Ow.

I have not been blogging...really blogging...about anything important to me in a great long while. The few of you who read this tiny corner of the Internet know this.

But let me commit this to hypertext: I am so...so...so fucking tired. Not tired because I've been working so hard, or because my life is so hectic. Quite the opposite. I don't get tired when I'm busy or things are hectic. Well, I do. That is, my body does. But my brain catches fire, and so it doesn't matter.

Here and now, though...well. Life's been fairly terrible lately. So rather than heave up some impersonal political rant, or talk about social justice, or think about how cruddy the big picture is getting, I'm going to focus in a bit. Mainly on me. And how I feel, and what I think.

First, I am unhappy. I am mildly unhappy with San Francisco and living in the Bay area. Those of you who know me are not surprised. It's no secret. This city is more foreign to me than the most remote corner of Siberia could ever be. It's foreign because it's so goddamn close to what I want, but it misses so hugely on the things I need. It's like running into your second cousin after 20 years, and finding out that the kid you grew up with is actually a total asshole. He's well-dressed, he does well with the ladies, he has a nice car, and people love him. But the first thing you notice is his stink: his spirit is up to no good.

That's this city to me.

It's so odd because a few of my friends moved to SF from DC at around the same time I did, and their experiences here are so different from mine. They're all off to wonderful fresh starts, and seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. I, on the other hand, got off to a good start--and then that shit promptly ended a few weeks ago. Work, personal life: totally in the shitter.

So yeah, I'm tired.

Then there's this other feeling. This one is hard to describe. I actually let someone matter to me, and didn't even know it. I realized it after she treated me as abyssmally as any person has ever treated me, and I totally wrote her off. It was easy; I've developed that much self-respect that I could walk away and not look back. Well...for a fewweeks. And then I realized I missed her. Because apparently I'm a total wuss. I've stayed away from her, I rationally do not want any contact with her, and I am far far better off without her. But tell that to the part that hurts.

Not that I will ever contact her again. I just don't need that kind of crazy in my life.

The older I get, the more I am able to control how I act. And the more important it is for me that the person I am with be able to control how she acts. But it seems fairly certain that my ability to control how I feel is still...very...very...weak.

And between my work and my personal life, I am doubting myself constantly. The confidence I felt a year ago in my own abilities, in my skills in IT, with people, with my judgement--that's been shaken. I've had worse things happen to me, but somehow, that all this happened in my thirties just makes it so much worse. As if I'm standing still, and the rest of the world is plunging ahead, accomplishing the things it needs to do.

I'm treading water.

And I am very...very...tired.