thinking of summer time, having people over to play croquet (oh, i'm getting croquet) in my backyard. Or on July days, when I'm feeling lazy, just stretching out on a towel with some sangria. I feel incredibly lucky to have found this little perfect house in this little perfect neighborhood. It was all so serendipitous. I went to lunch at this vegetarian restaurant on a work day and parked right in front of the house. I opened my car door and saw the For Lease sign. It was magical. And now, only weeks later, I get to sit here.

(I'm facing the house right now. Thats the chair for my feet.)

what it means to be an adult---austin style

Two thoughts for today:

1)In your 20s you can live in an apartment with amenities that are likely to be nicer than you'll be able to afford in your 40s. University of Texas has over 50,000 students. These students need places to live. This makes competition fierce among apartment complexes. It is not unusual to walk into a duplex/apartment and see stainless steel appliances, marble countertops, and wood floors. It's a little humbling to know that your switch from "poor" twenty-something apartment dwelling to home ownership is likely to be a huge downgrade.

2)I've realized recently that my conversations now aren't that different than my teen years. Just replace the topic of boys with the topic of food.

Example:

I think Tom is great and it seems like he likes me. He's always around and trying to make me feel really good, but Rick is cuter.

->

I think breakfast tacos are great and it seems like they really like me. They're always around and trying to make me feel really good, but cereal is healthier.

I talk about food every day at least half a dozen times. And these aren't just "I'm hungry" conversations, these are lengthy, emotional discussions about things that are tasty and why.

remembering my spirit

So the title of this comes from something Oprah said a few years ago and now, more than remembering anything else about Oprah episodes I watched, I remember the "spirit journal" and the fact that Oprah urged everyone to take time to "remember" their "spirit." And, like many things on that show, I thought the presentation was cheezy but the general-well-"spirit" behind it was worthwhile.

Its a weird feeling when you forget your spirit. And I'm not being facetious (I had to look that up for the 50th time. I never trust I'm using that word right). I really can identify times that I've lost touch with who I am and what I want. Its those nights where you go home and you're like, "wait. what was THAT?" or something comes out of your mouth that you felt was true when you were saying it but as soon as you're done feels totally wrong.

Maybe most people let this stuff go, but I can't. I'm aggressive about authenticity. I want to make sure at any moment I'm being exactly who I want to be. And maybe, to a greater extent, who I'm perceived to be. This is energy that is well-spent when you're writing a paper, exhausting when you're trying to have a friendship. Sometimes I get off the phone/get out of an email/leave a conversation and think "Aah! What was that? I have to call/write/tell them that's not what I meant! They're going to think that's who I am and it's not!"

So back to the spirit. So when I do connect with someone on a level that feels spiritual and I think I'm being understood I feel like that is happening because I am being authentic and they are being authentic. This is a tricky area, because it sets me up for this deep sense of betrayal when I find out this isn't the case or, to a lesser extent, if I hit a point where suddenly it becomes clear that the connection isn't cosmic but instead based on my projection. I wanted the feeling of absolute belonging with this person so much that I invented it.

You know what I would hate if I were you reading this right now? I'd be like, "GAH! Why doesn't she just tell me who/what she's talking about?!" Okay. So I'm not talking about anything or anyone in particular. I'm talking about this general feeling I've been having. That I'm missing the forest for the trees. I've become addicted to this spiritual connection I'm talking about and it's ultimately leaving me lonely. For example, I'll meet people and discover they used to watch "Murder, She Wrote" too when they were little, I'm like "OMG! Me too!" and suddenly I'm picturing us having 17,000 things in common. We all like Eight O'Clock coffee, love wearing scarves, and hate laundromats. He/she wanted to be an art teacher when he/she was eight. We enjoy dark beer and can't stand those Real Housewives shows. So, when my new spiritual twin reveals that he/she in fact loves Real Housewives I want to start to cry. Because I feel like this ruins everything. If we were *really* connecting spiritually he/she would have followed this narrative I put together.

