On Drinking -- part 1.

For years, I have been a drinker.

I drank socially - out at the bar with friends in undergrad and grad school.

I came to class hungover. I left class to throw up. I missed class altogether because I couldn't drag myself out of bed.

But... that was just college. That's what we did for fun.

Then I started grad school, and moved in with my future husband. We started drinking at home together. He experimented with cocktails. We drank at the bar with friends; we drank at home together. (Sometimes I had a drink by myself.)

I missed class because of hangovers. I missed work because of hangovers.

I had sex with people I didn't mean to because I was drunk. I sought out creepy situations and desperate men for attention when I was drunk... and I got it.

My husband forgave me. He always saw each incident for what it was - a drunken mistake. Practically rape.

But then school ended. We moved to Kansas together and I started a job. A job I hated - teaching.

I dealt with the stress by drinking. I drank vodka from the moment I got home until the moment I passed out. I went to work hungover, but I rarely missed work due to hangovers anymore. My tolerance had gotten too high.

I drunkenly attended social gatherings. At these gatherings, I sought out creepy, self-loathing men who didn't mind making out with a drunk, married woman. My husband sometimes found me and got me home safely. Sometimes he did not.

I quit teaching because I hated it, but I did not quit drinking. It had become a part of my identity, who I was. No longer was I was the smartest girl in the room with the most ambition; I was the drunkest, the loudest, the sloppiest. I had no inhibition. I prided myself in my willingness to try everything once.

And the older I got, the more enmeshed in the cycle I became -- I was not living up to my potential; I was not finding success or happiness in my career, and my marriage was turning stale. To hide my failures from myself, I drank. All I could count on was the ecstasy of being drunk - the nothingness. The loss of feeling.

My husband became exacerbated, withdrawn. He began to smoke a lot of pot, stayed up late on the computer, was rarely intimate with me. I drank to feign normalcy.

When our sex life deteriorated, I again sought out intimacy with whoever would have me. I slept with the creepy server at the restaurant I frequented. I slept with the creepy guy in my massage therapy class. I slept with the friend back home who had a crush on me in middle school. These people didn't judge my drinking habits; they welcomed the opportunity to exert power over a powerless person.

I never hit rock bottom, though. Due to financial circumstances beyond my control, I was never going to be out on the street. I moved out of my house in a hallucination of independence. I sought a relationship with a married woman who was also spiraling out of control. I disregarded my husband's feelings (even as he was unable to share them with me), and I finally ended up alone.

No one wants to be with an alcoholic who has no control over her life. Not even me.

On Winners and Losers

I. Intro

Many people have dissected the world into categories: men vs. women, givers vs. takers (Daniel Quinn), producers and consumers, Christians and non-christains, Caucasian and “other,” East vs. West, artistic vs. logical, and the list goes on and on. Starting with the very first categorization – men vs. women – of course, science has proven that there is a lot of gray area in this type of classification. Where do homosexuals belong? What about hermaphrodites? Transgendered people? Transsexual people? Not everybody fits neatly on one side or another, and such is life.

Regardless of the dichotomy, there will always be exceptions to the generalization, and sometimes these exceptions are the most interesting cases to study because they offer rationale as to how an individual can transcend their prescribed / assigned lot in life into the other side.

Despite the ineffective nature of dividing the world into Us vs. Them-type polarities, I offer, yet another interpretation of 'those who can' vs. 'those who cannot', and it's not a new terminology – but a different understanding of what one group has that the other group doesn't. I introduce to you “The Winners” and “The Losers.”

II. The Winners

Winners are better humans; they are more evolved, more intelligent, and more aware. They are the people who become effective leaders and create innovative solutions to real problems. The winners are the ones who take control of a group project and make sure every job gets done, and they are also the ones who know how to question authority respectfully in order to encourage societal change rather than simply muck things up.

Circumstantially, one does not need to be born into wealth to be a winner – many wealthy people are not winners – but wealth is a successful tool in our society, and being born into wealth does not hurt. If not born into wealth, though, winners transcend poverty (or meager beginnings) by understanding the world around them; they don't buy into stereotypes that hold them down. They don't fall prey to the self-perpetuating traps of poverty: teen pregnancy, drugs, imprisonment, dropping out of high school, alcoholism. They hold themselves to the same standards as their wealthier counterparts. They demand a good education, and, short of a top-tier school district, they squeeze every drop of opportunity out of what resources they do have, and they strive to find more.

