Post of ANGST
So, in this last week, I lost my job and Ryan mailed my stuff back. I don't know what to do with any of this information.
I loved being a tutor for the QLC. I loved talking econ, and I loved feeling like I was helping people. I'm applying for Teach for America this week, but I just can't seem to feel confident knowing I wasn't asked to return to my tutoring job. I don't know why, maybe it was budgetary or logistical. I was a good tutor, I know I was. By all quantifiable measures - punctuality, student's scores, approval rating - I was great. I wasn't given a reason why I wasn't asked back.
Meanwhile, I never have to talk to Ryan again if I don't want to. And I don't know if I ever want to. Emotionally, this has been one hell of a roller coaster, and I think this might be the most difficult stage to parse. The regret/"please take me back" stage was awful and demoralizing, the anger stage was frightening and just made me hate myself for sticking around as long as I did, and now I'm just...I don't know. Sad and angry and confused at the same time. I want to move on and get along with my life, but I keep finding pieces of him in my conversations. I find myself using his catchphrases and mannerisms and I want to purge them all, but I can't. And a part of me still wants to go back, even though I know it's stupid and that he's going to drag me down into his hole of mediocrity and laziness and excuse-making. And that same part of me is hurting knowing I can't go back and couldn't even if I tried.
So I guess the whole theme of this week is wanting to return and being denied.
There's someone who's interested in me and I'm interested in them, but I still feel too tethered to my relationship with Ryan to be with them. Every time we touch my brain compares it to Ryan. It's not fair to her and it's frustrating for me, because I feel like it's a bad cycle - I want a relationship so I can be all HAHA, I MOVED ON BITCHES, SUCK ON THAT RYAN and thus reiterate my moving-on, but to get to that point I have to actually, you know, move on some more. I don't know what to do about that but wait.
I can feel the depression in my periphery, not so much the eating disorder but I'm keeping my eyes open for that too. I just bought a ton of junk food yesterday to remind me to eat. The school's going to start posting calorie counts at the dining halls soon, and I really don't know how I'll be able to deal with that. Possibly not at all. Damn, I forgot to buy cookie dough yesterday. I'm always walking that tightrope between decadence and starvation, which is really just another word for decadence, except I'm indulging my compulsions instead of my stomach.
In a way, I feel like writing The Husk is one of the few reasons I'm doing as okay as I am. Obviously Ryan's not a brain-stealing slug - I would know - but the idea of progressing from each emotional state to the next, of moving beyond the situation and relationships that define us, really resonated with me. Except Eva was never uncertain about who she was, and she was able to get back on her feet, at least in my little story. Me? I'm putting in time, the same way I usually do. I am a high-functioning trainwreck, motherfuckers.
I guess the hardest part is that I no longer know who I am. I've been defining myself by my relationships and my job for so long that now that they're both gone, I'm - what? Another mediocre economics student who writes fanfiction? Who still uses her ex-boyfriend's jokes? Just plain lonely. I don't know who to talk to or if I even want to talk to anyone. Every time I do, I start crying, and I'm just really, really fucking sick of crying. I want to just sleep until it's a few months later and it's behind me, but I know that's not how life works.
So anyway, I've been listening to a lot of music, of course. And I keep coming back to this line in Tori Amos' "Strange" - "you said we'll make a nest, so I left my life, put on your friends, put on your opinions". What happens when we take those friends and opinions off? How do I really feel about drinking, or Elvis, or gang violence? What's me talking and what's the echo of Ryan?
But I guess the fact that I'm listening to Elvis these days is a good sign, because Ryan hates Elvis.
Mostly I just wanted to use this Punchy icon because I'm rereading the Intimates, and the Intimates is amazing. I've been doing a lot of excavating ofmy childhood in the last year. Movies, Animorphs, comic books. I missed you, my old friends, Black Tom and Juggernaut and Marco and Punchy and Dr. Manhattan and Gambit and Rogue and Tabby. I've been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender, too, so eventually I may post some opinions on that, but it's way fun. I just don't have the brainspace for serious, adult shit now. If it's not a cartoon, a TV show, a comic book or kids' lit, I'm not interested, really.
On the upside, I see Lady Gaga tonight, biznatches. HELL TO THE FUCK YEAH.
Also, the word of the day is "quaggy"? Fucking seriously, dictionary.com? Is this like that time that you couldn't figure out what an afflesjackles is?
