Somewhere Astray

I was thinking the other day how most of the time we can't see the paths laid out before us.  Like much of our lives comes from decisions we don't choose.  Some decisions are ours, like we can choose whether or not we go to college and where we go, what we eat for dinner, where we vacation, but even some of that is beyond us.  Maybe we don't get into the college we wanted or maybe our budget limits where we go on vacation or even whether we can even go to college.  Many of our decisions are decided or at least constrained by fate.  Sometimes our decisions are framed by others, by family, friends, partners, etc.; what they decide affects us also.  Most of the years up until we are eighteen are framed by large decisions not completely our own.

I was thinking this because right now I can see how things would be if I went a certain way in my life; I can see what my life will become.  And I think that's weird and it's rare because most of the time we don't really actively get to see and decide upon our live paths, we just make decisions and have decisions in our lives made for us by whatever makes up the universe and by those in our lives and we react to those decisions.  We don't have this big chance to accurately reflect on what lays before us and decide if this is how we want our lives to be.  Our lives happen and we live them; rarely do we see before us the paths to choose or not to choose and what our lives could become.  That's not to say we're not happy with what we have, perhaps we are and perhaps we're not.  I'm more saying that most of the time, I think we make decisions or have decisions made for us by fate or those we know but we don't see or think about the consequences of those decisions or how they decide our futures, because maybe those decisions seem small or maybe we don't have a choice in them, so why even contemplate what doesn't give you a choice?

A few months ago I was talking to a friend and I was saying how I felt that my life would significantly change in a few years and I had this feeling that like now was the time to do whatever I wanted, as if my freedom would be diminished within a few years.  I felt the figurative walls of life closing in on me already, even though my life is so open now and nothing is really hindering me.  But when I think of what my life could be in a few years, I don't want any of it.  I don't want the path I see before me. 

I visited my old neighbor in Napoli years ago when I was in college.  He was retired but looking for something fun and entrepreneurial to do since he had the time and the energy.  He wanted to do something with young people to feel alive and live vicariously through their youth and energy.  He had this nice apartment with a great view and he had this one room, an extra room, but it was basically filled almost to the ceiling with stuff.  I just felt...so sad...and empty...looking at all that stuff.  He told me how he could have married this one woman back in the day and that now she was married with all these kids and that could have been him.  I could tell he was looking back on it, reflecting, and wondering if he had made the right decision.  I remember him saying that he was happy with his life and that he felt he had made the right choice.  But I remember thinking that there was something missing there...something empty and hollow in that room that was filled but held nothing.

I think of material possessions and money (after basic needs are met) as distractions.  I think that memories, knowledge, and experiences are what gives lives value.  It's the bonds we have with each other and the things we know, the kindnesses we give (though sometimes we don't give them, myself included), that matter the most.   I don't want the predictable life that I see everyone having here and except for rare moments, I've never wanted that life.  But I also don't want a room filled with stuff.  I guess in the end, I don't want an empty life but I don't want a life filled with what most people fill it with.  So I see those paths and I wander somewhere astray.

It's the Little Things...

I thought I'd write about the small things that make me happy so that if I'm ever down, I can look here and maybe a smile will peak its way out.  So the obvious things like family, friends, travel, etc, they can't be on this list because they're big parts of my life that make me happy.  I want to write about the small things, maybe the things that we sometimes forget, that make me happy.

1. When I think something to myself and inadvertently smile.  (I guess making yourself happy is a bit narcissistic but meh...Sometimes I'm walking and I think something ridiculous and I say to myself, "Katie, that's stupid."  And I giggle)

2. A smile from a stranger.  Ha, I know this is trite.  And I don't mean those lewd smiles gentlemen give you because that is gross.  The other week I was at CVS and this kid in a stroller (who I daresay was too big to be in a stroller, but not my bidness) was throwing a mini-tantrum while his mom or grandma (can't tell age and relation to small child) was getting ready to pay and she wasn't paying him any mind so he looked at me and I looked at him and our eyes locked for a few minutes and he smiled and pointed to something.  Then he said something to me in kid language and I smiled back.  Then his mom had paid and he left. 

3. Perfect grammar on a paper a student hands in.  I know this world is populated with "u"s and "tmw"s and whatnot, but I'm your English teacher and you're writing something for class, not a text.  I like those papers that have good grammar.  Ha, incidentally, I don't mind wanna and gonna in texts but I loathe "u"s...don't know why.  My mom is also a waaaaay cooler texter than I am.  Speaking of...

