Category: friends

A friend asked this question:
“Are you living the life you had planned for yourself?”

My reply:
My first impulse is to say “No, I’m not”, simply because my life, for so many years, was lived in the moment. My brush with death (in the form of a cancer diagnosis) left me feeling that life was much too tenuous to plan for. I can distinctly remember getting to college and feeling overwhelmed with the victory of having lived so long–much longer than I had really anticipated. I sat on the plaza near the library looking over Aldich Park nearly overwhelmed with the joy of actually ‘being there.’ At the same time I realized that I was in process of making some important decisions–college major, future career path, etc–and I really didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t really planned on making it that far.

BUT…

As I reflect on the question more, I think that I _am_ living the life I planned for myself. Since I was a little girl I dreamed about being a mother and having lovely, intelligent chidren. I’ve always wanted to get a Ph.D. like my Dad–those three letters held such promise and prestige. I expected that my life would be filled with passion; I wanted to love someone desperately and have that love reciprocated in generous amounts. I wanted to eat good food, play hard, and wear myself out every day. I wanted to write books, to teach, to help others feel better about themselves.

All of these things I have either accomplished or they are within a few years’ reach.

I am a lucky girl. I say this with a feeling of restlessness, though. A huge part of me still expects that I will die soon. A huge part of me wants MORE. But then I take a deep breath and realize that life just can’t get much better than this. No matter what the future holds.
:)

What about you, dear reader. Are you “living the life you had planned for yourself?”

Got a surprise package in the mail yesterday. It was a bundle of old letters that I’d written to a former beau (D). This particular guy I dated, off-and-on, for about 7 years.

At first I was delighted. The silly little cards, odd stationary, the doodles drawn in the margins and the photos (yah, this was all back in the stone ages when long-distance romances had to be carried out in paper and not via email or voice messenging). Fun.

But then I was horrified–for awhile I had, um…ditched D in favor of a mutual friend. The ditch was mean and purposeful. And I gloated about in my letters to D afterwards. (Ok…I have to say here that the ditch was short-lived and D and I were soon back together, but I was, nevertheless, quite cruel in my letters.)

So, hoping to feel some sense of redemption, I mentioned to John that I thought I had changed a lot since I was 16. I made the comment hoping for a bit of validation. Something along the lines, of “Yah, you’re nothing like that nowadays.”

Instead, John said something more like: “Jana, you can be completely self-centered. You think the world revolves around you.” [Note to readers: John’s comment sounds tough here, perhaps given the context–he’s actually a super-supportive husband. But he’s also good at guiding me through moments of self-introspection].

That stung. But deservedly so. I realized that I hurt people every day through my self-absorption. I have a huge ego. I am cocky and smug. My little jabs at D about the other guy might be old news now, but I do similar things all the time. Like answering emails while my kids are begging for my attention, continuing painful threads of conversation w/John even after he asks me to stop, not giving extended family members attention until I need something from them, dominating conversations with my opinons, taking over meetings where I’m not in charge, asking others to do errands for me that I can do myself, etc.

So, for all those people out there that I hurt with my selfishness, I’m sorry. I can’t erase awful things like the foolish letters I wrote 20 years ago, or undo the biting comments, or take back my moments of inflated self-importance.

For those whom I have hurt, please accept my apology…I’m sorry. I’m sorry to have caused you pain. I promise to do better. To be less self-focused. Less of a drama queen/ heartbreaker/ selfish person.

And to D: thanks for the letters and the CDs (such memories!). Thanks for not holding it against me. :)

(a meme from Holly)

Select five people to tag:
1) madwoman
2) brookewill
3) laughtear
4) dora
5) chudacek

What were you doing 20 years ago?
I was a freshman in high school. I had a buzz cut (my hair was just growing out from chemo), that I spiked up sort of punk-like. Was dating Brady S. and writing for the school paper.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Conceiving Baby #2. Enduring another awful Utah winter (do these somehow go hand-in-hand?)….

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Sweating through my first year year of full-time PhD coursework. Writing an article about Civil War amputees. Reading Marxist theory.

Five snacks you enjoy:
1. cookies (esp sugar cookies sans frosting)
2. ohagi
3. tea & scones
4. green olives stuffed w/pimento. straight out of the jar.
5. whatever john is eating (as long as it doesn’t reek of meat)

(more than) Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
1. “The Queen and the Soldier,” “Calypso” and “Ironbound/Fancy Poultry,” Suzanne Vega
2. “Wuthering Heights,” Kate Bush
3. “Roxanne” and “Russians,” Sting
4. “Annie’s Song” and “Rocky Mountain High,” John Denver
5. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Sounds of Silence,” Simon & Garfunkel

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. travel to the Isle of Man
2. hire a personal masseuse
3. build a straw house (eco-friendly)
4. buy some beautiful bookshelves
5. master the French language

Five bad habits:
1. gnawing on the sides of my tongue when I’m nervous
2. piling books and papers (and shoes) on the table and in the corner of the LR
3. not giving my full attention to my kids when they’re talking to me
4. driving to school when I should take the shuttle
5. not answering the phone, even though I am often home (I hate talking on the phone)

Five things you like doing:
1. talking w/my outhouse friends
2. sitting in my garden and watching the bees in the lavender
3. eating fruit
4. being with John and my kids
5. exercising: lifting weights and swimming

Five things you would never wear again:
1. a cast (I hope)
2. 80’s glasses (like the clear round-ish ones I wore my soph year)
3. earrings w/dangling fruits (my 1st year of college–ACK!)
4. can’t think of anything else….

Five things that scare you:
1. Something awful happening to the kids or to John
2. rodents
3. gophers
4. ROUSS’s
5. my computer dying…

Five favorite toys:
1. ellycat and tobyjoy
2. junebug
3. retro turntable
4. dig camera
5. ingenuitea

Do you ever wonder what happened to your high school sweetheart?

Today I met up with my boyfriend from my senior year of high school. We had an intense and somewhat stormy relationship–but isn’t that what high school romances are always like??

We were both very different, yet perhaps too much the same. Strong-willed, passionate, idealistic, and very, very young. Also, he was a good Methodist boy and I was a Mormon bishop’s daughter. As such, it wasn’t a relationship destined for longevity.

We met for lunch. I didn’t feel so self-conscious about my own grey hair when I saw the threads of silver in his beard. :)

I guess we’re both getting old. But I guess that’s okay if getting old means that you can remember the past fondly–like a pleasant dream–and we can now move on and enjoy getting to know the ‘adults’ that we’ve each become…

It was also a treat to meet his SO and to introduce him to John :)