Superfluous Baloney
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Regret
This is the book I never read ~~ These are the words I never said ~~ This is the path I'll never tread ~~ These are the dreams I'll dream instead ~~ These are the tears ~~ The tears we shed ~~ This is the fear ~~ This is the dread ~~ These are the contents of my head” - Annie Lennox I went back to see my therapist this week after a six month hiatus. I get odd glances when I tell people I see a therapist. I realize there is a stigma surrounding such a statement. People think all kinds of blasphemous things about those of us that seek out that kind of help. We must be mental or emo or psychotic or manically depressed or suicidal. I am none of those things really. I do battle depression, but I think between my own sensibilities and medication I do a pretty good job of keeping it under control and have now for a good 6 years or so. With all that said, I go to a therapist to improve who I am. To identify flaws and learn how to fix them. And, I guess, to have a degreed professional confirm I am not crazy, a little messy, but not certifiably insane. We also talk about choices I have made in the past, how the have effected my path and how I should handle those types of decisions in the future. Pretty basic life stuff I guess.
This week we discussed my social life, or lack there of. I am currently going through one of my hibernation phases where I really don't want to deal with people in any social capacity. I don't want to "hang out" and I am completely uninterested in dating in any form. I kind of go through phases where I am extremely sociable and then completely antisocial. A string of crappy relationships has pushed me recently into the latter of the two scenarios. (Okay, not all that recently. I have been in hiding for about three months now.) She probed me about why I am not inclined to date right now which of course opened up all sorts of fun topics. Which led to her posing two questions that were extremely difficult for me to answer:
Do you feel like there must be something wrong with you since you are still single?
Do you feel left behind by your friends that are married?
Dammit. Ouch. If I say yes to either of these it makes me appear to be one of those annoying, overly emotional, single woman that hears that biological clock tickin' away. But if I say no, am I lying? The answer to the first question, as much as it pains my ego to say it, is Yes. I do feel (on some subconscious level) like I must be seriously damaged goods if everyone else has managed to get remarried except me. No, it is not a very logical thought, but who ever said self-esteem was logical?
The answer to the second question is No. Not really. I do not feel left behind. I feel more as though I chose a different path. But as I started to think about it a bit more, did I choose a different path or did I just end up taking that path because I was too much of a chicken shit to choose the other? I will admit I am a total coward when it comes to commitment and relationships. The thought of the first can send me into an immediate search for a paper bag to breathe into.
I came close to committing to someone about four years ago. We owned a home together, were engaged and had a date set for the wedding. But the closer it got the more my anxiety grew. So I ran. I ran from the source of the anxiety and I ran from him. I have the ability to come up with very strong logical arguments for my actions as they relate to commitment thus convincing everyone around me I made the right decision. But the truth is I fucked up. I fucked up royally with this person. He was completely devoted to me, came from a good family who I adored, had a strong sense of right and wrong, loved animals, was easy going BLAH BLAH BLAH. I know one could argue I am just romanticizing my memory of him, but I have several witness who would attest to what I just stated about him and none of them are even related to him. Today I found out he is engaged. The news hit me much harder than I thought it would. I have mentioned several times over the last two years or so to friends that I should contact him to see what he was doing and just catch up. I think I still believed in the back of mind I would be granted some miraculous second chance eventually. As if he was just going to put his entire life on hold waiting for me to get my head out of my ass and anxieties out of my system.
So now here I sit at work heavy from the weight of regret. Regret...one of the most useless feelings ever to exist. Yes, you can learn from it but you can learn from angry and sad and excitement too. Regret is worthless. You can't go back and fix the thing that made you feel it most of the time. You are just stuck with the weighted discontentment it brings. It pulls you down as if chains tied to boulders are attached until you finally hit bottom. I know eventually I will fight my way back to the surface and carry on in my disillusionment as I always have before, but for right now I'm just going to sit here in the silence at the bottom and feel the weight holding me down.
“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” - Jim Rhone
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Not Ever Again
I did not have the best of weekends. Friday night I stuck to my normal routine, just went home and relaxed. My night off from the gym. Saturday was pretty typical as well. I got up early hit the gym for a few hours, came home and relaxed.
Then I went and hung out with a friend for awhile and we decided we would venture out for some night life. We went to a couple of local bars and didn't really like the scene at any of them. So we went to this somewhat Redneck, low rent bar not far from where we live. We drank a little too much and headed home around closing time.
Around 3am I woke up and had to head to the bathroom. Now mind you, I have drank that much before (probably around 6 or 7 mixed drinks) and been just fine. But for some reason I began to throw up. (Yes, this is kind of gross) I couldn't stop. Finally after about a half hour I was able to head back to bed. I woke up several more times and the problem continued. After each "episode" I would head back to bed and try to get some sleep. Around 2pm Sunday I woke up to take my dogs out as I have a million times before. I made it about halfway down the outside steps to the bottom floor and that's all I remember. My next memory is laying sprawled out on the sidewalk with paramedics over me. I was transported to the hospital where I stayed until around 8:30 last night. The paramedics said when they go to me my blood sugar levels were extremely low and that could have contributed to what had occurred. What do they think occurred? They think I had a seizure possibly brought on by the low blood sugar and a prescription I had been switched to about two weeks before. Did I know seizures were a potential side effect of the medicine? No. But overall, they are really not sure what caused it or if it could happen again.
So now here I sit, afraid of living alone. Had I not fallen outside, I do not know what would have happened. My neighbors saw me and called 911. What if it happens again and I am at home alone? I have always totally loved having my own place and being able to go about my business. It is one of the cool things about being single and independent. And now I'm afraid of it. Look, being single at 30 has lots of sucky parts to it. But this was one of the cool things and now it sucks ass for me too.
I know that yes, although it stinks, I just need to suck it up. You can't live your life in fear forever, blah, blah, blah. And I am sure a month or so from now I won't think about it too much (except when I get that weird sideways glance from my neighbors), but I can't help but feel that a large portion of my confidence has been taken away from me. Even if it is only temporarily. I am not good with vulnerable or needy. When you are 2000 miles away from family (the ones that have to put up with you when you are needy and vulnerable) and crap like this occurs.
I just wish they could tell me, "Hey, there is a 65% chance this will never happen again" or even a 33% chance, just tell me something. I need to know something so I can decide how I want to deal with this.
I know, I sound like a control freak, but I can say this experience scared the shit out of me. Almost enough to send me packing back to CA or to sign up as a mail order bride for some Russian potato farmer. I just can't wait for it to be behind me. And I really, really hope it never happens again.
