On Marriage:
May. 5th, 2009 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crowsTo follow, a lengthy and poetically worded update about What's Really Going On in my life.
In a touch shy of two weeks, I will celebrate the 24th anniversary of my marriage to the world. It's been, as any long-term and deeply invested relationship must be, filled with the typically metaphorized 'ups and downs'. There have been, certainly, immensely good times, but it's been bad, too. Trial separations. Even, at one point a long time ago, flirted with the idea of a divorce (and, yes, I do mean that as dramatically as one might take it).
For the last year, certainly, and perhaps for the last few, we've done a stint of coexistence without being particularly in love with one another. We've been soldiering on in the knowledge that this is right, that we will not actually be apart, but it's been ambiently difficult for a long time. So much awkward silence, we'd barely touch each other for weeks, orbiting like ghosts through the necessary motions.
The next part grows hazy. There have certainly been glimpses, here; some more strongly worded than others, of the various and immense anxieties that have overtaken the last eighteen months for me. It's been a bad spell, coping with the interactions of various choices in their ultimate state; the unkind cocktail of inexperience and irresponsibility, particularly in the emotional arena. Last week, midweek, really Thursday morning very early, I broke it. Through, out, beyond... And not – as I've described it to a couple of people in the intervening days – the desperate, terrified gasping for breath before I sink down under for another couple of weeks, like I have been doing (because this life that I have been living has not been without good days), but I feel as though I've finally come out into the shallows. I am kicking my bare ankles through topaz water toward a silver strand. I'm safe.
I feel like a little bird, all wings and lightness, finally and gladly out of this storm of frantic peregrination. I'm ready to go somewhere, do something, and own my life much more wholly than I have, to this point.
I'm moving to Iowa City this summer, at the end of June or the beginning of July. I'll attend the university there, as it happens the school my parents met at and where my father got his masters in writing. My family is there, where lies a nest of mixed benefits and needs. My grandparents' failing health can always use another pair of hands, another body to be company for them. And, of course, it makes them very happy to spend time with their grandchildren and I've always lived so far away. My cousin's girls, an adolescent and a teenager, also need someone below their parents' generation but responsible enough to look out for them doing just that.
And, school... I've been waiting and floundering for a long time, waiting for this situation or that situation to congeal, giving external people and things far too much sway over my situation and wondering why I didn't ever feel stable enough to succeed in a major educational undertaking. Now that I've hit the air I can barely contain myself.
The existing plan is for one or two week long workshops that the university is putting on over the summer; one from the 7-12th of June and the other in July some time. I'll be moving at the end of June, or during the first week of July. I'm hoping I don't have to budge on that... I don't see why I should, ultimately. I'm feeling exceptionally confident about making this happen. I want to go. I've been spinning my wheels for far, far too long.
So, the long and short of it is, I'm finally going forward. All that remains is the logistics. I'll be taking and sending things from up here, and flying to Los Angeles to pack out my storage space and possibly collect my scooter (I'm still on the fence about whether or not I'm going to hang on to that for the time being). I'll be moving via U-Haul or a trucking service, more than likely; if anyone has suggestions about other options I might pursue, I'd certainly love to hear them. I have less than an apartment's worth of stuff, no major furniture, and possibly a 100-odd pound scooter that I need to get from Los Angeles to Iowa City.
I've had such angels in my life, especially since returning home to Alaska last fall. In retrospect, I don't know that I've ever felt so ... intervened about. As though something in the world shifted just so; that no matter how bloody awful things have felt in the last couple of years, mountains moved their great, exhausted limbs to shelter me. I've weathered with immense, unconditional, and much-needed support. My gods do not have names, or faces, or books, but they are very much with me.
I love you. I love you.
In a touch shy of two weeks, I will celebrate the 24th anniversary of my marriage to the world. It's been, as any long-term and deeply invested relationship must be, filled with the typically metaphorized 'ups and downs'. There have been, certainly, immensely good times, but it's been bad, too. Trial separations. Even, at one point a long time ago, flirted with the idea of a divorce (and, yes, I do mean that as dramatically as one might take it).
