The Year's Last Ramble

Last year, on this date, I wrote that I couldn't remember the year so much because I was existing in a chaotic limbo state where lots and nothing were happening at once. I'd like to second the notion again for this year, with the newer thought that perhaps this is what life begins to be as you slowly get older and older. Maybe you remember things more clearly as a young person because they're all so novel and unfinished. How could you ever forget the first time a customer service rep regarded you as just any ole person? "Can you believe they said that... to ME?" Or perhaps the first and second and third time you went out with your friends as an enthusiastic twenty-something and met new people and stayed up late enjoying... well, other people. It's so fun when it's new. It's still fun when it's old, you just don't remember the details because it's added to a solid foundation of familiarity. 

So it seems, a year later I'm still giddily oozing through my days; thrilled about breakfast and Brett coming home, frustrated by aimlessness, excited about weekends of dog walks and experimental cooking. I don't think I really need much more from life - but I do wish I'd pay attention to the details.

All photos curtesy of the dreamy mid-twenties phone.

Last week I found the cell phone I was using in my mid-twenties. That doesn't seem that long ago until you remember that I'm effectively in my mid-thirties now, and married to someone leaving that category for their late-thirties. My mid-twenties phone is full of beach pictures, Surf Bar friends, lists of countries to visit, and long text conversations with people I've forgotten about who, if you had asked me, I'd would have said I never texted. I don't remember having that guy's phone number and chatting with him about random things over many months. Who is Sara J? And Wes from San Francisco? Why did I not bother with last names? 

My mid-twenties phone was full of pictures of houses I liked, clothes, and furniture, and gardens. My text conversations with Ari were about the guys we were hanging out with and who we liked and who we could marry and who wouldn't leave us alone even though we'd obviously put them in the friend zone. My mid-twenties phone feels light and tropical. My mid-thirties phone is laden with emails and pictures of my cats. What struck me as I browsed through the mid-twenties phone was how it buzzed with hopeful wonder about my future. It was dreamy and excited, occasionally frustrated. Where would I live? What would I do? Who will be at my side? These can be such fun questions when you're just being let out of the gate. A great world of potential.

I told Brett all about it when he got home. "... and I was texting this guy named Carl - I have no recollection of that human... and I found this great picture from a day Ari and I went to the beach... and this note I wrote when I was mad at Ellen...and a list of books I wanted to read - Sylvia Plath was big." It all gave me a big, warm swell of nostalgia and feeling exactly what I thought life was going to feel like once I had a fella and a house and a job I was proud to have. I thought days would be longer, that I'd see lots of different people in each of my days, and have clothes I was excited to wear. I thought the problems that would pop up could easily be solved with honesty and kindness. I thought there'd be time to meet Mom for coffee, pop in on Dad in the office, leave small "just because" gifts on friends' doorsteps, and that I'd want to eat pizza much more frequently than I do.

You just don't count on becoming so tired and achy. Pizza makes you feel gross the next day. Coffee gives you panic attacks, and you don't have enough time or money to spoil people the way you wish you could. This isn't depressing, mind you - it's the opposite. It's funny and endearing to peek in on the hopeful, somewhat unaware youths. How dull youthfulness would be without all that hopefulness.

I realized I don't have any real future hopes. This isn't entirely new - you know I've never had a goal before. I've always been a rather drifty member of society. Apart from my very real hope that I figure out what to do with my animal advocacy Master's situation, I don't really think about my future. I'm wondering if that's normal. Am I too young to be content? It does seem like there's an awful lot of years left to fill, but I don't want to become someone who spends frantic years moving from house to house or job to job looking for something that every book and movie will tell you is a kind of internal acceptance that life isn't so grandiose. What happens after you figure that out and check that box?

Well I'll tell you. You become a community educator!

Some days I do wake up feeling dark and broody. All those hours to fill. It seems a rotten thing to complain about - there are so many that only hope for an empty day. I mean less to discuss boredom and more to highlight the human (or perhaps "developed" nation) drive to feel productive or else useless, worthless, and even gross. It must certainly be a thing of modern life, for being a human before cars and computers surely involved lots of what today are called soft activities; writing, conversing, observing and the like. Waiting for crops to ripen or bread to rise or the harsh summer to pass, even traveling short distances likened life to a never-ending "bus stop wait" kind of existence. Spending a day with needlepoint, musical instruments and tea was completely acceptable. Of course that was for ritzy folks. Others lived life as farmers and blacksmiths and house servants. In any case, today's pace expresses the modern values. Has pace killed peace?

What am I rambling about? Oh yes. 

I had an activists epiphany this summer. I spent the first year of my school program hoping to get a job with one of the big farm animal advocacy organizations. In my brain, they're the ones "on the front lines" working for policy change and awareness and what not. How cool to be such a person. And over the last year of halfheartedly watching the job vacancies, I noticed that I don't really fit the bill. I'm not well versed in fundraising strategies, drafting bills, or any kind of tech work. Those three jobs were available in spades - I reckon cause most people aren't well versed in those skills. They never seemed to need any general workers; folks with enthusiasm and minimal other competencies. 
So I applied for an admin position. "It's not ideal," I said to myself, "but I'll get my foot in the door and then they'll see how useful I could be (because I sure don't)." I made it through the first round of interviews to the second; the work simulation. They gave me a list of everyday jobs to do. "Organize these tasks, respond to this angry club member, etc" and while I sat there justifying the quick response to a frantic coworker ahead of drafting the monthly newsletter, I realized I was already bored. It didn't seem like I'd be doing much for the animals, just indirectly, by organizing other people's days. Also, I didn't get the job. 

So I moped for a few days. It's good to mope. It's a kind of simmering. You have to lose all of that hopeful optimism so that you're grumpy enough to finally blurt out what it boiled down to, what it is you really want. As in "Ugh! I just want someone to love me!" or "Ahh! I just want to leave it all and live in a van!" That sort of thing. So I moped around awhile and finally said, "Ugh! I just wish the people in Charleston understood our food system!" 

So then I did a big Googling one night, looking for any local people or organizations talking about food access, animal agriculture, and regenerative farming. I'll go ahead and tell you it was like looking for genuine happiness in the dentist's office. Then I became frantic. I Googled for anyone nearby that had anything to do with humane education. Turns out it doesn't exist here (or most places for that matter, yet). I realized I was going to have to build a curriculum and then become a college professor just so I can tell people what they have a right to know about the chemicals, I mean food, they are eating.

In polishing that panic over the following months, I have redirected my future plans towards community education. What does that mean? Great question. If I could answer that I'd be doing something productive with my days instead of trying out handstands and other acrobatic maneuvers up against the wall by the front door. Do I pop into high schools as a guest speaker on factory farming and land degradation? Do I teach a summer series on fishing, trawling, and climate change hosted by the local aquarium? Do I make YouTube videos on food labels, human nutrition, and hormone-laden-cancer-causing-chemical-food for people who don't want hear the message I want to share? Maybe I host local events and sneak in a little blurb about animal sentience and ethics and don't buy milk because they torture the cows! 

I'm still working out the details... though your thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.
(Yes, you. Email me your thoughts. I'm floundering.)

As the year ends, I somehow feel lost on a one way road, but I also think I might be hopelessly content.