Greenstorm's Journal

Failure is rarely an option for me nowadays. I've lived a bunch of my life gently, allowing myself weakness when I have it, sometimes perhaps over-indulging in things like calling in sick to have sex or backing out of interpersonal confrontations.

I still try to live the relationship side of my life gently now that I've learned how, spending time with people who are good for my soul.

At the same time I have a rigorous schedule that leaves no leeway for my humanity.

For instance, I've been working and going to school both near full-time and keeping the rats and two boyfriends and something of a social life on the go. That translates to between 20 and 30 classroom hours per week, 12-15 hours of commuting per week, 30-ish to 35 hours of work per week, plus one day per week rat cage cleaning and whatever the people stuff adds up to, plus of course all the cleaning stuff.

I keep myself going in a number of ways. Some are gentle: I put something shiny in the next week or so, and I work hard to get through the week to it; I support myself and encourage myself and tell myself that I'm awesome and accomplish a lot; I pay attention to beautiful things around me and let them inform me of my right and fitting place in the struggles of this world. Often this is all it takes.

Some ways I get through are less gentle: I tell myself how badly people will be let down if I don't do something; I give myself a little time to break down and then remind myself that no one's interested in interacting with me if I cry and whine all the time; mostly I just keep working, through the dark part, through irritation to mental fury, through my brain spitting bile and insults at every contact, through fantasies of great pain or bodily harm to myself or people around me, through everything my mind can send at me I just go from task to task to task. I get things done and let my mind gibber.

There's sometimes a price for being harsh on myself. I begin to lose faith in the givingness of the world. I begin to forget what happiness tastes like and why I would desire any sort of human connection. Finally, pushed too far, my mind short-circuits and leaves me suspended and hanging in an abyss of static, snarling at any intrusion of consciousness.

Things fix this. Time to myself abates it; time with people I love, touching and being touched, talking and being talked to, draws me back into the wonderful parts of the world and gives me reasons for continuing on this path. I can recover quickly, especially if I haven't pushed too far, but I do need time to recover.

This month it feels like I don't have time to recover. I think I have a total of three or maybe 4 days that don't contain work, school, or most often a combination of both. Many of these are 14-hour days. There just isn't enough space.

I'm coming to my computer as a blank screen, to livejournal as a space that doesn't talk back. My own voice will heal me, I hope, that first increment so I can reach out to people for a little more contact. It seems to be working; allowing these feelings and these words to be of value, even if only to myself, is pushing me erratically from blankness through furious anger and towards tears.

It's a funny balance there, actually, seesawing between anger and compassion at myself for this barren painful feeling. It wobbles back and forth from one second to the next. I let it happen, no sense wishing it was some other thing.

That's enough writing for now, I suppose.

Warning, random angst.
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Just needed to write, argh.