Everything In Between » Depression & Melancholy

And so, she was beautiful to me

Meitar — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 05:35:09 +0000

She had blue skin.
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by –
And never knew.

—“Masks“ by Shel Silverstein

I remember the sunlight on 8^th Avenue and 15^th Street that morning vividly. New York City is beautiful in the morning, but only if the streets aren’t packed with throngs of hurried people. The sunlight streamed into the tangled mess of steel and concrete and glass, bouncing from one reflective surface to another until it finally lay flat on the ground, or on me.

Often, while alone—and only while alone—I’d walk facing the sky. In the Summer, if I woke early enough or stayed up late enough, I’d slow my typically brisk pace to relish the thick, warm air as I walked through it. In the Winter, when too many people woke before the sun, I’d wait for rush hour to end before venturing outside, because that’s when I could feel the sun drape its light on me the way I wanted to feel it.

It was one of those cold, late mornings in the Winter that I remember, except I wasn’t alone. On this particular morning, I was walking with my father and we were talking about school. I’d recently started attending another school after dropping out of the one I had just been in, and, again, I hated it.

But there was a girl, and her name was Bre, and one day she told me in visibly unconcerned confidence that she, like me, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And so, she was beautiful to me, and I got a crush on her. And on this particular morning, playing hooky for a while with an understanding father, I was explaining all this to him as matter-of-factly as I could, lest I seem too smitten.

As my father is wont to do when he correctly sensed I had shared something that made me feel uneasy, he paused momentarily, looked at me concertedly, and then began to tell me an allegorical tale. This time, he told me of a short story he had once read. It went something like this.

On a day very much like that sunlit day, a man and a woman met at a sidewalk café. They quickly struck up a conversation and, soon thereafter, found themselves spending a good deal of time with one another. As their friendship flourished and their fondness for one another deepened, however, they each became more afraid of revealing their romantic feelings to the other.

The story, my father told me, was written from both of their perspectives. The narrative voice switched from one to the other, so that the reader became a sort of voyeur able to peer into each of the protagonists’ minds. Although the details of his fears were different from hers, the outcome was the same: neither told the other the extent of their true feelings.

Ultimately, it was a very sad story. It ended on a note of mutual resignation rather than happy romance. But the moral is clear, and so was my father’s message.

I remember this story whenever I shy away from revealing something about myself for fear of rejection, ridicule, or even shame. Like the characters in the story, I don’t always muster the courage to lay myself bare. In fact, I never told Bre about my crush on her and before long my opportunity had gone, as she transferred to another school. However, the memory serves to make me that much braver in moments like these.

There are numerous things I’m struggling to work up the courage to offer for public view. I am afraid of being ridiculed and mocked. I am afraid of being ignored; that things important to me are not important to anyone else; of being unimportant, myself. Most of all, though, and contrary to some of my bravado, I am afraid of being disliked.

But I also know I am often ridiculed and mocked precisely because I show courage when others do not. I know I am often ignored precisely because the things important to me are too threatening for others to acknowledge. And I know I am often disliked precisely because of my conviction’s integrity.

Often, all of that makes me conspicuous, and so I’m sometimes thought to be “inspiring” when framed positively or “intimidating” when framed more negatively. I think enfant terribles are important, and I’ve rarely felt happier than when I receive (now weekly, if often private) thanks for sharing myself publicly. But at the same time, I really do not want to be any of those things. I want, instead, to be plain and largely forgotten.

I want to be in love and feel close with people. And I’m afraid the more “inspiring” or “intimidating” I become, the more I’ll stand out as someone hard to feel close to.

I remember when someone who was in love with me sang along to Billy Joel as we crossed the Golden Gate bridge. And I remember when another who was in love with me put her arm around me as I gently shook flowers off the tree we climbed on Atwell’s Avenue. And I remember both of the days when each of them stopped feeling safe enough to be in love with me, days I revealed the extent of my true feelings.

So I think that, these days, I share so much of myself with strangers so publicly because what I really want is to share myself with someone who loves me. And I just hope you’re reading.

Broken Code to Broken Dreams to Broken Worlds

Meitar — Sun, 22 May 2011 11:01:26 +0000

(Originally posted to my Tumblr blog.)

On the way to a housewarming party, I wrote an email to a piece of my past. A snippet:

[M]y dreams have subsided but my memories are resurfacing. I’m spending some time for the first time in years reading the archives of my own blog. And, as part of that, writing (drafts of, until the story about CV and Ken) the stories important to me. I’ve done a lot of learning over the past year or so and am recognizing things I once overlooked, like the power of storytelling.

Other memories that pop up often as I do this are all the times you asked me to write about us, which I’m sure you recall, as well as all the times I sat down in front of a blank screen to try, which you may not recall because I was alone. I want to say, so that you know if you don’t already and to be reassured in case you do, that I would have written more about us, and I wanted to, but I was hurting and I could not bear the task. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to accomplish that.

When I arrived at the party, things immediately felt at once unnervingly familiar and yet disconcertingly foreign. I did not know such a strange self-contradiction was possible. Everything from the way people looked—the slender, long-haired man in the Utilikilt serving drinks; the sharply-dressed fast talking woman whom he called “sweetie”; the animal lover and perpetual student in the green dress; and others, too—to the music on the stereo—Gaelic Storm—to the layout of the apartment—not quite a bullet house, but close—was eery. Pieces of them each reminded me of people I had once seen almost daily.

It felt like a combination of being in bizarro world mixed with blasts from my past, all in a parallel universe. I floated from one conversation to the next, throughout the evening feeling as though one half of me was not really in attendance but rather observing the other half of me that was, except for the brief reprieve in which I dropped to the floor to commune with the household’s feline pets. I stayed for a couple hours, then caught a ride back over the bridge, towards home and far too much NyQuil.

I feel emotionally irradiated by the experience, and it hurts.

