Old hand

Already halfway through my third week in the new job, the new life. Hard to believe it; it feels like just yesterday I was walking in those doors for the first time, wondering what I'd gotten myself into. But it hasn't been so bad, so far. I've been busy, the hours have been long, but I've been interested in what I've been doing. My brain feels like it's been getting a workout. It's not where I thought I'd be a year ago, six months ago, but I guess I'd have to say that I'm glad I'm here. At least for now, it feels like it's where I need to be.

The lies we tell ourselves

I've recently realized that one of the things I prize in a friend is introspection, a sort of self-honesty. It's a trait that my best friends all share. As for myself, I aspire to be honest with and about myself - that is in large part the purpose of this blog. Not to expose things that should appropriately be private, but to force myself to be candid with the few friends I've entrusted with this url.

I have to think about why this is so important to me. I mean, the easy answer is that I think there is an inherent value to honesty, but that is too glib a statement to be the whole answer.

I think a lot of it goes to 2 Corinthians 12:9. "And He has said to me, 'My grace is suffcient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me."

I made a comment about my cynicism to my lunch companion of the day before yesterday and she laughed. She said that I look way too nice and sweet to be a cynical person; that someone with my angelic demeanor could stab someone in the back and the person stabbed would never believe that it had happened, would rather deny that there was a knife in his back at all. And this, I think, is why I feel like it is so important for me to be honest. Because I know that I can pass myself off as a better person than I am, at least to other people. But I am a sinner and I sin against God in so many ways, every single day of my life. I can be jealous, and covetous, and petty. I harbor grudges and withhold forgiveness. I am impatient and prideful, sometimes to the point of arrogance. I can be a bully.

And yet He loves me. He has filled my life with blessings beyond anything I could ever deserve on my own merit. What He has done for me is not good things done for a good person, but the overwhelming and incredible love of a perfect God for His deeply flawed creation. Love so deep and incomprehensible that He died - a hideous, slow death - in order to save me from my sins. Denying those sins is denying the depth and awesomeness of His love. And that, I think, is why honesty matters.

Recommended

Allison Pearson's book, I Don't Know How She Does It, is absolutely fantastic. Practically every word I read makes me go, "That's it, that's it exactly." It feels like relief, this sense that someone out there understands.

Reflections

I saw my reflection in a store window today. My hair is so sun-damaged that parts of it look almost blond in the sun. This is unacceptable. You can put sunblock on your skin; what can you put on your hair to keep this from happening? I always envy the Asian girls I see whose hair is so dark and black and shiny. It's a pride thing, I guess; an identity thing, although even I don't really understand what I mean by that. Twenty-first Century already, globalization, yada yada yada, and yet it's still so hard to put my finger on what it means to be both Asian and American. Honestly? I feel more American than Asian. I love this country as much as any gun-toting, red-state-dwelling, Budweiser-chugging white man (or woman). Probably even more than some, because I know what the alternatives might have been for me. I don't take it for granted. But I don't want to forget where I come from either.

Not, I suppose, that there is any real danger of that, because people will always react to how you look, not how you feel. And I look pretty Asian. (Blond hairs aside.)

It's worth stopping to think how much of your identity is premised on your appearance. We watched Alejandro Amenábar's Open Your Eyes last night, about a man whose life falls apart after a disfiguring car accident. My husband couldn't get over how sympathetic I felt toward the main character (who pre-car accident did a lot of unsympathetic things that I would normally have been outraged by). But I guess there was part of me that really knew where he was coming from.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

You lose yourself quickly in trying to be all things to all people, or even many things to many people. You start to forget what matters to you, trying to keep the people around you happy, even if they're not people who you particularly like. Or maybe you actively dislike them, but still, something in you compels you to accommodate, to twist yourself into shapes unrecognizable to you yourself, so that they will like you. And eventually, the contours of your personality are gone. You can no longer ask yourself what you want, because it's like speaking into a void. You don't know what you want, or even how to want, beyond a desperate grasping at transient affection. Life goes on, but what kind of life?