Interestingly enough, when I become obsessed with this diversion I feel like I'm totally forgetting *my* spirit. I'm focusing on the mundane and not trusting a connection and appreciating it for just that. Yes, we both felt moved by The Lorax, but you can think Quentin Tarantino is a genius and I can disagree and we can still have The Lorax. And that's amazing in itself because that is a rad book. Because there are lines in there that meant something to me that also meant something to that person. And having that is an awesome thing. And finding someone that cares about what you care about, even if its only a couple things, is what life is about. Thats what having a spirit is about in the first place, right? Not every friendship has to be about twinship. If I spend a lot of energy projecting myself I won't ever really know someone and furthermore they won't feel comfortable letting me really know them. I have to leave room for them getting me to care about what they care about and being open to that. I can't merge my spirit or make theirs less or reduce/enlarge them into something that they're not for my own needs. It assumes that people are only what they like and the best thing about many of my friends isn't that we like all the same things, but that we like each other and we care enough to want what they want for them. And to abruptly stop and quote The Lorax:

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Austin City Limits 2010

Normally I would talk about the three days of the festival and the amazing bands I saw there (p.s. check out GIVERS as my top up and coming band pick) and talk about how fantastic Muse, LCD Soundsystem, Pete Yorn, Flaming Lips, Foals, etc. were and how rad it was to be there for free as a volunteer.

But instead I want to talk about what today was like after three days straight of ten hour outdoor days. My coworkers were both amused by my red sunburned nose and confused by my stamina. They all assured me they were too old for a three day festival. And for the first time in my 5 straight years of 3-day or more festivals (Lollapalooza, ACL, SXSW, etc), I thought maybe I was too. On Saturday night during Muse I noticed that somewhere during the day I hadn't only gotten a sunburn but a throat ache too. On Sunday I packed DayQuil and Kleenex in my bag with me just in case. I found myself that night, during The National, just feeling sleepy. It was 8 o'clock.

Today I went to work with sore legs and a deep concern that I might soon "age out" of festivals. I find myself more ornery at the teenagers I see at these things. On Sunday, while waiting for Yeasayer to start, one of them spilled water all the way down my back. I shoved him in a rare display of pure aggression. He said, "my friend made me do it!" Nice, bro. Nice.

That said, I still LOVE L.O.V.E. music festivals. I'm sure that as long as I physically can I will continue to go. It's like a little utopian city where high fives are free and it's acceptable to wander barefoot with a beer at 1 in the afternoon. A place where you can just stumble between genres, from Broken Bells to The xx to Monsters of Folk, without walking even a half mile. I want to live there. I just want all the kids to leave and for there to be nap villas. Make it happen, science.

coaching in luxury

I need help. Someone has to show me how to spoil myself. Seriously. I have this painfully midwestern sense of farm wife practicality. Observe.

Things I have never done:

1) gotten a manicure

2) gotten a pedicure

3) gotten a massage

4) gotten a facial/spa treatment of any kind

5) had my hair professionally dyed or highlighted

6) had anything professionally waxed

7) ordered lobster or duck or steak in a restaurant

8) owned a car less than five years old (my current is over 10)

9) paid for a music festival (i always volunteer so i can go for free)

10) bought anything I couldn't pay for all at once

Yes. This may be fiscally responsible. I imagine my parents would read this and feel proud that they had raised such a practical daughter. I have savings. I shop carefully and consciously. It's all very reasonable. And boring.

Lately, I've been thinking about how I'm getting older and this window for frivolousness is closing. There is a certain class of things that you can discount as foolishness that comes with your "twenties." It's not uncommon to hear older people say, "oh yeah when I was in my twenties..." as if that was the time when anything was excusable. I'm not saying I haven't done my share of careless things, but I am saying I haven't done enough. And I need help. Soon.

swimming sacred

The older I get, the more I believe in spirituality. And not spirituality as anything organized. And how the lack of organization is okay. For me. My parents were raised in differing faiths and both moved away from practice as they got older. So when they had me and time came for a religious decision they decided not to decide. They left God up to me. And, when I was growing up in a primarily Christian, often Catholic area, this felt frustrating. It didn't seem okay to be a misfit, at least not in this arena. I didn't know what I was and that was more troubling than I think my parents expected it to be.

