#191: relationship advice...

"Serve God, love me, and mend."

I think that about sums it up. Thanks, Shakespeare. Also:



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In other news, L. got dreadlocks and my oh my oh my. So fine. The best thing about being an older sibling is that you get to do everything first: learn to drive, rebel, go to college, graduate, became an ADULT (right). That's also the worst thing. The second best thing about being the oldest is you get to be completely stunned by how interesting/amazing/good-looking/intelligent your younger siblings are. L. looks great with her hair all ratted and she's ridiculously smart and going to graduate from college this year and if anyone tried to kidnap her and eat her kidneys, I'd hunt them down and destroy them.

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I don't have anything to say really. It's been busy at work and busy in life but also oddly small and contained, rather like my immediate environment: sided by water, bound by land, a small town and people who smoke too many cigarettes. I took some time off from alcohol recently (now don't get worried. This isn't a big deal). It's just so easy in this town to get into a habit of a drink every couple nights because that's the way (apparently) that people hang out with each other. Gone are the days of card games and daring each other to jump off things along the pier. We're 21+ now so our new habitat is the bar.

It wasn't like this in Eugene or Portland, so I'm gonna call that generality and say it's just Here. "Here" being small towns where people work hard and want to collapse at the end of the day, kick back a few whiskey sours and go to sleep. It's okay for a night, but some people do this every day. It's money and time and a lot of work for your internal cleansing organs.

Thankfully, when F.C. or J. are working, I can still hang out at the bar and just drink tea and still see everyone I wanted to see in the first place. Seeing these people also means we can slowly, but surely, progress to the next stage: making outside plans and becoming friends.

So recently, Marta and G.C. (are these abbreviations getting confusing?) and I went out to breakfast. Then Marta and I went on a hike.

When I first moved here, I was sick with a cold and worried about failure. I'm a worrier. It's something I inherited from my grandma and (sorry Dad), my Dad. It's almost an occupation. Years ago, when she was still alive, my Grandma was watching us swinging on a swing set. We were trying to match our swinging so that we all went forward and backward at the same time. She put her hand to her head and said, "I just heard the other day about a group of kids who were all swinging at the same time on the swing set like that and it made the whole thing flip over on top of them and they all died."

Well after that, we watched each other like hawks and if any kid's swing even started to be synchronized with another's, we made a sound like an air raid siren.

Anyway, when I first moved here, I was happy to be by myself. I needed to heal and recoup and take stock of my situation. Then I just got used to being by myself most of the time, hanging out with C., who I also worked with, not making any new friends. But then C. moved away. Rotten. Then F.C. and I became friends and I remembered what it was like to be able to call people up and just be around people you like and who like you and approve of your existence. Then I felt like a person starving except I hadn't realized it.

We need community. We need to love things and people and be loved back. Life makes very little sense otherwise and the taste is all wrong.