grinninfoole

It has been quite a while since I last posted. There's a lot on my mind, so I shall just throw stuff at the screen and see what sticks.

1) I'm annoyed with FA because I have been surcharged for an auto accident she was in in February. Now I am facing a significant increase in my insurance premium because of it. I'm very upset, not least because, even though we aren't friends anymore, she may have actively lied and said I was driving when I wasn't even in the car. I hope that this is not true, and that this is simply a mistake by the insurance company and/or the Merit Rating Board. I would like to think better of her.

EDIT: Happily,it is simply a bureaucratic mistake. As I wrote, we aren't friends anymore, but I'm pleased to validate FA's honorable behavior.

2) I have done little on my school work the past couple of weeks. I have had the time, but not the motivation. I find it difficult because, even though this is a project for which I pick the topic in a program in which I chose to be, it still feels somehow imposed upon me. I am not 'owning' this work, so I resist focusing my energies upon it. Which is rather distant prose, I notice. Basically, I don't feel like I'm doing this for me or for MY reasons, but for somene else's. It reminds me of my childhood experiences of grown-ups telling me that I wasn't living up to my potential, which always seemed to mean that I wasn't doing what they wanted me to do as well as they wanted me to do it. These feelings don't fit the facts of my current, adult sitaution, however. I chose to go back for the MA, and the point of the project on which I am stuck is to define for myself what I would like to do and start to do that, in my own way. It is as free of the imposed expectations of others as any situation I shall ever find in my adult life, short of sitting around doing nothing all day (which, as it happens, is how I have been wasting all too much of my time, recently).

3) I really appreciate Sydneycat. Not only is she helping me with some of my comps prep burden, she is also one of the few friends who has paid back money borrowed from me. (Also deserving praise in this respect are Millari and JR.)

4) Last Sunday we had the first session of what I hope shall be a long and fruitful new D&D game set on the Cloth. Lefty and Millari were the only ones who could actually make it, but we all had a good time (though having Lefty xp whore at me after stonewalling me so much in his game seemed irritatingly unfair.) Next time, a fuller PC roster and a bit of a mystery.

5) My brother turns 40 this weekend. It hurts me that he seems so unhappy in his life, though when I spoke with him on my last visit, I asked him if he was living the life he wanted to live, and he said 'pretty much'. I hope so. M suggested that what he really wanted for his birthday was more time with me, so I shall take her suggestion and offer him a vacation together. We last took one about 5 years ago in Montreal, which was pretty fun.

6) My mom seems to have finally physically recovered from her cancer surgeries, and the doctors have found no signs of metastasis or recurrence. She's still so tired all the time, and my dad's inability to deal with his own emotions seems to be exhausting. I wish I could do more to help.

7) Currently, far too much of my life is funded by my parents. This will change soon, and I am wondering what I will cut out. Clearly, a lot comics will have to go, but beyond that, I may well drop one or both of the therapies I do, because while I get a lot out of both, I don't want to do anything which I don't pay for myself. This will mean earning more money, of course, but I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

8) Millari really is wonderful.

Right now, I have task to perform. I must finish the research project that I should have done two years ago, and I must do it in the next two weeks, because I shall be away for most of August. It's very stressful, and that's actually the biggest problem I have to face. I have come to recognize that I experience stress as a signal that something is wrong and that I have fucked up. Thus, when I feel perfectly normal deadline pressure, I interpret that as a sign that I am bad person, and that I have already screwed up badly, sometimes before I have even started working. The big problem this has created for me is that I attempt to deal with this by avoiding any situation that might be stressful, rather than by accepting the stress itself as OK, and concentrating my energies on accomplishing things.

I'm very pleased to have figured this out, because it has sabotaged my life for as long as I can remember (about 31 years, now). Aside from the short-term obstacle this poses to writing my last paper (and thus getting the degree), the larger problem is that any path that feels worthwhile for my life will stress me out. I need to accept that and move on, or I'll never really live.

Earlier today, my sweetie posted this in her LJ:
"The cycle needs to end here. I am more free than I have ever been in my whole life. I want to learn to live with that."
When I have the MA, I want to get a job, so that I can cover my own expenses. When I have done these two things, I, too, will be more free than I have ever been before. I find this a dizzying prospect.

In the short term, anyone who wants to hang out and be a study buddy is welcome to get in touch.