Burned out

Like the ants the kids roasted on the playground today with a magnifying glass, I’m burned out.  Burned out, spaced out, and just drained.  I wish I could say that I am angry, frustrated or annoyed, but feeling those emotions would require energy that I don’t have.

I came to the realization that I was burned out when I was in another psychically burned out place: Sacramento.  On a moment’s whim I traveled up there with two friends to meet some other friends for the artists’ walk.  First I had to get there, then we walked from the station to another friend’s house, then we walked for one place for lunch that was closed and had to walk to another place that was open for lunch, then back to friends’ place, then to rock climbing (which included of course — more walking! , then back to friend’s place, then to dinner, then more walking around the artist’s walk.  There were bands, and college students in their dressed too nicely for the evening, and galleries with post coital portraits and dogs and cats looming about.  It was loud, and live, surreal in how much energy was present, compared to the Oakland one where everyone’s somber expressions and cigarette smoking sucks the joy out of anything.  That isn’t to say that all of the walking (which I guess would be like 4 miles) is what drained me, although I was unprepared for it in my beat up flip flops.  I do enjoy the company of all these people.  They are wonderful, intelligent, witty and athletic folks who have various philosophies on life and a great taste in expensive food that I didn’t have to pay for.  For some reason, I wasn’t feeling it.

It might have been because my feelings were dried out, sucked up by the heat, or maybe that I’m still reeling from my mother’s visit.  But I really wasn’t there.  If there was some nagging narrator, keeping tab on all my thoughts and actions, that was where I was at.  It was omnipotent, observational, like those elusive drunken moments of projectile before you vomit or pass out.  Imagine being like that for eighteen hours.  

For a while I had said I needed a mental health day, but I’m so far gone into this new land of burned out phases that I don’t even think that can save me.  Can I take a vacation from my life?  The burn out is coming from my visit with my mom and her words that echo in my ears.  It’s the end of the school year.  I should look for another job, especially since any suggestion I have my boss dislikes.  I no longer speak to my roommates because I’ve exhausted every avenue at a possible friendship, and it seems pointless to continue.  Have you seen the broom?  Is our only point of contact.  Even the yoga instructors don’t like me.  Everything I’m doing, I’m doing halfway.  At least in college, I had this fanciful notion that graduation was something to look forward to — the ability to say I graduated college and was the first in my family was enough to get me through a term paper, or a discussion, or a workshop.  Now I just have my life, my long , long, life and from what I see, it’s expanded into a long, dense, dark, blank see of nothing.  I’m just not in love with anything anymore.

All my life I’ve had either a flurry of activity or there’s nothing.  The pages of my planner either have violet, electric blue or neon pink scribbled in the squares.  I’m doing good with my New Year’s resolution of doing something fun every week, and it seems like I’ve been busy busy busy — that every Friday, the real day for socializing, I just want to crash and decompress.  I’m going to poetry slams, bending into pretzel like shapes for yoga, volunteering…that my brain is overstimulated and to just take the time to  connect, requires too much.  Meeting new people all the time is exhausting.

In pursuit of this middle balance, I’m wondering if I should just refrain from filling my calendar up with things to do, just for the weekend, if I should avoid trying to make a new friend, because this is no longer fun.  When I first got out here, I convinced myself that it was an adventure!  Now, this feels more like a headache.  So as of late, I don’t ask people out. I don’t post out there I want new friends.  I’m not begging for someone to go to yoga class with me; I don’t ask people out for coffee.  I just want my poignant silence back.  And I’ll gladly hang with someone else, but you’re going to have to ask me.  I’m sorry.  I’m in a place where I don’t want to risk the rejection.

But maybe I’m just tired, and burned out from the vainglorious ambition that is me.  I either want to save the world or leave it.  Last week I felt pretty pathetic about my state of confusion.  This week it doesn’t feel so bad, although that pressure still nudges me.  I know I need a break.  I know and I’ll take it.  If only I could stop staring at a blank computer screen for 4 hours, and actually be productive…

Family Visit

Right now I could (or should) clean up my room, take out the trash or reply to my emails but I’m avoiding responsibility big time by going out of town again this weekend, so why not put it off totally by updating my blog?

