Well, I find myself at the start of a new adventure, and I'm curiously depressed. I don't suppose anyone would blame me, really, given the summer I've had. It's been a hard one. New York kicked my ass (though that wasn't entirely unexpected, or even unplanned for), my relationship ended (though in truth, that wasn't entirely unexpected either), and now I'm leaving my hometown again. And there's a finality to it this time - I think I may have remarked on this already - a feeling that it's a place I no longer belong, a place in which I have no permanent part. I think that's a lot of what I've been dealing with of late - the heady mixture of fear and excitement and worry and intrigue and joy and sorrow that comes with the beginning of a brand new adventure. I can already feel myself snapping out of the melancholy, but I don't think that the rebound is going to be quite so great as I might have liked, once. And I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.
I'm different, somehow, than I was when I first left Pittsburgh seven months ago. One expects to be changed by one's life experiences, but something's telling me that I'm different in some fundamental way. There's something that's been burned away from the essential me - maybe some vestige of ego? I'm not so carelessly glib about my success, but more importantly, I'm less fearful of my failure. Maybe that's 'cuz I've discovered in an essential and intimate way exactly what failure, real failure, feels like. And I'm not even talking about failing to find work in New York, or feeling that, because my money ran out, I had to come back to Pittsburgh. I think mostly about how the relationship with Gavan failed. How we grew apart and were unable to grow in the ways we needed to but in tandem, as well. And I should point out that I don't think of it as a singularly personal failure, but a failure of both of us. Sometimes you don't have control over the fact that you fail. It does take two to tango, after all. And maybe that's the lesson I've learned, the part of me that's been burned away in the forge of the last few months - that failure isn't you, it's a thing that happens to you. I can't say that I'm a failure, even though I've failed. Maybe I've even totally rejected the idea that anyone can be a failure - in the generally accepted sense of that phrase.
But even if you rightly recognize that failure is something that happens to you despite your best efforts and not something that you do because of your inadequacies, you still feel the sense of loss, don't you? It's human nature, to mourn in some way something that's lost, or not achieved. You can't claim it's a human construct - any more than you can claim that joy or anger are - since it's felt viscerally in your heart, in the same way joy and anger are felt.
So I think that's what I've been going through - grieving that loss. I think it's lasted longer than I expected it to because I wasn't able to really examine what was happening. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the best person in the world for facing up to my feelings. Not just a classic procrastinator, I'm the classic passive aggressive... lots of anger/hates conflict. The good thing is that I've grown since the days when I was in corporate America and horribly unhappy, and I've learned some skills for recognizing those behavior patterns in myself, and trying to redirect them. Not to be overly-clinica, 'cuz I don't really think it's terribly helpful when you're dealing with your own emotions, but being able to look at and identify what I'm going through helps me go through it more quickly and... less painfully? That may be asking a bit much.
Did I mention that I'm haivng my first experience with travel by train? Welcome to Amtrak, baby. No more for me the high-rent air travel of the days of yore. I get to travel around on the ground with the rest of the little folk.
I have to say, train travel has both met and not met my expectations. I should perhaps clarify by saying that I really actually didn't have a whole lot of expectations, other than that it was going to take a long time. Something along the lines of 8 hours to Philadelphia.
The train just pulled into the Greensburg, PA station, and it was like something out of an old movie, with more modern signage added. Tiny little station with one platform. Maybe one person got on and off.
Anyway, I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but I can tell you although I did expect the continuous clack-clack, clack-clack of the cars running over the rails, I didn't expect it to be as bumpy as it is. And I was completely unprepared for the way the car sways from side to side! That having been said, it's an otherwise pretty enjoyable experience. Amy Hartman told me that I'd enjoy the scenery as the trip progressed (she's done the train trip to New York on a number of occasions), but between Pittsburgh and Greensburg, I can report that the route passes through a lot of heavily wooded areas bordering on old mill towns; I'm taking a guess and saying that the really striking scenery happens once we get into the mountains. Or at least I hope so. So far it's just been a lot of greenery flashing past and blocking my view of anything farther away. Matter of fact, so far the track seems mostly to be passing through gullies and ravines and the like, so the trees tower up over us like a wave of leaves about to crash down.
