A field guide to growing up without growing apart
So, as you have all heard, Cinderslut has become a teacher. She’s passed all of her classes, done her student teaching, and landed herself a new teaching job this fall. Many congrats to her! However, this post is about me. It turns out that two […]
The idea of a Bucket list has never really appealed to me. It seems like making a list of things to do before you die is so definitive and constricting. What happens if you die without completing it? What happens if you complete it and […]
So about a year ago when I was planning this whole travel through Europe adventure, I invited everyone I talked with to come along. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. In normal, everyday life this over invite plan works out well since half the people I invite to things are busy anyway and in most short term scenarios the more the merrier. Going to the movies? Invite everyone in town. Going to a concert? Invite everyone within 100 miles. Going camping? Invite everyone within 100 miles AND their friends. More often than not fun happens in these instances. So it makes sense logically that if I’m going to Europe I should invite EVERYONE ever.
I did and in many ways, things worked out really well for me on this trip, I got to meet and travel with more friends than I ever expected would accept. Old friendships were rekindled, newer ones strengthened, I even got to meet Merskank’s Percival finally! But in one very particular way it has backfired and while part of me doesn’t want to write about this and have to remember it forever, another part knows that I need to get this rant out so I can hopefully just move forward with my trip.
A week before I was due to meet my lifelong friend *Hayley for a month long stay in Spain my cousin *John decided he was going to take me up on my offer to travel Europe. He and I have always gotten along well, seeing each other for a week or so each summer since we were young, so I was initially excited to see him for a week or two in Europe. We’d get to know each other better, see the world and in general the more the merrier, right?
Well fast forward a week and I’m meeting him in Spain, since he’d found a one way ticket and decided there is no time like the present. I convinced my friend Hayley that his joining of our entire trip would be fine, that he was easy going and quiet so we’d all get along great. I convinced myself that after Spain traveling with him would be good too, since I had two full weeks alone before I was due in Ireland to meet a few other friends. I even convinced my friends in Ireland that his joining of the trip would make our trip cheaper. Sure, traveling for 8 plus weeks with a male cousin you really only remember as large and quiet isn’t the ideal place to be in, but the more the merrier, right?
Well Spain was almost a total bust, Hayley and John both telling me afterwards that in normal life they would never have spent that much time in each other’s company. We didn’t fight the whole time, ever really, but often the temperature got icy and honestly by the end of it I’d too resolved that both of them were people best kept at some distance. Hayley can be hard to deal with, her loosely backed opinions often get her in trouble, and her standards for food and lodging are way higher than mine and John’s, so many of the decisions had to be run by her for final say. But she works hard for her friends and brings an energy to life that I adore, so usually I let her get away with making me pay a few extra dollars for dinner and a bite my tongue when she starts talking about how terrible the world is for even considering not to agree with her.
But with John around things became more complicated. Hayley’s zest for life pretty much scared the little life that John had right out of him and for much of the trip he was a non-participatory dead weight. He had NOTHING he wanted to see, nothing he wanted to do, no preference on where to eat, no ideas on where to stay. If he spoke at all it was when I pointedly looked at him and asked him if he had anything to contribute and 90% of the time even then he’d say no. When we’d walk places he always fell a few steps behind, never attempting to get to know us or anyone else around him. He wouldn’t offer to help carry things or do dishes, wouldn’t be generous with money or speak up when he wanted something different. He was always running late, making us wait five to ten minutes every time we were going anywhere even though I always made sure to make sure he understood our daily activities and gave him plenty of options to bump back our start time or opt out entirely (consistently waiting for someone gets real old real fast). It felt like I was always translating a foreign language to him, like he was my child I had to check on at all points because if I didn’t he’d never tell me that he had to pee and then he’d wet his pants and we’d all have to deal.
