One year ago today, I found out that I was being let go from my job. Early 2009 had been pretty good to me. I got involved with The New Guy, and I thought we would probably be married before long. I had been doing well at work after receiving some negative reviews the previous fall (these reviews were unfair, but they nonetheless existed and were something I had to overcome in spite of not having deserved them in the first place). My estranged friend Sniffles had sent me a birthday card in March 2009 in the hope of reconciliation, and I had strongly considered it because I was so happy and wanted to share that happiness with my former friend.
It was truly amazing how quickly everything changed. The New Guy and my employer nearly simultaneously revealed themselves to be duplicitous and unkind jerks. After that, my life went spinning off down a path I had not anticipated. I moved, I went to Peru and met Goose, I worked at various temporary jobs. There were good moments, but it was not a good year.
It was, however, an eventful year. I learned how much change can be packed into one short year. When I found out I was losing my job, I thought I would have a new one before my three-month lame duck period at my old job elapsed. I never dreamed that a year later, I would still want for permanent employment. And, of course, I am not married or even dating anyone at the moment.
Right now, I feel like I'm just treading water. Everything I do is just to keep my head above the surface, and none of it feels like I'm advancing toward my goal or toward any positive outcome at all. I send off resumes and hear nothing. The last two interviews I have had did not result in job offers, and the companies did not even have the courtesy to send me a rejection letter. (I have to say that I think that is very rude. If someone goes to the trouble of being interviewed, the company owes that person the courtesy of a rejection letter.) I've entirely abandoned any serious thoughts of dating. I try to remind myself that I can't know what seeds I've sown will germinate, but it feels like none of them ever will.
I'm trying to remind myself that just as things changed dramatically from April 2009 to April 2010, things might change equally dramatically (and, I hope, for the better this time) between April 2010 and April 2011. I'm just so ready for this ordeal of the employment search to end. It seems like other people I know are finding other jobs with ease, and that makes me feel more discouraged than ever. I know I have to keep trying, but it's hard to keep up my enthusiasm for the project. I am tired of looking for a job. I am tired of getting advice from my friends on what I "should" do (all of them seem to think I should be a writer, which is very flattering, but it's not exactly something you can just magically do and I think it pays only a few people very well at all). I just want to get a job that is at least moderately enjoyable and have some real health insurance again.
Showing posts with label Sniffles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sniffles. Show all posts
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
I'm Your Biggest Fan, I'll Follow You Until You Love Me
Damn. Today was just a fucking hell of a day.
It started pretty much right away when my dog decided to bark at nothing at 2am, waking me up. Then, at 4am, my smoke detector battery decided to alert me to its low-ness with a series of annoying, sleep-repelling beeps. At 7am, I was jazzed to get into my thin pants, but this triumph was mooted when I stepped on the cuff of the pants going up the stairs and ripped them. The garment transformed instantly from thin pants into a dust rag.
Then, while I was at work, I heard from my insurance guy again. He's persisting in his desire to talk to me about my options as far as insurance goes. He pointed out that if I cancel now, I lose all the money I put in. He is quite correct in this point, but it is equally true that if I want to keep the money I put in, I have to continue putting in money. The money I've put in already is a sunk cost, and I think continuing to put in money I don't have to protect what I've put in already is false economy. I was tired and wound up about leaving on my vacation tomorrow, so this was really stressing me out. At the moment, I've decided I don't need to return his email. I already told him what I want to do, and while I think he has some valid points about the benefits of keeping the insurance, I have already decided that the deficits outweigh the benefits, and I don't want to hear a sales pitch.
