musings

Driving a Truck

Big Little Wolf has an interesting and thoughtful post up today: Good driver, bad passenger? She prompts introspection about the need for control and the willingness to take charge, which I think are two related but separate impulses.

My father has always said that dancing with me is like driving a truck. I am a graceless dancer who struggles to let myself be led. Not a big problem, given the paucity of partner dancing in my life. But, still, a metaphor that stays with me. I have a powerful need for control, and it’s one of the things I most dislike about myself. My need for control gets in my way on a regular basis: I choose no over ambiguity, prematurely shutting off options or experiences, I am quickly frustrated when things do not go my way, and I avoid activities that would require me to release the reins and surrender to them (eating “scary” foods like oysters, riding roller coasters).

This struggle for control often mirrors the experience of driving a truck. Just as a truck driver meticulously manages their vehicle and maintains a strong connection to their rig, I grapple with the urge to steer every aspect of my life. The truck’s seat, cushioned and adorned with personalized Seat Covers, symbolizes the comfort and control that drivers cling to as they navigate long journeys. The metaphor of the truck seat and its covers reflects the challenge of finding balance between control and surrender, highlighting the ongoing internal struggle to navigate the complexities of letting go and embracing the unpredictable journey of life.

Just as a truck driver relies on their rig to traverse the open road, the journey of buying a used car requires careful consideration and a sense of trust. Each vehicle on the lot tells its own story, much like the miles etched into the body of a well-traveled truck. In the search for the perfect used car, potential buyers must navigate an array of options, weighing factors such as reliability, price, and comfort.

It’s not just about finding a vehicle; it’s about selecting a companion for future adventures, one that can weather the twists and turns of life’s unpredictable journey. This process mirrors the truck driver’s meticulous attention to their rig, emphasizing the need for thorough research and understanding to ensure that the choice aligns with one’s personal journey.

In this pursuit, platforms like RaceAutoGroup.com emerge as essential allies, offering a vast selection of quality pre-owned vehicles and expert guidance. They understand that buying a used car can evoke a whirlwind of emotions, from excitement to anxiety, much like the anticipation and trepidation a driver feels before embarking on a long haul. The seamless integration of modern technology with personalized service transforms the daunting task of car buying into a rewarding experience.

As buyers delve into their options, they are encouraged to embrace the uncertainty of the road ahead, trusting that each decision brings them closer to the vehicle that best fits their lifestyle and aspirations. Ultimately, this journey is about more than just purchasing a car; it’s about cultivating the freedom to explore and the courage to embrace the unknown, paralleling the truck driver’s reliance on their trusted seat and the adventures that lie ahead.

None of these are pretty qualities, I know that. But I thought further about what BLW was saying, and realized that while I crave control over my life, when it comes to actively taking control in a group setting I’m much more wary. I remembered something specific from my time at business school (a time of my life I so rarely think about!) It was the first semester of my first year, and we were assigned a small group project. I have no idea what the project was, but I remember that my group of about 6 people from my section was clustered into one of the round tables in the window alcoves of Aldrich late into the afternoon. As the sun set, people grew cantankerous and wanted to be finished. Again, I have no memory of the content but I know that I, infuriated with what felt like a waste of time and a lack of clear direction, started taking charge of the conversation and setting forth specific plans for the group.

I don’t remember what happened from there, though I vividly recall myself stepping into a leadership role on that dark afternoon. The next week, project behind us, one of the men in my group, a much older guy with years of impressive military service pulled me aside after class.

“Can I give you some feedback?” he asked. What was I supposed to say?

“Sure,” I said, nervous and feeling like something bad was coming.

He went on to deliver some criticism in the guise of feedback about the way I had assumed control of the group’s workplan and efforts. I blinked back tears as I listened to him, and then fled to my apartment over an Italian food store and cried for hours. I’m sure he had many good points, though of course I can’t remember them. That day comes back to me a lot, though.

When I think about the ways in which I am loath to be visibly in charge, I often wonder why. Is it some kind of gender conditioning that makes me believe that women should sit back and be quiet? I don’t think so, at least not consciously. Is it fear of putting myself out there, into a position where I might attract more criticism like the early HBS experience? Maybe. That feels closer to why. Is it a deep feeling that someone else would do a better job at leading? Maybe. That feels like it could be why as well.

