scorched

Well, this happened yesterday. 

I was heating up some oil to fry something--actually I was going to make churros and hot chocolate for a book club activity that I planned for some ladies in the ward and it was gonna be delicious. (I did end up doing book club anyway. Only three people came. Maybe the universe told them the churro part wasn't gonna work out. But it was fun anyway and we had some good conversation. Also it was a nice distraction. I was a little traumatized by the events of the afternoon.)

The oil got too hot and started smoking. You can see the pan I was using sitting on the stove. It's a heavy cast iron dutch oven with a lid. I turned down the heat on the burner. (Mistake. I should have just turned it off completely.) Several seconds later, the smoke was getting much much worse. I decided to take off the lid. (Mistake. I should have left it covered.)

When the smoke got oxygen, the thing lit up in flames. I've seen oil do this before--in fact this happened in the very same pot on the same burner last week when the city was shut down for a snow day. (Mistake: I didn't think to avoid repeating the same conditions when I went to make the churros for the book club.) I was making a practice round of churros because I had never made them before. There wasn't as much oil in the pan last week, and it was small enough to be easily carried outside and chucked in the deepest snow this part of NC has seen for a few years. 

I don't usually deep fry, though. (Mistake: I didn't renew my knowledge of fire safety before engaging in this cooking activity that I'm inexperienced in.) So la dee dah, I didn't think much of it.

The next few minutes were scary. Cue adrenaline and all that. I tried to put the lid back on the pot, but the flame was too big and it slid right off. I couldn't use a hot pad and carry the pan outside as we had done before--the flame was too big. I think maybe a fire extinguisher crossed my mind briefly. (We have one and I knew where it was--just down the hall from the kitchen.) But I have never used one before, and I think I dismissed the thought because it didn't seem like a quick solution to me. (Mistake: I should have used the fire extinguisher.) So I thought water. (Mistake. Do not try water.) I filled up a container with water and tried to splash it on the flame. It just sputtered and grew, and some flames dropped onto the floor even. I even got a little scorched on my arm and forehead (just a slight skin irritation; it's gone now), so I was like,

"Wow, I just set my entire house on fire."

At that point, I decided it was beyond my ability to control. I ran upstairs and got the kids away from the computer. "WE GOTTA GET OUTSIDE!!" (They were watching a show, but I'm glad they understood the urgency in my voice. It takes a lot to pull S away from the TV) I grabbed my phone and called 911 on my way out

That was my first time calling 911. I was kind of upset and the dispatcher asked me all these lame questions like what kind of structure my house was and how many floors it had and all that, and I said something like, "Can you just give me advice on how to put this out?" He said no. "Don't do anything to put it out. The fire department is on the way." I thought that was dumb because, hello open flame. I wish he would've walked me through how to use the fire extinguisher or even asked if we had one (we have one, I just need some help to use it apparently), because I probably could've avoided some damage.

Who knows, though. While I was on the phone, I peeked back in and was relieved to see that the flame looked smaller, or like it may have even died completely. As I was on the phone, Tim pulled up. He told me later that he thought we came outside to greet him as he was getting home from work. I was on the phone with 911, though, and I told him there was a fire inside, and S. was holding his ears and smoke alarms were going off everywhere. (Oh, I guess they do work. Good to know. Last week they didn't seem affected by the failed deep-frying experiment.)

Tim looked at the flame, went upstairs to get a towel to smother it (Why did he grab one of our nicest towels? Men.), but by the time he came back downstairs, it had self-extinguished. Shortly after that the firefighters arrived. 

I tried hard to be invisible to the firefighters because I felt super dumb and I berated myself afterward for a good while for being retarded because I tend to be like that, but I've since seen that my stove is dumb and I'm grateful things weren't worse, and you know silver lining and stuff.

consciousness of self

The whole premise of this post may seem odd because the audience could be the same category as the subject, but I don't think anyone reads blogs anymore (much less mine), so I'm just gonna try to discard any considerations of audience here.

Moving to NC has made me self-conscious about friendship a little more than usual. I feel like I need to do a lot affirmations to get over this and just tell myself  on repeat "You are worthy of love and friendship," "You are likable," and such, despite my current social landscape being maybe a little lacking. It's been an odd two years in some ways on the social front, and I was already maybe kind of overly sensitive in that area?

