Tripping On the Past
I had a dream last night about an old friend, and by "old" I mean someone I still consider a friend but who does not feel the same way about me anymore. It was one of those dreams that was quite vivid and that I haven't quite been able to shake. I was also back in college in this dream, though I had not yet met the friend when I was there.
It made me think about the past. One thing about getting older is how much past I have and how varied it is. I remember my mother talking about the past when I was a kid - things we'd done, people we'd hung out with - and always saying, "That was an interesting chapter." I remembered these things as little blips on the radar (the two years we owned a horse, the various roommates who moved in and out of the spare bedroom), but now I have chapters of my own, and they're longer and more meaningful and strangely hard to let go when they're over.
I don't really romanticize my college years anymore. (I even said that to my friend in the dream.) I was pretty darn miserable for most of them, even while I was meeting some of my best friends ever and having some of the best adventures of my life. I do sometimes miss the way everything felt possible, like I could still turn my life into something amazing and extraordinary. I wanted that so badly, to be amazing and extraordinary, despite the fact that my disposition didn't really support that. Then I graduated and moved on and learned lots of lessons, and now it's the friends and the adventures I remember rather than the endless tortured hours of anxiously trying to set myself on the path to success.
Now that I'm officially done with the Renaissance Festival, it's funny to me how tempted I am to romanticize it, especially when I realize that I'm only really thinking about the first couple of years when I do that. I met my best friend there, only to lose him to my other best friend and a life in California. But back before that happened, everyone was friends, everyone was in love, everyone was constantly engaged in making music and theater and art, and I always, always, always had someone I could call if I were bored or lonely or just felt like hanging out. I fell in love myself, more than once, during this time, but when I think back on that time in my life, I don't think about the people I dated. I think about The Group. I remember hanging out with 30 people on any given night because there just wasn't any way to narrow down the guest list because The Group was everybody. (Well, except for the Girls' Nights, when we would all share our secrets - or so we thought.) And so, knowing how it all ended, do I have to reason that it was all a mirage? Or was it all real but simply unsustainable? And did we grow apart because of the rift that occurred among some of my friends, or was it that thing that always happens when everyone couples up in the for real married and moved in together way? Mostly what I wonder is, why is it that I am still friends with almost all of the members of The Group - who are almost all still friends with each other - and yet usually feel like there's no one I can call? Maybe I'm wrong about that, anyway. Maybe I can call any one of them, at any time. And maybe I could say, "Hey, just called to see what you're up to. Wanna go grab drinks or dinner or..."
Oh, that's right. Most of them live at opposite ends of the city from me, and I have a baby. Anything like this has to be planned out well in advance so that the diaper bag can be packed with appropriate provisions (or droid18 cajoled into giving me a night off), a rendez-vous point can be established (because we don't have the old defaults to fall back on anymore; I don't remember the last time I was at Manuel's Tavern), and anyway I have to be home by 8:30 or 9:00 at the latest to put the baby to bed.
droid18 and I are both feeling a little overwhelmed right now, I guess. People aren't kidding when they say that parenthood is hard, but it's not hard in the ways I expected. I mean, sure, it's mostly the kind of drudgery that you don't get paid for and that never, ever, EVER leads to a sense of accomplishment. (Feed baby. Feed self. Dishes. Laundry. Grocery store. Repeat.) There's always something that needs to be done. But really, most of the time, taking care of a baby amounts to being in a sort of holding pattern. She takes up just enough attention that you can't actually concentrate on something else, but you can only focus completely on a mostly nonverbal companion for so long without going insane. So you do things with half your mind, and they take twice as long, and most of it is just silly stuff, busy work. Or you watch TV. (Until the baby decides to play the new fun game of pressing the power button on the TV over and over.) And if you do call someone, your brain has turned so soft and squishy that you honestly can't think of anything to say. So you call your friends who have babies and talk until one or the other of the babies needs something, and you feel a little better after that. Not as good as you would feel if you ever had time to get lost in a good book, but good enough.
And then it's bath time and bed time, and that's it, there went another day. People who don't have babies always shudder at the thought of changing diapers, as though it were some horrible chore. But changing diapers isn't hard. It's not being able to do anything else that's hard.
droid18 just came down. He can't get the baby to sleep. But that was a whole 30 minutes on the computer, and even though all I did was complain and didn't have time to get to the part where I talk myself into a better mood, it'll have to do for now.
The past is never better than where I am right now. All of my decisions have led me here, with some help from random acts of fate. I swear to you, I like my life.
When I think about the past, I'm thinking about specific moments. I'm thinking about sitting on a bench with my best friend, watching the sun go down while musicians and jugglers drink beer and practice rope tricks. I'm thinking about taking refuge in a gazebo during a rain storm, playing my songs and hearing other musicians join in on the harp and banjo, singing harmonies off the cuff. I'm thinking about getting a crush on some long haired guy, just because I want to feel my heart beat a little faster. Those moments aren't the whole story. They're not even the whole chapter. If I wanted to, I could tell myself the rest of the story - what I really thought, how I really felt, what was really going on.
But I'd rather think about those moments, the ones that were perfect, the ones that seemed frozen in time. Because surely if those moments were possible even in the middle of an ordinary life like mine, then those kinds of moments can happen again.
