My strange day

[cosmolinguist]

Later we'd say that we couldn't have gone anyway, because we didn't have the money. Which is true, but we didn't know that at the time.

So we'd also sometimes say that we decided not to go to London for the Rutles concert in June because I wasn't feeling well. This is also true.

But it wasn't like I had a stomachache or something. My affliction was less tangible, and more unsettling (to me, anyway).

I don't remember how or why it started, all I remember is lying on Andrew's bed crying into his beard. He hugged me and asked me what was wrong and I couldn't tell him. At the time I'd only been there a week or something, so we didn't know yet that the crying for no reason was going to become a regular, if not frequent, occurrence.

But something about this time sticks out in my mind from the other times he saw me cry. Something weird had happened to me, and it was bad enough that I actually felt better when Andrew told me we didn't have to do anything the next morning if I didn't want to. And for some reason, the thought of not going to a city I wanted to visit and not seeing a band that are really cool calmed me down a little.

It made no sense, but it worked, so I didn't question it. Lots of things I do make no sense. Lots more things outside of me make no sense. I felt better, and that was good enough for me.


Last night I had strange dreams I couldn't remember when I woke up, and I couldn't get back to sleep even though it was only five in the morning. I didn't turn on the radio or the light, I don't even remember thinking about anything. At some point I realized my stomach and my chest had this weird tight feeling in them, like I was really excited about something, or at least ... waiting for something.

comradexavier has agreed to finally take me and my stuff to Mankato; he's on his way there today, back from his own Christmas celebrations, and my house is not too far out of his way, so this seemed convenient to me.

And somehow, that seemed related to the pressure in my midsection in the dark hours of this morning. I finally got up and started playing with the minidisc player I got yesterday, which distracted me quite well for a while but after that I was back to being nervous again.

I thought my parents knew what I was doing today, but either I was too vague in warning them or they'd managed to block it out (as they, like most people, are wont to do with things they don't like) because they thought I was going along on their after-Christmas-shopping plans. And I knew they wouldn't like to be reminded that this was not the case.

They've been telling me they want me to have a job before I move in with Matthew and Darren, despite me telling them that it'd be awfully hard to get one when I'm not there. Find one on the Internet, they tell me. We'll drive you there for the interviews. I sigh. I know they just don't want me to leave. They never do. They're also insistent that I don't have money to pay for bills, which I freely admit; I have very little money. But the boys also know I have no money, and don't seem to mind. They're paying their bills as it is, all I'm going to do is stay on their couch for a little while.

Of course, my parents don't know how short-term I expect this stay to be. And I know I have to tell them that, too, but I'm scared to because I know they're going to hate it, and I don't want to do and say and be things that make people mad. Even when I can tell myself that the things are good for me, and good for the people who at the moment seem to hate what I'm doing and saying and being.

I was sitting in the living room, still trying to distract myself and waiting for my parents to leave. But just as they were finishing getting ready and I was about to have to tell them why I wasn't going with them, I started to feel tears behind my eyes. What the hell?! I thought, sneaking my fingers between my glasses and my face to wipe them away as my dad walked into the room to ask me if I was ready to go.

My mom decided to show her disapproval by throwing a shirt box at me. In it is a sweatshirt that's not only impractical but almost exactly like another that I'd got from my grandparents on Christmas Eve. So they were going to take it back today, along with the batting gloves my brother didn't need after all and the sweater that's too big for my mom and the shirt that my dad got from his sister which was precisely like the one he got from my grandparents (he was, in fact, wearing the first one when he opened the second). Mom tossed the box on the couch and it landed on my arm and the open book in my hand. I moved it and they went out the door and I started crying. My body shook and my face was wet with tears and snot and I had no idea why.

You know, I thought, I don't think anything like tihs has ever happened to me before.

But then I remembered the day we didn't go to London, when the crying didn't seem to be due to the usual hormones or barely-concealed sadness or anything else I could think of. This felt like that.

And while I feel a lot better now than I did when I started writing this (thanks mostly to stealthmunchkin and paninogirl, who both had IM conversations with me since I got online), I still don't know what was wrong with me.

I've been waiting since I got back to get out of my parents' house and live with the friends who are nice enough to let me stay with them for a while. And now that I've got it, I didn't want to go. But of course I didn't want to stay here, either. I didn't want to go back to England or not go back to England or talk to anyone or be by myself or listen to music or sit in silence or anything.

Which makes me sound depressed, I know, and I've felt that horrible pervasive apathy where you don't want to stop and don't want to keep going. This wasn't that. It was like that but with crying, with that tightness in my chest, feeling scared of something.

Comments

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

You're taking a leap into the unknown, and that's scary. You know what to expect if you stay at home, even if you don't desire what you know to expect. You're probably worrying if you're making the right decision. It may be difficult at first, but from the sounds of it, you'll be better off in the long run.

I'm sure I'll be just as worried when I move out of my house. I'm looking forward to having my own place, but I'm sure the expectations that come with living at home will be surprisingly hard to adjust to not having.

Take the leap, move without a job, and see where you end up. You can always move back if you feel it's necessary. Parents are nice like that, and enjoy having their children around.

::hugs:: I'll continue planning the party, and you let me know if there should be any "must-have's." :)

[cosmolinguist]

Thanks for your nice words and support, Sexy Rachel. I must admit the idea of a party in a few days and seeing all my friends does make me feel lots better. :-)

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. Hopefully it'll be a fun gathering!