On the car ride back, a thought occurred to me as I shared a little bit of my history with my couriers. I used to work as a web developer fixing other people’s broken code. I never could find a situation or make myself any significant, sustainable opportunity to just write my own damn code. Now, I’m an activist and I’m trying to fix other people’s worlds, but I don’t feel like I have one of my own.

I walk a lonely road
the only one that I have ever known.
Don’t know where it goes
but it’s home to me and I walk alone.

[…]

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me.
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating.
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me.
‘Til then, I walk alone.

I’m walking down the line
that divides me somewhere in my mind.
On the border line
of the edge and where I walk alone.

Read between the lines of what’s
fucked up and everything’s all right.
Check my vital signs to know I’m still alive
and I walk alone.

I always felt I’d make a great lost boy. I had such a crush on Peter Pan, too.

Dear Cassandra

Meitar — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 04:56:18 +0000

On Monday night, despite efforts to the contrary, I was true to my word and ended up watching Scott Pilgrim vs. The World on my own. I had invited not one but two others local to my neck of the woods to join me, both accepted, and then both canceled on me.

So much for helping me dissuade notions of prophetic predictions. I felt lonely, but it wasn’t so bad. When I’m lonely, I work myself to sleep because that’s more pleasant than crying myself to sleep, which is too often the alternative. (When neither of those options present themselves, I’ve been reaching for NyQuil.)

However, for weeks now, the debilitating sadness has been coming in waves. It’s been years—maybe a decade—since I’ve felt this kind of heaviness in my limbs. I’ve been making the most of the times when I feel able to move (because, yes, there are times when I don’t), and am proud to say that I’ve done a relatively enormous amount of reaching out in times when I’m not.

But as much as I’d like to pat myself on the back about that, to congratulate myself on making social arrangements despite the persistent pessimism, it doesn’t seem to be doing any good.

Last Friday, at the behest of a new acquaintance who wrote me some of the smartest emails I’ve ever gotten after reading my blog, I went to the Transmission party at the SF Citadel.

You: “Well, how was it?”

Me: Meh.

You: “Oh, come on. Why ‘meh’?”

Because despite knowing more people than I thought I would, spending $35 on a cup of coffee and some fruit for a chance to give out some cards and shake a few people’s hands over the course of a couple hours isn’t my idea of a good time. I would have had a better time if I had met this acquaintance over an overpriced Starbucks latté, we would have talked more (they had play dates to attend to), and it wouldn’t have cost me $35. Thirty-fucking-five-dollars.

Some of us just aren’t party people. If that’s not okay with you, you’re shitty friend material to begin with.

Rather than ramble on—I’m only writing this because I literally have no idea what else I could possibly do with myself that would be constructive at this point—I’ll record this overly-personal SMS (that’s “text message” for you luddites) conversation I had today:

Them: “I’m in introvert hell.”

Me: “Oh dear. I’ll appreciate a brief Skype call if you’re up for it in a few. You can tell me what ‘introvert hell’ is. :)”

Them: “I’m in a car with grandparents for the next 45 min and then sleeping on a couch. I’ll see if I can step away once we arrive”

Me: “Okay. No pressure. Enjoy family while you can.”

Them: “I just have no privacy…. How’s your weather?”

Me: “Ah. Well, if you need privacy maybe you should grab moments alone, not on Skype with me. :) My weather is…cold? I don’t know. I just have no idea what to do.”

Them: “No idea what to do?” [Then, later] “Hey. I def don’t have enough privacy to make a phone call. :-( I’ll wake up one of the Olds. Anything I can do for you besides love you from here?”

Me: “No. Thanks for asking. Have a good night. I hope you find some privacy.”

Them: “I’m so sorry to disappoint.”

Me: “Disappointment implies expectation. I hope I didn’t give you an impression I expect of you, that you’re somehow obligated. I don’t—you’re not—so don’t be sorry.”

Them: “I’m fine. Just wish I could give you more this moment. Am willing but not able.”

Me: “I understand but can’t empathize. Story of my life is either unwilling but able or willing but unable. It embitters me—how could it not?—and it’s NOT your fault.”

Them: “Goodnight, may.”

So, now that I’ve managed to find a way to pass this hour, I’ll go see if I can face working again. Kink On Tap episode 57 needs to get published. I hear that show makes some people happy.

And even if I’m not, I can’t stand the thought of my own depressive lethargy standing in the way of a smile on one of the show’s listeners. I’m pretty sure, now that I think about it, I’ve turned into an activist because it’s the strongest reason I still have to stay alive.

I guess that would explain why I have so few friends.

Settling in San Francisco

Meitar — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:38:07 +0000

I wrote this on July 27, 2009, a little over a year ago:

Not long ago I moved to San Francisco, California in order to make a fresh start for myself in a number of different ways. Creating a new home turns out to be a ton of work, especially since I had almost nothing except for a bunch of clothes and my computer with me. I had no housewares, and after spending a week literally putting blisters in my feet trying to find an apartment in which to live, for the first few nights I ate delivery with plastic utensils out of tupperware.

Soon enough, though, and with the help of some inspirational friends (most notably Susan Mernit, Sarah Dopp, James Carp, Emms, and Gabrielle and Tara) things started to come together. I visited Ikea twice for some furniture, but a lot of the other things in my apartment from the futon I sleep on to the plates I eat off of came from friends. I even got a microwave as I started to make mental lists of the things I needed.

Then, without publishing those words, I stopped writing. A year passed. In that time, a lot happened. But San Francisco is no more home today than it was before I arrived. If anything, I feel more out of place than ever. More alone than ever.

I am struggling. No one who thinks they know me, who sees all the stuff I do, no one knows how hard each and every day is for me. No one.

Now it’s all the little things

Meitar — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:54:21 +0000

Immediately after arriving in New York City, I turned myself into a tornado of work and worry in order to make sure KinkForAll was the success I desperately needed it to be. To my indescribable relief and happiness, KFANYC wasn’t just a success, it smashed through even my wildest expectations, topping at 45 presentations with well over 100 participants physically present and countless others watching the online feeds. (I was so worried about presentation shortage, I prepared 4, but only ended up needing to present 1. Likewise, I originally thought we’d top off at maybe 35–45 participants, and in the end one of our biggest problems was simply lack of physical space!)