My junior year of college, my roommate starred in a play and I went to see her perform. It was a fairly forgettable production, but there was one scene I often recall. She was stretched out on her stomach on the ground, head up, arm out, reaching. "Love me," she wailed. "Love me."

Love me. And yet, when people do, often it makes me resent them. I feel like they love the me they want me to be, the me they think I am, when really they know nothing about me at all. How could they, when I know so little about myself? I feel like their love has cost me too much. What I need is not love, but someone to show me myself.

Long Days Coming

I'm "going back" to work. For a whole lot of reasons, it makes sense for me to do it right now. I recently met with a fairly successful published writer, who encouraged me not to think of the world in bipolar terms: it's not about writing versus selling out, but working a "day" job to fund your writing. Most novelists, even good ones, cannot make a living writing, or so he says. All of this makes sense to me, and my practical side accepts that this is the right thing to do, but there's a part of me that can't help feeling like I am selling out again, like I am giving up on myself somehow. There's a part of me that can't help feeling like the worst kind of failure - the kind that fails because they haven't the courage to do what it takes. I look at the people I know who have been successful doing what they love, and I wonder if my lack of success is a result of lack of talent, or lack of discipline, or lack of willingness to sacrifice.

I wish I was a simpler person. Meaning that I had one love, one goal, and less introspection. I think I would be a happier person, or at least, that I would feel less torn and tormented all the time.

Well. There's nothing for it but to cry my cry, dry my tears, grit my teeth and go forward.

A rose

My middle name is the one that friends and family use, but my first name appears on all legal and formal documents. It gets confusing, fast. And, since I've been married, there's also the confusion as to which last name I'm going to use. Officially, it's my maiden name. But I use my husband's name when making reservations for the two of us, or, occasionally, in social situations, to simplify the identification of who-goes-with-who that people do at parties. (I also use my husband's name with my in-laws, who have never gotten used to the idea that a woman could keep her own name after marriage.) Mail from old-fashioned friends or from my husband's friends continues to get addressed in his last name, whereas from my friends or coworkers it comes in my maiden name. It's gotten so that even I am confused as to what my "real" name is.

In law school one of my recently-married friends said that she changed her name so that she and her husband would feel more like a family. This comment has stayed with me all of these years. Lately, I've been thinking more and more about changing my name. My husband is indifferent - when we were first married, he wanted me to, but he's become very sympathetic to the notion that all of my accomplishments were done under my maiden name. In addition, he is white and I am not, and we both think that it might be strange for people to meet a "Jane Smith" who looks like me. I'd like to keep my maiden name as a middle name, but then I would have to drop my unused first name, or else have four separate parts to my name, both of which are unacceptable options. Even though I don't use my first name, and have never used it, it's such a part of me that I can't let it go.

So - if I have no name, do I still exist?

Standing Still

It's a funny feeling, watching people you've witnessed worrying over who to ask to the prom, or whether they should re-take the SAT, or what to tell their parents about the wrecked car, suddenly become parents themselves. I get so many baby announcements these days - as many as, or maybe even more than, wedding invitations. Pictures of boys and girls I used to know suddenly transformed into fathers and mothers. It freaks me out. All these pictures of these now-strangers, holding these babies, these miniature people that didn't even used to exist and now suddenly do.

I spent several hours today shopping for baby things. Of course, every time I went to check out, the salesperson ringing me up would have to ask if I was expecting. I like to think of myself as perpetually young, but I, like seemingly everyone around me, am at the age where this is a not-so-improbable supposition. It does seem, however, that the world has a singularly one-track mind when it comes to the subject of babies. I can't escape it. At a party the other day, I found myself sitting next to two anesthesiologists. The talk inevitably turned to epidurals. I asked a lot of questions (being afraid of needles, and even more afraid of incompetent doctors, since so many of my classmates went on to medical school). Eventually, one of the anesthesiologists turned to me and asked if I was expecting. Sigh. Do I really look old enough to be someone's mother?