I loved being a tutor for the QLC. I loved talking econ, and I loved feeling like I was helping people. I'm applying for Teach for America this week, but I just can't seem to feel confident knowing I wasn't asked to return to my tutoring job. I don't know why, maybe it was budgetary or logistical. I was a good tutor, I know I was. By all quantifiable measures - punctuality, student's scores, approval rating - I was great. I wasn't given a reason why I wasn't asked back.
Meanwhile, I never have to talk to Ryan again if I don't want to. And I don't know if I ever want to. Emotionally, this has been one hell of a roller coaster, and I think this might be the most difficult stage to parse. The regret/"please take me back" stage was awful and demoralizing, the anger stage was frightening and just made me hate myself for sticking around as long as I did, and now I'm just...I don't know. Sad and angry and confused at the same time. I want to move on and get along with my life, but I keep finding pieces of him in my conversations. I find myself using his catchphrases and mannerisms and I want to purge them all, but I can't. And a part of me still wants to go back, even though I know it's stupid and that he's going to drag me down into his hole of mediocrity and laziness and excuse-making. And that same part of me is hurting knowing I can't go back and couldn't even if I tried.
So I guess the whole theme of this week is wanting to return and being denied.
There's someone who's interested in me and I'm interested in them, but I still feel too tethered to my relationship with Ryan to be with them. Every time we touch my brain compares it to Ryan. It's not fair to her and it's frustrating for me, because I feel like it's a bad cycle - I want a relationship so I can be all HAHA, I MOVED ON BITCHES, SUCK ON THAT RYAN and thus reiterate my moving-on, but to get to that point I have to actually, you know, move on some more. I don't know what to do about that but wait.
I can feel the depression in my periphery, not so much the eating disorder but I'm keeping my eyes open for that too. I just bought a ton of junk food yesterday to remind me to eat. The school's going to start posting calorie counts at the dining halls soon, and I really don't know how I'll be able to deal with that. Possibly not at all. Damn, I forgot to buy cookie dough yesterday. I'm always walking that tightrope between decadence and starvation, which is really just another word for decadence, except I'm indulging my compulsions instead of my stomach.
In a way, I feel like writing The Husk is one of the few reasons I'm doing as okay as I am. Obviously Ryan's not a brain-stealing slug - I would know - but the idea of progressing from each emotional state to the next, of moving beyond the situation and relationships that define us, really resonated with me. Except Eva was never uncertain about who she was, and she was able to get back on her feet, at least in my little story. Me? I'm putting in time, the same way I usually do. I am a high-functioning trainwreck, motherfuckers.
I guess the hardest part is that I no longer know who I am. I've been defining myself by my relationships and my job for so long that now that they're both gone, I'm - what? Another mediocre economics student who writes fanfiction? Who still uses her ex-boyfriend's jokes? Just plain lonely. I don't know who to talk to or if I even want to talk to anyone. Every time I do, I start crying, and I'm just really, really fucking sick of crying. I want to just sleep until it's a few months later and it's behind me, but I know that's not how life works.
So anyway, I've been listening to a lot of music, of course. And I keep coming back to this line in Tori Amos' "Strange" - "you said we'll make a nest, so I left my life, put on your friends, put on your opinions". What happens when we take those friends and opinions off? How do I really feel about drinking, or Elvis, or gang violence? What's me talking and what's the echo of Ryan?
But I guess the fact that I'm listening to Elvis these days is a good sign, because Ryan hates Elvis.
Mostly I just wanted to use this Punchy icon because I'm rereading the Intimates, and the Intimates is amazing. I've been doing a lot of excavating ofmy childhood in the last year. Movies, Animorphs, comic books. I missed you, my old friends, Black Tom and Juggernaut and Marco and Punchy and Dr. Manhattan and Gambit and Rogue and Tabby. I've been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender, too, so eventually I may post some opinions on that, but it's way fun. I just don't have the brainspace for serious, adult shit now. If it's not a cartoon, a TV show, a comic book or kids' lit, I'm not interested, really.
On the upside, I see Lady Gaga tonight, biznatches. HELL TO THE FUCK YEAH.
Also, the word of the day is "quaggy"? Fucking seriously, dictionary.com? Is this like that time that you couldn't figure out what an afflesjackles is?