Winners are goal-setters, list-makers, and over-achievers. They are realistic, and they don't begin projects without truly believing that they can see the project through. That said, they know when to pull out and cut their losses. Even in the face of a bad decision or poor investment, the winners do not despair; they do not let bankruptcy or a failed business endeavor annihilate them, but rather, they look at the loss as a learning opportunity. (Why did the business fail? What can I do differently in the future? At what point in my planning did I rush things or go against my gut instinct?) Winners are reflective, but they don't waste time wallowing in regret. For regret reaps no benefits, and if you're not reaping benefits (be they physical, fiscal, emotional, or spiritual, mind you), you are not winning.

• Some personality traits of winners are as follows: determined, stubborn, confident, eager, curious, engaged, active, persistent, resilient, resourceful, intrinsically motivated, outspoken, charismatic, charming...
• Signs you may be dealing with a delusional loser who thinks s/he is a winner: self-righteousness, haughtiness, begging, an overall pathetic demeanor, poor hygiene, bad grammar, excessive pop culture references, religiosity, spirituality, any evident obsession (i.e. - Hello Kitty, Star Trek, sports, college pride, etc.), excessive debt, name brand clothing, name-dropping, poor culinary taste, cheap wine...
• Are all winners good people? Heavens, no! In this construct, winning simply refers to securing that you benefit from life rather than letting obligations and other people suck the life out of you. Winners are inherently selfish, somewhat bombastic, a little pushy, and sometimes condescending. These are not all positive traits. I would not necessarily want my spouse to exhibit all the traits of a winner, but if it came right down to choosing to marry a winner or choosing to marry a loser, well, I'd go for the bombastic smart ass any day.

II. The Losers

Losers are more difficult to describe; they come in all varieties, and they simply dull in comparison to winners. A winner in one social circle may, in fact, be a loser in another. Though, this is not often the case. It's not enough to describe losers as the inverse of their superior counterpart (less evolved, less intelligent, less aware), but it's a fine place to begin.

Losers let life happen to them. They approach life with a passive acceptance of established norms, expectations, and hierarchies. They utter such tired dicta as, “Everything happens for a reason,” and “What will be will be.” They hold strong to belief systems which exonerate them from responsibility for their place in life, whether these systems be religion, patriarchy, traditional gender roles, or political propaganda (i.e. - unbounded patriotism). They make the same mistakes over and over again, and they don't evaluate their circumstances to rectify theses shortcomings.

Losers have no sense of agency in their own lives; they progress from one societal institution to the next, as their forefathers before them did, without considering that an alternate route is even possible. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with the secondary school to college to marriage to children route, but the fact that these drones exist with blinders on their eyes which preclude other options is limiting. If a winner sees the sky as the limit, a loser always finds a barrier to prevents him from realizing his goals.

Losers may simply have no goals; they may believe the purpose of life is to marry and reproduce, or to find happiness in your circumstances. They enjoy the simple things in life: TV on the couch with a loved one, fast food, cheap beer. Or perhaps they have unrealistic goals: “I'm going to be published – someday,” or “Someone will recognize my talent, and then I'll be famous.” These assumptions all rely on another person to set the loser's dream into motion; whereas, a winner is his or her own catalyst. Losers buy lottery tickets and believe in their elected leaders to make responsible decisions for the nation; winners become these leaders in order to change the world.

Many people born into poverty experience a feeling of helplessness, lack of agency, and – therefore – fall into the role of loser. Not all poor people are losers, though. Our president, for example, is the product of a broken home in an era that was oppressive to African Americans, and he transcended a modest upbringing through motivation, education, and determination. So, it is possible for a poor person to become a winner, but it's a much steeper hill to ascend from poverty to success than from a privileged life to success.

That said, not all wealthy people are winners, either. Many wealthy people enjoy a life of privilege until they are forced to fend for themselves, and then, lacking intrinsic motivation or any specific skill set, they fall. Wealth does not guarantee charisma, intellectual curiosity, or resilience in the same way poverty does not assure ineptitude, lack of originality, or indolence.

