5.26.2015

Preempting a fight

So, I don't like surprising people with conversations. Likewise, if I know there's potential for an awkward conversation, I'll bring it up ahead of time to avoid that, and avoid any awkward complications.

In this case, it was the closing out of long overdue emotional balance. Meaning, removing all traces of my ex from my apartment. She's had her stuff here for months, and it's time to go. The awkwardness came in the chest beating and silly childish shit in arranging times. I wanted to bring up the fact that I had moved on, and that it wasn't a big deal to see her, for me. Which, in my mind, felt nonthreatening and matter of fact. I even said as much. However I got nothing in response but pissed off chest beating about how it wasn't about me.

Uhh, great kid, you work on those anger issues. Enjoy your life. I've bigger fish to fry than a Napoleon complex right now.

But what annoys me, is the hypocritical nature of the emotional manipulation towards the end of the conversation. In my attempts to be civil I said she'd get her stuff, and we'd not have to communicate anymore. To which I get a frowny face.

No, you don't get to claim that talking to me pisses you off, and then put up a sad face at the same idea of not talking to me. You don't get it both ways. You can be friend, or you can not. I left that door open, to which I was told it wasn't about me. Somewhere along the ways people started confusing openness with desire. Truly, do what you want, if you want it to involve me, you have to let me know, you can't purposefully drive me away, and then post a sad face when I'm gone. That dog don't hunt.

5.14.2015

Shutting doors like wiggling ears, the involuntary reflex

In discussing my situation with my therapist, I came across a metaphor. If my emotional vulnerable self is my apartment, then it follows that people are allowed to be in different places. Some folks might be able to get in the building, others onto my floor, some into my hallway, and maybe one or two people inside my apartment. We all have levels of emotional intimacy that we share with people.

In my current situation, it feels like I had one person in my apartment/bedroom, and now that person is leaving. I wrote a bit about that in my last post, which makes a lot of common sense with why I feel so isolated and alone. I have some folks in my hallway, outside my apartment, but it isn't as simple as inviting them inside.

My worry, is that in opening the door to have my friend leave (for whatever her reasons are), once she's out there, she's stuck out there, and it'll take another two years to move her back into a place of comfortable emotional intimacy, if ever.

So now, I feel torn at the door, feeling the pain of that loss, and the emptiness of my apartment being solely occupied by me.

The suggestion put forward though, is that the power to open or close that door, feels absent from me. It just seems like a thing that happens outside my control. As if it were less a door, and more a gooey-cell membrane that one got through via osmosis. A process that takes a long time, and one I'd rather have control over.

If she opts to exit, I know there's only a brief period in time before that barrier/door hardens over again. I don't want that, but it just seems inevitable as people grow apart. That loss, feels substantial, and I dislike having to grieve for it. The pain of doing so only seems to make it harder to let people inside, in the first place.

I realize that opening that path, is an exercise of muscles I can't feel, like wiggling your ears. I've seen other people do it, I know, in theory, I should have the muscles to do it, but I have no idea how to access those muscles, or what they feel like. Keeping people at a distance is so, involuntarily ingrained into who I am, that it seems obligatory.

I wonder if that is the reason my physical attraction to people is so muted. If at some point I just turned off in order to keep people at bay, or if it just never developed fully since. That's a different subject though.

I do think it would be easier to see her go, if she wasn't the only one in my apartment, and I've been looking, but there just doesn't seem to be anyone knocking, or, at least provoking a response from me to get me off the couch.

5.10.2015

Writing

Throughout my life I've always had trouble letting go of people. I horde my relationships with people, and guard them as explicit treasure. I can't even really break up with someone without wanting to still be around the person, or needing to stay in contact in some way.

I think, part of that reason is to due with how involved I tend to intertwine my life with others. Sure I can keep things divorced, but even my hobbies and activities, become the things I used to do while the other person was around.

The isolation is what gets to me, it sucks away at my soul. Where before I could talk to someone, it now feels like I'm in an empty room (which, I largely literally am, but that's aside the point). It feels like I'm alone all the time.

One of the reasons I write these is because writing in a journal doesn't relieve any emotional weight. If these are online, I know someone, anyone, at least one person might read and hear me. That, takes away a lot of the pain. It's why writing is such a cathartic experience for me. Being heard, and understood, is something I've always struggled with.

My life, now, feels like I'm writing in a journal again. It's, unviewed and unexpressed. I do things, and it's all just written down and hidden away, there is no understanding or connection to anyone else emotionally anymore. It feels asphyxiating.

5.07.2015

Modern Day Problems

It's funny how one can go through a major event, like I've just done, return, and then immediately get swept up in the sea of change. I don't know if that is psychosomatic, or perhaps just the interdependence of events.

In returning, I face the very real possibility of being out of work for the first time in years. Not that, I've any real motivation to stay at that company, it's more I've a motivation to have income. Food, rent, and the like will do that to you. It's funny that this type of slavery just seems to be socially acceptable because you get your choice of chains.

Outside that, and the incredible stress of that challenge, I face the recovery process, and the rehabilitation schedule. Not that I see either of those being made easier by my employment situation.

In all of this, it seems in gaining one of my life goals, it's cost me a relationship (sorta), and a job (likely). Not that, these things aren't replaceable, or that somehow it wasn't worth it. I just wish the consequences (real or imagined) would be a bit more spread out.

There is chaos brewing, and it is not the fun world shaping kind.

In that, I find myself projecting things, and idealizing old hopes of romance. Looking for those long lost loves that might come back around because suddenly everything is different. I realize how naive that is, but somehow I get swept up in the permanence of it all. There is strength in the law of fatalistic romance. Or, perhaps, it's just a buoy in the ocean of chaotic change I'm facing.