I'm thinking about a little nap, since I haven't slept well at all during my time back in Pittsburgh. You wanna hear something laughable? Everyone keeps asking me why, as if it should be a shock. Hmmm... lemme think: Maybe 'cuz I'm worried about money, about how I'm gonna get all my belongings out of my ex-boyfriend's house and where I'm gonna put them, whether or not he's actually already replace me in his heart with someone new - or worse yet, maybe had even before we'd broken up, how the friends we had mutually seem to have forgotten about me in thier haste to set him up on dates, or some combination of all these things?
I'm hoping things will be, if not "better," then at least more restful in Philadelphia. Feel free to send good wishes my way. And money, too, if you've got it to spare. :o)
The train just pulled into Johnstown, PA and took on a whole lot of people. Many are going to Altoona, which I'm suspecting is the next stop.
Among the folks who got on in Johnstown are two... what's the politically correct term? Challenged indiviuals? I'm frankly not even sure that they're challenged, or at least both of them are. There's a woman and a man, and they're both possessed of that blissful unawareness the handicapped have of just how loud they are. This lady's enthusiasm for her train trip is, in a word, impressive. Grand, even. At first, when she got on, I thought that she was British, 'cuz of the sing-song quality of her voice. Now I'm not so sure, but the final answer will have to wait a while, for I've donned my headphones and I'm listening to music from the computer in an attempt to escape their conversation. I wonder how far Altoona is?
Altoona's only about 28 miles as the crow flies, but from there, I imagine we have to stop in Harrisburg, the state capitol, before going on to Philadelphia. It's no damn wonder this trip take's so long.
I'm here to tell you, by the way, that people don't think to take much care of properties along a railway through-way. Not that that should be so surprising, actually, since they usually run through industrial areas. I've lost track of junked cars I've seen by the tracks. Now that we've left Johnstown, I have a feeling we're going to start climbing up into the mountains pretty darn quickly.
I had a quick 1½ hour nap right before we got into Johnstown... or maybe it was really only an hour. I'm not quite sure what time I dropped off, but I was guessing that it was sometime around 11, having boarded the train and had a chance to settle in. I woke up at 12:20 or so. I've also noticed that at higher speeds that swaying of the railroad car that I was so unenamored of really lessens. All in all, I'm thinking this would be an agreeable way to travel if I had the money. It might be kind of cool to get a private compartment and cross the country this way, I bet. If I had the money. Of course, if I had the money to do that, I should damn well be spending it to pay off some bills.
There, I said it myself, you didn't have to remind me.
I'm different, somehow, than I was when I first left Pittsburgh seven months ago. One expects to be changed by one's life experiences, but something's telling me that I'm different in some fundamental way. There's something that's been burned away from the essential me - maybe some vestige of ego? I'm not so carelessly glib about my success, but more importantly, I'm less fearful of my failure. Maybe that's 'cuz I've discovered in an essential and intimate way exactly what failure, real failure, feels like. And I'm not even talking about failing to find work in New York, or feeling that, because my money ran out, I had to come back to Pittsburgh. I think mostly about how the relationship with Gavan failed. How we grew apart and were unable to grow in the ways we needed to but in tandem, as well. And I should point out that I don't think of it as a singularly personal failure, but a failure of both of us. Sometimes you don't have control over the fact that you fail. It does take two to tango, after all. And maybe that's the lesson I've learned, the part of me that's been burned away in the forge of the last few months - that failure isn't you, it's a thing that happens to you. I can't say that I'm a failure, even though I've failed. Maybe I've even totally rejected the idea that anyone can be a failure - in the generally accepted sense of that phrase.
But even if you rightly recognize that failure is something that happens to you despite your best efforts and not something that you do because of your inadequacies, you still feel the sense of loss, don't you? It's human nature, to mourn in some way something that's lost, or not achieved. You can't claim it's a human construct - any more than you can claim that joy or anger are - since it's felt viscerally in your heart, in the same way joy and anger are felt.
