cindy's world

Stevie Wonder had written in a previous comment, “…if salvation there be.”

I think I can drop the “if” from that statement now. =)

Sorry guys, I just had to put this out there for therapy.

I tread softly in knowledge’s shadow
The trouble with learning is we can’t unlearn
Aye, there’s the rub, isn’t it
I awake in its omnipresence
I choke on it when brushing my teeth
It collapses me throughout the day
Squeezes the air from my lungs in my shallow breaths
Pushes the tears out my eyes
Drains the productivity from my day
Reminds me constantly I am powerless
Steals the colors from around me
Kills the laughter from my past
Isolates me, then shakes me
Unthink me, it taunts daily
Get over me, Ignore me
And it’s too loud, and I’m too susceptible
But I can’t run, I certainly can’t walk
The hows and whys don’t matter
Maybe the way out is
Finding what does.

What is the drive home like for people whose marriages have broken down? Does it start as a happy cheerful day at the office laughing and joking with coworkers, until the time comes to leave? Do they ask around to see who’s available to grab a happy hour drink, but are disappointed when all their coworkers in turn say they need to pick up their kid, pick up dinner, have a dinner date with the spouse, have a date-date, sorry-buddy-next-time? And then do they drive home slowly, dreadfully? Does a 20 minute commute feel like half a day, winding slowly toward an unhappy destination, a black hole devoid of light, full of vacuous cold and emptiness? Maybe they think about the earlier days, when they were one of the eager ones to go home and see their spouse after an unbearably long day at work. They had not lied when they recited “best friend” in their wedding vows, so what had happened? There used to be a joy, a light that shone in the home which led the way to the person who understood the best, who always had a light stroke for your hair, a nuzzle for your cheek, a pillow for your heart. And now, the night is long, the day is too short. The drive itself, albeit extensive and dreadful, is a blur as the driver sees only the layer upon layer of troubles and issues — the top of the stack, still seeped in fresh blood; the bottom of the stack, decayed and sulfurous; all of it, heavy and unresolved. Sickened and worn, maybe he’s powerless to resolve these issues and take them off the table because the spouse has stopped communicating and trying. Maybe he’s lost the hope that he can carry this relationship on his own shoulders. There are ones who go to the bar alone and stall there. There are ones who have stopped coming home. And then there are ones who come home just a shell, the spirit of their identities torn and forgotten, the joy of love and partnership just a cheesy love song on the radio, the warmth and safety of home a joke.

I read somewhere that an optimist is one who looks forward to marriage, and that a pessimist is a married optimist.

I wish it weren’t like that.

“How’d you sleep last nite?”
“Like a donut.”
“How does a donut sleep?”
“With a hole in the middle.”

For the past 2 nites, I’ve gone to bed a bit past 11p but I’d wake up at 3a-4a and be up for about 3 hours, unable to fall back asleep until it’s like 6a and I’d finally fall asleep for an hour or so before getting up for the day. During the hole, I’d be wide awake, not tired, but it’s too early to get up and get ready, so I’d just lay there, stewing in my own thoughts. This would be the ideal time to have crazed weasel sex with someone and tire myself out, except nobody has donut sleep like me. I think the return of the donut hole in the middle of my rest is a sign of internal turmoil. (Duh.) I’ve been told that I just need to quiet my internal voices and thoughts. From experience, they’re only quiet if I’ve had a mental breakthrough (i.e. figured out a solution or theory that puts me at ease) or if I dump it all out via writing or blogging.

Funny thing is, I’m not tired today at all. I was hyper driving to work this morning, bopping along to my soundtrack to The Longest Yard. Probably just adrenaline.

Today has been a remarkably better day mood-wise than yesterday.

