And the word of the day is...L.A.M.E.
I was scheduled for my first massage (I don't know what level, just a regular massage is $200 plus tips and the next package up makes it "errogenous" [read: hand job] at $425 plus tips) tonight. At the last minute, the dipshit called and cancelled due to the weather. It's a bloody thunderstorm, not an ice storm. Sigh....I was planning on working at The Club tonight, but now I'm not going to coz the rain certainly is going to drive away dance customers as well.
So! I have an unexpectedly free evening. (And no new money, but I doubt the effort of The Club tonight would bring in much new money either)
Hm. Lots of things going on. Sebastian (formerly referred to as Virginia or V, who has changed her name but retained the female pronoun) and Isabelle have been the focus of my social efforts lately. Iz moved today and Sebastian is moving on Thursday. The latter's grad party was on Saturday, mostly just consisting of delicious vegetarian barbequing on the roof...then going to K!ll the R(_)nt (band of some friends, including most prominent BoyFace) show and going back to S and Iz's place for a bit.
Slept a tiny bit, then back to S and Iz's to head out to the May Day parade and festivities. Long, long day in which I got a little sunburned, saw my mom and such (she was in the pageant) and went to a post May Day party until about 1am.
I got kind of bummed out at the party, forgot about it a little dancing to the Kn0ttwe11s, and got all angsty again walking back to the 3lliot House with Jeremy.
Subject of angst: what the fuck am I doing? What have I done? What should I have done? What should I be doing?
I was looking forward to the massage, because it would be the first fruition of the efforts I have made thus far towards financing my life in that manner...
Now, back to nothing.
Hm...it's hard to write this because I'm feeling pretty content right now, but I'm going to try to backtrack to how I was feeling/thinking yestereve.
One shift in thinking was regarding my living situation. I was pondering how infrequently I spend the night at my apartment, and it has a lot to do with being around people. I have a lot of social desire right now and perhaps I would do well to live with other humanoids, even if it's not exactly how I would prefer my next living environs to be. The one person I know who is looking for a place to live and who I would try living with would be Natasha. The Flooze just told me that Suzanna is looking for something as well, but I have no clue if we could live together or not. I'm not sure what part of the W!llmar house was her responsibility. I definitely am not interested in living in a filthy alcoholic party house...
The heavier shit had to do with living a "productive" and happy life, being constructive with my time, etc. I feel like I have all these social justice projects that I get temporarily excited about, then back out or slack off on to the point of basically just dropping them entirely. I haven't volunteered at the NonProfit in weeks - but a lot of that has to do with being wierded out about my job situation. I keep thinking I should just say fuckit and tell them what I do (the stripping part, the other stuff isn't relevant). I've been lying and stating that I've been babysitting.
I mean, be yourself as strong as you can and fuckit to the results, right? It's ridiculous that I feel I have to hide my life to hold onto some mythical place/future career in "the nonprofit world." What the hell does that mean, anyway? If my concern is getting a job later, don't I want to work for/with people that I see eye to eye with on as many levels as possible anyway? Isn't that why I decided, in my college naitivity (more on that later), to do nonprofit work in the first place? So that I didn't have to compromise principles and such?
Yeah. Fuckit. People are going to know, and if they can't handle it then I'll have to find work with those that can.
On a more basic level, what is my life about, anyway (and why does it have to be "about" something)? Physically, I need to have a place to sleep and a way to eat and somewhere to shit. I need access to medical care. Psychologically (which is tied to physical health), I need sustained rewarding relationships with other people (family/friends/lovers/etc.), and I need to feel as though I'm contributing to society and challenging myself in ways that help me grow and think and learn.
I want to enjoy life, and I want to look back and say I experienced a hell of a lot. I want to truthfully say that I participated in justice, and that I put my talents and skills to good use.
I want to be Involved.
Maybe I keep jumping ship on all the shit I try to Involve myself in because it doesn't require my participation. If I don't feel needed, where is the impetus to continue with what I am doing? If I don't see any sort of progress towards structural changes, what is the point of bandaging the machine's vast outreaches of devastation?
