the pros and cons of living alone

i live alone, in a small studio.  i like it.  after having roommates (great ones, good ones and bad ones) for 5 years, it's nice.  some things, however, you don't actually know about yourself until you live alone.

• for one, sometimes i long to be touched so much, that i wanna snuggle up to the warm body sitting next to me on the bus.  and today i really wish i had someone to hug.  this also brings to my attention just how little we touch people outside of our homes.  besides the baby that i smother with kisses, no one at any of my jobs so much as pats me on the back.  it's been days since i had a real hug.  i don't think you should be allowed to go 24 hours without a hug, but maybe i'm just a sucker for physical affection. 
• also, i realize just how much i really enjoy nudity.
• another saddening realization is this; if i died no one would know for days. i'm not really morbid or depressed.  and i don't think that my sudden unannounced absence would go unnoticed.  i just think that my employers, who are the only people who see me everyday, would just think that i quit or something.  my friends would just think that i was just too busy to return their calls.
• scarily, i have noticed the comfort i have from having full control of what goes in my kitchen though!  i know that my refrigerator will not be contaminated animal products or by-products.  i know that the dishes in the sink are mine, and when the last time was that the sponges have been changed and sanitized.  that's nice, but i wonder if it will make me a controlling wife.  probably.  :(
• i spend hours in the bathroom, but i can do it with the door wide open.  
• sometimes i miss the delegation of cleaning tasks though.  sometimes i wonder how much a cleaning lady would charge to clean such a small space.  it's hard to to find the time to do some things.
• i have found comfort in knowing that i will only be awakened by myself, and not the chatter of others getting ready.  
•  i have also realized my degree of careless.  it's not incredibly high, but it is scary to come home and see the oven on, or the back door ajar.  and have no one to blame for such neglect
•  but when it comes down to it, i truly love the time i have to be by myself.  after working so hard it's nice to be in solitude.
  

goodbye worry

i woke up this morning and decided to give up worrying.  for good.

okay, i know this sounds a little too easy.  especially for me.  i mean, do i really want to give up something that i'm really good at?  i mean, i'm really, really good at it.  when my boyfriend first moved to new york, i would invent these terrible scenarios when he didn't call me before he went to bed, or better, before i went to bed.  suddenly he's lying in some ditch - no gutter (there probably aren't a lot of ditches in n.y.c.) drawing his last breath, and i won't even know anything about the loss of my one true love for weeks, because his roommate is rarely around, and probably won't think anything about him being gone, until rent is due.  i can't sleep.  i'm literally sobbing thinking of the short, short time we have had to love each other.  

then he calls and tells me how he met up with friends and stayed out late.  he couldn't call me on the subway, well, because it's underground.  i know that.  he's fine, i go to bed. this happens several times.

anyway, i'm done with all that.  this farewell to worry has been, well at least to my knowledge, beginning to happen for the past few weeks, although i'm sure that God has been trying to beat it out of me for years now.  i think it began a couple of weeks ago when i decided to register for this class, that i normally would not be able to afford.  i really wanted to take it.  i made myself a budget and said, well... we'll just go with it.  

then last week, i get this job i really want, but i still have to put in my two weeks at the cafe and keep my job as a nanny in order to pay rent.  these tasks become walls; to my right i have my new job, in front of me is the job i'm leaving, to the left is good old nannying, and behind me that sneaky little class i just signed up for.  they are all inching toward me faster than i can handle.  but instead of having an anxiety attack and panicking, i push them back, just a little nudge, so that they at least stop moving toward me.  i say to myself, it will all work out, don't freak out. 

but things really started happening yesterday.  one of the pastors at my Church gives a sermon on psalm 33, and the one thing he says that really resonates- it is the only thing i write down- is that we have nothing to fear but the God who loves us with unfailing and unconditional love.  it becomes clear to me that worrying is just fear of not knowing what will happen. 

 i get kind of mad too, because i have been trained to worry.... i think that i will save that for another blog.

so after church i'm really hungry, i had about 10 cheerios left in my only box of cereal this morning. so i know that i must eat and go to work in about an hour. so i drive to work and look for a parking spot, all the meters are taken, it's Sunday.  i drive past this particular spot several times.  it is huge, the sign says "NO PARKING, TOW ZONE: monday - friday " but i pass it up because... isn't it weird that no one has parked there...  I pass this spot 3 times until finally I say to myself.  What are you afraid of?!  Just park there!  Stop worrying, you're starving and this space is literally screaming PARK HERE TIA!!  THIS SPOT IS YOURS!!!!  So I do.  And my car is still there when I was done with work 7 hours later.  

so this morning i get up, and lay here.  i look at "eat, pray, love" on top of a pile of books around me and grab it.  i'm at the pray part, where she's talking about how she is a control freak, and she's afraid to let go and let things happen.  her friend tells her to just try it, and you'll see that birds will keep flying... life will go on.  i read this and all of the scriptures that i have memorized about worry ring so loud and true in my head!  but i wonder, like elizabeth gilbert, what in the world will i do with all my energy if i'm not worrying.  then i read look for God... like a man with his head on fire looks for water.  

so, i know that this will be a fight.  i can already feel myself  fighting back.  a part of me is scared that things won't work out if i am not worrying.  i hop in the shower, and before i know it a strand of my hair catches a flame.  then two, but i have a lot of hair, and before i know it i'm standing here in the shower, thinking of all the people who i've forgotten to e-mail, the phone calls i haven't returned, the work i have to do, it's monday for pete's sake!  i'm standing here in the shower completely on fire. 