When I talked with strangers he shied away. When I went exploring, he went home to read. When I asked him about his life, he had nothing to say. It felt like he was always miserable, even though we always asked whether the plan was okay or whether he wanted to come. But he never seemed to enjoy anything that we did, even when we were doing something reasonable like going to see the famous Gaudi architecture in Barcelona. I learned long ago that forcing people to join things they don’t want to do never ends well, but we never forced him and he came anyway. I don’t know how to deal with a person who is unhappy but only answers with nothing when you ask what he wants. He doesn’t like museums of any sort, art, history or science. He isn’t interested in shopping or the beach, hiking or making new friends. He doesn’t like theatre or trying new foods. Complains later about the food we ate but offers no suggestions to improve it. Doesn’t really like beer or wine but buys them anyway. Never offers to do anything, never takes initiative or is proactive, never thinks of ways he can interact with the world or have fun. If I didn’t pointedly say every morning, okay I am ready to go anytime, we would never leave the house. Whenever we split up for the day because he doesn’t want to join in whatever EPIC thing I’ve found to see, I come back to hear that he’s sat inside all day or only gone to one of the four things he said he thought he would do. He never asks about my day or the things he missed, never looks around at the world and says, wow, cool.
None of this behavior would surprise me if I thought he just hated my company, but I know he doesn’t because so many other times he’ll seek me out when I’m perfectly happy to be alone. He’ll try to make talk with me about something or other and generally we have a perfectly decent conversation for five minutes. I make jokes and he laughs and he’ll say something that I generally disagree with or find boring and I’ll pretend to agree.
The only thing he does like is finance, and while that’s a huge topic that can keep him occupied for years, it only affords a few hours of conversation at most for the typical friendship. I appreciate all I’ve learned from him on that already but I can only talk about it so much and it worries me that in the past 5 weeks I’ve heard him give the same exact answer to every question about his life. What do you do? Why are you traveling? What do you like? What do you want in the future? What did you major in in college? All questions lead back to his 5 minute finance speech (or a non-committal nothing answer like I don’t know or sort of) which I can practically quote by now. Merskank met him for a few hours and asked him to tell her something funny about himself and even then he talked about his finance plan. Cindy’s husband asked him whether he cared about not having a girlfriend in high school and he said no because he played video games. Which video games? NOTHING IN PARTICULAR. Which movies, which music, which sports? NOTHING IN PARTICULAR. Which books? Mostly finance but NOTHING. IN. PARTICULAR.
You have to like more than one thing to be human. And if you really aren’t that passionate then you at least have to be able to fake it a bit for conversation.
Now that Hayley is gone things are a bit better, since I can get him to generally talk more than a few words and give an opinion on what to do with our day now and again. And there have actually been a few really great moments where we’ve laughed about our families or bonded over our similar upbringings. Things aren’t bad, and most of the time it’s even okay, but, he doesn’t make me better, and as hard as it is to wrap my head around, I think it’s just that some people don’t belong in your life.
I miss having Hayley’s energy to pull me along and I already feel exhausted, finding myself giving in to days of doing little more than aimlessly wandering the city streets for a few hours and then going to see a movie with him. The most excited I’ve ever seen him is when we went to the Railway museum in York and even then that lasted all of 8 minutes before he got tired and said he would have loved this when he was younger. We didn’t even pop our heads into an entire wing of the museum! But I didn’t object because I’m not excited to be here anymore, not excited to see something cool only to turn around and see him not enjoying it as much as I do, not excited to go meet new people when I know I’ll have to find ways to include him, not excited to be surrounded by a person who yawns all day and thinks appropriate travel conversation is how tired he is and how much taco bell he’s going to eat when he gets back to the USA.
I want to surround myself with joy, with action, with people who inspire me. I want to look up and see people who smile and laugh, who are generous and adventurous, who work hard to improve their lives and the lives of others. I want to know people who are intelligent and critical, who are interested and unique, who aren’t afraid to take advantage of life and live it fully. I want people who help me get up early and/or stay up late. I want friendships that make me better and while I know not all relationships are easy, that many times people fade in and out of our lives just because, they do have to be worthwhile. John’s presence in my life isn’t worthwhile.
