AB, who am I?

I’m homesick. What a shock. The hardest part is, I know it really bothers James.  Sometimes I think it bothers James more than me.  There are some days I cry myself to sleep, sit and wallow in my own self-pity, eat my frustrations and sadness away and a lot of times, I buy things - mostly clothes.  For a a little while, that helps.  But I also know how cliche that is.  But I really think it frustrates James.  No, I do not enjoy reading like he does. I do not have online forum obsessions like WOT mania or the Drudge report or The Onion AV Club.  I also know that the stress of school makes things difficult for him. It makes things difficult for me. So what have I done to improve my situation?

1. sought out two local community theatres about becoming a volunteer - no response

2. searched meetup.com for a local scrapbooking group - the closest one is 25 miles away

3. joined a Women’s wellness center that’s more Jesus friendly than Mother Theresa.

4. searched meetup.com for any local club that I might remotely be interested in…nothing.

What’s wrong with me? Why does nothing interest me? Or am I just scared to go things I used to love like singing and acting?  Why don’t other things inspire me? Why is it so hard for me to lose weight? Why am I eating such terrible things when I know it is bad for me?  Why am I so self-loathing? It’s so unattractive, unappealing. For some reason, I am scared.  Of what? I have lost my confidence, in what? I come home and sit on my couch, itching to do something but feel like I have nothing to do.  Honestly, I can not totally blame it on North Carolina. I felt this way in Connecticut, in Yonkers.  The only time I did not feel this was in college. But college is over. I can not go back to college.  I mean, what was it about college that made me so happy?  Was it living with my girlfriends?  Was it being a part of the Theatre club or orientation board? Was it the scheduled way of life? The feeling of independence but the comfort of being dependent on my parents? The knowing there will always be another class, another play, another year?  The start of a new relationship?

I get so aggravated with myself crying all the time.  This was not how I anticipated the first couple of months of my marriage were supposed to be.  I am mostly angry with myself.  Wake up.  Enjoy yourself.  You are 24 years old! I don’t want to say I am unhappy.  There are plenty of days I am happy.  But other days I am mad, sad, bored, lost. Obviously you can’t be happy every day - I know - but why do I feel this way?

Nora Efron, famous writer and director said in an interview today (North Carolina Public Radio) that you should live every day like it is your last. I do not know what that means…but I certainly am not heeding that advice.

Tonight for the first time, I took a Zumba class.  I am way behind the hype, but I  have made every excuse not to take a class: I had a project/paper due for my masters degree, was wedding planning, was exhausted from commuting to work (in NY), hanging out with James, etc. Finally, I am here in the South with no friends close by, no family close by, no stand-alone deli nearby and a husband in graduate school full-time. As a side note, James consistently makes time to be with me, even if it is just for a quick dinner or leaving his studio an hour earlier than he should. He is a wonderfully attentive and caring husband.  The first couple of weeks, I indulged feeling sorry for myself.  I would sit in my room and cry, watched TV for five hours straight until I literally felt numb, or sometimes drowned myself in retail therapy, which is ALWAYS a bad idea when you are depressed.  The experience of shopping is uplifting, but the physical purchases only hold their appeal for a short time.  Then I am just looking for more things to accumulate. 

So I decided last week to pull myself out of my shell and join a club; a women’s fitness and wellness club, to be exact.  The real reason I signed up with this club is because I could pay just to take the classes instead of having full access to the gym.  While the results of working out on a treadmill are rewarding, its just not fun.  And since I have not danced in over 6 years - God, I miss dancing - I decided to sign up for this club because they had Zumba.

My mother, my sister-in-law and myriad others on Facebook have been raving about Zumba, a “hypnotic [combination of] Latin rhythms and easy-to-follow moves to create a one-of-a-kind fitness program…The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body while burning fat” (www.zumba.com). And it is just that: A whole lot of fun and a whole lot of sweat. 

I was so excited! The fitness instructor was perfect.  She was energetic, loud and wore a ridiculously vibrant outfit, the perfect combination of a great instructor. I was pumped. I was ready to get my groove on. And then I noticed the wall in front of me; plastered across the top of the floor length mirrors was: “This is the day the lord has made; Let us be rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24”.  I am not lying when I tell you the size of the font was 200.  I turned around to the back wall and scribbled on a white board was a biblical quote from Isaiah.  To top it all off, the final song came in: A Christian Rock song with the lyrics: “How great is our God”.   

Whoa.  Now, I am Catholic, and I have often sang that Psalm at mass (It was the responsorial psalm at our wedding), but I have never heard those words outside of mass.  I am living in the “Bible Belt” and a great majority of radio stations down here play Christian-inspired music.  I should not be shocked by this, but it made me really uncomfortable.   Never in my life have I ever felt more of an outsider than I did tonight…and we all believe in the same God! I guess I am just not used to that display of worship OUTSIDE school or church. I was always the quiet Catholic; the kind of Catholic who did good deeds for others without needing a rousing speech or inspirational music; The kind of Catholic that always prayed by myself.  So hear I am, leaving my Zumba class, covered in sweat and filled with an unsettling discomfort.  Perhaps my conditioning while living in the secular North has made me weary of this outward display of affection and admiration for God.  Aren’t they being presumptuous, assuming everyone who at the club is Christian?  Maybe that is too cynical. Maybe I am being too presumptuous…why wouldn’t they have those inspirational quotes plastered around their gym? Who am I to judge them? 

