Out of the Wild - Part 1

I’m about to turn 30 years old, and I’ve been thinking a lot about Chris McCandless. 

The story of Chris McCandless and Into the Wild (the book and the film) have woven through my life for many years. 

In 1990, Chris graduated from Emory University.  He was born in California and raised in Virginia.  After graduating, Chris gave his savings to charity and started backpacking and hitchhiking around the US.  In April 1992 he hitchhiked to Alaska and backpacked into the Alaskan bush to try to live off the land.  In August 1992 he starved to death in the Magic Bus he was living in (toxic plants he ate may have contributed to his death).  He was 24 years old.

In 1996, Jon Krakauer wrote Into the Wild about Chris’s journey, and it became a national bestseller.  In 2007 the film Into the Wild was released, written and directed by Sean Penn, starring Emile Hirsch. 

In 2007, I took a year off from college and spent six months backpacking around Europe solo, sometimes staying with and traveling with friends.  I saw the film Into the Wild for the first time around 2008, and Chris McCandless reminded me a bit of myself, but more of my high school boyfriend.  I’d caught his attention because I’d read Jack Kerouac, he caught my attention because he was reading Sartre for fun.  He was an outdoorsman and (along with the tumult of young love) tapped into my sense of adventure.  We traveled to Alaska together one year for spring break, stayed in a hostel, slept in a park one night, and Alaska is still the only place I’ve hitchhiked.  We were long broken up by 2008, but I pined for years.  Seeing a character that reminded me of him dying alone in a bus in the Alaskan bush made me cry buckets.  

The second time I saw the film was in 2010, a lot had changed in just a few years.  I went to film school and graduated, and was in the midst of what I now call my Vagabond Years as I bounced around the country and worked on farms.  My ex was married and having kids.  I watched the movie on a laptop in the yurt I lived in, in a field with two llamas, part of an Intentional Community at an abandoned lumber mill that was often described as post-apocalyptic.  I realized that now I was the Chris McCandless of this story, and that was exciting and terrifying.  I had sought adventure and found it, but Chris’s story was a cautionary tale for me.  Dying alone in a bus in Alaska was not on my To Do list.  I did date two different guys who lived in busses (different busses, in different states!) around that time, but that’s a story for another time. 

In 2011 I was living in rural Montana as part of AmeriCorps, building a garden at a middle school in a town of 500 people.  I picked up a copy of Krakauer’s Into the Wild and read it as I meandered back to California, stopping in Yellowstone, camping an Intentional Community, and Couchsurfing.  I was 25, and in Part 2 of a 2-Part Quarter-Life Crisis.  While in Montana I realized that I needed to move back to LA and really give my career as a filmmaker a shot.  I’d been vagabonding around the country for three years following graduation, and it was bittersweet to know that chapter was coming to an end. 

As I read Into the Wild it stood out to me that as McCandless is dying in the bus, after working so hard to escape society, he realizes that connection with other people is what matters in life.  In a copy of Doctor Zhivago found with him in the bus he had written, “HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.”  I vowed to not be as stubborn as Chris McCandless, for it to not take starving in a bus in Alaska to teach me that connection with other people helps bring meaning to our lives.  For three years my challenge had been to push out of my comfort zone, to see how minimal my life could be.  My new challenge was to learn to stay in one place and let people into my life, to share my adventures. 

(Continued in Part 2) 

Out of the Wild - Part 2

(Continued from Part 1) 

In 2012 I moved into my own apartment in Los Angeles.  After subletting and staying in other people’s homes for years, I finally had a space I could make a home.  I got the keys to apartment 206 on my 26^th birthday, and it felt like I was in the right place at the right time.  It took a while for me to really unpack my things, and I still kept my camping gear in my car for a while.  Whenever I saw coyotes on my street it felt comforting, like I wasn’t the only wild animal in the city. 

Next week I'll turn 30 and will have lived in the same apartment for four years, the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I was in elementary school.  I made a list of 30 things I wanted to do before I turned 30 and a few weeks ago I crossed off “Visit the Salton Sea/Salvation Mountain/Slab City.”  The Salton Sea is a man-made lake south-east of Los Angeles (near Coachella), Salvation Mountain is a surreal monument to Universal Love and Jesus made by a man named Leonard Knight.  Slab City is a makeshift community of snowbirds, hippies and squatters nicknamed “The Last Free Place.”  Salvation Mountain and Slab City are featured in the film Into the Wild, Chris really spent time there and met Leonard Knight.

