the one where i rationalize not working in politics anymore

Monday night I went to see Ides of March. I know, who goes to the movies on Monday night? I do.  It came highly recommended by my grandparents and I'd wanted to go since I saw the first preview for it months ago. (I'm guilty, just like every other woman I know, of being a devoted Gosling fan. I know, razz me about it later. But seriously. Drool.) I had to drag Matt because it's not his kind of movie and also because he thinks going to the movies is a waste of money (it is).

 I'm going to come right out and say that I liked the movie, and I think you should go see it.

I go to the movies a lot, probably every other week. I fucking love the popcorn. Honestly, that's almost my sole motivation. And because it's socially unacceptable to make conversation in the theater. I need to focus and cannot stand being distracted in the middle of a film. Sometimes I go by myself, sometimes Matt comes, it really doesn't make any difference to me.

SPOILER (kind of, not really).  So, this movie is about about the Ohio Democratic primary and how if this governor wins the Ohio primary he'll likely get the nomination for the presidential race for the Dems.  He's a decent guy, with good ideals. He reminds me of Obama, and I'm sure that's what they were going for.   Anyway the main character (Gosling) is his Junior campaign manager and he really believes in the candidate, he's an idealist. Gosling is this brilliant media mind and everything is going great and then all this bullshit happens blah blah blah scandal, blah blah blah drama, blah blah blah secrets. By the end of the movie Gosling is this jaded, crooked hack just like the rest of them. (sadly. but he's also still the most handsome.)

That's just the gist, go see the movie.

Anyway, I obviously started missing politics as I was watching this Hollywood, somewhat accurate-somewhat-glamorized portrayal of the race to the election. I've essentially cut ties with the presidential campaign after this summer because I got frustrated with it and because I also didn't have the time they needed me to devote, it was basically another full time job I wasn't getting paid for. But I miss it. I miss the whole scene of characters, and the flair for drama and the charisma the complete devotion of energy and attention and shaking hands and making a million calls to people that won't bother to show up to anything, and that's if they don't cuss you out over the phone. I miss the group of people with tunnel vision. But, the same tunnel vision as me.

And then I watched the whole movie. And I realized that I don't miss it that much. I maybe don't miss it enough to go back. Or enough to fore sake all sleep or really any personal life for months at a time and to have no idea what's going on with my family but to know the poll numbers at any given moment.

I don't want to live a life that's exciting for spurts and then an overall emotional hangover the rest of the time. Everything seems corrupt and full of bullshit and bureaucracy. The whole system doesn't need any one person, it will swallow up and spit out anyone when their time has come. I don't need to become jaded and spent and burnt out by thirty. I don't want that for myself.

It's more than just politics too. It's organizing and activism in general. I feel this stuff so much, so hard, that it takes over my whole being. It's exhausting. It becomes an obsession and a compulsion and the only thing that matters, and it never even needs me to start with. And it's lonely. It's a lonely life because sometimes that "good,' that original quest for 'right' or the service you want to do to make the world even the smallest bit better is a cruel and fickle mistress. It doesn't need me as much as I need it.

So, I'll continue to volunteer when I have time and support my causes and try to be a decent person, but I'm not going to stake my life on it, not for the sake of the life I want for myself and the person want to be. I don't think I have it in me. It's hard to say and it sucks to admit because for a time, I wanted it so much. I wanted to be a part of it all and another part of the process and part of the team. As much as I miss the hotels and the travel and the people and the clusterfuck of activity, I don't miss myself. When I'm in it I'm so full of movement, and it feels SO good to be moving, but when it's over, I'm exhausted in every sense of the word. And used up to the point where I can't even get through a few chapters of a shitty novel.

I'm rationalizing. Yes, this I know. But I have to. I'm starting to get that itch. That climbing-up-the-walls feeling that it's time. That I need to be at work rightthisminute for the election. That I'm not doing enough. Fretting over all that I could be learning and doing RIGHT NOW.

Anyway, that's my tangent and rationalization on why I'm going to be more selfish or really just less involved with a process that doesn't even know I'm there.

At least that's the plan today.

Sara

squishy couch dreams.

