The Screed: Weekly Edition
It’s still hard times with school and starting treatment. Pressure from one side and disinterest from the other. Anxious waiting and much uncertainty. I wish I could do something to make it better but I can’t even guess what that might be. All I know to do is offer reassurance and attempt to keep my own anxiety from spreading.
But other things are very good. Shanda tells me that the security I have tried to communicate through residential real estate is doing what I hoped. I had been so worried that I was forcing something unwanted but I’m now fairly confident that it is doing genuine good. It would be nice if I could figure out how to talk about it directly but I’m happy just to know that it’s working. It’s what I’ve been trying to do for months – what I needed for myself since forever – and hearing that it’s happening even a little makes me feel like the world might be okay.
I get to buy lots of cool stuff even if I don’t yet know how to pay for it. New, matched bedroom furniture, a schnazy blue couch, a big TV and sound system, an adjustable desk, and of course my hypervigilance supplies – fire and gas protection, first aid, and other emergency equipment†. And my first consumer-grade physical security device. I am also excited to help pick out decorating bits, and to get the place fixed up the way you want it.
Had a great supper last Thursday. Lots of good food, normal social activity, and even a little drinking. I didn’t even have to do much work other than dishes. And we got to make some future plans, which always helps me feel safe and wanted. I also wandered around the neighborhood a bit and started to feel like I might be okay living here. I was going to do it whether I liked it or not, but I’m glad to feel like it’d something I can like. I’m particularly excited to be within waking distance of a number of decent restaurants, a small grocery store, a bunch of fast food, and a 24-hour booze, nicotine, and fuel shop. It’s the one thing I wish I had better access to in Magnolia.
On Thursday night, after everyone left or went to bed, I delivered messages to therapists in Seattle inquiring about starting treatment. I’m still not convinced I’ll find anything useful, but I’m more motivated to try now than I ever have been before. There are lots of things I’ll do to technically not be a hypocrite, even things I would otherwise never consider. It’s really just the narc version of responding to dares, but I’m gonna call it a good thing here because motivations don’t matter. And I’m going to thank you for everything you’ve done to help make it possible.
Went shopping on Friday, which I think is my first time ever on the consumerism’s holy day**. Invited myself along with M’s friends and wandered about an outdoor mall for several hours. I actually thought about my own clothing while I was there, though of course nothing in the whole place would fit me. But it’s nice just to be thinking about clothing in a way that isn’t about protecting people from my terrible physical existence, or providing versatile and durable armor against all threats social and physical. I did get some cool things for Shanda though, and generally had a nice time not being anxious for half a day.
Hockey on Friday night. I bought M tickets weeks ago but of course you never used them. So after shopping we all went to watch the Cleveland Monsters ice the puck about 274 times instead of, you know, figuring out a single mid-ice play. Game ended 5-5 in regulation, which is a very high score in hockey, and then we lost in overtime. The play was less skilled than I expected given the size of the arena and price of tickets, but it was still fun to mindlessly participate in a shared public emotion. Less violence than usual too, though I mostly feel good about that — in the social emotion sense watching fights is fun, but I have trouble not thinking about the harm, particularly in a for-profit scenario that somehow doesn’t have to pay workman’s comp.
Had a hard time with Shanda on Friday, ostensibly about Dog and his care while we’re both out of town next week. But of course actually about childhood trauma and feelings of isolation and mistrust, which is much harder to talk about. It didn’t help that I was busy all day (9 AM to 10:30 PM without a break) either. Or that I’ve been gone for so long. Or that Dog has been sick. And it really didn’t help that my first messages back from therapists were in the vein of “you’re too broken for me to help”* — something I really could have used support about, if you weren’t busy hanging up on me. We eventually recovered about Dog but not really about the mistrust or abandonment. It did make me demand attention from M though, which is something I should have done earlier. You were a big help in letting me get myself together, both for myself I could better support Shanda. It’s also the sort of sharing I should do a bit more to make it easier for us to talk about real things, and to help keep us from getting stuck in a pattern where we related mostly about difficult logistics and then try to quietly not bother the other from 8’ away. I know our lives are easier with more sharing, but when stress is high we are sometimes trying so hard to avoid leaking emotions or needs that it doesn’t happen.
Got more furniture and most of the necessary household goods on Saturday. Picked up a nice old dining table and chairs, some blue chairs to match the couch, and carts full of rugs and pillows and sheets and pans and all the other bits we need to make the empty apartment someplace we can live. I got to spend a lot of the day with you, and to talk without too much distraction while we were driving, both of which were great. We even got to watch a movie together — The Iron Giant (1999). I’ve seen bits before but never actually watched it; in some ways it plays like any other Brad Bird movies with very careful editing before production even starts, and with on-the-nose but effective dialog. It’s both very pretty hand-drawn animation and uses a number of interesting compositing techniques to provide a lot of detail across many elements and much better lighting effects than are common in similar-aged animation. It doesn’t include the weird thing Bird has done recently where he tells the audience in dialog about how he hates them for liking movies like the one they’re currently watching. I wonder where he went so bitter.
More recovery with Shanda, once I finally figured out that you were mad at me for being away, for leaving you alone with hard things to manage, and for not being around to support you in the ways you need. All of which are perfectly reasonable. It is hard to be away, and it makes all the hard bits that much worse. I wish it was easy for us to be together. But that is not our life right now, and I know you support me — we support each other — in doing these hard things. For the benefit of others, and in helping us build the life and the world that we want to live in. But that doesn’t make it easy, and it doesn’t invalidate the anger. I don’t mind that you’re angry — I think it’s good for you to finally be able to express it. I do hope I can help make it easier for you to integrate though, so that it’s part of the whole and not a barrier to everything else.