I have not always successfully avoided conflict in the context of friendships. This territory is very precarious. I think there's a lot of people who believe that conflict has no place in friendship, and if there is any disagreement or discomfort, then avoiding the other person and waiting for time to heal the disconnect, or possibly even ending the friendship, is the best solution. Conversations about ending the relationship are also a faux pas, it seems. (I've sometimes struggled with the proper etiquette here.) I often feel compelled to put everything on the table. When I'm feeling emotionally invested in something, even if those feelings are undesirable, my inclination is to confront them and communicate about them. Having been burned after exposing myself emotionally and feeling vulnerable many a time, though, I've become hesitant about sharing. I don't think that's a bad thing. There's something to the maxim "don't cast your pearls before swine." There must be a happy medium, where you've established a level of trust before you begin to become vulnerable. It just seems tricky to manage the balance. 

There's an individual in my current locale who I've had some feelings of resentment and hurt feelings toward, and I've been trying to figure out how to move on from those feelings. I feel ashamed and humiliated for even having the feelings in the first place. This individual and I never actually built a consistent connection, or developed a close relationship. But it a weird amalgam of things. I was in a vulnerable spot having just moved here and knowing literally no one and being a SAHM without a lot of community access points (which can be a very isolating role). I met this gal from church, and she reached out to me initially in a friendly way. She has a very gracious way about her socially, so when we hung out, which we did on several occasions, I felt like it was easy to talk to her about things that I felt went deeper the surface level. I felt like we were friends enough that I was comfortable to reach out to her. It got to a point where that was painful and scary for me, though, because she would often fail to acknowledge or even respond. I decided to try to step back and not reach out as much to protect myself, but it's been a difficult thing for me to manage because we go to church together and I actually signed my child up to be in her child's same preschool class, as well. I would have preferred to just avoid her entirely. I think my feelings of hurt about the whole thing maybe have gone a little beyond the scope of the circumstances, but it was so wrapped up in my hope and disappointment socially on a larger scale. I'm afraid this poor girl has become a bit of a scapegoat for a lot of my failed social experiments in this place, which she doesn't deserve. She's still a lovely person, I just need to accept that she can't give me the friendship I thought she was offering.

During the same period of time, I initiated an email communication with a valued friend from college. I had been feeling like her level of responsiveness was falling short, too. This wasn't uncharacteristic for this particular friend, but the long distance instituted by my cross-country move compounded with a period of increased unavailability on her part conflated to the point where I felt our friendship was already lost. In an effort to communicate a boundary, I tried to tell her that I would be stepping back and no longer making an effort to initiate unless her responsiveness improved. That whole exchange didn't go very well, and I think I can say we buried our friendship with it. It's sad to me.

My "intensity" is not always an appreciated trait. I feel like my life story has been in some ways defined by this pattern of weirding people out this way. Or maybe it's not that so much as a pattern of intimate friendship that isn't sustained as long as I hope. Maybe it's a combination of those things, but I have a hard time with losing highly intimate and/or highly valued relationships. They are really important to me. I've tried to rein in my emotional vomit and ensure that I'm not placing unreasonable expectations on people, but I haven't succeeded in placing NO expectations on people. I think I DO have something to offer as a friend: I don't mind reaching out and initiating contact even when it requires a little more effort than just talking to someone if you happen to run into them, I'm pretty thoughtful, I am empathetic, I am available, I think I'm a good listener most of the time, and I believe I'm fairly loyal once I've established a connection with someone. I've internalized the message I've been given that I shouldn't have expectations from friends. People tell me that friends come and go, and that I should just be grateful and accept whatever may be offered, whatever amount of friendship might be extended. While I think that is partially true, I think it may be reasonable to acknowledge that I have needs and expectations and I deserve something in return. I am still finessing what exactly these expectations are, but at a basic level, I want to be acknowledged. I want to be heard. I want to feel like I can offer something positive. I want to be reassured that I'm normal.

Since moving here, I've often felt invisible socially. I worry so much about not being enough. It's easy to see my life sometimes as a string of failed relationships, to remember all the experiences and harbor the painful memories where someone actively shut me out because I was acting too intense, or my demands were overwhelming and burdensome to them. I worry that I have a scarcity mentality  and that I will never be satisfied. I think I've struggled with these feelings even when my circumstances have given me a lot more opportunities for social connection, so it's easy to conclude the problem is with me. But I'm also trying to recognize and be grateful for what I do receive. To remind myself that not every relationship ends painfully. Connection is never guaranteed, and I'm trying to be thankful every moment I get it.