On that front, I’m now looking at the amazing possibility of helping people in sexuality communities who have contacted me from Washington DC, Toronto, and San Francisco emulate the success of New York City’s event in their own hometowns. But not yet…. Not quite.

As the unconference ended, Sara and I were joined by a group of over 20 friends (and friendly acquaintances) for dinner at a nearby Asian restaurant. Despite my hunger (I only ate at the behest of my concerned friends during the day ’cause I was so busy), I didn’t want to finish my meal; I knew that would be the end of dinner, and the day. Nevertheless, day turned to night and as Sara and I walked around the corner for a modicum of privacy, excitement gave way to sadness and we said (temporary) goodbyes in tears.

I retreated from the city then, headed towards Providence, Rhode Island to stay with close friends who generously offered me the opportunity to create a small sanctuary in their spare room. This has been helpful, and I can begin to feel myself recovering, but I’m still having trouble grounding myself in the here and now or focusing on the new tasks at hand. For one thing, there are so many, and for another thing, they are so vastly different from what I’ve just done that mentally changing gears so radically, so quickly, under so much pressure, is actually painful.

When I moved my self and my life half way around the globe to Sydney last year, I felt optimistic about what I would find. Sadly, I didn’t find what I wanted. Now, having moved myself and my life all the way back across the planet and then some, I’m determined to make what I want—because it doesn’t exist yet, and no one knows what it’s going to look like…except me.

My hosts, Emms and Zac, are nothing short of a godsend. They are literally a healing warmth of a magnitude I could not possibly express adequately in words. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving in their home, I fell ill. Of course, this is not at all a surprise considering my physiological history for exactly such mind-body connection.

My attempts to focus on my writing (for my second and much more advanced web development book on CSS I’m authoring; my first book was much more 101-level) have been only partially successful, but I’m encouraged by this anyway. As Emms told me last night while cooking a pasta dinner for us all, “Comfort yourself with the standards of the world,” a piece of advice she wisely preceded with, “Now’s the time to focus on only the most important parts of your chapters.” This, all while taking my hand every time my eyes unexpectedly overflow with the salt water I feel like I’ve been storing up in them.

I’m a little…not annoyed…chagrined at the admission that yesterday was the first full day in more than 4 weeks that I didn’t cry at all. Not only this, but earlier today while my hosts were at their day jobs and I mainlined enormous quantities of tea as though it were a blood transfusion, I couldn’t stop myself from crawling backwards in time towards happier memories. I cried again, embarrassingly loudly since no one was home, and resigned to let my head rest for a while instead of forcing it further into failing attempts to create reusable patterns of CSS code for styling semantic markup.

To help with the memories, I’ve been playing MGMT‘s Kids on repeat for what must be an hour or more now. I first heard it on Australia Day (apparently Australia’s almost-equivalent of America’s Columbus Day), which Sara and I spent with Janek and company at his house on a tropical, warm, rainy day in Sydney. The radio was playing all day but the only song I remember was this one because, somehow, it stood out like a spotlight. I remember laying on the couch in the living room with my head in Sara’s lap, eyes closed, as she pet my head and I purred along with the kittens in the far corner of the room. The memory is emblazoned in my mind’s eye as a vivid still frame.

When Zac came home and gave me a hug to comfort my tears, he remarked on the song. “It’s always weird to hear this song,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Emms and I went to college with them—the band.”

And now I have two memories.

Insomnia of the worst kind

Meitar — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 07:02:08 +0000

Tonight’s my first of a little over a week’s worth of nights alone. When this ends, I’ll be on the other side of the planet. I’ve turned out the lights maybe four times already, trying to get ready for bed, but my body just won’t shut down despite its utter exhaustion. I really hate this feeling of waiting—having at once nothing and everything to do. I really hope I get some rest.

I want to go away

Meitar — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:38:14 +0000

I’ve slept most of the day. I haven’t even really slept, but I’ve been in bed and haven’t gotten up. I woke up at 9 AM at first, feeling full of energy but wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep. I woke up again, finally, at 2 PM or so after tossing and turning for hours.

In less than two hours of being awake, I was crying in fits and starts on my bed again. I wanted to tire myself out again so I would go back to sleep. I just want to go away and hide.

Thoughts on happiness and relationships and mental health

Meitar — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:34:59 +0000

I suppose it is not surprising that just after the turn of the new year on all of our calendars, everyone and everything is seemingly reflecting on measurements of their own happiness and satisfaction.

I just took a little Happiness Formula test and the result I got is unsurprising:

Slightly below average in life satisfaction

People who score in this range usually have small but significant problems in several areas of their lives, or have many areas that are doing fine but one area that represents a substantial problem for them. If you have moved temporarily into this level of life satisfaction from a higher level because of some recent event, things will usually improve over time and satisfaction will generally move back up. On the other hand, if you are continually slightly dissatisfied with many areas of life, some changes might be in order. Sometimes we are simply expecting too much, and sometimes life changes are needed. […] Some people can gain motivation from a small level of dissatisfaction, but often dissatisfaction across a number of life domains is a distraction, and unpleasant as well.

For obvious reasons there’s been a lot of work done about trying to understand happiness. Everyone seems to have their own way about it, too. Something in this citation from my test result gave me a flashback.

When I was about 14 years old, I was a regular attendee of the Mood Disorders Support Group of New York (MDSGNY, for short). It was filled with people nearly twice my age, battling similar issues in much the same way that I was, with mood disorders ranging from mild depression to severe bipolar disorder and even frighteningly notable dissociative disorders. A common thread of advice that was given to us was that “people like us simply can’t expect to achieve the same accomplishments that people without these difficulties can.”

I found it insulting, and I was consistently questioning why that assumption was held so tightly with such a prevalent view. No one would ask why, or even seemed at all distressed by the fact. It was simply a matter of fact to most of the other attendees, and they seemed content with their resignation to accept it.

