Tag: self-expression

Loved by the meeting

I lie on my bed, towel wrapped around my head, body drying casually via the fan by my bed, and eyes burning slightly due to a combination of fatigue, dehydration, a bit of crying earlier, and a brimming feeling of crying a bit again now.

I cannot yet determine why I do much care… so what, if they don’t like me and don’t want to keep me?… and, even if they asked me not to stay, so What??

That’s the answer I currently am seeking…, but I am beginning to wonder if I actually want an answer to it, or if fear has me avoiding actually looking to find an answer.

And so, let us see this together, phone keyboard and screen and I…

If I am rejected in any of these forms, I perceive it as my being not good enough for being loved…. period, I think…

Yeah – it would mean that not only do they not value and love me, but no one else would either… and then I would not be able to live anymore, as love is necessary for life.

Okay, so, …. so much rejection is painful right now… the dating app nonsense has me on edge about being loved already, and this makes it more so…

I want to be loved and wanted, because being wanted, for me, is a form of being loved dearly… and being unwanted is being unloved…

I want to go to these meetings, because I thoroughly believe they will help to make me a better teacher and a better person.

I believe it is important for me to attend the meetings.

They, somehow, do not agree, for whatever reason or reasons, we’ll say.

So, I don’t get the ideal circumstances for beginning the school year, then… it would be as though I were asked in the middle of the year to take over, as has many times already been the case…

If they want me absent from the meetings, so what?… this isn’t my home… not yet, anyway… (and my home would have me attend, if I expressed the desire)…

Okay… that helps… this is just a passing point – there is a lesson (possibly hundreds of lessons) to learn here, and then I will move on to the next thing, the next lesson, and possibly even the application of what I will have learned from this lesson…

Yeah…

I also dislike being treated like only a half-teacher, or whatever this is – I am a real teacher, and that’s why you’re hiring me to come teach, even if it is only for a temporary time.

You want me… you are depriving me…

It is your school…, not mine… I can only give what you’ll allow me to give…

Yes, that’s it… stop fooling around, Banana… I can only give what they will allow me to give, so give what they’ll allow, and pray and intend for better and better each time.

For now, I’ll rest for the night, and I’ll see how things feel in the morning.

I can do this, or course… it merely would be a deal easier if they would let me do it this way… yep.

Okay, sweet dreams.

Goodnight.

Post-a-day 2019

Nerves

Tomorrow begins my work at a school that neighbored my own high school.

I am nervous, because it is the first day on location of a new job – typical nerves.

I am also nervous, however, because of this inner piece of me that is terrified every time I consider stepping foot into their campus.

In high school, it was always a chance for me to be in trouble and to be yelled at by some authority figure, whenever I walked into their campus… yes, I had real reasons to be there, – attending classes or speaking with the teachers of those classes – however, I was fussed at a couple times for being there at a time I wasn’t supposed to be there, and, therefore, lived in an almost-constant fear of getting in trouble whenever I went over there.

Even this past year, going there twice a week for tutoring, being given a visitor or tutor badge by the same woman who always checks in on how I’m doing and occasionally jokes about my needing my own personal badge to use, since I am there so often…, even with that, there is always a little part of me that is terrified.

I’m not sure I’ll ever shake the feeling entirely, but I am glad that I have identified what the fear is, as the identification already removes almost all of the fear’s power, as it is.

… which, in a way, shows how great the fear used to be, since it is still right there in my gut every visit these days, more than a decade later…

So, I’m nervous about tomorrow… and also the whole quarter, which is when I will be teaching full-time… and also about the second quarter, which is when I’ll need to be finishing up my thesis that currently has yet to begin…

Yeah…

Dear God, grant me your guidance that I might do what is perfect for me to do, and that I might be fully true to myself in all that I do… bless us all that we be happy, healthy, holy…

Amen 🙂

Go get ’em, Tiger. 😉

Post-a-day 2019

Dating App(rehension)s

I never really approved of the idea in the first place, but the excitement of something new and a little bit scary convinced me to let me friend do all the work for signing me up on dating apps.

