It's December again?
I feel like this happens pretty frequently -- I stumble back over this and recall just how useful it is for all sorts of things. I've actually been keeping a hard copy of a journal since the summer, which has turned out to be extremely important to me.
In general, I'd say that right now I feel as though my life has been spinning horrifically out of control since about.... the day I left my mother's womb. That's how it seems to me anyway. It's so interesting going back and reading these entries though. It's so clear how psychologically and spiritually upset and tense and distraught I was at various times, because of whatever events were (and still are) taking place. I'm quite comforted to know, however, that I love reading my own writing. That must sound awful and narcissistic. It's true though. I feel very much at home. Duh, Chris. Just, duh.
A Year in the Life of Christopher James, (played by bunnies), in a nutshell.
Spring. Was a little bit stressed out. Was a little bit unhappy. On flip side, though, I was involved in a serious relationship with a senior (from October onward) and spent lots of my time with him. And his friends and roommates and mother. Life was pretty good, looking back. I took on a lot of responsibility when it came to my relationship with him. And additionally, after learning I had not been selected to be the Director of Personnel for our store, I subsequently applied to be Assistant Director/Middle Manager. And got it. That has since turned out to be an... interesting career choice.
May. Brought Michael home with me to Massachusetts. For almost a week. He had graduated by this point. It was a little stressful. I didn't think he was really enjoying himself. I think, overall, he wasn't. Oh well. I had fun showing someone else around my home state. We spent a good deal of time in the car, which gave me a break from whatever sense of boredom might have come over me, and I got to see Provincetown. Huzzah! For some odd reason, however, PTown was not really bumpin'. I guess the 60 degree weather might've had something to do with it. I still enjoyed a nice relaxation station at the beach at Race Point. And a nice drive home. Stayed with him in MD for a day-ish or two when we flew back to the DC area.
Summer. I turned 20. I celebrated my birthday with a party. Or four. I had a Come-to-Jesus moment. Or two. Sobered up for a little while. But really, only for a little while. Living in DC and working for the Corp over the summer does not make for a good, contributing member of society. I worked three separate jobs and tried to keep my life from falling into some semblance of... what's the word... oh yeah, shambles. Debatably successful. I learned what kind of work I succeed at. I also learned what kind of work I suck balls at. And then I got fired for the first time. Successsssss. I'm glad, though. I was spreading myself much too thin, and by the end of the summer/beginning of New Student Orientation, my candle was halfway to burnt out.
Late August. NSO happened. And my candle burned the rest of the way out. Oops.
September. School. Classes. Books? OH YEAH. Ordered those a little bit late. Funny, how you can spend $150 on books for a single class, and then.... oops, have to drop it because your life fell apart and you couldn't complete the first paper. Even with an extension. Efffffff.
Then my boyfriend and I decided to split. Good news. If we had been together much longer, one of us would likely have ended up on one of those shows on Oxygen. You know the ones. Where they recount the story of the wife of 20 years who snaps. And boils her (now ex-) husband's head in a vat of beef broth, all while seeing her daily chores to completion. Yeah. Probably not that bad actually. But we decided that our lives were really not heading the same direction, and neither one of us was really all that interested in a longlonglong-term relationship. So keeping it up was just going to end up being destructive. Easiest breakup of my life.
OH WAIT. JK.
That was the rational part of me talking. And the rational part of me continues to feel that way. The rational part of me recognizes that I was in a really awkward relationship. With someone as good for me as a chicken dinner is good for a vegetarian. Hm. How apt your metaphors have become, Christopher.
At any rate. After a few months of struggling off and on (but mostly on), I've learned a lot about just how badly I managed to eff myself up. Remember friends. The mind is a powerful and a vicious creature, a beast that can and will do anything and everything it wants with your deepest fears and desires. Unless you learn how to escape from it every now and again. Or else learn to tame it.
