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Troid
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Name: troid
Gender: Female
Interests: The usual -- macrame, ventriloquist's dummies, linear algebra, ham radio, and finding efficient methods of extracting maple syrup during sugaring season... ONE IMPORTANT REQUEST: if you leave comments, don't use real names, the better to speak (too) freely, my dear.
Expertise: Um... being a Grammar Nazi, sleeping, procrastinating, organizing anything and anyone except for my own life and possessions
Occupation: Attorney at an Internet-relate
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
2/22/2005
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| Won't you be my neighbor?I'm probably going diving this weekend, and in anticipation of that, I decided to put on my drysuit to make sure the seals were still in working order. If you're not familiar with dive gear, a drysuit looks a bit like an astronaut suit: sort of baggy all over, but with very tight rubber seals at the wrists and neck so that water doesn't get in. You wear a drysuit when the water is too cold to get away with wearing a wetsuit.
In any case, drysuits are hard to get into to begin with, because you really have to cram your hands and head through the seals. Mine is particularly hard to get into, because the zipper runs across the back of my shoulders. Drysuit zippers require considerable force in a very specific direction to zip or unzip, because they're special waterproof zippers, and thus are difficult to deal with. Getting in and out of a back-zip drysuit is generally a two person operation.
But I'm independent!! I'm resourceful!! I'm capable!! I managed to get into my drysuit all by myself, and I was pretty pleased about that as I hopped into the bathtub. The seals worked fine, score another one for the home team. I got out of the bathtub and dripped all over the place, and as I started to overheat, I realized...
...as hard as a drysuit is to get into by yourself, it's even harder to get out of by yourself. And by even harder, I mean impossible.
Crap.
I thought about calling someone to come to my rescue, but I was getting hot, and I didn't think any of my friends would get here in time before I sweated to death. And so I trudged next door, dripping every step of the way, in my drysuit, with no large body of water within miles. I don't even know my neighbors. We've said hi a few times, but I don't know their names. I just know that it's a husband and wife and their youngish daughter and dog.
I was really hoping that the wife would answer the door, because I didn't want to have to ask for her and prolong the ordeal - there was no way I was going to ask the husband to help me out, because I wasn't wearing anything under the drysuit (which I originally thought was smart, since it would minimize overheating, but I guess that a swimsuit would have been a better choice, given how things turned out).
No such luck. He answered the door, and I said, "Um, hi, uh... is your wife home? I, uh, I have a very strange favor to ask." He looked at me quizzically as I stood there dripping on his doormat, and by that point, his wife and daughter had both come to the door to stare at me, and their dog was barking madly in the background. His wife asked what she could do, and so I asked her to come around the corner, away from the door, and then asked her to unzip me. She did so, laughing the whole time. I thanked her and ran home with my tail between my legs.
My neighbors probably think I'm crazy. *sigh*
At least the drysuit works, though. | | |
| RelativityEverything is relative.
When I was working at a big law firm in New York, we wore true business casual - dress pants, nice shoes, nice shirts, sweaters or blazers, and so on, and we were glad that we didn't have to wear suits to work every day. When I moved to Europe, the NGO where I worked called the dress code business casual, but in reality we wore everything except for jeans, printed t-shirts, shorts, sneakers, and flip-flops, except for on Fridays, when we could dress all the way down, and we were glad we didn't have to wear fancy pants. Now, the legal department where I work also calls the dress code business casual, but we wear everything - jeans, shorts, sneakers, flip-flops, t-shirts, anything goes as long as we don't look like complete bums, and we're glad that we don't have to wear anything different than what we wear on weekends or at home.
The other week, a friend who works at the same company, but primarily with software engineers, commented that coming to our building, which is all lawyers and business people, is strange, because "everyone's wearing pants." She clarified, saying that it isn't that the engineers run around in the nude, it's just that they tend to roll into work in whatever they pick up first - grubby shorts, holey jeans, pajama bottoms - anything goes.
No wonder we make fun of the engineers. | | |
| The shape of things to comeSeesaw, teeter-totter, Apple and I had a little bit of back and forth a few days after the last entry, when we both came down from the post-visit high and realized just how insane this is. But then things reached some sort of equilibrium, and it all became infinitely easier for no apparent reason. In typical male fashion, Apple tends to balk when he thinks he is being restricted or constrained, but when he thinks he is no longer subject to those constraints, he ends up imposing even more onerous burdens on himself without realizing that he would have thought they were onerous.