• Some personality traits of losers are as follows: passive, indifferent, mild-mannered, polite, petty, naive, unorganized, constantly late, eccentric, soft-spoken, addictions, shallow, pious, unreliable...
• Signs you may be a loser: You wear a ballcap (or any other sport-related paraphernalia), you often talk about TV during social outings, you're unemployed (but not financially stable), you shop at Aeropostale or Hollister, you have a tattoo that you regret, you've spent more time watching TV/movies than reading in the past year, you have more than 2 children...
• If I'm a loser, can I do anything to change that? That's a good question, and asking how to fix it is the first step to leaving loser-dom behind you. But, to overcome the state of being a loser, you have to really want to be a winner, not just look like a winner. You have to actually be interested in learning about the world around you, in reading books and newspapers, in taking risks and possibly losing it all. If this sounds like you, you'll find your way. Good luck!

Friday Blues

Nobody gets the Friday Blues; it's always the Monday Blues.
By Friday, people are just excited for "The Weekend!"
as if not going to work guarantees a heightened level of
excitement and magic in their lives.

Well today I have the Friday Blues.
The tentacles of anxiety are stirring in my chest,
and the strong arm of 'being an adult' has just barely
overcome the desire to crawl back into bed.

For the time being, the end of the week has ceased
to console my agitated mind.
I am forever longing to find
a fulfilling purpose for my life --

One that inspires
motivates me to arise in the mornings
stretches the limits of my thinking
and allows growth through counsel of like-minded colleagues.

Or - one that requires nothing of me,
hardly uses a grain of my daily energy
gives me a reason to leave the house each day
then releases me to enjoy a hobby I am passionate about.

Today, though, drowning in the Friday Blues
all I want is to stay in bed where it is warm
and dream of all the possibilities
without making a single commitment.

2014

A new year does not often move me in the way I would expect it to.  To be honest, I've often been too hungover to acknowledge the passing year and don't allow myself time to slow down and reflect on the last year nor plan for coming one.

This year has been slightly different.  On Jan. 1, I felt the hope of a new year.  

As a teacher, I had almost two weeks of break between Dec. 20 and Jan 2, before I had to return to school.  One might think that is plenty of time to relax, refocus, and rejuvenate, but really, Dec. 20- Dec. 27th were dedicated to traveling and spending time with family (= stressful), which left only 5 days of break before heading back to school on Jan. 2 (Jan. 2 really! Who makes these schedules? Why not give us a whole two weeks off and have teachers return on the 6th?).  I had a friend come to town on the 30th, so the 28th and 29th passed quickly with myself making preparations, cleaning, and, yes, stressing a little.  So there I was, Dec. 31st, and still not relaxed - after 11 days of break!  On the 31st, we had a little shindig, and yes, I drank too much and ate too much, but not entirely.  That is to say, when I awoke on Jan. 1, 2014 (to the sounds of a friend cleaning up bottles downstairs), I was able to face the light of the day without throwing up.  The morning was spent hanging out with friends, and I found myself on a long walk with my husband, 2 dogs, and visiting friend.  And as I said before - I felt the hope of a new year.

What does hope feel like?  It's important for me to describe because it was a feeling I don't remember having experienced for a long time, if ever.  It was either hope or utter relaxation, possibly just sheer acceptance of my life and my current situation.  As I walked down Shadyway, I felt was a lightness in my chest which caused me to look up to the sky and acknowledge its presence.  Until that very moment, for years, as far back as I can remember, I had felt a constant weight on my chest - a tightness - whether it were anxiety, depression, fear, denial, obligation, or a combination of the four, on Jan. 1st of this year - that weight was lifted and I was able to exhale and simply feel joy.  It took 12 days of being away from my job to separate myself enough to be able to experience peace, but, finally, this year - after years of just 'hanging in there,' I was able to see my situation for what it is, which is fortunate, for the most part. I am healthy. I have a job. I have friends and a family who love me.  I am in a situation which is not ideal professionally, but I am young, educated, motivated, and personable. I will figure out what I'm supposed to be doing eventually. And even if I don't for a while, I am aware of my situation and not obliviously sinking into the mire of depression. I have hobbies. I have multiple outlets for creative energy.