It seems odd now to think about being distraught over a lack of religious alignment. Most of my friends now don't attend any kind of worship service. But, when you're a kid, and all of your friends are getting dressed up and going off to some big building every weekend it's easy to feel left out. Now, most of these same friends that were shuffling off to a church while I was playing in my backyard, have since told me about the conflict they felt when they left their faith. Since I technically never "left" anything I feel like I can't exactly relate. Sure we're both in the same place now, but our paths were different. I never had to go through the turmoil of leaving something that was a big part of my life. I never questioned God because I never devoted a lot of time, at least once a week, to thinking about Him. He was there, He wasn't there...it didn't really affect my day to day.

I guess I'm still a little ambivalent. But what I do feel, beyond God, is a sense of spirituality. I felt it today when I was going for a 9 am swim at Barton Springs. The Sunday morning crowd at Barton Springs is a religious bunch. They do their laps and dangle their toes and there's a huge sense of fellowship. I lay in the sun and it was quiet and honest and peaceful. It felt sacred. And it wasn't about God, at least not directly. It was about the letting go and the acceptance or faith that everything was good.

I've realized, thanks in some sense to my family, that my relationship with something bigger than myself can be just that, my relationship. And while sometimes it's easy to feel that left out feeling when people talk about their religion, I remind myself that not being in their specific faith doesn't take anything away from mine. I actually sometimes feel lucky to have found my spirituality in a way that was organic, a way that made sense for me, instead of struggling to squeeze parts of myself into something that didn't exactly fit. Now, I can be in religious service every day. In swimming, in working in the yard, in cooking, in listening to music, and in my moments of true connection with friends and family. It's pretty miraculous. And okay. And good.

babies

When I was a kid I used to alternate sleeping with my stuffed animals so one wouldn't feel unloved. As I got older my attention turned to cats and dogs. I preferred my pets shy and would seek to draw them out with gentle pets and my best attempt at a calm presence. When I hit my teens I became everybody's confidant. I didn't date, but I became the go to person when everyone else that was dating wanted to discuss it. These days my mothering comes out more pronounced through my job and personal life. I put probably far too much effort into making coworkers feel appreciated through birthdays and special emails. With Zach, I not only make dinner and clean house, but find myself watching over him to make sure he's taking care of himself. For someone who still feels a little squeamish about babies, I have a palpably strong maternal instinct.

A lot of this came from having a sick parent. The kind of sick that could come on unexpectedly. Before much was known about how diet affected diabetes, my dad struggled keeping his blood sugar under control. By the time I was nine or ten I became adept at sensing when he was slipping into an insulin reaction. His movements would become slow, his speech less focused, and he'd seem almost drunk. I'd spring up to get something sugary and then monitor him until his regular self would return. I can't even describe the combination of relief and pride when I'd "fix" him.

In the past few years I've noticed the long term effects this nervous vigilance has had on my relationships.

-I want to help everyone all the time, whether they know they need help or not.

-Drunk people freak me out. They are unpredictable and exhibit all the same symptoms my dad did when he needed sugar.

-I am hypersensitive to people's moods and changes in personality. I adopt the role of peacemaker most often just to get the uncomfortable feeling their imbalance causes me to go away.

I know adults aren't babies, but I also know they can be just as fragile. There have been at least a dozen times where I could have lost my dad. The multiple car accidents he had and 911 emergencies that have resulted from his diabetes have made me very aware of how health problems can create life or death situations. All of this never made me think "I want to be a doctor;" I still can't give blood without passing out. I guess the one thing it did do was subconsciously make me designate myself as responsible for everyone in the room. This, my friends, is the reason "Rachel hates fun" came about. If I'm around people that are losing control I spring into vigilance. This cancels out any chance of me having too much of my own fun. The plus side is that as I've gotten older I've been in this scenario less and less and it's allowed me to feel more comfortable letting go.

My friends are having babies right now and I'm excited for them. I think, sometime in the next few years, I might do that too. But I know that, unless I can temper my watchfulness, my child will have absolutely no fun and all the same cautiousness that I struggle with now. So I'm trying to chill out and recognize that people can take care of themselves. Or, if they're not, they won't automatically end up in the hospital. I'm working to not always adopt the role of the most "mature" person in the room and giving myself a pass on taking control of every uncertain moment. It's surprisingly liberating to let things happen good or bad and feel yourself still in one piece. And it's even better when, after passing on an opportunity to be the responsible one, the people around you not only come out okay, but thrive in ways you didn't even imagine possible.