Identity Crisis

Since I started this blog, my profile has read:

My life is a mishmash of oddities that don't find a collective home many places. I live in the House of Eris with my partner of 13 years and our 4 yo son. By day I manage a non-profit and exert control over many projects. By night our family blurs all the lines that I've drawn perfectly straight during the day. It's a constantly changing world and I find myself reeling sometimes by the intensity.

Some analysis is in order.

My life is a mishmash of oddities that don't find a collective home many places.

This is probably still true, although the oddities are probably more welcome in Portland than mid-Michigan. My crisis with the mishmash really boils down to when do I really reveal my oddities? Where is the space that my true self shows? It's true that since I conceived my son my fun factor pretty much died and my ability to express anything but stress increased proportionally. Even in Portland that is still true. The stress of money, school, Stonetree's travel, Mr. Man's emotional outbursts and not having a date with my wife in 4 months seems to leave no time for the real me to shine through. It takes all my energy to act responsibly to get through the stressors of each day. My identity crisis begins in feeling like a boring, uninteresting person who works too much to be any fun.

I live in the House of Eris with my partner of 13 years and our 4 yo son.

It's now the House of Eris West. It's 14 years and our son is 5. All these changes are awesome and sweet. No crises here. Beautiful new city with more days with the two people I love most.

By day I manage a non-profit and exert control over many projects.

Aha. Now we come to the most unsettling part of the identity crisis. I left the non-profit 3 months ago after 8 years of service. They were kind of lame, but I had a rewarding professional career and I did no harm. Circle 180 degrees to a total profit-driven organization stinking of money, stock prices and deep incentive packages for executives. (My coworker says our CEO got $8 million in stock options last year.) I walk daily among El Corpo and its zombies. The Corporation (the movie) was on point. It's a sick place to work (and I know this after three months), yet I go in every day eager to please. I remind myself that I like my supervisor, a man clearly bound for upper echelon executive leadership within 5-10 years, who I think is a "good guy." I work every day doing a good job, but am so out of place. Because I am who I am, I learn everything new there is to learn, not because I'm interested but because it's a challenge. But underneath there are rumblings that say "What are you doing here and what does this mean about who you are?" My wife would chuckle because I've always said it doesn't matter what I do as long as I do a good job. I'm learning that's not the truth about me. I'm not sure where my professional place is. I don't think I have a calling. But I don't think a 2000-employee, NYSE-listed, financial services corporation is it. Maybe it is and I'm just scared of what it means if I build a career here. I feel lost, both internally about this issue and consumed by this corporation.

By night our family blurs all the lines that I've drawn perfectly straight during the day.

Well, the blurring continues. My wife is "branching out" on a personal level and I'm excited for her. She and I have really, really good times together and it is renewing and refreshing. Mr. Man and I try to stay in the flow and in these ways I release some of the linear-bound world of my days.

It's a constantly changing world and I find myself reeling sometimes by the intensity.

This continues to be the essential truth. Remove the sometimes. Each day is the same, but also different and I'm truly wiped out by the time sleep overcomes me. I told a friend in the last few months that life is good, but hard, which is what I think it means to live anyway. Having always been a fairly intense person, I wonder if the intense life is attracted to me or if I call out to the intense life. If it's the latter, I wonder how to stop sending that signal. I'm exhausted.

So what to write now as a way to define me? Right now I think this:

My life is an intense tug-of-war between responsibility and the true expression of my essence. I live in the House of Eris West with my wife of 14 years and our 5 yo son. By day I am consumed by a corporation and spit out at night to a family who fulfills, sustains and exhausts me. I move through constant change and arrive on new shores hoping to find more of myself in each sunrise.

Bus Rides

Portland loves its transit system, as well it should. It rocks. Here's a sampling of transit experiences in the last three months:

• My daily commute takes me eye-level past a gigantic eagle's next. I have seen the eaglet peeking out of the nest.


• Mr. Man charms the pants off of every bus driver--except for the one and only grumpy driver we encountered when we thought we could ride the #14 around in a circle past the end of the line. She snarled at us, "Last stop. Last stop. How many times do I have to say it?" We got off her bus, walked 100 feet to the next bus hut and got back on her bus after she took her 1 minute idle in the parking lot.


• The busses and trains all contain poetry. Art is present in bus huts and light rail stations. It's not a boring or ugly ride.


• The handicapper vans are all running on biodiesel. There are hybrid busses.


• A regular driver for my evening commute regularly cracks jokes about street names or says things like, "Next stop - Las Vegas."

Silence.