Just When I Think I'm So Grown Up....

I was at work at Grace Bros tonight and overheard my coworkers talking about someone.

Humphries: "She's so quiet you know....just walks by without really saying anything." That grabbed my attention. I moved nearer, pretending that I was straightening clothes on the rack.

Humphries: "I wouldn't mind going out and having a beer with her but she's just..."
Rosie: "Yeah I noticed. She doesn't always seem to know the right thing to say. It's too blunt."
Now I was really curious....and also concerned. The very human thing, you know. Overhear some gossip and instantly think it's all about you. Obviously.

But I legit thought it was about me. I already know everyone gossips. It happens. I gossip a lot too. Try not to but...it happens. But one thing I know about gossip is that no one is safe from it. Take part in it and as soon as your back is turned, you're the one being gossiped about.

So, I really honestly thought they were talking about me. I'm quiet. Sometimes maybe too blunt.

Especially the way they kept saying "She's such a nice girl but...."

I'm a nice girl. At least, that's what my co workers think. I think.

Humphries: "She's such a nice girl but she doesn't know how to talk to people."
Rosie: "Yeah a customer already told her 'I'm not sure if you realize that but you sound really rude'."
Then I knew it wasn't about me....because I hadn't had a customer tell me I was rude. I'd been called other things but....not rude ahah. So I did relax.

Another coworker asked who they were talking about. They replied with my name. I blinked and went "What?" Now they knew I'd been eavesdropping. But one of them turned and laughed "Oh no not you....the other ____."

It made sense. She's actually even more introverted than myself. And suddenly I was feeling pretty good. Finally, I thought. I was not viewed as the weirdo. I was the social one. I had carefully constructed this friendly, open, ever-helpful, occasionally sarcastic persona that I plastered on like the smile on my face as soon as I walk in the automatic doors. No one saw through it.

Another coworker told me today that I'm always laughing. But I couldn't tell her that 75% of that laughter is forced by nerves.

When I learned that the gossip had not been about me, I felt superior. Powerful.

And then another part of me, the shy, ever-careful, compassionate part of me that gets pushed to the side lately woke up. And I felt horrible.

Why should I feel superior to her? Why should I find this powerful that I'm somehow saved the gossip about being "a nice girl but.....you know"? We're not that different, her and I. I've just forced this friendly suit on while she remains herself.

Maybe she's the superior one. She is her whole self. I pretend. And even though they view her as odd, they still said they wouldn't mind grabbing a drink with her sometime.

I still have yet to get even an almost invitation.

And then I was nearly overwhelmed by the desperately awkward and self-loathing teenager I once was.....because I've tried so hard for over a year now for them all to like me. And while they might like me, they still don't want me to be their friend.

I'm again that 13 year old, sitting alone in the cafeteria, trying to hold back tears. I'm the 5 year old hiding in the coat closet on the first day of school. I'm the college freshman, trying not to puke as I bypass the cafeteria to hide in my room, far away from the possibility of being left out.

I'm always that kid, no matter what I do.

So I'll keep sitting here on my laptop late at night, listening to melancholy music, writing about life and what I can't change. 

Once Upon A Time......

What stories can I possibly tell? That's something that bothers me as I look at a blog that goes unwritten, stories that sit unfinished and notebooks that remain blank.

So I'd better start scribbling something. 

I know I have plenty of stories to tell. I used to amuse my grandmother with re-tellings of my day/week, exaggerating just to make her laugh. I have revealed lots of childhood and high school to friends and my boyfriend...who now know far too much about my issues with dairy and sunshine, as well as parts of my previous sex life that should remain secret.

I have mastered the art of telling long convoluted stories with little to no point because my father tells long convoluted stories with little to no point. Which is also probably because my grandpa used to tell long convoluted stories with little to no point. Seriously, his "a little birdy told me" tales made opening Christmas presents last a really long time. And see, I'm telling one now....jsut getting around to talking about which long stories to tell.

Maybe I'll tell short ones.