Little did she know that, when I’d said she would have to do everything for me, I really meant she would have to do everything on the apps for me – including have them on her own phone to use.

(Fun fact: When I was telling my cousin this, and mentioning how the app wouldn’t work on my phone, so my friend had o put it on her own phone, if she wanted to pursue the app idea, I started the phrase, “Little did she know that, when I said she would have to do everything for me…”, and my cousin finished it, “that included going on the actual dates…” :P)

Now that it all has ended, I have even less faith in the applications…

I dislike judging people so 2-D face-value, and I dislike being judged so.

Judge me by meeting me…. as, I believe, Ender Wiggin said, don’t judge me until you know me… and I want to do the same with others.

Dating apps are not the way to do that.

My cousin and I were discussing the idea of a dating app that was something more of a collage of interests and hobbies and loves of each individual, with a photo of the person down at the bottom, as the last thing to see on the profile – take a bit to get to know the person some, and then see how he/she appears visually…

Otherwise, we are merely scrolling through different varieties, looking for the color, make, model, and year that we feel best suits ourselves (on the outside, anyway), rather mechanizing and dehumanizing the whole process of finding a partner in life…

And I am just not about that way of doing things.

Instead, I shall recall with delight my silly adventures in dating*** – yes, they are silly – and move on with things, letting go of the whole dating app thing and dating concerns of my friend altogether.

Yeah… good and silly memories to lighten the feel of this all. 😛

****Find here the silly adventures:

My Dating Life

Uh-oh Ramen

These three were the same guy… and I was told afterward by Japanese women that it totally was a date… and I hadn’t been too sure… 😛

Fitting in…

Architecture is a gray area

Women’s Gym Buzz

Post-a-day 2019

Family

………………….

Journal entry for August 2, 2019

Today, we learned that C— has no penis…

………………….

This evening was an extended family evening, and a rather wonderful time.

There was chatter, discussion, story-telling, and lots of laughter.

At one point, one of my cousins, G—, shared this delightful story with us, and I knew immediately that I just had to write about it, because it was well worth sharing with the world.

She and her husband have two little girls, approximately aged four years and two years, and then a baby boy aged almost ten weeks.

Her husband, C—, was changing the diaper of the baby boy, and A—, the eldest girl, was observing.

A: Daddy, what’s that?!

C: Uh, well, it’s a penis… it’s because he is a boy… he is a boy, so he has a penis… that’s what makes him a boy, instead of a girl…

A:……. But Daddy, you’re a boy and you don’t have a penis….

C:… Actually, yes, I do have a penis…

A:….. Really?????

Conclusion from my cousin telling the story: Emasculated by a four-year-old. 😂

Afterward, my grandma commented that she thought it was such a shame that no one was documenting this sort of thing, – I had already determined that I was definitely writing about it tonight, but I didn’t mention anything about it – and my aunt said that the point was people telling one another stories…

My grandma was worried that the stories get lost, you see, and so my mom leaned over the counter, and starter scribbling with an imaginary pen into an imaginary book, saying aloud, “August 2, 2019: Today, we learned that C— has no penis.”

My uncle, whose son-in-law C— is, and who genuinely likes C—, nearly cried himself out of his chair, he laughed so hard at that – I mean, we all laughed rather hard, but he practically exploded with his laugher.

It was a very good little time tonight. 🙂

Thank you, God, for this blessing.

Note: Yes, yes, I know gender stuff is all up and about right now, however, I am not letting it disturb the hilarity of this particular stupendous father-daughter exchange – the story is not meant to offend in any way; it is merely something that happened that I find wonderful and worth sharing.

P.S. It occurred to me that, while I still am not there with the solo dancing I want to teach in prisons, I am at the very edge of receiving my yoga teacher certification, – a type of yoga that uses lots of meditation and mantra and healing exercises – and I could look into teaching that in prisons… something also incredibly beautiful and powerful and potentially extremely beneficial to those living in prison, especially as part of their preparation to move back into the world outside of prison… So, yeah… I’m suddenly rather inspired to get that certification finished ASAP.

