Choking on the Ashes, Expanded

This motherfucker is a roller coaster ride.

I've talked to enough non-teachers in the last week to realize how much my description of my job is loathing, or at least bitching. Everyone I know is snapping. One day, I realized I was standing in my kitchen stark naked, with a handle of tequila in one hand a peanut butter-and-jelly waffle sandwich in my other. My roommates and I drink too much; last week, I drank myself to sleep three nights in a row. My head hurts all the time; I feel like I'm physically choking on the pain of missing Emily; I feel crushed by my job, and the fact that I don't see Phoenix; I feel like I'm drowning in debt. I have another rent payment coming up, a car payment, a credit card payment, and bill collectors --the hospital, the emergency room doctor, and the ambulance company--are all demanding large amounts of money for my trip to Tempe St. Luke's during Institute. And to top it off, the guy running the drive-thru at Mickey D's makes more than I do.

I think about quitting--saying fuck it, and waiting tables. I could write, I could work out, I could dance, and I would have more money than I do now. I'm jealous of Emily, and Sean, who travel and see shit, and meet people. I'm jealous of the guys upstairs, who wait tables, undoubtedly make more than we do, and are happy. I'm jealous of people whose lives are even somewhat their own, who have time to meet people and do things they enjoy.

And I still owe E shit.

Part of me fucking hates her. I hate her for not wanting me anymore; I hate her for taking it back to 2007 and acting as if relationships are a burden. I hate her for her idea that being with me means being obligated to speak with me, because I text her, and want to talk to her, regardless of whether or not we're in a relationship.

She was my best friend, and she's the person I want to tell about my day, bitch to, and talk about my kids and hear about her day. For me, it doesn't matter if we're in a relationship--I don't feel obligated to tell her shit, I just want to. So it seems to me that she would want to talk to me, regardless of dating me, because I would think she felt the same way. That she doesn't--that the simple fact of being single removes any obligation, or feeling like she wants to share with me--therefore doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe it's because she wants to get with other people. I don't buy that, but maybe it's because I don't want to. Maybe it's because she just doesn't want to be with me anymore. I don't think that, perhaps for the same reason. Also, because I refuse to believe that what we had could just be tossed away. I think maybe it's because she doesn't want to deal with me anymore, with the idea of a relationship--and that makes me hate her too. I hate her because I think that her not wanting to deal with me is simply her pushing me away, in that "great Sullivan tradition," as she put it, and there's no real response for me to that. She's leaving, and she doesn't want me; I can't convince her that she should be with me by "pestering" and "obligating" her to speak with me. So if she is just walling me off, as she can do, then I have no response. And I lose anyway. Fuck.

I hate her for making me feel like she doesn't even miss me; I hate her for not seeming to care that I'm not coming to L.A. I hate her for the potential fact of that being the truth. I hate her because I need to find new music. Tool reminds me of sex, Nonpoint and Sevendust and Authority Zero of concerts with her. Alexisonfire today reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut--I realized recently that the song "Happiness by the Kilowatt" is all about "The Euphio Question," and that made me think of reading Welcome to the Monkey House to each other while we drove across the United States. The Red Hot Chili Peppers remind me of landing at Sky Harbor and seeing her; of driving around Connecticut and playing Quixoticelixer. Hip-hop songs randomly remind me of lindy bombing Tower. I hate her for being everything I want, and for just throwing me away. I hate her because Nancy on Weeds reminds me of her; and I hate her because I can scarcely have a beer without thinking of sometime we killed a glass together and held hands, or just because I let my guard down and relax and then get smacked in the face with the memory of us.

I hate her because I looked up the 5 stages of grief last night. I recognized that I had spent some time in denial, that I wanted to pretend we're still together. I hate her for disabusing me of that on a Saturday morning, while I cried outside Pinnacle; while she told me that she didn't want the obligation of a relationship, and I realized that whether she cares or not, it doesn't matter--there's no point in convincing someone to be with you. I did that for her once before, and it killed me. That phone call ended with me just being pissed that she could leave me behind; that she could toss me from partner to friend, just like that, and it somehow changed her feelings.

I've spent enough time depressed, too--just fucking laying on my couch, on the bed, on the kitchen counter, crying. Just asking Barishner for a hug, just to feel like something more than a used, nasty fucking wad of cigarette ashes and dirt.

Bargaining? About a minute, rolling through my head the idea of telling her that dating me wouldn't be an obligation. But fuck that; if being with me hasn't shown you that life can be good, there's nothing I can do. And I know how that sounds; I'm not trying to come off like King Shit, I'm just saying that if what we shared didn't show her that we should be together, then no silver-tongued shit is going to flow from me to convince her otherwise.