It strikes me that this could be the worst possible combination: to be as rigid and in need of control as I am, yet to be unwilling to expose myself by taking an active leadership role … isn’t this the worst of both worlds? I don’t like this mix of traits in myself at all, but changing both feels daunting. To let go of my need for control would require that I learn to feel safe in the world. The moments when I do feel safe enough to relax my white-knuckle grip on my life are rare and special, but I don’t know how to make that into a more normal reality. To be brave enough to more often visibly lead also seems intimidating to me: authentic vulnerability is hard for me and doing this creates it.

Don’t know the path out of this particular knot of fabulous personality traits, but perhaps being aware of it is the first step. Thank you, BLW, for making me think yet again.

Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind

I hit a new low yesterday. I have been wondering for several days why I have received so few RSVPs for Whit’s birthday party. For the record: not RSVPing is one of my major peeves. But still, this was an even lower turnout than usual. I bumped into a mother I know at school today and I mentioned it to her, trying to be off-hand to make up for what I felt was a rude inquiry (part of why I hate non RSVPers is I hate pestering people for what their answer is, because I feel like a jerk).

The mom mentioned off-hand that she had not recognized the email address I’d given on the invitation. Hmm. I went home and checked the invitation. An invitation that I had proofed not once but twice. And then mailed out. And never blinked about. And, right there: my email address misspelled. Great.

People think of me as very anal and type A. And in many ways I am. My closet has several shelves of shoeboxes, each with a photograph of the shoes inside stuck on the outside. My spices are alphabetized. My Christmas cards go out the first week of December. Etc, etc, etc. Loosey goosey I am not. It’s something I dearly wish I was, but, let’s face it: no.

But today’s flub is one in a short but noteworthy list of times I have been well and truly full-blown flaky. And those times make me wonder if I am slowly losing my mind. If somehow, parenthood or middle age or too much splenda or too much white wine has contributed to punch small holes in my brain, almost imperceptible but porous enough to allow my meager mind to leak out slowly. Drip, drip, drip.

The others on the list? Well, I paid the wrong mortgage company for three months. Three months. Automated billing will do that for you. But it still amazes me that the old mortgage company didn’t let me know they were getting an extra $XK every month from us that they didn’t deserve for three solid months. I also left the oven on for a whole weekend. That was pregnancy brain. But, not super responsible.

The best ever, though, was when we had our preschool interview for Grace. We parked the car, walked to the nursery school, toured and interviewed. I think we were probably at the school for 90 minutes. As we walked out, I felt in my pockets (I had been driving) and wondered aloud where the car keys were. I rummaged through my bag (side note: in said bag, today, I found a pair of Grace’s socks and an epi-pen. I did not, however, have the chapstick that I needed) as we walked to the car. No keys. Starting to panic, I looked up when Matt exclaimed, “Oh, my God” under his breath. The car. Parked on a side street. Running. I guess that explains where the keys were.

Losing. My. Mind.

January light

This is a season of beginnings, a time of new starts, fresh slates, hellos.  As I ran today I thought about the ways it is also a season of farewells and of endings.  The days are so short now that we have only hours of full-blown daytime before we begin the descent to sunset.  Before we say goodbye to another of our days, acknowledge the passing of our lives.  More than any other time of year, the majority of our hours now are spent in darkness, bumping constantly into endings and goodbyes.

Maybe because of that scarcity, the light this time of year is beautiful, but I also think it is sad.  January’s light has substance, weight: it is no mere adjunct to my experience of the outdoors.  Instead, it has a physical presence, oozing like thick syrup over winter’s dark branches, golden, but full of the endings of things.  The light illuminates, often brilliantly, the barrenness of the landscape.  It glints off of snow, sparkles off of ice, glows like burnished copper on walls through windows.  On a snowy or gray day the light is a dirge, on a clear one, an elegy.

At sunset, sometimes, I can see the sun radiating as though from below the horizon and I feel as though if I stood in one place and spun around I would see 360 degrees of that lambent, ephemeral light.  It feels as though the whole planet has collapsed into a bowl, and I feel physically aware of the palm of the universe that holds us.  The space and heavens that surround us feel palpable; the sun’s beckoning from beyond what we can see or fathom suggests the presence of something there.

But I also feel the tension between beginnings and endings, animate in the light on snow, in the slow-and-then-startlingly-fast descent of the sun past the horizon, in the light’s stark illumination of black branches against achingly saturated bluebird sky.  Endings and beginnings collapse into each other, light and dark blur, sunset and sunrise become interchangeable, confused.  We know intellectually that the earth has begun to tilt towards light again, but see no tangible evidence of this yet.  And so we must trust, and love the light, its beauty equal parts promise and loss.