After work on Friday I convinced my friend Erin that instead of our usual post-work-weekend-drink-scurry-for-bourbon we should first check out an antique store between our two houses.

We both live with our boyfriends at this point, and apparently nesting is NOT the typical reaction.

However, nesting is exactly what hit me like a ton of bricks about Tuesday of last week when we got back into town after living hard and fast for the weekend and home wasn't an immaculately cleaned house with a full fridge and a maid to do my laundry. Nope, my little 1.5 month stay-over at my parent's home was certainly cushy, but home now looks slightly less cushy.

So, since just thinking about painting walls colors that I actually like just to paint them white again in nine months sounds like a whole lot of wasted effort, I've been going decor crazy in other ways. Like, pinterest.com all day, errrrrday.

In other words, I'm trying to spruce shit up.

I'd say it's going pretty well. If I'm feeling techy I'll upload some pics of my masterful work at some point, but let's bring this full circle, shall we? 

Erin and I are dicking around in my favorite antique store, it's got booths partitioned off like many do, and each vendor is trying to sell a mix of vintage and junk. Plus for every thirty days something sits in the store, it goes down in price ten percent until it's half off. I get my fix, junk gets cheap, new junk comes in all the time. Perfect. 

Erin's kind of cruising through because she's more into the idea of drinks after antiquing, since I kind of had to entice her with them in order for her to allow me to drag her along. So we're making better time through there than I probably ever have before because usually I'm OCD and I HAVE to see every item and go in EVERY booth because heaven FORBID I miss a tiny treasure and then all of the sudden, There. It. Is.

My dream couch.


I spot this couch and I cannot make myself look away. It's like there is a magnet in my ass and the couch is metal and by god the next thing I know I'm standing over it. And then I'm sitting in it. I can easily say this is the favorite couch I have ever seen or had the pleasure of sitting on in my life. I could decorate an entire room home LIFE around this sitting device. It's that perfect. Antique. Oak framework. Flawless upholstery. And then I looked down at the price tag and it was about $300 less than I was expecting to see and I started rationalizing to myself why I needed it. Which is almost always disastrous.

I normally don't get emotional over furniture, but I swear to god I felt physically ill walking out of the store without that couch. It's really not a couch you can have with a giant dogcreature milling around and drooling all over everything and accidentally clawing onto it with her giant paws. Like, at all.

So thanks to Hally the English Mastiff, the part of my heart reserved for home furnishings is officially crushed.

I thought that would be it. The couch would never be mine and I would eventually learn to move on, just like when you get dumped out of the blue and you're still in love with the other person but they are clearly indifferent to your existence. It was like the couch took one look at me and my giant dog and lack of hardwood floors and was like, "Move along, you're wasting both of our time and some other customers just walked in, so shooooo." Plus Erin was doing that shift from one foot to the other thing and shaking the ice in her empty big gulp NOT GETTING THE APPEAL OF THE COUCH and I suddenly felt really thirsty for some Jim Beam.

And then I dreamed about that goddamn asshole of a beautiful couch on Friday AND Saturday night. And all weekend, I gushed to anyone that would lend me an ear about the couch. I'd arrange and rearrange existing furniture in my mind so that I could maneuver the couch into my bedroom, safe from giant dogcreatures. Hell, for all I care, the couch can BECOME MY BED. Manfriend is getting RULL tired of hearing about this goddamn couch.

On Sunday I'm lazing around my parents' house, talking to my mom about what else but THE COUCH, and I decide she needs to come with me to visit it. After all, she's the reason I'm antique-obsessed, this is the burden she is doomed to bear- taking her 25 year old daughter to musty antique shops to visit furniture they can't really afford or reasonably find a place for in their own homes.

This is my life.

So I walk in shakily, almost too afraid to hope to see the damn thing again, my mother trailing close behind,  and it's STILL THERE. Ready for purchase. And my own mother agrees that this is a badass couch and it's a crime that it's just sitting there. She totally fucking gets it. I bet SHE dreamed about my couch last night.

I've taken to calling it "my couch."

Sad.

Tonight I'm taking dragging Manfriend to visit the couch.

I honestly don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to restrain myself from whipping out my card, plopping it on the counter, and figuring the rest out after I can breathe easy again, knowing it's mine.