Then, when I got home, I discovered that I had a birthday card awaiting me from Sniffles. I haven't talked much about Sniffles here, but she was my best friend in high school and college. We had a falling out in 2004. The short version is that I was going through a difficult break-up with a guy who had been one of my best friends and who had really broken my heart (who is, interestingly enough, still my friend now). She really didn't have much patience for this, and I didn't feel like she was being supportive. I withdrew emotionally and started avoiding her phone calls. Before we had a chance to work out our problems, I entered into another relationship that ended in spectacular failure (Doug Funny) and found out I wasn't getting an offer from my 2L summer employer. (If you are not an attorney, you might not understand the importance of getting an offer from your summer employer. About 97% of people get offers. If you don't get one, you are a fucking pariah. I was deprived of an offer for no reason I've ever been told or been able to deduce, and it literally took years before I overcame that blot on my escutcheon.) After two major break-ups in a few months and a significant career setback, I just did not have the energy to deal with Sniffles and repairing our relationship.
Despite having been one of my best friends, Sniffles' subsequent behavior suggested she did not know me very well at all. If I'm mad at someone, I need my space. She responded to this by calling me every single day, despite my never returning her calls. Finally, she switched to email, and around Christmas, I emailed her back and said, as nicely as I could, that I didn't want to continue the friendship. The last two years, she has been sending me birthday cards.
I realize that it sounds childish to complain about being sent a birthday card. But it's my birthday, and I feel territorial about it. I don't want people using it as a springboard for their own agendas. It just feels inappropriate to me. I also don't think that her continued efforts to reintroduce herself into my life are a nice gesture. I've already told her what I want, and now she puts me in a position of having to be mean to her. Maybe she doesn't understand why I don't want to be friends, but continuing to try to be friends just makes me want to be friends even less.
I really don't know how to respond to these various encroachments on my emotional personal space. My fervent desire to avoid conflict pretty much turns my life into pre-World War II Europe, with me playing the part of Neville Chamberlain and everyone else demanding Lebensraum. With some people, ignoring them just does not make them go away. Yet, at the same time, it's hard to insist on boundaries (especially when those boundaries are "don't contact me ever again") without feeling mean. I guess it's mean whether you go the passive route or the aggressive route.
It started pretty much right away when my dog decided to bark at nothing at 2am, waking me up. Then, at 4am, my smoke detector battery decided to alert me to its low-ness with a series of annoying, sleep-repelling beeps. At 7am, I was jazzed to get into my thin pants, but this triumph was mooted when I stepped on the cuff of the pants going up the stairs and ripped them. The garment transformed instantly from thin pants into a dust rag.
Then, while I was at work, I heard from my insurance guy again. He's persisting in his desire to talk to me about my options as far as insurance goes. He pointed out that if I cancel now, I lose all the money I put in. He is quite correct in this point, but it is equally true that if I want to keep the money I put in, I have to continue putting in money. The money I've put in already is a sunk cost, and I think continuing to put in money I don't have to protect what I've put in already is false economy. I was tired and wound up about leaving on my vacation tomorrow, so this was really stressing me out. At the moment, I've decided I don't need to return his email. I already told him what I want to do, and while I think he has some valid points about the benefits of keeping the insurance, I have already decided that the deficits outweigh the benefits, and I don't want to hear a sales pitch.
Then, when I got home, I discovered that I had a birthday card awaiting me from Sniffles. I haven't talked much about Sniffles here, but she was my best friend in high school and college. We had a falling out in 2004. The short version is that I was going through a difficult break-up with a guy who had been one of my best friends and who had really broken my heart (who is, interestingly enough, still my friend now). She really didn't have much patience for this, and I didn't feel like she was being supportive. I withdrew emotionally and started avoiding her phone calls. Before we had a chance to work out our problems, I entered into another relationship that ended in spectacular failure (Doug Funny) and found out I wasn't getting an offer from my 2L summer employer. (If you are not an attorney, you might not understand the importance of getting an offer from your summer employer. About 97% of people get offers. If you don't get one, you are a fucking pariah. I was deprived of an offer for no reason I've ever been told or been able to deduce, and it literally took years before I overcame that blot on my escutcheon.) After two major break-ups in a few months and a significant career setback, I just did not have the energy to deal with Sniffles and repairing our relationship.
