Shifting Perspective
Everything has been pretty rough and I don’t quite feel like I fit in very well anywhere. Usually I can escape into work, but I don’t really feel like I fit in there. I noticed that I’m pretty stuck waiting for my next band get together as I still feel accepted and valuable with those people. My stress is at a pretty big high on all fronts. I’m barely getting back financially and having my eyes focused on getting financially back on track has exposed how fucked I got myself.
A couple years ago I had some money squirrelled away, however I had to use it to survive. I also made the mistake of making my old agency’s payroll and bills more than once. This drained everything I had over the last couple years while getting paid very infrequently from the agency. I’ve gotten pretty used to working for free and that is a shitty feeling. I kind of feel like I’ve been donating my time to everything with little to no return.
People like to evangelize, “if you’re feeling down, always reach out to me and talk.” This is not true. Most people don’t give a single shit. It’s a legitimate burden to those that wind up being “talked” to. My unfriendly ex would literally roll her eyes and look away when I was talking to her about the horrible shit of having to lay people off and tell contractors around the world that I can no longer pay them. When we briefly got back together she was intently listening to my every word, so I told her again. She started crying a little bit. This was the night that she said, “I fucked up, didn’t I?”
At the time, the vindictive and recently scorned part of me was like, “aha!” and felt somehow vindicated and viable as a person again. I genuinely needed her to say that to get over her. Looking back on it now, I’m learning yet another thing from it.
It’s motherfucking exhausting caring for someone. That’s what the unfriendly ex taught me from her genuine empathy that night. I have a good amount of friends in my bandmates (9 active band mates and a dozen others that I am still very close with) and I genuinely care about these people. We have connected on a very deep level. I’d say spiritual if I believed in any of that bullshit, but it’s very much an emotional investment that we have in each other.
And Now, Changing Gears
I mentioned that I had started talking with a yoga instructor from a dating app. We had a really great date and talked for a couple hours and had been messaging each other all throughout the day and night, talking about everything, and not even the basic shit about each other like “what foods/movies/music” do you like. We had planned to take an afternoon walk through a park so she could scope it out for an upcoming class she was wanting to coordinate. This was yesterday we were supposed to meet up.
We were joking and laughing the night before about cilantro and other silly shit. But laughing together and getting along great as we had. I woke up yesterday morning to a message, “I went to sleep really excited to see you and woke up this morning knowing I should call it off. Thanks for the laughs.” And that was it. Huh? The fuck happened? I just sent a quick message back to confirm, “So we’re not getting together this afternoon?” And she said, “Correct.” Wow. What in the fuck?
The plan yesterday was that I was going to ask her if she’d like to start more exclusively dating each other. A “no” would have been a perfectly acceptable answer. We got along really well and I think we could have taught each other cool stuff as well as given each other unique experiences we would otherwise not have had. This felt really reciprocal, but apparently this was one-sided?
I’m Getting to a Point Soon
Later in the evening yesterday, one of my bandmates came a little early for rehearsal and brought me a nice bottle of tequila and a really pretty chunk of weed. Then he hugged me and said I was an amazing person. That literally couldn’t have been timed any better. He didn’t know anything of what I was going through, I don’t think I was overly putting out a “please love me” vibe, it was just something he felt like doing, spent some time in advance, and made me feel good. The timing blows my mind, but he is one of the most solid drummers I’ve ever known, so I suppose the timing is appropriate.
It was great being reassured that I am worthy of some sort of love. I’m not all bad, I suppose. This is some seriously codependent bullshit though. But where’s the line? Feeling genuinely unlovable is part of my depression. And everybody wants to feel some sort of social acceptance and reverence, so when does that cross the line to codependency? I’m sure that there’s an actual definition for this somewhere that a psychology minor just learned, but in social application this is a difficult line to straddle.
While talking with an really old friend this afternoon, I recanted what had happened with the yoga instructor and how that hurt pretty bad. She asked for some extra details and I mentioned that it hurt especially bad because she is so nice and just flicked me off like a turd on her finger after wiping. She released a chunk of wisdom on me that honestly made me feel nearly absolved. It wasn’t immediate, but my mood came out of the shit depression that I was facing. What she said was, “Nice people can have mental health issues also.” Holy shit. What a fucking insight!
Because somebody is mostly kind doesn’t mean they are incapable of making shitty decisions and hurting others with their wake of self-gratification. Conversely, my unfriendly ex was beyond capable of expressing emotion, but she was likely already exhausted from what’s going on in her life as well as having previously empathized deeply with the shit I was going through. She didn’t have it in her and I can’t really fault her for that.
Oddly enough after all of this, nuggets of wisdom from dear friends, and kind gestures, I’m feeling over most things. Over in the sense that I’m not mourning the yoga instructor or thinking that there’s something wrong with me because of her out-of-nowhere rejection. Also feeling more and more disconnected from my unfriendly ex as I’m looking back on it. Even though it was only like 9 months ago we started dating, I feel like I was a completely different person then. I feel hardened, a little embittered, but overall I feel much smarter. I feel more capability for kindness and empathy than I have in recent recollection. There’s a part of me that feels poison leeching out of my body making my pheromones are ill. Like I’m just getting over the existential flu: I don’t have a fever, I feel normal other than a stuffy nose and a lingering dry cough. I sound and look terrible still, but I feel fine. I need some time to convalesce. Hopefully some upcoming travel does it.