I'm sitting at my kitchen island, in the apartment my friend says is great. She came over for dinner and watched a couple episodes of Shrinking, then got antsy and left. Pulling out of depression, but more anxious and energized. Who knows what is right for any of us.
Watching shrinking made me cry multiple times and laugh a lot too. There is a longing that my heart feels right now, for something real, for some tenderness, closeness. My friend says I should meet someone in the elevator, and I can only think of how many times I've wanted to put my head down or look at my phone or wait to get the next one. Reluctantly eager? Eagerly reluctant?
I have been feeling this loneliness for a while and I don't want to let it in too much. I find that I am spending way too much time distracting. Way too much time trying to get shallow needs met through shallow means. But at the coffee shop today (where I also cried, for a different reason), I didn't see a single person I really found attractive. I didn't know them. I didn't really want to know them. My only real interaction was with a girl who has downs syndrome and said "hello neighbor" to everyone. She was sweet. I thought it was interesting that I could stare at a whole room full of people and not find a single one attractive. It made me wonder if there was someone wrong with me, or a validation that I really haven't had a crush on anyone new for a while.
Life is harder that way... The receptionist at the tax agency was very nice. I could have tried to flirt. but... meh.
I tried to pay my taxes today and did it wrong. I got a little scared that I might have screwed things up but I think I can fix it tomorrow or Monday. I got a little overwhelmed that I wouldn't be able to save enough for taxes... apparently if you don't pay 90% of your expected amount, you can be fined. I was fined already once... and I don't want that to be a habit... but it took me a while to realize that I think I can make it work for my budget, I just have to get in the habit. I am really not making much after all my expenses. It kind of made me feeling like I was doing something wrong.
Then I went to the coffee shop and read a book. And it felt good for awhile, but then my step mom texted everyone about my dad's birthday, and instead of feeling the normal 'ok, i guess its a responsibility' I got angry, and kind of scared. It felt like another thing that weighed me down. After reading a bunch in my book, I picked up two zines on the newspaper rack nearby, and read poems and stories and pictures from people who were driving/observing/reporting ice crap all these months. It was a beautiful little zine (two volumes), creative, inspired, funny, incredibly sad, moving, etc.... it made me cry. And it made me feel more angry at my dad and step mom. Where is the apology for defending the people who attacked my neighbors? My Dad texted tonight, and I don't want to respond. I'm sad, and angry.
I went out to dinner with my mom last night. We talked about my siblings... talked about life... talked about how the state of the world is so ugly, that you run out of things to say. I want to ask her for advice. I want to ask her how to navigate this world. I want to know cheats and shortcuts, even if I don't take them. I want her to tell me that there is a path forward.
At some point, it kind of feels like my relationship with my mom changed a little. She told me she believed in me and that I could work it out... so I stopped going to her every time I had a big deal problem... waited until it came up naturally.
I guess I am feeling a little alone in things. People text. I don't respond. People are reaching, suggesting, supporting, and I don't follow up. The main character in Shrinking is so flawed and loveable... but everyone is annoyed with him because he is distant, avoiding, being reactive, consumed in his own stuff.
Today I got a haircut. Paid 28$ and the moment I got in the car I saw that it was uneven. I was already irritable. A mix of low blood sugar and a thunderstorm. I got home and fixed the hair cut. I shaved this morning... so basically I look like a little white boy. But it makes me wonder why I am paying for shit... why I am trying to fit in. Why I am trying so hard to keep up with everything, and not really feeling all that loved or rewarded. I feel like I have been letting myself down sooooo much lately.
Sure maintaining an apartment, and a business, but not exercising... not eating great... my sleep schedule is all over the place. I keep saying I am going to write poems and then I don't want to write. I have given up on guitar. I have maintained spanish.
I see a friend once a week, and sometimes text with others... but I am not really involved with anything, not engaged for my own sake... doing my job, surviving... but not thriving like it might appear.
I am lonely, and not feeling great I guess. Maybe some of it is the weather/headaches, but I can feel myself dragging a little with clients. Not really wanting to do my job. I can jumpstart myself into it... but I am not feeling all that good.
I guess, I don't feel loved? I don't feel loving?
Last week my therapist asked me if I was somewhat dissociative. I was... it was a mix of me avoiding my own stuff and being overwhelmed by others. I wasn't grounded in myself. I wasn't centered.
Wednesday and Friday mornings, I woke up feeling better. On Wednesday I wrote a poem in my head about wearing a slippery winter coat that didn't fit right. How people were poking and prodding and trying to help, but my arm would get caught coming out of the wrong hole, or it would end up backwards, because it wasn't me... I and everyone else was mistaking the coat for me. But me was somewhere underneath as the role/coat slid around me. No wonder I don't feel grounded... I feel suffocated. I feel prodded. I feel like people are grabbing at me. I feel like something is wrong and I can't find my way through it. A little kid caught in their clothes?
I was thinking about how hard it is to be aligned with yourself. How hard when the president threatens to end the world, when the price of everything is too high, when a worker burns down their work place, or shoots the ceo, because the costs of living are just not tenable given the wages we make. My records show I should be making 8-10k a month, my bank account says... 7? I suppose I should look at that again.
I haven't felt like going to church. Often times I watch online (like in winter), and then feel like its not that great. I wonder if I need to go in person. Or maybe try somewhere new.
I know it would be good to do a class or something. I know it would be good to be involved, have a commitment on the calendar. I dunno what I am complaining about... I mean I do. I am living the life of a single person who is very used to that... but doesn't actually prefer being singly.
E doesn't really reach out. Maybe its for the best.
So often I get really inspired by like a good tarot reading or something...but nothing happens.
I almost want more of an excuse for my misery than it is my own fault for not being more involved with folks. Maybe my standards are too high for everything. Maybe I am impossible to live with.
I dunno. In therapy I was realizing that I feel like my "manager parts" are in charge. Not me... but the parts of me that respond to feeling too vulnerable or too ashamed... I feel like I am going through the motions waiting for someone to shake me awake. But just like other times in my life... I don't really want the people in my life to be the one that reaches out and grabs me. I don't want those relationships to change much... I dunno.
I could imagine things personally and the world getting a lot worse before it gets better.
It was funny how much my own stuff seemed like it was fitting for what others were going through this week.
I think I can maintain.
But I know this part is very similar to the parts of my clients who are 20-30 years older than me, and wondering ... well if this is it ... why try?
Yeah... I dunno either sometimes. Henri Nouwen keeps saying that suffering and pain are part of it... that its what we should take to G-d... makes us part of a greater thing. Funny to choose pain and suffering... grace and love by way of pain.
I dunno... I should probably go to bed. I guess I just wanted to complain a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment