Christi is gone

She’s gone to La and Ellen is using my room for other guests, so by the time I get back here, everything that Christi decides is hers (things get blurry when they’re acquired together and i don’t care about stuff so much anyway, just symbols) will be gone.

I’m still breathing

Other minds festival

is this weekend. christi and I are both planning to go. It’ll be the first time I see her since breaking up with her. I feel anxious about this. but I beleive it will be ok. i really want it to be ok. i’m really glad that i’ll get to see her.

After many plane delays, gate changes and a cancelled flight, I am now, finally, in Berkeley.

I don’t understand why people get angry and yell at gate agents about these things. there were weather problems. being angry won’t change anything and yelling at a person won’t cause a plane to appear. given all the indignities of life, late planes seem so small a thing.

Sometime in the last year or so, I quit being angry. I was an angry youth. It didn’t serve me well (see yesterday’s long post). I’m glad for this change.

I put Christi throught so so much and she still loved me. and i threw it all away. while this is incredibly painful, i still feel happy to know i was loved so much.

what does it mean that it took me breaking up with her to realize this?

Looking Backwards

The best case scenario, for a couple in a time of crisis, is that they will support each other. One will be able to turn to the other for love and reassurance. In the worst case, they will make each other miserable and end up making the crisis worse. When my mom died, Christi and I fell into the latter group.
Until this week, I blamed Christi for this. “She wasn’t there for me.” I broke up with her because I thought if I had another major crisis, like my brother, my dad or myself getting cancer, that she “wouldn’t be there for me again.” I thought she was unable. Trying to talk through it would bring up incredibly painful memories and at the end would fail, so why put ourselves through that?
My strategy for dealing with stress from the time of my mom’s death and the aftermath, was not to think about it. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t talk about. I started thinking about it for the first time over winter break. christi and I couldn’t even talk about the period and still can’t without arguing. It breaks down into “my mom died!” “i felt very hurt!” “I felt hurt too!”
After a couple of weeks of being broken up with Christi, it occurred to me that she was very very present for her brother. He had a nervous breakdown, which is worse than what I experienced (at least more personally debilitating . . . ) and she was there for him the whole way. Maybe is she was there for him, she would be there for me. I called her up and asked her if she wanted to work it out. I told her that I had some demands, but that I couldn’t ask them except with a shrink as a referee, because each of us is carrying an incredibly loaded stack of hurt and an attempt to discuss this without help would explode.
When my mom first was sick, I was sad, I was scared and I was angry. I wanted Christi to be there right next to me the whole time. And she was. She took time off work and sat with me and my mom in the hospital. She brought me sushi every night. She did everything she could for me. She knew my mom for about 7 years then, so she was directly feeling sad, stressed, etc too. My support network was primarily Christi, but was also some south bay friends, including Tammy & Vince, Mitch and the Kazes. Those guys were way cool. Christi relied upon them and her brother, who was living with them at the time.
The situation with my mom got worse, she was angry at me and I was supposed to be caring for her and she wouldn’t let me. Then her insurance company was declining treating her. And it was completely terrifying that my mother, the woman who raised me, was trying to run away from the house in her pajamas. I kept a list in my head of all the terrible things that might happen (she might fall, she might take all her pills at once, she might run away, etc) and how to prevent them and fixated on it. I also became increasingly angry.
I was angry at my dad for not implementing my list and for being afraid and for not realizing sooner what was going on. I was mad at my brother for running away. I was furiously completely angry at the insurance company. Christi and our friends began strongly encouraging me to get therapy. I remember trying to figure out how to work the therapists door system and becoming completely, totally furious and wanting to smash it. Then I spent an hour in therapy, stressing about my mom’s treatment plan and the insurance company, in a bitter rage and so so so much pain and the shrink kept saying, “it sounds like you have a lot to think about.” I went in wanting to figure out what to do about this problems. The shrink didn’t give me a plan of action. She didn’t make me feel better. It was clearly a waste of my time and I felt angry about it and angry that people made me go see her. Clearly my problems were all rooted in the physical fact of my mom being sick and that’s not something that you can talk your way into fixing.
I don’t remember my overall mood at the time, except upset, but it seems to me now that if I was that angry at a shrink and her door, I must have been angry at many many things. I wanted Christi to be right next to me as a crutch, but also as a human security blanket. I wanted affection from her when I needed it, but I probably also did what kids do to their security blankets and bit her when I was angry, which was probably most of the time.
Christi was leaning more and more on her brother, who was very kind to her and more and more hostile to me. I wanted him to move out because of his hostility. Christi saw that as me removing her primary source of support. He stayed and she leaned on him until he completely fell apart. He went to the hospital and then he went to Portland. Christi went with him. She didn’t want to come back. I insisted that she should. She had to be there for me! So she did.
We couldn’t be in the same room without fighting. We couldn’t work out the problem with so much stress still pouring in. My mom was still getting worse all the time. we told a shrink our tale of woe in factual terms. My mom had cancer. The insurance company hadn’t wanted to treat it. The surgeon messed up the referrals. We couldn’t start treatment until it was too late. And then Christi’s brother had become very ill and was living with us. The shrink was horrified at the awfulness of it, but said she could see how much christi and i loved each other. She gave us the temporary advice not to talk about it, so that we could at least co-habitate.
My memory is that Christi didn’t like that shrink and wanted to find a new one, even thought I liked her. Christi’s memory is that I didn’t like the shrink and she did. In either case, we went to find a different shrink. We would start telling our tale of woe, and it seemed to me that Christi would rattle off a litany of my misdeeds. I felt attacked. I nixed all the shrinks. I walked out of one of them. So we never talked about what happened with her brother and my mom at that time. We still haven’t.
I don’t remember feeling rage at this point. I remember having a panic attack and Christi taking me to the emergency room and me sobbing in the ER, but I don’t know when that happened. My memory is all jumbled. but I feel “comfortable” being angry. It’s an emotion that doesn’t scare me and than I can settle into when things are negative. I’m sure I was still angry. (actually, as i re-edit this, I remember being angry then….) I would have pointed this anger out in all directions. As the person closest to me, Christi would have gotten a whole lot of it.
Christi wanted space from me. She didn’t want to be my security blanket anymore. Her own source of support was gone. She was increasingly distant. Her brother blamed me for his problems. She agreed with him and was angry at me.
after my mom died, I was a mess. I didn’t get out of bed until christi came home from work. My conversational skills were shot. And I quit talking to my south bay support network or really anyone but Christi and Tiffany. Christi had to deal with me alone. I wanted to go on a trip to LA to visit my cousin. Christi did not want to go with me. she said she couldn’t get off work. I started arguing with her constantly about her work schedules and whether she could get time off (my mom was a major donor to the organization she worked for, it seemed to me that she could get time off . . .. ). I thought that she just didn’t want to travel with me. She might have foreseen a long road trip, trapped in a small car with the world’s angriest woman. It only occurs to me now that using work as an excuse might have been an attempt to spare my feelings. Or maybe I wouldn’t accept “I don’t want to” as a reply.
My rage must have gradually subsided. when I’m grumpy, tho, I can be snippy, so I must have been snippy for a long time. I think that the last summer went relatively well, but it must have been a relief to Christi, when I moved out, that she could be sure of no snippiness. then I came to visit her in Paris and was stressed with school and was kind of snippy . . .. Now things are as they are now.
When my mom was dying, I needed to find a better way to deal with things than being angry. even after she was dead and I was calming down, I didn’t want to see a shrink and I refused to discuss it. Christi was using increasingly forceful ways to communicate with me, probably out of necessity. We were angry at each other. It was a bad time. And I looked back on it a little bit and remembered feeling alone and Christi being angry with me and decided that she “wasn’t there for me.” I was bad, but I hurt and she should have cut me slack, I thought. But how much anger should a person have to absorb before they’ve cut enough slack? I pushed her too hard.
Trying to work it out based on “you weren’t there for me” would have failed. so I was right. Lucky me.