For a long time I’ve been struggling with understanding how other people seem so simply “predisposed to happiness” whereas I feel as though I am cursed by being “predisposed to sadness.” A short time ago, I wrote this:

In the search for answers people can come up with so many different rationalizations. It’s endless. The other day, I went to another party that I didn’t have a great time at through no fault of the very awesome hosts. This is becoming a trend I don’t like.

So, naturally, I instinctually come up with (endless) rationalizations to explain why. Every single thing I come up with is pure crap, of course, because it doesn’t really matter why I had a bad time since (surprise) it doesn’t change the fact that I had a bad time. No reason even has the potential to make me feel any better at all except for reasons that hinge solely on my own failings, because those are the only ones in which the situation was anything that “I could have done differently.”

Naturally (I have to imagine), thinking of my own failings makes me feel even worse. The net result is a cycle of thoughts that makes me feel bad and not good and in no way able to be happy about anything. And then I start to get quiet and go inside and want everything to stop.

This is such a typical thing. Everyone does it but from my vantage point it looks as though people react differently to such internal thoughts. I can’t see how they do that.

Most recently, it’s my relationship and social satisfaction that has seemed doomed to failure. I saw an interesting article on the BBC news web site about just such a thing: that researchers believe accepting sadness and resigning oneself to deal with the difficult times instead of believing in a fantasy where such sadness is simply gone, may in fact be one element of successful relationships. Another interesting quote from the article was this:

“The field of mental health perpetuates this myth with the very concept of “mental health,” which implies a state without suffering,” they say.

In other words, the very idea that sadness and difficulty is a sign of “mental illness,” judged only with the one-dimensional simplicity of the binaries of “mentally healthy” versus “mentally not healthy,” is worse than simply incorrect, but rather actively harmful.

In relationships, I have an unflinching confidence in myself to be able to “stick with it” through the bad times, but a persistent fear that my partner will never do the same. No other partner has proven themselves capable of this; each of them has high-tailed it and ran, and none want anything to do with me anymore.

It feels so circular.

A friend of mine recommended the blog of Penelope Trunk to me the other day. It was a wonderful recommendation. In one of her articles that I read, she says of the job hunt:

When it comes to career schemes, we simply do not have accurate imaginations about what life will be like for us in different situations, said Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard University, when I interviewed him. Our most accurate information about what will make us happy comes from snooping in on other peoples’ lives to see if they are happy. And the best way to watch other people is to be in a variety of offices. Gilbert calls the informal process of judging other peoples’ happiness “surrogation,” and he says, “surrogation is the best way to predict if we’ll be happy. Observe how happy people are in different situations.”

This seems incredibly applicable to other arenas, such as personal fulfillment as well as social satisfaction. I’m heartened to see that my hard work and continuous efforts mimic this approach, even if I’m clearly not happy most of the time yet.

So, I don’t know. What makes you happy?

Cat in a box

Meitar — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 01:55:03 +0000

My mind is in Schrödinger’s box.

Am I asking too much? Why can’t I just go to parties and have a good time?

Everyone’s failings

Meitar — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 03:22:49 +0000

One of the patterns that has always been supremely obvious in my life (to anyone who has bothered to look) is that when I am depressed or upset I will often withdraw towards the things that give me comfort and that these things have typically fallen into one of two categories:

Creative but non-technical pursuits (e.g., writing, philosophy, social theory)
Knowledge-seeking activities, typically very techical ones (e.g., computer skills of various kinds, histories or scientific studies)

What is amazing to me is the sheer enormity of the number of people who have (or have had) authoritarian figures in my life in some capacity or another (e.g., parents, school teachers, employers, administrative personnel) who have completely missed this whole point and, associatively, everything it explicitly means and implies.

This makes those observant enough to notice it that much more valuable, and, sadly, makes me that much more upset when I fail to take advantage of such valuable resources in my life.

A small gesture

Meitar — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:50:48 +0000

It’s hard to talk when I’m sad. I want to, but I just can’t make my mouth make any sounds that form words. My father realized this when I was younger. One time, and only one time, when I was upset and feeling like I couldn’t talk, he set me up in front of a computer with a text editing window and asked me to type my responses to his questions. He was clever; his questions were simple yes-or-no questions at first. I think he realized that it was even difficult for me to type anything more than that at first. Slowly, as he sensed my body language change, he would start asking more complex questions that required more complex answers. Yes or no responses soon turned into short sentences and soon after that I was pouring my heart out onto a digital notepad.

That is how well my father understood how to communicate with me, for I am all but incapable of communicating actively when I am in such a state as that.

Interestingly, it is only around another person that that state causes such a complete shutdown of my communicative faculties. Alone, I am still quite expressive, as this short piece illustrates, for it was written shortly after I was left alone in just such a state. Furthermore, an internal dialogue is constantly running through my head in these states. Indeed, I am very expressive in every meaning of the word, except in outward appearance. Small gestures such as the slight twitch of a finger are in fact huge, sweeping, screaming motions, so loud as to silence my own thoughts for a few moments and yet so invisible to an outside observer that I somehow feel that much more unheard when someone—through little fault of their own—fails to recognize it.

This is unendingly frustrating. I am at once both completely irrational and unreasonable, unforgiving of people’s blindness towards me and at the same time intolerably chastising myself for being so incommunicative. The internal war feels as though it is enough to tear me limb from limb, which in addition to making it hard to speak makes it hard to move. Muscles become at once weakened and strengthened, incapable of lifting the weight of my own extremities and yet ready to unfurl in so spectacular a display of speed and strength at a moment’s notice that one might believe them to be constructed as though they were made of some giant wound metal spring.

I do not understand why it is so insanely impossible for me to break from these states. Of course, in moments of obvious sanity I tell myself that it is precisely insanity that makes me so distraught. However, this very thought also makes me wonder how I can be so sanely aware of my insanity and yet be so unable to do anything about it.