After reading back through various journal entries (many of which were or are private or else written in my actual physical journal) I've pieced together more adequate timeline for the story, "How I Got Here..." and here's the deal. It's Freshman year. Life's great. Few resonsibilities. I'm in college! I can hook up with anyone I want! And nothing will happen! Awesome! Oh wait hold on a second, I forgot to read the fine print. I knew I should've paid better attention to that thing that someone told me that one time though I can't remember now when or what they were saying. Anyway, you're saying all these choices have consequences? And some of them are deeply emotionally involved? I'm going to have to feel.... pain? Really? OH hell naw.
You always fall when you least expect it. When it's the most random person in the room. Or else when you don't think you could possibly become emotionally involved. You're still all torn up about the last one. Yeah, the one from last week. Oops. FALSE. It will happen whether or not you're planning on it happening. And it'll eff you up. Bad.
I spent an entire summer trying to get over someone I'd lost. Why did I have to spend the whole summer trying to do that? If I knew, I'd be a happier person, that's for sure. But the bottom line is, when I got back to school, and suddenly found that all the feelings I had weren't endemic to a life strapped down to Worcester, that, oh, these feelings had become and were and still are a part of who I am. Well that freaked me out. That freaked me out a lot. I was still depressed. I still felt rejected. I still felt like it was my fault -- that I had failed because I wasn't good enough. That I didn't deserve to be happy. I started to fight with my friends. I started to fight with my family. In fact, I started closing myself off from everyone I knew. They knew something was wrong. But no, no, no, I couldn't have something that wrong with me. I really couldn't. I would just get over it with time. You know. Time heals everything when you stuff it deep, deep down. Yeahhhhh. Angst-101.
And then something fell into my lap. A pretty little opportunity. A handsome, quiet, kind and compassionate distraction. So I didn't just jump on that bandwagon, I hauled my ass over to it and convinced myself it was a sports car. Normally, when you start seeing someone, and then one night, just a few weeks after you first met, you run into them at a party and end up spending an hour and a half struggling to drag their drunken ass back to their own bed so they can sleep ... you end up pulling the trigger for them ... that's both a warning sign and a little bit of a turn off, right? Ohhhh but not for me. I had to pick that mess up off the floor and turn it into my own fix-me-up-project. Like a leaky faucet. Or some other piece of broken furniture. And suddenly, here I am. I've poured almost a year of myself into someone, bringing them back from the brink of alcoholic meltdown, teaching them how to trust, how to communicate feelings, and how to let someone into their life again. It was as though I'd suddenly made up for any lack of community service since coming here. Damn it feels good to be a gangster social worker. Until it didn't anymore.
So yeah. That's what happened. And at the end of the day, there isn't a damn thing I can be mad at him for. He didn't do a damn thing. Or if he did, I flipped it around and made it into an excuse to try harder. I degraded myself day in and day out for the chance to.... to what? to feel a little bit appreciated? to have some kind of "project" on hand at all times? In the end, that's exactly what it felt like. Now, how am I supposed to go about relationships in the future when my first instinct is to go into it as though I'm in a self-help class? SRZLY U GUYZ.
Way to go, Team Chris. Way to go. So here we are, a year and a little bit later. And we're back where we started. In exactly the same sot. With exactly the same insecurities. The same anxieties. They're just magnified now because not only have they had a year to fester and settle in, but look! there's a new reason to feel bad about ourself. and look, there's another! they're spawning like rabbits! oh wow, so cuuuute.
Needless to say, I've been feeling a little less than stellar. but at the end of th day, that is really just an immense understatement. In September, I walked around proudly on the market again, telling people about how simple and straightforward our breakup had been. It was just so clear-cut. Like Clearasil. And Evian water. In reality, though -- the truth of what's actually happened -- is that after a few weeks, when the reality of just what it was that was now gone (and subsequently how stupid I must have been to had done what I did for a year). Well, it broke me. It didn't poke me. It didn't bruise me or snip me or scar me. It broke me. Flat out. Like a clay pot thrown out a window. Because that's all I was operating with anyway -- this feebly constructed shell, designed to insulate myself just enough..... to not have to deal with the reality of what it was that actually felt.
