Category Archives: Personal

The Internet Giveth, and the Internet Taketh Away

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There’s something ironic about the fact that I have such conflicted opinions of social media and electronic communication when it is by and large the way I most often communicate. It always makes me think of the Wally Lamb novel She’s Come Undone. If you haven’t read the book, let me first recommend it (or anything Wally Lamb has written, really) before saying that I won’t ruin it for you by giving too many details. Suffice it to say that in the novel, the main character’s life goes into a tailspin after she receives her first television and her life completely changes (and not really for the better).

I was in 8th grade, awkward, shy, socially backwards, and probably with ugly shoes, when my family got its first computer and AOL account. Going into chat rooms changed the way I communicated with people. With the safety of being behind a screen, it was more difficult for people to hurt me, and I had a much easier time letting my true personality show – my sense of humor and my compassionate side, particularly. (However, for those who think Internet bullying is a relatively new concept, I can attest to the fact that it existed in the mid-to-late 90s. Some of the same people who said mean things to me at school found me online and said mean things there, too. Kids are sharks.)

It wasn’t long before I went from chatting with friends and total strangers to talking to people I didn’t know well at my school. This was a cop-out in some ways and good in others. I would never have talked to these people at school, nor would they have likely talked to me, without the buffer of a chat window. However, when it was time to meet face-to-face with classmates (I never met strangers for obvious reasons), I knew that they would think it odd if I didn’t act in accordance with who they knew me to be: my “online personality” – the person I actually was, as opposed to the person who couldn’t figure out how to be herself around others. This forced me to come out of my shell, and by the time high school was over, I was still shy, awkward, and socially backwards (still am, really), but not nearly to the degree I had been (and I have a far cooler shoe collection). Continue reading →

In the Books: On Finishing My Novel

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I know I haven’t been blogging much lately. I think you’ll understand why, though.

I was sitting here thinking about how I have trouble finishing things, but then it occurred to me that it’s not really true. I can think of fewer than five books that I’ve never finished and don’t intend to. Even when they’re really bad or boring, I try to slog my way through them. I tried to quit softball after 6th grade when I should have been moving up from pigtail to ponytail league. I was afraid that it was going to be more difficult and I’d look stupid. About a quarter of the way into that first summer, I told myself to suck it up and go back to practice, so I did, and I played until I was getting ready to leave for college. I waited a whole year of being unhappy at my first real-world job before I quit that, and I agonized so long over my decision to quit calculus in college that I missed the drop/add deadline and took a voluntary F. And when I say I agonized over that decision, I mean that I found myself in the Dean of Students’ office nearly in tears.

So I guess I don’t quit well. Continue reading →

5 Facebook Habits That Annoy Me

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No, I couldn’t come up with a more clever title. It’s hot. My brain is lagging hours – maybe days – behind my body.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that those of us for whom Facebook is an integral part of life are all guilty of some kind of obnoxious and/or annoying Facebook behavior. That’s totally to be expected. I will be the first person to admit that, especially when I’m bored, I update my status way too often, and usually not with anything close to revelatory. In an attempt to justify my own less-than-ideal habit by pointing out that it could be worse, I’ve come up with the 5 Facebook habits that most irritate me, and why. This is not in any way meant to offend any of my friends (although it would appear that it’s mostly just randoms, mostly in California, who are reading my blog, anyway). Then again, when you consider that most of the people a person is friends with on Facebook aren’t really that person’s good friends…. well, I’ll get to that. Continue reading →

Letters

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Everyone goes through periods in life where they feel like throwing in the towel. What’s the point? I’ve been feeling that way for a while, but in an effort to make up for the last post, I’m writing about something more positive this time. It never fails to surprise me when, just as I’m ready to give up on myself and people in general, something makes me stop. Perhaps another time I’ll explain how I’m possibly the most secretly optimistic pessimist you’ve ever known.

Yesterday, after I heard the mail truck drive off up the street, I put my book down and peeled myself off of the couch. I’ve been receiving mail every single day this week, and none of it was good. In fact, every single piece of it was bad news relating to money. No. I’m sorry. I got three pre-approved credit card applications.