Idealist Dreamer

A while back (pre-quitting job), a friend told me that I was the most rational person he knew. (He was also a lawyer; I suppose it takes one to think of this as a compliment.)

Sometimes I see myself as a rational person, too; certainly appealing to logic is more effective than making an emotional appeal, as far as I am concerned. (This may be a post-law school change; I can't remember what I was like before, but I think I was more emotional then.) But the way I truly see myself, the me that I see, is a dreamer. Only, the world has no time for dreamers.

Anger Management

When is anger justified? When someone hurts you unknowingly? What if they hurt you, not purposefully, but recklessly, knowing that it was likely that you would be hurt by their action but doing it anyway?

I have a reckless friend, who has hurt me over and over again. Not because she wanted to see me hurt, but because she wanted what she wanted, and it didn't matter to her that I might be hurt. Or rather, maybe it mattered, but it mattered less than that she get what she want. Am I selfish to begrudge her? It's not a rhetorical question; I honestly don't know.

It's funny how the world makes room for this kind of person. They are more likely to get what they want than the rest of us, because they're out there pushing for themselves while the rest of us are hanging back. I want things, the way anybody does, but I always have doubts about whether I deserve the thing it is that I want. It must be nice to have no doubts.

Hermitage

As a writer, I don't interact with many people on a day-to-day basis. Some days, I don't leave the house at all and I don't see anyone other than my husband. Friends often ask me if I get lonely, or if I miss having other people around. Sometimes I do miss having coworkers and going out to lunch with people and all that. (Although you have to keep in mind that, at a big law firm, you don't have much time for socializing with your coworkers anyway; most of the time when I was working, I'd be locked up in my office trying desperately to put out all the fires that had sprung up that day. And who ever had time for lunch?)

Mostly, though, I am quite content with things the way they are now. I guess I've just proven to myself how much of a misanthrope I really am: the less I see other people, the less I want to see them. (Friends and family excepted, of course.) It does worry me a little; I don't want to become one of those weirdos that can't talk to other people at all and just sit in a corner at parties and stare. I guess I should force myself to get out more, join some organizations or something and force myself to socialize.

Empty Spaces

We are finally returning the hospitality of all the people who had us over repeatedly during our apartment-dwelling years, and so have been having little dinners every couple of weeks with various folk. Unfortunately, we still have no dining room furniture. We do have a comfortable-enough table and chairs in the eating area next to the kitchen, which is where we've been doing our entertaining, although this sort of dining lacks a certain ambiance.

It doesn't look like we're going to be getting dining furniture any time soon, either. I think we've more or less made up our minds that we're going to use the space to hold a baby grand piano, once we can afford one. (This will probably be many years into the future.) It was my idea, but now I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I started playing the piano when I was three or four years old. In junior high and high school I used to compete. And I hated it. The competitions, that is, not the actual playing of music, which I enjoyed. One day, one competition, I completely forgot the entire final movement of the sonata I was playing. So I played the first movement over again and retreated from the stage in great embarrassment. After that I quit, and I haven't really played (except for messing around when I go to my parents' house) or even owned a piano since then. Over the last few years, I started to miss it a lot. Thus was born my great desire for a piano of my own. But I guess I'm not sure how it's going to feel once I have one again. I don't think it's like riding a bike; you lose a lot of the skills when you haven't touched a keyboard in years and years and years. I'm sort of afraid of it, having to start over, re-learning stuff before I can get to the part that I actually enjoy. Maybe it's better to just get a dining room set after all?

Awesome Love

Benny Hester sings a song called "When God Ran." It starts off with a list of some of God's characteristics: "Almighty God, the great I am, immovable rock, omnipotent, powerful, awesome Lord, victorious warrior, commanding king of kings, mighty conqueror." Then it goes on: "And the only time, the only time I ever saw Him run, was when He ran to me, took me in His arms, held my head to his chest, said 'My son's come home again.' Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes, with forgiveness in His voice He said, 'Son, do you know I still love you?'"

