Gosh. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I am feeling pretty damn low for some reason. Sort of like being spiritually kicked in the nuts. I have no drive to do anything, and I’d be pretty much satisfied if the world just all went away for awhile.
I wonder, is this just a post-winter/early-springtime generic malaise, or something more? I suspect that my borderline addiction to the news isn’t helping, now that NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and Google News have launched a massive assault on my senses. Is it the occasional, inexplicable weirdness I am seeing from my car? Does it have something to do with waking up on February 1 to the news of Columbia? Am I still hurting from the departure of Mr. Rogers from this mortal coil? Maybe I’ve got unresolved feelings about Grandma and Grandpa both dying this winter. Maybe it’s the still-lingering traces of guilt I feel about how my fuzzy little Nala left the world, so small and helpless and stupidly tragic.
I just have this feeling like, with a few exceptions, the entire world is systematically going horribly, horribly awry. I have this sick feeling in my stomach wherever I go, and I just can’t seem to shake it.
To borrow a phrase from everybody’s favorite angst-monkey, Trent Reznor, I want to do something that matters. I want to find something that I enjoy doing, and do it. I want to be a part of something meaningful. I want real relationships with friends again, not just the stimulus/response of the glowing screen and online journals. I want to see people, and do things, go places, and have some fun before the world goes completely to hell.
I guess what I’m trying to say is:
Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn ?
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day
Vera ! Vera !
What has become of you ?
Does anybody else in here
Feel the way I do ?
- Pink Floyd, “Vera”, The Wall
- Mood:melancholy
- Music:Gary Numan - “Absolution (Andy Gray Mix)”
Tags: current-events death family health music politics thoughts10 CommentsPrint This Post
10 responses so far ↓
(I say this in an online journal…)
I do live just five minutes away from you. If you want to get together sometime, all you need to do is call me! All you gotta do is make the effort
(BTW, if Liz and Jim are both busy, as is their wont, you and I can still get together.)
I don’t know what to tell you, but I do know that leaving my laptop at work vastly improves my quality of life. It’s amazing how much time there is to do real stuff when one isn’t glued to a computer.
Being outdoors sometimes helps me. Maybe you should go outside and play Frisbee. Is the weather there as nice as it is here (54 and sunny)?
And what’s this about weirdness in your car?
I think that means I would have to know where to find your phone number, unless you carry your cell all the time, and keep it on. But I guess I could pick up my phone and, uh, email you! Or call your parents! (Hi, Alex and Cynthia! Whatcha doin’ tonight?)
I end up glued to the computer, I think, because I haven’t found anything better to do when Liz is out and about. That and I’m glued to it all day for work, so it’s sometimes a too-easy pattern to fall into once I am at home.
The problem with spinning disc games is I think I would look pretty daft throwing a Frisbee at myself. I think the fundamental issue is that, from a social standpoint, there’s not much happening. I drive to work, I spend all day with Work People (and the few of them that I would enjoy on a social basis are WAY on the wrong side of town), and I come home. Sometimes Liz gets there before me, sometimes I get there before her. At that point, we’re either glad to spend time together, or one of us crashes or has somewhere to be for a few hours. And then it’s sleepy-time. Sometimes (and sadly it’s kind of getting to be more like once a month) we see one of our friends, or a small gathering thereof. Everyone’s too damn busy to do anything more often, or at least that’s the mutual delusion that we are all living under. And since it’s hardly a regular occurrence, I often read a stunted awkwardness into the situation, whether it’s really there or not.
The weather was nice, though, while it lasted. We’ve passed from mid-to-high 60’s and super-sunny to low 40’s and super-rainy (you know, Cleveland in the spring).
Now, about the car weirdness… It just turned into a full post. Whee!
I definitely understand the insularity you’re talking about; it’s one of the things that frightens me about marriage, actually. It’s too easy, when you’re living with a partner, to let everyone else drift. My mom has one friend and I think my father has two, and sometimes they see family, and that’s really the extent of their social contact. I don’t know any solution to this other than to force yourself to call people up even if you’re afraid it’ll be weird since you haven’t seen each other in an age. Maybe a good way to combat the “I’m too busy” syndrome would be to have a scheduled informal gathering once a week or a bigger party once a month (wine tastings, perhaps?).
Aside from the social stuff, even if you can’t play Frisbee, maybe being out in the sunshine would help - is there somewhere nice to walk near your house? When I was dealing with feelings of “everything is Wrong” last year, I’d often walk the couple miles home from the office, because it made my body feel alive, and some of that good feeling often bled into my mood. Are you still going to yoga regularly? Does that help?
Firstly, my phone number is very similar to yours. Replace the last 4 digits with DIRT, and you’re set.
Secondly, I do carry my cell phone around, and it’s usually on. If it’s not, I’m either in class, or it turned itself off (which it is wont to do) and I’ll get to it shortly.
So now you are excuseless
Indeed, I am now excuseless, as my electronic leash–er, scratch that, cell phone!–now knows your home number. Be afraid, be very afraid!
