Eyes

The eyes terrify me. Those chasms of blackness staring back at me. I think I see evil behind them. I see an ugly human being with an ugly mind. I see the sorrow and the anger held behind the eyes, dying to be seen, desperate to come forth. Terror forces me to turn, to look away, to avoid the glances despite the desire to stare. There is no immediate resolution. I simply must forget the eyes when I am not looking at them. Until again, I see those eyes. I have seen them countless times between, but I notice them once more. They are at once fear-inducing and calming. I look more closely, and I realize that the eyes make more sense now. They are matched by a sorrowful face. No fake smile accompanies the doleful eyes. Not evil; out of place. Out of context it is unsettling, this sadness. But when confronted with the undeniable truth of the eyes and the mind behind the eyes, they seem at last in place, if not unwanted. The willingness to acknowledge a feeling can allow for acceptance of the symptoms, understanding of the consequences of emotion. It is difficult to accept the actions of others, not to mention the catalysts within the others' brains. It is even more difficult to accept our own actions, our own anger, our own lack of rationality. The eyes terrify me because if I want to see them, they must see me, piercing into my very soul, seeming to perceive something I cannot, their pupils following mine in the mirror, never relenting, yet never unveiling what secrets they have uncovered.

A Reasonably Reticent Representative of the Less than Lucrative's Late but Lengthy and Lucid Resolution.

I've come to doubt my own self worth over the last year. I have a college degree. I'm a reasonably intelligent human being. I have several goals I hope to but have still yet to attain. Yet I have lost the ability to communicate. More than half the time, I don't even try, not when more than 50 times a day my how are you's are answered with "I'll take a footlong on white" or "Give me a number four." When I say have a good day, I'm answered with "Okay." And if and when I make a mistake and have to start over, I'm told, "Seriously? I NEED that pizza!" I make less money than many jobs in this country start out paying and I've worked here almost two years. I get passed over for promotions based on my gender. I go to church, and I feel as though no one cares to talk to me, not based on their reactions, but based on my own opinions of myself. Why would anyone want to talk to me? I don't know what to say anymore because despite the fact that I talk to fifty to a hundred different people in a day, there is no connection. I'm not one of those people who wants to chat with you like we're friends when really I'm just making your sandwich. I don't want the connection of a friendship. I merely want a connection on a human level, acknowledgement that not only do I exist, but that I'm just as worthy of being greeted as you are, just as worthy of eating a pizza as you are. I'm embarrassed of where I work, not because it's unworthy or lowly. There are all kinds of jobs, and a person's worth is not based on how they pay their bills. I'm embarrassed because I'm not fulfilling my goals. I'm not working toward my dreams. I can't pay off my student loans because I make nine dollars an hour. I never see the people I care about because I work every evening. Well this is my New Year's resolution, a late one, albeit. This year I will pursue those dreams. I will meet those goals. Maybe not all at once. Probably not even until after my wedding. But I will edit my book. I will copyright my photos. I will send my book to a publisher. I will start my etsy store. My life will change this year. Not because I shouldn't work where I do. Not because no one I come in contact with sees my worth. Not because other people are judging me. But because I don't want to work there anymore. Because I can't see my own worth. Because I'm so busy judging myself that I can't even tell when other people aren't, that I can't step out of my comfort zone long enough to make any lasting connections, that I can't put any effort into what I really want from my life. When I'm consistently in contact with strangers who don't care to see my worth, I fail to see it myself. And when I fail to see my own worth, no one who cares to see it is able to.

Cyclical

Snow covers the ground, the back porch, the picnic table. There's not enough to be described as that beautiful white blanket, covering up the world's impurities, as it is so often considered. I can still see the dirt through the snow. I can still see the muddy December-in-Ohio ground lurking underneath. I wish there was more snow to fulfill this desire I have to have a "really bad winter" just one year, to have a winter that even meets the description of what I grew up calling winter in Ohio, with days where my dad couldn't go to work because the roads were so bad; days where the snow piled so high I would jump from the little maple tree in the front yard of my childhood home into piles of snow deep enough I could almost pretend to not feel the hard ground beneath my young body; days where the trees were so covered in ice they looked as though they were merely ice sculpted to look like trees that I referred to simply as "ice trees," taking pictures of them the very first chance I got with my new cell phone at the age of 14. I miss those winter days in Ohio. The snow I see now leaves me with a bittersweet feeling, reminding me of childhood memories, only to sadden at them because I miss those days.

