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.
About Me
- Salil
- Seriously, what are you looking for? Enlightenment? Jenna Jameson pics? A haunting haiku? A word about how lonely I am and how I wish I could find Ms. Sarcasm to make it all better? Screw you.
4 comments:
Sometimes you get torn down before you're built up into something better and stronger. You keep mentioning water...perhaps you're going through a sea change.
BTW your comments on Sepia Mutiny...witty stuff!
Thank you for your comments, Bess. And my name means "water" in Sanskrit...funny that you picked up on it. I frequently allude to water in my writing because I love it.
It's too bad that SF wasn't the place you had hoped it would be. I view it as the sole nirvana in this country and is my idealized destination (even if I never end up there).
The other question to ask yourself is that were you truly "detached from ills" when you moved out there? Oftentimes, people expect the change of scenery to bring treasures (not necessarily saying you did this...), yet problems/issues left undealt with don't disappear and infringe upon the enjoyment of the new locale. I know this has happened to me in the past...
Nodesh:
there is no Nirvana anywhere. San Francisco is no more or less a Nirvana than DC, at any rate.
I wasn't running from problems when I left DC. I was in a bit of a rut here, and my career was stuck. I needed a change. I didn't idealize San Francisco, but I did see it as a good place to move to, mostly because I'm liberal, and it's inherently appealing to liberals.
But it's also shocking to liberals by nature of how laissez-faire it can be, and also how fucking stupid it can be. And how heartless. At the core of my liberalism, I really care a lot about things.
It bothers me greatly to walk past people who have nothing. It also bothers me when those people ask me for a fucking quarter while following me for 8 blocks. And it really bothers me when people smoke crack on the street in front of you, or take a dump on the driveway outside your $2000+/month luxury highrise apartment building.
And don't get me started on the flaky flaky rude flaky people. Flakier than spanikopita rolled in dandruff, that's how flaky it is over there.
I had to get out. It was that or lose my mind...and become one of them.
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