dissociatedwanderluster

[dissociatedwanderluster]

The Transition Zone

I am currently sitting in the Victoria International Airport, about to board my flight to Seattle and complete the first solo “international” journey I’ve ever taken. “Yeah!” by Usher is currently playing in the airport, and while this is an appreciated nostalgic throwback, it is not the type of music I usually prefer to supplement my writing practice. However, I suppose it’s a good analogy for the rest of my trip. 

I came to Canada hoping for many things. I came looking for connection, both with myself and others. I came with the goal of escaping from the monotony (which isn’t really monotony, in my case) of everyday life and the hard emotions that come with being in a long distance relationship. But above all, I came hoping to align myself with the life I have always wanted. Prior to arriving in Canada, I had a vision in my mind of pure and utter reflection, relaxation, and rejuvenation, which would be achieved by significant amounts of time spent reading and writing in addition to various ocean and mountain activities. On day one, I experienced a relationship conflict and the stress that comes from exhaustion and lack of organization. On day two I found my footing, and while I didn’t read or write, I pushed myself to do what I love and finally achieved a bucket list item of surfing in British Columbia. On day three, I found myself in hot springs that were indeed magical, but also crowded with tourists and resident mosquitos. 

I felt myself getting frustrated with how much time I was spending on my phone, as I had envisioned disconnecting more and being present with myself. But I suppose this is where grace comes in. The fact that I even booked this trip is perhaps the biggest achievement of all, as it shows that I am not afraid to prioritize myself and what I want even when I’m being pulled in a million different directions. 

I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone; I stayed in a hostel dorm room for the first time and experienced the joy of five roommates, all of whom were strangers and some of whom snored (loudly). I met some Canadians and learned more about their country. I met a twenty-something bartender and surfer (with tattoos that I am jealous of) who is bouncing around, trying to figure out what he wants to do “when he grows up.” When talking to the twenty-something, I found myself caught between emotions. On the one hand, I would love to bounce around abroad and explore life with a sense of freedom and no strings tying me back to a particular place. On the other hand, I have a stable job that pays me excellent money and allows me the freedom to take trips like this without having to worry about finances or finding small jobs just to survive. I can enjoy my time traveling without the constant stress of what my next move will be, and for that I am certainly grateful. 

*****

I have now cleared customs back in the states and am sitting at my gate in Seattle, waiting to board my flight to San Francisco. While I was walking through the airport, a wave of nostalgia hit me and I was transported back 10 months ago to when I was sitting at another gate in SEA, writing a short essay about the new life I was about to embark on. At that time, I felt as though I was on the cusp of alignment in both my personal and professional pursuits; I was excited and cautiously optimistic for what lay ahead. Little did I know that it would take around 10 months for that alignment to fall into place. In reality, what I embarked on was a period of transition riddled with fear, uncertainty, and emotional hardships. Settling into a new city by myself was initially fraught with overwhelm and loneliness. My dad’s mental health struggles and starting a brand new job added an extra layer. Then, I had no choice but to battle my own unexpected health issues, which led to months of discomfort and embarrassment. All of this while juggling a brand new relationship, which happens to be of the distance variety, and in which I never could have imagined the growth and challenges that awaited. 

Now, I am heading back to a city that truly feels like home, to an apartment that I have curated, a growing scene of friends who fill my cup, and a job that challenges, fulfills, and sustains me. I am heading back to a life that I have built for myself brick by brick, through a constant juxtaposition of joy and pain and achievement and hardship. And although there is still uncertainty surrounding my relationship, I have learned so much about myself and love that I could never have ascertained alone. 

In many ways, this trip to Tofino marks another transition point in my life; it is a transition not directly into alignment, because alignment is something we must consistently and consciously seek, but into the commitment surrounding it. It does not matter that I spent time on my phone, or did not read or write to the degree I had hoped, because ultimately I chose myself.

*****

On the last day of my trip, I took a yoga class. Our teacher talked about the new moon presenting an opportunity for rebirth, and the goddess Kundalini, whose essence revolves around severing ties to that which does not serve you. Throughout the entire class, I was frustrated that I was sliding around on the mat and my body was in pain from the preceding days’ activities; I can’t say I felt like I was connecting with my divine feminine energy. But during shavasana, I took some time to meditate and visit with my younger self. Whenever I approach this version of me, the one with a head full of curls and a face full of innocence, my heart swells. I embraced her in this state, as I always do, and felt tears welling in my earthly eyes. The phrase “you are enough” came to mind, and I repeated this to her as I held her close. 

I told my therapist about this meditation, and she asked me what “enoughness” feels like. Her question stumped me, and I still don’t have a good answer (I think that was the point). But the act of choosing myself and an authentic path feels like a necessary step to figuring it out.