Gotta go sing the baby to sleep. My sweet, precious, perfect girl. Worth it? I'll keep telling myself that until it turns out to be true.
It made me think about the past. One thing about getting older is how much past I have and how varied it is. I remember my mother talking about the past when I was a kid - things we'd done, people we'd hung out with - and always saying, "That was an interesting chapter." I remembered these things as little blips on the radar (the two years we owned a horse, the various roommates who moved in and out of the spare bedroom), but now I have chapters of my own, and they're longer and more meaningful and strangely hard to let go when they're over.
I don't really romanticize my college years anymore. (I even said that to my friend in the dream.) I was pretty darn miserable for most of them, even while I was meeting some of my best friends ever and having some of the best adventures of my life. I do sometimes miss the way everything felt possible, like I could still turn my life into something amazing and extraordinary. I wanted that so badly, to be amazing and extraordinary, despite the fact that my disposition didn't really support that. Then I graduated and moved on and learned lots of lessons, and now it's the friends and the adventures I remember rather than the endless tortured hours of anxiously trying to set myself on the path to success.
Now that I'm officially done with the Renaissance Festival, it's funny to me how tempted I am to romanticize it, especially when I realize that I'm only really thinking about the first couple of years when I do that. I met my best friend there, only to lose him to my other best friend and a life in California. But back before that happened, everyone was friends, everyone was in love, everyone was constantly engaged in making music and theater and art, and I always, always, always had someone I could call if I were bored or lonely or just felt like hanging out. I fell in love myself, more than once, during this time, but when I think back on that time in my life, I don't think about the people I dated. I think about The Group. I remember hanging out with 30 people on any given night because there just wasn't any way to narrow down the guest list because The Group was everybody. (Well, except for the Girls' Nights, when we would all share our secrets - or so we thought.) And so, knowing how it all ended, do I have to reason that it was all a mirage? Or was it all real but simply unsustainable? And did we grow apart because of the rift that occurred among some of my friends, or was it that thing that always happens when everyone couples up in the for real married and moved in together way? Mostly what I wonder is, why is it that I am still friends with almost all of the members of The Group - who are almost all still friends with each other - and yet usually feel like there's no one I can call? Maybe I'm wrong about that, anyway. Maybe I can call any one of them, at any time. And maybe I could say, "Hey, just called to see what you're up to. Wanna go grab drinks or dinner or..."
Oh, that's right. Most of them live at opposite ends of the city from me, and I have a baby. Anything like this has to be planned out well in advance so that the diaper bag can be packed with appropriate provisions (or droid18 cajoled into giving me a night off), a rendez-vous point can be established (because we don't have the old defaults to fall back on anymore; I don't remember the last time I was at Manuel's Tavern), and anyway I have to be home by 8:30 or 9:00 at the latest to put the baby to bed.
droid18 and I are both feeling a little overwhelmed right now, I guess. People aren't kidding when they say that parenthood is hard, but it's not hard in the ways I expected. I mean, sure, it's mostly the kind of drudgery that you don't get paid for and that never, ever, EVER leads to a sense of accomplishment. (Feed baby. Feed self. Dishes. Laundry. Grocery store. Repeat.) There's always something that needs to be done. But really, most of the time, taking care of a baby amounts to being in a sort of holding pattern. She takes up just enough attention that you can't actually concentrate on something else, but you can only focus completely on a mostly nonverbal companion for so long without going insane. So you do things with half your mind, and they take twice as long, and most of it is just silly stuff, busy work. Or you watch TV. (Until the baby decides to play the new fun game of pressing the power button on the TV over and over.) And if you do call someone, your brain has turned so soft and squishy that you honestly can't think of anything to say. So you call your friends who have babies and talk until one or the other of the babies needs something, and you feel a little better after that. Not as good as you would feel if you ever had time to get lost in a good book, but good enough.
And then it's bath time and bed time, and that's it, there went another day. People who don't have babies always shudder at the thought of changing diapers, as though it were some horrible chore. But changing diapers isn't hard. It's not being able to do anything else that's hard.
droid18 just came down. He can't get the baby to sleep. But that was a whole 30 minutes on the computer, and even though all I did was complain and didn't have time to get to the part where I talk myself into a better mood, it'll have to do for now.
The past is never better than where I am right now. All of my decisions have led me here, with some help from random acts of fate. I swear to you, I like my life.
When I think about the past, I'm thinking about specific moments. I'm thinking about sitting on a bench with my best friend, watching the sun go down while musicians and jugglers drink beer and practice rope tricks. I'm thinking about taking refuge in a gazebo during a rain storm, playing my songs and hearing other musicians join in on the harp and banjo, singing harmonies off the cuff. I'm thinking about getting a crush on some long haired guy, just because I want to feel my heart beat a little faster. Those moments aren't the whole story. They're not even the whole chapter. If I wanted to, I could tell myself the rest of the story - what I really thought, how I really felt, what was really going on.
But I'd rather think about those moments, the ones that were perfect, the ones that seemed frozen in time. Because surely if those moments were possible even in the middle of an ordinary life like mine, then those kinds of moments can happen again.
Gotta go sing the baby to sleep. My sweet, precious, perfect girl. Worth it? I'll keep telling myself that until it turns out to be true.