Yes, that's me. Pixellated almost to the point of abstraction, which is how I feel right now. Less than my normal sharp-focus, well-lit, on-the-ball self. I have a fabulous coworker who is a cartoonist by hobby (and a very good, funny one) who has informed me I'm his next subject. I can't wait - I know there's plenty of good comedy material in me (I know because he showed me the list he's been making), and I've always wanted to be rendered into cartoon form, especially if it involves giving me super-powers.
But I'm not feeling so super just now, and I'm irritated that I don't know exactly why. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that it's just an overwhelming feeling of "meh", and considering what many others I know are struggling with, I feel like a jackhole for still having a few toes trailing along in that huge pool of self-pity I've been struggling to pull my waterlogged self out of. I'm the first person to tell a struggling friend "hey, be gentle with yourself, you wouldn't let anybody else talk to you the way you're talking to yourself right now!", but I'm total shit at taking my own excellent advice, and there's nobody in my face to tell me to cut it the fuck out and get my shit together, I have a million things to be grateful for. And I am grateful. But 'grateful' doesn't automatically cancel out 'sad'. I can be both.
I learned this morning that a friend who has already battled cancer once is facing yet another battle. Very sobering news. Yet he still managed to make a few jokes and got me to laugh, as if he needed to ease the blow of my hearing about his diagnosis. For ME, not for him. That's very selfless, and shows a tremendous strength of character that I admire. So of course, the JC that comes from generations of stoic Austrian women who never kvetched about their ills even when they had every right to wants to kick my sad little self right in the nads and shout (in a heavy Austrian accent, of course), "VAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? NUSSING! DERE IS NUSSING DE MATTER VIT YOU! STOP CRYING LIKE BABY!" Because that is how my inner Austrian rules. She's a tough bitch. No-nonsense. I'm disinclined to fuck with her, she could mess my shit up real good.
But even knowing that friends are facing very real life-and-death battles, and getting a drill-sergeant-esque dressing down from my inner Helga hasn't bolstered my spirits. And why should it? These aren't good things, or fun things. Knowing a friend of mine is facing another major battle saddens me. And I don't like getting yelled at, even just from myself. I only retreat and get sullen, especially if they're right. Which of course, she is. (If they're wrong, I get all kinds of unstoppably sassy and in-yo-face.) I KNOW I have a million things to be happy about and grateful for, and I usually am in that place, sitting on top of the world in the little seat I carved out for myself (with a lot of help from family and friends and mentors), just enjoying the view and smiling down upon my little fiefdom while petting a cat in my lap.
Right now, there's some clouds blocking my view and they just won't seem to clear up and get the hell out of the way. The misty leftovers of what a month ago was a complete thunderstorm is still blocking out the sun. The shine has worn off of a lot of things I usually look to when I want to cheer myself up. I feel like the shine has worn off of ME a little bit. Just a few months ago I was working hard towards my fitness goals and feeling and looking good, my skin was clear, and I had somebody other than myself to try to impress and notice all the changes. Someone who wanted to see what I looked like every day. Now, I'm still working hard towards my fitness goals, but I'm feeling like a rusty tin man. Tendonitis has flared up, along with my shin splints. I feel bloated and lumpy and like I'm gaining weight again despite diet and extreme amounts of exercise. Unwelcome aches and pains are back, and I don't feel like going to my regular massage place and having to small talk with someone I have no connection with for two hours just to get my kinks worked out. My skin looks dull and is once again breaking out, which is how I wear my stress. Even my hair isn't cooperating. Maybe it's the lack of human touch. I don't know.
I feel disassociated, untethered, like the sum of my parts isn't just NOT more than the whole, but isn't even the whole right now. I'm coming up short. Maybe it's the eerily silent phone, and my coming to terms with "if he wanted you in his life, you'd be there." Ok, that just made my eyes well up, so I must be onto something. So I guess this is just more of the same, although most of my anger is gone now and I'm just left with the hollow sadness that I guess some people call 'loneliness'. I'm not a person who likes to be around people all the time. Even most of the time. I actually like to be alone, and have never felt like I needed constant external stimulation or validation to get through life. So this is a foreign and extremely unwelcome feeling for me to have.
After having someone seem to be so interested in me and my life, suddenly having no one in that space has left a spooky echo and a feeling of incompleteness that I am not comfortable with. And it pisses me off that I feel that way, because I have never needed somebody else to validate who I am. So why do I feel that way now?
I'm just going to chalk it up to a bunch of cosmic stuff. Mercury, asshole of a planet that he is, is still in retrograde. I'm probably also having a low biorhythm day. Even my horoscope was shitty, and the horoscope of the person I'm missing only made it worse. (No, I don't usually read it, but of course it caught my eye today, of all days.) "There is someone who needs to hear just how much you care. This person has been longing to know how you feel...this person is in need of some reassurance. Reach out and show how much your friend or lover means to you. This could be the beginning of a really wonderful relationship." AAAARRRRRGH. I actually raised my eyebrows and was surprised at how accurate it was...until I got to the "friend or lover" part. Once again a reminder that I'm neither of these things to this person anymore, and he'll most likely be reaching out to the one who now IS. Another sharp stick in my already watery red eyes...Oh well.
The good news (because society says "stop being negative!", "Count your positives!", and that old favorite, "Smile!" I hate society.) is that I'm going to be busy all day and on a military base where I can't have my phone or computer with me. So at least I won't be hearing all that silence coming from my phone. See? I can be positive.
SuperJC out.
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