Despite having been one of my best friends, Sniffles' subsequent behavior suggested she did not know me very well at all. If I'm mad at someone, I need my space. She responded to this by calling me every single day, despite my never returning her calls. Finally, she switched to email, and around Christmas, I emailed her back and said, as nicely as I could, that I didn't want to continue the friendship. The last two years, she has been sending me birthday cards.
I realize that it sounds childish to complain about being sent a birthday card. But it's my birthday, and I feel territorial about it. I don't want people using it as a springboard for their own agendas. It just feels inappropriate to me. I also don't think that her continued efforts to reintroduce herself into my life are a nice gesture. I've already told her what I want, and now she puts me in a position of having to be mean to her. Maybe she doesn't understand why I don't want to be friends, but continuing to try to be friends just makes me want to be friends even less.
I really don't know how to respond to these various encroachments on my emotional personal space. My fervent desire to avoid conflict pretty much turns my life into pre-World War II Europe, with me playing the part of Neville Chamberlain and everyone else demanding Lebensraum. With some people, ignoring them just does not make them go away. Yet, at the same time, it's hard to insist on boundaries (especially when those boundaries are "don't contact me ever again") without feeling mean. I guess it's mean whether you go the passive route or the aggressive route.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get
I still haven't heard back from Reefer Madness, but I'm busy preparing for our possible coffee outing by working myself into a frenzy about what we might discuss. Specifically, is he going to call me out about the stalking?
In the interest of letting go of the past, I'll be honest about what this stalking entailed. Bear in mind that Reefer Madness and I attended different high schools, so there was no opportunity to encounter him during the school day, whether intentionally or by chance. My stalking was confined to driving by his house (which was not on the way to anything) and generally being in the vicinity of where he practiced sports. Whether or not he ever noticed these things or saw me or heard about them is unknown, but I am certain that he knew I had feelings for him that long outlasted his feelings for me. Obviously, we are not talking about "stalking" in the prosecutable sense, but he was my inappropriate quarry.
Let's assume that we do actually get together. Even if our past association does not come up at the first meeting, if we spend more time together in the future, we will inevitably turn to the subject. It cannot be avoided. It is the elephant in the room of any future relationship we might have (even if the room itself is not yet constructed, or is derelict and in need of rebuilding, the elephant is already there). The mind must leap ahead several steps to get from the present moment to actually making plans to see one another to incorporating each other into our regular schedules, but I am so distressed over having to discuss my past behavior that I feel the need to organize my thoughts now so as not to be taken by surprise. (He is smart and cunning, so I can't rely on my superior intellect to dodge or bluster through questions.)
The most important step in choosing what I want to say if questioned on this topic is to ascertain why I was stalking him in the first place. I don't know exactly. Reefer Madness and I were, at the tender age of sixteen, engaged in a classic male-female struggle; the male pulled away from the relationship without explanation, leading the female to engage in crazy behavior in an effort to get closure and figure out why the relationship ended. Sex and the City addressed this very topic when Berger inexplicably broke up with Carrie, and those two were about twenty years older than Reefer Madness and myself, so we were obviously mature for our ages. So, part of the problem was that I never understood what caused the sudden reversal of his feelings about me. He and I never discussed it directly, relying instead on Iago as our biased and deeply flawed go-between. I had all these feelings that had developed for him that suddenly had no healthy outlet.
The other major piece of the puzzle was something for which Reefer Madness, or even the more sinister Iago, cannot be held accountable. Reefer Madness's apparent rejection of me in favor of my very best friend played into some insecurities that bedeviled my friendship with Sniffles for its entire fifteen-year duration. The way I saw things, Sniffles was this beautiful man-trap who would absorb all the male attention in the room, and I was the Velma. It meant a lot to me that Reefer Madness liked me even though he met both of us at the same time. It made me feel important, and it made me feel like he was special, because he could see something in me that was invisible to the other guys I knew. To hear that I was wrong about him and that he, like everyone else (I imagined), finally realized that Sniffles was the prettier one and the one upon whom all romantic attentions should be lavished devastated me. I was a seething cauldron of insecurities already, and this betrayal cranked the heat up to psycho levels. It is worth remembering that it is highly possible that Reefer Madness's defection to the Sniffles camp was entirely, or at least partly, fabricated by Iago as part of his campaign to be a total fucking asshole for no reason.