More navel gazing

I tend to see the world as a series of binary oppositions. I just read an article about this for my english class by Hélène Cixous (a french feminist) called “Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks / Ways Out / Forrays.” In this article, she documents the essentially masculinist (phalocentric) nature of binary oppositions. She makes a claim that inherent in these oppositions are value judgements. Things binarily opposed are not equal. One is better than the other. Moreover, it is how some chooose to define themselves, but labelling on thing as “me” and another thing as “not me”, opposing them, and then comparing them to rate how we are doing in relation to everything else.

I do this and it has not served me well. For starters, it means that there is always a hierarchy and thus I can never equally relate to anyone or anything I put myself in binary opposition to. Furthermore, it creates false dichotomies. There are a lot of grey areas in life. Real life is not “do X or be a loser.” this has been harming my worldview and my relationships.
I think it might relate to my trying to supress mourning and not feel sad, something that has also not served me well. I wanted to bravely soldier on and put the past behind me and not look back. It’s like I formed my self image from outdated ideals of maleness and manhood. How did I get such a masculinist viewpoint? It’s bizarre. Reading my blogposts from last winter is bizarre. I know I must have been in turmoil, but I barely acknowledged it.
So I’m confused about how I have formed my concept of self, but, while I cannot change the past, I can effect the future. I’m not going to say “these things must go now (or i’ll be a loser),” since this would just put me in another binary opposition, but I can look at how I am reacting to things as I react to them and see if I am falling into a pattern that might not serve me well. I will feminize myself. But don’t expect skirts or lipstick. I have boundaries.

