an answer, i guess.
thursday: she announces she’s meeting her mother after five and not staying over. i took her to the cafe and we arranged we wouldn’t meet till tango class on sunday, then the three of us would meet up to plan the week together. i couldn’t ask for her to stay over sunday night; we’d have to arrange that then. we needed to talk: i was instructed to ring friday between five and six pm.
friday: two acrimonious 45 minute chat conversations as i pleaded her to talk to mim about the cat, rather than using me as a go between. still chatting at 6. i ring anyway, still bad. shes getting lost on public transport. has to go, says she’ll ring back. never does.
saturday: meela and daniel weekend, according to the calendar. it was put up when she was desparate to keep him and he was being controlling, manipulative and downright abusive. it stayed up even after i’d defended her to him and he’d said it wasn’t his idea. friday night to sunday afternoon just before tango. with an addition of meela and daniel lunch, across the first half of the class. i had to assume it was careless placement… still, i expected she’d be contactable to arrange a little matter of how we’re meeting on sunday.
sunday:
12.46 sms from me: Is today on? Any arrangements?
2.52 email from me: so what are the arrangements for this afternoon? we haven’t made any.
8.12 sms from me: Are you ok?
8.30 sms from meela: Yes. Having Meela time without the phone. Thanks for asking.
8.31 sms from me: Then umm what’s with standing me up again?
8.33 sms from meela: You said we didn’t make plans.
8.34 sms from me: What? We had plans to dance and to talk about planning. We didn’t plan how.
me: are you there?
Meela: Yes
me: ah. have you been online all weekend?
Meela: no
I have been out
8:44 PM All weekend
me: why?
Meela: Because I needed to be out and do things for myself. See my family, do some art. Think.
8:45 PM me: make apologies for standing arrangements you’re not going to make?
8:48 PM are you answering?
8:50 PM so does this mean, since the talking appears to have been cancelled, that no arrangements are going to be made ever again?
8:53 PM please write something, or ring me
Meela: I need space.
me: right now?
Meela: Right now.
me: all the space you want.
farce.
got off the phone saying she’d ring back. didn’t, not in five minutes, not in two days. didn’t make arrangements for the event that’s now starting in ten minutes. arranged only that we’d go, then we’d have this big three way discussion after. refused to plan anything else until said discussion. didn’t answer my sms, didn’t pick up the phone, twice. usually this means a crisis where she thinks daniel is going to leave and will do anything for him, including specifically neglecting me and making a show of it, too. we had agreed that next time there was a crisis she’d ring me. when i later was upset about the crises she ticked me off, saying she’s told me she’ll call and ask for help. no call has come. does that mean failure in crisis management, or no crisis, just unbelievable rudeness or something else? she told me she was determined to make this work, but was she only determined right then? this many things – and something like this happens every week or two – there can’t be another way to look at it, can there?
well, at least i seem to have an unscheduled extra afternoon to do all that work that i haven’t been feeling up to getting done.
tummy trouble
i’ve been feeling sick in the stomach like never before. as much as i try to be patient, helpful and responsible, not take slights as personal, look after myself, not be jealous, build my life without her and not want more than she can or wants to give, things are manifesting in my body. tension with meela, references on her or daniel’s blog, entries on their calendars, status messages on gmail. little inconsistencies, ellipses, slights, every lead up to her meeting me when i don’t know whether she’ll show up on time, two hours late or not at all. every time i prepare to call her and i don’t know if she’ll pick up, or if she’ll turn her phone off. every time she doesn’t pick up, when i’m not sure, but the odds are that she didn’t just not hear it. every time she gets that mushy look in her eyes that she doesn’t get for me. every time she doesn’t take me seriously, or is inattentive. it’s usually when she’s not present, though sometimes she can be here and not be present. and it’s so hard to make time with her anyway, sometimes i get left with the residue of the feeling for days.
