paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- remembering to enjoy life Yesterday, it all caught up with me. Too much anxiety from work. To much anxiety from self. Being conflicted about who I wish I were, who I am, and who I have any hope of being. It is not a good thing to live in the same city as my mother and her major. Am I nuts? This is the question of the hour. Not only do I live in the same city, but mother works in the same building as me. Two completely remote operations, but the same building nonetheless. I work for the CEO�s office (I�ll call it that because she is the top of university) but the Esquire and I are housed in a community resources building and mother works for a community resource. And our establishment and location in that office, in that building is only partially purposeful. The entire thing is partially random and partially an indicator that I need to work on building up my own boundaries. My mother, as I have mentioned before, is competitive with me. She always wants to make certain that I know that she is far better than I am, on all fronts, in every way. As a daughter it is my duty to support her ego and not embarrass her in front of the few friends she has and the major�s family. The major�s family is really neat. I am surprised that I do not resent them because I am not allowed to forge my own relationship with them � he has a brother and a sister that I think are among the most wonderful people in the world. Kind of like walking down the hall with the king and queen, I must position myself so that I am not out in front of them. If I am, it is the major�s duty to make me say nice things to my mother and if I don�t, to begin saying not-nice things to me. But, I have my own networks with the major�s family. I am close to his sister and actually feel as though her attention, no matter how long distance from Boston, was a great influence to me growing up. It enabled me to see a broader world. The aunt and the uncle both always gave me presents that somehow brought the wider world to me, here at my midwestern outpost in State City. The dynamic gets old. Somehow it bothers me out of synch with the actual amount of time I spend with them, which mounts up residual irritation, anxiety and self-doubt. It is taking me a long time to learn to make decisions based on my needs. Decisions based on my life with Quinn. And to not care what mother and the major have to say. Quinn tells me that they are lucky that I am as strong as I am. By rights, I should be a drug addict, in and out of mental institutions or treatment programs. A lot of bad things happened between the time when I was three and I left home�. Things that they could have helped me navigate as a young child, but did not, because like all bad things they were uncomfortable to discuss. The type of things that no one talked about in the 50�s and when I was a child in the 70�s a few people might have whispered euphemistically about them, but more as gossip. These things are painful to face and if a young girl is left feeling to blame, all alone without any mature intervention, imagine the horrible proportions the bad events would take on in her mind. And this was my challenge�. And now I struggle with depression. At present, this depression is piqued by a medical condition for which doctors put me on �the pill,� despite my claim to them that it makes me incredibly depressed. Not only that, but because it is birth control, and believe me I don�t need it for birth control, my insurance does not cover it. These forces are getting in the way of life. It is my job to minimize them to a minor irritation. To quit trying to figure out why my mother and the major are the way they are. To quit trying to figure out why my father, his wife and her 40-year-old son are unemployed, waiting for a big business deal to go through, eating only beans every other day in the desert. (I really don�t want to visit them�. Until they get some other food in their systems. I tried to send them a pizza but there are no pizza places out there. ) To quit letting work make me feel so pressured and so responsible to accomplish more than one person can accomplish. And to remember, to just enjoy my nice life. Yesterday, Quinn and I walked to the bookstore, got some books on HTML to spiff up our journals. Then we walked over to the store and got a bottle of wine and some yummy cheese. Traipsed five blocks up a steep hill in 104 degrees weather. Joked about it being hot, as if that were a unique observation. Then we sat in front of the fan, sipped our wine, nibbled on our cheese, skipped dinner, and listened to music. Feeling like we have a nice life. This morning I watered. And the pup and I, still in 104-degree-weather, were overcome by our extreme desire to play in the sprinklers. At the risk of sounding like a take-off on one of those everything I ever needed to know I learned in/from/life�s little instruction handbooks: it was a good thing to do. So simple to get soaking wet, sneakers and all. But it was extremely refreshing, and fun�just a big bit of fun. Off to the darkroom, I go�. Maybe I will have some pictures to scan in and upload this evening. 12:28 p.m. - 2002-07-21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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