foggy

caveat emptor: this one gets pretty raw at the end

Feeling pretty fragile today. Actually managed to get eight hours of sleep, albeit starting at 4 am; but that doesn't seem to be taking the edge off. Heaven knows how I would feel if I'd only gotten six or less, like much of last week. Might also have something to do with the fact that all I've had to eat so far today is the world's oldest Dove bar (showing bloom on every surface, a couple of millimeters thick: I should have demanded my 69 cents back) and a deviled egg from the kind people at the Van Ness Food Company. I am boiling water now. Hopefully some noodles will stabilize me before I head back out to see yet another play about the Holocaust, oh joy.

As long as I've been in motion, I haven't really had time to think much about why exactly I'm going home. I mean, I talk to people about it, but I'm so focused on remaining calm that I don't necessarily totally engage with what I'm talking about. I try to stay calm because I'm trying to keep people from showering me with too much sympathy. How can I explain this better? From the people I'm close to, the concern is totally welcome. From people I don't know as well--or maybe more accurately who I don't really care for one way or another--the sounds of sympathy are too high-pitched for my heart. There's someone in particular I'm thinking of, a woman from the dojo, who I've actively avoided since New Year's. I know if I tell her what's going on, she'll flood me. While I'm sure she's sincere, I just don't want to... reveal any emotion... to her.

I am not explaining this well. Suffice it to say that my patience is very thin right now, and particularly today I feel like I need to focus all my energy on getting ready to leave, getting packed, staying centered. Last night I went out with Almeida, and that was perfect; she was totally the right person for me to see. She has a family situation that has been a source of much sadness and anxiety for a few years, and we talked about ways to resolve it, and being able to do that actually made me feel a lot better. I remember the original event, and how hopeless reconciliation seemed at the time. Now there are signs that things might be fixable, and I'm pushing her to think about that. I've always found the line where there's life there's hope a bit trite, but last night it started making sense.

Often things that seem irreparable aren't, but we need the time to see that.

I'm also sad because my romantic universe is off-kilter; someone I'd hoped to see before I left is not apparently available this weekend, and I'm torturing myself with the possibility that it's because he is too busy going on dates with other people, sexy well-dressed people who are not currently all teary and needy and hair-trigger and breaking out around their hairlines. The dates with other people thing is not a problem; the I don't get to see him part is. So I'm on myself for having let my perception that we were getting closer get the best of me, and I'm wrestling my shadow again, and I so do not have time for this. As I write I realize I feel like I'm regressing; I just need to be held, a voice is whimpering, and instead I get to go see my second play of the weekend about the freaking Shoah. Alone. There's a strong chance E will be there, and I'm not ready for that, and then I come back to my studio and try to finish packing, and write notes for my article, and enter receipts into Quicken, when what I really want is a little basic affection, and not to sleep alone tonight, when I am about to face a month or more on my parents' couch.

Sometimes this polyamory thing I am trying to learn from my friends makes total sense, and works well within the structure of my life as it currently stands. And sometimes, like this moment, I so wish there were one person in my life who was really devoted to me, and to whom I was devoted, who I could turn to right now, who could be with me right now and not looking at their watch to figure out when they need to get home to their real partner, or at their cell phone to see if the person they're hoping to have sex with later has called, or at another woman at the party to speculate on whether the man she's with is really a boyfriend or just a friend. I am feeling the lack of a mate so keenly I can barely breathe. Of course, that might just be the snot.

I know that I have to learn to be my own hero, and I've been succeeding more than I've been failing, the past couple of years.

But right now I'm failing.