Sunday, June 05, 2005
new, but not terribly improved
A few important things I ought to point out before we play the Jump to Conclusions game that was so cleverly invented in Office Space:
1) The bleak Nome is not the new me. I did not undergo some freakish goth makeover. Shit has happened, and I'm trying to deal with it. I have good days and bad days, but no one will be applying black lipstick and heavy eyeliner to my face anytime in the foreseeable future.
2) I have lost my first love and my boyfriend of many years. This hurts. I have also lost my best friend, since he happened to be the same person. I can't just snap out of it. It will take time.
3) None of this has made me stop believing in love. I believe in love. I see it every day. It seems to touch everyone in some way or another, and from time to time it even touches me. But I can't seem to get it to stick. It's like that children's rhyme: "I'm rubber and you're glue - everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you." Love is all around, but it just bounces off me. I can't help feeling annoying rather than loveable. I like myself a lot most of the time. But these days it is getting harder and harder to persuade myself that there isn't something wrong with me.
4) Just because I am faking happiness at work does not mean that the happy me isn't me. It just means that the happy me isn't me right now. I refuse to take my sorrows out on my collegues or on the remainder of my friends, and for that reason alone, I fake it. Plus, I bloody well need to keep this job.
5) I very nearly lost my job this week. This was traumatizing. I am dealing as best I can. Again, it will take time.
6) I am aware that repressing my feelings is not the best way to go. But when I have to be 'on' I simply have to be on. When the line of customers subsided today, I put my head down on the cash desk and resumed fighting back tears, which is what I do for most of the day. This is a really exhausting task. More exhausting than hunting down yet another copy of Sheep in a Jeep. When I looked up from the desk again, I saw Carrie and Jack at the other side of the store, about 25 feet away. In a totally Hollywood moment, they both smiled and waved to me in perfect unison. I came over to see them, and Carrie gave me a hug. This was nice, but my instinct when people hug me now is to just cry, and I really couldn't do that.
At the end of the day I am so exhausted from not crying that I really just want to sleep, and as far as I know I don't cry in my sleep, so I just wake up and do it all again the next day. I am a bit afraid that one of these days I will drop a hardcover on my toe and that will be it. All the stored tears will come out and not even the sternest look from the sternest boss will be able to stop them.
Part of me is dying to tell someone that I'm hurting and want to talk. The other part of me says "no one likes a sad sack."
In conclusion, this is not me, this is not the best thing for me, this is temporary, and yes, this too shall pass.
So please don't get used to me being bitter.
Some customers came into the store today who turned out to be from the very same city I lived in in Switzerland last year. I did their transaction entirely in French, and they were very grateful. It was the highlight of my day.
I'm home again after my week of house-sitting with the Mew Cat. I am glad to be home, and I'll be glad to sleep in my own bed again. It was getting really, really, really tough to go home to an empty apartment every night. I guess now would be a bad time for me to get my own place. I suppose I'm regressing. Great.
I also realised in the middle of ringing through a transaction today that had the Boy wanted to be with me in the long term, had he envisioned his future with me, had he been willing or able to make any plans at all, or had he even said on a regular basis "I love you, Nome," I would have been satisfied. I would have compromised, and organized, and found a way to make it work. As long as I had known I would continue to be important to him, he would have continued to be the one I loved with everything I had.
The love doesn't go away, either. It stays, and it has no mercy. It is the force that makes me associate bear books, and restaurants, and pouting, and the word 'doubleplusungood' with the sweet and wonderful man I still love. There is just no disposing of it. Distractions work, but elimination is something beyond my current capabilities.
If I am being really honest I will have to admit that in my darkest moments I can almost feel his arms around me, his hand in mine, his toes rubbing against my legs. It isn't sexual so much as it is desperately sad. I long for the one thing I cannot have. I long for it so much that I can almost feel it before it slips away again.
The last thing I want to say is sorry to the people who genuinely want some cracked-out flash videos. Occasionally I will need to use this blog to help me figure stuff out, and this is one of those times.
I will be witty and sarcastic again, just please give it some time.
And perhaps some kind words. I am not expecting brilliance. Just something to make me feel less alone.
Thanks.
-N
