Dear Oakland,
I'm sad, because I feel like you are pushing me out and away after 5 years of trying to make you home.
I often refer to myself as an uprooted sapling. Torn from the soil of my homeland and thrust into the wind. For a long while I thought my little roots would just shrivel up and I would drift forever. But then I (somewhat unknowingly at the time) began a search for hospitable soils, a new home. I found peace in Oakland. I found friends in Oakland. I found a home and two jobs in Oakland within a week and a half or so of being here! I found people who used the word "community" liberally. Being from LA and having gone to school in Santa Barbara, I was baffled. What is this "community" of which they speak? But then I started to know my neighbors and recognize them at the coffee shop. I started to see people around enough times that we finally just said hello. I did favors for people I knew well and people I barely knew at all. I went to parties & protests & potlucks. I could be my whole damn self - bruised and brown and a little strange. Cranky or in a good mood, on a skateboard or in heels, and it didn't matter whose hand I was holding, or if I was holding anyone's hand at all . . . nobody batted an eyelash. I felt like I had a little safety net made of people with their arms interlocked. If I wobbled on the tightrope of life and fell, they would catch me.
I got to know more and more people. I realized how networks work. Everybody knows everybody. I started to know more of this community's history. Who knows who, who slept with who, who dated who, who's kid that is, who worked where, who never speaks to that one person over there. I had some of my own relationships fall apart. Friendships, romantic relationships. I tried my best to stay friendly with ex's, but sometimes their lies and deceit were too much to bear. Sometimes just the hurt was too much to bear. I tried to stay on decent terms with friends as our relationships shifted and grew apart. But sometimes the blame was too much, or something else was too much, and we just couldn't do it anymore. Adult playgrounds became difficult. I used to see people navigating social scenes with caution: "I didn't invite her because her ex is dating HER." I never thought I'd be one of those people. I had always prided myself on maintaining good relationships with appropriate boundaries, and loving people unconditionally and forever. But I started to see myself as a player in that game. People started telling me when certain people would be at certain events. Or I just plain didn't get invited.
I realized that I had very very few close friends and lots of acquaintances. That I didn't feel comfortable asking anyone to bring me soup when I am sick anymore, or to drive me to the airport. Because there was only the one friend who had ever offered to do those things and I didn't want to ask for too much of him. I realized that I don't actually have anyone to call when I just need to have a good cry with a good friend who would tell me everything would be okay. I realized that some of my damaged relationships would never be healed - I could take responsibility for some part of that, but sometimes shit just sucks and shit just happens and people shit on you. That's a lot of shit. I realized that I had no idea what the future held. And that used to be okay. But it wasn't anymore.
I want to have a family. I want a partner and I want to birth a kid. I want a home. I want friends and I want a community. I want to trade recipes and sad stories and bunches of kale for the Meyer lemons off of your tree. I want to go out dancing and hug half of the people in the club. I want to go for a walk without the fear in my heart that I will run into one of those people who hurt me so badly that I feel like I would just disintegrate if I saw them. I want to feel like I can tell the truth. I want to give to people and do them favors and cook them meals and watch their kids. And I want them to do that for me. I want to feel like it's okay to ask. I want friends who will call me when they know I am having a hard time and ask if I need anything. Just like they would call me if they knew I was in a great mood and wanted to go run around in the sunshine and laugh.
Can Oakland give me this? Am I asking too much? I know I am responsible for creating some of it, and believe me, I am trying my best, with my limited time, energy, and resources. But it's really difficult to keep giving if you're not getting anything back, and I feel like I've been experiencing that for just a little too long now. I know that the most valuable gift I can give is one for which I don't expect anything in return. But the world is rapidly changing and our systems are falling apart, and the only thing we've got to see us through it is each other. And I don't want to go out alone.
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"I realized that I had very very few close friends and lots of acquaintances. That I didn't feel comfortable asking anyone to bring me soup when I am sick anymore, or to drive me to the airport. Because there was only the one friend who had ever offered to do those things and I didn't want to ask for too much of him. I realized that I don't actually have anyone to call when I just need to have a good cry with a good friend who would tell me everything would be okay. I realized that some of my damaged relationships would never be healed - I could take responsibility for some part of that, but sometimes shit just sucks and shit just happens and people shit on you. That's a lot of shit. I realized that I had no idea what the future held. And that used to be okay. But it wasn't anymore."
Werd.
I hear that loud and clear... as though they were my own words.
I know you a bit, just a bit. forgive awkwarditude crossing lines so I can say:
You "could take responsibility for *SOME* (?) part of that..."?
