Firm & Consistent Progress.

A friend of mine recently moved into a 3 bedroom house that she’s renting with her boyfriend up in the Berkeley Hills.

The process for her of finding this house was not easy. She looked for over a year for the right place, staying as she was in the rental house in East Oakland, where her car got broken into twice, and her home once. They looked and looked. They raised their price point to see if maybe that would bring something in. They looked still.

At one point, she tells me, she broke down to her boyfriend in despair, saying that nothing was happening, that they’re right were they were a year earlier.

He said to her, No. We’re making firm and consistent progress.

She felt calmed. “Firm and consistent progress.” Not, “going nowhere,” “nothing changing,” but “Firm and consistent progress.” Alright. She could get behind that.

Not long afterward, they found this house, which fit into their original, lower price range. And it’s gorgeous; and she’s happy.

I remembered this story this morning, because I became aware of something. I’ve spoken a lot here about my reluctance to take on responsibility, that responsibility for me had meant more than I was developmentally able to do when I was young, and so I have a “thing” about shirking it.

But what I realized, is that it’s not necessarily responsibility that I avoid, it’s consistency.

I am not a very consistent, or reliable person in many ways. I have felt too flighty, too magpie – ooh shiny! – to stay in one spot, or one job for too long. Even this blog has been difficult for me to maintain on a daily basis.

One of the positions that I’m in the running for, I was reflecting this morning, will demand that I hone and discover the quality of consistency. Because of the nature of the work, I would have to be “on top of” several things, repeatedly, and consistently, in order to garner the kind of support and engagement the job expects.

Oy. This is not an ingrained skill in me. Or, at least, I haven’t seen it as one. When I’d considered my dislike of responsibility, and recognized its effect on my professional and personal life, it made sense as a reflection of how I grew up. When I look at consistency and how that might have been a quality that was skipped in my development, I can plainly see why as well.

There were the days, or even hours, when things were good. And others were showing up for me, and I was showing up. And then, things would turn, and it was “abandon ship.” This cycle of calm and storm was so … consistent in itself, that that kind of existence became the norm for me.

There’s always been a period of calm, and a period of storm in my life. Sometimes, perhaps even most or all of the time, I’ve been the impetus of that storm. Don’t get too comfortable where you are – things are about to shift.

Oh yes, I feel that. It’s why I’ve moved so much; it’s why my friendships ebb and flow; it’s why my relationships always dissolve – or erupt – after a few weeks or months.

I have no experience with “firm and consistent progress.” I have experience with one step forward and two steps back. I have experience with, as my college roommate told me, being “always one step behind where [I] want to be.”

Consistency. What is that like??

And, moreover, consistently showing up to my responsibilities, for my friends, for *gasp* relationships?

I honestly have no idea. I have switched jobs every two years or fewer since I was 16. I have moved every two years or fewer since I was 18.

The moving thing is occurring more to me now. In my first month of college, each year beginning in a new room or house, I would have rather bad insomnia. After the first two years, though, alcohol helped that. When I moved to Korea, the day I landed, we went out to the bar and got shitfaced. The night I moved to San Francisco, I insisted that we stop in all the bars we could as my friend/acquaintance and I walked down Divisidero.

When I moved, sober, into a new place within San Francisco, I had anxiety flutters the whole time I was moving. And now, I’ve been having trouble sleeping for 3 nights in a row. Which is rare for me.

Except during these times of actual change. It’s like a switch gets thrown, and all my fight or flight instincts get kicked up, even though there’s nothing to fight or flee.

Faced with the opportunity, no matter how this job thing comes down, that come Monday morning, I am sure to have a new job, I’m a little fucked up.

I know that either will give me the opportunity to be consistent, but one demands it more directly in its job responsibilities. Consistent outreach, consistent updates, consistent ensurance that the company name and mission get out there in several ways, on a regular basis.

On a regular basis. What on earth does regularity mean? I haven’t learned that in my bones yet. My bones are still primed for don’t you fucking trust a damn thing to remain as it is. What an exhausting way to live life? I’ve perpetuated the story. I’ve made decisions that would give me new evidence that things in life are not to be trusted or relied upon.

I’ve made decisions that would inform others that I’m not to be relied upon. And so they don’t. They expect me to flake. To be engaged for a period of time, and then withdraw. To be totally around and happy to be there, and then to be removed and distant.

I have learned that to be engaged is a temporary thing. I have learned and honed my skill of doing the same thing I learned from others – to allow others to depend on me, and then to pull the rug out. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I guess, I’m looking forward to trying out this thing called “consistency.” To attempt, however falteringly and humanly, to show up engaged on a regular basis. I also imagine that I’ll have internal reactionary moments, of This is too scary, This can’t go on being good. I may have more moments of self-sabotage. But, perhaps, on the road to learning how to be a responsible and consistent woman, I can be comforted by knowing I’m making “Firm and Consistent Progress.”