Moving Forward
I feel like I have been hanging in a liminal realm for a little bit now.
Alot has happened over the last few months, and at the same time, not much at all.
Lets recap major events of the last year:
-my 2 year relationship came to an end
-begun to understand and perform my gender and sexuality in complex, new ways
-started going by Ryan
-graduated college
-moved from Santa Cruz back to the East Bay
-continued to work in retail post college and got a second retail job
-dated a few people, got too serious with one and let it distract from my personal growth and from moving towards a better future
-recently ended things with said person, and am free once more
So since leaving SC and graduating and being single and all that, I have been in a place of, well, where do I go now? I got that second job in retail to help hold me over while I figured stuff out. But well...that was in August, and since then I have done very little to work on me or work towards my future. I have not been reading. Since dating the recent person, I haven't even spent time engaging in complicated, political discourse with brilliant friends. I feel as though my 4-yr education is leaking from my pores due to lack of application/use. I started not going to my volunteer op regularly. I have not looked for more or better work. I have just skated by, financially more or less breaking even at the end of the month, and by having my social and sexual needs met by a person with whom I had a significant connection, but one that was not encouraging of growth. I gave said person all my free time and there was nothing left over for other friends or for working on me.
That is done now. I need to become comfortable and content with myself as an independent individual. I need to be ok with being alone. I need to be ok with having friends and having sexual partners and not trying to make either/or into something more then they are. I need to look towards the future and get myself on a path towards more secure employment, hopefully employment that is as internally rewarding as it is monetarily.
My goal it to start looking for work following the holidays, as I am sure my hours will taper off. My hope is that I can get a steady day job, switch to occasional/seasonal for BBY, and switch to nights/weekends at REI. Fingers crossed. I will be looking into job options in relation to the court stuff in Martinez, and probably checking out Americorps and Peacecorps once more. We will see.
Personally, I need to take more time for me. Read more. Excersize more. Do things that I enjoy, like ride my bike or chill up at fish ranch. Listen to more music.
Socially, I need to spend more time with more friends. Not let any one person saturate my time. Not become dependent one anyone outside of myself to fulfill my social needs. To have fun and have meaningful discussions.
I had two thoughts today. One - I am way to caught up in my cellphone. I spend too much time pining for people (or specific persons) to text me. And when no one does, I reach out and contact someone to aleviate the strain. This is not ok. Too much inner drama, that is entirely unnecessary. I am going to experiment with turning my phone off. Maybe leaving it in the car. Using my watch to tell time, rather then my phone. Detach from the obsession. I hope to see marked improvement in a matter of weeks.
Two - I need to use my head more. Think. Politically. Start discourses and engage. I don't always have willing and capable parties around with which to do this. People who are not politically interested, or maybe are too politically different, or people who just aren't intelligent enough to keep up. But I need to start thinking and conversating in manners that encourage mental growth and political progress. For my sanity. So I am going to attempt to start blogging again. I am not setting an immediate goal, but I would like to eventually be posting daily. This blog will be simple. To reflect on something that happened during my day that was politically significant, and break it down. Simple things, that are layered with meaning. Likely related to social issues, especially on the topics of gender and sexuality. I will start today with something simple. If I am able to continue and stick with this, I will start a new blog and move everything over on to it...maybe as a New Years Resolution or something. Lets hope I can stick with it.
Monday, December 6, 2010:
For my first post, I wanted to cover something short and sweet. Last night, I went to a work holiday party. Someone brought their brand new baby - straight up new, like only three weeks old. Tiny little thing. And I realized that in talking to a coworker about said child, I was talking about said child as an object. Calling it a little thing, using unspecific pronouns, etc. I was fine with that until I realized that it was likely rude to deny the child humanity by talking about it like an object. So what do I do? To establish the humanity of the kid, I asked, is it a boy or a girl? And in doing so rendered the child personage. She. She is three weeks old. She is a cute little one. She.
To be without gender is to be unintelligible, unhuman. An undefined space that cannot be occupied in a world that requires layer upon layer of social classification to be placed on every individual. Whats so wrong with being unclassifyable? Unknowable?