Being frustrated with him definitely put a strain on me and Hayley’s friendship, but we talked it out and I feel the better for it. I’m not sure if we’ll ever travel like that again, but I love her and we’ll always be in each other’s lives.
I only have three more weeks on this trip with him and then it’s back to only seeing him at family reunions and monopoly games nights, but until then I need to find a way to make the most of it, because I don’t want to remember the end of my trip as a waiting game until I can get away. I must have more power over my emotions than that, and I must be able to get past my genuine disappointment in who he is and enjoy myself somehow. I feel better already for writing this, and really I can still have fun even when the world around me isn’t all that accommodating. But I just wish he’d smile more.
Hello! It feels like forever since I last posted, funny how that seems to be the theme we’ve got going lately, all of us princesses sort of putting this old blog on the back burner while real life takes all our attention. We’ve been at […]
OH MAN. So I’m leaving in a few days for what can only be described as an epic adventure (5 months traveling around Europe just because I can) and while excited, I have to admit the planning process has been slightly overwhelming… and I’m almost […]
So this one time I spent 21 days with 10 other people river rafting the Grand Canyon and it was epic.
Long story shortish: Due to the 17 day government shutdown all the National Parks were closed and all hikers, visitor center people, bikers and river rafters were not allowed to enter. Those with permits that were already in by 12:01 am on October 1, 2013 got to stay in but day or weekend hikers and campers and hotel stayers were all rounded up and kicked out. The state of Arizona stepped in on October 13th and paid to reopen parts of the park but river trips were not included, leaving over 21 groups of 15 or so people with $20,000+ of wasted money and 5 times as much time spent preparing for nothing.
Our boats were in the water on September 30th so we were the LAST group on the river for the 17 days the canyon was closed. This is unheard of in one of the most sought after rivers in the world, especially since we were warned that battling other groups for the best campsites would dominate our trip. We had beautiful waterfalls and pristine stream hikes all to ourselves and we didn’t see a soul other than our group members (and two illegal backpackers) for the last 9 days of the trip. Two days we didn’t even get on our boats at all, choosing to lounge at our campsite and go on a long hike just because there was no rush. It was absolute bliss, and it is crazy to think that a mere matter of hours separated us from the ultimate adventure experience and not having one at all.
I don’t know how to talk about it really. How do you explain a trip that you feel so guilty for being allowed to take but still so grateful for anyway? How do you talk about something that was so incredible and also just another part of your daily life? How do I really want to remember it?
The days got shorter as we went, leaving us with 7am mornings followed by 8pm bed times. We’d get up and mill around the stove sipping coffee until 8 or so and then pack up the tents and kitchen onto our boats. The hours spent on the river varied from large foreboding rapids to lazy floats in the sunshine, often worrying more about tan lines than throw ropes.
Around noon we’d stop for lunch at an appealing beach or overhang, rolling out the table and emptying the dry box and cooler of the planned meal, milling about like birds because taking the chairs off the boats was too much work for a lunch stop. Some days we’d pull over for a waterfall hike or to explore a slot canyon for a few hours, returning to our boats to float another few miles before settling on a camp that looked good.
We usually arrived around 4pm, pulling our 4 boats up next to each other and beginning the process of unloading the boats and setting up the kitchen. By 5pm we usually had cocktails in our hands, facilitating conversation and making the wait for dinner pass quickly. Each trip member was in charge of two nights of dinners and we all rotated with dishes, though inevitably certain people were more proactive than others. Some nights we’d sing songs around the guitar and other nights we’d just watch the stars come out, repeating serene exclamations of wow and holy shit to each other as we drifted off to our tents or cots.