I’d been trying to get to Slab City for years and thought I would really like it there, perhaps even feel at home.  I didn’t realize how strange it might seem that I expected to feel at home in a post-apocalyptic wasteland until I was there with a friend who well…didn’t know about that part of my life.  Slab City is like Burning Man (yes, I’ve been) all year round, except no one was friendly.  And I expected to feel at home there…?  We explored a sculpture garden in East Jesus (an artist community within Slab City) and dug the art, but after that we were pretty glad to leave.  We drove to Joshua Tree and thankfully found a spot to camp.

I tried to explain to my friend why I expected to feel a connection to Slab City, the Chris McCandless story and my post-apocalyptic past, but was struggling to understand all of it myself.  I had grown, I had changed.  I stayed in one place for four years, I’ve lived in a city for four years.  I am no longer that wild animal, I’ve been domesticated.  I’d often joked about my domestication, but now it was staring me in the face and I wasn’t laughing.  I love my apartment, I'm glad I've been able to stay in one place, but it’s strange to be able to see a chapter closing in your life.  I felt it at 25 in Montana, as I knew my Vagabond Years were coming to a close.  But now, turning 30 felt like turning a corner and I felt a bit afraid that I don’t know what is around that corner. 

When I got home I got out my copy of Into the Wild and was surprised the things that jumped out at me.  How many people cared about Chris, wanted to help him with money/gear/transportation/emotional support, how strongly he rejected all of it and how much that hurt the people who wanted to help.  The fact that I’m sort of sad I never hopped freight trains like Chris did (and Kerouac, and many others) but also that I’m probably very glad I never did.  And that after two months in the wild, Chris had decided to return to society but was unable to cross the Teklanika River and went back to the Magic Bus.  I realized that if Chris had been about to walk out of the wild at 24, at 29 he might have felt a lot of the same things I’m feeling now. 

I've sometimes worried that the adventures of my 20's made me less date-able.  Guys often say they want someone to go on adventures with, but they aren't necessarily excited about a woman who has had a many adventures of her own.  There's a long history of men vagabonding/adventuring to find themselves, far fewer stories of women doing the same (which is part of why I loved the movie Wild, about Cheryl Strayed's trek on the Pacific Crest Trail).  But especially as I'm getting into my 30's, I'm trying to own my stories.  If someone is going to take issue with adventures from my past, they're probably not someone I want in my future.  

During my Vagabond Years when I needed strength I would say to myself, I’m ten feet tall and made of steel, and would repeat it until I found the strength/calm/nerve I needed.  In 2010 I took a solo road trip around the Southern US, starting in Austin, TX where I was living at the time.  I was 24, my life had just imploded, and I was trying to figure out what direction to go in.  I spent a lot of that trip crying, driving through the tears, and chanting to myself: I’m ten feet tall and made of steel, I’m ten feet tall and made of steel. Some say that young people feel invincible, I don’t think I innately felt invincible but was trying to convince myself that I was.  Walking toward 30, I am no longer trying to be ten feet tall and made of steel.  I am human, imperfect, vulnerable, and wonderfully so. 

To Ghost or Not To Ghost (A Millennial Question)

I’m fascinated by language and how it evolves, especially when we feel the need to create a new word. Sometimes I see clear connections between events and the words they create: cameras on cell phones became the norm, making it easier to take/share self-portraits, and self-portraits became “selfies.” Self-portraits are nothing new, but when we started talking about them more frequently, we created a new (shorter) word.  But there are other additions to our language that are more puzzling to me. Was there an increase in older women dating younger men that prompted us to create the term “cougar”?  How did “Netflix and chill” become code for “Let’s hook up”?

