cindy's world

Sometimes her eyes are wide not from surprise, but from sadness. The face is fallen, and she looks up to keep the tear from dropping. She remembers how things were, and she knows the difference all too well between then and now. She remembers the way he couldn’t keep his hands off her. She remembers the way his eyes used to appreciate her. She remembers when she used to be the sunlight on his day. Now, she makes no difference. He pulls away and leaves her, distracted by a cornucopia of other things. She knows her touch is ineffectual, her pleading look is left unread. She sits alone in darkness, feeling the cold air swirl to replace the warmth he left behind. To anyone else, him included, nothing is wrong. No one remembers like her to notice the slip, the slide downwards. She’s sorry that she notices, but she’s scared to let the memories go. It’s not about living in the past, back when she felt important and meaningful. It’s about the fear of acquiescing to mediocrity when she knows better how it could be, how it once was. Love always seems to be the quest to find what was lost.

Sometimes what people are so quick to call insecurity isn’t being needlessly paranoid of losing someone because you fear you aren’t good enough to keep that person. Sometimes what it really is, is knowing that you’ve lost your favor with someone who hasn’t lost his hold on you.

I had a gut overreaction on a small issue today. After some time has passed and I was able to calm down somewhat to evaluate the situation, I realized that the appropriate level of response to what happened should’ve been an eyeroll or an eyebrow raise. Instead, I felt the blood drain from my face, my stomach dropped and lurched inward nauseatingly and my throat and chest tightened. My obvious upset in turn made the other person defensive and he raised his voice and declared that I have no right to have a problem with this, which made things worse.

I was too upset to go to the gym at lunch, so instead I went to lunch with my gym trainee and we talked it out over some Mexican food and margaritas. She feels that no one is perfect and the fact that I’m aware of my strong overreaction is a good thing. She said we all have things that we work on about ourselves, it’s good we aren’t people who can’t admit that they have a problem. She also feels that my panic attack gut reaction is a trained response resulting from the damage left by the last relationship. Basically, my body responded to a really small thing the way it responded to huge terrible things in the last relationship. Two totally different stimuli levels between now and then drew the same heightened level of negative physiological response.

This scares the shit out of me, because if I can’t cushion myself against external stimuli better, I’m gonna be on the same roller coaster ride that I was in and nearly didn’t survive the last time. I can’t deal with that again. I don’t want to be sad and sick all the time, always at the verge of nausea and tears. I honestly don’t know if my overreactions now are a direct result of past damage, which means that with time and distance I’ll get better (hopefully), or if this is just me, just this big ball of hypersensitive drama. I’m afraid it’d be the latter one.

I talked about this with Mr. W, who feels that any response a human has to external stimuli are learned, if not from past similar situations in relationships, then from some childhood trauma when our personalities were still being formed. This gets me off the hook somewhat in the sense that I can say, “It was because my parents abandoned me when I was younger, it’s not my fault.” But it doesn’t get me off the hook in that I need to normalize my emotional responses so that I can have good relationships again.

I also don’t want to give people the excuse of, “If we made her upset, it’s not our fault. She’s just crazy and she knows that. She just trips out.”

You guys ever learn of something about someone else, something that generally does not impact your life, and yet you’re totally bothered by it? And then you try to figure out why you’re bothered by it, and you can’t see on a logical level why your emotions are affected, and now you’re bothered by that? Ugh. Brains are so complicated.

My bailiff had just booked a $4000+ cruise through Alaska for him and his girlfriend come May. He’s normally pretty frugal with his finances but splurged on a balcony-view room for this impromptu vacation. He said he realized that life really is about the now, and sometimes if you wait, you lose the opportunity. “Did I tell you about the boyfriend my daughter had in high school?” he asked. “No,” I told him.

His daughter was with a boy for 2 years in high school and they went to prom together. They broke up in college because she attended UC Irvine and he went to Pepperdine. In college, he met his future wife, and they married about 2 years ago. They had a great time for a year, but then he suddenly fell sick last December. Blood transfusions and other emergency medical attention couldn’t save him, and he slipped into a coma and died three weeks after having been diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (A.L.L.), an aggressive cancer which hits hard and fast, often in young adults. A.L.L. is what my friend Grace had.* This boy was only 22 when he passed.

My bailiff decided that since he and his girlfriend had always talked about going to Alaska or going on an Alaskan cruise one day, he may as well make the one day now. He can wait for finances to get better, but really, when will they ever be “better” to one’s contentment? (Actually, I’m pretty content with my finances. But I’m not the norm in that.) “I may not have tomorrow, so why wait?” he said. One day you’re here and fine, and the next you (or your loved one) is not. The money will always be re-earned, assuming you’re not throwing all sense of responsibility out the window in buying something you really shouldn’t be buying. But if you can generally afford something, an experience is not replaceable.

I neeeeed a vacation, man! Well, I worked through lunch, so I deserve to go kick some green belt butt in jujitsu for 3 hours tonite. Mr. W offered me a stress-reliever massage if I skip over to his house after class.

