This is going to be another progress one, because I’ve made some and I’d like to check that in. Plus it’s always worth it to log where I’m struggling. I’ve found that both cathartic in the moment and useful to review and reflect on.
Before we get to that, let’s have a slightly related aside. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I should and shouldn’t share on here. In my day to day, I make a lot of irony soaked jokes and comments and those get read fairly well in the moment, but there is something to the tone and context that I don’t think comes across in my writing. Yet. But my writing is among the skills I believe that I am making progress on. And that’s part of why I’ve been thinking about it. I have my sense of humor and all, but sometimes I wonder if it’s coming across or if I sound like I’m a Lincoln Park song. It’s true, I am a fairly depressed person, but all of my whoa-is-me sadness in recent days has been pretty low stakes, and I have consistently felt better physically, emotionally, and whatever that third thing is, at least for the last year or so. Sometimes I’ll read a previous post (which is part the purpose of the blog), and I’ll be like, “What the fuck crawled up his ass?” I’m fine. I am sad, but I’m always sad, it’s my natural state, and I’m quite comfortable in it. Besides, lately, my personal life has been quite joyful, or at least by my meager standards.
Okay, I feel like I’ve sufficiently talked that out for now. I’ve started to feel like I’m making progress on my writing. I don’t have a lot to show for it just yet, but just by paying attention on my assignments and in feedback from instructors and friends, I feel like I’m getting a stronger grasp on the process. I suppose it’s progress just to grasp that it is a process, you dig? Because I’m increasingly feeling like it’s something for me, something for my future, and even something for right now. I feel like every past attempt at taking writing seriously, I was still stuck in a childlike mode of thinking, that it would just come to me and I’d just know, understand, and place the words perfectly and as simply as going for a walk – just one foot in front of the other, and before I know it, I’m there and it’s exactly as expected. It seems so foolish now.
I was in a ride share with friends on our way to an outing. One of my friends is a teacher, and he was relating a story where he combined some of what he’d learned from boxing with with his own personal brand of tomfoolery to get his students more engaged in class, and all I could think of is how common he’d basically just created a Shonen style anime. I’m no anime expert, and I’m not going to write an essay on it today… though let’s do stash that in my back pocket, please and thank you. I do want to just state the thought outright, that one of the lessons I think is often being put out there by many coming of age fictions is that you need to work at shit, fail a good amount, and just keep trying. And it could be years before you get to where you want to be. And I imagine his lesson had some reach, even if it was just a few folks. It seems to me that layered learning and complex problem solving are, of all the creatures we have ever know, uniquely human. Along with our incredible endurance, they are among our super powers. We shouldn’t waste them.
I occasionally lament my lack of progress, but so much of that is rooted in the pace. Though I’ve certainly felt this way before, these days it is rare for me to feel like there is something I truly cannot do, that I am simply incapable of learning. It’s just that I feel like I’m learning too slow, or that my fitness progress isn’t significant enough within the time allotted. It sometimes feels that I’m putting up roadblocks around my progress by missing or neglecting something key. Letting go of some of the past notions I’ve had on what is possible, on talent versus diligence, for example, is freeing up space in my psyche to place more progress. Plus, it’s very fun to kick over roadblocks.
I’m still quite anxious to actually finish some classes. I think once I get a few credits down, I’ll feel less anxious about things. After a lifetime of working, it’s hard not to feel like all I’m doing is spinning my wheels and getting nothing done. But I need to just keep reminding myself that I am doing something, and this is the point of all of that. It does, however, help when I really nail a test or capstone.
I also got a bit bogged down in my fitness journey, which makes me very antsy. I’ve had some surprising gains in the last few weeks, gains that I’m both skeptical of and also concerned that I’ll lose. I didn’t get as much exercise in as I wanted to last week, because I blistered up my feet real bad. Nothing crazy, just being a silly goose. You see, I’ve come to prefer wearing compression socks when I go for my walks and runs. It was a suggestion from my Cardiologist, and also it turns out that they feel great. A thing that I’ve learned about compression socks, though, is that most of them fall apart almost immediately. And price doesn’t seem to be an indicator of quality, or maybe I’m just wearing them wrong? I don’t know, they’re socks, how are you supposed to wear them? Is there a special procedure for putting compression socks on? Maybe I just don’t have perspective on the quality I should be expecting. I have some super-duper nice (and quite expensive) internet-ass socks, and even those caught holes after just over a year’s use. Is that normal? How long should these things last? Do I need a deeper rotation?
As a former TACP, I should really know better. Every deployment, sooner or later, we’re all just dirty, nasty legs. You will be on your feet and for a very long time, with everything you have on your back, and if you don’t got your sock and shoe game right, it will be a problem. And yet, in all of my wisdom, I still found it find to just done some very holey compression socks and go for a little jog. Revved up to a full run on the last mile in, my big dumb clown feet did not like that lack of support, and reminded me of my mistake with some sizeable and quite painful blisters. And I’m fresh outta moleskin. Knowing I needed to give them time to heal but also not wanting to lose the momentum I’d built up, I then proceeded to re-agitate the blisters every few days, including that outing with friends, which was for dancing. You know, a thing you famously do on your feet? And followed the next morning with another round of cardio. Needless to say, I was quite off my game on Sunday’s band practice. I need to remember that I am no longer in my 20s, no longer the Invincible Aaron I once was, and to just keep off my goddam feet while they heal. Wish me luck, or at least the tiny bit of good sense needed to follow through.
Fitness and academics are going about as well as can be expected, and I’m happy about that. I feel like I’m making some good social progress, too, though the bar is admittedly pretty low. I’m also not sure how I want to measure that, because the ways that I see others measuring this just do not suit me. I don’t care about social standing in a hierarchical sense. This stands in all senses, professional and personal. I’m not trying to be king of the cool guys, I just want to be my weird ass self and surround myself with the people that I think are cool. And I don’t want to be in charge of everyone, anyone really, but I do want to be able to pursue my ideas and have a way of presenting them where appropriate.
So to those ends I think I can count things as progress. I feel closer with my friends lately, which I wasn’t expecting. That dancing outing was at a friend’s request. It was the teacher’s birthday / Halloween event, and while my feet might not have loved it, the rest of me had a great time. I think a lady might have even tried to flirt with me, but as I am socially inept, it did not occur to me until well after. It’s extra funny for the in group, as self deprecating around similar situations is a recurring in-joke that came up frequently this night. What fools we’ve been.
In defense of this stance, I have an abysmal track record of mistaking friendliness for potential romance. Frankly, I think I’m better off with the assumption she was just looking for a place to dance, and I had the most open floor in front of me. I must presume woman came that night to dance, so they probably don’t need sweaty-ass me getting all up in their space.
I’ve also been having friends come by during the week for some shared work/study time. I’ve already found this quite helpful, it really is good to have someone I can bounce an idea off of right in the moment. I think they’re finding it useful, too, so we’re turning it into a regular thing. Of course this gives me more opportunity to feel like I’ve been incredibly rude and worry all night about it, but I think that needs to be a part of the mission as well. It’s time to relearn some social expectations and become more adept at applying those lessons, and you just can’t do that while keeping to yourself.
Okay, that feels like we’ve said something today, so let’s call it. I’ve got a smidge more keeping me busy this week, but if I can manage to keep off my feet, I should be caught up by the end of it. I’ll pop in again around then.