I love discovering people to have philosophical psychological sociological introspective conversation with. I especially enjoy how they seek an explanation, a theory and a solution for me, and don’t judge me. And they tend to think I’m smart. I especially like that. =)

I had a Diana moment at lunch today. I’m kinda messed up, so it doesn’t take much for a fellow coworker to convince me to go to lunch with him instead of running 3 miles at the gym. On the way out of the restaurant, I thought some guy looked familiar from the back, but I wasn’t sure it was who I thought it was cuz this is really out of the way for him. I walked by him, and then turned around and looked at him. “Oh my God, Mike!” I said as I walked toward him, just as he took a HUGE mouthful of pastrami burger. With his cheek puffed out like a squirrel’s, he nodded at me and tried to put his food down. I gave him a half-hug across his shoulders. I then introduced my coworker to him. “What are you doing here?” he asked me. I said I was just here on lunch break. He said he works around there now. We didn’t talk much, but I had *just* thought of him a couple of days ago when I walked toward jujitsu class and saw a big banner offering bartending classes (he was taking bartending classes the last time we’d talked). It’s kinda funny with Mike — we’d met thru a mutual childhood friend of mine, and we would hang out at the bar, and then one day he brings in a photo of my parents. “What the heck?” I said, staring at the photo. “This is at my house,” he said. “Your mom and my mom are coworkers and they hang out all the time. This picture is everybody at my parents’ house singing karaoke.” I don’t know how he suddenly figured out who my parents are, but that was pretty weird. Small world.

Mr. W and I are in personal rafts/innertubes, like we were in Jamaica a few weeks ago. We are alone, and adrift in a dark river that has a cognizable current that we are paddling against. He was at first next to me, paddling, and I was keeping up with a little difficulty. He then pulls a bit ahead of me, efficiently fighting the current, and I feel like I’m just being pulled back as I struggled with my paddle. In the background was some distant ominous-sounding roar that I had been ignoring or not acknowledging. A nervousness is pulling in the pit of my stomach. I’m now about 2 feet behind him, and I cry out to him. He turns and looks at my face and my tears, and I reach out an arm to him, begging him to help me come back to him. To my utter shock, he coldly turns around and continues to paddle on his own way. I yell his name again, and it becomes apparent that he has forsaken me. Confused and hurt, I pause in the paddling as I watch his back and innertube get smaller and smaller. Suddenly, I am surrounded in the deafening noise that had snuck up upon me. Waterfall. I scream for him again, and he doesn’t even turn around this time. As I start to fall backwards over the waterfall into darkness, I feel less terrified than I feel betrayed and abandoned.

I woke up and saw myself crawl out of bed in my mirror-lined closet. I was surprised at the flat appearance of my stomach, the slight outline of abdominal muscles in the moonlight. Or maybe it was the streetlight. I stumbled into the bathroom and weighed myself. I’m within 1.5 pounds of my goal weight range. The only thing guaranteed to make me dump weight is relationship problems.

There’s a first time for everything. I am publicly recanting the post entitled “Guardedly Chipper” because I jumped the gun on the label that something was a lie. As it turned out, there was a logical explanation for what I felt were inconsistencies, and I am going to go with that.

I’m thinking of keeping a Yay and Nay log, sort of like a pros and cons list, but ongoing. Then I can see whether the yays outnumber the nays and maybe give credit where credit is due. Of course, then we run into the problem of quality vs. quantity, which is the problem with pro and con lists. It doesn’t seem quite fair to simply quantify events and issues, but how do you assign differing weight to each item? I can also see my OCD going beserk with this log. In mid-conversation, mid-action, I’d have to put up a finger and say, “Hold that thought,” and run off and log it. Or I’d have to pull over when something occurs to me on a drive and log it. =P Maybe I shouldn’t even start.

“How are you this morning, ma’am?” my judge just asked me from the bench.
I gave him a flat-lipped smile. “All right, I guess.”
“You look…guardedly chipper,” he observed with a kind smile.

I guess “guardedly chipper” is what I look like when I realize on the drive to work this morning that I’d been lied to. There’s the “Aww, that was delicious, thank you” lie, and then there’s the type of lie that’s used to cover some negatively-motivated action that, when told, just doesn’t sit quite right with the person lied to in a “gut” sort of way. It’s like laying a plank over a marble. You can’t see the marble, but the plank just doesn’t lay flat the way it’s supposed to, congruent with its surroundings.

This is all too familiar. It’s dishearteningly parallel, despite the absolutely different variables. As my high school friend Nina used to say, “Same shit, different toilet.”