The One... The Only... The Vieve

Apparently I'm 13 years old again

This week brought to you by the emotions sad, angry, and lonely. Which are brought to you by the letter "I," as in ignored, isolated, and icky.

I felt OK for a few hours yesterday, though, so that was nice.

Meh

Everything is sticky and gross, I'm bored with my work, I have a zit the size of Pluto on my face, and all I really want to do is eat cheese slices until I pass out in a dairy-induced stupor.

MEH.

Close enough to even

Today is the first day in a very long time that I feel almost entirely un-crazy. There are a lot of factors affecting this (some I can't quite put my finger on), and I won't go into detail, but damn, it's nice.

I am, however, hungry, and I am scared to open my fridge because there are fruit flies in there. (How and why is a mystery.) Who wants to bring me a sammich?

Don't know why you stay

That song's been running through my head a lot lately. Because, honestly, I don't know why I've stayed so long.

Thirteen years in September. My whole adult life, really. I've always had a (mostly shitty) job, or a (kinda crappy) boyfriend,* and those seemed like reason enough to stay. Leaving meant a whole lot of hassle and loose ends to tie up and messy disentanglements. Besides, where would I go? Where and why? How? Too many questions I couldn't quite face before.

But I'm ready now. I have some good friends here, and a handful of lovely memories. Not enough to hold me here, though. It's never felt like home to me, this place. None of my nine different apartments has been more than a pit stop on the way to something else, and I never quite knew what the "something" was.

So it's time for someplace new, somewhere of my choosing. I can't know for certain whether it will work out, but I'm ready to try. And it feels good to make a choice that's only for me. To be moving toward something, to feel unstuck.

Of course, I'm shitting bricks right now, and full of fears and uncertainties. And I feel sad, about a lot of things. But honestly, at this point, if I could get my act together and didn't have so much crap to get rid of, I'd be gone next week.

Sorry, Boston. You are way too neurotic for me (and vice versa), and like so many of my other relationships, our respective baggages are incompatible, feeding each other and vibrating on a frequency that makes me absolutely fucking insane. It's better we part ways, the sooner the better.

* I don't mean to say that you are crappy people in general. Just crappy boyfriends for me specifically (and, to be honest, I was probably a crappy girlfriend for you, though I always tried my best), each in your own special way. I'm still quite fond of most of you, really.

Feeeeelings...

You know, sometimes you have to communicate with people. Things you feel, things that might make someone feel badly. Sometimes these things come to a head -- you've disappointed me, this is what's happening, I feel bad because of X. And no one wants to hear that. I know this. But sometimes you have to say it, because otherwise you feel crazy, or like a doormat, or completely confused.

And you get a negative response, or none at all (which one is worse, I'm not sure).

But you know, I won't feel bad for telling you. If you can't deal with it or talk about it, I think it reflects poorly on you. Because everyone gets pissed, everyone feels shitty. And if all you can do is ignore it, or deflect it, that's your problem. You're trying to make it mine, and I'll cry -- sob, even, for hours -- but I won't take it in the end. I won't apologize.

I'm tired of holding it in and trying to make things OK. It's not OK, and I'll tell you the fuck why.

Woo!

Once a smartass, always a smartass

I just ran across a "bio" I wrote for one of the books I worked on at my last job:

[The Vieve] (production editor) has been at [company] for two years now, but she still doesn't understand why people are so fascinated by technological minutiae. In her spare time, she reads novels and dreams of spending the rest of her days on a tropical beach, sipping Mai Tais and reading more novels.

Snerk. And it still applies.

Better than an alarm clock

I had a dream this morning, involving houses and groups of people I didn't quite recognize, and also maybe college applications and travel plans, and at one point someone said, "Wake up. WAKE UP!"

And so I did, at 5:40 a.m.

Perhaps I wasn't meant to take it so literally.

My life as a yo-yo

I should be used to it by now, all my ups and downs, but they're always unsettling, and often frustrating. Evenness would be so lovely, but I've come to accept that's not my lot in life. My brain isn't wired that way, and it makes life kind of exciting, I suppose? Even when I'm bored, there's something sort of new and cuckoo going on in my head, worthy of study (or worried obsession). If it weren't so crazy-making, I would revel in it.

But in a way, I do. I am me, and me is very imperfect, but also pretty fantastic.

And right now I have my porch to myself, and a lovely summer Weizen, and one of my favorite books (Middlesex), and I am very much looking forward to my birthday. These are crowding out the anxieties and jealousies and disappointments and cuckoo thoughts.

It's as good as it gets to even.

Yeah

I am pouting now, yeah.

Maybe I will write something more substantive tomorrow. There's a lot going on.

But right now I'm just pouting, and annoyed.