How quickly the righteous shall fall.
I don't even really know what that subject line means....
For a good solid week I was feeling GREAT. I was 100% in the zone, motivated, really really focused on moving ahead with life, feeling empowered and like I was moving forward. Not having a clear idea of the specific WHAT wasn't even stressing me out one tiny bit. I was fully confident that the process would get me where I needed to go.
Of course, I knew that the zone wouldn't last forever, but come on, one week?! That seems like a bit of a short-change. I think the pinnacle was on Friday, I'd just been feeling so good for so long, and it culminated in not one but two people at work commenting on my state of being. Awesome.
Friday night Maclean went out. Before I left for work he said he told me where he was going and what he was doing, said he didn't feel like getting ridiculous and planned to be home by 11:30pm. Ok, cool.
I messaged him at 10pm to see how his night was. No response. That's always a pretty surefire way for me to know where he's at, because he doesn't text me (any more) when he's drunk. So when I didn't hear from him my spidey senses started tingling. When I finished work at midnight I texted him again to see if he'd like a ride home. Again, nothing. So I took myself home and did my usual post work feet up and check Facebook. There was a message from one of his friends that read, "I'm sorry to have detained yer fella. He had every intention of being home at 11:30..." I was still pretty zoned in up until that point, but that message knocked me out of it pretty quickly, because not only was Maclean not doing what he'd said he was going to do, but he was going around telling all his friends how much trouble he was going to be in. The worst part was that I had NOTHING TO DO with his plans for the evening. I didn't give a crap what he did or what time he came home, I had put no parameters on his evening whatsoever. He knows I don't like it when he parties until 5am, but when I'm working Friday night I don't mind if he hangs out with friends. I didn't think he did that, going out and making me look like the bad guy. He's usually pretty good about keeping things above board, so I was surprised, and more hurt than I should have been.
20 after 12 he finally messages me to say that he's drunk and will come home immediately if I deem it necessary, but stipulates that he's having quite a lot of fun. Translation: He would start thinking about coming home sooner than he would otherwise, if I tell him to get his butt back here, but it'll still take awhile and he'll be reeeeeeeally pissy in the process, then probably not talk to me for the next day and a half, or I can concede defeat and decide not to ruin his night and he'll go ahead and do what he was planning to do anyway, but with less of a cloud of hatred surrounding him. I chose option #2 and then put myself to bed.
He rolled in at 2:45am and passed out on the couch downstairs. When he's really wasted he'll considerately not join me in bed, but unfortunately I always sleep like crap when he's out partying, whether or not he's drunkenly thrashing around beside me later or not. I don't know what it is... Well, sometimes it's anger and frustration, but that wasn't the case last night. I'm a lot more ok with Maclean being Maclean lately - part of this new zone I suppose - but.... I don't know, somehow I still get upset when he totally does the opposite of what he tells me he's going to do. I shouldn't be surprised by now, and I'm not, but every single time I still believe him when he tells me he's going to have a mellow night, be home early, and welcome me with open arms when I get home from work. *sigh*
So I came crashing out of my zone, slept like crap, then woke up early feeling surprisingly good anyway. Work was great, but then I got home and Maclean was sprawled on the couch with all the blinds drawn, having clearly not moved more than a few feet the entire day. He'd messaged me in the morning and asked if there was anything around the house I'd like him to get done, and I only asked him to do one thing: empty the central vac canister. It wasn't done. He said he was going to do it the next day (and he did), so I let it go. He decided he wanted Indian food for dinner, which he went ahead and ordered. When it arrived - late - it wasn't even the correct order. Not sure why, but it made me really angry. And then he put this totally stupid movie on TV, and when we paused it to greet the delivery guy I even manned up for once and told him nicely that I didn't want to watch it. I was surprised when he said, "Ok, we'll put something else on." But when we sat down to eat, he just pushed resume without a glance in my direction. I could have thrown a hissy fit, but that didn't seem helpful or worthwhile, so when I finished eating I grabbed a couple of food magazine's I'd been wanting to read and brought them over to the couch. Productive solution, right?
It was my friend Shefali's birthday party, and I kind of wanted to go, but Maclean wasn't getting off the couch or out of his sweatpants, and that was ok because I wasn't sure I wanted him to go with me anyway, but I was feeling really testy and not particularly social. He ended up going to bed at 9:30pm and I sat on the couch having this internal debate about what to do with myself. I didn't want to sit on the couch, but I was cranky and didn't want to put on a party face. I wanted to be productive, but the idea of sitting in front of my computer just seemed stressful. So I just sat there. And sat there. And sat there. Ugh.
Yesterday I did 4 hours of Business Edge work. Lately I've been neglecting BE because it seems like such a waste to be doing boring data entry, when I could be researching and studying instead. But I did NOT feel like using my brain, was still a little testy, and just needed to be productive without having to think about my life. And so I worked. Brilliant. And because I put in so much time yesterday I've cleared it from my schedule for a bit and won't have to feel guilty about not doing a lot of BE for the next few days. Win-win.
I have a small caveat to make about my complaining here: I realize Maclean isn't responsible for my mental-well being or for my mood, I'm a big girl and capable of making my own decisions about what I do, how I feel and how I react. And to be fair, I've been spending a lot of time focusing on myself and getting the things I want accomplished, and he surprised me by spending a few hours this week organizing some of his piles of random stuff stacked up in the storage room downstairs, and transferring a bunch of it to the garage. He knows how crazy that crowded, disorganized room makes me.. was he cleaning it for me, or was my motivation somehow transferring to him and he just felt like he wanted to get it done? Regardless, I was very happy and kind of impressed that he took the initiative and made some progress.
It's weird, I feel a lot more affection towards Maclean lately, while at the same time feeling a lot less attachment...
ANYWAY (man I get long-winded..), B-School started this morning. There's still that tiny stupid voice in the back of my head that occasionally goes, "What do you think you're doing? You know all this, 'You have the power to change the world' stuff is just BS, right? You don't have any business ideas, you don't have the making's of an entrepreneur, and chances are you're not going to do anything with this training or motivation, just like you haven't done anything with any of the training or motivation in your past. I'm not being cruel, this is just a reality check and you know it..." etc. etc. Who IS that voice?? Seriously, what a dick. But it made it really really hard to get focused this morning. Actually, if I'm being honest, it probably has a lot to do with why I'm sitting here venting instead of watching the videos and doing the homework. Come on, McKinnley, it's too early to be dropping out of the game!!!!!
Last night I hung out with Sam and her sister who's in town from Montana. Sam and I have become so close, it's so great to feel a connection with another person. And she wanted me to meet her sister, which I totally get since I spend so much time with my own (we played Catan last night for the first time in awhile. I won!) Jordan joined as well, and I have to wonder what a 24 year old guy thinks and feels sitting around with four 30-something women. Sam's friend Jessica came to hang out as well, which was interesting because she was also raised Mormon but only just left the church in the past few months. I'd love to spend more time talking with her about it, except I get the feeling that it's not an amicable split. So many people who leave the church have so much anger and hatred towards it. I don't have any of that animosity, it's just not right for me.
Now's not the time for theological ruminations, I'm clearly just stalling getting my B-School work done.
I also joined this 21 day meditation challenge put on by Oprah and Deepak Chopra. The first one was this morning, which coincides nicely with the beginning of this B-School journey. It felt good to sit, calm myself and focus for a few minutes. I definitely needed to get centered.