Why Be Generous

Meitar — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:08:55 +0000

Something from tonight that I said that I want to remember:

The thing about being strong is that being strong means not getting what you want or what you need and yet being okay anyway. When I was young and, of course, even these days, I don’t always get what I want or need. I can do it, but I don’t like it. When I was young, my father would regularly tell me to be generous. The thing about being generous is that it makes it easier to be strong. That’s what my father was trying to teach me, I think. That’s really a very smart thing to teach a child.

Hysterical over work and life

Meitar — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 20:03:35 +0000

I should preface this with yet another warning that what follows is the incredibly hysterical ranting of an emotionally stressed person and should probably not be taken as anything other than an expression of the emotions currently running through my head.

Oh my god! This can not be happening to me. I simply can not deal with this.

There has been an ongoing issue at my work about training. After the absolute disaster at the last engagement I was on, I was promised three weeks of training–something I’d been asking for since after I finished my “official” training that I felt didn’t really help me at all because of the unorganized, utterly abysmal experience that was. Then it was two weeks. Then it a little more than one. Then it was just cancelled, and I was next put on an assignment that allowed me to work from home.

This working from home thing was awesome, because it meant two things. First, that I would get the chance to actually use the product I’m supposed to be an expert in supporting as opposed to looking over someone’s shoulder while they use it because they don’t want me touching their computer network due to the company’s security restrictions, which is what was happening at the disaster client. Second, it gave me the chance to work from home (duh), which is honestly not something I really care that much about for any reason other than the fact that it meant I don’t have to dress in ways I don’t feel comfortable and maintain this mask of someone who I’m not for the sake of the business. Admittedly, that is a big deal, but it’s not a dealbreaker, y’know? (I don’t actually have any problems being professional, but there’s a huge difference between being myself professionally and being a certain kind of professional that has to fit into the molds of the B2B corporate American mold. I can be professional, but I will never fit into that mold, not by a long shot.)

The really annoying thing about getting the chance to work from home, however, is that all this opportunity to spend at home is happening while Sara is in freakin’ Australia on the other side of the fucking world! Sara has been gone since january 24^th (and I missed her a ton immediately), the same day I fell awfully ill with the flu for half a week. It’s been an unbelievably long amount of time and the whole experience, for many reasons that I won’t go into here, has been harrowing in ways I wouldn’t have imagined to the point that I’m insanely anxious about simply getting to see her again because the thought fills me with a crazy sort of unimaginable fear. (I feel so stupid for being this scared about it.)

Now she is finally returning, though because of flight delays I don’t know exactly when, and I expected a call from her some time this morning but haven’t yet gotten one and it’s already 2:30 PM, so this whole airline delay thing may very well cut into our weekend plans. I have already booked flights for myself to Maine and for us to come back on Sunday night. I had to juggle my plans around because this next week at work was planned to be a formal Oracle database training intensive, which I have been looking forward to ever since my first day on the job when I learned about these training intensives because one of my bosses told me I had just missed (by a couple of weeks) the week of intensive Python training taught by Mark Lutz, the author of Learning Python, Second Edition. In brief, I cancelled my Monday day off that I would have spent as an additional “welcome back” period with Sara in Maine that I had asked for (and earned because of the fact that I worked the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday) in order to attend this Oracle training–because I wanted to.

Now, I just got an email from another engagement manager (a boss, basically), that they want me to fly out to Washington State so that I can be there on Monday through (probably) Friday. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?! If I am made to go all the way across this fucking country on the first week of Sara’s return (this upcoming week) for a client who has offered me no real idea of what the fuck I’m supposed to do instead of the training everyone else is getting and that I was expecting from everything I was told at my interviews (I literally asked people “Why did you join this company,” and everyone told me because the learning opportunities were immense–which is true, the opportunties are immense and wonderful, but I want some of them too, damnit!), then I am seriously considering simply saying no and quitting my job on the spot. I simply don’t think I’ll be able to handle that, and with all of this turmoil and absolute torture this job is putting me through, I don’t think I’d feel as if it were such a loss (except financially).

I feel like every single fucking thing is going wrong right now. I don’t feel as though I have a damn shred of support (I know I do really, but it’s so far away), an ounce of understanding (again not really true, I have friends who can understand, but I don’t think Sara really can on anything but a cognitive level–not to say she doesn’t have struggles or that her battles are less important or easier than mine, but she does not have these struggles that I have and by that very fact simply may not be able to relate experiencially to what I’m going through), and the worst luck (and please don’t tell me to count my fucking blessings, that is not what I need right now; I know damn well what my blessings are, thank you). What makes it so unbelievably painful is that the whole of my experiences is so much less priviledged than Sara’s, who’s just been on a wonderful vacation for six weeks and is returning to the wonderful feeling of coming home for a weekend ski trip and to her boyfriend who is supposed to be ecstatic to see her. And I am ecstatic to see her again, but I am so stressed out and emotionally high strung right now that I feel as though I wish she isn’t going to have to put up with this from me.

I spoke for hours with my friend who’s staying with me (after her own horrendously painful breakup the week Sara left for Australia) and she told me that I have to start thinking about myself, not worrying about what kind of a burden I’m going to be on Sara. This is smart, and is probably what I should do, but it’s so hard for me to do that when I have this incredibly powerful urge to just focus all my energy on making everything good for Sara. (Why is that such a powerful urge? Oh my god, for many reasons, all of which are valid and many of which are perfectly healthy, but none of which I’m going to go into right now.)

My friend said that I should want to get pampered from Sara for a little while, have her take care of me, be treated to thoughtfulness and compassion and empathy, and that I should let go of all these stresses I keep taking upon myself like worrying about whether or not I’m going to be happy enough for her so she has a good time. Again, this is smart and makes sense; I can’t possibly have a good time or expect Sara to have a good time with me (which is what I want more than anything in the world right now) if I’m going to be obsessing about the question all the time. But I’m really scared.

