I have questions tonight. Where is the line between loving someone in the hard times, and the self-preservation of your own soul that is hurting? How do I make the decision between "You are struggling and you need me here" and "Your struggles are hurting me and I need time and space to grieve"?
I've been realizing the self-editing my blog has undergone since I started gathering readers who actually know me--who are players in the day-to-day that is my life. I can't tell this story, because she will worry. I can't express this level of self-doubt, because they will agonize about things beyond their control. I can't be unhappy about this, because he will wonder why I didn't tell him I was hurting.
It's started to feel a little controlling.
I don't do well with control.
So, my stories are back. Regardless.
I was so, so excited to see Ryan tonight. It's been a very long day--a hard one, filled with studying from the first hour. The mind can only take so much learning through the course of a day before you start losing things you read in the morning--for every new thing, an old one is pushed out. And I was--am--weary of it. Not in an I-could-sleep sort of way. More like an I-don't-want-to-think-anymore-FOREVER sort of way. My roomie said it best, in her Haitian accent as she threw herself at my chair, wild-eyed; "Don't want it study no more--don't want it med school. DON'T WANT IT." A refrain I have taken up over the last few days.
On my way over to his house tonight, I stopped to get some chips from Chipotle. Never have I found chips so high in caloric content--never have they been so, so worth it. And I was thinking about some thrilling (for the hopeless romantic in me) conversations Ryan and I have had over the last few days, about our future--together--and I wanted to share them with someone. I called my mom.
In her defense, she was tired. I woke her up from the half-sleep that comes before you are actually gone for the night; and so when I told her that we talked about going looking for rings, and all the excitement that comes from planning such things, rather than the mirror of the excitement that I was feeling, what I heard were reservations. About almost everything, including the fact that I decided I want to get married at home, which I personally thought was fantastic. It was a bit of a let-down and I wasn't expecting it.
It got harder, though. I got here to Ryan's, and he was busy studying. I'd had visions of tackling him to the floor and taking just a few minutes to talk to him, kiss on him, and generally just take a deep breath with him before jumping back into the endless parade of pharmacology that has been my companion for the last two days. I wanted it--I needed that time. It sort of kept me going for the last five hours, thinking about that.
I could tell he was distracted the moment I walked in the door, but he let me pull him over to the couch and I leaned back in his lap as we talked. Unfortunately, what do all medical students end up talking about? School. Grades. How much we should have studied and didn't. And I hate that. I hate that we did it, and I hate that he feels he failed at life today; for anyone who hasn't been crushed under that feeling, let me say, it makes life bleak and black. And it got to him, the feeling of failure, I think--and the next thing I know, he's pushed me up and off of him and walked away, gone back to studying. He told me he was angry at how little he'd accomplished, and how he had wasted his day and so he didn't have time to focus on me, and how much he hated that. And it's true. We are so short on time. But it still hurt, to be so abruptly dismissed, and I could feel it; and even though I knew it wasn't at me, it didn't matter. I just stood there and felt so absolutely rejected, and lost, and suddenly very, very tired. I didn't know how tired until now.
I'm still grieving about it. I feel like there was such potential for joy in this evening, after a day of dreary sameness, and the three of us tonight didn't take advantage of it like we could...and that feels like the loss of something precious.
2 comments:
I am sorry.
Honestly, though, and I think you know this, judging by how you wrote it, stuff like you just described happens from time to time. I don't mean to dismiss how you feel by saying that, because I know (in part) what it's like, and it sucks. But being disappointed by someone for reasons that aren't really related to you happens.
So yeah, I think the questions you asked at the beginning are good ones. I think the cost-benefit analysis is really important for times like this, because you can't change how you feel, but since those feelings are probably not going to last forever, it helps to be cerebral.
I think I'm typing way more in this comment than you really need or want to hear, but I'm too tired to go back and edit it properly.
I just want to say this: I get caught up in my feelings a lot, and I recently lost a really important friend because of it, and that is a festering wound that still hurts several months later. So make sure that whatever you decide to do (or not do) or say (or not say) is what your best self would do. Don't let your circumstances decide that for you.
Hey, remember me? I've been gone from blogger for quite some time, and have only recently returned. I'm still not sure if I'll be posting consistently or not, but i used to love reading your posts.
Anyway, i know I'm really late to the game on this one, but i just wanted to let you know that i know that feeling. That "rejected" feeling that, even though you know in your mind that isn't what was intended, it's still the way you feel. It does suck. Sorry you had to go through that. I feel both sides though, because I also know that feeling of failure, not just at one thing but at life in general, and that is also tough to deal with. So you've probably already dealt with it by now, but i just wanted to, idk, show some empathy.
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