It was a wonderful trip, full of adventure and relaxation, hard work and easy laughter. Our group got along well (mostly – there were about 18 days in the middle where I avoided one guy. Some people just don’t click) and we were lucky not to have any major boat flips or injuries. We couldn’t have asked for a better trip or imagined a more wonderful outcome.
Yesterday, talking to my dad about the adventure, I mentioned that I wasn’t sure I’d want to say yes if I ever got the chance to take this trip again. These circumstances were so unique and perfect and amazing that I wasn’t sure anything would ever compare. It would suck to attempt to recreate an experience and have no chance of coming close.
Instead of answering he told me about his brother’s trip a few years ago and how it had rained so much in the days leading up to it that the water level was twice as high as usual, making rapids that we didn’t even stop to look at much, much more dangerous and exciting. With that story I was reminded that every experience is different and worthwhile; we never seek to recreate the past, only use those moments of familiarity to heighten the present.
This trip was once in a life time for a hundred reasons, but the things I choose to do in the future will be even more unique and wonderful in a hundred other ways. At least I hope so.
I leave to raft the Grand Canyon in less than 14 hours. I’m excited. I’m lucky. I’m overwhelmed. I’m all things all at once. But mostly, mostly I’m disappointed. If the Senate and the House don’t come to a decision by tomorrow night the National […]
Well hello there blog world! I don’t have much time this week since I’m packing for a rafting trip this weekend (heading down to Cataract Canyon in Moab for four days of river bliss) but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about you! The last few […]
So I went to Las Vegas for a friend of a friend’s birthday this weekend and if there is only one thing you ever learn from me it’s that you are the ONLY person who can make your expectations a reality.
My expectations were low going in; I’m not a gambler, smoker, pool person or much of a clubber (club person? Clubette?), and while I love Vegas for the adventure (and of course talking to strangers), spending money on souvenir drink cups and redirecting wandering hands isn’t my favorite way to spend a weekend. Besides, I’d been to Vegas before (with Cinderslut for a spring break in college) and we’d seen how easy it was for our usually carefree friend to crumble under the pressure of making her 21st birthday live up to everything she’d hoped it would be. Back then we’d tried to do it all the first night, getting stuck with two days of a grumpy, hung-over birthday girl and crew. Luckily, we can laugh about it now, and even with all that drama I still have some incredibly fond memories from that weekend. Vegas is unpredictable, and I like to think its unconventional and uncooperative parts are what’s best about it.
So heading into this weekend with six other girls who knew each other much better than I did, I wasn’t too worried about making it the best weekend of my life. I was just going to go with the flow, head off by myself when I wanted to and meet up with them when it seemed appropriate. It was going to be great.
Our four-passenger, broken-down car got there Friday night after three extra hours of sitting on the side of the 109 degree Nevada highway waiting for a tow truck. At the hotel we showered off the sweat and crankiness as best we could but as we wandered the strip that night it was difficult to shake the memory of car insurance negotiations and the state trooper’s long winded stories.
I made the best of it, offering to take photos of strangers and making conversation where I could, but most of the girls I was with weren’t as enthusiastic – opting to head in early (while I stayed out with one of them and had a blast), promising themselves tomorrow would be better. On any other weekend, a move like that would have little consequence, but when you come to Vegas with high expectations, counting on all of them to come true in one night is a lot of pressure for a city that is anything but conventional.
The next day was quiet, filled with naps, pool time and one of the most awkward lunches I’ve ever been to – if they wanted to play games on their phones instead of talk to each other that was their choice (I can entertain myself anywhere). But their hours in Vegas were ticking away and I knew better than to rely on the promise of later, leaving them to nap while I explored the city and introduced myself to people who told me interesting things about travel and tattoos.