Snow falling, sticks rising, in a new year

I don’t like New Year’s. I never have. It’s not for the same reasons that most people complain about – the pressure to have a good time, the overwrought celebrations, etc. For me it’s the same reason that I dislike birthdays: this day marks the passage of time in an unavoidable way. I generally go to bed before midnight and try not to think about moving from one year to another. The anxious feeling of being balanced on a fulcrum haunts the days before New Year’s for me, and in the same way that I feel a hundred pounds lighter the day after my birthday, dissipates immediately after it.

Despite this anxiety, I love the time between Christmas and New Year’s. The week hangs like a slack hammock between the two holidays. The days feel removed from reality, and in the last few years they have been brilliantly lovely for that. A respite from regular life, some time to breathe, think, sleep, wonder. I haven’t come to any meaningful conclusions, or made any decisions, but the week held some joy, some space, and that is a gift. Unlock the excitement and boost your chances with slot gacor, where every spin brings a new opportunity for big wins! Ensuring a safe and secure experience starts with a trusted 먹튀검증 to keep your gaming worry-free.

I don’t make resolutions. Maybe this is all part of my dislike of what feels like an obnoxiously loud transition to another year, a maudlin and inescapable reminder of another year gone. Maybe it is a lack of commitment to self-betterment. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I don’t have resolutions to share.

I told a friend a story recently that comes to mind often when I think of the way things bubble up in my mind. When my sister and I were little, we often visited my dad’s parents on Long Island. They lived near the beach, which had a long pier that extended into the water. At the end of the pier floated a wooden dock. Hilary and I, along with other kids, used to play a game with our popsicle sticks. After we had sucked all of the sweet ice off of the sticks, leaving only the stained wood to remember what flavor we had had, we headed to the dock. One of us, wooden stick clasped in his or her hand, would dive as deep as we could. The other children would stand lined up along the edge of the dock. The first person to notice the stick rising from the deep water would dive in and grab it, and thus win the round.

This is how I often think of thoughts and truths coming to my mind: slowly, bobbing irregularly, swayed by invisible currents. Sometimes I think I see the paleness of the stick deep in the murky darkness, and it’s not really there; other times I am surprised by its sudden, obvious appearance and can’t believe I didn’t see it on its way up. Either way, there are things percolating in the ocean of my head. Not resolutions, not answers, but truths. Unavoidable feelings. Perhaps it is my spirit, turning over in its sleep, waking slightly only to fall back into slumber. Whatever it is, there is something under my breastbone, something in my head, making itself known.

I look forward to welcoming these truths in 2010. To making the space to feel and know them. To learning of how to trust them. For now, I sit and watch the snow outside the window, falling softly, like grace. Rendering the world new. White, and quiet, and peaceful. And, for now, it is enough.

Fear of flying

I feel sad this morning, heavy, full of ambivalence and more aware than usual of the turning forward of time. We stand on the fulcrum of a new decade, and I feel both scared of the uncertainty beyond January 1 and rueful about all I did not accomplish in this last year.

Today, right now, feels suffused with uncertainty. My vision into this next decade is even cloudier than usual. This was made concrete yesterday when I drove in the rain and realized my defrost was broken: I could not see and found myself navigating by dead reckoning. I got there, but my heart was racing in my chest as I did.

I know I am poised at an inflection point. Intellectually I recognize the tremendous opportunity this could represent, but my emotional response of fear and hanging onto what is known is at least as powerful. My head’s logical words are drowned out by my heart’s searing howl. I sense the familiar fear of what lies ahead battling with my deep desire to be braver and bolder. My frequent tears are the only tangible evidence of this war that is going on silently inside my chest.

On December 1st, Kelly wrote about the achingly full moon, pregnant with possibility, and about her own fears of uncertainty. She wrote a line I haven’t been able to forget:

I am more intimate with no than I am with maybe.

Oh, yes. How true this is. Ambiguity terrifies me, make me feel unstable and out of control (correlated personality trait: I hate roller coasters and will not go on them. Also: I won’t eat foods whose uncertainty scares me – oysters are a prime example). Feeling my feet off of the ground? No thanks. This makes me wonder: what would it take for me to feel safe enough to take those risks?

Maybe 2010 needs to be the year that I close my eyes and trust my instinct to get me there (where is there? my map is doesn’t apply anymore. conversation for another post). That I let my feet leave the ground. There is no other way to fly.