And why did “ghosting” become a thing? If you’re not familiar with the term, “ghosting” is when someone suddenly disappears from a relationship. One day you’re dating/involved with someone, and the next they don’t respond to texts, phone calls, etc.  This isn't a new phenomenon, but I think in the past it was just called “rude.”  However, when I recently posted on Facebook about how I think ghosting is rude, I was surprised to find many people were pro-ghosting.

I get why people want to ghost.  To start 2016 off with a Clean Slate I had to have several breakup conversations and we all hate those conversations, right?  Also, there are so many gray areas of dating, and it can be tough to tell what level involvement requires what level of breakup conversation.  But being the person who is ghosted on can range from awkward to heartbreaking.  If it's someone you went on a mediocre first date with, meh.  But if you've been exclusively dating for months, WTF.  

I tried to ghost a guy I met on New Years Eve this year, and couldn't do it.  He was texting me and I felt bad not responding at all, so I texted him something along the lines of "Let's just leave it at New Years" and he was cool about it.  And honestly, I felt so much better being upfront about it.

Part of what's so strange about ghosting is that it can be hard to tell if the person is ghosting or not.  If someone doesn't respond to one text, is that ghosting?  Or if you make vague plans but never solid plans?  And I realized that ghosting leaves a lot of room to assume the worst, either about the other person ("He/she never meant anything they said") or yourself ("*insert insecurity* is totally why he/she isn't texting me").  To anyone who ghosts, if you need incentive not to ghost, just assume that if you ghost the other person will think you're an asshole.  If you want them to think you're an asshole, then ghost away I suppose.

I'm currently in one of those "Is he ghosting...?" situations, which I don't have much patience for.  Part of what's been strange to me is that I worked with this guy a while back (not Boyfriend, he's history) so we actually know each other as people/have mutual friends/might have to work together again at some point, so ghosting seems extra awkward.  Also, he gave me his number (without me asking) and said, "Hit me up."  Why would someone do that if they don't actually want the person to contact them?  *reaction* 

The more I've dated, the more I value honesty and clarity.  Really, the more I've lived and interacted with human beings, the more I value honesty and clarity.  I like people who mean what they say and say what they mean.  I know this is easier said than done, I struggle with it myself.  I'm not dishonest but I have a hard time expressing what I want, especially in relationships.  But I'm working on it!  

Real talk: there are 2 exes that I don't respond to calls/texts from because they were abusive/are mentally unstable, and I stand by the decision to cut them out of my life.  I didn't ghost them, I had conversations to end the relationships.  If someone is threatening, abusive, or anything like that, abso-fucking-lutely tell them never to contact you again and cut them off.  But if you're not feeling the chemistry, or are too busy to do anything other than work and sleep, or whatever reason there may be, in my opinion be a grownup and just let the person know.  Don't be an asshole but don't be a ghost, or you know who I'm gonna call??

Flirting and Other Fine Arts - Part 1

I used to think I didn't know how to flirt (not that I'd say I'm an expert now) but I had an "A-Ha!" moment a few years ago:

I was at my hometown bar with friends and I was chatting with The Hot Bartender.  We were friendly and would chat whenever I came in.  I walked back to my friends and one said, "Wow, you were doing really well with him!  He's totally flirting with you!" and I was like, "What???  We were just talking!!"  That was when I realized, flirting is really just talking.  I'd thought I needed a line or a move, but flirting is just... talking.  With intention.  And a casual arm touch doesn't hurt.  

I've been thinking a lot about flirting lately.  What makes flirting flirting?  I've been working on set and in the film industry a lot of people flirt but it doesn't really mean anything.  I call it Work Flirting, like working in the service industry, you have to interact with a lot of people and it's a fuzzy line between being friendly and flirty.  One guy freely admitted that it was just a way to pass the time and if I called his bluff he would back down.  Honestly, Work Flirting that I know is Work Flirting is fine by me, it can be a fun break in long stressful days.

But how do you tell if someone is Work Flirting or Real Flirting?  Unfortunately, it's easier for me to Work Flirt (with guys I'm not actually interested in) than Real Flirt (with guys I'm actually interested in).  There was a guy on this job my friends started calling my Boyfriend, who I actually genuinely like, and I would get SO NERVOUS talking to him.  It felt like being a teenager again, we would find any stupid reason to talk to each other (we had basically no work reason to talk) and while we're talking in my head I'd be shouting at myself "SAY SOMETHING INTERESTING!!" but sometimes we'd just stand there smiling at each other like idiots.