It makes me think of an unrequited love, when someone makes you so happy just by being around because you love them; but their presence only ultimately serves to make you sad because the love you feel toward them is not reciprocated toward you. You could pour yourself out for them, give all of yourself, but never see anything in return. It is draining, mentally exhausting. Just like when my imagination runs away from me. I imagine myself moving to another state, Michigan, of all places, and partially for the snow, driving all of our things there next year in a big moving truck. Coincidentally, it would be from Uhaul with fun facts about Ohio, however unlikely, which would merely remind me of what I was leaving behind, denying me any opportunity of looking forward. But perhaps I already look forward too much.

I am consistently thinking of the future, never my present. If I'm not thinking of moving, I'm thinking of my upcoming wedding, but not in the productive way where I get everything ready for it and feel prepared. More like in a way where I just imagine it playing out perfectly. I imagine our honeymoon. I imagine our first dance, slowly dancing to some yet unknown song. But it will all be perfect, even if I never work to make it that way. The cake will be perfect, even though I don't know who will make it. I can already envision it.

And if I'm not dwelling on the future, I'm dwelling on the past. I'm thinking about things I wish I could change. I'm thinking about things I would never change, reliving memories, like when I first met my fiancee. I remember seeing him for the first time and not allowing myself to find him attractive because I had just entered a relationship with someone else. I remember eating lunch with him thinking he dressed nice and cussed a lot. I remember after the other guy broke up with me being terrified to talk to my now fiancee because of how attracted I was to him and how I wouldn't add him on facebook until we no longer worked the same job and I wouldn't have to see him anymore.

I might as well be thinking of myself on a rocket ship. When I imagine the future, it's like me thinking I'm going to the moon. I don't know if I'll move, and I certainly don't know that nothing will go wrong at my wedding, because it probably will. But thinking of my fiancee and the chances of meeting  him at the perfect time, and beginning our relationship at the perfect time five months later, it reminds me that the uncertainties in life are worth it, because even though I don't know that I'll ever see another "Ohio winter" or that I'll ever go to the moon, I already know that I met the most amazing man alive and that space travel is possible.

Finite

Anxiety stems from my finiteness, such definition, such absoluteness. I know that one day I will die. What I don’t know is how or when or why. What kills me even more is that those I love will be no more, torn away before I’m ready, so forlorn. Am I alone in this fear, these tears? Or do we all hold this inside, the bitter idea that we will die? Maybe it’s a natural human tendency; maybe we’re transcended endlessly, never capable of meeting expectations set by an infinite God; maybe we’ve been outdone by the one we laud. Or maybe we’re still holding our belief at arm’s length. If we believe when convenient, then I think we’re all in agreement, this way of life is not deviant. We place standards on ourselves to overcome, but we’re out to overcome the one we can’t even run from.