[dissociatedwanderluster]

Missed Connections and New Beginnings

Written in August of 2024

I’m currently sitting at my gate in the Seattle Tacoma airport, running on four and a half hours of sleep, coming down from a tearful goodbye, and preparing to embark on the next phase of my life. Before my parents left me in California three years ago to work toward my dream, my father told me “Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life.”  And I feel as though I’m in the same position again, although I try to live each new day like that. 

Tomorrow, I get my new apartment in a city I’ve dreamt of living in for as long as I can remember. Next week, I fly across the country to see a person that genuinely makes me excited about the prospect of a relationship, which I haven’t been able to say in a while . The week after that, I start my career—one where I will be privileged enough to care for the wellbeing of others. Today, however, I am in a portal at the airport, waiting to be shot through time and space from my old life into my new one. 

The airport has always been one of my favorite places because I think it’s analogous to the human experience. Today I was thinking about the concept of missed connections, and how there are so many connections in my life that I’m glad I missed because it brought me to something greater. Sometimes the places, people, and things we think we want aren’t actually what we need, and it’s taken me 25 years to fully understand that. I think I’m still learning to understand it, if I’m being honest.

I am writing this because I don’t know what’s about to happen, and I just want to remember how I felt in this moment. I want to remember that it’s possible to feel hopeful, excited, nostalgic, sentimental, and more all at the same time. I want to remember that opening up my heart is always worth it, even if that means letting the pain in too. 

I’m grateful I’ve built a home within myself, and that I can be brave enough to face whatever is coming because I know I’ll be ok. 

[dissociatedwanderluster]

Crushes are Aptly Named

Every time I develop a crush on someone, it rapidly turns into a social experiment conducted by me, with me as the subject. I never cease to be amazed at how the veil of nonchalantness gets ripped from my head and trampled under my own feet.

My last post talked about dichotomies, and I must say, the dating arena is one where I haven't quite figured out how to face the dichotomy within myself. There is one side of me that epitomizes independence and the essence of free spirit, content (and highly motivated) to enjoy connections without contextual limitations or commitment. This is the side of me, for instance, that wants to stay at hostels in foreign countries and lose (or find) myself in people and languages I don't fully understand, in order to understand something else entirely. There is another side of me that desires something deeper, erring on the side of partnership, which is a lot to admit coming from someone who vehemently opposes social constructs. But how can someone who loves the humanities not be a romantic at heart? Both versions of my being usually crave the same thing at a base level: intimacy. And I've often found intimacy to be attached to some sort of meaning. That's where the dichotomy starts to fall apart, because meaning can be derived from any type, length, or depth of connection. I could (and will) write a post just about that. But meaning does not necessarily spark intimacy in it of itself, and my life experiences have led me to believe that intimacy is harder to come by. Maybe that's why having a taste of it makes it more challenging to be casual about.

My current crush lives half-way across the country from me in a state I don't like but in a city I think I would, given the opportunity to visit. He has dark hair and even darker eyes. Nice smile, handsome face. Funny, in the way that intellectual nerds usually are (I use that word dotingly in this scenario). A Tumblr blogger, a piano player, a dancer. A few well curated passions, a demonstrated interest in people besides himself. I won't go into specifics, there's a lot more I could say, but he kind of reminds me of myself. And, after a night getting to know him under stage lights and sheets—face to face, torso to torso, fingertips tracing patterns on skin and lips laying an imprint—I've found my mind recreating his image and his touch every chance I get. Instead of hooking up, we (or, I?) experienced a different kind of intimacy; I would argue it was a more meaningful subtype. But, not unlike other instances in my life, I find myself in a position after the fact where I continue to learn more about another person without the reciprocation of curiosity. Sometimes it makes me feel lonelier when someone is willing to give so much of themselves away without asking anything in return. I want people to know that I see them, but I want to feel seen just as clearly. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, I'm old enough to know that trying to derive one's intentions from their communication patterns often proves futile. I guess I just wish we lived in a world where things could be said or asked, nay, shouted from the rooftops without fear of some unstated commitment to a set meaning, intention, or outcome. I get why having a crush is so crushing; it's like dancing around someone without knowing the steps to the dance itself, and hoping that person will step in and save you from looking stupid.

All of this leads me back to the dichotomy mentioned above. How can my heart and mind be so easily pulled toward someone when I spend so much time with different goals in mind? Or, as a better way of saying it that is specific to this scenario, why is it so easy to let myself be affected by feelings when I am unsure what is being felt in return? To say the least, it's not very girl boss of me. I suppose intimacy is the key factor here and something I'll have to explore more as an independent variable. Once my cool exterior is cracked, it's occasionally hard to scoop the emotional run-off back inside. I don't like eggs that much, nor do I want to compare myself to one, but it seems like the closest analogy.

