To Be Con ...
I awoke to tears last night from a horrible dream. In it, I found myself estranged from my father, the only member of my immediate family left alive after my sisters and mother apparently drowned in some kind of accident. I don't recall all the details of the dream, but then I don't usually remember the details from many of my dreams.
However, what I do remember is the intensely focused feeling of loneliness that accompanied that nightmare. The depth of that emotion is comparable to the dream I once had where I found myself a father of triplets. Oh God, did that dream make me happy. I awoke from that dream and started to cry. I cried because of how painful the separation from my non-existent offspring was - it felt as though I had lost a part of myself when I awakened that morning.
The point I'm trying to make is that I'm lonely.
I can find no humorous or elegantly-worded route to that revelation, so it is just better that I come out and say it. I'm lonely.
My job has proven to be relatively stressful, but no more so than any other job I've ever held - in fact, the stress of this job is entirely different than the stress of being a server. And it certainly doesn't match the disdain with which I trudged through every work day at my IT job. But the stress it has imparted upon me is entirely different.
This job has revealed a truth that had eluded me until today. Despite coming home to the warm embrace of a loving, caring family and the familiarity of my native environment, and despite the expectation that those few friends who did bother to keep in touch with me while I was in New York would welcome me back into the social fold, I'm still as alone as I ever was in New York. Perhaps now more so.
In focusing my attention upon my own needs - my fiscal crisis, my mental health hindrances, and my social ineptitude (either itself growing, or merely being more revealed with each passing day) - I've discovered I haven't come too far in the 3-1/2 months since I moved back to Maryland.
I have massive debt still, having been so far incapable of making a dent in my credit cards; I can't afford my medication for the ADHD; and it was pointed out to me tonight that I have no friends here in Maryland.
I wanted to go out tonight to spend time being off-duty - out of manager mode, with my earrings in, wearing jeans and a Heath-Ledger-Joker-faced t-shirt, strolling comfortably around the mall perhaps. And when I got in my Jetta and went to make the call, I realized that I had no one to call; Kate was at the game, Bill was going to the game, and Dan was at work. I would have called Ryan, but we've hung out so much lately that I felt maybe he'd want a break from the mundane form of entertainment I so often select - the romp around Arundel Mills.
And when I thought of that, I realized that I'm afraid of spending too much time with Ryan. But that's not right. That doesn't make sense ... why would I be afraid of that? No, what I'm afraid of is involving myself in a relationship with him. If I do that, I'm taking the same ill-fated steps I've taken with all my other exes: I'm integrating myself into his social life as a substitution for creating my own. Once our relationship ends - and it likely would - the existing patterns in my post-relationship relationships project him not talking to me and me suddenly finding myself out on my own again with no friends and feeling as lonely as ever.
So I'm damned if I do, and I'm damned if I don't. But that's not even the end of it. I feel like I'm also damned if a third option is pursued, but at the moment I'm not feeling nearly clever enough to conceive of any poetic addendum to the Catch-22.
No, at the moment I'm feeling anything but clever. I feel helpless and lost.
And today I was told by someone whom I believed understood me (and what made me different from other people) that sometimes he has to remind himself that he's talking to me - and that holding a discussion with me is more cerebral than it is natural.
People have to apply a "Dave Filter" to hold conversation with me. They actually have to stop and apply some kind of rule to our discussions.
I don't even know how to continue talking about this ... I'll come back later.
However, what I do remember is the intensely focused feeling of loneliness that accompanied that nightmare. The depth of that emotion is comparable to the dream I once had where I found myself a father of triplets. Oh God, did that dream make me happy. I awoke from that dream and started to cry. I cried because of how painful the separation from my non-existent offspring was - it felt as though I had lost a part of myself when I awakened that morning.
The point I'm trying to make is that I'm lonely.
I can find no humorous or elegantly-worded route to that revelation, so it is just better that I come out and say it. I'm lonely.
My job has proven to be relatively stressful, but no more so than any other job I've ever held - in fact, the stress of this job is entirely different than the stress of being a server. And it certainly doesn't match the disdain with which I trudged through every work day at my IT job. But the stress it has imparted upon me is entirely different.
This job has revealed a truth that had eluded me until today. Despite coming home to the warm embrace of a loving, caring family and the familiarity of my native environment, and despite the expectation that those few friends who did bother to keep in touch with me while I was in New York would welcome me back into the social fold, I'm still as alone as I ever was in New York. Perhaps now more so.
In focusing my attention upon my own needs - my fiscal crisis, my mental health hindrances, and my social ineptitude (either itself growing, or merely being more revealed with each passing day) - I've discovered I haven't come too far in the 3-1/2 months since I moved back to Maryland.
I have massive debt still, having been so far incapable of making a dent in my credit cards; I can't afford my medication for the ADHD; and it was pointed out to me tonight that I have no friends here in Maryland.
I wanted to go out tonight to spend time being off-duty - out of manager mode, with my earrings in, wearing jeans and a Heath-Ledger-Joker-faced t-shirt, strolling comfortably around the mall perhaps. And when I got in my Jetta and went to make the call, I realized that I had no one to call; Kate was at the game, Bill was going to the game, and Dan was at work. I would have called Ryan, but we've hung out so much lately that I felt maybe he'd want a break from the mundane form of entertainment I so often select - the romp around Arundel Mills.
And when I thought of that, I realized that I'm afraid of spending too much time with Ryan. But that's not right. That doesn't make sense ... why would I be afraid of that? No, what I'm afraid of is involving myself in a relationship with him. If I do that, I'm taking the same ill-fated steps I've taken with all my other exes: I'm integrating myself into his social life as a substitution for creating my own. Once our relationship ends - and it likely would - the existing patterns in my post-relationship relationships project him not talking to me and me suddenly finding myself out on my own again with no friends and feeling as lonely as ever.
So I'm damned if I do, and I'm damned if I don't. But that's not even the end of it. I feel like I'm also damned if a third option is pursued, but at the moment I'm not feeling nearly clever enough to conceive of any poetic addendum to the Catch-22.
No, at the moment I'm feeling anything but clever. I feel helpless and lost.
And today I was told by someone whom I believed understood me (and what made me different from other people) that sometimes he has to remind himself that he's talking to me - and that holding a discussion with me is more cerebral than it is natural.
People have to apply a "Dave Filter" to hold conversation with me. They actually have to stop and apply some kind of rule to our discussions.
I don't even know how to continue talking about this ... I'll come back later.
posted by Dave at 10:22:00 PM
2 comments
