So I’ve been feeling anxious lately. Unable to concentrate…or write. Thus not much blogging. I’ve been crafting (for the Mermaid Parade) and working out, sitting in the sun (building my base for Burning Man) and watching crap TV, going to bed early and playing way too much Sudoku and Words with Friends. To the point of obsession. Weird, I know. I’ve also been surprisingly sober. Not completely so but more so than…usual. In preparation, perhaps, for the impending enforced alcoholism.
Though there are aspects of my coming committment that I’m excited about — the work, my crew, the physical space with all its accompanying wide-open sky — there are also aspects I am not looking forward to. It is, in many ways, a false reality. A world where no cash changes hands, where a disciplined schedule is imposed upon me, where everyone lives and breathes a camaraderie that becomes tenuous in the “off season.”
Here in Reality Camp, I have a dependable circle of friends who I’ve known for much longer, who are there for me regardless of the season, who are as much my friends in July as they are in January. I’m also loving my Reality Camp job. Bartending is awesome. I enjoy the routine of opening up: slicing the fruit, turning on all the lights, filling the bins with ice. And balancing the routine is the unpredictability that working in a bar offers; you never know who will walk through the door or how the day will unfold. It has been great finally feeling self-sufficient. So when someone recently asked me what it’s like to “just reestablish yourself and your life and then go away again” it made me think, what the hell am I doing?
I like that phrase you used: “non-me-ness.” People are so “me-oriented” they’ll take any chance they can get to one-up, even if it’s at another person’s expense which is so sad … but even sadder is they don’t realize what they’re doing, it’s just the 21st century nature of the beast. You can filter these types out of your life, but your can’t filter who reads your blog. But that is exactly what makes your blog is so refreshing because you don’t have your guard up — it’s just raw honesty (not “whining” as you put it) and I love that. And like me, there are many others, I’m sure who don’t have that “one-up” mindset and are reading with compassion, cheering you on and waiting to read what happens next