Shut the Door, Have a Seat November 10, 2009

Before the afterglow of vacationy goodness had a chance to fade, I was told today that my job is being eliminated at the end of the month. I am officially obsolete at the ripe age of 29.  The writing has been on the wall for awhile, so while I’m not shocked, I am *lots* of other things. I’m sad, I’m happy, I’m pissed off, I’m confused, and I’m kind of numb. People have congratulated me saying that this is a great thing and other people have said they are totally shocked. Me, I’ve been okay–decisive and calm…totally zen all things considered. If anything, I’m amused at how radically things can change over just a few months. I’ve gone from being the prize in a tug of war between different departments, all who wanted me on their team to being eliminated entirely with a change in leadership. My, my–how fickle the world of media is. I’ve decided not to take it personally, though there are a few reasons why I certainly could.

 

So I’m heading for California far sooner than I anticipated. I’m breaking my lease and heading down south to get my new home all set up a whoppin’ 20 days from now. I’m getting the hell out of dodge.

 

The weirdest part is that I’ve never been unemployed–not since I was 12…seriously. My grandfather once told me that my workaholic tendencies were the result of a Puritan work ethic encoded in my DNA. He may have been onto something there…I had a thriving babysitting business in our subdivision that kept me busier and wealthier than all the lawnmowing boys in the neighborhood combined. I’m not ashamed to say it, I was just *that good*. I parlayed my mad skills into an afterschool job at an in-home daycare and in the summers, I scooped ice cream at Baskin Robbins.  Then I started college and well, as a freshman I started with the organization I work for now. That was 11 years ago…I feel like I’ve grown up there and in spite of feeling root-bound lately, I always thought I’d get to leave on my own terms.  Turns out, not so much.

 

Last night I watched Mad Men, as I always do on Sunday nights. Here my favorite characters were faced with an impending disaster–the company was about to be sold to a big, evil, corporate douche bag company. And instead of being whiny little bitches or wringing their hands, they took control and said damn the man, stole some clients, and started their own agency. I felt kind of ridiculous that I was so sublimely happy to see these ficticious characters taking the situation by the cajones. I had a dumb girl smile on my face watching Roger and Don reconcile and then seeing the whole gang together again, doing what they do best out of passion for the work. There was something awe-inspiring about watching Don circle the wagons in preparation of sticking it to those who didn’t give them the breathing room to do great work. I remember great work…vaguely. I think the last time I had the breathing room I needed to do great work was August 2008 while my mentor was still leading the organization.

 

For 3 seasons of Mad Men now, I’ve watched the relationship between Don and Peggy and it has always reminded me of my relationship to my former mentor. I only say former because we haven’t talked in a long time. I would still do anything for him, if only I could. What can a rookie possibly do for a veteran? I’ve worked for only one great leader in my past and he was it. I learned so much from him and I haven’t spoken to him in awhile in spite of a recent recommendation he posted on LinkedIn; instead we just exchange Facebook messages like we were nearly strangers. Well before all this me becoming obsolete nonsense started, I’d been thinking about him a lot lately and last night I cried for the first time in months thinking about how I’ve missed his jokes, his guidance, everything.

 

I’ll admit, I was embarrassed by how much I cried when he first left. It had felt like the house of cards I’d been building based on his carefully strategized blueprint was swept away in a big gust of wind. The role he played in my career and in my life was and still is irreplicable and yet I feel like if I ever came out and told him all that, I’d disappoint him because I wouldn’t be able to do it without my emotions bubbling over causing me to shed tears like the wimp he taught me not to be. Pokerface, pokerface–that’s what he used to say to me when my heart was huge blinking neon billboard on my sleeve. He wouldn’t want tears; he’d want me to be as composed as he taught me to be. But I can’t be composed with all this chaos right now, so instead there is radio silence (or in my case, TV silence).

 

I hope someday I have the guts to tell him that he’s my Don Draper.

I guess you had to be there… August 12, 2009

When something you’ve been anticipating for a long, long time starts being set into motion, it feels like a weird inertia. You see it coming, you’ve been preparing for it and braced yourself for it and yet once it’s here—it still feels like the car you didn’t see coming. Before you can slam on the brakes and get a hold of yourself, the impact of it nearly takes your breath away. I think that’s what happened in the midst of my last post.

 

I admit that’s a dramatic reaction to watching my partner packing up his DVDs on Friday afternoon, but it stirred inside me the fragile version of myself who’s watched so many people that I love leave town for one reason or another. In an instant, I was that lonely little kid who didn’t want to see her big sister leave, then the rebellious teenager who thought she was ready to be on her own and yet felt totally devastated when her family moved halfway around the world, and finally, the twenty-something who watched as her closest friends moved to the East coast one by one, leaving her social life a vast wasteland of acquaintances and co-workers.

 

My whole life I’ve felt like I’m always the one being left behind and now I’m on the brink of thirty and this time, I’m the lover being left behind–if only for awhile. I can tell you one thing, you never get used to it. No matter how much practice I have with saying goodbye, it never rolls off the tongue when it’s someone I love. It lessens the blow to know when I’ll see them again, but for the most part it sucks a little more every time.