Acceptance? I don't know how to fucking accept it. I thought of where to propose to her. I walk past ASU's nursing school; I go dancing, and think of the times we danced, that we fought about dancing, and the times she taught me. I pick up my notebook, and its still one that she's written in; and I know that I didn't feel creative juices flow for much of college, but she helped me refind mine.

I hate the fact that I looked up those fucking stages of grief because I was hoping to see how long I would feel like shit; that I could look at them and see that I'd felt many of them multiple times, and that I don't even know how to see her and act as a friend.

I don't know how to be just that. She's E--she's what I want, she's what I need, she's a part of me. I don't know how I'm supposed to hang out with her and not kiss her; not wrap around her; not think about what I want to do with her and where I want to take her and the future I want to have with her, but just talk and catch up and know that someone else has her now, or that she's no one's, but enjoys everyone, or even just the simple fact that she doesn't want any of that with me anymore.

How do you look at someone who you know where you would propose to them and act normal when they have informed you they don't want you anymore?

I'm not going to go back and re-read this. I imagine the last ten minutes of writing come off like some angry, petulant, self-indulgent, self-pitying shit. And fuck it. I needed to write some of that down, and I don't feel like writing it in my notebook. If it's online, it's online. I want to clarify for whatever future me reads this--because it's already way too fucking long for anyone to give a fuck--that I'm sitting here writing this, and I'm not sitting here with my blood pounding, with my eyes full of tears, and that the gorge in my throat, the sensation of wanting to vomit just from missing her, is actually smaller than its been in days. I did need to get some of that shit down, and there's perhaps more to come.

But I want to talk about other shit, and I need to go to bed. In any case, if I have more violent bitching to do, I ought to actually feel violent. Maybe I don't feel angry because I let shit out, but I don't think so. I finished tomorrow's LP, and felt the misery creeping back in. And I was going to bed, but tonight when I got back from Club Red, I felt so fucking good. And I want to recapture some of that shit.

Because there's more that I hate about my life besides being without her. It's what I said before--having no time, no money, and barely knowing what the fuck I'm doing. Thinking that I won't make it to Christmas, much less through two years, or a career of this shit, if something doesn't change. Looking at the life of an adult, and wondering why the fuck anyone does it. Seriously.

I think about how I don't want to get the fuck up in the morning sometimes, and I have to anyway. I can't just skip the day. You can call in sick, but I don't even know how to do that for my fucking job, and with teaching, it doesn't really work. So I look at my future, and think that this may only be a two year gig, but what the fuck does that matter? Whether I become a doctor, a lawyer, or an Indian chief, I'm still expected to go do the same fucking thing--to look at the same office, or cubicle, or kitchen walls--for the next 20, 30, 40 years, five and six days a week.

We as people aren't meant to do the same thing over and over our whole lives. I think about people that just relax, freegan, hitch-hike, and wander around meeting people, and I get envious. That sounds amazing. Every day is a new day, new people, new experiences. Why the fuck would you rationally choose to spend your life doing the same routine, going to work, washing the dishes, and not doing what the fuck you want to do?

If any one has made it this far, then it may be rational to write this off as another section of a bitchy rant, as a manifesto of irresponsibility. Grow up, I can hear some 1950s looking flattop wearing douchebag saying, get a job. Fuck that. What kind of responsibility do you have to hating your job, to sacrificing your life and your happiness to stability, to knowing that you will never look forward to a Monday night like you do a Friday night, because you know that the latter doesn't have to end at 12 so that you can get up at 5?

I tell my kids that the tattoo on my calf is a life, that I like getting up in the morning, that what keeps me alive is not just killing time, but my job. Hahahaa.

The thing is, I don't want to just gallivant and drift around. I envy Sean and others for that, but I don't want that. I wish I could do a job where I help people, and have time to enjoy life too.

Wait a fucking minute. Maybe I should just spend my time drifting around to soup kitchens and relief camps, helping out. That is definitely an easy way to do both of those things--enjoy life and have new experiences, while also having a fulfilling something to do that involves helping people.

This wasn't what I thought I'd be writing right now at all. I've been sitting here thinking that if I figure teaching out, then I can have a job I love, and help tons of kids, and be a community leader, and that I can write hardcore and travel tons during summers and vacations. But why should I put off traveling and things to summers? After all, even if I get great at teaching, what are the odds that I will be able to meet people and enjoy life during the five nights a week that I teach and everything else?