And so here I am. Almost three months later. Totally over it. And totally broken. Right where I began.
In general, I'd say that right now I feel as though my life has been spinning horrifically out of control since about.... the day I left my mother's womb. That's how it seems to me anyway. It's so interesting going back and reading these entries though. It's so clear how psychologically and spiritually upset and tense and distraught I was at various times, because of whatever events were (and still are) taking place. I'm quite comforted to know, however, that I love reading my own writing. That must sound awful and narcissistic. It's true though. I feel very much at home. Duh, Chris. Just, duh.
A Year in the Life of Christopher James, (played by bunnies), in a nutshell.
Spring. Was a little bit stressed out. Was a little bit unhappy. On flip side, though, I was involved in a serious relationship with a senior (from October onward) and spent lots of my time with him. And his friends and roommates and mother. Life was pretty good, looking back. I took on a lot of responsibility when it came to my relationship with him. And additionally, after learning I had not been selected to be the Director of Personnel for our store, I subsequently applied to be Assistant Director/Middle Manager. And got it. That has since turned out to be an... interesting career choice.
May. Brought Michael home with me to Massachusetts. For almost a week. He had graduated by this point. It was a little stressful. I didn't think he was really enjoying himself. I think, overall, he wasn't. Oh well. I had fun showing someone else around my home state. We spent a good deal of time in the car, which gave me a break from whatever sense of boredom might have come over me, and I got to see Provincetown. Huzzah! For some odd reason, however, PTown was not really bumpin'. I guess the 60 degree weather might've had something to do with it. I still enjoyed a nice relaxation station at the beach at Race Point. And a nice drive home. Stayed with him in MD for a day-ish or two when we flew back to the DC area.
Summer. I turned 20. I celebrated my birthday with a party. Or four. I had a Come-to-Jesus moment. Or two. Sobered up for a little while. But really, only for a little while. Living in DC and working for the Corp over the summer does not make for a good, contributing member of society. I worked three separate jobs and tried to keep my life from falling into some semblance of... what's the word... oh yeah, shambles. Debatably successful. I learned what kind of work I succeed at. I also learned what kind of work I suck balls at. And then I got fired for the first time. Successsssss. I'm glad, though. I was spreading myself much too thin, and by the end of the summer/beginning of New Student Orientation, my candle was halfway to burnt out.
Late August. NSO happened. And my candle burned the rest of the way out. Oops.
September. School. Classes. Books? OH YEAH. Ordered those a little bit late. Funny, how you can spend $150 on books for a single class, and then.... oops, have to drop it because your life fell apart and you couldn't complete the first paper. Even with an extension. Efffffff.
Then my boyfriend and I decided to split. Good news. If we had been together much longer, one of us would likely have ended up on one of those shows on Oxygen. You know the ones. Where they recount the story of the wife of 20 years who snaps. And boils her (now ex-) husband's head in a vat of beef broth, all while seeing her daily chores to completion. Yeah. Probably not that bad actually. But we decided that our lives were really not heading the same direction, and neither one of us was really all that interested in a longlonglong-term relationship. So keeping it up was just going to end up being destructive. Easiest breakup of my life.
OH WAIT. JK.
That was the rational part of me talking. And the rational part of me continues to feel that way. The rational part of me recognizes that I was in a really awkward relationship. With someone as good for me as a chicken dinner is good for a vegetarian. Hm. How apt your metaphors have become, Christopher.
At any rate. After a few months of struggling off and on (but mostly on), I've learned a lot about just how badly I managed to eff myself up. Remember friends. The mind is a powerful and a vicious creature, a beast that can and will do anything and everything it wants with your deepest fears and desires. Unless you learn how to escape from it every now and again. Or else learn to tame it.
