Here's one thing so revelatory for me in your writing on domesticity: scenes of my life I previously saw as harbingers of doom now seem like the vivid, embodied work of creative living. Like someone's stony face at seven a.m. when I'm trying to get his opinion on a new approach to living! Like a house loud with plastic toys and television and sugary snacks because it turns out he's right, what I thought were my parenting principles were simply an investment in progressive-bourgeois conformity! All this is, it turns out, MY LIFE, and "living a full life isn’t about escape. It’s about getting all tangled up and twisted in a web of recalcitrant souls, hoping to honor their needs, hoping to help, hoping to get your needs met along the way somehow." Some kinds of compromise are not the death of my soul, but its birth!
I spent my whole decades-long writer's adolescence believing that because I wanted to be entangled, I wasn't really a writer, and finally you are teaching me that it's not true. Please know that if you are ever too socially bored in your new life in Durham, a talkative reader of yours and her talkative three-year-old drive up from Athens, GA to read your tarot and start any necessary nonsense. (shamala.gallagher@gmail.com)
@LW yes! Mid -30s here and thinking your question about people wanting friends in their mid-30s means I need to get off my ass and find (or make) an Ask Polly fan club
Bravo. So much truth. My arc so similar and my personalized fear monster strangling my ability to be flexible and making healthy changes so dang difficult.
"I have wings, and I believe I can fly. But sometimes, my wings are boneless."
Oof - dude. EXACTLY. That sentence hit me so hard I (metaphorically) looked over my shoulder. One of the many great things (I believe) about Ask Polly is how universal your advice is - even while it's sooooo wonderfully tailored to the question being answered. I'm not at all in the same situation as AOAO, but I relate deeply to the fear and indecision they describe. And Polly - your response gives so much, even to those of us outside of AOAO's circumstances. Thanks again.
> I’m afraid of driving by the Applebee’s where I worked as a teenager and having a strong urge > to crash my car straight through the giant sign that says DOUBLE CRUNCH BONELESS WINGS > $7.99!
Cracking up because I ALSO moved back to my hometown (more or less) last year at the beginning of the panini, somewhat by accident, and this is basically my exact process every time I see that Applebee's out the window. (Coincidentally, someone DID crash their car through the sign/front door of said Applebee's in the not-too-distant past, but no word on whether it was hometown angst or not.)
Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing how you handle this trip into the past as a way of understanding my own situation better.
As always, amazing advice. BUT (omg, "BUT"?!!) ... yeah, but. I guess, it's that, ... you're magnificent at spinning a doable future from a seeming wreck-situation, Polly. But in this one instance, I was halted at the *absolute belief* that AOAO would or should go with him (IF he gets a job at all, and IF he gets one elsewhere; these things are all up in the air right now in academia; I know from experience). More directly, the assumption that AOAO will go with him guides her letter, and it guides your advice. But what if she doesn't go? What if she waits for a stronger committment (I'm not a prude, but was he planning to propose? Was she?)? It needn't be the condition for moving with him, but it seems like at least some sort of quasi-promise of some sort of pact to try, to try to meet each other in the middle. Moving to follow one person's career may end up being moving to follow that person in more ways than one. I don't know. I'm skeptical. At the same time, there's this: "Imagine throwing yourself into a new life and not sweating the small stuff too much (the way I did years ago). Picture welcoming a bewildering new reality instead of resisting it. Resist neurotic storytelling about the future and make room for surprises and yes, disappointments. Make enough space for an exciting and deeply imperfect life." Lovely, as always!
Wonderful advice, as always. It sounds like the LW and her partner have a great relationship. While it won't be easy to relocate and create a new community, it can be done, and the LW can definitely do it.
Here's one thing so revelatory for me in your writing on domesticity: scenes of my life I previously saw as harbingers of doom now seem like the vivid, embodied work of creative living. Like someone's stony face at seven a.m. when I'm trying to get his opinion on a new approach to living! Like a house loud with plastic toys and television and sugary snacks because it turns out he's right, what I thought were my parenting principles were simply an investment in progressive-bourgeois conformity! All this is, it turns out, MY LIFE, and "living a full life isn’t about escape. It’s about getting all tangled up and twisted in a web of recalcitrant souls, hoping to honor their needs, hoping to help, hoping to get your needs met along the way somehow." Some kinds of compromise are not the death of my soul, but its birth!
I spent my whole decades-long writer's adolescence believing that because I wanted to be entangled, I wasn't really a writer, and finally you are teaching me that it's not true. Please know that if you are ever too socially bored in your new life in Durham, a talkative reader of yours and her talkative three-year-old drive up from Athens, GA to read your tarot and start any necessary nonsense. (shamala.gallagher@gmail.com)
@LW yes! Mid -30s here and thinking your question about people wanting friends in their mid-30s means I need to get off my ass and find (or make) an Ask Polly fan club
One of the GREAT titles, Heather! (Also Ask Polly has very smart commenters!)
Bravo. So much truth. My arc so similar and my personalized fear monster strangling my ability to be flexible and making healthy changes so dang difficult.
"I have wings, and I believe I can fly. But sometimes, my wings are boneless."
Oof - dude. EXACTLY. That sentence hit me so hard I (metaphorically) looked over my shoulder. One of the many great things (I believe) about Ask Polly is how universal your advice is - even while it's sooooo wonderfully tailored to the question being answered. I'm not at all in the same situation as AOAO, but I relate deeply to the fear and indecision they describe. And Polly - your response gives so much, even to those of us outside of AOAO's circumstances. Thanks again.
Welcome back to Durham! We're lucky to have you again.
> I’m afraid of driving by the Applebee’s where I worked as a teenager and having a strong urge > to crash my car straight through the giant sign that says DOUBLE CRUNCH BONELESS WINGS > $7.99!
Cracking up because I ALSO moved back to my hometown (more or less) last year at the beginning of the panini, somewhat by accident, and this is basically my exact process every time I see that Applebee's out the window. (Coincidentally, someone DID crash their car through the sign/front door of said Applebee's in the not-too-distant past, but no word on whether it was hometown angst or not.)
Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing how you handle this trip into the past as a way of understanding my own situation better.
As always, amazing advice. BUT (omg, "BUT"?!!) ... yeah, but. I guess, it's that, ... you're magnificent at spinning a doable future from a seeming wreck-situation, Polly. But in this one instance, I was halted at the *absolute belief* that AOAO would or should go with him (IF he gets a job at all, and IF he gets one elsewhere; these things are all up in the air right now in academia; I know from experience). More directly, the assumption that AOAO will go with him guides her letter, and it guides your advice. But what if she doesn't go? What if she waits for a stronger committment (I'm not a prude, but was he planning to propose? Was she?)? It needn't be the condition for moving with him, but it seems like at least some sort of quasi-promise of some sort of pact to try, to try to meet each other in the middle. Moving to follow one person's career may end up being moving to follow that person in more ways than one. I don't know. I'm skeptical. At the same time, there's this: "Imagine throwing yourself into a new life and not sweating the small stuff too much (the way I did years ago). Picture welcoming a bewildering new reality instead of resisting it. Resist neurotic storytelling about the future and make room for surprises and yes, disappointments. Make enough space for an exciting and deeply imperfect life." Lovely, as always!
Wonderful advice, as always. It sounds like the LW and her partner have a great relationship. While it won't be easy to relocate and create a new community, it can be done, and the LW can definitely do it.