I could tell the one about the time I was dusting my dad's workshop with a tiny brush and pan when I was about 4, maybe 5 (I wasn't in school yet that much I know) and the new vice he hadn't gotten around to securing yet fell off the counter and onto my little foot. And how I lay on the couch, one foot still encased in a Little Mermaid sneaker, the other sitting naked in the giant metal bowl we used to popcorn. Only it was full of ice water. And that's what my mother came home to: Her nervous and concerned husband and her sniffly, teary four year old wit a puffy foot soaking in ice water.

And that's when I wasn't allowed to go in my dad's workshop anymore. Didn't stop me though. I still have little purple lines on my big toe from that experience.

OR
 I could tell the one about the time I got the BRILLIANT idea to tie my large, rambunctious Black Lab/St. Bernard mix dog's leash to the handlebars of my bike. And then tried to ride around the yard like that. After having watched the live action 101 Dalmatians where I saw exactly what can happen when you tie a dog's leash to a bike.

But I'm a slow learner.

OR
I could tell the one where I was at my grandparent's house, swimming in the pool and suddenly had to pee. But everyone was outside and I was little and afraid of the shadowy hallway to the bathroom in the house. And how my uncle just told me to go in the nearby bushes. And I was just little enough to listen to him and not know any better. So I didn't tell him that girls can't pee very well without making a giant mess or going on themselves unlike boys who have an easy time because they can just whip it out. Though....I don't think I even knew that boys could "whip it out" since back then, I still believed that boys just had a weird shaped lump on their nether regions like a Ken doll.

Anyways the point is I started peeing behind a bush and then kinda on me once I realized that a plane was flying by overhead. I got all embarrassed and self conscious and started yelling at everyone that they'd told me to pee in public and I was irrationally convinced that the people in the plane had seen me taking a leak.

Again, irrational because all anyone would have seen from the plane (if they'd even been looking down) was a blue blob (the house) a smaller blue square (the pool) and tiny dots (us).

The possibilities for stories are endless. Though maybe I'll stop there today. Leave some more for later.

Trust me....I have plenty more. I should probably just bang out a memoir or something. Though my childhood was pretty normalish. And probably boring to anyone but me.

But I need  to go pack for moving. Again. That story hopefully I'll tell next.

Re-emergence

And then suddenly, I returned.

I can hardly believe that it's been about 7 months since the last time I wrote on here. If anyone is reading this at all, I'm really sorry about the long absence. Stuff happened, a lot of it, which is actually what I was going to talk about today. 

Something I've been struggling with recently is how to describe exactly what happened and more so, how I've been feeling these past few months. I don't know how to express it without it sounding kind of bad or possibly worrying those who love me. But I'm finally able to write something. So I kind of have to. For my own sanity.

In truth, everything started before the tumultuous event and then exploded.

I've been feeling kind of....hopeless for awhile. Since my job changed really. And I've been stuck in retail since October. It's draining and frustrating and somehow my creativity just dried up.

However I still had random bursts of writing. I still had my friends and my boyfriend, (who I'll call Flynn) to spend time with. I hung out with my family when it was possible. But I missed them terribly and I hated my job.

But things were still fine such as they were. Until the end of January. Until the end of my grandmother.

I tried to write about it because that's how I've always coped with everything in the past. I'd had my heart broken before and had been blocked in writing but half sentences and phrases or thoughts still escaped here and there.

This time....after a desperate stream of conscious poem during a vague night at work and a paragraph that ended before the fateful words I couldn't say or write.....other than those things, I wrote nothing. I was done.

There were no more words inside of me. They'd all dried up. And what's more it hurt too damn much to say them. To say anything really.

I couldn't even speak them out loud. I said words, everything other than what I needed to talk about because I was afraid of tears. I said everything but what was important, anything but what truly mattered. Nothing about what was going through my head and heart. I'm going to try to write it all down again, in order, because I need to get it out. But for now.....the aftermath.

I went through the days after I was dropped back off in my life. Every day felt the same. I got up and went to work. Or I slept in later and dragged myself to errands. I made myself go to stores, the bank, the laundromat, the RMV. I made phone calls, hands twitching on the table. I hung out with everyone but that felt like an effort. It was so hard to keep up some kind of happiness, a front so no one would worry.