Sunday was back to mostly anxious distraction. I get why. It’s happening to me too. I can’t wait for it to end. I suspect I’ll be fairly relieved as soon as the appeal is in — I have enough distance to let go once the active bits are done — but it will probably be harder for you. Either way it’s hard today. Hard to get started and equally hard to not be doing it.
DerbyK was a big help though, in keeping my calm enough to manage at least a start to the work, and a plan for the morrow. You reach me about my special skill of only intentionally sharing emotions, which from the outside looks like being calm. I mean, it is a certain kind of calm, just probably not exactly the one other people imagine I have. Regardless, you believed I could help and felt like it was useful when I tried, which is one of the few ways I can handle being appreciated. So of course I rewarded you with my emotional dysregulation for an hour or so. But we did it with real-time voice comm (for the first time in a goodly while — definitely since Caleb died, and that event was itself perhaps the first in a decade). It was really great to connect and get help with the day’s struggles and reevaluate some from the past. I know you worry that it’s a demand on other people, but at least for me it’s a great relief. I know a lot about feeling like I demand too much — some days that’s the main feeling I have the entire time other people are aware of my existence. But I want more you, not less, particularly on days like this.
I got a great hat this week. I haven’t owned a warm (i.e. non-costume) hat in a long time, and now I’ve got a great one with two poms. I feel cute wearing it and I can imagine that other people like it too. I even felt fine taking a picture in it, where you can see my whole face and my weeks of unkempt hair and beard and my giant over-the-ear, under-the-hat headphones.
Finally it was the day, and no amount of anxiety or distraction would be a substitute for getting the appeal done. We cranked through it efficiently and I think got all the important bits in, even if we didn’t get all the support we had hoped for. It was real work though, not just in the writing but in the telling, and in trying to walk the ridge line between sharing like a human, pushing an agenda against an entrenched patriarchal institution, and complying with the same so as not to be crushed by it. We’ll have to talk about it once we’ve had a chance to rest. Or at least I will — it’s an enormous relief to get done, but it was a hard thing we only sort of did together (and like everything else in life is only sort of “done”). We should have more time for that now, or at least less anxiety to fill our time, but there are also still the 40 things we need to do about moving and other daily life that we’ve been ignoring.
I was back to work today. I wasn’t supposed to be on the queue, but I am “only until Thursday” because J is overbooked. It’s not their fault but it was a disappointment, and it’s never fun to be on the queue two weeks in a row. Plus I was just on the queue for 2 of the last 3 weeks due to holiday schedules. Somehow I don’t envision that I’m going to get 5 consecutive weeks off to make up for it. But I did seem to calm my boss today about being in Cleveland, which is useful, after I told him I had booked a flight back for next week. I didn’t tell him yet that I’m leaving again on the 10th — he deserve to be happy for a couple of weeks. And I do too, which is easier when he isn’t worried about it. I know he imagines he’s protecting me from the machinations of corporate policy or somesuch, but I’ve spent the better part of two decades proving that I’m essentially immune to the sort of harassment he is worried about, so I’d rather he just didn’t. He wants to badly to be a real human and to serve their corporate overlord, but of course that’s not possible. I worry sometimes that I’m going to get them fired though.
We’re finally mostly moved into the apartment. Totally out of short-term housing**, divested of the moving van, have Internet, two mattresses, some bedding, new smoke detectors, and a whole slew of the things Target stocks that households need. There’s no heat or cooking until tomorrow afternoon, the microwave that should have been delivered on Saturday is still lost in the mail, and still a lot of stuff in bags and boxes and all over the counter. But we’re done moving and on to the making a home bit, and it feels real good.
I might even get to sleep tonight before 4 AM. There are lots of parts of living in the future that are great for scheduling, but when I need Shanda and she isn’t available until her bedtime, and then I have 9 AM tasks here, the future sort of sucks. The 9 AM meeting at noon are great, but my lifestyle of being up later than everyone else as time for myself or to catch up with things I avoided is a lot harder from here.
ZiB
*And drove a 15-person van around all day get them there. It’s better than the U-Haul I’ve been driving but I’m still so sick of driving. I can’t wait to be hobbled by insufficient public transit again.
**Which will help with expenses, though I’ve been spending imaginary money long enough now it almost feels like it doesn’t matter anymore. I think I’m gonna pay it off with different imaginary money once things settle out, because it’s not something I want to be stressed about. By the time I get to retiring — assuming I’m not dead first — presumably my Roth IRA will have been devalued by TrumpCoin anyway.
***And honestly my first time shopping IRL in a long time in general. I only do some of my grocery shopping IRL and basically none of any other kind. Which is fine once you’ve carefully arranged your life to have hot backups for necessities and a location with reliable same-day shipping, but not great for having shower curtain rings by morning.
†I’m trying to resist the urge to provide the excessive first aid, water and food storage, emergency heating, and other supplies and equipment I keep for myself. But today with the heat out that felt like a challenge. And everyone should have some emergency supplies, even if it’s not 40 person-days of complete self-sufficiency, so I can at least stock a little water and shelf-stable food and bandages.
