eumenides

A year later- my job interview, graduation, finishing that shitty hell of a capstone placement. Here I am.

I've learned a bit about myself. First, I can persevere through some amazingly hard bullshit. Second, I'm not especially likeable right now- I have no friends and though some of my work mates seem to like me for facets of my work habits, many folks at work dislive me openly.

I know why, and I think it has to do with my unhappiness more than anything else. And I'm working on that, but it is slow going.

In other news, I dumped my shrink. One day I just realized he wasn't doing anything for me and I can't afoord him if that's the case. I regret nothing.

But I miss feeling like I need him even if I don't miss him.

So, it occurs to me that maybe my perception of myself as a good cook is faulty. I have, currently, no evidence to support the idea I am a good cook, other than my own personal satisfaction. Absolutely nobody in my life seems to actually enjoy anything I make very much. Sure, Scott eats my cooking, and supposedly even likes some of my dishes, but he never praises me for it and rarely desplays more than a token enthusiasm at mealtimes.

The kids are downright unappreciative. My mother and brother don't seem to care for the things I make on holidays.

So when direct evidence contradicts perception, might I conclude I am not especially good at cooking?

And the idea makes me sad and even a little bit resentful.

The summer has officially started for the kids. With this milestone, I can't pretend it isn't Summer any more.

And that means I need to make a routine for studying for my exam and sticking to it, and even better, factoring in some exercise like treadmill at least. So far, I'm coming up with excuses and stalling in various ways, but I've got to pay the piper.

There's a lot of fear that I have to carry around about testing, and I know if I could get this minimal level of organization and task commitment done I would be scaffolded and insulated from some of the fear, but I am behaving like a naughty, avoidant child, as if my problems will go away if I just cover my eyes.

I was loving when graduation was fresh and I could let myself celebrate. I was swimming in bliss and I felt excused to do so, but now that is worn off and I need to stop hanging on and face those typical unpleasant parts of life that always come around and ruin my mental parties.
I don't want to move on to the next problem! I want to be finished solving problems!

When it all stops, and I fail to keep running on the hamster wheel its all over- the living death I am so relentlessly afraid of getting trapped in.

This past week DH and I, on a luxuriant week of vacation away from the kids, watched all of Luther (TV series) starring Idris Elba.

I hadn't really ever seen Elba before, but I recall his name being tossed out as a James Bond replacement candidate. (Sure, Elba has his charms, but I am not on board with that idea. I rather like James Bond to look like Ian Fleming describes him- and this was a point that had me upset and skeptical when Daniel Craig took over- I was won over by his commanding performance in Casino Royale, but as a purist I still thought he at least should have been expected to dye his hair or something.) Where was I? Oh yes- the charms of Idris Elba.

Seriously, I was really into our D.I. John Luther for the first season. He's smooth and intense and idealistic- all those things we love in a flawed criminal investigator. But after the first season I started getting that same kind of sick feeling that I got from Irvine Welsh's sergeant Robertson in his book (and later, movie) Filth. The corruption became a little excessive- silly even. And all of Elba's smokey looks at that point just fell flat, because he seemed lost.

There is also the usual problems plaguing crime shows - so much ghastly crime in such a short time span and confined area and our hero is always at the center of it. (Note: this is better in the season / miniseries model of shows like Broadchurch and Happy Valley who have the whole plot written before they begin filming so all the crime focuses on one major plot device and therefore does not seem so far-fetched.)

Anyhow, I am left disappointed by Luther, which had an appealing first taste but one that soured as it sat in my mouth with each progressively drearier episode.

So after that, the DH in a very about-the-bush way asked me to watch season one of Legion. He knows I detest superhero shows, but he pushed, gently, and I was curious why he thought this might be an exception. I am in a small handful of episodes, and they're fascinating in that way that staring into a Salvador Dali painting is, a sort of a perpetual mindf**k that just carries on being absurd as if it weren't at all absurd in a kind of normalization of the absurdity that fails to work properly by design.

Maybe I'll report more on that when I'm further in.