Wish me luck and happy couch dreams tonight.

XO Sare

circumstance.

You know what's a annoying as shit? People who are all "Change your life!!!"


"Be the person you want to be!"




"YOU ARE THE MASTER OF YOUR OWN DESTINY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111oneoneoneoeoeneomgfuckyuou."


NO, OMG, fuck YOU.




Because life lessons are incredibly fucking easy to hand out when using other people's words and failing to take into account the circumstances in life.




Circumstances are a big damn dick in my ass.




Because they prevent a complete transformation of current life to a life that feels like riding a unicorn across a magical forest while simultaneously eating a handful of perfectly cooked bacon that actually makes you LOSE WEIGHT, from happening over night. Those circumstances, they complicate things, and make it all messy, and in all honesty, make actually seeking out change a bit more frightening.




While I've taken this new optimism, trust the universe, act like a person tripping their balls off at a Dead concert feels stance, I've come to realize something.


It's true, I've got to make the changes in order to get to the reality I want to see for myself, because not only does no one else have as much invested in my own happiness, but because no one else really has the foggiest idea what will get me there. It's a one woman shit show. I'm driving the tour bus, headlining the concert, getting rowdy in the lawn, and sneaking backstage to get baked with the band.


Which, as awesome as all of those roles sound...........work, man.


SO MUCH WORK.


One person doing all that work... takes a while. Like, more than a little while. NOT ALL AT ONCE THE WAY I LIKE THINGS BECAUSE I'M GODDAMN IMPATIENT BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A ME ME ME, NOW NOW NOW, society. 


Annoying.






Which is why I've made a not-so-startling realization that startled the shit outta me.




I'm never going to wake up one morning and have the perfect life and get that AHA moment.






...And also, I don't really want it.






I guess I always knew that happiness is more than just not hating your job and making enough  money and being loved and being healthy and shit. Which whatever, I mean it would make happiness more attainable to a lot more people there was a destination or something. 


But shit, this whole being a more content person thing, it requires that you take a different attitude about what you've got to work with NOW. Instead of taking a mental shit all over the circumstances that you feel are holding everything up, sometimes you've got to just think to yourself, "This is what I have to work with right now, I've got to do what I can RIGHT NOW and make sure I'm not letting myself be miserable RIGHT NOW and check off the little things that lead up to the big things on my to-do list."




Which, takes a WHOLE LOT of mental will-power and strength of spirit when you realize that you will turn 25 years old this summer and, wait for it, will be living with your parents again when that quarter-life crisis date rolls around.




Hopefully, for the last time. Here's the thing. I'm okay with this, promise. I mean, I do currently reside in a badass house with my badass friends and you know, enjoy certain freedoms. Like sleeping with Manfriend regularly... and stuff. However, I'm choosing to spin this to the positive for myself. It's true. I can pay for an apartment, I make enough money. But, I'll never get out of debt this way, I can't afford it. This way, with this new plan, I will pay enormous chunks of money every month and be out of debt in (let's all hope really hard) SIX MONTHS.


And you know what would make happiness so much easier for me? Not carrying around thousands in debt. In eight months, I can pay off my car, my credit cards, everything I owe to ANYONE.




FREEDOM.


Freedom, yeah, that could definitely make me happier.


So, it's a journey. And boy oh boy, I can't wait to NOT be one of those motherfuckers on facebook who's always all "I hate my job!, Is it five o'clock yet?!?!! OMG TGIF, long week!" Because, I mean, I'd like to someday value each day and not just the ones that I can get drunk on guilt-free. 


Another weekend rolls around! Cheers to rolling around! Wooohoooooo. Rave party. 




Wait, shit. There was something I wanted to do. 






OH YEAH, 


PICS!!!!!!!!

monday was the first lawn-mow of the season! admire my handy-work. 

only the strong survive. barry prevails. 

meet katherine. friend/roommate/miss fix-it. we had a fire in our backyard. in a birdbath.  spring brought the crazy, we're merely embracing it with open arms. 

stuff's growing in there!!!

we have a magnolia tree... i'm smitten. 

XO Sare.

the lies we tell ourselves.

