Shifting Focus

This morning is, again, rather rough. Yesterday morning was rough but I had to get moving so early, and then I was nervous about class, and then I was on a machine, and then it was evening. There was no time to worry about it until it was better.

This morning is rough and I don't need to work today.

I always sit down and try to define the problem. Today is rough because this has happened lately, that has happened, and something else is a factor too. I like to understand myself, to know what makes me tick. The problem is that while I can sometimes predict myself, I can never pin myself down. There's no set of circumstances that's always going to make me happy-- wait, no, a plant walk with my ecology prof actually always would-- and life is too complicated to make use of much of the past information. So I gather this data, pore over it, write it down, and I'm still not happy. It's a lot of work for little return: all I can do is avoid a couple things I know won't go over well.

For the longest time people made me happy. Spending time with my people was what I wanted to do; I did it and I was happy, more-or-less.

Now school makes me happy. It's a lot of offscreen work, I guess like a boy who demands flowers and a new poem written for him every time I go to see him. Maybe that's why I like it: I love a challenge. I love sinking work into school, making it like me, making it notice me. That metaphor is hardly any stretch at all. We have long conversational lectures and we learn new skills together. Yesterday school taught me to use an ATV and we went riding in the woods. As for testing, well-- everyone has difficult days where the challenge is to make sure everyone walks away happy.

So if I'm honeymooning with a new lover, what happens to the old ones? What happens to my friends? I see them, but my mind is elsewhere. I talk about school all the time. I don't make enough of the kind of time I need for myself in my life. I am restless when not involved in schoolwork. I cease to identify and acknowledge my own needs, instead focusing on what school needs or wants from me.

Everything else in life has flashes of brilliance, but as a whole ceases to satisfy.

I have a natural relationship span of very approximately three years. That's how long it takes before a relationship becomes work instead of honeymoon for me, more-or-less, circumstances depending, etc. Most things tend to crumble about then. This program I'm in is two years, with the degree option another year tacked on.

It really seems like a good fit for me. In this context, using this metaphor, I'm doing absolutely the right thing. The only question is, what about the rest of my life? What about my people? The things I do can often be put on a shelf. People? Not so much. And when I do shelve them, and I have been lately, I feel disconnected and unwanted and on-the-outside of everything. I don't like that, so I get avoidant, and away the whole thing goes.

You can tell I'm writing this from a dark spot. I'm writing this sitting in bed at 7:30 on a Sunday morning, wishing I could have one day of waking up in one place with one person and not having to leave either that place or that person all day-- wishing I didn't have to chop and ration everything into an hour there, a move of some sort, a couple of hours here, change scenes again, shift gears again, and now we're doing something completely different.

Just as I was about to write 'hey guys, ignore this, it's all babble that will burn off if the sun ever rises today,' Angus wanders through in a towel, looks at my expression, his face falls, and he does little things to try to make me happy. I don't know if it's lightened my mood any, it doesn't feel like it has, but I'm going to stop writing now. This is more than enough of this.

Noted for recordkeeping: this is the second day of real blood, like the fourth blood day or so.