I obviously can't lay that whole load of personal issues on Reefer Madness no matter what happens between us, but I think that I could reasonably cut it down to saying, "I really liked you, and I thought you liked me too, and then all of a sudden you didn't like me anymore and I was hearing that you liked [Sniffles], and I was really hurt and ill-equipped to deal with it, so I'm sorry for anything I did that upset you, but I was processing my disappointment as best I could," and leave it at that. Bygones and all.
In the interest of letting go of the past, I'll be honest about what this stalking entailed. Bear in mind that Reefer Madness and I attended different high schools, so there was no opportunity to encounter him during the school day, whether intentionally or by chance. My stalking was confined to driving by his house (which was not on the way to anything) and generally being in the vicinity of where he practiced sports. Whether or not he ever noticed these things or saw me or heard about them is unknown, but I am certain that he knew I had feelings for him that long outlasted his feelings for me. Obviously, we are not talking about "stalking" in the prosecutable sense, but he was my inappropriate quarry.
Let's assume that we do actually get together. Even if our past association does not come up at the first meeting, if we spend more time together in the future, we will inevitably turn to the subject. It cannot be avoided. It is the elephant in the room of any future relationship we might have (even if the room itself is not yet constructed, or is derelict and in need of rebuilding, the elephant is already there). The mind must leap ahead several steps to get from the present moment to actually making plans to see one another to incorporating each other into our regular schedules, but I am so distressed over having to discuss my past behavior that I feel the need to organize my thoughts now so as not to be taken by surprise. (He is smart and cunning, so I can't rely on my superior intellect to dodge or bluster through questions.)
The most important step in choosing what I want to say if questioned on this topic is to ascertain why I was stalking him in the first place. I don't know exactly. Reefer Madness and I were, at the tender age of sixteen, engaged in a classic male-female struggle; the male pulled away from the relationship without explanation, leading the female to engage in crazy behavior in an effort to get closure and figure out why the relationship ended. Sex and the City addressed this very topic when Berger inexplicably broke up with Carrie, and those two were about twenty years older than Reefer Madness and myself, so we were obviously mature for our ages. So, part of the problem was that I never understood what caused the sudden reversal of his feelings about me. He and I never discussed it directly, relying instead on Iago as our biased and deeply flawed go-between. I had all these feelings that had developed for him that suddenly had no healthy outlet.
The other major piece of the puzzle was something for which Reefer Madness, or even the more sinister Iago, cannot be held accountable. Reefer Madness's apparent rejection of me in favor of my very best friend played into some insecurities that bedeviled my friendship with Sniffles for its entire fifteen-year duration. The way I saw things, Sniffles was this beautiful man-trap who would absorb all the male attention in the room, and I was the Velma. It meant a lot to me that Reefer Madness liked me even though he met both of us at the same time. It made me feel important, and it made me feel like he was special, because he could see something in me that was invisible to the other guys I knew. To hear that I was wrong about him and that he, like everyone else (I imagined), finally realized that Sniffles was the prettier one and the one upon whom all romantic attentions should be lavished devastated me. I was a seething cauldron of insecurities already, and this betrayal cranked the heat up to psycho levels. It is worth remembering that it is highly possible that Reefer Madness's defection to the Sniffles camp was entirely, or at least partly, fabricated by Iago as part of his campaign to be a total fucking asshole for no reason.
