Haiku - April 30

Morning brings the move

Two homes combined into one

Two hearts together

Please don't die onstage

Been thinking a lot about age and death and the word “never” recently. I’m letting it all get to me a bit too much and when I get tired and weak my fear controls me. It seems like I am reminded about goodbyes and endings and death every where I turn. Like right this second. 79 year old Grady Tate is onstage singing… kinda. He’s in the midst of dementia or Alzheimer’s and his rehearsal started at 3p today. Right now it’s 10p and he’s tired and kind of confused. In the middle of his first song “Day by Day” he stopped and said to the audience “You know, I’ve sung this song 3000 times…. And this is the first time…. That I didn’t sing it very well.” He looked like he was giving up. He walked off after the second song, like he was done. The organizer and other singer, has kept him onstage and it’s almost over. But is this the last time he’ll be singing these songs in front of people?

New plan of inaction

The thing is, I wasn’t ready for change. Maybe I didn’t see it coming or maybe I wasn’t used to noticing it. But the truth is, my world is different now and I’ve got to come to terms with that. My mother turned 60 today. My parents are aging. My father may never work in the field that he loves again. My body isn’t as fit or lean as it used to be. I’ll never work with Leo again. Money is more than something I need for right not, but something I need for my future. My never ending dreams of running away are running away from me this time. I packed up my identity as a MPDG as something in the past. My sister will be engaged by the end of the year and moved to Chicago. I won’t ever travel as much as I used to.

I’m growing up. I don’t necessarily hate it. This isn’t hate I’m feeling, maybe a little bit of fear or desperation. I need to turn it into motivation. I feel a need to have something to show for my life.

So far I’ve been going along relatively peaceful. The only chances I ever took were fueled by mental illness masquerading as passion. I’m working in a theater because it’s the only thing I’ve ever known. I live in Pittsburgh for the same reason. I’m 30 and I still have no clue what makes me happy or who I am. My identity is so convoluted and contradictory that I’m not sure I even know how to end this sentence.

Or this blog post. I wish there was someone with advice. I might actually be old enough to start listening this time.

Haiku - April 27

My world is changing

Aging without my consent

I wasn't prepared

To be 30

At quarter after 10p tonight, East Coast time, and whatever Hawaii time, I was referred to as Aunt Kate.... AUNT KATE!

The baby in the Skype screen was only 9 months so it wasn't her but it was her parents and right now they're what count.

And this is AWESOME!

I am now 30.

I am finally done defrauding the public library and am in good standing, for the first time in years.

I schedule an appointment to give blood. To save babies and cancer patients.

I'm not biting my nails. At this moment.

I attended my first Seder. And I think I passed... probably with a B or B-.

I'm ready to clean out my possessions and move into a house. Now.

I've started a list of Goals for my 30th Year.

And I'm excited.

And I'm Aunt Kate!

Haiku - April 19

I just turned 30

I have to slow down my pace

Cherish all seconds

Haiku - April 18

Budgets are painful

Numbers swirling around me

All of them are wrong

Haiku - April 8

The warm sweet kitchen

Cupcakes piled to the sky

Too tired to taste

Cupcakes broke my back.

Last night I baked and decorated almost 200 mini cupcakes. They were added to about 8 dozen cookies that had been baked this week. Hopefully many of them will be eaten tomorrow at my parents semi-surprise birthday party. They both turn 60 this year while I’m turning 30. This party was the brain child of my non-official adopted little sister who goes by Tink and designed by her and Andy. It’s being executed by a team of us with our counterparts adding support, encouragement, and a whole lot of cooking! Last night the sisters gathered at my apartment with my boyfriend while I tried to bang out the last of the cooking and decorating. It was a fun atmosphere interrupted by burst of frustration and clumsiness. By the end of the night I was exhausted and sore and not finished. But I looked back on the work with a sense of accomplishment and more importantly, family. Working on this project has brought us close and I feel thankful for every tired, sticky, messy second of it.

I had it all figured out at 16.

