Miss Ellen

I experienced a huge high and a huge low when I got home from work yesterday. Plosk and I made brownies, bonded with some Lord of the Rings, and basically hung out for a good many hours. The nice evening continued when I signed onto my friend Ellen's blog and found she had written about me and her and how our lives oddly parallel. She was complimentary and kind and it's not often one gets to see themselves from another person's perspective. It was a lovely find.

About 10 minutes later I found someone from my past online- and here I won't go into detail for a variety of reasons. But it was someone I used to be very close with. Lets just say that the information I found made me doubt the person I knew and the person I am. It made me wonder how I could not have seen this grotesque person for what they were when I knew them. Possibly this online thing was a joke, but it certainly does not reflect the person I had been so close to. It made me wonder whether I was a good judge of character or if perhaps I just make people fit into the categories I want them to in order to make my life easier. Plosk stayed up with me talking until sometime past 1 when we went to sleep. I was shaken. I was terrified. And my brain was thrown in 20 different directions. Plosk reminded me of the blog I had read earlier that day in which a wonderful person said she looks up to me. It quieted my mind but did not shut it off. Many years ago and still to this day I have a tendency to make people what I want them to be in my mind- so now my question is: what have I conjured and what is real? I don't like every aspect of any single person I know. And that goes for myself too. But I would like to accept people for their damaged humanity instead of changing them to fit my needs.

It was an interesting evening. And really, in some ways, I broke. But I'm going to end with my friend Ellen's words. This is a link to her blog and what she wrote about me and her and how our lives have strange connections.

www.thesocialcavity.com

the guacamole is holy

do you ever have those people in your life that are so very different from you, but somehow your lives parallel constantly? my friend ali jane, who went through the same k-12 and college as me- only a year ahead- is that person to me. we both spent high school riding horses and being awkward, only a year apart and with similar friends, but hardy knowing one another at all. then we both ended up in college at sarah lawrence– only after we had transferred from first-year schools that didn't quite fit us (me from mount holyoke, her, i forget but something similar), and after both taking a year off after high school, too. then, our parallel lives diverged once more when we both ended up taking the same class at slc, the anthropology of animal rights. in it, we both shamefully dealt with the huge contradiction of being vegan fashion models (her more gracefully than me). yes, she was a model too. but she was the opposite kind: super skinny and blond. yes, she ate. nary a calorie-restricting diet. she actually even had to gain weight for her agency. i remember witnessing her pain as she downed hershey bar after hershey bar in order to go to japan. ha. now here i am working on losing weight for my agency, and still with a year to go at slc. you see how it's the same, but different? black and white. i love ali, she's one of the strongest, smartest, most down to earth people i've ever known. and i've always looked up to her; it seems every choice she makes is a conscious and well-defined one, like that nothing she does doesn't have a reason. anyway, point of the story is that thanks to the miracle of the www and lady luck's new myspace, i'm back in touch with her and low and behold, she's gone and gotten hitched! zoinks! congrats to the young bride and groom!!!