I’m scared not only about this weekend but the future as well. What’s going to happen if Sara gets accepted to a school far away? Besides the point of fact that means she’ll be leaving New York, it makes me feel like another knife of how differently priveledged Sara and I are is once again thrust into my heart–not by Sara, just by the situation. I would feel much, much, much better about the whole situation where she feels like she wants to go to graduate school for creative writing if I could understand what the real driving force behind that motivation is. I have to know that if she leaves me for school (I evidently have major, major abandonment issues–not surprising considering my childhood with divorced parents and whatnot), she’s doing it for a reason that’s near and dear to her heart.

Not that I think she’d ever do something so big as moving to Australia for graduate school for any other reason than one that’s near and dear to her heart, but it will be easier to take if I can at least understand–not necessarily agree with–her choice of action and why that specific action of going to a graduate school is the right one for her to make, versus something like getting a full-time job and actually getting into the mindset of writing professionally–not just learning about writing–as I know she can do brilliantly. It comes back to the feeling of resentment (and I feel more guilt for having this feeling of resentment in the first place than I ever thought I would ever feel guilty about anything ever (especially since I constantly tell Sara that guilt is not a useful thing to dwell on–we both have our guilt complexes, me from this, and her from being more priviledged in life than I have ever been)) over my being forced by the Fates to fight a hellish battle for every scrap of happiness and capability to follow my dreams that I can get, whereas Sara has the good fortune to prolong her schooling–something she enjoys–and put off the dreadful experience of having a so-called “real” job (it is viscerally disgusting to me that a “real” job is always seen as something you don’t want) and putting up with the rest of the crap of living in the so-called “real” world (again, I want to vomit thinking that the “real” world is so full of strife all the time) for yet another four years (or more, if she goes for a Ph.D. in Writing in Australia).

(As a sidenote, holy shit, that was an insanely convoluted parenthetical paragraph. Also, I don’t actually wish for her to get a job she hates, of course. I would hardly wish this hell on my worst enemy.)

Again, it’s not that I think Sara doesn’t have her own stuff to deal with. But there is simply no arguing the fact that on many scales of measurable priveledge, she got dealt the better hand. She is brilliant, a constant inspiration to me. And she is so amazingly healthy. No other person I have ever met or ever heard of in my entire life, without exaggeration, is so glowing with the unmistakable aura of a uniquely qualified intelligent mind such as hers is and has not gone through a great deal of very measurable pain and suffering as the source for their genius, the likes of which is obvious to everyone who hears about their suffering. That is the case with me. I am very, very smart. I match Sara’s awesome strengths in many ways, such as self-awareness and intelligence, kindness, and skills in our respective interests. But I have so many still-open scars that have gotten me to this point. Her body is enviously relatively unscathed by the harsh realities of life.

I don’t want this whole thing to sound like a self-pity party–because that’s not what this is supposed to be, but I can’t not feel this way right now. I’m working on it, god, I’m really working on it as hard as I can because I don’t want Sara to have to deal with this huge amount of utter shit that’s in me. I miss smiling. I miss being happy enough to just listen to music and hum to myself. I can’t remember the last time I did that.

And of course, I miss Sara. My god, I miss Sara most of all.

Sara just called! Right as I was publishing this entry, Sara called. She had heard my rambling, crying message I left for her and called me back saying that she was sorry for saying that she’d call me this morning because she was thinking in California time, and I’m on New York time, so when she meant morning she meant California’s morning. (D’oh!)

However, also bad news is that because of the airline delays it is looking like she may not be able to get to Maine until 10 AM Saturday morning, which absolutely changes our weekend plans…. I don’t know what else to do about this weekend, my job, or anything right now, except to go through the motions as normal and so I’m just going to wait things out until I can see her and talk to her face to face and actually hold her in my arms again.

Make the Impossible Possible

Meitar — Mon, 01 May 2006 03:57:49 +0000

I still feel that no one really understands.

Meitar — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 11:42:36 +0000

Took a stroll around my old neighborhood, the West Village, earlier today. Actually, I should be saying yesterday since it’ll soon be sunny outside. (I actually got to bed at a decent hour tonight, but now I can’t sleep. Cried a bit when I got out of bed.) I miss that neighborhood a lot; you can just walk around there, day or night. You can’t really do that in Washington Heights, where I live now. And I miss walking like that.

As I walked around downtown I saw a lot of noteworthy things; shops I used to go to, restaurants, some closed, some renovated, some replaced by new ones, that old couple who always goes to the Bus Stop Café on Thursday evenings was there, thought about getting a cupcake at Magnolia Bakery. I saw another couple carrying their respective pet cats on their shoulders and heads. Took a few pictures (unfortunately none of the cat couple, though). I didn’t stay too long.

I walked to the Apple Store afterwards for their Aperture presentation. Only made the second half, but it was interesting. Kind of didn’t want to go home so I milled about eavesdropping on the Geniuses at the Genius Bar—thought maybe I could learn a thing or two. Didn’t really.

Tonight’s not been a complete loss. I’ve finished editting the flyers for my Web design tutoring attempts, and since tomorrow Sara and I have plans to meet friends downtown, I’m thinking of printing these out and putting them up where I can.

I do wish I could get some sleep, though. And that I’d stop being so…whatever this is.

The World’s Address

Meitar — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 10:07:12 +0000

Earlier today I mentioned to Sara that it seemed to me as if so much had changed in our lives in the past eight months. Ten months ago I was just getting out of a painful relationship, and she was a college student. Then for four months we were living out of the back of a car while we travelled across 14,000 miles of North America. Now we’re living in a very New York apartment with concerns like finding jobs and making money.

And in a few more weeks, my life will change drastically yet again; the other day I was informed that I had been officially hired for a new job in (what else?) tech support for Macs.

Even though I am very excited, and internally I feel like jumping for joy and throwing boxes of confetti everywhere, other people’s reactions to this news have been so animated that it feels more appropriate if I just smile and nod. Someone’s got to keep a level head about it. There’s a lot of paperwork to fill out and all sorts of dates and times and things to confirm. It’s certainly helpful that I’ve recently gotten myself so much more organized.