So when I pulled the stack out of the mailbox, I said to the dogs, “What kind of bad news do we have today?” There was a stack of envelopes, two of them coming from the source of my livelihood at the moment. There were a few envelopes for my parents. And there on the bottom was a plain white envelope, addressed to me with no return address. I didn’t need a return address because I immediately recognized the tiny cramped handwriting as belonging to a student I taught during the 2006-07 school year in Virginia – my second year teaching.  Continue reading →

Between Gears

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I think that one of the most difficult parts of growing up is feeling placeless.

When I was out on my own, I rarely minded the occasional night in by myself. Looking back, I think it’s because I knew I had a choice. I’ve never been big on hanging out in bars. Once in a while it’s okay, but it’s really not my cup of tea. Too many people, and so many of them annoy me.  Still, I knew that I could, if I wanted to, and sometimes I did (and sometimes I still do). If I wanted to go sit on the couch at a friend’s place and watch t.v., I could. If I wanted to have friends over to my place, I could. I am growing increasingly frustrated, though, with being home (as in, the house I grew up in) and not having that option. As a result, I keep getting the distinct feeling that I have no place.  Continue reading →

Occupational Hazard

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It’s not really hard-hitting news if I tell you that I don’t sleep at night. When I was employed, I had myself trained to go to bed and wake up, but with nothing else to do, I can’t sleep at night. This is my writing time. This is also when it’s finally quiet, and therefore when I get a chance to think about things enough for them to get under my skin, but this time it’s in a sad way. Continue reading →

…And Now Ahead

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In my last post, I spent some time looking back and reflecting on someone I used to be. This time, I want to look ahead and think about someone I want to become. Some of this may sound hypocritical now, but I hope I can work that out in time.

There are a few reasons why I’m not sure that having my own kids someday is in the cards for me. This isn’t really the forum on which I wish to discuss that, but suffice it to say that I would like to have my own family with my own children. Tonight I really got to thinking about what kind of parent I would like to be, and even though I’ve been mulling over it for about four hours now, I’m not totally sure it’s completely fleshed out. Then again, how can one ever know these things so far in advance? At any rate, this may not be so well-constructed.

First and foremost, I never ever ever want to belittle my children and give them any reason to doubt themselves. I never want to tell them that they’re worthless or that they’ll never amount to anything (or make them feel as such). I never want to cause them to sit around wondering where they went wrong in life and what they did to deserve my wrath. I want to support them and let them know that even if I don’t always agree with them, I trust them (this, of course, goes to a point; if they’re doing something dangerous, that’s another set of rules) and their decisions. I want them to know that their happiness is what matters most. I also don’t want to discourage them from ever thinking that they can’t be anything at all that they want to be. If they spend their entire childhoods pursuing a dream and then suddenly decide to change it, I will not be disappointed in them. I will not consider them failures for changing their minds. I will consider them brave for wanting to do something new. Continue reading →

Looking Back and Moving Forward

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When I was in college (and even in the first two years immediately after), I was manic about keeping a LiveJournal. I did this because I wanted to chronicle every boring thing that happened to me every single day. A few days ago, I got the sudden urge to go back and start re-reading it. I haven’t pored over every single entry, but I read some and I skim some. I started in the middle of the spring semester of my sophomore year (early 2003) and at this point I’m up to where I have just started my last semester of my senior year. I have been driving my friends nuts over the last day or two (at least I assume this is the case since they’ve all stopped answering me) with memories and funny things I read and remember. Or things I read that make me smile or things I find touching. But as I touched upon in an earlier post, I am the kind of person who does stuff like that. When anything reminds me of one of my friends, I immediately want to jump to the phone or the computer and let them know I’m thinking about them. And okay, sometimes my feelings get a little hurt when they don’t care.  But I’ve also become the kind of person who eventually thinks “Ok, I’ve (texted/emailed/called/Facebooked) you (insert number here) amount of times in a row without a response so now I’m just annoyed because it’s your turn.” That’s something totally different that’s probably better left to another post when it’s not almost 3 a.m. I digress.

