ask, and you shall receive
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I stopped at home yesterday afternoon for 10 minutes before my grad school interview, just to fill up my water bottle and change my shoes. But I got distracted, because I had two conspicuous pieces of mail waiting for me, one big and fat, one small and thin.
I got rejected by Berkeley. I got into UCLA.
And UCLA offered me money. A lot of money. FREE money.
And then with all of this swirling around in my head — disappointment about Berkeley, relief at getting accepted somewhere, realization that YAY! I CAN LEAVE MY JOB, that all of everything I’ve been thinking about hypothetically is now something that can really happen, and then of course feeling flattered that UCLA wants me so much that they will *pay me* to go there, which is unusual for a master’s program — all of this swirling around in my head, I still had to go to my interview at the remaining grad program here in San Francisco. So off I went, had the interview, and then at the end of the interview the faculty I interviewed with informed me that they were extending me an offer of admission as well.
So. Two offers, one rejection. All in the same day. And my whole world feels thrown off. I get to leave my job and now it feels real — May 14th will be my last day. That’s in two months. Two months left of this and then I move on, my life goes forward and it’s strange, because although for now my life is still exactly the same as it was on Friday, and I’ll have to continue going through the motions for the next few months, it all feels so different.
And, of course, the big question: do I follow the money, move to LA? I don’t know a soul in LA, and to me, the city seems huge and unforgiving. It’s a sprawling car city, very unlike San Francisco, all crammed onto a thumb jutting into the sea. It’s a city of actors and producers and entertainment and swimming pools and palm trees. I would live by myself, probably, and I’d have to get a car and wouldn’t have any friends (but of course I would make friends, I know that, but do I have to start over? again?) and I’d be going to school, sure, but what about everything else? Starting from scratch, in a place I don’t even really want to call home. And mi’lady wouldn’t be there. She’d stay here, in San Francisco. And right after we’ve been talking about living together, to do exactly the opposite, move away, live entirely separately seems so devastating.
San Francisco a city of books and hardwood floors and queers and streetcars and fog and hills and creative activism. San Francisco is my city. It’s my self-made home. And today was gorgeously sunny and warm so that it didn’t even make me half-lust after balmy SoCal. Was the universe trying to tell me to stay? “See? San Francisco can shape up and be perfect, give her a chance, don’t leave!”
I have a few weeks to make this decision, luckily. But it’s not one I’m really looking forward to having to make. I know there’s no wrong choice here, I can’t mess up. But I do so badly want to do what’s right.
I haven’t written about this here, yet, but part of why I’ve been so busy lately has been that I applied for, was accepted, and am now participating in an intensive rape crisis and peer counseling training at a local women-of-color-led, volunteer-based organization against sexual violence. Sixteen hours a week now I spend in their gorgeous mural-covered building in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District (actually, it’s a block away from where I live), with 20 other women, learning how to be crisis hotline volunteers and one-on-one counselors. The training is amazing, and beautiful, and hard, and brings up so, so much for me. Surprisingly, it hasn’t so far been that triggering — it doesn’t bring up stuff about my own sexual assault. Rather, it brings up all the ways I am in general a scarred, flawed human being, how that’s okay, and how I need to work on healing myself in order to be able to start helping others heal.
And it’s liberating. It might seem like being reminded that you’re a scarred, flawed being would be nerve-wracking, or defeating, or would break your sense of self-worth. For me, though, it’s been so, so healing. (I’ll probably be using that word a lot…) It’s so good for me to acknowledge to myself that yes, I’m flawed. I’m hurt. And it’s okay. I’m allowed to be imperfect. And each imperfection just gives me a beautiful opportunity to take care of myself and work on myself.
I forget that the best way to heal and the best way to be the person I really strive to be is to love myself and take care of myself. I oh so often do exactly the reverse — I make a mistake, and I berate myself for it. I get frustrated with my weaknesses, angry that I mess up. I feel powerless against my deficiencies. But I forget that it is in my power to forgive myself for messing up. I’m my own harshest critic, and I’d do well to lighten up. I watch my dad growing older, in his 60s now, terribly, terribly unhappy, all because he believes he lacks the power to help himself. I DO NOT WANT TO BE THAT PERSON. It is his belief that he is helpless and powerless in the face of his own failures that makes him so miserable. And I want to be in charge of my own happiness.
A while back, I posted a list of things I can do to care for myself. I go to that list often, when I’m feeling down and want to feel better, or when I’m facing an evening of solitude and don’t want to wallow. It’s a great list, and it was a good first step for me in focusing inward, being aware of my own needs. But I realized today that I have the wrong attitude about that list. I treat it as a resource I can use to fill a void. Lonely? Call a friend. Tired? Take a bath. Sad? Watch a funny movie. Stressed? Go to yoga. Focusing too much outward? Journal, or blog. In fact, though, self-care is not just something I need to do to fill a void. It’s not just a way to re-fill my tank when it’s on empty. I also need to take care of myself pre-emptively. I need to make a habit of taking care of myself all of the time. As a first priority. Take a bath when I’m not tired. Call my friends just to chat. Go to yoga regularly, to preempt stress.