Unfortunately, the feeling of hope was fleeting.  By the evening of Jan. 1, a slight weight settled back onto my chest. Over the last few days, the burden of work and the obligations of the real word have returned to plague me, but at least I experienced what some people might wake up each day feeling - hope.  

So I put forth now into the world - this will be the year when I seek that feeling of release in whatever ways I can, whether it be finding a new job, returning to school, or simply becoming more aware of my physical being through exercise and a healthy diet.  As for new year's resolutions, I don't believe in them, but I can certainly get behind a rejuvenated attitude and thirst for a fulfilling life.

Adulthood

My husband and I live in a bubble, I admit it.  Our bubble is mostly comprised of the stark division between 'those who watch TV' and 'those who do not watch TV' (ie - us).  But our bubble is insulated by the type of people we surround ourselves with - each layer dividing us farther from the reality of the American populace - level of education, political leaning, religiosity, sexual preference, parenthood, attention to the same types of news sources from which we derive our understanding of the world, etc., etc.  That is all to say, we don't meet with very much adversity in our very little world, aside from refuting students' uninformed, self-conscious blabber all day, which ranges from annoying comments to sexual harassment on a daily basis.

We are continuously amazed, though, by the fact that adulthood is terrible. (See this diagram for more).

For a few months, I tried to hone my personal habits to improve the quality of my life.  This was an experiment I didn't talk about much with my husband, but put for conscientious effort into things like: drink less during the week, go to bed early, go to the gym, don't drink caffeine at night.  After a summer of gluttonous indulgence, I found that I was exhausted during the days - the kind of exhaustion that a warm cuppa joe in the morning doesn't even begin to extinguish; I was too tired to work out after school, and I was too anxious to sleep at night.  Needless to say, only a few days of this living hell caused me to re-prioritize, but here's what I learned:

Drinking less only left me feeling nauseous in the mornings for unrelated reasons (mostly acid reflux, which has plagued me since I was an adolescent); going to bed early did not foster sleep due to the increased anxiety (caused by refraining from alcohol), going to the gym -- OK, so this one does help on a number of levels, but seriously, who likes to go to the gym? and drinking caffeine at night did not seem to affect how much or little sleep I got as much as whether I had a glass of wine or a sleeping pill at night did!

In fact, here's the insight I actually gained from my little experiment - an outcome I had feared and hoped to disprove:

• ALL adults are tired ALL the time!  (If they say they aren't, they're lying!)
• Going to the gym is always awful (but always worth it for the feeling of accomplishment afterward)

That's it!  my experiment did not accomplish anything in terms of motivating me to be a better person; I guess the only thing I succeeded in doing is proving to myself that everyone else in the world is just about as bad off as I am.

So, and this is the second half of living in a bubble - my husband and I are often surprised by how difficult life is.  I mean, last time I went to the DMV, I had to wait for 6 hours - no joke - 6 HOURS - to change my license from an IL license to a KS license.  I also had to have approx. 3 specific pieces of documentation and 2 forms of ID.  And you know how I knew that?  Because I got on the website to check and/or I called ahead before I went because (I thought) I was a genius!  There were apparently 120 other people who had done the exact same things, though, and arrived before me, so I was in line behind them.  Really?  You mean I'm not more prepared and awesome than the rest of society?  We're all just getting by the best we can?  Ludicrous.

At other times, we have prided ourselves in doing our own taxes.  I mean, I have an accordion folder and everything where all tax-related forms are stored all year, so, when it comes time to do taxes in April, I can dump it out and feel awesome because I'm such an uber-organized master of paperwork.  But -- you know what?  Most other people manage to do their taxes and get them in on time, too!

Other items in life that I thought I trounced other people at but turns out I only kind of stay afloat are as follows:
 - Cleaning the house
 - Paying bills
 - Taking care of animals
 - Remembering important dates (ie - birthdays)
 - Completing to-do lists

So as not to lose all faith in myself, though, areas in which I still dominate are:
 - amount of time I spend reading
 - staying in touch with people I care about
 - traveling
 - remaining calm in traffic / tense situations
 - professionalism
 - spelling

What are some things you are surprised other people manage to accomplish that you thought maybe made you better than them, but don't?