An old, dead white dude great American novelist once wrote, "The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves."

Whew, it's heavy.

Richard Bach goes on to say "We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we're afraid."

Well man, thanks for pegging that whole spectrum of human emotional coping mechanae. 

It's likely old Mr. Bach was talking about love, but I think this little nug of free wisdom I found on the interwebz can really relate to all walks of life, about pretty much any facet of our existence.

After all,  I'm a 24 year old, I'm working a job I hate, I'm happy maybe 30 percent of the time and usually that's just because for about half of that, I'm under some sort of inebriant. Perhaps this man has a point.

Life isn't designed to be easy, we know that. 

BUT, you know what is?

RATIONALIZING!!!

...Rationalizing everything to yourself that you possibly can, no matter how convoluted it gets or how ridiculous it sounds to everyone else around you. After all, we've got to live in our own skin forever, who are we if we can't at least do that? Self-loathers, I guess, but even they've got their rationalizing thought stream... the world is out to get them no matter what, right?

From the little disappointments to the things that would just as well crush us if we didn't find a way, at least in our own narrow hallway of conscious reality, we have to find a way to make it okay for, at the very least, ourselves. Sure, wallowing in the dark is easy, sometimes easier than anything else, but sooner or later, usually sooner for me and my over-achieving bladder, you're going to have to pee and want to switch on a light, however dull, to make it to the loo without stubbing your toe.

Blah blah blah, let's apply this to real life, shall we?

Let's see.... remember when I took the GRE over a month ago? Well, I got my score. And I was semi-put-off by it, because I feel like I'm smarter than what I got.

Regardless. I took that step, that mini-leap, and didn't like what happened so I just kind of... dropped off with the whole grad school effort. I somehow explained to myself that it would be better if I waited until next fall to apply, and wait a whole year longer until I go to grad school... so that I can..... get this..... make my application look better, get things in order, really wow the admission hacks.

Right.

In other words, I've convinced myself that I'm ok living in limbo and being miserable for another year instead of at least trying and learning from my experience to better my life and my mental attitude. And actually take that chance to be told NO, or, to actually succeed and start liking my life and feeling like I'm back on track for where I'm trying to go.

It's fucked up, people.

And I'm kind of mad at myself, because the more I really examine what I do in my daily life at this point, the more bullshit I have to call on myself.

Because not only have I let myself get physically lazy,  but I've let myself get embarrassingly lazy in my convictions and opinions as well.

And I'm starting to hate it.

Just like I hate seeing one of my best friends buy a pile of horse shit from her dead-beat boyfriend, on whose phone she found very incriminating text messages on FROM THE NIGHT OF HER BIRTHDAY... when he had 'other plans.'

Maybe she'll make herself believe those lies because right now hearing his stories and having him treat her well for a couple of weeks will feel better than being alone for the time it takes to get over him, and I can fully understand that. Maybe we decide what crushing blows we're going to let ourselves take... and when we're ready for them.

But I know for a fact she never would have been perusing his texts if she didn't think she was going to find something, because she's not that kind of girl.

What can I say? I'm just as bad at any number of things, I'm just as guilty at taking the road that looks more appealing, or rather less like it could maim and kill me emotionally or physically if I somehow manage to screw up my route. But that also does a great job of keeping me standing in one place, unmoving, unable to just. make. myself. do. something.  

So fuck it, I need to stop hanging out in a waiting rooms of life, even if the waiting rooms are sometimes disguised as two more hours of sleep in a warm Manfriend-filled bed, a handle of Jim Beam and a couple of laughs on a Thursday night, or even a test score that I don't feel is up to my full potential. Because I could wait forever that way, not unhappy with those situations necessarily, just not happy with my life as a whole, either.

I realize a large part of life is picking your battles and knowing when to lay low and when to go for things, but I'm done waiting. I'm tired of lying to myself out of necessity, just so I can live with myself. I'm tired of looking back at the times I felt like a force, like something internal was driving me along without me really having to work for it- in the past tense.

It could be now? Couldn't it? NOW works for me.

There's only one way to get from point A to point B, you've got to make your body move.  

I'm off to move mountains. XO Sara.