I don't fucking know. Damn. Fuck this. Maybe I should just turn and run. Pack my shit, close my accounts, and go see shit.

I need a minute to just clear my brain, and get some water. fuuuuuck.

.....

Okay. I had the conversation with myself before, and a nothing argument with E about it--about why I wouldn't want to do the travel and help thing for my whole life. Then I said it was because I thought I wouldn't be nearly as effective, and it was a rather stupid position. The thoughts that I came to while I was making my bed and grabbing some water--the why, I realized, ties into what I thought about and realized this weekend.

I need friends. I need other people; I need meaningful human relationships. And I don't know that you would get that if you spent a month at this soup kitchen, a month at that relief camp. Maybe you would, but they wouldn't be long-term. You could have a meaningful, deep ass relationship with someone if you went around and did that traveling and helping and living and experiencing with someone special who you shared all that with--but clearly, fuck that. And not just because I've been dumped and denied by the person I would have been most likely to do that with. Fuck that because it means that you only have one of those relationships, and that's not healthy, suitable, or seriously livable.

I used to like to think of myself as a solitary wolf sort of individual, but that's not really the case. I am very much like a puppy, as Jazmin once put it. I run around, I'm full of energy at times, and later I'll crash for no real reason. I bound around to people, saying "hey, play with me--let's hang out!" and may get bummed if everyone's busy; I can also amuse myself by metaphorically chasing my tail around, and sit by myself and not be bothered by it. But neither of those are maintainable states for me. So, I can't just be a rock, an island; I need other people.

I hung up from that phone call at Pinnacle, walked back up to Shelley and Michelle, and we all gave up on going to the Salt River. Everyone was hung over, and didn't want to move anyway. So I just opened up to them, and talked. Not about how I hated my life, and my job. But about how we all need to fix that fact.

I told them about how I didn't just want people to commiserate, drink, and bitch with--but that I wanted to be friends with them. I told them about how I went out with people freshman year, and that I almost dropped out of Princeton because I hadn't felt like I had friends there. I still remember the day freshman spring when I suggested that we all go to dinner together, and actually get to know one another, because we didn't know shit about each other, and the plan fell apart--we just went back to ripping shots and losing each other at Cloister like normal. I told them it was amusing to bitch about our jobs, and to hit a happy hour, or to hang out and watch a movie, but that it wasn't fulfilling.

And they agreed. We talked about how we ought to not talk about, but actually get together for dinners. And play board games, or something, rather than just communally veg out in front of a television.

I said that we had to stop talking shop 24/7. As amusing as it was to bitch about my kids, it means I go to bed dreading the next day, and wake up in the same mood. Most shittily, it means I forget about the good that happens during the day. I realized that until that moment in Shelley's recliner, I had forgotten all about what happened three days earlier with Patty Mayonnaise, as I will call her.

Patty is a kid in one of my rougher classes who really wants to learn. When I assigned a one-page essay on a time she lost control, she brought me seven single-spaced pages, telling me about when her mother got cancer. She talked about her mother's pain, and her pain, and remission, and everything. She ended it by writing about how she admired her mother, about how her mother inspired her. I nearly cried reading it--but when I asked Patty what her mother thought of it, she told me her mother and her didn't get along very well. I asked her if her mother knew how she felt, and she said no. I asked her if what she had written was true, and she just looked at me and nodded yes.

When school ended, I made my phone calls. One of them was to Mama Mayo--I do like to make the good calls home, and I like when I can talk to a parent, rather than just leave a voicemail. I told Ma Mayo how her daughter was a leader in my classroom, how she worked hard, how I was glad to have her in my class (just wanted to let you know, Ms. Mayo!), and by the way, I was mainly calling because I was really impressed by the rough draft Patty had written for class.

The next day, Patty came in with the surprised expression kids wear the day after you call home just to tell their parents that they did something awesome that day--literally, kids are blown the fuck away. And Patty told me that her mother had asked about the essay, and Patty had read it to her--after which they spent a significant amoutn of time doing the mother-daughter crying and bonding thing.

That shit could have made my day, but I just smiled, enjoyed the scene for a moment, and went back to bitching at kids to sit down and get their notebooks out. And by the time I got home, I was just bitching to Barishner and others about the usual suspects, and I'd forgotten all about the potentially awesome thing I'd managed to do for Patty.