I certainly don't want to get stuck hopping from one simple pleasure to another, I need deeper satisfactions than that. And I am scared that this is exactly what I'll end up doing forever. I feel like it's all I've been doing since I got out of college. I know this isn't true. If I think about it, actually I have participated in some really meaningful things since I got back into the country...but what am I doing Now?
Now I'm exploring sex work, sex, people, myself. Valid activities, to be sure, but Not Enough.
I want to be divorced, I want to cut the ties that bind. There is something psychological there that needs to be undone. But do I give up my great medical access for a psychological shift? Are the payouts worth the losses? And why do I feel immoral for remaining married to have medical access? Is there anything to that or am I just programmed?
Ah, the great subject of Ponge and I rears its ugly head. We were done with each other far before we declared it, I think we were done the first winter we moved here. Nothing more to say to each other, nowhere more to go. I had my idea of what my life should be, and he was just getting his but it was nothing like mine. Marriage was completely ridiculous in the first place, and that decision cost me things I'm just starting to recover from now.
It wasn't going to Senegal that fucked me up so badly, it was deciding to marry Ponge. We didn't try for the visitor's VISA, I just read all the shit on the government's webpage and assumed it would fail. Which it well might have. But I still should have tried for the visitor VISA first.
And I do mean I. It was I who did all the research, who made the appointments, who taught Ponge how to fill out paperwork, who structured my entire life around him getting into the country and getting a job and having at least some stability (hence staying in Madison for a year first - at least he had my family there and his cousins there) and adjusting and pretending to myself that I could give up all my post college plans (including my at the time dream organizing job which was going to be my professional entry into social justice as a living FUCK I loved organizing as a job!...a job no longer available to me) and vastly alter a relationship I was very happy with and excited about the prospects of and still be happy just because I loved him and shit could wait until he was settled and had his friends and that good job and a happy life.
God, I was so excited about my dream life that was going to happen. Sebastian and I met in Paris, just like we planned. Only it was completely fucking wierd. I was exploring my own gender and sex interests and challenging the status quo. Only I got FUCKING MARRIED, which is about the most status quo thing I can fucking think of. And I got that job offer, just like I planned and wanted. It was going to be my step, my in, to other organizing jobs. They are few and far between and I had an in, a way to gain valuable experience and job references. Only I had to decline because I was living in Madison instead.
I fucked it all up. Yeah, I fucking said it. I don't want to go into the but blah blahs right now, I just need to get this out. Since the day I stepped off the African continent I have felt that I really fucked everything up that I had planned and was excited about, and that this massive fuck up is irreversible and that while I can try to put the pieces I have left in some sort of new order, I will never be able to regain what I have lost.
I look at Sebastian graduating and think of what my graduation was supposed to be like, and then what really happened, and I want to fucking cry. It doesn't seem like shit really had to be this fucking hard. It seems like things were going along pretty damn well for me.
On top of this I broke his heart, and my heart (twice), and possibly Sebastian's heart. Only I think she has fully recovered, and I still haven't.
...and of course it's a mixed bag. Of course I have learned an immense amount about love and relationships and complexities and conflicts...
And yeah, I really, really loved him. I planned on having children with him, I thought about how beautiful and amazing they would be. I fantasized about he and I together, our child growing in me. I wanted him to succeed in his dreams and goals and I wanted to want to be monogamous. Probably for parts of it I really did want to be monogamous. There is freedom in being unavailable, as well.
Now I make jokes about baby taint.
How can I love my life and feel utter sorrow for what it isn't at the same time? Really, logically, there isn't any point to regretting decisions. They're done with, over, no going back. So stop the sob story and get on with things. But whatever my reason informs me of, whatever my philosophy dictates, I still feel what the fuck I feel despite it all. No changing that, either.
So...so if I can't change anything and I just have to suffer until one day I'm suffering about something else entirely, what is the point of writing about it? That I can't answer. Perhaps it helps to self-analyze in some sort of order, rather than random thoughts and feelings rearing up at god knows what trigger. Maybe so I can get to the point of accepting suffering rather than suffering over suffering. Maybe it achieves temporary catharsis.
Except that prior to taking the time to write all this shit I was feeling pretty content, and now I mostly feel really alone and meloncholic and shiftless. I guess being sober means I actually have to deal with things instead of escaping to the bar. I'm not really sure which is better. Moderation in all things, I suppose.