Moving
I am sitting in Steady Eddie's apartment right now, and I feel like I can breathe. There's sunshine and straight walls, and I can think clearly.
Lately, I feel like I can't breathe in my apartment. It's not just the drug-infested neighborhood, or the C-5s screeching over head, or the factory down the street that sometimes runs machinery that I can hear buzzing in my space.
It's the fact that the huge eves, massive slanted pieces of sheetrock, feel like they are crushing me and all of my energy. They narrow my vision--not just literally but figureatively too. Like a child grown too big for the womb, I feel like I have to get out of this space, and get out now before I am smothered to death.
The energy-crush and the narrow vision are hurting me in a lot of ways. I find myself responding to email and writing things that, when I look at them later, when I am in a space that is more open, I cringe. I look at the words and think "I didn't mean that" or "My god that person must think I'm either stupid or paranoid," (of which I am neither.)
And I literally feel like I cannot breathe. I've heard that computers give off ions of some sort (neg or pos I'm not sure) and that those aren't all that good. My desk is cheap and I wonder if the particle board was processed with formaldehyde or some other chemical that I am allergic to, or that causes problems when it is inhaled.
Up until now, I have never realized how cramped spaces can hurt one's health and perspective. Most of the places I've lived have been cheap, low-ceilinged joints on second or third floors and have often been too small for all of me. In a sense, they have been the outward manifestation of the smothering shelter of my parent's "love."
Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that it's time for me to get out of where I'm at.
So, now I have to figure out where exactly I'd like to move. I would prefer to be closer to Boston, but I'm not sure if I can afford a move like that. I could move to Northampton, where there's a lot more going on in town that I'd be interested in taking part in--even though it is a tad further from Boston than Chicopee.
A lot of my friends have moved recently, and I think about how rootless, in general, I feel. I think about how I might want to put down roots in a particular little town--but I see a career, possibly my very first real career, beginning to open, and I think that being rooted to a small town with limited resources and possibilities might do me more harm than good.
I think, too, how my friends have moved because of their husband's careers. Their moving decisions were made because of another person. My decision is to be made because of my own future and destiny. I'm not sure how many women move on account of their own futures and destinies. More often, we go because the men in our lives go. What is it, then, when I might have to leave the man (men?) in my life behind on account of my career?
Or do I stay where he is and where my friends are because I need to be rooted to *something* other than my dreams? Do I settle for the Small-Town life and less career opportunites, right at a time, possibly the first time, when I am seeing the opportunities...when I am fully and totally aware that I am way out ahead of "the pack" and can do something with it *if* *only* I were Where the Action Is?
I wonder how much it will hurt me to make this my "home base" and to travel to where I need to work? I wonder if companies needing my knowledge will put up with that.
Thing is, I haven't really known too many people in my position. A business associate mentioned how great it is to walk into a world like blogging with no background--that it's a blessing to not be loaded with corporate baggage from another career. But it's also a bane because it seems that others want to judge credibility on past career achievements.
Getting ahead right now have just as much to do with meeting the right people that one clicks with, and luck, as much as it does with one's geographic locale.
Yet there is no doubt in my mind that I can't stay in my current apartment much longer--that the overhead crush, and the blocked energy and all that will stifle and styme and hold be back from getting ahead.
When I can't breathe, I can't think clearly. When I can't think clearly, and I can't reason clearly, I make mistakes that could hurt me in the long run. I react because I am fighting for air like I diver trapped underwater or someone smothered in a blanket....
In some ways, it reminds me of the stories my mother used to tell me about my birth. I was born by Cesarian section--the first the young handsome obstitrician ever performed. I was stuck in that womb and someone had to come get me. Well, oddly, I feel like I'm stuck again--but I can't wait for some handsome guy to come and get me out this time. If I wait, I could die. This time, I have to get out on my own.
Lately, I feel like I can't breathe in my apartment. It's not just the drug-infested neighborhood, or the C-5s screeching over head, or the factory down the street that sometimes runs machinery that I can hear buzzing in my space.
It's the fact that the huge eves, massive slanted pieces of sheetrock, feel like they are crushing me and all of my energy. They narrow my vision--not just literally but figureatively too. Like a child grown too big for the womb, I feel like I have to get out of this space, and get out now before I am smothered to death.
The energy-crush and the narrow vision are hurting me in a lot of ways. I find myself responding to email and writing things that, when I look at them later, when I am in a space that is more open, I cringe. I look at the words and think "I didn't mean that" or "My god that person must think I'm either stupid or paranoid," (of which I am neither.)