Sometime near the end of this month I’ll be starting training, a several week process that—I believe—requires that I get ACDT and ACPT certified. I’ll be taking these courses at the Apple campus in California, so this is also a heads-up that I’m going to be out of town for a few weeks soon. (I wonder if the classes will incorporate any information on the new Intel iMacs and MacBooks)

In between all of this preparation regarding new employment, I’ve been doing several web design projects, as well as my usual bouts of tinkering and researching. I’ve had quite a full plate and been enjoying successes in all these areas. As an added bonus, I finally got my new cell phone today which means that I can now be reached at the cell number you have for me. I’m thinking of getting the black swivel holster for it as well.

Unfortunately, Sara’s not been as happy as I have lately, though this contrast between our respective mood baselines has been enlightening. It’s sad that I seem to need to see someone else depressed to notice the fact that I haven’t been depressed in a long time, but it sure does highlight that fact. It also indirectly highlights quite a few others that have shown me just how far along I’ve come from my not-so-distant and very depressed past.

I’m able to self-motivate a lot better than I used to be able to do.
I’m able to keep timed committments a lot more reliably than I used to be able to.
I’m far more able to foresee, manage, and generate financial income than I used to be able to, even if most of my sources of income still rely heavily on connections from family and friends. (That is, I’m able to perform more money-making actions.)

In any event, I’m looking forward to the rest of 2006 with a little more confidence than I faced 2005 with.

Possible Losses

Meitar — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 20:17:26 +0000

This road trip is coming to an end. Sara and I are in New York City for a few days before heading on to drop the car off in Maine. We’ve amassed what must be some hundred over a thousand pictures from the trip, but I’m afraid only a handful will last.

I’ve spent today troubleshooting my HP Pavillion laptop computer after it and Windows XP crashed last night. It died in a sudden death shutdown (a symptom of overheating, which I had noticed getting worse for a while) and wouldn’t start up—not even in safe mode. It hung (froze) on atisgkaf.sys and wouldn’t load any more drivers during the boot process.

I’ve been using the MicroSoft Recovery Console™ from the original installation CD to attempt to recover a previous restore point as described in the linked article. At first things seemed hopeful. After deleting the appropriate files in c:\windows\system32\config, the computer booted into Windows. But only for a few minutes before experiencing sudden death shutdown again.

Unfortunately, a few more attemps yielded no further success until finally running chkdsk from the Recovery Console yielded this depressing message.

The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems.

This message usually appears when there is a hardware problem such as, I’m afraid, a (physical) hard drive failure. Ultimately, this means that all those pictures from the road trip I’ve just been on for the past two and a half months might be lost for good. And that is depressing.

However, after yet another reboot into the Recovery Console, chkdsk /r is reporting the following hope-inspiring message:

[…]
CHKDSK is checking the volume...
[…]
29% completed.

So, I guess we’ll see.

Like Stone Rising

Meitar — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 06:12:17 +0000

I have been staving off a valley in my mood cycle for a while now. That is, I’ve been trying to and have been cycling rather noticably in the past two weeks. I have felt the echoes of very familiar demons inside my head.

Earlier today, after I spent the day at the Bronx Zoo, my moods took a dip and I felt my head begin to spiral out of control. I feel like I’m drowning…like falling into black ooze, I later told Sara. It’s frustrating; I’m so still and quiet on the outside and I’m screaming on the inside. And then I’m screaming at myself, telling myself to talk so that other people around me—so that you—can understand me. …It’s hard to talk or to move. I feel like stone.

I see no way for me to do that moment justice by describing it. Frozen, I squeezed her hand when she passed by to check on me. She stayed with me for the next half hour telling me a story until I could speak again.

Thank you, love.

Ineffectual

Meitar — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 04:36:03 +0000

Some excerpts for a search for “have money” on 43 Things:

not have to worry about money (30 people)
have more money (16 people)
Have enough money (11 people)
have a lot of money (8 people)
Have enough money, to not worry about having enough money (7 people)
never have to worry about money (4 people)
have money to give away (3 people)
have money in savings (2 people)
have my own money (2 people)
have lots of money to spend (2 people)
have more money in the bank (2 people)
Have freedom AND money (1 person)
work and have money (1 person)
have money to splurge (1 person)
have loads of money (1 person)
[…]I admit it
is a pity to have money as an ideal in your l[ife…] (1 person)
have enough money that we don’t have to worry anymore about doctor bills. (1 person)
have time and money to travel (1 person)
have oodles of money in the bank (1 person)
have more money than i can spend (2 people)
have money enough to live well (2 people)
have money to bless people (1 person)
have no money problems (1 person)
always have spare money (1 person)
have no worry about money (1 person)
have enough money for me and my family (1 person)
Have enough money for college (1 person)
have enough money to be happy~ (1 person)
make money without having a job (1 person)
Have a better attitude to money (1 person)
have lots of money to buy games (1 person)
go parachute jumping (if I ever have the money ;p) (1 person)
have an idea to make big money (1 person)
have extra money to shop with. (1 person)
Have suffient money all the time (1 person)
not have to worry about money anymore (1 person)
not have to worry about the lack of money (1 person)
Have enough money to travel the world (1 person)
have more money than I know what to do with (2 people)
do not have to think about money (1 person)
Have enough money to accomplish my goals (1 person)
have money enough to sponsor my kids (1 person)
Have enough money to live comfortably (1 person)
always have more than enough money to do what I want to do and have enough free time to enjoy it (1 person)
save money to have the wedding of my dreams (1 person)
have more money to accomplish my plans (1 person)
make better money and have a nice house (1 person)
Have money to help people less fortunate than me (1 person)
have lots of money (to aid process of [my] goals[…]) (1 person)
have money for my family and be happy with my life (1 person)
have enough money to buy whatever I want (1 person)
make enough to never have to worry about money (1 person)
have money to buy all the books that i want (1 person)
have money to pay all my bills forever (1 person)
take care of my mother when i have enough money (1 person)
Always have enough money to buy a book (1 person)
i want to not have to worry about money, ever (1 person)
Save money for a car. (1 person)
control money better (1 person)
win a lot of money (1 person)
Not need money (1 person)
Actually Save Money (1 person)
not running out of money (1 person)
Make money from mixes (1 person)
make money to travel (1 person)
make money after retirement (1 person)
not stress out about money (1 person)
save money for the summer (1 person)
Earn money for a laptop (1 person)
save money for guitar (1 person)
earn money myself (1 person)

Lower East Sorrows

Meitar — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 09:39:30 +0000

Went to the NYC Graphic Design Meetup tonight. Nothing special to report. What had a greater effect on me than going to the Meetup today was the location it was held. Downtown on the lower east side, by the bowery.