Case in point - we had been talking very briefly on the phone every day before, but it was difficult to coordinate our schedules, and the calls were short and frustrating for both of us. We decided to call less frequently, maybe once or twice a week, with a longer video chat on the weekend. Once that was decided, Apple started emailing and chatting me frequently, and randomly pinging me to see if I was free to Skype. He started bringing his personal computer on his weekly business trip so that he could Skype from the hotel. He skipped evenings with his colleagues to stay in and chat, almost to the point that I need to cut back, as it's infringing on my schedule. Boys...
We had never pretended that we were going to live Happily Ever After. I'm not sure that I'm the marrying type, and he's not sure that I'm the type he would marry. At most, we only ever thought of having a relationship that would last a few years, as long as it was mutually beneficial. We definitely agreed that neither of us would change our lives for each other - you don't do that for someone you're dating "for now" - as proof, I moved away from him, and he didn't follow. And now we miss each other terribly. He has been saying all along that it would be so great if I would move back and we could continue our lives as they were, and today, he started talking about the possibility of him moving here for a while, just to see what it would be like, which is totally uncharacteristic of him. And I said that it would be wonderful to have him here, which is totally uncharacteristic of me.
Who knows what he's actually thinking - Apple is the kind of person who will blurt out whatever pops into his head, regardless of whether it's a real thought or just a fleeting almost-thought. But what if he was being serious? On one hand, I would love to have him here, and I know that things would be great - all of our difficulties stem from the fact that we are living nine time zones apart. On the other hand, that's a huge responsibility for me - to know that he moved here for me, and to therefore be responsible for whether he thinks the move was worthwhile or not. I've always balked when boyfriends have floated the idea of moving to be where I am or where I am going, but for the first time, I am thinking that in this case, maybe it would be the right thing to do. We're that happy when we're together, that it might just be worth a shot. Knowing him, he will freak out over the fact that he had that thought and voiced it, and we'll end up in another little tailspin. I'm trying not to over-think things, so that I don't send myself into a tailspin of my own. This is what happens when you put two commitment-phobes in a long distance relationship.
Things have been strangely easy between us since the last flip-flop. It's hard to explain, but time is passing more easily, and the distance seems so much smaller. Things were so stressful for the last month or two before he came to visit, that it was like we were in a completely different relationship than the one we had before I moved; now the stress is somehow gone and it's a source of happiness again. It's as if we were going about things completely wrong before, and we've suddenly found the easy way to do things, and it makes a huge difference. I think that he somehow came to terms with the situation and decided that no matter what is going on, the feelings he has are real, and he has apparently decided to just throw himself into it. He explained that for a long time, he wasn't able to really invest himself in the relationship because he knew it was doomed, and that it would end when I left. Then, he said, when he came here, he realized how happy he is when we're together, and he grew to appreciate "us" more. I guess now that he realizes that it hasn't ended, and his feelings have remained, so he might as well try to do it right. Like him, I had been having a lot of doubts, and I am definitely more hesitant than he is, since I was the one more badly hurt over the last few months, but his confidence and sureness in forging on is helping me to have more faith, as well.
I still need to be careful - I won't let myself get as hurt as easily again, but I can't walk away from this, especially now, when we seem to have found a way for things to work, despite the distance. We're meeting up in London for a long weekend in early October, and have been discussing possible plans for November, December, and February, as well. And who knows, maybe things will continue going well, and maybe it will actually be worth discussing whether he should move here for a while. One step at a time, and we'll see where this leads... It could be another losing round of emotional roulette, or it could be something wonderful. I'm hoping for the latter.
***
I'm starting to get a little bit more comfortable at work. I still don't know nearly enough to do my job, but at least I know enough to be able to figure out what I don't know, so that I can ask questions that will get the work done, albeit with tons of assistance. I had a meeting with half a dozen Japanese businessmen on Friday. It was a little bit intimidating, since there were lots of them and one of me, and they were older and wearing suits. I don't know what they think when they show up for a meeting and it's just one 30-year-old in a t-shirt and jeans. But I think I managed to sound like I knew what I was talking about, which is more than I would have dared to hope for two or three months ago. So it took me three months to learn how to fake it, so maybe in another three months, I will actually know how to do it without faking too much...
***
I am still lacking on the social front, but have been making up for it by importing friends for short visits. Five of my friends from college flew in a few weeks ago to hang out with me and another friend who lives in the city, and we spent the weekend catching up, talking, playing games, eating, getting manicures, and just being the same girls we were back in the day. It went well enough that I think we're going to try to make it an annual event with more people.