And I literally feel like I cannot breathe. I've heard that computers give off ions of some sort (neg or pos I'm not sure) and that those aren't all that good. My desk is cheap and I wonder if the particle board was processed with formaldehyde or some other chemical that I am allergic to, or that causes problems when it is inhaled.
Up until now, I have never realized how cramped spaces can hurt one's health and perspective. Most of the places I've lived have been cheap, low-ceilinged joints on second or third floors and have often been too small for all of me. In a sense, they have been the outward manifestation of the smothering shelter of my parent's "love."
Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that it's time for me to get out of where I'm at.
So, now I have to figure out where exactly I'd like to move. I would prefer to be closer to Boston, but I'm not sure if I can afford a move like that. I could move to Northampton, where there's a lot more going on in town that I'd be interested in taking part in--even though it is a tad further from Boston than Chicopee.
A lot of my friends have moved recently, and I think about how rootless, in general, I feel. I think about how I might want to put down roots in a particular little town--but I see a career, possibly my very first real career, beginning to open, and I think that being rooted to a small town with limited resources and possibilities might do me more harm than good.
I think, too, how my friends have moved because of their husband's careers. Their moving decisions were made because of another person. My decision is to be made because of my own future and destiny. I'm not sure how many women move on account of their own futures and destinies. More often, we go because the men in our lives go. What is it, then, when I might have to leave the man (men?) in my life behind on account of my career?
Or do I stay where he is and where my friends are because I need to be rooted to *something* other than my dreams? Do I settle for the Small-Town life and less career opportunites, right at a time, possibly the first time, when I am seeing the opportunities...when I am fully and totally aware that I am way out ahead of "the pack" and can do something with it *if* *only* I were Where the Action Is?
I wonder how much it will hurt me to make this my "home base" and to travel to where I need to work? I wonder if companies needing my knowledge will put up with that.
Thing is, I haven't really known too many people in my position. A business associate mentioned how great it is to walk into a world like blogging with no background--that it's a blessing to not be loaded with corporate baggage from another career. But it's also a bane because it seems that others want to judge credibility on past career achievements.
Getting ahead right now have just as much to do with meeting the right people that one clicks with, and luck, as much as it does with one's geographic locale.
Yet there is no doubt in my mind that I can't stay in my current apartment much longer--that the overhead crush, and the blocked energy and all that will stifle and styme and hold be back from getting ahead.
When I can't breathe, I can't think clearly. When I can't think clearly, and I can't reason clearly, I make mistakes that could hurt me in the long run. I react because I am fighting for air like I diver trapped underwater or someone smothered in a blanket....
In some ways, it reminds me of the stories my mother used to tell me about my birth. I was born by Cesarian section--the first the young handsome obstitrician ever performed. I was stuck in that womb and someone had to come get me. Well, oddly, I feel like I'm stuck again--but I can't wait for some handsome guy to come and get me out this time. If I wait, I could die. This time, I have to get out on my own.
posted by Tish Grier at 11:03 AM
3 Comments:
Shalom Tish,
Space is a very strange thing. While I'm not agoraphobic, I do find myself feeling more comfortable in tight spaces (one of the reasons I handled living on board ship in the Navy so well, I suppose).
But I also spend a great deal of time in coffee houses and at sidewalk cafes because I enjoy the openness and the air, so go figure.
I once had an office in a renovated house that had a deck outside of French doors. This was pre-laptops. If I'd had one, I think I would have done 90 percent of my work out there with a cordless phone.
I'm glad you're finding comfortable digs.
B'shalom,
Jeff
I remember feeling this way several times in my life: the feeling of HAVING to get out, not just WANTING to get out.
Often, it's my body that tells me (long before my head!) that I have to go. It sounds as though it's time to push out through to the other side.
Good luck finding a better, more spacious space to write and live.
Jeff...
I never used to mind tight spaces all that much...and it's really odd how, at this point in my life, the tight space thing *is* bothering me. It's so weird how I can't quite "see" what I need to see during the day as a result of being in the cramped space. it's a odd psychological/physical combination...
And shamash I get the same way with my body telling me before my mind. I can pretty much head-talk myself into accepting just about any situation. It's the illnesses that develop that tell me things are not right. Learning not to brush the physical responses away has been very important for me. I now feel it mostly as what I call "nerves"--a lot better than getting a cold.
T.
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