I think I manage to avoid some of the obvious sins, but I've left God, hurt Him, many, many times with my not-so-obvious (to the world anyway) sins. Like my lack of faith. Despite the countless number of times that He's shown me how much He loves me, whenever I get into a rut or things stop going my way, I feel like He's abandoned me, or that He's let me down. I stop believing in His plan. Especially when it comes to my career-life, I've spent the last few months wondering if He has a plan for me at all.

I've been struggling to deal with the after-effects of giving up my career as a lawyer: the loss of salary, the loss of prestige, and of concomitant self-respect. My husband ran into a partner that I used to work for, who told him that I was one of the best associates he'd had. Immodest as it sounds, I knew it already. I was a good lawyer, a very good lawyer. But that just makes it harder for me to feel like I've done the right thing, dropping my job when I was doing so well.

What makes it worse is that my mental struggles over the rightness of what I've done have made it harder for me to write. And that, in turn, makes me feel even worse about giving up my legal career. All of this sends me whining back to God: "Why, Lord? Why are You silent? Why aren't You leading me/telling me what to do?"

I've been looking for signs, even though I know God is more subtle than that. I had to leave the house today to run an errand. I was wearing my college sweatshirt. Driving over to the store, I was, as usual, thinking about my job-less state and wondering whether I should just give up on the writing thing, feeling bad about being "unemployed." It was the middle of the afternoon, the time of day when those gainfully employed are not free to run around to the stores. An old man in line ahead of me looked at my sweatshirt. "I went to that college," he said. "Are you in school there?" "Graduated," I said. He looked at me, "Graduated and not employed?" I muttered something and left to go wait in another line. I can't stand nosy strangers. But the same thing happened in the other line! Another old man, another conversation about my sweatshirt, another remark about how I'm not working.

Coincidence? Some sort of sign? And if so, of what? Is He trying to tell me through these various old men that I should get a real job? I feel like I'm having a panic attack, my anxiety rising up through my throat and choking me. Lord, I do believe. Help me in mine unbelief.

Setting Myself Straight

I've had a rough few months, trying to deal with the psychological fall-out from giving up my high-salaried, high-status job to staying at home and making zero money. When we were buying the house, insurers, lenders, etc., would put my occupation down as "homemaker." And that has never been the woman I thought I would be.

It hasn't just been psychologically difficult. I've also been extra worried about money, lately, with the recent acquisition of a frighteningly large mortgage. To top it off, my husband is in the process of changing jobs and taking a pay cut. I'm exceedingly happy for him - it's an opportunity he's really excited about and should be better hours-wise than his current job - but still worried.

And so, many, many times, I've wanted to give up and go back to work. Work was hard, but in many ways, it was the easier route. I'm good at climbing ladders, at working hard, but in an already-existing framework. Law was easy that way: go to law school, graduate, go to a firm, work your way up the ranks. The format was there and all I had to do was fill in the blanks.

But yesterday, driving around in the hills and thinking about how to go about finding another legal job, one that wouldn't drive me crazy, it occurred to me that life is bigger than our frameworks. Life isn't a pre-printed form where you fill in the blanks. It's a blank page, where you create whatever it is you want. So I need to start creating, and focus on creating, and not keep trying to run back into the hole it is from which I emerged. I've been like Plato's cave people, only too eager to settle for the shadows. I don't want to be that anymore. I want to be enlightened. And screw other people's opinions. It's not their life.

Yeah, the money thing is more difficult, but it'll work out somehow. Sure, I made good money as a lawyer, but is that the dollar amount I would put on my life? Surely my life is worth more than that.

