is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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A Room Not Of My Own.
I�m lucky, in that I have this life that, though full of situations that are far from perfect (i.e., not having a job that allows me to choose where to live, and living with temporary jobs for years on end, such that I can�t make a �five year plan,� etc.), I come as close to �having it both ways� as a person can. I mean, I have a good job and live in a place I do enjoy, but I also get to spend lots of time in my beloved hometown because of the way the academic year is structured. Still, one doesn�t really ever get to have it both ways. It is always a little of each.
So, for instance, I miss out on the downtime socializing that would happen in my current place of residence, because I�m always in San Francisco during those times. And then, the rest of the time, in my most established friendships, I miss out on the comfort of continuity that only comes from having real unstructured unpressured time with people on a regular basis. It�s not that I can�t have that in the other places where I live; it�s more like 98% of the people I meet who are my age already have full lives and little time left for making new friends�one of the hazards of aging in general. I�ve met very few people who could make room for me in their lives.
Last week when I spent three days at Evany and Marco�s house, Evany and I had lots and lots of time, in her house, or driving around in my car, sitting on couches, cooking food, to talk about things. And we talked about funny things, and unimportant things, and very important things and philosophical things and life-oriented things, and it not only was tremendously helpful to me�it�s always good to have a real conversation with someone who knows you well enough that the conversation isn�t all work, and builds on a shared history�but also it made me happy while simultaneously sad�. because the happiness sticks out as special occasion happiness rather than this-is-my-daily-life happiness. Because I used to spend lots of time with Evany a lot of the time. And now it only happens for 3-4 months out of the year. If I�m lucky.
But the main thing I want to say is that I�m lucky. For lots of reasons, and Evany is one of them.
Instant messaging helps. Having the sidekick devices helps. The funny constant-contact aspect of that, where I�ll be grocery shopping and get a question from Evany from inside a dressing room where she can�t decide whether she should buy something, or things like that, it makes you feel more like you are still part of the everyday stuff and not always only in the big-event big-news catch-up conversations. The written version of that reads as pathetic, but the lived version doesn�t feel that way.
But none of that replaces what happens when people are together in a room with each other for extended time. Having needed to have my own room, always, even when living with people I was romantically involved with, has given way to me realizing that I also need a room that isn�t only my own, on some level.
I sometimes wonder what has become of my life, and whether it has been worth it to isolate myself for years at a time for the sake of work. The work is meaningful. And it would have felt like a failure if I had not pursued it. But yet it sometimes also feels like a failure to have followed a job that led me deeper into isolation than I might already tend to sink.
However, if the richly various lives of those I know is any indicator, there is no one path to choose that would leave a person without questions about the past and its trajectory. The main thing, I guess, is that right now I feel pretty good.
11:25 p.m. - January 07, 2007
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