Digging deeper

Well I was working on a long and thought-out introspective post about my feelings toward radical/progressive politics, and the seemingly inexplicable development in recent years of an anti-intellectual streak in my attitude. But then a wall of bike cops and dozens if not hundreds of crazy party-goers streamed down my block, making noises like a riot, and I got distracted. They're gone now, but as I type there is lightening striking somewhere in the neighborhood, the rain is crashing down HARD and there is a lone siren blurting and bleating in front of my door. Whatever is going on out there, it's not pretty. Of course this is all ten minutes after I kiss T good-bye and wish him a safe walk to a downtown hotel where he is meeting out-of-town friends for a drink at a bar. Thank god for online texting.

Anyway, since I'm not getting back to my shoegazing post anytime soon, I thought I'd at least check in. I'm thinking more about how to use this blog as a way for me to develop thoughts and share about myself and process things that are going on in my life. I feel like I've said one of the same two things over and over for a while: either "I am so lucky" or "Life can really suck sometimes." Sometimes I say both things in the same post, just to mix it up. And that's all I think I really ever express to anyone in real life either. Making an effort to reach out to people feels like swimming upstream in a rapid current. It's exhausting, and it's easy to want to give up.

When I worked at my last job, I only ever interacted with two people: my boss, and my boss's boss (also my boss). I think I purposely chose that job because I was afraid of taking a job somewhere where I would interact with a lot of others, especially peers. I had just left a situation in which my actions had caused a ton of hurt, and I didn't want to make any moves that would lead to the same or similar results. In short, I didn't trust myself. Now, I'm back at a place in life where I have many opportunities to interact with people, but I still find myself holing away, unsure of the proper way to be a good friend.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah. I want to challenge myself to dig deeper. Whatever that means. So today I went to the coffee shop by my house with a journal and this marriage book that I bought on a whim when marriage was still a long ways from our reality. I wanted to work on writing my vows. Last night, T and I spent a while finally tackling the subject of what we want our ceremony to be like. We got in some arguments, had a few laughs and generally made productive headway. Now I'm trying to think of all the things I want to promise him, and the things I'd want him to promise me. With less than a month to go, the only thing I'm freaking out about is the deadline. Sometimes this date feels like a deadline to have it All Figured Out. I know us well enough to know that we are good problem-solvers and the issues we haven't already tackled or talked about, at least in the hypothetical, are few and far between. Mostly we are on the same page, or are confident in our ability to reconcile our differences. There is one issue that lingers that I doubt we'll have figured out before we marry. And I guess that's the only thing that worries me. Are we supposed to know every single detail of our plan for our future? Of course not. But what ARE we supposed to have worked out? What's okay to play by ear? I just don't know. The one thing I am glad about, though, is that I do absolutely know that I am making the right choice. But that goes back to that whole "I'm so lucky" thing. And I've said that before.