Work was almost unbearable. I had to be cheerful all the damn time, so at the end of the day all I wanted to do was disappear into fiction, into someone else's life. So I watched movies and TV. I binged on NCIS, NCIS:LA, and Bones. I avoided certain shows my gram and I used to watch together or talk about.

My roomate, Dash, started a new job an hour away and it took up the majority of her time. So she mostly moved in with her boyfriend and his friends. My despair deepened over that time. I was alone except for work and the weekends. Flynn's family had me down once a week for dinner. My doppelganger hung out now and again but sometimes I wanted to be alone. It made it easier to not have to fake emotions. However it was stll difficult to sleep at night.

The point is that the days all drifted together. This deep sadness had an unshakable hold on me. I'd think maybe I was okay but then why was I still sad-- and then I'd remember and it would continue. I slept with all of the lights on, fearful of the world outside, the possible spirits in the apartment, and my own imagination. I stopped caring about cleaning things, looking as presentable for work, getting out of bed before 2 pm.

At some point I became aware that I was not happy, As in, I had not, in fact. been happy for a long time. At first, because I'm a twitchy paranoid person, I thought that it had something to do with my relationship. Oh no....was something wrong and I yet again took forever to notice? But that was stupid. Its' not Flynn's fault if I'm not happy 24/7 just like it's not my fault if he's not. So I felt back over the web of time and my vague emotions and realized that the last time I had been happy was about 2 minutes before my Dad told me what had happened, what had changed for all of us.

So in fact this was still grief working it's way through my system. Which only made me feel slightly better.

I didn't know how to talk about this. I hid my tears because I didn't want to bother anyone. You know how society is about grief. Cry up until the funeral and then you should have some closure. But you better damn well be your usual cheery self the day after.

So that's what I faked.

It was not that I didn't feel emotions. I did. It was just....all I felt were the negative, bad one. Sadness, anger, hatred, annoyance. Joy, laughter and happiness were just out of reach. They touched me lightly, like the way a warm spring breeze brushes your face. And then they were gone.

I couldn't write. Reading was an effort. Crowds made me grumpy and panicky. Traveling caused irrational rage. Almost everything I had enjoyed before was not fun anymore.

All I could do was continue on this long, dimly lit path, holding onto some kind of half-hearted hope that things would change. But all the while, I doubted that they would.

Slowly though, something did change. Allie Brosh, of my favorite blog ever Hyperbole and a Half, came back. And her new entry reverberated within me. I had not been to those same depths as her....but I understood what she talked about. To some extent. And suddenly, I had a positive emotion: Relief.

I was relieved that she was okay. As much as she is at this point. That she was still alive.
I was relieved that she was making it.
That she had written again.
And suddenly, I had hope that I would be able to write again.
That maybe my creativity was not an old well that had been sealed out of tragedy.
That maybe I did deserve to be happy again even though my grandmother was gone, even though I had regrets, even though.......everything.
That maybe I could feel happiness again. Someday.

I expressed how I felt to Doppelganger finally. I knew that besides my family, (who I couldn't let myself talk to about it because FEELINGS), she was the one person who could understand the level of grief that I was still wading through. And she did.

I gathered courage over a month ago and made a spontaneous decision to go back home. Back to VT to visit. And everything had changed, just as I knew it had. Just as I had tried not to acknowledge it had. But I refused to get used to it. I refused. But something within me changed.

When I got back, suddenly there were feelings. Overwhelming ones. I was nearly knocked over by laughter. I vibrated with rage. I was pumped full of determination. I was full to bursting with love.

And slowly, the anxiety came back as well. That was the only thing I had not missed over the dark period.

But that is a tale for another day.

For now, I am full of feelings, both good and bad. Sometimes it's a confusing swirl of them. Some days it's still hard to move or do anything resembling productivity or any kind of activity. But things are getting better.

And I've got the writing itch again, with words and poems bursting out of me in what looks like an endless sea. Months of feelings I couldn't express are just falling out faster than I can write them. And I'm full of an emerging drive to make life better. One word at a time.