I obviously can't lay that whole load of personal issues on Reefer Madness no matter what happens between us, but I think that I could reasonably cut it down to saying, "I really liked you, and I thought you liked me too, and then all of a sudden you didn't like me anymore and I was hearing that you liked [Sniffles], and I was really hurt and ill-equipped to deal with it, so I'm sorry for anything I did that upset you, but I was processing my disappointment as best I could," and leave it at that. Bygones and all.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
A Million Little Pieces
Next weekend, I'm getting together with the guy who destroyed my heart in the tenth grade. I haven't seen him in eleven or twelve years, but circumstances have conspired such that we find ourselves both living in the same city far from where we grew up.
Back in high school, this guy (let's call him Reefer Madness) and I were introduced by a mutual friend (let's call him Iago). Iago and I had gone to high school together and then he transferred to Reefer Madness's high school. Every once in awhile, I would get a phone call from Iago to hang out. I always suspected Iago had crush on me, but he was a flirtatious person, and he basically had a crush on every woman he knew, so it wasn't something that made me feel special or even singled out. I directed Iago's rampant libido toward my best friend at the time, Sniffles (not that he got anywhere with her), and, while he was intoxicated by the possibility of tapping Sniffles's ass, Iago got the idea of introducing Reefer Madness and me.
The problem was that Iago's idea was too good. Reefer Madness and I really liked each other. He told mutual friends of ours (other than Iago) how much he liked me and that he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend (God, we were so young then). At some point, Iago decided he didn't like this situation too much and Reefer Madness may have changed his mind about his feelings. So, Iago told me that Reefer Madness had decided he didn't like me anymore and he liked Sniffles instead. My little teenage heart was broken into a million little pieces. After that, I basically stalked Reefer Madness in a variety of ways of which I am now deeply ashamed. The only thing I can really say in my defense is that I couldn't process the idea that Reefer Madness would like me one day and like Sniffles the next, or that we could have such a promising future on the horizon that would be instantly gone.
Anyway, fast forward more than a decade, and here the two of us are, both living in a city far from home. I've known for a few months now that we are both living here, but I hadn't taken any action on that issue until yesterday. When I first moved here and discovered myself once again in close geographic proximity to my former love, I considered contacting him, but I decided against it. I figured that if he rejected me back in high school, he was unlikely to want to stroll down memory lane now and I would only embarrass myself and further convince him of my undesirability as a girlfriend by inviting him for coffee. I had put him out of my mind almost entirely until yesterday when, for no reason I could pinpoint, I couldn't get out of my mind the idea that I needed to get in touch with him.
I fought myself over this for a few hours until I finally decided that I really didn't have anything to lose by shooting him an email to say hello. I suffer from this condition that makes me think that while I have changed since high school, everyone else I haven't seen since then is exactly the same. It's a silly and moderately insulting way to think. I also reasoned that even if he didn't want to see me, he was unlikely to write me an email telling me what a loser I am. At worst, he would ignore my email, and nothing would ever come of it. At best, maybe I could add another friend to my stable here in my new town. So, I emailed him and told him I had heard that we were both living in the same town (read: I found out on Facebook), and that it might be fun to get together for coffee or a drink sometime and catch up.
To my surprise, he emailed me back relatively quickly and said it was good to hear from me and that it would be fun to get together some weekend and trade tales. I responded to ask if he wanted to try to make a plan for next weekend, but I have not heard back.
I talked to my mom about it, and I said that I am going to need to look as good as possible so that I can win here by showing him what a big mistake he made all those years ago (yes, I am that petty). My mom told me it wasn't about winning or losing, and I realized that she's right. It's about tying up the score. He's already won because I was totally in love with him and he turned me down. So, right now, it's Reefer Madness: 1, Me: 0. To actually win, I would have to, like, break off an engagement with him or something. And, unfortunately for me, the only way I'm going to tie up the score is through physical appearances because he's in town going to a prestigious medical school, so it's not like he ended up as trailer trash and I can shame him with my fancy job and material wealth.
Anyway, it remains to be seen whether we'll actually get together or not. I'm not sure I'll believe it until we're face to face. It'll be interesting to see what happens if we actually do get together. I wonder if we're going to talk about all the stuff that happened all those years ago. I don't intend to bring it up, but maybe he will. I'm not sure what else we'll have to talk about. Either way, it's crazy that we both ended up in the same place. I cried so much over this guy when I was in high school, and I can't believe I might see him again.