P.P.S. And then, that had me thinking that I might somehow get the opportunity to do portraits of people in prison…. and that could be a beautiful project, be it for their future work portraits or for a neat project of sharing about prisons with the world… yeah… that’s gonna stay on the side in my mind, ready for when the time is right to act on it… definitely… 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Road Trip Prep

A miniature shout-out to Amazon Music, the App – I just prepared a BA (aka totally nerdy and perfect) playlist for our miniature road trip tomorrow morning.

My mom and I will be able to listen to the glorious soundtracks to various Broadway productions that we love and others that we expect to love in the near future…. and it will cost me no data whatsoever – I downloaded them over wifi just now, for free, and I will play them off my phone in the car tomorrow while we drive.

Some are new, some are older-ish-new, and some are throwbacks to my childhood… whatever the case, I suspect and expect we will have a grand ole time singing along to most of them. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Discord in Dating (apps)

Tonight, I was told that a certain someone who is close to me and who, I think, is a handsome guy is “not attractive”.

We agreed on the facts that his personality is great and that he’s a great guy, but this girlfriend seemed to believe that he definitively is not attractive, not good-looking, not handsome…

And I heartily disagree.

Normally, I don’t mind disagreeing with people on this concept of attractiveness and all, but this one has really gotten to me.

When she first said it, I was actually a bit offended… I’d felt a shock like a slap to the face.

And I wasn’t sure if it was because I disagreed with her, or because it was about someone close and important to me…

Now, a while later, I am prone to think that it was mostly due to the fact that he is so important to me, and because I find him to be handsome, her comment seemed to be offensive, and also personal (to a degree).

It just reminded me that thoughts on handsomeness, attractiveness, even beauty are not necessarily universal or able to be defined, definitive… there is too much bias in every party involved…

And so, somehow, I feel better out of this…

A girlfriend of mine has signed me up on these dating apps (despite the fact that I actually dislike and distrust them), and nothing much has come of it, except for her constantly telling me that I need to be more open to more guys, so that I can find a guy to go on a date with me…

My feelings and thoughts on it, however, are merely stronger than they were before we started this app business: I will not settle for anything less than perfect for me…

It drives her nuts, but no, I will not go out with a guy to whom I am not attracted, despite how cute he may be; I will not date a guy with whom I can’t possible envision at least some bit of future together… – Yes, Michael Phelps is a great-looking guy, but I just don’t see it, so I wouldn’t seek out a date with him… If he asked me out, sure, I would consider it, but I’m not going to go after him myself…

(Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the other hand…. 😂 [You know, if they weren’t married, that is…])

Anyway, so the apps are being deleted on Tuesday, she said, when she goes on her vacation with the bf, so she only has another day and a half to make something happen from them, if she wants something to happen.

Personally, while it could be fun, I think I would be much more comfortable and rather relieved once the apps are gone… just saying.

Anyway… yeah…

Post-a-day 2019

Memories in alcohol

Walking through an absurdly large and diverse (product-wise) Kroger today, I was struck with a sudden and momentary shift back to Japan, as I passed one of the drink aisles….

There was something about its seeming chaotic orderliness, and its crowded feel that took me back to the alcohol aisles in the store near my house in Japan, and, at first, of this one particular store near the train station in a nearby town where I went to help with English stuff…

And the memory was really nice… it was a very good feeling of transportation, and I felt very much at ease, belonging, and comfortable…

Weird to see Japan as such things, but I also totally get it – it is part of me, and certain points of life were stable there that are not stable for me here and now, thus the feeling of stability and comfort from the memory, despite the fact that Japan as a whole was kind of nuts and really hard on me… 🙂

The aisle…

It is definitely more spaced out in the middle than Japan’s comparable aisle, but the setup and feelings were quite the same for me… who’d’a thunk alcohol could be so warm and fuzzy for me? 😂

Post-a-day 2019

Feeling good

I played ukulele today.