*One thing that’s always been of comfort to me is seeing the tons of photos Grace had collected during her short marriage to her husband. There’s them at the Roman Baths, in front of Stonehenge, looking toward the Niagara Falls, in New Orleans. She had a list of places she wanted to travel to, and she got to hit a lot of them, starting from even before her diagnosis. She enjoyed every ounce of her time with her husband and crammed a lifetime of memories into a couple of years. Her life was much like her. Full, vibrant, fierce.

I had talked to Navy Girl Vanessa on Friday morning when she was 80 miles away at her boyfriend’s house (her company closed for Good Friday) and the last thing she said to me was, “See you Sunday!” She did not come home on Sunday, so I figured she must’ve decided to spend another night with her boyfriend and she’d come home Monday morning to get ready for work, like she did last week. I didn’t see her before I left for work. So I figured she went straight to work from the boyfriend’s and I’d see her at jujitsu last nite. She didn’t show up to jujitsu. So I thought maybe she’s ditching jujitsu and I’d see her when I got home. Her car wasn’t in the garage then, either. Now that was weird. I called her and she picked up, and I said, “Not to sound like a mother, but are you okay?” She laughed and thought it was the cutest thing. Turned out she had dental surgery done and it was so painful she took some Vicodin prescribed to her and it knocked her out and made her sick to her stomach, so she took the day off of work. But since she was feeling better and coming back when I called her, we went out for a midnight Thai food run at a local trendy Thai restaurant. And I learned something else.

Spicy Thai + empty stomach + midnight after 2 hr workout = spewage.

I almost called in sick today. Owie. Yes, right now still.

But my point is, fun fun fun! *wince*

I was driving to the gym at lunch, and I thought about what it is in my life I would want different from how it is now. Is there someone else’s life I wish I had? I thought of all my friends, people I know of. Sure, some of them have things I wish I had. Diana’s salary (but I don’t envy her workload), the “Dr.” before Vicky’s name (but I don’t want to be a pharmacist), Sandy’s figure (but I don’t need the amount of “player hatin'” that goes on around her). Maybe someone else’s car. I dunno. But as far as changing my life? I wouldn’t. I’ve got two close high school friends I’m still in touch with who are now married. And I don’t envy them. Other friends whom I’ve met when they’re already married…don’t envy that aspect of their lives, either. (In fact, some of then envy me.) Friends with kids? Don’t care. I like that I can, without consideration to anyone, invite a friend to stay with me for a month, and that she and I can just up and go to a bar or go eat and hang out, just cuz we feel like it. We can stay up all night and watch a movie. (Well, I actually fell asleep on this one, but the point is, I can try.) I can go goof off in Northern Cal for a weekend with Diana & Friends, no need to look for childcare. I can go to Hawaii for 2 weeks in November with my jujitsu dojo, without concern I’d be taking food from the mouth of my family to do so. So for me right now, life is exactly as I want it to be. No envy for anyone else’s situations.

I just wish I weren’t (almost) 30. 30 is such a “settling down” age in my head.

I don’t like reality. I get sucked under here and there and it’s always a struggle to climb out. The last couple of days when I was able to find some levity, I clung onto it as hard as I could and tried to forget what’s real. I tried to keep my mind from wandering. I sang louder than I had to, made myself dance in my car seat listening to the radio while driving, changed channels and stations really quickly when their conversation was on anything I could relate to from my own life. But other times, when the sky is thick and gray and the air is cold (like right now), and there are no other distractions, I inadvertently stumble onto some truths. It feels like I was facing fantasy and laughing joyously, then I get a tap on the shoulder behind me and I turn, mouth still open from the laughter, and it’s a dark figure who force-feeds me a bitter dose of reality, right into my mouth.

I’m going back to bed.

Actually, Mr. W just invited me to have tea with him on his balcony. “It’s nice outside,” he said. Maybe it’s nicer over there on that side than it is here.

It worked! Mr. W’s suggestion for an impromptu lunchtime picnic with a portable swinging nylon hammock, some fresh loquats and sesame candy was just what the doctor (well, Jade) recommended. Within minutes of laying in the sun on the hammock, I looked down at my skirt hemline and saw I had achieved a tan mid-thigh, so I scooted my skirt higher to try to even out the tan a bit. The sun got so friendly that we finally had to move the hammock and food into the shade. After we ate, we lay in the hammock together as Mr. W rocked us gently with his hand on the ground. Birds chirped overhead. A slight breeze caressed the back of my legs as his hand caressed…uh…a little higher than that. I kept looking at my watch because I was afraid I’d fall asleep and get back to work late.

But I feel MUCH better now.

The pressure in here is actually making me shaky. I feel like a child tiptoeing around a parent who you know is a hairline away from ripping his belt off and whipping you to welts. Anything I do or say, or anything anyone does or says, may trigger the finely-tuned trip wire and everything will blow up. I’m trying to (very quietly and gingerly) mediate the situation and defuse the bomb, but I keep hitting dead ends. Meanwhile the ticking’s getting louder…

I feel heavy and glum.

I miss the days of lightness, levity, and easy laughter.

Sometimes you go through the motions and hope your emotions follow suit. With that in mind in selecting my suit for the day, I’m in sunny yellow, florals, and white shoes that I hadn’t worn since before Labor Day. And a string of white pearls. Very Easter.