Because they were bored, the girls started getting ready for dinner hours beforehand, so it made sense that once we got to dinner (at the never worthwhile Hard Rock Café) our anticipation was at a breaking point. We’d waited all day (all week? All month?) for the appropriate time for the fun to begin, and when it didn’t, things got worse. The shy birthday girl was forced to take a shot in front of the entire restaurant and never really recovered, her mood going from neutral to straight up pissed in a matter of minutes. We caught a cab to Fremont Street because a few of us had never been, but it was long and expensive, leading us further and further from the exhilarating night we’d imagined.
A crowded, high-ceilinged, casino-mall place that hosted 90’s cover bands and an unimpressive laser light show, The Fremont Street Experience was nothing more than a scaled down strip, a more manageable social scene for overweight tourists and overprotective mothers. I felt like a sheep packed into a pen as we all wandered in circles looking for adventure and finding only off-putting capitalism. I may sound a bit harsh but this place felt like our group extrapolated to a 1000x scale, an entire street of people all making the effort to be available to new experiences but not willing to create anything themselves. It was like Vegas for uninteresting people.
We waited in line for a few cheap drinks and even wandered our way into a club for some dancing, but we were over dressed and underwhelmed. It just wasn’t quite right, and pretty soon we’d noticed silent tears falling from the birthday girls cheeks. Attention only made it worse and when we finally admitted that none of us wanted to be there we packed into a cab and hoped the strip would turn our night around.
Our mood definitely lightened the closer we got to the main drag, but now the fatigue set in – our feet attempting to call us to bed even though it was barely 11pm. We mostly ignored the pain, wandering casinos until we ended up in a club by default (no one took the lead for fear of being responsible for even more disappointment). At that point I broke away from the group, dancing alone and with a few guys (one of which pretended to be decent until he made me feel the most violated I’ve ever felt). There was only so much I could do to make this night fun for these girls, and when I was feeling down on the world and none of them attempted to take the lead and bring me or anyone else back up- I knew the night was a bust.
After that the night was mostly over, the girls crawling back into bed with drunken disappointment on their lips. A few of us went back out for an hour or so to watch the street performers and I even went up and told a beautiful guitarist that his music was the best part of my night. I meant it.
The next morning we packed up and wandered a bit more, finally taking the time to enjoy each other and appreciate where we were now that we had nothing left to lose. I could tell they were all trying to make the best of it, trying to salvage something from the disaster they’d created by not creating anything at all.
When the birthday girl pulled me aside and asked if I’d had a good trip, clearly feeling insecure about how she’d acted the day before, I looked her in the eyes and told her I had – explaining that the same thing had happened at my friend’s birthday a few years before. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d had a wonderful weekend, I just didn’t mention that the best parts were the ones I’d deliberately gone out of my way to create.
Vegas isn’t all bark and no bite, but you have to go out and find your joy – you have to contribute to the world to get something great out of it.
Come January I’m getting on a plane and crossing the Atlantic. I have no idea where I’ll end up, how long I’ll stay or really why I’m going. I know I have/need/want to go but I’m having trouble explaining WHY to myself and others. In […]
This weekend I was asked THE DREADED QUESTION (What are you doing with your life) and didn’t really come out alive. By now you’d think I’d be good at deflecting this one, making up some sort of flowery answer that is somehow both satisfactory and […]
Hello again! So as you know from reading my last post, I spent last week visiting my high school friends in California. It had its ups and downs like any vacation, and I’m really, really glad I went, but while spending the first weekend in San Francisco with two of my friends and their boyfriends (don’t worry, after living with the engaged Snow Whore and Cinderslut I’ve mastered the art of the 5th wheel), I realized something terribly sad about the world; not everyone knows the beauty of the garage sale.
“We don’t talk to strangers in the city,” he said to me seriously, annoyed that I’d even considered stopping at a women’s moving sale. “You don’t know where that stuff has been.”
