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AWitL, Volume 2

4am. The coursework isn't finished, and I need to go to work. Nervous.


the bike that dare not be left locked up; i borrowed a less expensive means of commuting, today


back to work after holidays; deserted


Clock is ticking towards the 1pm deadline. Can I get online...


2 hours' sleep, and exhausted by coursework


Budget birthday shopping


Splashy birthday shopping. No, I didn't pay over $150 USD delivery charges!

Posted by Sarsparilla at 4:44 pm ~ Nobody Likes Us and We Don't Care [ Add ]

AWitL, Volume 1

Unpacking my things from 3 weeks in various vacation spots


Cuddling my small cat


Trying to get my OU coursework in on time


It's a lovely day outside, but I hafta study


Swimming, jacuzzi, sauna


Concentrating so hard that I barely noticed a three hour Facebook outage
and certainly didn't look it up online in a state of near addict jonesing


Over emotional text messages that drain the blood from my face


9pm. Still haven't started my uni project, due very early morning tomorrow

Posted by Sarsparilla at 7:30 am ~ Nobody Likes Us and We Don't Care [ Add ]

A Week in The Life Photo Meme

Robbed from Will .

Aim of the Game: For one week, you are to post photographs taken during the day.

Rules:
1. You must take between 6 and 8 new photographs per day.
2. Your WITL must be consecutive. No skipping days.
3. You must post your photographs at the end of that day, sometime after the last picture is taken.
4. Each photograph must have the time taken beneath and a title, with no other explanation.

You must post these rules at your first entry, then link back to it for the other six days so that people will know wtf you're doing.

Your post must say "A Week in the Life of [your name/username], Volume [whatever day you're on]."


PLEASE NOTE: None of these are intended to be good photos. They are quick snapshots taken in a second or two, with no preparation.

Them there's the rules, so now you know what I'm doing next. Enjoy.

Posted by Sarsparilla at 6:54 am ~ Nobody Likes Us and We Don't Care [ Add ]

a querulous polite uncertainty

A very intense week, spent in very close company with 200 strangers. Each one politely asks you your story. Being a collective of language students, the revelation you lived in Amazonas, far from english speakers, impresses.
"But no," you want to say, "it wasn't impressive. It just was." The detail of Amazonas was context to some of the most challenging experiences I've ever lived through.
They shake their heads at your incredible luck, imagining you to have passed through a cloud of cultural acceptance by one long extended happy jungle latin family, vaguely beribboned and dancing to pan pipes.
You add some, somedetail to somefolk, sometimes, "actually, it was rather difficult. Sometimes," as critical as you dare go. When asked why your partner doesn't live with you, in fact lives on the opposite side of the planet, "well, there are some issues, yes, we'll have to wait and see where it goes," the most open you can be.
The gaping destructive maw of divorce that confronts you, reduces to a querulous polite uncertainty.



It was a week that wasn't about me, or my problems, or my difficulties; and my linguistic skills were not equal, at least descriptively, to expressing sudden wells of emotion; so I didn't go there.

Then I read this,

When you're willing to open up, the other person is far more likely to be honest about themselves in return. even a small 'reveal' that demonstrates you're human and fallible will instantly relax your new friend.
Saying 'I'm sorry I'm yawning. I was awake half the night listening to next door's dog bark' is likely to elicit warmth and an answering confession - 'I'm a terrible sleeper, too.'
And once you've passed through that intimacy barrier, it's far easier to connect on a deeper level, say the Brafmans.
There's a fine line between charming openness and wildly inappropriate revelations. 'I was awake half the night screaming at my idiot husband because he had an affair and I can't forgive him' isn't vulnerable, it's just plain terrifying.

Posted by Sarsparilla at 7:45 am ~ Nobody Likes Us and We Don't Care [ Add ]

Random Judgements against the self

On holiday in Barcelona, shortly after an extended family holiday in Norfolk, and I realise I'm pretty hard on myself, as a rule. Pretty unforgiving. Either I did too much culture, I did too much not-culture, I studied too much, I studied too little, I look crap, I worry too much about whether I look crap, etc, etc. Fact is, fifty years from now, all I'll remember is the important stuff, not whether I was a good girl guide who succeeded on every internal List of Judgements.

One big fuck up, I lost my temper with my friend who I'm travelling with, big time. It was SO out of line, it must have been pre-menstrual rage. But. Unfair. And a reminder of what people who live with me, who love me, have to put up with. My big grey gripey sense of having been misjudged bubbling under the surface all the time. I don't want to be like that. That neverending inner sulk. No. Not worth it. Not in any way worth it.

I can speak spanish. Discovered that. Do I want to, though? That's another question.
Wonder if I'm studying this language as one long overeffusive overdone overcompensate for having been floored by my lack of spanish in Peru. Given that it sounds pretty much like I won't be allowed back in Peru for some years, that's not really an issue.
People who take the time to listen and communicate properly with me in Spanish.
1. Randy old married men.
2. Kindly grandfathers.
3. Sales assistants.
4. Women in the street.
5. Waiters.
It's not a very compelling list.

I have one more night, then back to the UK, to dental work, to counselling sessions, to being three weeks off schedule on my uni work, to the worst timetable I ever had at work, to trying to ignore the fear of that, and to uni finals in October. If I bomb, I've already gotten a passing grade. But you know me. I have to be the best.
Agh.

Posted by Sarsparilla at 9:32 am ~ There are shitloads - 4 - of notes [ View ~ Add ]

A good year for the neuroses

On 7th June, I commented on my own post:
"I had to tell 38 people I was divorcing on Saturday, and deal again with F's insistence that he arrive here this week to "persuade" me to change my mind on Sunday. I have the worst coursework project in the world due tomorrow morning, and yet more dental work with the thickest most ignorant dentist in the world scheduled this afternoon. My counsellor says I'm not stubborn but "resilient", not hiding but "coping".

