Stress is apparently not something I deal with well. For a long time I've just learned to ignore it. I tell myself that whatever it is probably won't matter at all in a year or two and that seems to calm me down. Not now, though. All of this stuff really does matter to me and I am convinced that it will continue to matter. My thesis will matter. Not that it's the end of the world or that I think I will be able to publish if I do a good enought job, just that it's kind of the reason I came here and I'd like to make it worthwhile.
And him[\I]. Fuck him but he matters, too. In a year, I'll be ok, but it will still matter and I will probably still feel like I'm being punished for doing a better job.
It's been interesting to talk to all of my friends about this. They all have such varied advice.
"Don't worry. Even if you can't get over it by Renn Fayre, you'll leave afterwards and start a new life. You'll come to Chicago with me!"
"I'm sorry, babe. You need soup! If I didn't have jury duty, I'd be up there in ten minutes and I'd make you soup!"
"Of course he doesn't know what he wants. And it will be years before he figures it out."
"You are both following exactly what each of you would do in the situation and it's turning out just like it would... Do things that make you happy. Take long breaks and be comfortable being by yourself. Assume he means everything."
"Don't listen to him. He's not making any sense. Just assume whatever it is that you want and when he starts being logical again, you can talk to him about it."
"Make a little shrine and put things there that remind you of him. Light a candle and send him good thoughts."
"Write down everything you hate about him. I'll start..."
My grandmother is a sweet woman, but I've always pitied her. It's a horrible thing to say. Pity is the worst feeling to have for someone. But it's true. And the reason is that she lives her life in fear of being alone. She and my mother's father divorced when my mom was about 20 years old. He was having an affair with his secretary and they got married. My grandmother got married again, too, to a man that no one liked. Some people tell me never to speak unkindly of the dead, but I don't do well with lies. No one liked him. His children from a previous marriage didn't like him and they didn't come to his funeral when he died. My mom's family didn't like him because he was simply mean to my gradmother, and to all of us. I remember going down there one Christmas and having the man wake up in the morning; the first thing that he said was to my mom: "When are you leaving?" It wasn't even Christmas yet. "When would you like us to leave?" was her reply. "Now," he said; and pointing to my grandmother, "And take her with you." This was not the first time and I don't think it was the last either. Sometimes he kicked her out. Sometimes she left, but she always went back. Always.
I've never had any sympathy for that behavior and that's probably the source of a lot of my stress right now. I feel like I'm becoming something that I can pity. I am putting my own stability before the need to be respected and appreciated and that's simply ridiculous. Except that I can't tell. With 50 days left and the ulcer and a thesis to write and a class to catch up on... I think I do need stability. And I am a social person. I am one of the few people that I know here who has had friends for her entire life. And there's a reason that I do that. People are important to me. Interaction is important, and so is love. I know my limitations and I know that I can't do everything by myself. Perhaps that is weak. Perhaps it is a symbol of my own immaturity that I rely on friends that I've had since I was born, since I was 4 months old, since I was 5, since I was 12. There are times when giving up everything makes sense to me, when I want to chuck everything I own into the garbage and run off to live in the woods and eat berries and kill rabbits. But I would never give up these people. Never. I love that I can call them friends, that I have people that I can call when I'm in tears and throwing up blood at 2am.
And I guess if he doesn't want to be that... then I don't know what he would be there for anyway... ...
I cannot decide if I am cowardly in this want, this need or if I am simply maturely accepting my own limitations. I'm 21. I don't want to be married or have babies or settle down or have someone take care of all my needs. But I want people to continue with me.
Before, I have tended to fall into the trap of getting into relationships and falling in love with someone's potential, rather than who they are. That's never good and I realize that. So much do I realize that that I didn't do it this time. I love this man for who he is. I love him if he doesn't change, and he has continued to surprize me beyond measure by changing and "improving". But this is hard not because I feel disillusioned by who he actually is, but because he has stopped being and doing what was normal a few months ago. I'm scared and fuck do I hate it. I don't like to be scared. I don't like to be needy or weak. It took me years to cry in front of my best friend. Blame my childhood or my divorced parents. I have a hard time letting go of people.
And I still feel like this whole thing is a mistake. I can sit here and say, "well if he doesn't appreciate me... if he doesn't need me around... if it's so easy for him to say goodbye..." But at the same time, I'm going, "but, but wait! I'm not less stressed by this." Every other time a relationship has ended, I have been less stressed immediately afterwards. IMMEDIATELY. Even when I was terribly sad and practically homeless, I was more at ease with myself. Maybe this one just didn't go that long and with a few more months I'd be stressed by it and less stressed to leave it and maybe that's where he is right now, but it feels unfair. I feel like this relationship was better than the last ones and should fucking end better, too. I have ridiculously high standards for everything and I know that, but usually, it means that I'm not settling for shit. This is shit. And I have no choice but to settle.
A good friend took me to dinner last night and, as we were waiting for our food, he began spouting lyric prose at me in French, a language I don't understand. He translated line by line:
"Fattness, like the wind, is everywhere,
And splashes on the little paws of children.
