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Thoughts on lots of things, especially education, psychology, culture, religion, and personal growth.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

transition

I'm moving at the end of this month.  Moving out— that I know— but I don't know where TO yet.  It depends on if someone hires me.  The backup plan is to move back in with Mom.  Back in.

If that happens, it'll be three and a half years since moving out from Mom's, and I won't have made any progress.  A giant 3-1/2 year circle.  But maybe something good will happen, and that won't be necessary. One must retain hope.  I'm smart, educated, detail-oriented, passionate and a team player, right? I bring a lot of value. Companies are foolish to overlook me.  Dear God, I'm starting to believe my own cover letters.

I'm not a huge fan of this decrepit old house, but it has served us decently well the past few years, despite the plumbing backing up constantly, the lack of closets, the gaping holes in the windows, and the cracks in the paper-thin walls.  I know and appreciate that I'm lucky to have running water, electricity, and a roof.  I'm not complaining, really I'm not.  I have genuinely enjoyed trying to wrestle this rectangular squat into something resembling pretty and livable.

I'm just fighting the feelings of nostalgia trying to grab me as I envision saying goodbye to the old place.  Why would I miss this dumpy disaster of architectural indifference?  There's surely something better for me out there to go to, somewhere to call home that deserves such a title. (Or maybe not. Life has no guarantees.)

"Don't feel. Just pack.  One step at a time, that's all you can do."

And then, as I pull out some books from my disheveled bookshelf, a CD pops into view.  His CD.  The one I bought from him 11 years ago and listened to until I'd memorized the songs, absorbed the timbres, and conformed to the textures. The one I'd listened to whenever the ache for him became unbearable (but I felt forbidden to do anything about it, like, oh, ask him out.)  The forms, rhythms, chord progressions, and concepts were well-conceived, and the perfectly-placed sarcasm was charming and hilarious... but he sure needed some voice lessons. But that detail only barely mattered. A raspy, scooping assault on the auditory sensibilities can't hold a candle to the power of love.

Love's way of sneaking into your soul and infiltrating the little crevices of your consciousness, sabotaging your critical powers, and blurring the sharp edges of your discernment, is truly diabolical.  That you could want someone, so badly, whom you also both fear and spurn, whom you disagree with so strongly, whom you logically worry would turn out to be a bad match anyway, should be illegal.

And a decade after buying the CD, after my transformation, he was suddenly no longer forbidden, I disagreed with him much less, and he was available (kind of).  It could have worked, surely.  Were the timing different, had I been more suave, had I not tripped over myself... or something... I don't actually know why it didn't work.  He didn't feel the same way, apparently.  Does there need to be any other explanation?

Anyway, I thought I was SO over it, moving on, putting the jerkface in the past. I even have a new forbidden crush now. (How original, my idiotic heart, how original.) But now. Now this CD is burning my hands, and as I throw it away from me as sharply as if it were a scorpion, the ache bursts out from my core, all over again. And despite my attempts not to feel, a strange, choking, crying sound hits my ears, and I realize it's mine.  I have to hold a tissue to my eyes the entire time while reading bedtime stories to my children.

Gone. He's gone forever... but still alive. I could bump into him accidentally some day.  It's worse than if he were dead, because there's still a possibility of seeing him.  We could both end up on the same airplane, or visiting the same museum. What would I do then?  Maybe he'll become a famous musician, and I'll hear him on the radio or something, and have to endure people talking about going to his concerts. Why do I care?  Why did I ever care in the first place? He's a jerk, that's what I have to tell myself to make any kind of sense of what happened.

Maybe I don't really care.  Maybe I'm more over him than I feel tonight.  Maybe this event is just a trigger for the broader feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and uncertainty I'm facing as I move into a very dark and murky future.  Maybe it's easier to think that I'm crying about a past loss than to admit that I'm illogically emotional about a present in which my emotions have no say, whatsoever, in the outcome. Maybe crying about the past allows me to feel more powerful, somehow. To tell myself that maybe I COULD have had a different outcome, if only I were better at dealing with men, or didn't have children, or... something..., than to own up to the fact that the outcome for the future feels completely out of my control, and that makes me feel very vulnerable.

Or maybe it really is how it feels, and I'm just feeling wounded from thinking about him, all over again.

The CD is in the trash.  Such a waste.  But I'd rather listen to the Gaither Band on infinite repeat than that beautiful-odd thing one more time.

Damn these feelings.  Don't feel.  Just pack.

1 comment:

  1. Addendum: I dreamed about him last night, but I don't remember anything about the dream except that he was in it. It must have been a processing dream, though, because I woke up feeling much better. This event of reliving the grief is probably normal, and the grief lasted much shorter than it did a year ago. A good sign, after all. I do think I am more "over him" than I felt last night.

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