We were only a few blocks from their apartment, walking back after dropping our rented bikes off around the corner and my friend’s boyfriend was tired. We’d spent all day riding through Golden Gate Park and across the bridge, stopping for scenic pictures and drinking beers at a tiny restaurant across the water. It had been a fine day really, and the rush of adrenaline I felt once I made it to the top of a hill was something I’d been missing over the last few months of my sedentary 9-5 job, but, his anger confused me. I’d been a passive guest all weekend, going with the flow staying as neutral as possible, but apparently five more minutes of being out and about wasn’t something this particular boy was willing to take, especially for something as unknown as a garage sale.
I could make excuses for him, and I know my friend (his girlfriend) must have. After all it’s not unreasonable to be grumpy and tired from a long day. I suppose that box of books I found had indeed been sitting in a garage for a few weeks gathering a few unpleasant germs. And we were only a few blocks away from their apartment, I get that I’d be annoyed if he’d stopped to impulse buy $200 dollar shoes at a pretentious designer shop.
But the thing is we were all tired. He has no excuse for his rudeness other than the plain, simple fact that he doesn’t appreciate the beauty of the garage sale. And this pains me way more than his grumpy statement.
On Garage sale days I’m out of the house by 7, doing little more than rolling out of bed and finding a baseball hat to cover up the grease. YES for not worrying what other people think! Searching through your neighbor’s possessions is by no means glamorous, so dressing down is expected, giving me the perfect excuse to wear my favorite old sweatshirts out and about. When I go with my parents they have a system down, looking up the sales on our community website the night before and planning out the best route, but my favorite part is the unexpected signs that weren’t on the list; following the neon paper directions is like following a treasure map- who knows what will be at the end?!
With garage sales it’s always a race against the clock; everyone knows the best stuff is gone by 8am. But at the same time it is a leisurely activity; we take out time to be respectful of the seller’s possessions. It is impolite not to stop to talk while you look through their boxes of old books and peruse their table of overused knickknacks. These are a person’s memories on display for you to see, and granted, none of these items are prized possessions, but you’d be surprised what people remember about their life just when you’re about to take a part of it away from them. And for those of you who say it’s all junk-you’d be even more surprised how much of what we find is actually awesome.
People have sales for all sorts of reasons: moving, cleaning out, making a few extra bucks, but many times people need to get rid of things they love but just don’t have space for anymore. People tell me ALL THE TIME that they’re just so glad to give this to a happy home! Sure, the junk is there, but so is the awesome and it’s your job to find it.
And as for the prices, they actually cannot be beat. Last weekend I got $40 worth of paper doilies, a hardcover copy of all Shakespeare’s plays in prime condition, two rolls of wrapping paper and three decks of cards for a quarter-TOTAL. And that was just one house. I’d been planning to get my mother a dual VHS/DVD player for her birthday since our Disney VHS collection is off the charts, but I’ve been dragging my feet since a player like that is $50 minimum anywhere online. Last weekend bought one with a remote for $1. The woman was so happy I was going to give it to my mother she threw in a set of gardening tools for free. I hooked it up later that day and it works perfectly. There was even another place a few weeks ago where I got the unopened first season of Gossip Girl for 50 cents (I’ll admit I lost track of that show a few years ago but no one can deny the magic of season one).
My mother goes for metal yard art, my father for CD’s to use on his radio show. I’ve heard some people do it for the resale value, I’m sure those Pawn Star TV shows have converted a few passive buyers into aggressive ones. But that isn’t why I go. I go for art supplies. I go for anything that won’t be impossible to move to my next place of residence. I go because it gives me ideas for presents for my loved ones. I go to see what other people care about. I go because you never know who you’re going to run into or what you’re going to find. I go because it’s an adventure and I so, so, SO love it.
With my parents we’re usually home by 9am, all working together to make breakfast and go through our haul. We’ve got the rest of the day ahead of us, a feeling of accomplishment already feeding our souls. Garage sales are my happy place (one of them at least) and if you haven’t found the beauty of them yet, then you’re missing out.
p.s. at the San Francisco garage sale I got two bird watching books for free that I gave to my mother for Mother’s Day. She loved them.