After reading back through various journal entries (many of which were or are private or else written in my actual physical journal) I've pieced together more adequate timeline for the story, "How I Got Here..." and here's the deal. It's Freshman year. Life's great. Few resonsibilities. I'm in college! I can hook up with anyone I want! And nothing will happen! Awesome! Oh wait hold on a second, I forgot to read the fine print. I knew I should've paid better attention to that thing that someone told me that one time though I can't remember now when or what they were saying. Anyway, you're saying all these choices have consequences? And some of them are deeply emotionally involved? I'm going to have to feel.... pain? Really? OH hell naw.
You always fall when you least expect it. When it's the most random person in the room. Or else when you don't think you could possibly become emotionally involved. You're still all torn up about the last one. Yeah, the one from last week. Oops. FALSE. It will happen whether or not you're planning on it happening. And it'll eff you up. Bad.
I spent an entire summer trying to get over someone I'd lost. Why did I have to spend the whole summer trying to do that? If I knew, I'd be a happier person, that's for sure. But the bottom line is, when I got back to school, and suddenly found that all the feelings I had weren't endemic to a life strapped down to Worcester, that, oh, these feelings had become and were and still are a part of who I am. Well that freaked me out. That freaked me out a lot. I was still depressed. I still felt rejected. I still felt like it was my fault -- that I had failed because I wasn't good enough. That I didn't deserve to be happy. I started to fight with my friends. I started to fight with my family. In fact, I started closing myself off from everyone I knew. They knew something was wrong. But no, no, no, I couldn't have something that wrong with me. I really couldn't. I would just get over it with time. You know. Time heals everything when you stuff it deep, deep down. Yeahhhhh. Angst-101.
And then something fell into my lap. A pretty little opportunity. A handsome, quiet, kind and compassionate distraction. So I didn't just jump on that bandwagon, I hauled my ass over to it and convinced myself it was a sports car. Normally, when you start seeing someone, and then one night, just a few weeks after you first met, you run into them at a party and end up spending an hour and a half struggling to drag their drunken ass back to their own bed so they can sleep ... you end up pulling the trigger for them ... that's both a warning sign and a little bit of a turn off, right? Ohhhh but not for me. I had to pick that mess up off the floor and turn it into my own fix-me-up-project. Like a leaky faucet. Or some other piece of broken furniture. And suddenly, here I am. I've poured almost a year of myself into someone, bringing them back from the brink of alcoholic meltdown, teaching them how to trust, how to communicate feelings, and how to let someone into their life again. It was as though I'd suddenly made up for any lack of community service since coming here. Damn it feels good to be a gangster social worker. Until it didn't anymore.
So yeah. That's what happened. And at the end of the day, there isn't a damn thing I can be mad at him for. He didn't do a damn thing. Or if he did, I flipped it around and made it into an excuse to try harder. I degraded myself day in and day out for the chance to.... to what? to feel a little bit appreciated? to have some kind of "project" on hand at all times? In the end, that's exactly what it felt like. Now, how am I supposed to go about relationships in the future when my first instinct is to go into it as though I'm in a self-help class? SRZLY U GUYZ.
Way to go, Team Chris. Way to go. So here we are, a year and a little bit later. And we're back where we started. In exactly the same sot. With exactly the same insecurities. The same anxieties. They're just magnified now because not only have they had a year to fester and settle in, but look! there's a new reason to feel bad about ourself. and look, there's another! they're spawning like rabbits! oh wow, so cuuuute.
Needless to say, I've been feeling a little less than stellar. but at the end of th day, that is really just an immense understatement. In September, I walked around proudly on the market again, telling people about how simple and straightforward our breakup had been. It was just so clear-cut. Like Clearasil. And Evian water. In reality, though -- the truth of what's actually happened -- is that after a few weeks, when the reality of just what it was that was now gone (and subsequently how stupid I must have been to had done what I did for a year). Well, it broke me. It didn't poke me. It didn't bruise me or snip me or scar me. It broke me. Flat out. Like a clay pot thrown out a window. Because that's all I was operating with anyway -- this feebly constructed shell, designed to insulate myself just enough..... to not have to deal with the reality of what it was that actually felt.
And so here I am. Almost three months later. Totally over it. And totally broken. Right where I began.