My brain feels boggey this morning and it occurs to me that it is because I have not had coffee yet. Such a strange thing to be addicted to a substance…but I digress from the original topic on my mind.
I am trying to negotiate my wages for whenst (don’t know about that word, could be I am REALLY in need of caffeine) I assume my new position. The management at the SF Branch of my work keeps giving me offers that are partially good, partially laughable. Then I counter offer and they come back with something composed of ten parts laughability, eighty parts soundness and ten parts complete insanity. This has been going on for a week and a half and I think that I am getting tired of it. Ellie herself (studio owner) will be in town tomorrow because of some serious fallout that happened a couple of weeks ago with another trainer having their contract terminated quite abruptly. I think that I shall just sit her down and have a little talk with her, while wearing my killing outfit a weilding and uzi.

There was a point when it seemed many people stopped understanding. But it was also my fault because I jsut stopped talking about anything of real importance. I had give up after going through the ringer of too many personal relationship-type traumas in rapid succession. My variety of trauma is not something easily packaged and displayed. It is not the type of harsh situation that can be summarized in a sentance and met with empathy. Something like “I found out that my husband has been cheating on me.” presents a situation that is understood to be traumatic and might be met with “oh, I’m so sorry.” or something liek that. However, my situation is filled with the kind of twists and turns and that barely make it mentally negotiable, even for myself.
If I were to attempt to explain to someone who knew nothing of the situation this is how it might go:
“I lost my best friend.”
“oh. That’s too bad.”
“Yes, it was sad. He was my closest confidant for the past 10 years.”
“Were you involved with him?”
“No but for many of those years it felt like were were involved.”
“But you weren’t, right?”
“Not really. We seemed to be in love with each other for many years.”
“What happened then?”
“Too many complications I think. We had always talked about being together when we were ready for a marriage-type commitment. He seemed to be too scared of that when it came down too it.”
“that’s sad.”
“yeah, it was sad. Mostly the loss of friendship. At the end, I was trying to communicate with him and instead of sommunicating openly and honestly he used me in a very hurtful way and then univolved himself in my life which…..well, never mind. I can’t really explain much more. It may offend you. You may push me away if I continue telling you this story. You probably can’t fully understand anyway. If I told you that he turned out to be infinitely selfish and lacking in compassion, you may jsut tell me that I don’t let go of things and that I brought it upon my self. You may say things that stem from you being a product of machismo culture in which a man can use and hurt and destroy someone’s heart and it is the woman’s fault for leading him on even though both were (originally) communicative about their attraction and feelings. You may tell me that I shouldn’t think about it any more. But really you just wont understand.”
It is clear that this is excessively complicated. There are few people who understand and still guide me through trying to heal from all of this and allow me to process my feelings so that I can move on. It is not a small wound that heals easily. It is a deep, aching loss.
I still miss my friend sometimes. I still feel angry at his lack of compassion that currently feels like it is preventing full resolution. He still invades my dreams causing me to endure sleepless nights and wake feeling sad and despondent, aching from the loss. I wish that if I called him, I would have something to more to say than just an expression of anger. I feel drawn inward because I can’t really explain to people, expecially after all of the judgement and hurtful words from many people I was previously close to. It seems that they think I should hide all of this from them and quietly move on. But this experience has been something that, much like his role as my friend, has throughly colored and infused my entire life. It has immensely changed and challenged in both good and bad ways. But maybe I can’t explain it to people because it is so complicated, even I can’t understand. I do have a hard time believing what came to pass.
This post may piss people off. But I have realized that I don’t talk to may people anymore and I have decided to use my blog as a vehicle for expression again. It feels a bit safer than conversation and then I will continue to process something.
I feel less passionate about the things that I used to really enjoy. But at this point, passion feels like it opens my wounds and is too much feeling for right now. It is cliche, but I have become very numb. I now understand the meaning of feeling that one has a broken spirit. Too many affronts to the soul (and I haven’t even written about the few other severly emotionally destructive items of the past 6 months). I know that I have been systematically shutting down. I have created my own emotionally insular world. Shit, I may even delete this post and stay in insular bliss. But I feel that at this point that would be unhealthy.
Lately I have been feeling like I need a new life. I need to bury myself in work which has been possible with my current compendium of jobs. I do maintenence and advertising for my friend’s Pilates studio in San Francisco. I babysit in trade for rent. I have rehearsal on the weekend for a very big upcoming dance engagement. I am practicing for (yet another) wedding engagement. And then there’s my real job which is increasing in size and stature. I will now be managing the pilates studio in Oakland as the so-called Master Trainer. I will be in charge of trainer education, workshops, trainer evaluations, program-development, equipment apprehension and maintenence and overall studio somthe-functioning. There are also many sid-projects I am working on and maybe at some point I will detail tose as they are more exciting than my job-jobs.
As you can tell I am very able to bury myslef in work. Mostly work that doesn’t involve too much passion. Work that can absorb me without belonging to my body and my emotions. Work that is pleasant and stable, if less inspiring than more passionate works. Work that can keep me outside of my old life. Outside of too many unexplainable feelings. Maybe my feeling can grow back in a new way. Maybe that’s why I am writing this and shall now click on “post”.