Friday, May. 09, 2003 - 10:26 p.m.

You can have my isolation

Summer isn’t coming fast enough. Eugene’s a great town, don’t get me wrong, and the climate of the Northwest isn’t nearly the dark shroud-that-makes-you-feel-like-Kurt-Cobain that I feared it would be, but at the same time, it’s too damn cold. By too cold, I mean 50 Fahrenheit, which is nothing to bitch about, really. But it means I’m still wearing my winter coat in May, and will probably continue to do so in June, as I did last year. It doesn’t snow here, which means less hassle and the air isn’t cold enough to cause severe pain, but at the same time, snow is exciting and pretty. The summers here are unbeatable, with Fahrenheit temps in the 70’s to low 80’s (except for the first week of August when I had to wear my winter coat last year. A week after that it went to 100 for 2 days.) 9:30 pm sunsets, no rain, and no mosquitoes. So for a few months out of every year, it’s paradise. But is that enough?

I used my new phone card to call my sister for 3 hours today, and that was very satisfying. Hearing how isolated she is reminded me of how isolated I am as well. I’m pained when I think about it. It’s not even that I feel very lonely, it’s that I’m sad and afraid of how lonely I think I will be. I think Patch Adams was onto something when he identified loneliness as our national disease.

I need to get more people in my life. My main social contact is the folks in my ProtoTista classes. They’re great, but that’s only 3 or 4 hours a week. I like a lot of the people I work with at Good Sense of Life Phone Surveys, but they seem reluctant to let me in on their reindeer games. I see My Very Busy Friend about once a month. My new friend just moved away. I made two new friends (who live in Eugene) in Portland at the NVC workshops, and I gave them both my number, but they haven’t called, and I was too confident they would to ask for theirs. I know a few other people in town I like, but I’m perplexed about how to initiate hanging out with them. I mean, how does one beg for company and have it work? At Twin Oaks it was easy; you just eat at the Fun Table every day, and eventually someone will come and sit down who you like. But there were nasty dry spells in companionship there too.

I was in the same predicament in January when my father offered, yet again, to let me live in his house in Rhode Island. At the time, all I had keeping me in Eugene was a kind of nice political environment, my sucky job, and a lot of isolation. I thought I had nothing to lose by moving to Rhode Island. I did not take my father up on his offer because I had nothing to gain by moving. I’d be just as isolated there, if not more so (my father is rarely in that house), and I’d just have to hunt for another sucky job. At that time, I considered writing a post entitled, “You can have my isolation”, but decided not to because it would be too grim to write, and too grim to read.

Yesterday, I remarked that Dazed and Confused imparts no great wisdom. I have reconsidered this, and came up with the following invaluable nuggets to be gleaned from the movie:

1) No matter how oppressive the system you’re in is, you are always free to choose your response to it. No one can take that freedom away from you, and that freedom is your power.

2) We are more than the roles we play.

3) You can take what life dishes out, and work with it creatively to benefit yourself and others.

4) All things change.

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