So I think that's what I've been going through - grieving that loss. I think it's lasted longer than I expected it to because I wasn't able to really examine what was happening. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the best person in the world for facing up to my feelings. Not just a classic procrastinator, I'm the classic passive aggressive... lots of anger/hates conflict. The good thing is that I've grown since the days when I was in corporate America and horribly unhappy, and I've learned some skills for recognizing those behavior patterns in myself, and trying to redirect them. Not to be overly-clinica, 'cuz I don't really think it's terribly helpful when you're dealing with your own emotions, but being able to look at and identify what I'm going through helps me go through it more quickly and... less painfully? That may be asking a bit much.
Did I mention that I'm haivng my first experience with travel by train? Welcome to Amtrak, baby. No more for me the high-rent air travel of the days of yore. I get to travel around on the ground with the rest of the little folk.
I have to say, train travel has both met and not met my expectations. I should perhaps clarify by saying that I really actually didn't have a whole lot of expectations, other than that it was going to take a long time. Something along the lines of 8 hours to Philadelphia.
The train just pulled into the Greensburg, PA station, and it was like something out of an old movie, with more modern signage added. Tiny little station with one platform. Maybe one person got on and off.
Anyway, I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but I can tell you although I did expect the continuous clack-clack, clack-clack of the cars running over the rails, I didn't expect it to be as bumpy as it is. And I was completely unprepared for the way the car sways from side to side! That having been said, it's an otherwise pretty enjoyable experience. Amy Hartman told me that I'd enjoy the scenery as the trip progressed (she's done the train trip to New York on a number of occasions), but between Pittsburgh and Greensburg, I can report that the route passes through a lot of heavily wooded areas bordering on old mill towns; I'm taking a guess and saying that the really striking scenery happens once we get into the mountains. Or at least I hope so. So far it's just been a lot of greenery flashing past and blocking my view of anything farther away. Matter of fact, so far the track seems mostly to be passing through gullies and ravines and the like, so the trees tower up over us like a wave of leaves about to crash down.
I'm thinking about a little nap, since I haven't slept well at all during my time back in Pittsburgh. You wanna hear something laughable? Everyone keeps asking me why, as if it should be a shock. Hmmm... lemme think: Maybe 'cuz I'm worried about money, about how I'm gonna get all my belongings out of my ex-boyfriend's house and where I'm gonna put them, whether or not he's actually already replace me in his heart with someone new - or worse yet, maybe had even before we'd broken up, how the friends we had mutually seem to have forgotten about me in thier haste to set him up on dates, or some combination of all these things?
I'm hoping things will be, if not "better," then at least more restful in Philadelphia. Feel free to send good wishes my way. And money, too, if you've got it to spare. :o)
The train just pulled into Johnstown, PA and took on a whole lot of people. Many are going to Altoona, which I'm suspecting is the next stop.
Among the folks who got on in Johnstown are two... what's the politically correct term? Challenged indiviuals? I'm frankly not even sure that they're challenged, or at least both of them are. There's a woman and a man, and they're both possessed of that blissful unawareness the handicapped have of just how loud they are. This lady's enthusiasm for her train trip is, in a word, impressive. Grand, even. At first, when she got on, I thought that she was British, 'cuz of the sing-song quality of her voice. Now I'm not so sure, but the final answer will have to wait a while, for I've donned my headphones and I'm listening to music from the computer in an attempt to escape their conversation. I wonder how far Altoona is?
Altoona's only about 28 miles as the crow flies, but from there, I imagine we have to stop in Harrisburg, the state capitol, before going on to Philadelphia. It's no damn wonder this trip take's so long.
I'm here to tell you, by the way, that people don't think to take much care of properties along a railway through-way. Not that that should be so surprising, actually, since they usually run through industrial areas. I've lost track of junked cars I've seen by the tracks. Now that we've left Johnstown, I have a feeling we're going to start climbing up into the mountains pretty darn quickly.
I had a quick 1½ hour nap right before we got into Johnstown... or maybe it was really only an hour. I'm not quite sure what time I dropped off, but I was guessing that it was sometime around 11, having boarded the train and had a chance to settle in. I woke up at 12:20 or so. I've also noticed that at higher speeds that swaying of the railroad car that I was so unenamored of really lessens. All in all, I'm thinking this would be an agreeable way to travel if I had the money. It might be kind of cool to get a private compartment and cross the country this way, I bet. If I had the money. Of course, if I had the money to do that, I should damn well be spending it to pay off some bills.
There, I said it myself, you didn't have to remind me.
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