Why are there some guys that I can't help but flirt with (either Work Flirting or Real Flirting) and other guys that I'm so nervous around that I'm nearly incapacitated?  I couldn't be friends with Sugar Ray Guy and B#9 was because we kept flirting with each other, even when we were trying to just be friends.  With both of them I found conversation pretty easy from the beginning, but there was alcohol involved and that can definitely help.  There was also more pressure at work, I only had a few instances each day to talk to him (our paths didn't cross often) whereas with SRG or B#9 we were hanging out one-on-one.  If I got to know Boyfriend (sorry/not sorry, the nickname stuck) better, would I be less nervous around him?

(Continued in Part 2)

Flirting and Other Fine Arts - Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

The intense nervousness is sort of adorable, but also frustrating.  At the start of his last day Boyfriend told me that he was leaving and why.  My friend had been pointing out for weeks how he was telling me personal information that he wasn't telling other people (you don't discuss anything meaningful/personal in Work Flirting, in my book).  On my 30 Before 30 List is "Ask a guy out on a date," and it seemed like a good opportunity.  At the end of our conversation, as we're walking away from each other (but were still facing each other, I don't remember why) I said, "We should get drinks!"  He gave me an inscrutable eyebrow raise, and I kept walking away because the only thing in my brain was, "OMG OMG OMG."  We were both very busy that day, and though he held direct eye contact with me whenever we would see each other, we didn't talk again until the end of the night.  He gave me a hug, said it was great to meet me and he'd see me on the next one.  I probably said something like, "Yeah, you too," but I don't remember because my thoughts = "WHAT?????"

I've had a few days off and spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to understand what had happened.  Was he just Work Flirting with me?  But then why did he tell me so much personal stuff?  And why did he seek me out so often?  Work Flirting is casual, usually with people you have to interact with often for work, but he and I didn't have to interact for our jobs.  But if he was Real Flirting with me, then why didn't he say something about getting drinks??  And unfortunately, my brain's normal response is that I messed it up somehow so I was replaying everything trying to figure out what I did wrong.  Ugh.  My friends said everything from, "He probably didn't mean to be flirting with you," to "Maybe he's out of practice dating, you should text him!"  I tried to stop thinking about it by throwing myself into work and then drinking.  My therapist said I needed to deal with it (not just try to work or drink my way out of my feelings).  Yeah.  So I journaled, painted, and gave myself time to think.

And then he texted me today.  Out of the blue, seemingly just to say hi.  It made me excited and happy, but also really really really really nervous.  Again.

Why am I sharing this?  I would love to hear that other people also get super nervous around people they like, and if anyone has ways that they deal with it (other than running away).  Also, I think it's funny when weird/awkward things happen to me, and sharing it makes me feel better.  In movies/tv/etc. we see guys getting very nervous around women but less often women getting very nervous around men (or those women are written as socially inept in general).  If anyone thinks that only guys get nervous around people they like, *ahem* women sometimes do too!

I'm also sharing because turned on myself like a Mean Girl, and it's something I'm working on.  I see it in how I write/talk about it, the amount of times I use words like "dumb" and "idiot."  I like to stay cool, calm and collected, and when there's someone I can't keep my cool around, I freak out even more.  People have always told me I'm hard on myself, I used to think it was a compliment, but I'm trying to be kinder to myself.  To the other perfectionists/overthinkers out there, I get you.  Give yourself a break.

There's a lyric from "Spiralling" by Keane: "When we fall in love/ We're just falling/ In love with ourselves."  I think the song as a whole is about how love can be narcissistic, but that lyric has always fascinated me.  When I fall in love, I'm not falling in love with myself, I'm looking for whatever parts of myself I need to hide or kill off in order for the person to like me.  I'm trying to hide the skeletons in my closet and/or choreographing their entrances. I think this is common to some extent, but recently it's concerned me. I'm looking for a way that falling in love can be falling in love with myself too, instead of tearing myself to pieces.  I know that it can be attractive when people are authentically themselves, but as Brene Brown says, "Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you."   Change isn't easy, but I think it's worth it.