Writing on writing

I've begun a challenge -- provoked by Ms. Barbara Abercrombie here, I've begun writing dangerously for 365 days, which is to say that for 5-15 minutes a day, I read an anecdote followed by a quote by a known (sometimes and sometimes not-to-me) author, and then I ruminate on what was said.  Sometimes I respond directly, as when Toni Morrison asks her students to describe their ideal writing space; then I respond by trying to do just that.  But other prompts are less direct.  They are musings on writing from writers.  Like yesterday's page, for example, cited a Samuel Beckett quote that many authors use for inspiration, but I didn't find it very inspirational, so I simply explored the idea of failure and how many pages authors probably write for every 100 that gets published.  (My guess was 1000).

In other news -- and speaking of authors who have been posited as failures or has-beens, J.D. Salinger is supposedly making a come back. I mean, as we all know, he never really fell out of popularity, thanks to pop-culture, emo kids, and pseudo-intellectuals who laud Catcher in the Rye as the greatest piece of literature ever (blasphemy!), but, as has been predicted, he has been working on pieces that are going to be released ~2015-2020.  I wonder if any other canonical writers are hoarding literature from the world?  Morrison?  Marquez?

So the challenge has been fun - a release, like a self-meditation in a way, but I've still not figured out how to 'release my inner writer,' (as apparently 28,500,000 google searches call it).  I'm still looking for a muse.

Any takers?

Ruminations

Today, I am at school.  I have 13 minutes until the students will be released from 1st hour, and a dozen eager 6th graders will pour into my room.

Today, my 6th graders will be testing on laptops, which will be a challenge, as I'm not sure how many of the students have used a laptop before (probably most of them) or how many of them have logged-in to the school computers before.  I will gently guide them through the log-in process, then direct them to the testing website, then guide them through THAT log-in process, then walk them through the directions, and finally, allow them to test: One test is a mere 3 minutes, but takes 5-7 minutes to explain, another is only ten minutes or so, and the final test if 55 minutes long.  It will take us approximately 3 class periods.

(Now I have 11 minutes until 1st hour ends).

There is another test I'm supposed to give the students at this point in the year - a writing test.  Maybe I'll wait until next Friday to do that.  So much testing in so little time.  So little inspiration.

(10 minutes until 1st hour is over).

Today I am feeling anxious.  I woke up tired; I've been sleeping poorly lately because it's so hot upstairs, but also because the draining makes my throat itchy, and the dogs' movement keeps me awake.  I'm still a little tired, sore stomach, and anxious.  Short breaths that don't completely fill my lungs are all I can summon.

(9 minutes...)

I can't get over the feeling that I'm supposed to be doing more with my time -- here at school with a new job, in my day-to-day life with my family and husband, and on this earth.  But what is there to do?  On a small-scale, I should be inserting myself into core Language Arts classes, attending team meetings, and making myself useful to the teams.  All in good time.  It's only the 3rd week of school.  At home, I should be exercising more, cooking meals (how long have I claimed I'm going to cook a meal? I should commit to Thursday - a salad on Thursday), creating something -- artistic: crochet, writing, drawing.  I don't know.  On a larger scale...

(7 minutes)

On a larger scale... I can't figure that out.  Should I go back to school?  Become an administrator?  Become a curriculum leader?  Is education the field I want to be in?  If I really think, whose job do I want?  KB?  KN?  Maybe...  What steps do I need to take to get there?

Another thought I've had is to increase my experience in the field by traveling abroad.  I want to visit the country most of my students are from to feel more connected.  I'd love to do an extended teacher exchange, but for now, will probably have to settle for a 1-2 week vacation or overview of a school.  I should spend more of my home time doing real research on that.

(5 minutes)

Going backwards -- large picture back to small picture...  I'm worried about people I care for, not taking care of themselves.  Should I intervene?  How much good could I do?  How to intervene lovingly?

(4 minutes)

Do all teachers watch the clock like this?  It's an infuriating way to live each day.