It's all yours. It lies completely with ourselves only.
For each and every one of us, all, all we should be weighing... all that matters.. with meaning, rests within the circles our chosen paths define; the firmament of the first word & foremost opinion... the last and ultimate word, the closest of judges and the most committed of defenders; the essential and firstmost being - thy SELF.
Hopefully what I'm stirring in my head is getting across...
- - - - -
"Can Oakland give me this? Am I asking too much? "
A: See "It Follows" - Minor Threat
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1leU0fH-ZXY&feature=channel)
- - - - -
"I know I am responsible for creating some of it, and believe me, I am trying my best, with my limited time, energy, and resources."
See... err, Listen* that is:
"Look Back and Laugh" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkGfSn-eY9U&feature=related)
- - - - - -
"But it's really difficult to keep giving if you're not getting anything back, and I feel like I've been experiencing that for just a little too long now. "
There are a thousand ponts of view and I've been wrong many, many times, but...
I call bullshit.
As Mom would say to me:
"Knock it off!! ... Now!" "Self-pity - it's a luxury and nothing you've come even close to earning, boy! "
- - - - -
"I know that the most valuable gift I can give is one for which I don't expect anything in return. But the world is rapidly changing and our systems are falling apart, and the only thing we've got to see us through it is each other. And I don't want to go out alone."
And you arem't.
You just gotta cut the crap.
As always, I appreciate your perspective, groucho. It's really clear, and it was even as I was writing this, that there was some self-pity going on. I can own that totally.
But I also think there is something dangerous about a line of thinking that tends to be used in response to that kind of self-pity. (And I'm not saying that you are doing this - maybe I am just owning a trigger here - that the kind of thing I'm about to describe is bullshit in my opinion and I think a really inappropriate response to the pain of a loved one.) Often when people say stuff like "Own it. It's yours. You're responsible," it's a way for them to insinuate that you need to get the fuck over it (whatever "it" is) and then they can get out of being held accountable to anything.
For example, my ex lying to me through the duration of our relationship, keeping from me the fact that her "roommate" was actually her ex and the co-owner of her home (even when confronted by the lie, persisting and insisting that the the roommate story was the truth.) Now that is some ol' bullshit. I can take responsibility for my "feelings" and my "reactions" and maybe even naivete . . . but that is pretty much just a shitty fucking thing to do.
This is the kind of thing where I'll say, yeah, I can "own" some of this . . . but I really wish there was some kind of community accountability system in place for when people just don't act right. Without waxing too romantic and exotifying ancient cultures, when people used to live in tribes and know their communities, communities held people accountable when they fucked up. We just don't do that anymore, and thus people wind up feeling really detached and alone when someone treats 'em like shit and no one seems to care.
I'm realizing that this is kind of a crazy tangent that I went off on, but apparently my mind wanted to go there, so there you have it.
One more thing, in regards to "own"ing part of something and not other parts.
Let's say I have a dear friend, for whom I have shown up in several different ways, when they were going through different hard periods in their life, when they needed some extra support, and also when everything was fine and we just had fun & laughed together.
Now let's say I'm going through a hard time or need something and this person is conspicuously absent and even goes so far as to just refuse to help.
I can own that I need to communicate my disappointment and/or my needs (and that if I don't do that, that I can't be mad at this person. Or in either case, that I can't hold them responsible for my feelings.) I can own that I can choose to shift, change, or end the friendship if it feels one-sided. I can own that if I don't do these things, that I have to deal with the ramifications (ie. my feelings.)
What feels just plain unfair about this kind of situation though (and yes, life is unfair and blah blah blah), is that then I am left feeling lonely. If I've spent a considerable amount of energy on someone and they haven't reciprocated, (and they're one of those very VERY VERY few close friends), then I feel like I'm starting over by trying to build that kind of relationship with someone else. Yes, it happens to everybody. Yes, it's a fact of life. And yes, it sucks every time. And I can own how I feel but sometimes I just wish people would act differently, regardless of knowing, logically, that I can't make them do that. I'm human. We wish for ridiculous things sometimes.
So I try to cultivate acceptance, forgiveness, and unconditional love. Knowing that I will never be fully there, because that's the whole point of the practice. And sometime practice requires processing. And sometimes processing requires a kinda whiny blog post.
The end.
hey lady. I don't know you that much really at all, but I know what you mean. I've been here in Oakland for over ten years, and the Bay is a strange place.
For whatever it is worth, I miss seeing your smile, and your spirit is awesome. Take care whereever life finds you.
peace,
M
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