Clean Slate 2016

Over the past year, people have talked to me about “making space.”  Was I making space for someone new?  Was my friendship with Bachelor #9 allowing space for the relationship I’m looking for?  Though I hoped I was making/allowing space, but how do you know? 

The New Year provided some inspiration and perspective.  I decided I wanted to start 2016 with a clean slate, which translated to initiating 3 different breakup conversations in December.  One was with the guy I mentioned in Five Things I Learned in 2015, who I had a “What Are We” conversation with that was interrupted by a Sugar Ray song.  He'd said he just wanted to be friends, but it was confusing because we flirted with each other a lot and kind of acted like we were in a relationship.  At the end of our “I Can’t Do This Anymore” conversation, in which he had been saying that he didn’t mean to be flirting with me, he said “I love you.”  

  

Though it was a frustrating situation and at times made me feel CRAZY, it helped in the long run because I could clearly see that he was saying one thing but doing another.  And my friends pointed out that that's exactly what Bachelor #9 had also been doing, and why I had a tough time being friends with him.  In Five Things I Learned in 2015 I wrote that I wasn't waiting for B#9 to get in contact with me and was all:

But I realized that wasn't entirely true.  I was trying to move on and date, but I was also trying to keep myself emotionally prepared so whenever he did reappear I wouldn't be completely destroyed.  It was like walking around every day waiting for someone to pop out and shout BOO! and punch you in the heart.  I felt powerless.  A major topic in our last conversation (in July) had been, "How can we be in each other's lives and not drive each other crazy?" and it seemed like his answer was for us to not be in each other's lives.  But he still had the option to pop into my life and I didn't have the option to pop into his, and that seemed unfair to me.  I would've liked to have a conversation about it, but I didn't think that was an option.  He had 5 months of space.  It's awful to be in love with someone who isn't going to pick you, but it won't get better the longer you wait.  On New Year's Eve I realized that I didn't want to drag that mess into 2016 with me.  I was trying to start off with a clean slate, and having the situation with B#9 unresolved was interfering.  Looking back I guess I could've tried to have more of a conversation with him about it, but after 5 months of him being MIA I figured the only option was to text him.  I sent him a long text that started off, "It's been 5 months and I'm tired of waiting for you to break my heart again when your schedule permits."  ^^This is what happens when you break a writer's heart.  He replied with a short text that said he never meant to hurt me, but it felt sort of cold.  It didn't make me feel better about all that had happened.  The year we'd spent trying to figure out how to be in each other's lives.  The 5 months I'd been waiting for him to reappear.  All the times I told myself that he would never disappear, because he'd said he never would.  Maybe he didn't mean to hurt me, but at some point I think he had to know that he was hurting me and it hurt even more that he couldn't take responsibility for his actions.  I listened to the Tame Impala's album Currents a LOT in 2015, and there's a line in the song "Eventually" that seemed fitting: "I know I always said that I could never hurt you/ Well this is the very, very last time I'm ever going to." I also got rid of the things in my apartment that were connected to the exes of 2015: notes I'd written of things I wanted to talk to B#9 about, a necklace from the night I met Sugar Ray guy, records that another ex gave me.  I still miss B#9 and Sugar Ray guy, but I'm trying to give it time.  I've been working a lot, and that helps in some ways, but also doesn't leave time for dating.  As I'm clearing space I'm also aware that my tendency is to fill that space in my life with whoever comes along, and I'm trying hold that space for someone who will be a healthy part of my life, whose words and actions line up, who is able to offer what I'm looking for (and vice versa).  Recently I was missing Sugar Ray guy and looked through old texts to remind myself of how confusing that situation was, so I wouldn't get myself back into it.  I saw a text about that night when we had the What Are We conversation in the bar, and he'd really wanted to put a song on the jukebox.  I'd later asked about what song it was and he sent me the video:


It's a cover of an 80's song, and the chorus is: "I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say/ I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be/ But if you wait around a while, I'll make you fall for me, I promise, I promise you I will..."
And I remembered how confusing it was.  So I didn't text him.  Thanks, Sugar Ray guy.