Well, fuck that. I suggested to Shelley and Michelle that we not only put a chokehold on talking shop, but that we cut out bitching in the after-school hours. A moratorium won't happen, but we should talk about shit only if we have good happy things to share. That way we can think about those things, and focus on the good, not the bad.

After a conversation with them like that, of course, I couldn't just wander home and hide behind my papers. I decided that we should all do lunch, that we should hang out and write poetry and play cards and immediately put our money where our mouths are and start making friends, and not just drinking buddies, with one another.

That didn't happen quite the way I intended, but for good reasons.

I went home, and had the same conversation with Skyler, Nick, and Adam. (Jack and Hank were away.) The night before, I had talked to Skyler and told him how I felt--that I was cut out of a group of Three Amigos, that I was not entirely unwelcome. He told me that he thought I hadn't liked him at all, and that he annoyed me. Clarifications out of the way, we went out to Scottsdale. So I had that conversation with Nick, as well as the one I had with the 'chellie's. And with Adam, I had both, and opened up about the things I realized about myself since finishing college, and the ways I felt I had matured, if only because I had recognized shitty things about myself and wanted to change them. I won't go into all that shit now, because it's 1219 and I've been typing for over an hour, and I have to go to school soon. Suffice it to say, it also tied into realizing an obstacle I'd had to forming meaningful adult relationships.

But all of us talked, about how we need to do things that are fulfilling, and not just decompressing, and about making time to be friends, and not just foxhole buddies in the shitheap that is our jobs, so that we can make those jobs and our lives something better than survival.

At that point, far more than the ten minutes to grab a change of clothes for lunch had elapsed. But all was good--Nick and I joined the ladies for lunch at Oregano's, and then we joined the rock star and T-Hawk for a round of golf, before coming home exhausted and peacefully watching Weeds.

It was good. Golf is time for reflection, which meant I spent way too much of the round missing E, rolling over scenarios in my head, pushing away dark thoughts of her and horticulturalists. But even that came to a good thing, because I realized that I ought not run to L.A.; that I ought not drive six hours and give up my weekend to see someone who views me as a burden. And I spent plenty of time bullshitting with the guys, and smacking a golf ball 20 yards at a time, while Mike gave me advice on the prolapsed anus that is my golf swing.

And that good day came about because I stood up from talking to E and realized that I need to have more people with whom I have fulfilling relationships. I said I ended that call pissed, and some of it was at myself. Granted, I'm in a new place, but shit--if I had other people who got me through my day, I wouldnt' feel so shitty, either about losing someone I loved, or about my job. And that's why I walked upstairs, filled again with resolve to remake the world around me in the way I want it to be.

Today, I wavered a bit. I was in Lux and Happiness by the Kilowatt came on, and my mind shut down for a few moments. I looked at the wall, where they have poetry painted onto a glass window hung from the ceiling, and as overwrought as it is, it struck a chord in me and I felt like vomiting again:

(It was titled "Until", and it read:
looking at you looking
at me
bearing down until
I was reminded
once
thinking you were bound
to me
forever.)

It made me think how recently I'd thought, stupidly, that E was someone who would love me forever--that I had thought about our tattoos, taht I had stood cooking with her and enjoyed the concept of domesticity, that I had thought about how and where I would propose. About the fact that the week before, the poem hadn't even made me sad, because she'd sent me a happy, loving text that day.

But I didn't snap. I didn't make it to the 5 pm Intermediate East Coast swing lesson at Fatcats, like I'd wanted to, oh no. But for a good--and amazing--reason. My PD, Megan, didn't just decide to reply to my email questions; she showed up at Lux and spent two hours helping me through my job-related problems, and giving me advice.

(We've had two or three long, two hour conversations, and it boggles my mind how much better I feel after the conversations, and how useful they seem to be, compared to the amount of time I spend working and banging my head against problems, or sitting in professoinal development. Megan, if you somehow ever read this--thank you so much.)

And when it was done, I went home. I didn't keep stressing school shit--I went home, made myself dinner, collected Amanda and Michelle, and went to Club Red. I thought I would stay for the lesson and a half hour of the free dance; I was there for another hour past that, and left only because I knew I wanted to blog and still needed to plan Monday in its entirety. I had a blast--I left the club jubilant, covered in sweat, and excited. I got sad a bit, but for the moment, I have some hope that I will hit an open mic, and dance again this week. And that maybe I will hike in Sedona this weekend. And I have cleared up a lot of shit with my roommates.

This is not at all the bitchfest I thought it would be. And i'm glad. Hope it's indicative of where things are going. We'll see after tomorrow's 10 hours at school and six hours of class. :-P