I had to ask the question. And I recognized the violence I performed in that moment immediately. She.
Alot has happened over the last few months, and at the same time, not much at all.
Lets recap major events of the last year:
-my 2 year relationship came to an end
-begun to understand and perform my gender and sexuality in complex, new ways
-started going by Ryan
-graduated college
-moved from Santa Cruz back to the East Bay
-continued to work in retail post college and got a second retail job
-dated a few people, got too serious with one and let it distract from my personal growth and from moving towards a better future
-recently ended things with said person, and am free once more
So since leaving SC and graduating and being single and all that, I have been in a place of, well, where do I go now? I got that second job in retail to help hold me over while I figured stuff out. But well...that was in August, and since then I have done very little to work on me or work towards my future. I have not been reading. Since dating the recent person, I haven't even spent time engaging in complicated, political discourse with brilliant friends. I feel as though my 4-yr education is leaking from my pores due to lack of application/use. I started not going to my volunteer op regularly. I have not looked for more or better work. I have just skated by, financially more or less breaking even at the end of the month, and by having my social and sexual needs met by a person with whom I had a significant connection, but one that was not encouraging of growth. I gave said person all my free time and there was nothing left over for other friends or for working on me.
That is done now. I need to become comfortable and content with myself as an independent individual. I need to be ok with being alone. I need to be ok with having friends and having sexual partners and not trying to make either/or into something more then they are. I need to look towards the future and get myself on a path towards more secure employment, hopefully employment that is as internally rewarding as it is monetarily.
My goal it to start looking for work following the holidays, as I am sure my hours will taper off. My hope is that I can get a steady day job, switch to occasional/seasonal for BBY, and switch to nights/weekends at REI. Fingers crossed. I will be looking into job options in relation to the court stuff in Martinez, and probably checking out Americorps and Peacecorps once more. We will see.
Personally, I need to take more time for me. Read more. Excersize more. Do things that I enjoy, like ride my bike or chill up at fish ranch. Listen to more music.
Socially, I need to spend more time with more friends. Not let any one person saturate my time. Not become dependent one anyone outside of myself to fulfill my social needs. To have fun and have meaningful discussions.
I had two thoughts today. One - I am way to caught up in my cellphone. I spend too much time pining for people (or specific persons) to text me. And when no one does, I reach out and contact someone to aleviate the strain. This is not ok. Too much inner drama, that is entirely unnecessary. I am going to experiment with turning my phone off. Maybe leaving it in the car. Using my watch to tell time, rather then my phone. Detach from the obsession. I hope to see marked improvement in a matter of weeks.
Two - I need to use my head more. Think. Politically. Start discourses and engage. I don't always have willing and capable parties around with which to do this. People who are not politically interested, or maybe are too politically different, or people who just aren't intelligent enough to keep up. But I need to start thinking and conversating in manners that encourage mental growth and political progress. For my sanity. So I am going to attempt to start blogging again. I am not setting an immediate goal, but I would like to eventually be posting daily. This blog will be simple. To reflect on something that happened during my day that was politically significant, and break it down. Simple things, that are layered with meaning. Likely related to social issues, especially on the topics of gender and sexuality. I will start today with something simple. If I am able to continue and stick with this, I will start a new blog and move everything over on to it...maybe as a New Years Resolution or something. Lets hope I can stick with it.
Monday, December 6, 2010:
For my first post, I wanted to cover something short and sweet. Last night, I went to a work holiday party. Someone brought their brand new baby - straight up new, like only three weeks old. Tiny little thing. And I realized that in talking to a coworker about said child, I was talking about said child as an object. Calling it a little thing, using unspecific pronouns, etc. I was fine with that until I realized that it was likely rude to deny the child humanity by talking about it like an object. So what do I do? To establish the humanity of the kid, I asked, is it a boy or a girl? And in doing so rendered the child personage. She. She is three weeks old. She is a cute little one. She.
To be without gender is to be unintelligible, unhuman. An undefined space that cannot be occupied in a world that requires layer upon layer of social classification to be placed on every individual. Whats so wrong with being unclassifyable? Unknowable?
I had to ask the question. And I recognized the violence I performed in that moment immediately. She.