Lost

I'd applied for a job and had gotten an interview, which happened earlier today. It went fine, I suppose, although I was told not to expect to hear back for a little while. Which was also fine.

What I feel now is not nervousness or anticipation, but aimlessness. My life progresses in fits and starts. Sometimes I feel like I live in a cocoon, and reality touches me only briefly. And each time it does, it hurts. I took a seminar in college - some psychology or communications thing - in which I learned that the twenties are the era in a person's life when his or her identity is being shaped. Thus, it is a turbulent time for most people. I think about this a lot, and about the professor who taught it to me. She had written me a recommendation for my law school applications. I wonder if she anticipated the turbulence that fills my life now.

I am back in my home, surrounded by my things and my documents and my photographs - all the records of my life. Today they look so unfamiliar. Digging through one of the folders in my files, I came across memos I had written, and a piece of a story. And I thought, This isn't bad. In fact, maybe it's even pretty good. But, who am I, writing this? Who was I? Sometimes the writing works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the tormented artist in me escapes to the surface: the fragile, vulnerable, fundamentally weak and fearful person in me of whom I am deeply ashamed. I spend a lot of time and energy keeping her down. I only want to be the calm, rational, strong and aggressive me. I know which me is more valued, at least in worldly terms. But who would I be without the other me? The me that I can't help feeling is the truest me?

Sticks and Stones and Self-Deceptions

Hyper-sensitive. High-strung. Artistic temperament. Emotional. Thin-skinned. Dreamy. Naive. Overly idealistic. Loner. Misanthropic. Lonely. Temperamental. Crazy. Anxiety-ridden.

Direction

Recently had dinner with a classmate. He was in town and looked us up. Great guy, friendly and smart and humble. All this despite the fact that he is famous. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times routinely call him for quotes. He is known by judges and lawyers and professors the country over. Universities have flocked to offer him professorships.

It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. But being around him does make me wonder, what have I been doing with myself? We were the same year, and he's accomplished so much, while I've accomplished...what?

I envy him, not his success, but his sense of direction. I admire people who are so clear about what they want out of life. Or rather, who are good at prioritizing their desires. I know what I want, but I'm not good about narrowing things down: I want it all. I want to write, and to practice law, and to have a family, and to be a world traveler, and to spend lots of time surfing, and...and...

Mystique

I'm afraid I'm turning into a little suburban housewife. I was very excited when I recently discovered the Greatest Costco Ever. It's located in an industrial area, right off the freeway (i.e., easy access), and, because there are no residences around, there aren't very many people. There is always parking, and the lines are never longer than two or three people deep. The staff is friendly and helpful. I was so excited about this that I became frightened: who gets this excited about a Costco?

Well, me, at this point in my life. I've been in a slump lately. I'm so focused on the house hunt that everything else has taken a back seat, including writing. Or maybe I'm so focused on the house hunt to avoid thinking about the writing? I'm nearly done with a manuscript, and so have started spending more time thinking about agents and publishers, and I have to say, the whole thing turns me off. Putting together a book proposal is like putting together a business plan, and involves figuring out who your market is and the potential size, etc., etc. No wonder we have so many crap books out there: it's what the majority of people want to read, stuff that reads like television and doesn't force you to use your brain at all. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I'm not out to garner readership; I write because I'm trying to create art. The idea of trying to tailor what I write to maximize commercial potential is incredibly painful. I'd rather not write at all.

So - even the house hunt, painful as it can be at times, is less painful than thinking about writing. I feel ridiculous complaining about stress, when, compared to most people, my life is or should be stress-free. But it just seems like so many things are so uncertain for me right now. If I don't/can't write for a living, what am I going to do with myself? Where am I going to be living in the next few months? In general, where is my life going, what am I accomplishing or even trying to accomplish?

I know I'm lucky; I have options. So many people don't. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. I know how fortunate and how blessed I am and have been. God has blessed me beyond anything I have deserved, and I trust in His plan for me. Speak, Lord, for Your servant listens.