Challenge

I can see myself doing so many things. Becoming an editor. Getting published. Becoming a college professor, even. But it’s really not me that I see doing those things. It’s some future version of myself, some far off future me who eventually gets to do everything she wants to do and who has the courage and confidence to do them without question. But the truth of the matter is, that person doesn’t exist. Sure, people change. But all that bullshit about being different people throughout our lives, I don’t believe that. Yes, I am different than who I was five years ago. But I’m not so fundamentally different that I’m a different person entirely. I may not have quite as many quirky attributes, and I don’t post as many selfies or stupid posts on social media as I used to, but deep down, I’m the same girl who nearly had a panic attack every first class in college all the way up until her senior year. I have the same fears, the same insecurities, the same anxieties, and to be honest, some of them have only gotten worse with time. Maybe I wasn’t nervous about first classes anymore by the time I got to my senior year, but look how many classes it took me to get to that point. The characteristic behind that scenario is my fear of new situations, and that fear is still alive and kicking. I don’t see me doing the things I want because I lack the courage to do them. All I can see the present me doing is working at a dead end job that takes the happiness out of my life, detracts enormously from my social and family life by forcing me to work evenings, and adds stress to the most important relationship in my life, the relationship with my fiancée, because I feel like I’m never around and never have time to even plan our wedding. That’s the only place I can see myself as I am now. So instead, I picture myself fulfilling my dreams somewhere down the road in the future when I have the courage to fulfill them. But in reality, I will never have the courage. I will never have the courage to walk into my first real job interview with the confidence that I can get that job no problem. I will never have the courage to spend my first day at my first editing job self-assured that I made the right choice, that my new employer made the right choice, and that I can absolutely do the job I have just begun. I will never have the courage to walk into a classroom of college students, of any students, for the first time and know that I am in the right place and that I can get through the day, let alone the semester or school year, without screwing things up. That’s not who I am. That’s not who I ever will be as far as I know. I still have my anxiety, and I still am wary of new situations; in fact, I’m terrified of them. Which is why I have to just do it anyway. I have to apply to that job. I have to go to that interview. I have to suffer through my first day or week or month of that  job, whatever it takes for me to become comfortable. I have to get the education I need to be that professor, if that’s what I decide I want. And I have to walk into that classroom despite the part of me that wants to run away screaming in terror merely at the thought of having to talk to more than one person at a time. I can’t wait around for me to become someone who can do what I want to do with my life, because I will never be that person in the future if I’m not her right now. I may not have the ability to not be nervous or scared of change, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the ability to pursue my goals. It just makes it more of a challenge along the way.

Words for a Bad Relationship

I've only been in one bad relationship from which to draw any description, but here are the words I came up with. I forget most things about that relationship, but sometimes it's helpful to remember where you've come from before lapsing once more into forgetfulness.

Inadequate
You're never as good as you need to be; even when you try your hardest he's not happy

Not knowledgeable
You're belittled when you don't know something and you're offered no explanation

Childish
You're spoken to as though you are a child, as though you should look up to him

Unintelligent
Your discussions ultimately come down to being told that you just don't understand

Lacking confidence
He says he likes it when you're confident, but it makes him more distant

Immature
You don't know as much as he does about relationships

Inexperienced
You aren't as good as the last one

Always at fault
Regardless of whose actions are being discussed, it always comes back to you

Isolated
You never see him when you are with your friends; if you are with anyone, it is his friends

Unimportant
You feel the need to remain silent when around other people, and you are not spoken to

Pressured
You feel a need to do things you don't want to do

Trapped
You feel as though if you left he wouldn't survive

Useless
You have no purpose besides sexual gratification or a silent companion when he's "lonely"

Young Bride

Sometimes I see my friends who are younger than me getting married, and I'm jealous. Or I see my friends my age who've been married years and have kids. I'm sad. It bothers me. I start wishing I'd had that. The chance to begin that stage of my life that early. I'll wish that I'd met my boyfriend sooner and that we'd gotten married two and a half years ago, and I think how great things would be now. I plan it all out in my head, something that never can happen because that opportunity is already gone. And it makes me sad.

Then I think of all the times my life has gone exactly as I planned for it to. Which is to say, I realize that it never has. I can't know what will happen in the future, and I can't know what would have happened in the past had things been different, or even how things would be now.

I realize that I feel as though we've wasted time, as though the years we didn't spend together have somehow been wasted because we never can live them together.
But those years have made us who we are. Those years have given us the ability to be happy together, something I don't know we would have had if we'd been together sooner. The experiences we each lived in the time before we met are why we love each other the way we do now, and it would be difficult for me to say I wish I could change that. There are certainly things I regret and things that bother me from both of our pasts, but I can't say I wish that to avoid it we'd been together the whole time, that we'd married when I was eighteen or nineteen and that we had three kids by now. I want a family, but I want that when we're ready for one.

I want to marry soon, in the year I'm twenty two, which isn't as old of an age as I sometimes think it is. I don't want to wait for another five years, or anything of the sort. But I'm glad we're in the position we are today. Because if we weren't in this position, we may not have ever gotten married at all. I'm glad that I don't marry at eighteen because I wasn't the person I am today, and I'm glad that it is the person I am today who will be marrying the person my boyfriend is today.