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10.04.04 - 2:15 a.m.
last week sucked, or rather i volunteered my being to be sucked dry with advancing other people, even after my energies dried up. (now before anyone rakes me over the coals for obviously putting myself last always, i'd like to interject that part of letting myself drain to zero is MY JOB. put another way, i conducted mandatory 1:1 student conferences for the writing seminar i'm teaching for al 17 students. and even though i'd scheduled 15 minute slots for each, i ended up committing myself to an average of 20-30 minutes per student). the worse day was wednesday: i met with 8 students in a row. even though i'd scheduled in breaks inbetween students, since i'm useless about acknowleding my own need for a break, i ended up meeting straight through all my breaks... so, after 3.5 hours of talk, i ended up with quite the queazy empty stomach and odd gaseous pockets to boot -- that'll do it when i'm yap yap yapping ingesting anything hot ... ...what was worse was not that block, or the 60 minutes i spent afterwards with ND my closest grad friend of my life - helping him revise and hype up his job application letter -- no, what made the day memorably the WORST in ages: when i finally escaped to my carrel in the library to do my OWN work, i bought a pricy hot chocolate from the campus cafe -- and immediately felt ill. now what's up with that -- hot milk, hot chocolate, i thought i was doing right by my body -- felt ill changed to BEING ill,when i reached for the survival food i keep in my carrel -- a mix of dried fruits, nuts, etc... minutes later, i wretched right there in my carrel. sure, i was dainty about it...and feeling that these waves of nausea weren't going to stop, i made it to the 3rd floor bathroom, and finished the job. the worst, astounding feeling for me always come when i puke out of 'natural causes'. i wasn't trying to make myself sick...i was trying to ameliorate the sick feeling i'd gotten from sleep-deprived, overexteneded, talked out day... and yet, i got as sick as when i had an ear infection and fluish symptoms + 103o F fever last year. i always pride myself on respecting limits i've set for myself around b/ping. at what i call my current stage of recovery: i refuse to engage in b/p behavior when i'm on professional stomping grounds... and that feels pretty good to reach that point... but then i have days like that awful wednesday, when i'm going through these behaviors, but they're motivated by an entirely different cause... by bodily forces that i can not stop... the guilty/awful part came the following morning, when i got back to my carrel, determined to clean up the mess i'd bagged and wrapped in newspapers... who should i find there but the janitor. ugh. ugh. ugh. i felt so damn mortified -- i must have apologized to her least 10 x within 5 minutes . the janitor was completely nice, said "honey, these things happen. i'm glad you're feeling better"... and yet, i couldn't shake the guilt over the purge that wasn't - what if this had been a self-indulgent feast... what if this had been the type of full-on binge of yesteryear (circa 1999-2002ish) on campus store food, where i'd took my hoard to my carrel, puked, where i took the luxury of making a mess in my carrel (rather than taking care of my business my own damn self) and left it for someone else to clean up. that's not what happened here. and still, i'm a bit shaken. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ on another note, i do regret that i'm not more active in updating this journal - i hardly have time to log in my real life events in my planner, and these days, when i do write in my current journal, most entries begin: "dear god, help me. i'm doing the best i can, and still i'm not getting far enough fast enough... and so on" life's okay. really. i've learned that there are 2 types of stress: distress and eustress (or happy stress) -- and i'd prefer to call my insane schedule of days happy stress for now... all of my activities, teaching this new class, teaching a research paper assignment for the first time, launching and maintaining a pretty kick ass class website (complete with tons of images of self-portraits of the likes of fridakahlo, jamaicakincaid, gloriaanzaldua, emmathompson'swit, susanakaysengirlinterrupted...) i'm loving this job well done. in the mean time, i've given my own life too short shrift -- but that will chance -- i haven't paid my bills in almost two months, i've got 3 books overdue and running up a $1/day each tab; i STILL haven't written up my job letter even though i've helped two friends polish theirs. :-/
... this weekend marked an awful argument with my close friend JF... we've had ideological differences in the past, but i've never felt annoyed enough, entitled enough, to just hang up the phone with a terse "okay. i've got to get back to my students" and then "click" the cordless phone off rather than say goodbye - i won't bother to recount the twists of the problem -- i just felt so initially adrift, bereft of a comrade in political beliefs... that's what sucks...i thought we were on the same page, holding the same values, and now this mess of a campus-university initiative has come up - and we see the issue on two very antagonistic perspectives - and that's that - we agree to disagree -- but then what else do we talk about? -- i'm sure this will blow over... i took a long shower after i hung up on her, then a phone call with AAS to feel better about my position...and as i declared, i went back to work. i'm sure our friendship's strong enough to survive this stupid difference of opinions. i'm proudest of my self for NOT writing a long apologetic email, NOT continuing the debate over IM, and NOT calling her this weekend... why rehash the bullshit - this week will be another week - and i'm gaining more from practicing walking away from a disagreement, without processing it ad nauseum to any friend who will listen --
a little coldness, frankness, and sticking by my guns -- for me -- this year digging herself out from under a 30 year history of self-sacrificing, knee-jerk understanding and forgiveness at my own expense -- needs to the practice of standing firm, moving on, and keeping myself self and soul intact. peace
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