I have some things I want to talk about.  Last week I went to visit my family in Vista, because my brother had his first karate tournament and his only request was that I show up.  I needed to get away from the madness of the Bay Area, and I missed my mom.  My little brother took first place in his division for point sparring!  I was so proud of him.  My mom, little brother and I went bowling, ate at expensive restaurants, went to soccer games, and I even got some clothes out of it which is good because I needed a new pair of jeans.

When I was in college I used to disdain spending time with my family, but since I’m not around them as much as I used to be, I miss it.  In a place where I’m always the random person who has no history with anyone, it’s nice to be surrounded by people who embody all of mine, like my mom, or where I embody all of theirs, like my little brother.

But of course there is always a different side to the picture.  Every time I see her, my mom and I have to have the conversation entitled, “Ways you’ve disappointed me,” where my mom has an update list of the part of my life that don’t meet her standard.  This time we circled back to what I’m doing up here.  She doesn’t approve of VISTA, and when I heard about some of the tax laws (we have to pay almost a grand on our ed award) the insurance (we have minimal insurance so if we get sick, we can’t go to a free clinic) the pay, the requirements, I can’t say I blame her.  So of course there is that line from Ave. Q that she likes to say:  “Get a job!”  She’s worried that I don’t have any close friends up here, that my weight isn’t stable and nor is the rest of my life, and the one complaint that’s remained since I was like 17:  She’s worried that I’ve never been in a serious relationship and if I don’t hurry up and get in one by the time I’m 25 my shelf life will expire, or, I could end up like my sister.

My sister moves around a lot, and we hear from her sporadically.  We heard from her last weekend where she told us she’s moving again, back to CA after her stint in TN, and she’s just looking to “find herself,” which assures us no different than a 23 year old post college graduate.  The fact that moves all the time, falls in love in the drop of a dime, constantly gets fired and occasionally uses drugs would be half way permitable at 23, but at 36 and with a daughter, she should be past this.  She needs to be a role model for her daughter and provide a stable environment, although I think I understand her chase for connections with others.  She’s always on the go.  “I won’t settle down until I find the community I’m looking for,” she had said last Saturday.  I replied, “How are you going to find this community if you’re always running?  It’s like you’ve got one foot in the door.”

I think I was saying this more to myself than I was to her, because I’m met with the same dilemma.  My mom compares me to my sister a lot, saying that approve of the aimless wandering.  I find it a bit insulting that she says that, because I see my sister and I as being two different people with different core values.  But my mom’s point is that I don’t seem to be stable.  I want to work other places, I want to go abroad, I want to get my masters, or as I said when I was 16 and she laughed at me:  I want to taste life!  But at the same time I’d like to know what it’s like to have a stable foundation, a community that I’m a part of, and I don’t think I can have that if I am always on the verge of leaving.  My mom’s comparison to my sister and I probably annoys me partially out of ego, and partially because I resonate with that part of my sister.

This subject of leaving and staying has been on my mind for a while.  I’m still not sure if I want to stay here, but I told myself after that conversation with my sister that I should stay in the Bay Area for at least another year. I can’t really expect to settle down, find a place, a job and a set of friends all in one year, especially one where I’m constantly broke.  So if after two years nothing materializes, I won’t feel badly about relocating.

I’ve also avoided the subject of my romantic/social inconsistency.  Last Sunday I had dinner with my old roommate Brianna.  She’s thinking about leaving her six year relationship, which I commend.  They’re pretty codependent and neurotic because of how much they rely on each other.  She says she’s scared though.  I’ve taken the more uncertain route, and what’s wrong with me?  Nothing, she says.  But I keep seeming to have tons of bad dates, and missed connections.  She doesn’t know if she can commit herself to that, or to being single forever.  I didn’t know what to tell her that would make her happy.  I couldn’t promise that the second she became single, loads of desirable, dateable men would show up at her doorstep, nor could I tell her that the very second she was done with her spiritual journey of being single the man of her dreams would materialize, as what happened at the end of Eat, Pray, Love.  I did tell her she wouldn’t know what would happen if she continued to stay in a relationship she knows is past its deadline, and she can’t live for herself until she stops living for him.  I think it was good advice.