4. Mom texts make me happy. 

5. When the subway comes right as you show up on the platform.

6. Ha - when the G line comes within 5 minutes on the weekend or at night (I don't think this ever really happens though)

7. Finding a dress under $20 that I really like (ok, fine, it's superficial.   Stop judging)

8. the smell of coffee from Cafe Grumpy when I open the bag of ground coffee to spoon some into my coffee press mug

9. when someone apologizes for being late and actually means it

10. cute little figurines like this: http://www.kidrobot.com/ShopAll/DesignerToys/MiniFigures/PostApocalypseDunnySeries3Inch.html

11. a well-placed witty and cutting retort.  Really only my sister can do this on a regular basis.  Everyone else in my immediate family can but not with the same alacrity.

12. Vegan, gluten-free coconut chocolate cupcakes with frosting a la Cerissa.

13. Making another person food and then they eat everything that I cooked because it was either really good or they were just that hungry.

14. Sometimes, not so much though, there is a really quiet moment either really early in the day or in the afternoon, where everyone seems to have not woken up yet or everyone is taking like a midday siesta, either mentally or literally, and it's just a perfect calm, tranquil moment or two.  I used to get this almost every workday when I would walk to Cafe Grumpy before work to get a macchiato or a latte but then I stopped waking up early so that doesn't really happen anymore.  But it was super nice when it did.

Economics & Life Cycles

Finally alive after about two months of workdeath.  Life is a continuous flow of ups and downs, no?  It's funny because tonight in class I was substituting and I'm having students in both of my classes (and also the class I subbed tonight) do this project in groups or pairs where they research an American historical event and present it to the class.  One group in the morning class and one group in the evening class did the Great Depression.  One question from a class member after the group presented on the Great Depression was if it was similar to the recession we are in now and so I had to explain how economies go through ups and downs and are cyclical just like life.  Everything has it's moments of goodness and ease and it's contrary hardships and sacrifices.  Can we say austerity?  Not a good plan...hello Latin America...and what is it Italy now doing economic austerity, too?  Idk...I stopped studying politics years ago and now hide under mounds of fiction.  Ok, but my point being that even economists who go to school for years upon years and get paid (I think) decently can't accurately predict the cycles so I guess we shouldn't be disheartened that we can't predict our own happiness-sadness cycles in life.  Plus, watching the documentary Happy, it said that studies show that people are actually happier during and/ or after times of adversity.  I guess difficulties give us a sense of what we really have and we appreciate our lives more when things are tough.  When you lose something or possibly could lose it, you see the value it holds for you.  Well, maybe you do anyway...my life is nothing but maybe.

During class, I rubbed my eye and I caught an eyelash on my finger.  And you know how when you get an eyelash, you should make a wish and blow it away...Usually I just wish for contentment or tranquility or for the happiness of someone I care about.  I know, I know, not very original.  But tonight, I just wished to want nothing.  It would be so nice to just want to have or think of or have hope for nothing.  Life would be simpler then, no?  Ha, but the irony of wishing for nothing (basically wanting to not want or wishing to not wish) still stands before me.  Life you win again.  Oh, how you always win...Or maybe no one wins...and no one loses...one just lives.

I might, shockingly, have a few days off soon.

I think our expectations just might ruin us.  I'm not going to qualify that statement.  Just going to leave it out there like a waving flag on fire and see what happens.

Mission: Impossible

Sometimes I feel like the oldest person in the universe who knows absolutely nothing about anything.  But I don't say this in a defeated way, more in a musing and amused sort of manner. 

My body is completely rebelling against me - I won't lament.  What's the point?  There are ups and downs in everything.  Now is just a down.  And hey, even if the ups never come back and my injuries never heal, well then that's ok, too.

I have a weird relationship with time.  I feel like most of us do because it's so difficult to comprehend.  Some days fly past as if in a race and some days go so slow it's like the last part of molasses being poured out of the jar. But, numerically and minute-wise, they're the same.  It just doesn't make any sense.  I have a weird relationship with change, too.  Sometimes I want to embrace it and I love when routine is destroyed, vanquished by something fresh and seemingly spontaneous.  But then, contrapuntally, change can seem a danger, a hazard to my carefully constructed haven of a world.  It's difficult sometimes, to reconcile it all.  To understand it, well, sometimes that just seems impossible.