Anyhow, I'm not really here on LJ to blog TV show reviews as much as I am to have a writing outlet to keep me from being so congested inside. And I really did want to voice my thoughts on Luther without whining about it to DH- I think he feels I never like anything (and maybe that's true in the sense that I never purely like anything, but my feelings are all a jumble of conflicting thoughts which need to be dissected and organized by the telling.)

I just need to write. To put words together in sentences like assembling puzzles.

The thing about bad choices is that they are not default, but selected. You can't know what would have happened otherwise. Maybe it was the best choice.

Sometimes you grasp to what you see available, rather than wait for things to appear. Sometimes the clock's ticking makes you do things you'd never otherwise do.

There is no way to totally avoid regret.

The good news is that I'm getting better at waking up at 4:00 and 5:00am. At first, it seemed impossible, as did going to bed at a time that made that feat less than absolute torture. The body adapts.

Still, I think a NOC nurse lives inside me.

So I'm halfway through my third of four semesters in the nursing program. Graduation looms. And as much as I'm burdened by the homework and deadlines and obligations, I am growing more horrified of what is going to happen after that point with each passing day. Where will I end up, and will I loathe it?

And, of course, I worry about where other facets of my life are going, too. I'm having a difficult time recognizing myself.

I've gained a LOT of weight in the last two years, or, at least, it feels like a lot. I suppose I don't look as disgustingly obese to others as I feel to myself. I think I have a touch of bulimia- I don't purge, but I do seem to have a distorted body image and a strange relationship with food.

So... I'm dieting AGAIN. And I've been running again, though I know from experience that running will not cause weight loss, no matter how much I do it. No, that is something I'm doing for better health and because I'm hoping it will help with some of my I-feel-like-I-have-rheumatoid-arthritis-but-I'm-afraid-to-get-diagnosed symptoms. (And some combination of the two is helping, though I think what would help MORE is to reduce my stress.)

This is a boring post, but I'm too afraid to actually spill my heart here. The contents of my heart (is it a purse... full of old chap sticks, inky pens, and tampons?) is way too dangerous these days.

And that, I suppose, is why I enjoyed blogging so much back in the day. And why I could say whatever I wanted. When you've got nothing, you have nothing to lose, and opening yourself up risks nothing. Once you start to have things, you start to rein yourself in, and if you have very much, you have to be a clam.

And I am a clam. A festering clam. There may be pearls inside, along with the rot, but I'm too afraid to open myself to see.

I imagine that people who do a lot of complaining were fortunate enough to have a parent who did respond to their crying when they were a baby. Most likely not productive responding, but neurotic and anxious responding. But that's irrelevant. We know that fully neglected babies like those in orphanages, learn to stop crying completely.

I have always been a complainer. I wine, and fuss, and complain about the injustice of every situation. But it never gets me anywhere. It just seems to further my anxiety, and the anxiety of people around me. And so I imagine, that was how it was in my infancy. My mother was high-strung, and I doubt she responded with any soothing kindness or generosity, but rather, as if my cries were an imposition and a critique of her ability to parent that she took Supreme offense to. And in turn, I suffered Shadows of the same problem with my own babies.

I don't want to be a complainer. It never serves any purpose. Preaching to a choir or spitting in the wind, take your pick.

Like those babies in orphanages, I have finally learned that nobody is going to respond to address my concerns. My work issues will never go away, aside from my finding a better place to work. So it is that I don't particularly wish to complain. I feel silly.

I'm so old now that my oldness isn't even a new thing.

Yes, yes, the alternative is not preferable. Old means, if anything, not [yet] dead.

Is that a good thing?

Who knows what death is? Maybe its a favor, a release.

I love big cities. My favorite tourist activity is to pretend I'm not a tourist. I like grocery and drug stores and easy takeout. I like discount shopping and walking and mass transit.

I was born in the wrong place. I was made for the big city.

Sometimes I want to somehow unzip my heart and let it drain out. Maybe it would be more like a butterfly release.

I feel so cut off from everyone. Unshareable. When I feel joy it always has to be endured privately, as if it were pain.

There's so little connection, and I want to fade away and stop hurting. Stop longing.

If I drain out of myself, maybe the I can touch and integrate.