my other relationships, troubled though they may have been, never made me feel ill like this. my stomach isn’t dropping, i don’t feel like i’ve been stabbed, but i feel like a blender in my stomach is turned on every time one of these things comes up. and they come up so often. it isn’t good. there have been many people in my life who i have hoped i’d know five years later. it’s lovely that some have made it, and they’re more of a joy to know now than when i first got to know them. some i’m still waiting on, in close or occasional contact. a couple of people have contacted me recently, so i don’t think there’s anyone left who i’m consciously waiting on though they have specifically exited my life. i think, i hope, meela is showing the signs of being able to sort out her life in the end. i can see the progress, but i’ve found her right at the beginning of a process. how many years is it going to be of pain, of trying to appreciate her amazingness while feeling hamstrung to help where i see she needs, of putting up with, of washing machine stomach? if i don’t make it, can i come back later?
so endeth another fun night of feeling sick in the stomach, lightheaded and a little shaky because of someone else’s words and actions and lack thereof. the day had been all good. how many nights have ended thus? do i want to remember? to feel powerless in a pattern, to be a person who can be multiply betrayed, but maybe find something to change? or do i want to let them slip by, fortifying myself slightly for future transgressions by minimising each one? i cannot minimise enough to stop the pain. here come the question marks again.
run for the hills
when people don’t understand why i hate the whole christmas period so violently, i explain patiently how i was brought up jewish, where christmas is a symbol of the persecuting and evangelising dominant other, and how i’m an atheist, which makes christmas also a symbol of the irrational and brainwashed dominant other. then they say, wide eyed, ‘but christmas isn’t about christianity any more, it’s about family and presents’, and expect me to find christmas as a symbol of the conservative and wasteful dominant other to be comforting and cheerful.
stock up on anything you’ll need from the shopping centres. november is coming.
weights off the back of my mind
today i got some mail – a postcard and a dvd of photos courtesy of kat, all the way from canada. now i can stop worrying about it – about the photos, about the interaction, about her. i’ve been putting too much energy into too many things and people, and a fair chunk of them aren’t positive. if kat becomes a positive part of my life again, actually contacting me and being friendly, then good. if not, or not yet, that’s ok too. i don’t need anything from her, she can wait in the back of my mind as a benign presence, not a bloodclot. ok, yes, there is also the small matter of driving home with it squealing with glee, but that’s a different question!
not so happily, my support of my current girlfriend through her dramas with her other boyfriend has been compared to one half of a discordant duelling banjo act; if she can’t think of me independently of him then all those hugs and words aren’t really helpful and i should stop worrying and getting drawn into the drama and supporting her involvement in it, before dramas becomes the essence of all our lives and i get as depressed and disfunctional as him. this one isn’t so easy as i do want from her, but yes, i remember that sympathy and help sometimes just allows the sympathised to indulge – yes that word i hate occasionally has an appropriate use – further in the bittersweet pain and mush that that allows constant dwelling on the beloved, which really is called codependence, however much others may dislike that word. that doesn’t help her any in the long run, or me unless i want to derive my identity from being hard done by. i don’t. maybe it’ll help him, ironically, but why should i care quite that much – i’m not the one who is dewy eyed enough to view his agressive verbal attacks and hostility to both of us as cries for help and the purchase of a litre of ricemilk as mitigation, or love. if he too could become a benign presence in my life i’d be better off, but i fear that is far away. what to do? what to do to extricate myself from the whole intrigue without leaving meela unsupported or in any way less happy than she could be, without leaving me alone, and without withdrawing from the heavy duty process which we’ve decided is the most advisable course of action at the moment? that i don’t know.
to start implementing this process in my life in general, i have just archived about a hundred emails which i have felt i needed to keep an eye on, though they don’t actually require replies. if i neglect some of these, or don’t take optimum advantage of them, or don’t notice that someone else hasn’t responded though i’ve fulfilled my own obligation, it will not be the end of the world. dozens of things i felt i should read or keep at the front of my consciousness; not only will they soon slip off the front page anyway, but they weigh me down. maybe this way i won’t forget the actual important things i need to remember within all that low level stress. maybe i should also pack away the stash of things people have left at my house, that i somehow feel responsible for returning to their owners, but whose owners don’t seem to care quite that much about. i could even clear out my weight of paper by offering my five years of humanist newsletters to someone who might want them, and just recycling them if noone’s interested. then there are unfinished projects that have waited too long and rusted, that i could also dispose of. i’ll see how far i get before my next barage of exams and work and real obligations are over and i start feeling the need for ballast again. hopefully i can find the good bits again and enrich the mix, rather than just replacing the weight.