I was uncontrollably distracting myself from my dirty dishes and 16 red items when one of my mindless clicks left me looking at a picture of a piece of notebook paper in a three-ring binder with words drawn on it, covering it’s entirety. Words including University and Dream and Depression. This wasn’t an assignment or a piece of art for the wall. It was one freshman girl’s way of taking thoughts out of her mind and putting them in front of her, to make them more real or more confrontable.

Four or so clicks later someone had posted a clip of Ani Difranco reciting one of her spoken words pieces. Those used to be called poems. The combination of those two triggers in close proximity brought me back to high school, listening to her folky words and her hands strumming my angst for me. I wrote a rambling poem about my first boyfriend at 15 and I would read it out loud to no one in Ani Difranco’s style. Sometimes I still read my unwritten poems in my head in that style. But not often anymore.

The lady at the doctor’s office rushed in to take my temperature and blood pressure. She said “Wow, I can’t believe it’s April 6^th already.” Right before she stuck the thermometer under my tongue I snuck in “Time’s moving faster because we’re all too busy.” 120 over 80. Whatever that means.

It all comes back to how we decide to spend our days. We lost four months and six days since the beginning of this year and what are we showing for it? We’re never caught up enough to enjoy a moment just sitting. I say “we” but I just mean “me” and I’m secretly hoping there’s other like me out there.

Even when I sit all of those bills and to-dos and e-mails stick to the walls inside my brain. It’s been a long time since I sat down and cleaned it out in there. Took everything out and placed it neatly on a sheet of paper, making sure all the words had a place. I have spent years avoiding myself and now I don’t have the time to spend with me anyway.

I want to doodle on a notebook paper or write an angsty poem about turning 30 or maybe just rock out to some Ani.

But that will have to wait until the gift bags are made and the cookies are baked and the e-mails are sent and the bills are paid.

Haiku - April 6

Words inside my head

I want to write them all down

To see if I’m lost

Haiku - April 5

I smell the wet world

Walking in my squeaky shoes

Pavement and puddles

The return of the flow poem.

Battles I’m fighting today:

No energy to work.

Can’t focus on anything.

Gray and rainy weather.

And cold.

Fear of dying.

Heart beats faster.

Panic at my own mortality.

Jumpy.

Fear of losing my job.

Being hungry.

And too heavy.

And eating too much lunch.

Turning 30 in 12 days.

24 red items.

23 in a minute.

Dry elbows.

Want a drink.

The flask is in my bag.

I can reach it.

Making money stretch this month.

Must pay taxes.

Messy desk.

Squeaky shoe.

Wasting time.

Writing flow poem.

Haiku - April 1

Evil internet

How you distract me from work

I must focus now

I will find my passion under a pile of 23 things.

23 red items on my to-do list. Red mean’s they’re overdue by my own deadline system. Yet I distract myself like everyone else does with mindless news on the internet or sometimes, way too long looking at the site Etsy.com. It’s a marketplace for handmade items and I’m going through a phase where I love to waste time looking at products and figuring out how they’re made and if I can make them myself. I get lost in day dreams of quitting my job and staying home in my big 3 floor house with a sunny yard and crafting all day. I’d never get distracted then except maybe by a kid or two. I’d be doing something I’m passionate about.

I’m envious of people who have found their passion and I wonder what happened to mine. Have I ever had it? I’ve been doing technical theater since I was 11. It’s the only world I’ve ever lived in. But as much as I’ve immersed myself in it, I find my interest lacking. I’m not reading plays in my spare time, or researching new technology, or posting on message boards to connect with my fellow techies. Isn’t that what passion is? Hell, sometimes I hate my job.

So in my almost 30 years, I’ve tried a lot of different crafts albeit mostly for short periods of time. There’s been dozens of phases and they’ve never stopped. I keep thinking that the one time I try something I’m going to fall in love with it! Find my passion!

Is it like falling in love? Because no one’s figured that out. Take my example. It took me 3 months of fighting it tooth and nail before I admitted that I was in a kind of love I’d never found before.

So here I am staring at the red number 23 (which is my favorite number). My rule has always been: You can finally do fun things when your to-do list is totally done and you’re all caught up. I’ve been saying that to myself for years and this Cinderella never seems to get to go to the ball.

Focus more, finish work quickly, play, find passion, make it your work.