If I can learn how to do that effectively, then my life might be able to stop looking like a seismograph during an earthquake, and might instead look like a healthy state of equilibrium. Rather than wild ups and downs, where self-care brings me up and then I run out and fall down down down and need to bring myself back up, I need to consistently be aware of taking care of my own body and my own mind, consciously checking in with myself about how I’m doing, so that I can maintain a relative balance.
This will also help me be a better person for others, to bring this post back around to the beginning, when I was talking about learning how to be able to help others. I’m going to refer here quickly, though, to a quote from Lilla Watson, a Murri aboriginal activist:
“If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time…But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
This is to say, I can only help others as much as I can be helped along the way. That doesn’t mean “I’ll only help if I get something back.” Rather, it means that (or I take it to mean that) the only way for me to heal and be whole again is for others to heal and be whole again too. And vice versa — so that others can only heal and be whole again if I make sure that I am also healing and becoming whole. So when I say that I’m learning how to help others… what I’m realizing now is that if I’m going to do this work, this so-important work of intervening in sexual violence and supporting survivors, then I need also to be wholly and completely willing to surrender myself to the healing process.
And here’s where I take a deep breath, and feel my height and width and depth, feel my past extending behind me along with everyone who has my back all lined up to catch me if I fall, and feel my whole future spread out in front of me ready for me to take it in my hands. And I can fill up all that space and feel my power and know that I will not fall off the earth because I take up space and am firmly planted here. And the healing begins.
I haven’t written about this here, yet, but part of why I’ve been so busy lately has been that I applied for, was accepted, and am now participating in an intensive rape crisis and peer counseling training at a local women-of-color-led, volunteer-based organization against sexual violence. Sixteen hours a week now I spend in their gorgeous mural-covered building in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District (actually, it’s a block away from where I live), with 20 other women, learning how to be crisis hotline volunteers and one-on-one counselors. The training is amazing, and beautiful, and hard, and brings up so, so much for me. Surprisingly, it hasn’t so far been that triggering — it doesn’t bring up stuff about my own sexual assault. Rather, it brings up all the ways I am in general a scarred, flawed human being, how that’s okay, and how I need to work on healing myself in order to be able to start helping others heal.
And it’s liberating. It might seem like being reminded that you’re a scarred, flawed being would be nerve-wracking, or defeating, or would break your sense of self-worth. For me, though, it’s been so, so healing. (I’ll probably be using that word a lot…) It’s so good for me to acknowledge to myself that yes, I’m flawed. I’m hurt. And it’s okay. I’m allowed to be imperfect. And each imperfection just gives me a beautiful opportunity to take care of myself and work on myself.
I forget that the best way to heal and the best way to be the person I really strive to be is to love myself and take care of myself. I oh so often do exactly the reverse — I make a mistake, and I berate myself for it. I get frustrated with my weaknesses, angry that I mess up. I feel powerless against my deficiencies. But I forget that it is in my power to forgive myself for messing up. I’m my own harshest critic, and I’d do well to lighten up. I watch my dad growing older, in his 60s now, terribly, terribly unhappy, all because he believes he lacks the power to help himself. I DO NOT WANT TO BE THAT PERSON. It is his belief that he is helpless and powerless in the face of his own failures that makes him so miserable. And I want to be in charge of my own happiness.
A while back, I posted a list of things I can do to care for myself. I go to that list often, when I’m feeling down and want to feel better, or when I’m facing an evening of solitude and don’t want to wallow. It’s a great list, and it was a good first step for me in focusing inward, being aware of my own needs. But I realized today that I have the wrong attitude about that list. I treat it as a resource I can use to fill a void. Lonely? Call a friend. Tired? Take a bath. Sad? Watch a funny movie. Stressed? Go to yoga. Focusing too much outward? Journal, or blog. In fact, though, self-care is not just something I need to do to fill a void. It’s not just a way to re-fill my tank when it’s on empty. I also need to take care of myself pre-emptively. I need to make a habit of taking care of myself all of the time. As a first priority. Take a bath when I’m not tired. Call my friends just to chat. Go to yoga regularly, to preempt stress.
If I can learn how to do that effectively, then my life might be able to stop looking like a seismograph during an earthquake, and might instead look like a healthy state of equilibrium. Rather than wild ups and downs, where self-care brings me up and then I run out and fall down down down and need to bring myself back up, I need to consistently be aware of taking care of my own body and my own mind, consciously checking in with myself about how I’m doing, so that I can maintain a relative balance.