I quit the LJ cold turkey on my 25th birthday, calling it The Feast of the Quarter-Life Crisis (a joke that came back to bite me in the ass in the form of a true quarter-life crisis a few months later). It was time for a new chapter, and now that I’ll be 27.5 in a few weeks, I think it’s safe to go back and read what I had always considered such boring stuff. The thing is, though, that it’s not. I am constantly being reminded of how much I’ve grown and how much I am the same and yet still different. Some parts of my journal make me really sad, either because times have changed so much or because of the goings-on then. For example, during my junior year, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and borderline social anxiety. The journal entries in the month that led up to that diagnosis were so difficult to read. I pushed people away. I woke up in the morning, showered, and went back to sleep, missing days of classes. I left my room only to go to dinner and therapy some days. For all intents and purposes, I was in the bell jar. Stewing in it. Reading those entries brought me back to a lot of those feelings, but I realized a few things from it.  Continue reading →

The Brother

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When I was little, I always wanted a big brother. I think it was something I hoped would give me some kind of protection from the teasing; however, the closest thing I had was a handful of male cousins who were older than me, and only one of whom I was close to. He was a year ahead of me in school, and when my friends went through their bad boy stages, they all had crushes on him. He was nice to me, but he was something of a rebel. He could be scary when he wanted to be, but he wasn’t really protective the way I imagined an older brother would be. The one exception was when I was in 8th grade and mustered up the courage to let my friend tell this boy in band that I liked him. That boy replied by saying that he didn’t care, he didn’t like me, and that I was fat. After that, my cousin could be found staring this guy down, making threats in his general direction, and, one time, “accidentally” causing him to fall down the stairs. Whoops.

In the winter of third grade, my mom told my sister and me that she was going to have a baby in the summer. After two girls, my parents were certain that baby #3 would be a girl too. Girly things were purchased or taken out of storage. A pink dress accompanied them to the hospital. I was promised my own room because the baby would room with my sister. It was one of the perks of being the oldest. I remember waking up ridiculously early in the morning on the day my mother was scheduled to have the baby (I had to be born as a C-section, meaning that my sister and baby #3 were too). I was so excited. They took me to my Grandma’s house where my sister had spent the night and we waited. And we waited. And we waited some more. Somewhere just before lunch time, my dad called to tell us that we did not, in fact, have a sister. We had a brother (a brother who would remain nameless for a day or two because they weren’t really prepared with boy names). I started crying immediately. For all these years, I’ve been thinking that I started crying because I wasn’t going to get my own room now, and I’m certain that was part of it. But I think part of me was also just so happy to finally be able to say “I have a brother.” It’s almost 18 years later, and it still sounds somewhat foreign on my tongue. I still get a little kick out of saying “I have a brother.” I knew he would never be the older brother who would stick up for me, but I was still just happy to have him. I spent a lot of time taking care of him when he was little. I didn’t have a choice. My sister was 7 when he was born (I was almost 10) and both of my parents worked. By the time I was 12, I was home alone quite frequently with Mr. Terrible Twos.  Continue reading →

Enjoy the Silence

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Yes, I did just reference Depeche Mode in my blog title.

I have, on several occasions, mentioned how I like to think. I won’t get into how that is sometimes not really a good thing, but I’ve been thinking about thinking, so I decided to write about it (at least to some extent).

As I type this, it has just turned 2:00 a.m. For my entire life, I have been somewhat nocturnal. I love the quiet and the peace of just enjoying time to myself when no one else is awake, and I use this time to do a lot of thinking and reflecting (and, in college, homework). Sometimes I take this time to collect my thoughts and process them into something that will resemble a coherent blog. Tonight is not one of those nights. This is Renee Unplugged. And speaking of Unplugged, there is music.

I’m sure that when I was in high school, I used to stay up late and listen to music. It’s always been such an integral part of my life that I can’t see how I wouldn’t have done that. In fact, most of the time, I would rather turn on iTunes than watch TV. It wasn’t really until I got to college, though, that I realized the pure joy that comes from just lying in a pitch black room, thinking to music.  Continue reading →