Emotional history

Highschool – sad before coming out. after coming out, don’t remember

College – till senior year – don’t remember. I think I was a rilly happy freshwoman. Sophmore year, christi got sick, which was deeply alarming. Junior year, don’t remember.
senior year of college (97-98) – stressed to the point of trying st john’s wort, which i thought made me manic. I sad, “I thought i was depressed, but it was all in my head.” stress cause: thesis
right after college – unhappy and directionless after finishing major goals in life.
first jobs – depressed due to crappy hours and no music in life. mostly felt sad while stoned, but made major changes as a result.
netscape – very happy at first. better pay. better hours. bought music gear. made a lot of tape music.
christi goes to work at nolo – my netscape commute starts to suck. sili valley culture is very irritating. job is less interesting. want to quit, but am persuaded to stay, meanwhile, economy going south. becoming more and more unhappy
got laid off by netscape (2001) – feel very directionless. alternate between feeling relieved and like a loser. trying to convince christi to take a long leave and go to europe. she doesn’t want to. no idea what to do with life. i think i must have been unhappy.
trip to europe 2001 – christi got laid off by nolo, so europe trip happened. felt somewhat stressed at the time, but great experience. overall – happy
back to grind – fall/winter 2001 – 2002 – still not sure what to do with self. start focussing more and more on music, which makes me happier and happier. driver for om festival in 2002 perhaps happiest time in my life. then going to confrences, writing stuff, had an ensemble going, checking out grad programs. happy. on the way to visit a music thing in seattle when …
spring 2002 – mom gets cancer. miserable. sad. stressed. not much clear memory from this time. dark dark days.
fall 2002 – mom dies – days get darker yet. quit getting out of bed. barely able to function. don’t rember the winter, but know i was sad. blog posts indicate that i was working on grad school apps. trying not feel sad by supressing emotions (i think). probably acting weird.
spring 2003 – got accepted into wesleyan. neighbor said it was the first time she’d seen me smile in months. played a gig at jack straw. still sad, but trying not to. felt sense of direction.
summer 2003 – playing a lot of music. working on many projects. happier than i’d been in a long time. i think i was pretty happy and becoming happier the whole time
fall 2003 – not knowing anyone at school caused stress, so i was unhappy and lonely at first and returned to heavy mourning. created stress for myself by taking too many classes + doing too much work on assignments. got happier and happier until winter break, but possibly supressing feelings?
winter break – deeply stressed. feelings supressed as much as possible. broke up with christi.
the present – unsupressing emotions. feel mostly very sad. regret winter descision.

conclusion

tracking trends, I’ve been unhappy the last 6 – 7 years way more often than happy. however, 1. happiness comes in moments, usually, which might defy trends (is this true for everyone?) and 2. when i’m sad, i have an easier time remembering sadness and when i’m happy, i can only remeber that, which skews any data.
things that make me happy include having goals, having direction, new projects, and having music. things that make me unhappy is the abscence of any of those “having” things, a screwed up social life, death, divorce
please comment

The last key ingredient to a relationship

both people have to want to be in it. without that, you’re pretty much fxcked.

Differences between Need and Want

You could wake up one morning and realize that you’re not dependant on the loved one who is been irritating you. And depending on what your life has looked like before that point, you could yell, “I don’t need you!” and chase that person out of your life.
But that descision could lead to regret if you realize that you really want (but don’t need) that person in your life. You could make yourself miserable. Be forewarned.

Germany Pros and Cons

Ok, I want to do study abroad thing. It was a motivator in applying to Wesleyan. I have visited the institution at which it was held (Read what I said about it at the time). It’s an awesome thing. And I was planning to apply after I graduate.

Taking a year off to do it is a different thing tho. I had sort of pictured the year as a possible springboard to Europe, which it would not be if I had to come back to Wesleyan afterwards. I wouldn’t graduate until 2006 at the age of 30. Aaron says he would take over my lease. Since it would only be a year, I guess I’d find temporary shelter for Xena. But I would come back and have virtually no friends, since almost everyone I know would have graduated. Any contacts I made in the EU would have to be put on hold for a year so I could come back and take classes and do my thesis.
It would, on the other hand, put me a lot closer to Christi, which is enough to motivate me to do it next year, if she wants me to. Application deadline could be pushed back to the end of spring break.