This will also help me be a better person for others, to bring this post back around to the beginning, when I was talking about learning how to be able to help others. I’m going to refer here quickly, though, to a quote from Lilla Watson, a Murri aboriginal activist:
“If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time…But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
This is to say, I can only help others as much as I can be helped along the way. That doesn’t mean “I’ll only help if I get something back.” Rather, it means that (or I take it to mean that) the only way for me to heal and be whole again is for others to heal and be whole again too. And vice versa — so that others can only heal and be whole again if I make sure that I am also healing and becoming whole. So when I say that I’m learning how to help others… what I’m realizing now is that if I’m going to do this work, this so-important work of intervening in sexual violence and supporting survivors, then I need also to be wholly and completely willing to surrender myself to the healing process as well. And together, we all work on healing each other.
And here’s where I take a deep breath, and feel my height and width and depth, feel my past extending behind me along with everyone who has my back all lined up to catch me if I fall, and feel my whole future spread out in front of me ready for me to take it in my hands. And I can fill up all that space and feel my power and know that I will not fall off the earth because I take up space and am firmly planted here. And the healing begins.
Oh my god, SO BUSY!
Mi’lady’s family is in town, and between catching up on work from vacation and hanging out with her family, my time has been completely overtaken. I usually post from work (bad me…) so when it happens that I have to leave work at a particular time in order to make a dinner date with the Lady Fam, and I have too much work to do in that limited amount of time in the first place, then posting tends not to happen. I’m one of the rare freaks of nature that doesn’t really use my computer at home all that much.
Today’s no different, so I’m just saying a quick hello, and that in the next few days I have a post or two coming up on various things, such as: “passing” as straight/femme-ininity (I could go on and on about this); cock eroticism (fetishizing?) in non-butch/femme dyke sex (the kind mi’lady and I have, since neither of us identifies as one or the other). Maybe some more on Mexico, though that’s already fading away into the distant past. More waxing on anti-depressants. Reflections on communicating. More specific thoughts about “alphafemme” as my identity–I’ve gotten several emails about that, asking me to elaborate on it. I like getting emails from people, it’s lovely! So I will indulge them.
AND, some exciting stuff that I’ve been up to in my own life, non-sex or -relationship related. I’ve been getting busy, but along with that comes more of a sense of ownership over my own self.
Okay, I guess that all adds up to more than “a post or two.” More like a lot. So, all that should keep my blog fairly busy for the next coupla. I find that the more I write here, the more I have a sense of belonging in this Blogosphere, whatever/wherever that is. I think I like it here.
I’m applying for graduate school!
I finally decided to just. do. it. My problem has been that I couldn’t decide what I wanted to get a degree in. So many options! So much to consider! How on earth do I know what will make me happy! How the fuck do people make up their minds about something as huge as their entire career! OMG!!!!! Law? Philosophy Ph.D.? Gender studies? Education? Business? Student affairs in higher ed? Public administration?!?!*(#&%*#= And I was like, I need professional experience! I need more jobs! I need twenty years to even decide what I want my next twenty years to BE!
And then I realized it doesn’t really matter. Just as I’m sure there are a dozen things I could’ve studied in college that would’ve made me happy and that I would’ve been deeply interested in enough to write a 100-page honors thesis, and it just so happened that philosophy (mostly coincidentally) was the one I chose, JUST LIKE THAT, I’m sure that there are a dozen different professional/graduate degrees I could get that would each give me several dozen more options for career paths. And even then, they say people these days change careers an average of, what, seven times? Yeah. So no matter what I do, I’m not stuck.
Where I do feel a bit stuck right now is my current job, and I just sort of realized that the best way out of that is to take a step towards my actual future career(s). So I’ve decided to apply to several different graduate programs, with the intention of starting in the fall of 2010. The degree of choice is Public Policy, where Cal has an excellent program that I’m not sure I’ll be able to get into. Not sure where else I’ll apply, because honestly I really want to stay in the Bay Area, and Stanford doesn’t have anything like it. Beyond that, USF, SF State, San Jose State, and Cal State Hayward all have MPA programs, which aren’t quite the same. USC in Los Angeles has an excellent MPP program as well, but… that’s in Los Angeles.
What to do! Well, I think I’m going to apply to just Berkeley and USC, and then SF State as a kind of last resort. Applications will be due at the end of the year, so suddenly I’m all OMG, the GRE! Financial aid! Saving money! Lots to do.
Mi’lady was nonplussed when I told her about my decision. She’s worried I’ll leave the area, and both of us have been in unsuccessful long-distance relationships and aren’t really eager to be in another one. I think her worry is a little hasty, considering there’s over a year until I’d be starting school, and the two of us haven’t even been together for a full year yet. We’ve been together 8 months! So lots can change in the meantime. Not like I’m planning on breaking up, or anything, obviously, but it could be that in a year, she’ll be wanting to leave SF anyway. Or that in a year we’ll feel totally fine about doing distance. Or that in a year her band will be touring anyway so it won’t really matter where I am. Or or or.
But I can’t let her qualms about long-distance prevent me from going to grad school. Maybe I should apply to other programs outside of California too? NYU has a good program. And Harvard. And Brown. And lots of East Coast schools. Which all have the benefit of being closer to my family and closer to the majority of my friends. But… I’m not sure I want to leave California. I just don’t know. I don’t know!!!!
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