Happy Normal Things

Thank God for school breaks. They make me a better person.

As we approach Easter weekend and the week-long holiday associated with it, I find myself in a very zen place. I feel like a balloon: light enough to float above all my problems and fears and up high enough to see them for the molehills they are. Mountains are reserved for national parks and skiing. 

I feel so...peaceful. Oh sure, minor things crop up like dropping my book while on the stationary bike or tripping over a pile of dirty clothes and (nearly) maiming myself, but since I've finished my first batch of assignments and talked to all my lovelies (both in NZ and the US), I'm happy. 

One area that has contributed to my languid happiness is clothing. In the US, I have many hang-ups regarding size (I think most people will agree they do too) that make it hard to be comfortable while shopping for clothes. Here, I can't be bothered to worry about what size it says on the jeans because a) I haven't a clue what the size difference is between countries, b) I've never before bought clothes in NZ and c) it's all expensive. I find myself jettisoning (or planning to jettison) clothes I've struggled to let go of for years and replacing them with things that fit who I am now, not who I was. 

A second contributing area is books. I love to read; I love it so much, I become a zombie. I disconnect from the world when I have a book in my hands. My boyfriend finds it annoying, as does anyone trying to get my attention. (I wouldn't notice if the flat burned down, to be honest. It's that bad. Or good.) Getting my local library card was like getting the keys to every toy store in the world: I have been a happy, busy bee this week as I plow through the first bag of books I hauled home. 

A third area is Weather. I hate the rain. I hate being cold, I hate being damp. I hate when it's humid and I hate when it's broiling. I love sunshine and breezy air, the smell of leaf mold (JK, although I do think that's the smell we identify as 'autumn') and the crispness of fall mornings. The weather this week has been fantastically gorgeous; warm during the day and cool at night. (I sound so bipolar right now, complaining about the changeable NZ weather in one post and praising it in another. LOL.) But, really, who doesn't love gorgeous scenery set off by beautiful weather? Every time I walk from the university to my flat I see the hills rising in the distance and start humming "The Sound of Music" theme song. 

I am lucky. So, so lucky. I am loved, I am pampered, I am strong and I'm smart(ish). And I get to do things that are absolutely amazing! I get to read book after book in puddles of New Zealand sunshine while calling my friends on Skype to tell them about my lack of stress (and about how much I miss them). And my beautiful boyfriend is talking to me. I love that most of all. (I'm such a romantic sap. And it takes so little effort to get me there. Sigh.) 

Now I want to go to sleep. My neck has cramps. 

WolfGrrl

Toilet Terror

I wonder if being small means things that aren't scary for normal people are scary for me? In this case, it's the toilet.

For some reason, every time I flush the toilet I'm gripped by the bizarre fear that something will slither up from the drain and bite me in the butt as I skitter out of the stall. On the list of irrational fears, I think this comes fairly near the top.

My sister (who won't thank me for telling this story, but don't worry, no one's naked) used to be terrified of automatic-flush toilets. Back in the Technological Stone Age when these things were modern, they had them installed in most reststops along the major US highways. This meant that every time we took a family road trip (a horror within itself) she would need to pee but be unable to, due to abject terror.

While this may, in some strange world, make sense, for the most part it just made me laugh. Now I'm in the awkward position of being afraid of a normal toilet, and (naturally), it doesn't seem so funny.

Oh dear.
WolfGrrl

Free-Falling into Fall

I wish, just once, that I could be completely content with myself. There are times when I almost make it, but there's always that nagging doubt in the back of my mind, the little voice in my ear that whispers insidiously when I look in the mirror. I can't escape myself, and I'm still trying to figure out why I want to.

I don't think I'm a bad person (I don't know I'm a good person, either, but I don't feel like a bad one). Many people praise me for being "poised" and "together" but I usually feel that the outward image is a flawed and inaccurate reflection of my inner self. My only comforts are: 1) Everyone else feels like this too; and 2) It can be changed. Everything can be changed. Like the saying goes, Nothing is certain but Death and Taxes.
And I don't even pay taxes.

Today is the first day of October. When I was planning for school in the summer, I always phrased things like this: "Once I'm at school, it'll be different" or "Once college starts back up and I have classes I will/won't..." Well guess what? School started - has been going strong for a while now - and I still have all the same issues and problems I did this summer, and last year, and the year before that. They didn't magically disappear when my public life resumed. Joy. Rapture. (Is the sarcasm coming through? I don't want to be off-putting, but it's so hard to judge intonation in words.)

As a teacup human I'm naturally quite small; this means my center of gravity is lower and I'm more stable. Well, as my profile says I'm not particularly graceful (strike one against stability) and now it seems my emotional stability is a sham as well. This accounts for the title; I feel like I'm free-falling through life, smashing into various people and objects and ideas along the way. Occasionally this process knocks some sense into me or jars something loose in my brain; you'll find these posts sporadically (my "epiphany" posts). But on the whole the process of free-falling isn't very comfortable. Or stable. And I love stability. (Is this a teacup human thing or a human thing? Ideas?)

Several of my friends have complained to me lately that they feel as though they're "wasting their lives" and that they "don't know what they're doing." Well, neither do I. Do any of us? In the past few years I've heard a lot about what it means to be "normal" and that there really isn't any such thing (anthropology helps dispel such illusions, let me tell you). Great. So we're all abnormal? Maybe I should wish for normality instead of world peace next time they interview me for the Miss Universe pageant. I'll bet a world of normal people wouldn't have wars, or genocide, or mass starvation or prostitution.

So what do we do, my friends and I? Are we lost? Tolkien says that "Not all who wander are lost" but that doesn't help much; if we're not lost are we supposed to be wandering? Am I wandering or falling? For the first time in my life I feel strong enough to make plans for the future, and confident enough to hope that somehow I'll fulfill those plans. And yet smaller, more immediate things continually elude me. You're not supposed to chuck all your eggs into one basket, but how am I supposed to carry them all when juggling becomes too risky?

Mmph. 
WolfGrrl