And even though I told you this already today, I think it’s worth noting here for everyone’s general edification, that a friend of mine from high school had the phone number of DUK-SHIT. At least it was easy to remember…
It’s funny you mention wine tastings, because after picking up “Great Wine Made Simple” (which is basically divided up into different tastings, each of which illustrates a concept, or highlights a region or style), Liz has organized a tasting group here. We had our first get together two weekends ago, and it seemed like everyone had a lot of fun, as well as learned a lot. So that’s a start, for sure. I guess I miss the sudden spontaneity of just hanging out with people, though. Probably I’ve just been warped by too many sitcoms, where life is just like college, except that you get paid. I guess what bothers me is the amount of effort required to actually put together a “scheduled informal gathering” — it’s honestly like herding cats.
Sunshine is a definite plus for me and my wacky brain chemistry. We are actually starting to have some of it again now, so I suspect the on-and-off again nice weather is probably jiggering with my noggin. It’s the Seasonal Affective Disorder version of a lightswitch rave.
Sadly, our corporate culture has been so downtrodden thanks to our attempts to survive the dot-com implosion (lay people off, make everyone else work harder/smarter, repeat) that no one really goes “out” for lunches any more, which is one of those good opportunities for sunshine. It doesn’t help that now we are back in the main building with AG corporate HQ, so the cafeteria is just down the hall. (Though they do have an outdoor area which is nice in the summer. But it’s a little too cold for that right now, and they don’t have tables out yet.) Between going to meetings and trying to get stuff done, I don’t usually get to be outside until the sun is well on its way down. This will improve, though, as the days get longer, but only to a point, and then I get to do it all in reverse. (Joy!)
(Will have to break this into two comments, LJ doesn’t like comments >4300 characters…)
Walking somewhere nice sounds like a great idea. It’s a bit of a hike to get to nice places to walk (hurrah, irony!), and I really dislike walking in our neighborhood for some reason… I think all the houses just bore me. I know, that sounds weird. Maybe I secretly yearn for the mountains of my youth?
Exercise is definitely a mood-improver for me. I try to work out a couple times a week on the elliptical in the basement, but all too often I’m up too late or I sleep in more than I should, or I get home and am too exhausted from dealing with work all day to want to even move, so I pretty much suck at trying to keep any kind of regular schedule there.
And, sadly, no, I am not still doing yoga. This month is actually the two-year anniversary of me stopping going. Partly it had to do with one “term” of the class coming to an end, and having a month-long break before the instructor was going to be teaching at her new place. Partly it had to do with the point I was getting to — I was releasing so much that had been pent up for so long, that it was really bringing a lot of old pain to the forefront. I would feel great for awhile, but within a day, things started to knot up again in ways that were really uncomfortable and painful. It was an effort to move around the office, or sit in my evil chair, for example. And partly it had to do with my work schedule, where suddenly I actually had stuff to do, and there was a lot of it, and I wouldn’t be leaving from work until after class had already started. The instructor I went to always ran late as well, so the class pretty much annihilated any evening I wanted to have. There’s nothing like rushing from work to go relax while being stressed out about the stuff you didn’t get done while you were still in the office, and then not starting to cook dinner until after 10 PM. I quickly learned that I couldn’t balance that schedule and get enough sleep to function at work.
Yoga sort of helped, in that I was much more physically relaxed, and my body felt great about it. But I’ve found that, overall, having a certain degree of stress keeps me performing better at work, and makes me sharper. Well, until it gets to be soul-crushingly bad amounts of stress, then it just sucks. I admit that I do need to start it again, since I have started to notice some TMJ tension and related issues, and that’s just no fun. (Though my TMJ only started being an issue after 9/11/01; funny how that works out. I’ve got to up my soma intake, I guess!) The other thing about yoga that was a problem is that it ws one more thing that kept me from spending time with people other than Liz. Now that we’ve passed the point of always wanting to do absolutely everything together, everybody that I would have wanted to spend time with (![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
gieves being pretty much the sole exception) has scattered to the four winds. (And yes, even though Angie is still in the Cleveland area, she’s got that doctor thing going on, and has even suckier schedules than the rest of us — so she counts as somewhat scattered to the winds as well.)
I strongly suspect that my desk chair at work, despite its many knobs and levers, is evil, and killing me. I really should ask a manager person if I am allowed to find and purchase a replacement on my own, completely without comapny funds. (Liz tried to do this at her workplace, which had her in a shitty chair, and they told her that she wasn’t allowed to provide her own chair. Long story…)
Is it just me, or is it starting to sound like I’m upset about growing up, and life changing, and how all that just plain sucks? This is the point where I start to get upset at myself for being upset for such trivial reasons. It’s not like I was kidnapped by drifters, or buried under 110 stories of Trade Center, or being shot at by strangers on the other side of the globe. I have a fairly comfortable life; I have a nice house; a decent job; a usually perfect car that I love to drive; disposable income; a wonderful wife who puts up with me, takes care of me, and is a great friend as well as partner. I am reasonably healthy, albeit somewhat out of shape. So why can’t I stay happy?
(Continued again, was 25 chars too long this time.)
(Concluded, finally!)
Gadzooks, it’s late! And this has turned into quite a long and rambling discourse. Kudos if you’re still reading this far…