Revolting Door

I just don’t know where else to put this. I had so much fun last night. Laughing and dancing and spending time with good friends, no worries on my mind because I felt accomplished after my day, free. I really don’t think my friends ever see me that happy as I was last night. And this morning I was trying to tell her about it, and she goes: “Oh, the place where [name of boyfriend] broke his tooth.” Yeah, on a beer bottle, which he could’ve broken his tooth *anywhere* at. Why do you have to associate it with the most negative aspect you can think of, while I’m trying to tell you that I had fun (for once)? And then you shut up, you shut *me* up, and there it is - spoiled a little bit. And all this tension around her all the time (ok, 95% of the time). I swear I *am* trying to keep an open mind, and I *am* trying to be tolerant and I keep telling myself that all people are different, but the vibes she emits - I can not, *can not* protect myself from that because I just feel the tension when she’s around. I know there must be a scientific explanation for what we call bad energy/good energy/good vibes/bad vibes/tension etc. and about how someone else’s personality or current psychological state can affect others. I know I’m not making this up because it happens all the time - one moment I’d feel relaxed and calm and happy or just neutral and then she comes around and this tension starts building up in the air like a mountain growing bigger and bigger. I just wish I was more immune to other people’s states or I knew a way to detach myself.

Oh, and since I’ve started writing on this topic let me get it all out - I think she’s a much more fun and relaxed person when she’s without him, and I think they are not good for each other, and I think he’ll be happier with someone else, and I think she’ll be more appreciated and better seen by someone else too. So there! Out it is.

Yesterday the woman from my previous post wasn’t in class and my team seemed to get along much better and bounce ideas back and forth more freely and openly and it felt like we all bonded a little bit better than when she is there.  I wonder if any of my other teammates felt the same way? No way to find out though. Seems like this is the only place where I can share my thoughts about this kind of stuff.

I’m terrified about the management assessment session tomorrow. Terrified.

This is why. Because let’s say I’m working on a project. I have Word open and I’m typing, writing a paper or whatever. Then my thought starts shifting and instead of writing about some company’s marketing strategy I start writing about my classmate who sits next to me, who I can’t help but respect, who I also feel a little sorry for, and who gives me this dreadful feeling inside. So after I have written a paragraph about her in my marketing strategy paper I feel obliged to come here and copy/paste this paragraph so it doesn’t get lost after I delete it from my paper.

So here goes it:

“She gets a kick of how much she is in control of her own life, of every single detail she’s doing – at her job, with her schoolwork, with her kids – and she also gets a kick of how well she’s juggling all of these three major chunks of her life, all three equally and perfectly well managed. I wonder how often she has sex with her husband. (Well, I don’t know - maybe she’s a tigress in the bedroom…) Even if you put the sex aside, I wonder how often this woman is really *having fun*. Almost everything about her intimidates me but one thing - her obvious lack of interest/time to take care about herself - bushy eyebrows, dead hair, kind of fat. I see myself telling this woman to chill out and sit back and relax and I even see myself dragging her to a spa for a day. Unfortunately she probably has no idea how well I can evaluate her and she thinks I’m some snotty unreliable missy.”

So for this very reason I am obviously not in charge of my own life, even without a job and without kids, and with paper unfinished, and late for the gym. Oh well

Exactly two years ago, on this very day, after a turbulent and rocky start, you said you wanted to be with me and asked me if I wanted to be with you. I didn’t say yes right that instant but I knew I would eventually, soon, so I just sat back in your car as you were driving, in my little colorful summer dress, afternoon sun caressing my face after the rain, feeling happy, happy, happy.

Maybe I am so desperately wanting to be loved and clinging to that need so often and so much that I stop being myself and forget how to just live. It becomes an obsession and every little thing I do, every little thought I think resonates with that need. That need starts depicting who I am, and that’s scary.

I know meeting new friends is the way to go. It’s not difficult for me to make new acquaintances (note how I don’t say friends) but I just wish that had meaning to me. Because it doesn’t. What’s the point in superficial acquaintances? You put in energy and thought and a little bit of yourself really into getting to know someone new and then off they go their own way and never turn around. For me real, deep friendships are what makes me happy, what’s meaningful. Getting to know the person, really caring for the person, and the reciprocity of all this. Sadly, this thought scares most people, if not all people, and they run away. I just don’t understand what’s the obsession of people with superficiality. Is it a self-preservation thing, to avoid deep meaningful friendships, or do people just really feel better off on their own?

Dear Love Actually, Sex and the City & other crap,

Because of you millions of people have wrong expectations, are constantly unhappy, and are looking for something that no one knows exists. Because of you people go to the movies all excited, then come out with big smiles and recharged hopes, and a few days later they are back to depressed and lonely because oooohhhh guess what, Mr. Big never happened and Hugh Grant never drove his limo to their door on Christmas night to sing them a Christmas carol.

And yet the most annoying thing of all is that I still like you, Sex and the City, and Love Actually, and other crap, and I will still see you over and over and over again.

With mixed feelings,
RD

Don’t you hate it when you fail to say hi to your boss because your mouth is full? Don’t you hate it when they pass by your cube, pretending to be super busy and important, in a hurry for yet another time-wasting pointless unproductive meeting, and they shout hi at you in split of a second, and expect you to respond instantly? So what do I do? I end up *waiving* at them! I ended up *waiving* at my boss today with a mouth full of water. And what am I doing right  now? I’m looking at the pointy ends of my shoes, taking in their extreme pointiness one shoe at a time. Because I don’t wanna *be* here right now. Because I don’t feel like working *right now*. I’d rather come back to it later. But no - I have to be here right now - of course I’m going to be unproductive! I hate the stagnation of this place. The people are nice but I hate how the whole system works. The way people are distributed each in their tiny gray windowless space, expected to be here on the same days every week, in the same time. The way they go to work every morning at the same time, lunches packed, gym shoes in the bag, like little pupils. And if the little pupils don’t perform, they get job-in-jeopardy notices and eventually get kicked out of school. And before that they get scorned and humiliated by their stern teachers who most of the time really don’t know what they’re doing, and like to make their pupils feel bad so they can feel good.