It's time and past time that I came back and wrote something about what has been going on in my personal and romantic life. It has been, shall we say, intense; and gone through another cycle of a repeating pattern in my life.
A relationship breaking, but it might be possible to have the seeds of a better chance sewn into the transition out of this one from the very start.
That is not exactly new. But this seems perhaps not yet old: My heart was, already as it crumbled, an alternating cycle of sorrow on the one side, and hope on the other. Hope that extends beyond the love I am letting go of, hope that I can break these bad habits, break this cling, step back into a different role, and maybe someday, it can be the case that very little in the end was lost, even between us. Maybe, someday.
For now I see Her call another 'beloved', and my insides crinkle and I want the whole world to go away. And it has been so for months, because I'm staying in touch, or trying to. I wonder often whether it would be better for both of us if I were to cut ties and consign Her to the past, or to be not part of my life at all for some years. My conclusion? Inconclusive. It does not seem to matter in practice, because better or not, I do not think I could bring myself to do it.
Work? I never did go back, or get transferred to front end. My letter explaining that I wanted to talk about alternatives to leaving, together with having asked earlier how to give adequate notice, was taken as notice I was leaving. I did not intend to. But after the bungled mess of eventually calling back and asking what was going on to learn that apparently I had quit, I really had no interest in continuing to play their game. In an interview elsewhere in the same mother-company I learned this fiasco may have gotten me added to a Do Not Hire list. Wonderful.
One major thing I have taken from this is that my anxiety and the way I see judgment everywhere really is a problem on the level of stopping me from working - after all, there I was, working. And there I was, stopping. And why? Because I feared my immediate supervisor was judging and rejecting me, despite the reassurances of everyone else. And because the stress interfered horribly with my work, which gave me even more to worry about, as well as driving me to stop showing up eventually. Toward the end there... there were days I went part-way along my transit route and then turned around and came back home, so exhausted I was falling asleep on the train. But I don't think it was just bad sleep. The thought of enduring that ever-present judgment exhausted and wilted me.
I concede even now that it may have fundamentally been all in my head. Very powerfully in my head, in a way I should have help with, if there is any help to be had.
So. Therapy? I've spoken with counsellors on and off this year. A couple on a call-up 24/7 service. One assigned by same for a few sessions who I respectfully (well, I tried to be respectful) told I would prefer not to meet again. I found talking to her more of a chore than a help.
I signed up to a doctor's office to be brought on, potentially, as a patient to a family doctor. This process scares me. I remember the family doctors I've signed up to in the past. They were awful. Dismissive, skeptical, immediate judgment to get one look at me. But there's that judgment again. Is it real or is it just me? Either way, it makes some attitudes intolerable. Not all, though, not all. I had a counsellor for a while there that I really enjoyed talking to. Pity we missed the last session and never did reschedule it. I wanted to have a proper goodbye. Strange my calls to reschedule didn't accomplish anything. Did I say something I shouldn't, and leave him hating me? Judgment, judgment, judgment...
The House? I'm still here. Congratulations house, you're one of the few places I've officially stayed longer than a year. And it's mostly still good, although sometimes I bristle and grumble in my brain about roommates not doing their share of dishes. I haven't much worse than dishes and other occasional messes to complain about recently here, at least. There is construction, but unless I'm trying to sleep, the sound transference from the basement where it's happening isn't enough to be a major problem.
And then... There's the other Work. Ah, yes. I've been volunteering. How nonsensical is it to be a remote volunteer manager? With crippling anxiety? Well, call me a nursery rhyme, because I am doing what I can patch together and tentatively call my best. And much though my fears may tend to ignore it, week by week, my best gets slowly better. I have an easier time coming back to the tracking. I have an easier time believing that my crew will be willing, even happy, to hear from me, with my cheery enthusiastic sharing of conviction, opinion and suggestion which sometimes I suspect leaves my co-workers rolling their eyes where I can't see it.
Still. I step in where there is conflict, or quiet, or confusion, such as I can see it on the messaging platform we use to stay in touch. And it seems, I think, that I do more good than harm. It may even be worth hoping that I will be paid for this at some point, and stand in the spotlight of my bold aspirations.
As things stand though, I'm grateful to have something I, occasionally, feel like I'm any good at.
Plurality. Plurality... It bears mentioning. But I'm not sure how much we even dare to say about that yet. Another time, perhaps.
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