Every time I sing this song, I think to myself,
'There is no reason for me to keep as much toilet paper as I do.'"
I'll leave you with that.
k
And him[\I]. Fuck him but he matters, too. In a year, I'll be ok, but it will still matter and I will probably still feel like I'm being punished for doing a better job.
It's been interesting to talk to all of my friends about this. They all have such varied advice.
"Don't worry. Even if you can't get over it by Renn Fayre, you'll leave afterwards and start a new life. You'll come to Chicago with me!"
"I'm sorry, babe. You need soup! If I didn't have jury duty, I'd be up there in ten minutes and I'd make you soup!"
"Of course he doesn't know what he wants. And it will be years before he figures it out."
"You are both following exactly what each of you would do in the situation and it's turning out just like it would... Do things that make you happy. Take long breaks and be comfortable being by yourself. Assume he means everything."
"Don't listen to him. He's not making any sense. Just assume whatever it is that you want and when he starts being logical again, you can talk to him about it."
"Make a little shrine and put things there that remind you of him. Light a candle and send him good thoughts."
"Write down everything you hate about him. I'll start..."
My grandmother is a sweet woman, but I've always pitied her. It's a horrible thing to say. Pity is the worst feeling to have for someone. But it's true. And the reason is that she lives her life in fear of being alone. She and my mother's father divorced when my mom was about 20 years old. He was having an affair with his secretary and they got married. My grandmother got married again, too, to a man that no one liked. Some people tell me never to speak unkindly of the dead, but I don't do well with lies. No one liked him. His children from a previous marriage didn't like him and they didn't come to his funeral when he died. My mom's family didn't like him because he was simply mean to my gradmother, and to all of us. I remember going down there one Christmas and having the man wake up in the morning; the first thing that he said was to my mom: "When are you leaving?" It wasn't even Christmas yet. "When would you like us to leave?" was her reply. "Now," he said; and pointing to my grandmother, "And take her with you." This was not the first time and I don't think it was the last either. Sometimes he kicked her out. Sometimes she left, but she always went back. Always.
I've never had any sympathy for that behavior and that's probably the source of a lot of my stress right now. I feel like I'm becoming something that I can pity. I am putting my own stability before the need to be respected and appreciated and that's simply ridiculous. Except that I can't tell. With 50 days left and the ulcer and a thesis to write and a class to catch up on... I think I do need stability. And I am a social person. I am one of the few people that I know here who has had friends for her entire life. And there's a reason that I do that. People are important to me. Interaction is important, and so is love. I know my limitations and I know that I can't do everything by myself. Perhaps that is weak. Perhaps it is a symbol of my own immaturity that I rely on friends that I've had since I was born, since I was 4 months old, since I was 5, since I was 12. There are times when giving up everything makes sense to me, when I want to chuck everything I own into the garbage and run off to live in the woods and eat berries and kill rabbits. But I would never give up these people. Never. I love that I can call them friends, that I have people that I can call when I'm in tears and throwing up blood at 2am.
And I guess if he doesn't want to be that... then I don't know what he would be there for anyway... ...
I cannot decide if I am cowardly in this want, this need or if I am simply maturely accepting my own limitations. I'm 21. I don't want to be married or have babies or settle down or have someone take care of all my needs. But I want people to continue with me.
Before, I have tended to fall into the trap of getting into relationships and falling in love with someone's potential, rather than who they are. That's never good and I realize that. So much do I realize that that I didn't do it this time. I love this man for who he is. I love him if he doesn't change, and he has continued to surprize me beyond measure by changing and "improving". But this is hard not because I feel disillusioned by who he actually is, but because he has stopped being and doing what was normal a few months ago. I'm scared and fuck do I hate it. I don't like to be scared. I don't like to be needy or weak. It took me years to cry in front of my best friend. Blame my childhood or my divorced parents. I have a hard time letting go of people.
And I still feel like this whole thing is a mistake. I can sit here and say, "well if he doesn't appreciate me... if he doesn't need me around... if it's so easy for him to say goodbye..." But at the same time, I'm going, "but, but wait! I'm not less stressed by this." Every other time a relationship has ended, I have been less stressed immediately afterwards. IMMEDIATELY. Even when I was terribly sad and practically homeless, I was more at ease with myself. Maybe this one just didn't go that long and with a few more months I'd be stressed by it and less stressed to leave it and maybe that's where he is right now, but it feels unfair. I feel like this relationship was better than the last ones and should fucking end better, too. I have ridiculously high standards for everything and I know that, but usually, it means that I'm not settling for shit. This is shit. And I have no choice but to settle.
A good friend took me to dinner last night and, as we were waiting for our food, he began spouting lyric prose at me in French, a language I don't understand. He translated line by line:
"Fattness, like the wind, is everywhere,
And splashes on the little paws of children.
Every time I sing this song, I think to myself,
'There is no reason for me to keep as much toilet paper as I do.'"
I'll leave you with that.
k
My Grandma and Grandpa stayed married well past when they should have. Though they slept in different rooms the last 25 years of my grandpa's life.