I used to frequent that area quite a bit in two very different and very distinct times in my past. The first was when I was attending the MDSG (that’s Mood Disorders Support Group) at Beth Israel hospital. I was doing that for almost two years from ages fourteen to sixteen. The meetings were always held at night and for some reason I remember only the nights when it rained.

The second period was after I had turned eighteen and was frequenting fetish clubs and BDSM organizations in the area. (There are plenty.) Naturally, this was also done late at night. Similarly, for some reason, I can only remember the nights when it rained.

There were not many times when Danica and I made it all the way out to the far East of Manhattan. Nevertheless, the lower East side feels like a black hole to me, a black hole I am familiar with from the inside out. While walking towards the Meetup, passing Lafayette Street and peering up at Bond Street, it started raining lightly. I quickened my pace and found the Meetup location.

It was being held at a bar whose year-long theme was the Haiwaiin Islands. Somehow, the contrast of the environment in the bar and the dreary rain growing stronger outside made things seem even worse. Though one would guess that I had an awful time, I actually was very glad to be out at the Meetup socializing, even though I was underwhelmed by the resulting attendance. (I was one of four people who arrived, and I spent much of my time chatting nonsensically about this or that, until I started imparting some of my web accessibility knowledge to the others and inviting them to the meetups I organize.)

Afterwards, I did not want to go home. The rain was stronger now, and it seemed like either the black hole was sucking me in or I was trying to push it away. I can’t tell which.

I was carrying a letter in my bag from Con-Ed addressed to Danica (probably an old electric bill or notice) and had intended to put it in a mailbox (I had slipped it in a new envelope and supplied her new address). As I walked on West 4^th, parallel to Bleeker, I kept seeing flashbacks to all the times in my life I had walked these same streets before. I saw ghosts of myself beside me and in front of me, laughing, walking, talking, joking, rushing from place to place as I knew I had in the past.

Now that I think about it I want nothing more than to leave this City and spend a significant portion of my life elsewhere. I can’t stand seeing the same places over and over again. I have a memory for every street corner on this island and tonight I feel trapped by my past.

I ended up walking up Greenwhich Avenue towards Danica’s apartment building. I figured I’d leave her the letter in the lobby on top of her mailbox rather than send it through the post. I called her but she didn’t answer at first, so I left her a message. Then, when I was a few blocks away from her apartment, she called me and tried to tell me something but her phone cut out and we got disconnected.

I left her the Con-Ed letter on her mailbox as I planned and then stood outside under the awning for a few moments, watching the rain. Somehow I had the presence of mind to snap this photo while I was there:

You can’t see it in the photo because I’m a horrible photographer but I was looking at the small halo of light from the lampost. Streaks of rain were cutting through it and the whole scene made me feel rather heavy and depressed.

I looked down West 12^th Street towards West 4^th (yeah, the roads are screwy down there), then up the way I’d come at Greenwhich Avenue. I still didn’t really want to go home but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

I think I didn’t want to go home because I still don’t feel like this place, this one bedroom apartment with a bare minimum of furniture and no personality, is my home. And you know…I don’t know if I even want it to be my home. I just don’t want to live here anymore.

So I pulled myself together, put away the camera, and started back towards Greenwhich Avenue to head for the A train to come back here. Near the corner, I realized I didn’t have much food at home, so I made a quick pit-stop into Benny’s Burritos To Go. I used to frequent this joint quite a bit back when Danica and I lived together on Horatio Street.

I knew before I entered what I was going to order: A pulled chicken burrito with black beans (not pinto beans). The same girl took my order as always.

When I left, dinner in hand (well, lunch), I passed the corner of West 13^th and Horatio Streets. I looked down Horatio Street as I walked towards the subway and felt a strong urge to turn towards it and walk back to that tiny, rat-infested apartment the two of us used to live in as if when I got there all of our things would be in their place and I could sit down on the floor like I always had to do to eat my burrito.

But I didn’t. I made it to the subway and stood, waiting for the A train to arrive. I buried myself in my Information Architecture for the World Wide Web book (the book I started reading on the last day of jury duty) but found it difficult to concentrate. (I still did manage to finish the chapter I was on though, because it really is just that great of a book.)

I got home starving, ate my burrito, surfed online or a while, talked with online friends, and tried my best to shake these feelings. I did a good job of it, too. For most of the night I didn’t remember the heaviness I felt looking at the rain earlier.

Earlier today, I was surprisingly productive. I finished refactoring the CSS for the NYCwireless web site (that’s the volunteer web design work I talked about a while ago), and I set up a bunch more Meetups for myself to go to. I’m organizing the New York City Freelancer’s Meetup, which I’ve cleverly scheduled for the same place and time as the New York City Consultants Meetup. Both of these Meetups happen today (that is, the 28^th of March) at eight in the evening.

I may also get to see an old friend tonight at nine, after the Meetups. I’m anxious about that because I’m looking forward to seeing him for the first time in many months and because I don’t know what impact certain other events may have had on the matter. (I should probably write about this but, eh, not now.)

As usual, hours are going by and I’m still not in bed. I hope sleep will come quickly and mercifully now. I really need to feel like time is moving forward and things are happening. I just don’t want to stay in this…place my whole life.