Kanga was here for a day, which was short but sweet. It has been really strange, living here without her and Roo. I miss all of my friends, but she, Roo, and Apple are the ones who are most noticeably absent from my daily life, since they made up such a big part of my daily life before the move. I wasn't sure if having her here would be strange, a sort of collision of worlds after a long, cold turkey separation, but it wasn't - I should have known better, and it was the same as ever. I love having friends like that. (Speaking of which, my college roommate, jonkettle, sent me a package of things she had been collecting over the past few years, but hadn't sent me, and as always, she did not disappoint in her ability to be randomly amusing. She totally cracks me up.)
Importing friends isn't really a long-term solution, though, so I have made a first step towards getting local ones. I'm starting a dinner club with about ten members. Every other week, one of us will host a dinner, and the others will bring side dishes to accompany the main dish provided by the host. First meeting is next week, and I will be serving fondue, as a nod to my most recent life.
***
Oh, and I got a cleaning lady, and She. Is. Amazing. I will never again go without. So worth it.
***
I have been feeling strangely, dare I say it, happy. I don't know if it's because of the breathing exercises, or that my situation has eased up, or if my pain receptors have become numb to the negative thoughts that were suffocating me, but it's good to feel good. I don't think I've ever had such a fast and inexplicable turnaround before, without meds, even. It's been fast enough that I keep catching myself thinking, "What is this feeling? Oh, I think it might be happiness," because I don't expect it to be there. I'm a bit nervous, because I know that my situation hasn't really changed so drastically, so maybe the darkness will descend again, but for now, I'm happy, and I'm really savoring it. | | |
| Roller coasters make me queasyUp and down, and all around - I'm not so good at that kind of stuff, but it seems to be pretty good at finding me. So time to rewind and recap the roller coaster ride of the time since the last entry.
The day after the last entry, I started the meditation class I mentioned, and it was pretty intense. Four hours of class each day Tuesday through Friday, then six hours a day on Saturday and Sunday. As expected, there was a lot of the touchy-feely hippie stuff that makes me rather uncomfortable - giving up our fears and insecurities to the spirits, gazing into our classmates' eyes, telling our secrets and discussing how it affected our prana - but there was also yoga and games and breathing exercises, and it was these things that made it worthwhile for me.
I am very skeptical when it comes to spiritual experiences and seeking enlightenment. I like facts and logic and analysis. The games forced us to interact with 20 strangers, to laugh with them and bond with them. That makes sense to me. The yoga stretched us out and put us more in touch with our bodies, and exercise is good for both body and mind. That makes sense to me.
The breathing exercises were what blew my mind away, and partly because I know that there is most likely a scientific basis for the very positive side effects the exercises had. It makes sense that how we breathe - how fast, how deep, how often - affects how everything works, but I had no idea just how great of an effect something as simple as breath can have on your state of mind. When doing the breathing exercises, I experienced mild hallucinations, tingling, numbness, a sense of detachment (both from my body and from my own mind), and a general sense of happiness and well-being. Given how absent that sense of well-being was before, it's a pretty drastic side effect.
The only way I can explain it is that the breathing exercises changed the oxygen-carbon dioxide balance in my blood, which in turn affected brain function, which in turn made it difficult for me to focus on my thoughts (i.e. my worries, stress, and anxieties), which in turn gave me a temporary sense of detachment from my own life, which in turn gave me a better sense of perspective, and that even after the immediate effects wore off, it still had an effect, because once you detach from your problems, it's hard for your problems to fully reattach and consume you in the same way.
In any case, when I was a couple of days into the course, I noticed a significant shift in my state of mind - work was still confusing and stressful, but not as overwhelming; things with Apple were still upsetting and less than ideal, but not cataclysmic; my social life seemed a bit sparse, but it didn't hurt that I met 20 new people through the class. Placebo effect or real effect, I didn't really care what it was, as long as there was an effect.
Then Apple IMed me about his visit on the way back, and then sent me a text, asking me to call him. I did, and he said he was going to end his road trip early and come back in town on Sunday (the last day of the course), and asking if he could stay with me until Thursday morning (today), when he would fly back to Europe. It seemed like a terrible, irresistible idea. I agreed, telling myself that it would be a test, that it would bring closure, that I would be able to use my newfound sense of detachment to see things as they were and move on. I don't know if I actually believed that to be the case, but it's how I justified it to myself.
I went through a few more meditation classes, and felt things evening out and stabilizing. Maybe part of it is the fact that I've been here for two months, and I'm getting used to the fight - it's an uphill battle, but I've done this before, and I'm still standing. Maybe it's partly the class. I don't know. But I feel like there may be a light at the end of the tunnel somewhere, and if I just keep going, I'll get through this eventually.