for the first time ever, i tell myself, well, tia, you can't do anything about it in the shower, so just enjoy the shower.  and i do.

i love spending the day.  

i really just followed my whims today.  i walk to milwaukee to catch the milwaukee, but it's taking forever, and there are so many rude men making me uncomfortable, so i just hop on the blue line to damen.  i explore for awhile, go to kinkos (yes this is my idea of exploring). then i have lunch at this new vegetarian restaurant called mana food bar with a friend i haven't  seen in a long time.  i devour this delicious thai watermelon salad.  this is mint, watermelon, and cucumber heaven - who knew? then i sneak into alliance bakery -well not really sneak, i don't know why i put it that way - and have a hazelnut fudge cupcake that disappears too soon.  i sit for a while, reading my new employee manual for my new job at a certain athletic club and then decide to move on.  

i walk back to milwaukee through the wicker park fest and get on the bus to chicago, then the chicago bus to mies van der rohe.  it's just a block east of michigan avenue, but there is the nicest park with lots of shade and welcoming benches, just feet away from tourist madness.  i am reading and waiting for my friend who works in the midst of the tourist madness at macy's in the water tower.  after a few, i walk over into the water tower and into the lindt store and splurge on a few truffles.  (i'm reading eat, pray, love, so i've been pretty liberal with the pleasure i get from food) then i go to the 8th floor to look at sheets and ultimately blenders.  i have my eye on a magic bullet.  i think it will change my life. 

 i wish i had a gift registry.  i would definitely put the magic bullet on my registry, and a cuisinart food processor, and special knives too.  i haven't been wanting to get married as much lately, but i still really want a registry. i think you should be able to have a registry even if you're not ever planning on getting married.  just because you're not having a wedding doesn't mean that people won't want to buy you stuff.  right? sometimes i want to buy things for people, for no reason, and i think,  i wish they were registered somewhere.  why, i just thought that yesterday when i was thinking of my friend amanda.

 

my friend who works at macy's is off now, and dying to get out of the mall. so we chat and walk to the red line to take it to belmont and eat delicious thai food at duck walk.  i tell him how i happy i am that he is living in chicago now. we agree that it's so nice to have good friends around who can just pop over and always have something to talk about. we walk to broadway and he has had a long day so he leaves to go home.  

i suddenly for the first time in a long time feel lonely.  i had spent most of the day by myself, perfectly happy about that.  joyous even.  i actually really love being with just me.  but i felt for a brief moment that i wished i weren't walking down broadway alone.  

then i saw world market.  something about that place just makes me happy and  i didn't even go in. 

exhaustion

last night i got home and started reading cleopatra's nose.  it's one of those really interesting books that you don't really get at first until you are more acquainted with the author's vernacular.  

i don't usually fall asleep reading, but a few hours later, i woke up and it was completely dark.  i got up, took off my bra, and other inhibiting clothing, brushed my teeth and went back to sleep.  or tried to.  what i really wanted to do was eat.  i tried an apple.  not good enough, so i toasted some bread and spread on half of an avocado. 

yum

the blue line

as per usual, i hurry down the platform of the blue line to get to the very first car.  i get on and there are no seats available.  no seats?  man, i just checked out this really cool book from the library and it's hard to read standing up.  sigh... whatever.  then someone gets off at monroe and I make a mad dash for the seat but there is a tall man on his way there too.  he sees me trying to get there, and says "you wanna sit down".  i say, "oh! sure..." and then i give it a second thought and say no, it's fine. i mean he is older than me by at least 15 years.  but he insists and in order to prevent a scene with this man claiming to be a gentleman, I take the seat.  I mean he could have been 20 years older than me, but, he looked healthy... plus... my book.  i sit, and begin to read the foreword.  the man is gone soon and a whole ton of people push their way into the car and stand against each other trying not to touch.  standing next to my seat is a man in his 40s, and next to him is a woman about the same age, wearing a blue jean skirt, her back is to me.  At the next stop another woman in a similar age category wedges her way next to my seat.  she has thin bangs that don't match, in color, the rest of her hair.   i start feeling nervous, and also guilty.  normally people don't give up their seats to people in this age group. only for people with white hair, and /or canes, walkers, crutches or noticable limps.  and baby bumps. right?  i have wanted to in the past (when i had yet to discover how much more enjoyable a train ride is when you are reading), but decided against it because i didn't want to offend a woman in the middle of her life by suggesting that she was incapable of standing up just like everyone else, who really only happen to be a few years younger.  (and let's not even begin to suggest that someone is pregnant.) so i sit here conflicted.  i steal a few glances at the lady whose bangs don't match her hair and see faint wrinkles in her face, and i keep feeling the man in his 40s staring at me.  i can't read anymore.  i put away my book, and look back at the the lady with the bangs that don't match her hair and say "do you wanna sit down?"  she says "no, thank you".  i say "are you sure" and she says " yeah".  so I turn around, take a breath and get my book back out.  i hear the man in his 40s and the woman in the blue jean skirt whispering and i look up and they're looking at me.  "do you want to sit down?"  she nods.  

standing there i look down at her feet.  (the woman in the blue jean skirt, that is.) the thick straps on her sandals are digging into her skin leaving it red and raw.  i look up at her face and her eyes are shut tightly,  like the eyes of a child making a really important wish.  i look over and now the man in his 40s is sitting too.  i think he may be nodding off to sleep.