For the last year, certainly, and perhaps for the last few, we've done a stint of coexistence without being particularly in love with one another. We've been soldiering on in the knowledge that this is right, that we will not actually be apart, but it's been ambiently difficult for a long time. So much awkward silence, we'd barely touch each other for weeks, orbiting like ghosts through the necessary motions.
The next part grows hazy. There have certainly been glimpses, here; some more strongly worded than others, of the various and immense anxieties that have overtaken the last eighteen months for me. It's been a bad spell, coping with the interactions of various choices in their ultimate state; the unkind cocktail of inexperience and irresponsibility, particularly in the emotional arena. Last week, midweek, really Thursday morning very early, I broke it. Through, out, beyond... And not – as I've described it to a couple of people in the intervening days – the desperate, terrified gasping for breath before I sink down under for another couple of weeks, like I have been doing (because this life that I have been living has not been without good days), but I feel as though I've finally come out into the shallows. I am kicking my bare ankles through topaz water toward a silver strand. I'm safe.
I feel like a little bird, all wings and lightness, finally and gladly out of this storm of frantic peregrination. I'm ready to go somewhere, do something, and own my life much more wholly than I have, to this point.
I'm moving to Iowa City this summer, at the end of June or the beginning of July. I'll attend the university there, as it happens the school my parents met at and where my father got his masters in writing. My family is there, where lies a nest of mixed benefits and needs. My grandparents' failing health can always use another pair of hands, another body to be company for them. And, of course, it makes them very happy to spend time with their grandchildren and I've always lived so far away. My cousin's girls, an adolescent and a teenager, also need someone below their parents' generation but responsible enough to look out for them doing just that.
And, school... I've been waiting and floundering for a long time, waiting for this situation or that situation to congeal, giving external people and things far too much sway over my situation and wondering why I didn't ever feel stable enough to succeed in a major educational undertaking. Now that I've hit the air I can barely contain myself.
The existing plan is for one or two week long workshops that the university is putting on over the summer; one from the 7-12th of June and the other in July some time. I'll be moving at the end of June, or during the first week of July. I'm hoping I don't have to budge on that... I don't see why I should, ultimately. I'm feeling exceptionally confident about making this happen. I want to go. I've been spinning my wheels for far, far too long.
So, the long and short of it is, I'm finally going forward. All that remains is the logistics. I'll be taking and sending things from up here, and flying to Los Angeles to pack out my storage space and possibly collect my scooter (I'm still on the fence about whether or not I'm going to hang on to that for the time being). I'll be moving via U-Haul or a trucking service, more than likely; if anyone has suggestions about other options I might pursue, I'd certainly love to hear them. I have less than an apartment's worth of stuff, no major furniture, and possibly a 100-odd pound scooter that I need to get from Los Angeles to Iowa City.
I've had such angels in my life, especially since returning home to Alaska last fall. In retrospect, I don't know that I've ever felt so ... intervened about. As though something in the world shifted just so; that no matter how bloody awful things have felt in the last couple of years, mountains moved their great, exhausted limbs to shelter me. I've weathered with immense, unconditional, and much-needed support. My gods do not have names, or faces, or books, but they are very much with me.
I love you. I love you.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-06 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-07 05:50 pm (UTC)Sometimes I can tell when the mood flows through you and it's nice.
But on an even better note, welcome to my corner of the world!
We're gonna hafta have coffee, we're gonna have coffee, we're gonna have coffee... ~jump jump jump~
no subject
Date: 2009-05-07 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 05:21 pm (UTC)Okay, bad humor.
I live in a ramshackle cot in the podunk part of Des Moines.
Haven't been to Iowa City in years, but used to regularly trek there from Ames back during my ISU days - what a traitor I was.
Once my life consists of more than work and work and yet more work I am so going to visit you or vice versa.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 05:41 pm (UTC)