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

Change sucks because, even though it ends up often being useful, it's scary. And the natural reaction (especially when there are people in your life happy to tell you you can't decide stuff for yourself and that they'll do it all for you) is to have an anxiety attack. This is particularly true if the thing heralding the change is something in and of itself kind of stressful and/or exciting, and if the people in question will punish you in some way for introducing change in *their* lives without them really wanting it.

BTW, I think it bears mentioning that you are allowed to screw up. Not every decision you ever make has to be a perfectly good one, and perfectly plotted out to the nth degree before execution, for you to be a person worth respecting. Personally, I think we only really screw up our lives when we allow other people to make our mistakes for us. I think this mainly because I did that for a really long time, and am still resentful about it, even though it was my own decision. Blech.

((hugs)) I hope the moving of Holly and Holly's Stuff goes well today. It's good to do it while your family is out of the house. Much less sulking, pouting, and making of pointed comments.

[cosmolinguist]

That whole first paragraph makes a lot of sense, and I like it. It seems to be about what I need to hear now.

And as for being allowed to screw up, I figure I'm doing pretty good at that. :-) But my most obvious screw-up so far, college, definitely falls under the "decisions other people made for me" category, because it was never really my idea to go there right after high school; it was just assumed and I didn't argue (besides, I don't know what else I would've done then; I would've been in the situation I'm in now, but without friends with a house I can stay in). College was good for me in many ways, but academically is not one of those ways, so it does feel like I screwed up. And the only thing I've done since then, go to Manchester, has made me feel better with fewer side effects, even if it does make no sense to some people (and even if I'm sometimes one of those people).

It's good to do it while your family is out of the house.

That's what I was thinking. I mean, I know my mom won't like how I'm packing my suitcase. And they probably wouldn't like Darren and Matthew's house very much. And that's just more stress than I can handle today, even if I am better than I was before.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Which makes me sound depressed, I know

Well, depression can manifest itself in lots of ways (arguably, it's only really a blanket term for a lot of symptoms that occur for no other obvious reason ...) and when I have been depressed I've certainly felt something which sounds very similar to what you describe -- that sort of panicky feeling that's nearly nausea, which personally (because this is the way my own hangups work) always makes me think that I've done something stupid or wrong or likely-to-upset-somebody but usually I can't think what. Though I'm getting the hang of convincing myself that, really, I probably haven't done anything that bad if I don't even know what it is.

But all that's feeling-scared-for-no-reason -- whereas you've got good reasons, by the sounds of it, to feel apprehensive! Not knowing what's going to happen next, not entirely sure what direction your life is taking, feeling ill at ease with the situation you're in but not being sure that the new one will be better ... all things that make people nervous. Maybe if you can convince yourself that it's okay to feel nervous in this situation (I suspect most people would be -- I certainly would!) then the feeling of scaredness (if it doesn't go away) will at least not be so confusing or disorientating, because it'll make sense?

Sometimes, if I feel that panicky-feeling-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach but can't think of a good reason to be scared, it helps me to work on the basis that what I'm feeling is just physical -- that because when I'm scared I feel icky in my stomach, my brain is assuming that this works both ways, & hence is interpreting feeling-icky-in-my-stomach as being scared (if you see what I mean). And if it's just a physical thing, it's just something that will go away in time, and not something to be worried by. All of which may or may not be true but it sometimes helps the feeling to go away, or helps me not to be scared by the feeling of being scared (if that makes any sense).

And sometimes I find that crying helps clear my head, and gets rid of some of the tension and tightness and scaredness. Have you got anywhere safe you can hide and cry a bit without people asking you awkward questions or making a bigger deal of it than you'd like? I hope you have, if you think it might help.

Most of this is just personal experience etc. though so what works/worked for me might not work for you -- if not just ignore it! And I hope you feel more at ease soon.

[cosmolinguist]

Well, depression can manifest itself in lots of ways (arguably, it's only really a blanket term for a lot of symptoms that occur for no other obvious reason ...)

I agree. But that's often how I feel when my friends (the ones who've often dealt with it themselves, in some formal way involving medication or counseling or something) tell me I sound like I'm depressed, which happens every so often. :-) So, that's what I think of as me being depressed.

Maybe if you can convince yourself that it's okay to feel nervous in this situation...

Yeah, that sounds like kalieris saying that it's okay to screw up. That sort of thing is really good for me to hear, because I do tend to worry that I'm going to do something irrevocably bad ... even though I know better, I know that's unlikely.

I still don't like crying but it does seem to do me some good, at least in an emergency pressure-release valve kind of way. I got that out of my system when my family left and I started talking to my friends online (mostly about other things, which is good for me, actually, because distraction seems to be about the best thing for me when I'm sad).

The other things you tell me here are good too, and I appreciate your comments. And yes, they do make sense ... to me at least. I'm doing a little better now, and expect that to improve when comradexavier gets here and I leave.

[ladyortyger.livejournal.com]

aw lovey.. *hugs* here's me.. two steps behind you - wanting to leave but not wanting to leave, having no money and nowhere to go right now but knowing that here's not where I am best.

Don't know what else to say except that you're not alone. Ever.

[cosmolinguist]

Thanks. I get awfully damn lonely sometimes, and it's good to be reminded that I'm not alone. :-)

[ultraruby.livejournal.com]

As you know, I'm usually full of words, but if I was there with you I'd just say 'oh Holly' and give you a cuddle.

Things'll be fine in the end. You know that and I know that, because we're wise and sensible people, underneath it all. But that's not always enough, and that is why it is ok to weep and be worried just now.

xx

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I told Andrew this morning that all I really needed was a hug. No real ones, of course, but I'll take my cyberhugs from you far-away people. Thanks for your nice words.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

Inertia can be a horrible thing.