Ambrosia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
missroserose) wrote2020-08-01 01:23 pm
missroserose) wrote2020-08-01 01:23 pm
Entry tags:
Thriving
I've been ruminating lately, both on my own and in conversations with friends, on the definition of "thriving". In one conversation, a friend and I compared the idea of "thriving" to "being successful"; they had felt a little weird about saying that they had thrived in their life, considering that they were only a little over the poverty line and (like most people in America) are usually one disaster away from destitution. But they had worked hard to get out of the toxic environment where they'd grown up, and to build a sense of identity for themselves based on their own experiences and values, and cultivate relationships with people that reinforced those values and helped them feel more themselves. And that, to them, felt like thriving, even if their life wasn't particularly successful. I suggested that perhaps it was an internal/external divide; "success" is something measured against an arbitrary external yardstick, whereas "thriving" (is there a non-gerund noun form?) is based more on your mental image of who you want to be, how far that is from who you are now, and how consistently you're moving towards that ideal. It was a little weird to realize, in the course of the conversation, that this has been a huge part of my self-identity throughout the years; the one thing that consistently makes me happy is feeling like I'm taking steps towards being the person I want to be. Obviously that ideal changes, over the years, but most of those changes have been refinements and additions rather than wholesale replacements.
I wonder if this isn't why I've felt so lost, these past several months. I was already in something of an identity crisis last year, what with disconnecting from the yoga community and trying to decide where to go next, career-wise. I'd been taking steps on forging a new path (joining a regular music group, building a clientele at a new company), and starting to feel like I was getting my feet under me...and then the pandemic came along and wiped out all of that. So in addition to all the grieving over massive change in the world, I also had to deal with the loss of what little sense of forward progress I'd been making. My career has never been my sole identity, but it's difficult, when you live in a capitalist culture, for it not to be one of the larger chunks.
But! The past six weeks or so, I've been doing much better. I couldn't even really say what presaged the change; just, I've felt much more stable and in an improved frame of mind. I've been writing regularly—I finished a Lost Boys story that I'd begun some months ago, wrote another story (for Supernatural, which Brian and I have been watching over quarantine) and have since been working hard on the novel-length Stranger Things Harringrove story I started last year and then gave up on when life got too hectic. I'm honestly pretty surprised about that last; I had thought I'd given up on it altogether, but, well, I started having Ideas a month or so ago. I've been trying my whole life to write a novel, and now (when I have a little more time and apparently a lot more inspiration than usual) seems like as good a time as any to take the next crack at it. I've also joined a Zoom-based writing group that meets three times a week, and have found that remarkably helpful in keeping productive.
In other news, the condo board work, while slow, continues; I feel like I now have a pretty solid grasp of what's going on with the roof, and in theory the basement work's going to be starting sometime soon. (I made the deposit with the masonry company some weeks ago but haven't heard back from them about scheduling yet, which I'm mildly grumpy about, especially as they haven't answered my follow-up email. Still, it's their busy season and a particularly topsy-turvy one at that, so I'm willing to cut them some slack.) Still need to get estimates for the deck work and the paint/carpet for the common areas, and send out the big "your HOA assessments are going up" email, sigh. And one of the other units is starting to have water intrusion through the masonry during the big rainstorms we've been having...so there's probably some tuckpointing in our future, double sigh. It never ends...
Speaking of which, I also recently saw The Old Guard, which is excellent and timely and has some amazing fight choreography. Unsurprisingly, I was particularly inspired by Charlize Theron's portrayal of Andromache of Scythia. She's been around for millennia, she's seen all this shit before, she feels increasingly like her efforts to try to improve the world are pointless...it's hard not to relate, even if I've never been anywhere near that good with a labrys. So when I went in for my (masked!) hair appointment yesterday, I basically showed JB a bunch of Tumblr posts and went, "That." I think she really knocked it out of the park.
And a pre-haircut photo of my closet cosplay:
In JB's words, "Now you just need to live for 6,000 years, become a badass fighter, get a little grumpy, and work on your vodka-pounding skills!" Well, I've got a good head start on the grumpiness and the vodka-pounding. The rest should be easy enough.
In all seriousness, it's nice to feel like I'm thriving again. Even though "intimidating immortal guardian/fighter who's just sick of all this shit" wasn't quite the direction I anticipated...I could probably be doing a lot worse.
I wonder if this isn't why I've felt so lost, these past several months. I was already in something of an identity crisis last year, what with disconnecting from the yoga community and trying to decide where to go next, career-wise. I'd been taking steps on forging a new path (joining a regular music group, building a clientele at a new company), and starting to feel like I was getting my feet under me...and then the pandemic came along and wiped out all of that. So in addition to all the grieving over massive change in the world, I also had to deal with the loss of what little sense of forward progress I'd been making. My career has never been my sole identity, but it's difficult, when you live in a capitalist culture, for it not to be one of the larger chunks.
But! The past six weeks or so, I've been doing much better. I couldn't even really say what presaged the change; just, I've felt much more stable and in an improved frame of mind. I've been writing regularly—I finished a Lost Boys story that I'd begun some months ago, wrote another story (for Supernatural, which Brian and I have been watching over quarantine) and have since been working hard on the novel-length Stranger Things Harringrove story I started last year and then gave up on when life got too hectic. I'm honestly pretty surprised about that last; I had thought I'd given up on it altogether, but, well, I started having Ideas a month or so ago. I've been trying my whole life to write a novel, and now (when I have a little more time and apparently a lot more inspiration than usual) seems like as good a time as any to take the next crack at it. I've also joined a Zoom-based writing group that meets three times a week, and have found that remarkably helpful in keeping productive.
In other news, the condo board work, while slow, continues; I feel like I now have a pretty solid grasp of what's going on with the roof, and in theory the basement work's going to be starting sometime soon. (I made the deposit with the masonry company some weeks ago but haven't heard back from them about scheduling yet, which I'm mildly grumpy about, especially as they haven't answered my follow-up email. Still, it's their busy season and a particularly topsy-turvy one at that, so I'm willing to cut them some slack.) Still need to get estimates for the deck work and the paint/carpet for the common areas, and send out the big "your HOA assessments are going up" email, sigh. And one of the other units is starting to have water intrusion through the masonry during the big rainstorms we've been having...so there's probably some tuckpointing in our future, double sigh. It never ends...
Speaking of which, I also recently saw The Old Guard, which is excellent and timely and has some amazing fight choreography. Unsurprisingly, I was particularly inspired by Charlize Theron's portrayal of Andromache of Scythia. She's been around for millennia, she's seen all this shit before, she feels increasingly like her efforts to try to improve the world are pointless...it's hard not to relate, even if I've never been anywhere near that good with a labrys. So when I went in for my (masked!) hair appointment yesterday, I basically showed JB a bunch of Tumblr posts and went, "That." I think she really knocked it out of the park.
And a pre-haircut photo of my closet cosplay:
In JB's words, "Now you just need to live for 6,000 years, become a badass fighter, get a little grumpy, and work on your vodka-pounding skills!" Well, I've got a good head start on the grumpiness and the vodka-pounding. The rest should be easy enough.
In all seriousness, it's nice to feel like I'm thriving again. Even though "intimidating immortal guardian/fighter who's just sick of all this shit" wasn't quite the direction I anticipated...I could probably be doing a lot worse.