breaking down the bloodclots
i got up the courage to say hi to my ex, last time i saw her online. my ‘hello’ was answered with ‘hello?’ which is just what i would expect these days, from the person who can start an email to me with ‘i’ve been deleting lots of photos of you recently’. i ignored whatever inference she was making and we actually managed a pleasant conversation.
my ‘ex friend’ also got in touch yesterday to ask for my forwarding address, and with some prompting by return email, she managed the niceties, such as hoping i’m well. it’s not much, but more than i was expecting; after eight years of stormy friendship she had recently sent me a rather nasty breakup letter out of the blue, to which i never quite managed to reply. maybe that was the right thing to do.
it feels good to be on reasonable terms again. i don’t need to have much to do with either of them, indeed there are good reasons not to let either of them too far into my life again, but why have bad blood between people? it’s not an absence of friendship, but an active negation of it, and rudeness. bloodclots which can’t be ignored. now, even if i don’t ever speak to either of them, i don’t have to feel bad about it, they can join the category of acquaintances along with everyone else, and stop negatively affecting my life for no reason. and hopefully, if i ever do feel like saying hi, or forwarding an email, it will no longer be a federal case, or even something to be apprehensive of.
bug love
my car affects my moods. when she’s well, i’m happy. all is good, i can deal with whatever life throws at me. when she’s sick, or not near me, i’m depressed. why is this?
my car means more than independence. i usually have something to drive even if it’s not her, so why am i affected so? it’s more than the fact that she’s light to handle, has a good turning circle and is tall and bright enough to be found in carparks. she also represents refuge, agency, competence and identity. people recognise her, she’s been there for me for the last eight and a half years. when i’m upset i go for a drive in her, and it’s just not the same in anything else; the impulse to drive aggressively fast to wollongong becomes a meditative experience where direction is maintained but the speed limit is not. keeping her happy is a challenge, but i’m learning how to fix her, and therefore the world.
my baby’s come home!
after coming to an auto impasse in june, my bug has been sitting outside my house collecting dust, making me feel both sad and guilty through my busy term. on thursday, mid-holiday, i finally decided on a course of action, and booked the nrma to tow bea to a new garage, one of my father’s friends who he said would let me be involved. friday morning i waved her off, in the care of a very understanding tow truck driver who told me many times what good care he’d take of her. yesterday was very busy and when i tried to ring i couldn’t get through, but this morning i called, and mark told me to come on over and we’d take a look.
the front wheels came off, the disc brakes were fine. the wheels rattled, but were easily adjusted. the master cylinder was fine, though the pedal has come adrift from its spring. the big nuts on the back wheels were hard to get off, he resorted to standing on a 2m long tube with me pushing on the brakes to stop the car rolling forward right over the chocks. underneath we found wheel cylinders dripping with oil.
mark made a call to a local parts supplier, and we were in luck. they dropped by two new wheel cylinders over lunch, and it was a fairly simple job to fit them, stretched out over a couple of hours by interuption by everyone who came past.
finally it was done, we went for a test drive round the gladesville streets, many of which i had never seen despite having lived there for 23 years. we found a servo, filled her up and pumped her tyres, and she was ready to go!
to say i giggled all the way home is a massive understatement!
compliments
i received six compliments today, walking down king street and back. i was wearing my big blue halterneck dress, with red floral stripes between the flounces. i have to lift it up because it’s too long. i wear it often, but this year there are lots of nice long dresses in the shop windows i pass, with great colours and patterns, so i think people understand, and contextualise it as a good dress, rather than it breaking brains like it seems it used to. i don’t much like being in fashion, but sometimes it can be nice…
kate's adventure 