For what it's worth, in case the crush in question ends up reading this at some point, I do really like him. I guess I'm a bit of a sucker for smart men who can make me laugh and form a coherent sentence about their feelings, without taking themselves too seriously. I'm also a sucker for a few other things, if he feels so inclined to ask me what those are. To be honest, I'd trade a lot to have a morning like that with him again. Or maybe I'm just hyping it all up in my mind and ascribing meaning where it's not due. But if I'm being transparent, I sometimes enjoy being a hopeless romantic; that might be another variable to explore.

[dissociatedwanderluster]

Dichotomies Don't Really Exist

Dichotomy is one of those words that, when tactfully inserted into a sentence, raises one's baseline perception of the speaker to a level of at least moderate intellect. But I've come to realize that so many of us like to use it haphazardly (probably with the goal of asserting said intellect), when in reality, things are not as dichotomous as they seem.

Dismantling social norms has come to be a favorite past-time of mine. If you look at my Hinge profile, you'll see a prompt that says "Together we can...," to which I answer, "Dismantle societal norms...while eating pineapple pizza." The smarter among the Hinge swipers will understand that I am making a play at social norms in that very sentence, since the overarching idea we've been fed about what pizza should look like does not involve fruit. It's a hard reach, I know; you can find pineapple pizza at almost every pizza chain in the United States. Seems a little hypocritical to me for how much everyone bitches about it. Maybe I just identify more with Italians, if I'm being honest.

How I choose to combat the siren songs that we all seem to be marching toward in tandem is by actively choosing to reject dichotomies--at least the ones I can. Remember when they told us in kindergarten not to color outside of the lines? Well, I guess it finally dawned on me as an adult to ask, "Why the fuck not?" And since then, my life has opened up. I am not keen on "The American Dream." I do not seek to dream what has already been dreamt. And I do not seek to keep things, people, ideas, or feelings mutually exclusive when the overlap of such could result in something greater than I could possibly imagine. For a species that uses all of their brains every day (yes, the 10% theory is a myth), we could all sure do good with a bit of rewiring.

[dissociatedwanderluster]

Hi, Tumblr.

I met a boy this week. In college, my honors rhetoric teacher told our class never to use "boy or girl" to refer to anyone over the age of 18, so I guess I'll refer to him as a man. But "boy" exudes a certain child-like innocence, which I find myself consistently grasping to rediscover at the ripe age of 25.

And now, sitting in the airport for the n-th time this year, hellbent on a series of escapades where home is lost in translation and my heart is pulled in a multitude of directions, I'm writing my first Tumblr post. Which is funny, because the last time I used Tumblr was probably between 12 and 15 years ago, when I just wanted to see hot pictures and fan fictions related to pop singers and boy bands; no wonder I'm bisexual. Also, according to my rhetoric teacher, I guess they should be called man bands? Sounds a lot sexier, but also weird.

Anyway, this post is not about the man, although I'll write something more about him later. It's about what he inspired me to do. Ever since I was little, I've wanted to be a writer. I've taught writing, I've been an honors writing fellow, I've done research about writing, I've read a lot of writing. But I spend a lot more time thinking about writing, and what I want to write, than actually doing it. If you don't believe me, you can check out the notes app on my phone. And I've spent a few years trying to understand why it's so hard to put pen to paper, because expressing myself in this format is one of the things that makes me feel most alive. It's something, maybe THE thing, I'm best at. But maybe I've just been busy getting a degree in medicine. More on that later too.

When the aforementioned man told me he had a longstanding Tumblr blog, anonymous to the world and filled with his unedited thoughts and feelings, it was as if a path was instantly engineered in my mind. This conversation happened at 3:30AM, a time when nothing seems real but everything feels possible. I had no idea that Tumblr was still in existence. And when I had to leave the man the next morning, filled with warmth from a type of intimacy that made my breath catch in my throat but with an inevitable vulnerability hangover, I knew what I had to do.

I've been known to dissociate and dissociate often. It's how I protected myself from childhood traumas and how I currently protect myself from the adult ones. I also dissociate because some emotions feel too strong to deal with. Sometimes I worry the love and the passion and the anger and the sadness and everything in between might overwhelm me if I let them, because there was a time in my life where darkness triumphed. But, the truth is, I feel deeply. I feel others deeply; I always have. And all I ever want is for others to feel my depth too.

I don't want to dissociate from the feeling of this man's fingertips on my skin, or how he looked at me in the morning, even though he lives 2000 miles away. I don't want to dissociate from the memories I have of fishing as a child with my father, even though I'm scared of what his future holds. Quite frankly, I don't want to dissociate from my beautiful and chaotic life. So I've decided I'm finally going to memorialize some things. Because I think it might make the chaos a little bit easier to handle.

Thank you, RS; you may have just jumpstarted the writing career I've always dreamt of.