 

I like to think of myself as independent, but every time this happens, it’s a glaring reminder that the people in my life are the most important thing to me. A phone call after a bad day helps but it can’t compare to crying on the shoulder of an old friend who doesn’t care if you get tears and snot on her shirt while you stutter through the tale of what caused it all. Emailing a lusty note to tell your partner that you’re thinking about them after a night of hot sex is good too, but is nothing next to seeing the outline of their face against a pillow in the wee hours of morning when you know they won’t wake up for hours. In the grand scheme of things, these tiny intimacies are the things we take for granted in our day to day monotony and yet they’re among the few things that really and truly matter.

 

Sometimes I think in this brave new digital age that we tend dismiss the distance as if it doesn’t really matter anymore because we have so many ways to keep in touch. See something crazy on the street? Text your pals. Boss driving you bonkers? Email your friend. Read a funny article? Post it to Facebook and share it with everyone you know. There are so many ways to keep in touch, but I don’t think it brings us closer; it just gives us the illusion of being closer.

 

I go visit my friends in New York and in the other 360 days of the year that I don’t get to see them, there are scores of nights out together, inside jokes and ridiculous occurrences that they have together and I know I’m missing out on them. It’s not like they rub it in my face; they usually explain it, but it doesn’t make me feel any less out of the loop. It makes me feel like I’ve lost my relevance in their lives purely out of lack of proximity. And it’s not just them. I had the same experience when my family moved to England. Suddenly my mom and brother who barely spoke to each other stateside would crack up over some random thing and whatever caused the laughter went totally over my head because well, “you had to be there”.

 

In spite of what anyone says, I have to question if all the messages we transmit in an instant using 1’s and 0’s can possibly measure up to the impact of a single hug or a smile or any other old school method of getting your point across. I think geography matters when it comes to personal relationships. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t bother getting on planes for Christmas.

 

The question I keep asking myself is “where is the lesson in all this?” because I believe that if something keeps happening over and over again, it must be because we’re supposed to learn something from it.

 

Here I am, 21 years after the first time someone close to me hit the bricks and I’m no closer to grasping the lesson than I was back then. And it feels like the stakes increase with each person who moves to another zip code.

 

This time, it’s my partner. What if I lose my relevance in his life because of geography? It’s easily the darkest of my fears, but there it is in black and white. I’m afraid I won’t matter as much to him anymore because I’m far away and he’ll be busy starting a new life without me. I know it’s ridiculous and I know I’ll adjust, but for right now I could really stand not to have anyone else disappear from my life or anything else disappear from our shelves into boxes knowing that void will be there for awhile. I hate voids. I hate feeling like I’m missing out on stuff. And I really hate the phrase, “I guess you had to be there…”

 

Maybe the lesson is that I need to just get over it.

The tumultuous reformation of Princess Cranky Pants July 3, 2009

I’ve been vacillating between being Princess Cranky Pants and Princess of Darkness a lot lately in spite of my attempted reformation. Professionally, creatively, financially, and health-ily—I’m working on all the stuff impacting my frame of my mind. Truth be told, my emotional state is to the point where my mom and boyfriend both suggested last week that I seek medical attention. Not counseling per se, but medical attention. *Awesome.*

My reaction to this unsolicited suggestion? I was pissed. Really, really pissed. To be clear, I have no qualms with seeing doctors or counselors or whatever a person needs to preserve their mental health. I think when you’ve been struggling for a long time and you can’t shake it, or you scare yourself with how dark things seem, then it’s necessary. I’ve seen a therapist before and it can totally be helpful. Yes, I’m having a hard time and have been for awhile, but I don’t think numbing my brain with medication is going to help me hash things out any more effectively than I am already.

There have been a host of dust-ups with my family over all the big changes ahead and that’s been a *total* nightmare. The move to California already had me re-evaluating pretty much everything and I have my own lot of anxieties to deal with; I don’t need to add their fears to the mix. It’s like that line from As Good As It Gets, “Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here!”  

Anyway, my state of mind has them all saying they are “concerned” for a variety of reasons.

I know they all mean well and they speak up because they care, but it felt like I was being kicked while I’m down by the people closest to me. The difference between me and someone who is stuck is that I’m taking actions to change.

Yeah, I get a little freaked out by the things I can’t control. I plan events for a living; I get paid to be in control and prevent chaos. The claps of thunder and sprinkle of raindrops during a fancy outdoor cocktail party fundraiser–where there’s *no way* all the guests will fit in the house—that’s the kind of thing I troubleshoot all the time. My work has taught me there’s only so much I can control. Most of the time, I have a plan B and I successfully side-step impending disasters. So the fact that I’ve been presented with a whole slew of things I can’t control descending on me for an entire year topped off with a huge life change in the offing, I would say that’s a pretty fucking good reason for me to be having a hard time right now.

So, I’m dealing with it by shifting my focus to the things I *can* control with full knowledge that the dust I’m choking on right now will settle out come fall. I know there’s an end in sight and I’m looking forward to it. I think that’s why I’m so angry at them for thinking I’m not capable of pulling myself out of this spiral. I feel like I’m finally making changes and that’s when they finally decide to say something? Great timing, guys. Seriously, what the hell?!

I’ve known plenty of people who complain ceaselessly about their circumstances and believe they’re endlessly victimized by the fates. My reaction to those people? Annoyance and a burning desire to throttle them and shriek, “THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!” My biggest fear is turning into one of those people.

I guess I need to be clearer with the people in my life about the changes I’m making. And perhaps I should start acting more like Princess Struggling but Don’t Worry, I’ll Be Fine Pants.