But I don’t know.  I usually roll my eyes when my mom talks about my job, or my life in general and how mixed up it is.  I want to tell her I want those things too.  Do I really want to wander aimlessly for the rest of my days, knowing I can’t get sick, or admit I may need some reassurance from others?  Of course not. But I wish I didn’t feel like I failed to meet her expectations.  I’ve been pretty grouchy this week, and it’s probably because I felt so many things while I was at home for those 74 hours :  happy, sad, disappointed, frustrated, confused and otherwise.  I’m just a little drained.  But I’ll get better.

Thoughts of the day: Jealousy

A few weeks ago I got invited a friend of a friend moved and got a bigger place for him and his cat so that he could have more parties, so he threw a party and I got to go. I’m not the party type, but since VISTA I welcome any opportunity to potentially have fun and not have to spend money in the process so I went. I should say that with this particular friend of a friend (we’ll call him K — and no, his name does not begin with a K) he’s expressed some interest in dating me, although the logistics would get in the way (he’s in Sacramento and he’s not moving closer to me anytime soon and even though I like Sacramento, I’m not moving up there any time soon) and I’ve been in this weird funk where I’d rather write in my journal and cry as opposed to dating someone, it hasn’t happened. We talk a lot via im (because I’m chicken and won’t call him), and he confessed that he’s still really close with his ex-girlfriend. In fact, the only reason they broke up, to my knowledge, is because she moved to WI for a job.

And then the good news. She flew out to CA last weekend because she’s applying to new jobs and guess what? She’ll be moving back to Nor Cal soon! And she was at the party. I wanted to meet her strictly out of curiosity although I was a bit scared. Part of what kept me away from him, was this mention of the ex girlfriend. I have a weird relationship with them. To me, the Ex Girlfriend is like some goddess-like, mythological figure who will always have a piece of this person’s heart, mind, body, and permanently etched onto their memory in such a high standard that the new girl (me) wouldn’t be able to live up to this legend. I probably feel this way because of my first love. Anyway, seeing the ex-girlfriend relieved me in a way. She’s a flesh and blood person, not what I was making her out to be. But when I saw them sitting together while we in a circle, or at any other point in the house, I had this weird sensation. My heart started to quicken and I got drymouth, despite having drunk about 16 glasses of water earlier.

I was jealous. And not like the traditional green eyed monster that graces the traditional face of jealousy. I wasn’t hit with a pang of loss like, “Gee, I really want him.” Nor did I want to drag him into the kitchen to steal a kiss, like they do in the movies, or try to outdance, outdrink or outplay her (also what they do in the movies) but I was still struck with this loss. They still had a very strong bond, and that’s what I was jealous of. Their connection to each other, the shared history, the importance they held in each other’s lives was still there…and I have never had that reciprocal connection with anyone else. Well, there’s my best friend, but he says I’m like Eeyore on Valium. Sometimes I wonder why we are still best friends, and when he assesses my personality I remember — sure, they are insults, but they’re funny, and he has violent outbursts, but at least it’s an alternative to the usual communication I’m faced with.

Anyway, I was there, embarrassed in my own jealousy when I do have an accurate way of communicating them, but I’m at a party, or at least an occasion when the mood is supposed to be light and happy as opposed to the outright brooding I want to do, because all these people have known each other, more or less for years, and I am a stranger, and I don’t know when I will stop being that stranger. I would’ve pulled the same stunt that I did at Arcola’s wedding, and get plastered until I blacked out, but no one else was getting smashed. Left to my own devices I started playing with K’s cat, a very sexy long haired tabby who scratched me. Perhaps the cat’s scratch and hiss was the catharsis I was looking for since I no longer drink.

When people speak of jealousy, as often tackled in relationships, it’s spoken in terms of sexual jealousy. Like, if someone were to check someone out in the presence of their partner, if the partner gets jealous, it means that they love each other. Or, as they say in the ethical slut, jealousy is an emotion that needs to be unlearned. I think jealousy, like happiness is one of those emotions that gets more press than it deserves. Don’t believe the hype. Jealousy comes and goes, although I find that my jealousy tends to stem from a lot of non sexual situations. They are more relational oriented.