Who am I?

My mother, a well learned professor of English, has always been interested in the insanity surrounding the Salem Witch Trials. So, about two years ago, I took my mother to Salem, MA for her birthday.  We did everything the usual tourists did - took a ghost tour, visited the historical sites, paid the over priced admissions fees for the sometimes-interesting-sometimes-ridiculous museums and re-enactments.  The most important touristy (a word?) experience we indulged in was a psychic reading.  My mom paid $40 each for the two of us to go to a Psychic and have “our future” read to us. 

Why would a well-educated doctorate of English, who happens to be deeply religious, indulge in such a ridiculous whim such as paying a green finger nailed hippy $40 to “read her fortune and predict her future”?  I blame it on my grandmother, whom I love dearly, but who always had a tendency to entertain the belief in superstitions.  For instance, if one’s left eye twitches, it means good luck.  If one’s right eye twitches, however, you are better off ripping it out then waiting for the bad luck that will soon lay upon you.  Although that sounds utterly ridiculous, I still have to convince myself whenever my right eye twitches that it is just a muscle spasm and nothing more.  I was hoping the itchy left palm superstition were true (you are supposed to come into money) but that has yet to come to fruition. 

At any rate, my mom convinced me to go, saying it would just be for fun and nothing more.  Still, I was feeling a bit weary, just like when my friend Ioanna (pronouced Ya Wanna) used to read my Tarot card reading: “Your are entering a black, dark time in your life and your love life will be turned upside down.  What you thought was true love isn’t.  You are better off dead” or some variation of that.

Why do I want to be told that something bad is going to happen to me? For that matter, why do other people enjoy that? I know that life is filled with good and bad moments, but I would prefer to quietly ignore them until they happen…and then attempt to deal with them.  This proves interesting for me since I am someone who DOES NOT like surprises (unless it is a surprise party, which I have yet to have because I a) relay my desire to have one and initiate its creation or b) annoy and interrogate people I think are throwing one for me until they crack and tell me).  I have never liked surprises.  I always like knowing where I am going, what I will be doing and who will be with me, which is why when James and I got off the wrong subway stop in the south of France during our honeymoon, not knowing where we were, not being able to read the timetables because I DO NOT SPEAK FRENCH, and not being in a town that has many tourist visitors, I was not amused by our circumstance, even though James kept saying, “This is kind of funny…right?”

Anyway, I am drifting off into descriptive tangents - my apologies. Bottom line, I do not like surprises, especially when it comes to receiving or delivering bad news.  For my mom’s sake, though, I swallowed my fears, paid the gypsy witch (she called herself a witch, I didn’t), and sat across from her while she “predicted my future” for me.

What did she say?

1. I would have to choose between my past love and my new love. I was (at the time) unsure of both and I would have to make a choice.

2.  I would have a dramatic career shift.  My “new” job would involve a lot of words.

3. I’d have some temporary physical health issues that would be physically cured once my emotional state repaired itself.

4. I would have a big life event happen that will bring me away from my home, but only temporarily.

5. I am extremely fertile and must be cautious of this. Yikes!

Well 3 out of the 5 very vague, ambiguous and leading predictions (as James so aptly described them) have come true. Prediction 1. I finally made the decision to forget about my previous boyfriend, my family’s relationship with his family, and really my former life as I knew it.  Instead I chose James. He turned around 6 months later and proposed to me, simultaneously accepting a position at University of North Carolina School of The Arts in their Grad program.  Once we were married a year later, I transferred jobs and moved to North Carolina to be with him (Prediction 4). I did manage to get over my physical health issues (which are not necessary to discuss), and much of that healing did come from restoring my emotional health because I truly believe the majority of those physical ailments were manifestations of my emotionally weakened state.  I was able to do this with the help of a very honest, open and loyal friend in Fairfield, CT.  She knows who she is and I am eternally grateful for her (Predicition 3). 

Predicition 5 has yet to be tested.  James has made it vehemently clear that having children before we pay off our student loan debt is entirely irresponsible.  I am not arguing with him.  I have difficulty getting myself on time to work in the morning and usually make myself a Weight Watchers meal for dinner instead of cooking, so I think it is safe to say that I am not ready to have children yet. 

As for prediction 2, I am still waiting for this to happen.  I just do not know what I want to do with the rest of my life, hence the poignantly titled blog and URL. I do know I do not want a job surrounded by numbers, that is for sure.  I thought I did at one time, but that is not who I am.  I am someone who LOVES words.  I love to talk, I love to write and I love to read things that interest me, although I have been hard pressed to find a book I really love.  But what does that mean “a job surrounded with words”? A part of me is really afraid to answer that question.  I do not know the answer.  Right now, I have a job.  I am good at my job.  My job pays me relatively well.  But it does not inspire me. 

So here I am, living in Winston Salem, NC (which I can assure you is definitely different than Yonkers, NY), doing the same job I have disliked for the passed four years.  Why am I doing it? 1. Currently, James is not working and is enrolled full-time in graduate school, so attempting a new career is not responsible at this time. 2. My current job is safe for me. 3. I just do not have the guts yet to make the change. 4. Most importantly, though, when I do make a change, I want to be sure it is the right one.  Now, I know, I know - you can never be sure, but I am someone who needs to be sure.  Maybe as I search for whatever my passion is, who I am called to be (Jesuit reference), I can blog about it.  Blogging is all about words, right?