Apple showed up early Sunday morning before my class. He immediately fell back into being lovey-dovey, but I, with my new, enlightened sense of detachment, resisted and remained polite but cool for a good ten minutes. And then I fell back into old habits. Enlightenment is short-lived, apparently. But it wasn't a total loss - I felt like my heart was a little more shielded and less vulnerable than it was before, and I was able to look at him and talk to him without feeling upset or anxious. I saw how things were and I was generally OK with them.
He took me to my final meditation class, and promised to pick me up afterwards. I got out of class about half an hour late, and he was waiting patiently outside. He brought me home, and lo and behold, true to Apple form, he had gotten rid of all of my cardboard boxes, organized the kitchen and living room, tidied and stacked whatever he could make sense of, and built my dining room table. The next day, he took the table legs off and brought them to Home Depot to get them cut down so that my table would be low enough to sit on the floor to eat, and picked up assorted bits and pieces of hardware to hang things, replace missing parts, and so on. It was incredibly sweet, especially since it isn't his apartment or his stuff, and he was supposed to be on vacation.
His visit here was really bittersweet. On one hand, things were exactly as they always were - it was as if the last two months never happened, and we were the same couple we had always been. We are great together in person. Really great. We don't fight, and we make each other extraordinarily happy. We both started the visit hoping to help ourselves finish getting over each other, but just found ourselves falling in love all over again. On the other hand, it was hard to look at him and think, "This is not my boyfriend. He is leaving in a few days. He has been here for over two weeks for a trip that was originally planned for my birthday, and is only spending a few days with me." But in between those pangs of regret, it was just good to have him here.
We talked about us, on and off, and about how things did and didn't work out, about how wonderful it was to be in one place again, and about how hard it was to be apart. I told him that he wasn't making things any easier by acting like nothing had changed, and saying "I love you, I miss you, come back," and he said he couldn't help it, that he was just saying what he thought and felt. During one particularly sad conversation, in which I said I thought that it was a mistake, letting things slide back to how they were, because it would just mean a second round of heartbreak, he said that he didn't want there to be any heartbreak, and that he wanted to find a way to make it work. Oh.
And that started off another round of discussions, both between us and internally, with myself. In general, I have a few policies that I try to observe when dating. "No recycling" is near the top of that list - once an ex, always an ex, because if it didn't work out the first time, and nothing has changed in the mean time, why go through it all again? On the other hand, I've already broken a lot of rules with him - no more smokers (oops), no more long-distance (nope), no hooking up with an ex (d'oh).
What we finally ended up doing was sitting down and discussing what we would each require if we were to get back together - what would make the relationship more feasible and less stressful, what we liked about us and what we didn't like, what we would do in the next month, three months, six months, if things continued to go well. And over sushi and grocery shopping, we came to some sort of agreement about the shape of things to come. I am still ambivalent about whether this was a good idea - maybe I'm setting myself up for another round of emotional battery, but after seeing how we much we are still in love and how well things go when we're together, I don't think I can walk away and never look back and wonder.
So wish me luck with that. I'll need it.
Work is still bewildering and confusing - I still don't feel like I know enough, either about the substantive law, or about our company policies, or about the mechanics of getting deals done, but I'm getting better at faking it, and that's something.
I'm slowly scraping together a social circle - people to call or see or talk to. It's a sad substitute for the social life I had, but it's better than nothing, and it has to go through this awkward ugly duckling phase before it will turn into something worthwhile. I'm getting a little more patient with respect to getting results, because I can finally see that I'll have something there, eventually.
Generally, I still feel like I'm struggling, and that I'm walking on rough ground with a blindfold, but I no longer feel like I'm sinking and drowning *all* the time. So it's not great, but it's an improvement, and I hope that things will keep getting better, bit by bit, through a combination of an actual improvement in my situation, continued efforts on my part to find a way to fit into my life, and the side effects of the class I took.