It was with my cousin from Indiana.

I hadn’t played in possibly a month, and then a few months before that time had been without playing, too.

I was delighted to discover that I either remembered or could figure out quickly most any of the chords we were using.

It felt good.

I need to do this more, music… my that that‘s anything new…

How about I clean my room tomorrow evening (after I help someone pack up her house), and set up the one guitar and the ukulele to be it and ready to play?

That sounds like a really good idea. 🙂

P.S. I’m going to the DPS office in the morning when it opens… ick!…, but it is to add the M endorsement on my license, so I need to do it!

P.P.S. I’m still enjoying the happy memories of the gorgeous guy from the gym, and I’m feeling almost over my little girl starstruck in love feelings about it – he is becoming just a person again… a gorgeous person, of course, but a person all the same. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

…

… Did I mention that we are about 98% sure that he has a child…., a daughter?

He is also very recently single (which I discovered before the daughter part, and which had me start adjusting to the fact that he doesn’t need and likely doesn’t want to date anyone new right now nor for a while yet to come), but that is somewhat beside the point here…

My friend didn’t know who he was when I mentioned him to her, so she did some brief stalking to find a photo of him to see if she recognized him (which she did not).

Upon doing so, she also discovered pictures of a cute little girl… upon further research, it seemed almost undeniably clear that she is his daughter, and has been for the past several years…

My friend asked me if that changes things… I said that I didn’t want it to change things for me, but that I was feeling like it did changes things for me, nonetheless…

I was down and bummed and sad the whole next 20-ish hours, despite our delving into these dating apps (per my friend’s requirement), until I had a conversation with my aunt about it.

She encouraged me, while it is harmless, to enjoy the little girl starstruck in love daydreaming I was having of him – I don’t have to make any decision one way or the other, so long as I remember that it is just a fun mind exercise I’m doing, and that I interact with the real person separate from whatever version of him I have in my head… if it gets to be a problem, and I will know, then I’ll need to make up my mind then to do something about it or to get over it all and let it go.

Until then, however, I get to enjoy the brainstorming version of dating and spending my life with this guy… and I’m happy with that.

Actually, based on how today went with the passive brainstorming, I’m extremely delighted with it.

And, I have much practice in remembering to interact with what and who are in front of me, and not the version I’ve made up in my head…, so I trust myself to interact with him in real life in the way in which I actually want to interact with him, without a doubt (as a friend).

So, that’s kind of where things stand on that front.

Post-a-day 2019

Ugh

We enter into the scene at Hannah’s gym, just after she has finished attending the midday workout class… Hannah has received multiple messages from her girlfriend named Devon, regarding Hannah’s being signed up for another dating app while she was in class, because the one Devon used last night to find someone for Hannah to date wasn’t going so well…

Reading the confirmation code messages, followed by the explanation messages from Devon, Hannah is stunned, and can’t tell if she is excited or totally bothered by this new information just given to her, like a post-workout shake… Brandon walks in just as Hannah exclaims with understanding…

Hannah: Ugh!

Brandon: 🤨

Hannah: Devon is signing me up on all these dating apps…

Brandon: 😂

Hannah: Ugh…

Brandon: Well, I guess…. that’s… what friends… are for…🤔

Hannah: 🤦🏼‍♂️

…….

Brandon: There’s actually a new CrossFit dating app. I just read about it yesterday on Instagram.

…………..

Hannah tells Devon about conversation… Devon’s only and immediate response is, “Ooo I’m gonna find it”…

… cue another face palm for the afternoon for Hannah …🤦🏼‍♂️

Great day, huh?😂

It really was great, though… 🙂

And, despite the fact that I really am not pro-digital dating and dating applications, I’ve enjoyed considering the possible futures with all these different people – I only cross so many people a day who are eligible for such analysis, and so this is kind of an over flux of brain exercises in the form of picturing a possible future with various good-looking guys.

So, yeah, I am enjoying it a bit… but I’m also not caring too much, and am letting her handle things, you know? 🙂

Post-a-day 2019