Random observations
Nov. 11th, 2014 08:28![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquill[formerly filtered to ic]
Ah, the hangover after a night of crying myself sick. At least it's familiar.
I should have realized that getting exactly what I want (namely, not having to leave Akien at all) was not the only way out of my dilemma last night. Simply having that desire recognized, and providing a reasonable substitute -- such as the promise of seeing him again at a specific date -- can provide relief, and the ability to shelve my needs for a bit. I have experienced that when getting specific dates from Matt, even when I had to wait six or eight weeks. I wasn't thinking clearly enough to see that as an option. Maybe it wasn't clear enough to me that the perceived wait, or rather the uncertainty, was such a large part of my problem.
I have convinced myself that because I don't know what to do with the screaming ball of need, nobody does. Which is a lot of hubris for somebody surrounded by smart people.
It occurs to me that I am directly confronting a story (on many levels) that was pounded into me over the better part of four decades: I come last. I was picked dead last for teams, for social events, for class projects (despite the fact that I was good enough and had such a work ethic that my partner(s) generally elected to coast while I did the work), for the social pecking order. The only time I did not come last was when it was my teachers doing the selection -- I won several awards in various classes, and successfully auditioned for competitive band positions, including the bass trombone spot in the lead jazz band for four years. My determination was that the teachers cared about competence and dedication; my peers cared about... something else. Perhaps I assumed that it was only the teachers who cared about my Pile of Assets, and the students saw that I had no other value. Something along those lines.
I put myself last in social situations later in life, taking the leftovers, the consolation prize, the spot at the end of the line, out of deference to the people around me... and none of my friends challenged that choice. At least not in any event significant enough for me to remember. I'm not sure I would have permitted them to, since the caste system was my first defense against social violence -- if I stayed in my place, I was less of a target. Among gamers, I suspect they didn't consider it unusual... perhaps it was a relief to them that they wouldn't have to take it, since most of them had been in my position.
This is the first internal conflict where I don't have the feeling it's just a knot in my shoelaces that I needed to focus on and figure out. This is a fundamental theory in my model of the universe, and I'm sufficiently invested in it that attempts to subvert it are being violently rejected. Even with an explicit directive that, in future, I should come into the house, replaying the scene in my mind still results in stony refusal. Usually I can reason with something like that, look at it from another angle, entertain the possibility that things could be different... but my training says No. I'm going to have to look into why it's such a sacred cow to me. Or what I'm so especially afraid of.
And no, currently being unable to resolve that conflict does not mean I will Fail The Test.
I also cannot grasp the full picture of what I'm in the middle of. This household is enough of a mismatch with my own models of the world that it's like dealing with hyperbolic space. I shift slightly and the perspectives change in unexpected and unsettling ways. I feel like I've been dropped into "Rats and Gargoyles", with the five cardinal compass points all 90 degrees apart. It's normal enough, until you realize that aust is at a right angle to everything...
I would not have called when there was the possibility of waking someone up. I was surprised that they did. The fact that I leave my phone in a state such that it can wake me tells me that I do not have a firm boundary between my need for sleep and others' needs to call on me, no matter how important sleep is to me in my priority list. I suppose that's me putting my own needs last again, the whole set. I may end up reevaluating that phone setting, as incomprehensible as that seems right now.
For today, the issue is academic since I had woken up about a half hour before so that I could stare at the ceiling and rehash last night. I should probably get used to operating on an hour or two less per night than I really need, not in deference to others, but because my own brain won't leave me be. We'll see what I can do this week to alleviate the worst of it.
I should get breakfast and prep for the drive north. I'll have plenty of time to think on the road.
Ah, the hangover after a night of crying myself sick. At least it's familiar.
I should have realized that getting exactly what I want (namely, not having to leave Akien at all) was not the only way out of my dilemma last night. Simply having that desire recognized, and providing a reasonable substitute -- such as the promise of seeing him again at a specific date -- can provide relief, and the ability to shelve my needs for a bit. I have experienced that when getting specific dates from Matt, even when I had to wait six or eight weeks. I wasn't thinking clearly enough to see that as an option. Maybe it wasn't clear enough to me that the perceived wait, or rather the uncertainty, was such a large part of my problem.
I have convinced myself that because I don't know what to do with the screaming ball of need, nobody does. Which is a lot of hubris for somebody surrounded by smart people.
It occurs to me that I am directly confronting a story (on many levels) that was pounded into me over the better part of four decades: I come last. I was picked dead last for teams, for social events, for class projects (despite the fact that I was good enough and had such a work ethic that my partner(s) generally elected to coast while I did the work), for the social pecking order. The only time I did not come last was when it was my teachers doing the selection -- I won several awards in various classes, and successfully auditioned for competitive band positions, including the bass trombone spot in the lead jazz band for four years. My determination was that the teachers cared about competence and dedication; my peers cared about... something else. Perhaps I assumed that it was only the teachers who cared about my Pile of Assets, and the students saw that I had no other value. Something along those lines.
I put myself last in social situations later in life, taking the leftovers, the consolation prize, the spot at the end of the line, out of deference to the people around me... and none of my friends challenged that choice. At least not in any event significant enough for me to remember. I'm not sure I would have permitted them to, since the caste system was my first defense against social violence -- if I stayed in my place, I was less of a target. Among gamers, I suspect they didn't consider it unusual... perhaps it was a relief to them that they wouldn't have to take it, since most of them had been in my position.
This is the first internal conflict where I don't have the feeling it's just a knot in my shoelaces that I needed to focus on and figure out. This is a fundamental theory in my model of the universe, and I'm sufficiently invested in it that attempts to subvert it are being violently rejected. Even with an explicit directive that, in future, I should come into the house, replaying the scene in my mind still results in stony refusal. Usually I can reason with something like that, look at it from another angle, entertain the possibility that things could be different... but my training says No. I'm going to have to look into why it's such a sacred cow to me. Or what I'm so especially afraid of.
And no, currently being unable to resolve that conflict does not mean I will Fail The Test.
I also cannot grasp the full picture of what I'm in the middle of. This household is enough of a mismatch with my own models of the world that it's like dealing with hyperbolic space. I shift slightly and the perspectives change in unexpected and unsettling ways. I feel like I've been dropped into "Rats and Gargoyles", with the five cardinal compass points all 90 degrees apart. It's normal enough, until you realize that aust is at a right angle to everything...
I would not have called when there was the possibility of waking someone up. I was surprised that they did. The fact that I leave my phone in a state such that it can wake me tells me that I do not have a firm boundary between my need for sleep and others' needs to call on me, no matter how important sleep is to me in my priority list. I suppose that's me putting my own needs last again, the whole set. I may end up reevaluating that phone setting, as incomprehensible as that seems right now.
For today, the issue is academic since I had woken up about a half hour before so that I could stare at the ceiling and rehash last night. I should probably get used to operating on an hour or two less per night than I really need, not in deference to others, but because my own brain won't leave me be. We'll see what I can do this week to alleviate the worst of it.
I should get breakfast and prep for the drive north. I'll have plenty of time to think on the road.