Back in high school, this guy (let's call him Reefer Madness) and I were introduced by a mutual friend (let's call him Iago). Iago and I had gone to high school together and then he transferred to Reefer Madness's high school. Every once in awhile, I would get a phone call from Iago to hang out. I always suspected Iago had crush on me, but he was a flirtatious person, and he basically had a crush on every woman he knew, so it wasn't something that made me feel special or even singled out. I directed Iago's rampant libido toward my best friend at the time, Sniffles (not that he got anywhere with her), and, while he was intoxicated by the possibility of tapping Sniffles's ass, Iago got the idea of introducing Reefer Madness and me.
The problem was that Iago's idea was too good. Reefer Madness and I really liked each other. He told mutual friends of ours (other than Iago) how much he liked me and that he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend (God, we were so young then). At some point, Iago decided he didn't like this situation too much and Reefer Madness may have changed his mind about his feelings. So, Iago told me that Reefer Madness had decided he didn't like me anymore and he liked Sniffles instead. My little teenage heart was broken into a million little pieces. After that, I basically stalked Reefer Madness in a variety of ways of which I am now deeply ashamed. The only thing I can really say in my defense is that I couldn't process the idea that Reefer Madness would like me one day and like Sniffles the next, or that we could have such a promising future on the horizon that would be instantly gone.
Anyway, fast forward more than a decade, and here the two of us are, both living in a city far from home. I've known for a few months now that we are both living here, but I hadn't taken any action on that issue until yesterday. When I first moved here and discovered myself once again in close geographic proximity to my former love, I considered contacting him, but I decided against it. I figured that if he rejected me back in high school, he was unlikely to want to stroll down memory lane now and I would only embarrass myself and further convince him of my undesirability as a girlfriend by inviting him for coffee. I had put him out of my mind almost entirely until yesterday when, for no reason I could pinpoint, I couldn't get out of my mind the idea that I needed to get in touch with him.
I fought myself over this for a few hours until I finally decided that I really didn't have anything to lose by shooting him an email to say hello. I suffer from this condition that makes me think that while I have changed since high school, everyone else I haven't seen since then is exactly the same. It's a silly and moderately insulting way to think. I also reasoned that even if he didn't want to see me, he was unlikely to write me an email telling me what a loser I am. At worst, he would ignore my email, and nothing would ever come of it. At best, maybe I could add another friend to my stable here in my new town. So, I emailed him and told him I had heard that we were both living in the same town (read: I found out on Facebook), and that it might be fun to get together for coffee or a drink sometime and catch up.
To my surprise, he emailed me back relatively quickly and said it was good to hear from me and that it would be fun to get together some weekend and trade tales. I responded to ask if he wanted to try to make a plan for next weekend, but I have not heard back.
I talked to my mom about it, and I said that I am going to need to look as good as possible so that I can win here by showing him what a big mistake he made all those years ago (yes, I am that petty). My mom told me it wasn't about winning or losing, and I realized that she's right. It's about tying up the score. He's already won because I was totally in love with him and he turned me down. So, right now, it's Reefer Madness: 1, Me: 0. To actually win, I would have to, like, break off an engagement with him or something. And, unfortunately for me, the only way I'm going to tie up the score is through physical appearances because he's in town going to a prestigious medical school, so it's not like he ended up as trailer trash and I can shame him with my fancy job and material wealth.
Anyway, it remains to be seen whether we'll actually get together or not. I'm not sure I'll believe it until we're face to face. It'll be interesting to see what happens if we actually do get together. I wonder if we're going to talk about all the stuff that happened all those years ago. I don't intend to bring it up, but maybe he will. I'm not sure what else we'll have to talk about. Either way, it's crazy that we both ended up in the same place. I cried so much over this guy when I was in high school, and I can't believe I might see him again.
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