I feel this cotton-mouthed, heart beating like I’m running 4 miles around simple everyday things that shouldn’t be that big a deal. A few months ago I went to a farmer’s market, and I saw four girls around my age, lounging and sampling the food they just purchased while they were talking about their respective lives, and I got jealous. When I see a couple out on a date, I get jealous. A particularly strong trigger for jealousy is when I see a mother and daughter shopping. Mother and daughter obviously because I’d like to have a closer, different, more fulfilling relationship with my mom and I don’t see that as going to happen anytime soon, but shopping is a trigger because it’s the one activity we’ve never been able to do successfully. She loves to shop, and could pour over racks of overpriced, trendy clothing for hours until the mall closes. I, on the other hand, just want to get what I need and leave, like hunting. She doesn’t understand and wishes I was more feminine. I want her to not bug me about my shopping habits. Friends and dates have been sparse, so when I see others successful in developing bonds with others, I am jealous of it. Get the correlation?

That’s not to say that I’m some antisocial, ill mannered, hateful social reject. I’m just not getting what I want. My last few projects of wanting to make friends have flopped. Last Monday I had to have a tooth removed, and I had to go in and have a consultation before the surgery. The assistant warned me that I’d need a ride. I told her I couldn’t call on anyone. She asked where my friends, roommates, boyfriend was, and I informed her I couldn’t rely on them for something like this (which is true). The last date I went on was another date from hell. A few weeks ago I met someone for sushi and a walk around the lake, and he finally blurted out that with my love of yoga, volunteering, books and my sweet personality, I seemed to have a wholesome, girl next door persona and he wondered if there was a naughty side to me. I tried to inform him that we could talk about sex when the time was right, and this wasn’t the right time, but he pressed on. Plus, he kept on touching me, and not just neutral places. He slipped his hand on my thigh, down the back of my shirt, squeezed my breasts and tried to sneak his hand in my jeans. He was trying to establish a level of intimacy that wasn’t there, along with molesting me. I had to get away from him.

So when I look at other people and their happy ability to form these bonds with people, or at least get people to shop with them, invite them to parties, share deep emotional bonds, I compare where I’m at in my life. They get connections — I get stuck with making special arrangements for surgeries, difficult mall visits with my mom, potential friends who cancel all the time, and dates from hell. This is not the life I asked for. This is so not fair.

What I’m saying is that I don’t think I suffer from the traditional form of jealousy in a romantic or sexual arena. It’s not what I’m lacking temporarily, it’s more what I feel I’ll never achieve. It’s a desire or wanting of something which I haven’t quite experienced in the same capacity. I’ve known love before with my family at the earlier stages of my life, especially with my dad. I’ve never known a reciprocal love outside of a familiar structure. I have a few sort of exes — but I’d probably cross the room, street, etc so that I didn’t have to face them. Those wounds aren’t forgotten. And at times I wonder if I am wanting something that isn’t possible, or maybe I should doubt the hype behind these supposed exchanged I’m seeing. This isn’t all of these people’s lives. Besides, I’m just looking at the sneak preview. Who knows what the rest of the movie is like.

Or perhaps, the real issue is that I am looking for a change. I see others moving forward, toward something, some kind of partnership or potential permanence in their relationship to others. On the other hand, I don’t know if I’m coming or going depending on the hour. While waiting for yoga class I had dinner at a sushi restaraunt and ran into Ronald, this beautiful gay boy with a wild ‘fro and a bad ass East Coast attitude to match. I hadn’t seen him in over a year, and although the ‘fro’s gone, I still knew it was him. He was chomping away at some conversation on his cell phone when he ran over to hug me and of course, knocked over my miso soup, spilling it all over the table, the floor and my corduroy skirt in the process. He said he’d buy me coffee to make up for it, but it was nice seeing me, and he left. I am wondering if I am always that girl. That really nice girl who everyone sees every once in a while, but no one really knows.

My jealousy is saying all of the things I don’t want to say, either because I’m scared, or I’m worried as coming off as demanding, or pushy, or needy, but I’m not going to say these things in real life, so it’s safe to say them here. I’d like to be one of those girls giggling with others at a restaurant. I’d like to be that legend of an ex, that girl who’s so awesome because she’s loving, intelligent, engaging, and can make some really good French toast. I’d like to be that friend. I’d like to not be single for once in my life. I’d like to be that girlfriend. I’d like to be that daughter who loves shopping with her mother. I’d like to be girl who’s not so damned scared to admit she wants all those things. I’d like to be that girl that some folks really know, and they like what they know so much they stick around because they don’t want to let that knowledge and history with her go.