***
And Tuesday was my 30th birthday. Sounds so mature, doesn't it? I feel like I should know more about what I'm supposed to be doing by now, but I don't. I wonder what age I'll be when I finally feel like I'm grown up and living the life I'm supposed to be living. | | |
| If the shoe fits?In Cinderella, the prince goes all over the place bearing the glass slipper that his mystery girl left behind when she ran away from the ball. He lines all the girls up to try the shoe on, promising that whoever is able to fit the shoe (ostensibly only one person could possibly wear that shoe size) would live happily ever after in a perfect fairy tale life. Cinderella’s stepsisters want the shoe to fit so badly that they cut their toes and heels off to try to squeeze into it. What harm can a little self-mutilation do, when it’s in the interest of never-ending (albeit toeless) bliss? It doesn’t work, and the prince keeps looking for someone who can wear the shoe without any self-inflicted amputations, and to add insult to injury, the stepsisters later have to dance at Cinderella’s wedding (on their maimed feet) while wearing red-hot shoes. And then they die.
I feel a little bit like a stepsister right now – I am not convinced that the shoe really fits me – except that I’ve actually managed to convince the prince that the blood that’s overflowing from the shoe isn’t a big deal, and now I’m supposedly living happily ever after, and wondering if this really is the perfect life for me. How long can you really wear shoes (or a life) that don’t fit and still be convinced that they suit you? Especially if your feet get ravaged by gangrene. That can’t look very good through the glass slippers.
Maybe this is the perfect life, but it’s just the perfect life for someone else. Maybe my perfect life is something entirely different. I have this unshakable feeling that I’m living someone else’s life, and it just doesn’t fit. Maybe I would rather wear flip-flops or go barefoot than try to squeeze into someone else’s glass slipper.
It’s so infuriating that I have all this great stuff going on, and I’m still just miserable most of the time. How is it possible that I can have the perfect job at the perfect company, and a perfect apartment that I share with my perfect dog, and still be unhappy? It seems ungrateful, but it’s true. I can’t decide if it means that I would be unhappy no matter what (because if I can’t be happy with the perfect life, then nothing will make me happy), or if it just means that this isn’t *my* perfect life. Or maybe it’s something else, altogether.
I went through a similar period of isolation and doubt when I left New York four years ago, but there are a couple of key differences: (1) I was fleeing a miserable job in New York and going to a job I was good at, whereas now, I’ve left behind a job I was good at and am trying to do a job I don’t understand, and (2) before, I was going to a totally unknown world, and thus expected to have some trouble adjusting, whereas this time, I naively believed that it would be a sort of homecoming (despite the fact that I’ve never lived on the West Coast before), and am finding that the reality is much bleaker.
I would love my job if I knew how to do it. The company is great, the people are great, and the work is interesting. Lawyers here get lots of responsibility and autonomy in really cool deals, which is rare. Instead, I spend most of my time at work feeling anxious, stressed, scared, and useless. Anxious and stressed about how much work I have and how little I understand about how to get it done. Scared that they will realize how little I know and decide that they made a mistake in hiring me, and scared that I’ll make a huge mistake on one of these deals that I’m running with almost no supervision – I almost wish that we didn’t have so much autonomy, because I really could use some more supervision right now. And useless because I can’t do the work the way it should be done. I am one of the youngest lawyers here, and the least experienced one, for sure – everyone else came here from law firms or other in-house positions. They knew that I was young and inexperienced when they hired me, but maybe they didn’t realize quite how young and how inexperienced, and maybe they will run out of patience soon. (Although I guess I’m not that young anymore – I turn 30 in a week, and the idea of turning 30 never bothered me when I was happy with my life and myself, but now that I’m feeling rather stupid and useless, I am more perturbed by the thought of turning 30 and having nothing to show for it.)
It is very hard not having any of my close friends nearby. 2FX flew in from New York Saturday morning and left Sunday night, and it was really good to have him here. We didn’t do much of anything, but sometimes when you lose faith in yourself, it’s good to have someone around who still has faith in you. They can’t restore your faith in yourself, but they remind you that there is something in there that someone thinks is worth believing in. Seeing 2FX did me a lot of good, and having him leave made me realize even more how alone I feel out here.
Apple was here for a day last week. That messed with my head. I thought I had made so much progress, then he came and was all lovey-dovey, and really, it’s hard to tell yourself that you’re over someone when they are kissing you and telling you that they still love you and miss you and think you would be happier if you moved back. It’s pretty inconsiderate of him to say and do such things, when he is the one who more strongly advocated breaking up, so I’m not sure what his intentions were. I’ll be seeing him again when he finishes his road trip, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Maybe it will be OK, or maybe it will just be another mindf*ck.
*sigh*
I know that this will pass - it took a year before I really got comfortable with the last life I was living, the one I left behind for this one - but knowing that things will be better in a year doesn't change the fact that for now, things suck. And it doesn't alleviate the worry that if I keep sucking so badly at this life, the prince might realize that I'm not the right one and take the glass slipper away. | | |
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