I can't really see how anyone calls this coping at all.
This is not a good week. This is not a good year. I guess all I can do is make the right noises in the right places and blunder on, waiting to see what the world does to me next."

On 17th July, someone asked me how I'm doing: I said, "He's very emotional, very dramatic, very latino; the end result is that I automatically default to the other pole, and make myself very flat, very unexpressive, very cool until I feel deadened. But it isn't good for me, because it leaves me unable to feel things. I know I'm coping by not coping under an iron exterior of Coping Very Well. It still feels like hiding."

It is a highly pressurised year, in which I mostly sit in my room and do homework, having lost contact with most old friends, and having not really had any time UKside to make new ones. And ... I do razor focus a little too well. It doesn't help with anything.
I've been blindsided by a lot this year, and it's a bit scarring to think I will be judged on it, simply because a larger birthday is coming up. But I know how many other things I've leapt over, kept pace with, refused to be drowned by.

I might come out with a lot of teeth gritted odd jarring comments that betray the mask. But I am a born survivor, I'm very very hard to kill. My PC desktop has a note on it saying,

Posted by Sarsparilla at 4:49 pm ~ There are shitloads - 2 - of notes [ View ~ Add ]

Travel pack are dishonest bastards.

I fly cabbage class, so I've encountered a fair few shit airlines in my time. But Travelpack, who sold me £700 of Air Canada tickets last February, are absolutely the shittiest of them all.

Even shittier than Iberia, who dumped me in a room with no seats and no food or water for an 8 hour delay, then once I boarded the plane, as passengers screamed hysterically when an external door fell off, said it was "fine!", put it back on, flew to Brazil anyway, losing my luggage along the way.

Even shittier than Air Madrid, now closed down, who left me stranded in a room with no seats and no food or water for a 16 hour delay, then decided that EU rules these days say I need access to a hotel and nourishment, so sent me to a five star, expenses paid ... for fifteen minutes.

It takes quite a lot of shitty to beat how shitty those airlines were.

But Travelpack, by sending me an email two months ago that said, "fine, we will cancel your flight, and refund 2/3 of it, (because it's 9 weeks before flight date, we get to keep a third)", then at 9pm the evening before the flight, emailed me to say, "no, we didn't cancel it, we can't cancel it, we won't cancel it - only your estranged husband who desperately wants to use this flight to turn up at your house and persecute you can cancel it." (and then, "no ma'am, the supervisor's gone home, and he doesn't come in until 2 hours after the flight has left") .... that is shitty on the level of actually pretty much stealing £700 from me.

Worst travel agency ever. Travelpack. Acting for Air Canada. Fucking stealing, lying, robbing, dishonest, shady arseholes.

Posted by Sarsparilla at 6:30 pm ~ There are shitloads - 4 - of notes [ View ~ Add ]

threat or promise? the problems of communicating in a second language

M: Can you understand that I would never do that? I would never write to your family pointing out all the things that are wrong with you, and all the bad things you have done?
H: You can do what you want, I don't care if you do that.
M: Listen to me. I would not do that. I have not done that. I will never do that. Can you think about why?
H: You can do it, I don't care.



M: I have a question for you. Why is it that I will never talk bad about you to your family? Why will I swear to never do that?
H: I don't know. You can do it.

[M: me. H: him. Conversation conducted in Spanish (meaning it was easier to tell fictive, imagined action from real.)]

Posted by Sarsparilla at 8:30 am ~ There are shitloads - 7 - of notes [ View ~ Add ]

Change of Heart

He was beginning to convince me. I wouldn't admit it to myself, but Karen could see it, even my twice a month counsellor could see it. He was beginning to wear down my defences (such paltry things they were, involving 2700miles of ocean and a promise not to call too much), he was beginning to convince me that things might change. That things could change.

I didn't change the party line. I stuck to the plan, said it was over, it was permanent, it's time to get used to it.

But step by step, instead of asking him to stop hoping, I was asking him to have patience. When he repeatedly threatened to turn up outside my door, I would say "not this year, I cannot bear to see you ... this year", and hope nobody spotted the cowardice inherent in the failure to not promise.

I didn't change the party line, but I wavered, dear reader, I was not as steadfast as I had intended to be. I began to believe his party line. That he makes mistakes. That these were all errors of judgement, these three years. That whatever has passed is past, but that he really truly loves me.



So seductive, the wanting to be loved. The wanting to be a do-gooder, too, to *show* him something, such a false, wheedling hope it offers.

Behind the scenes, as the barrage of lovebombing continues all month, but he is scouring my facebook friends, and adding anyone he catches me speaking to, bombarding them with "cheery" messages, then with chat conversations where he pinpoints the crucial "fact" - I have destroyed his life, could they tell me it's my fault, please?
In the usual overemotionalised high drama latin style.

Behind the scenes, he is composing massive letters of complaint to my family, to "set them straight" about what kind of person I am. How awful and reprehensible my myriad crimes have been (not getting up at 6am when I'm working nights, not taking on a third job when he's short of money and doesn't want to work, throwing a cup at his head*). A liturgy of my minor minor minor crimes.

When they tell me about what he's been doing - distract me from my traitor heart beginning to hope again - I can't believe that he has so little dirt on me. I can't believe that he truly feels that attacking me in public will be the one thing that gives me the nudge and prompts me to bankroll him the rest of his life.

The stupidity of it. The gullibility. The sense of easy victimhood, ready and waiting. To have believed him. Again.

[* Not hard enough, obviously.]

Don't Scare the Horses

I begin to remember why I used to hate Europe.

You know what? I told four people about the earthquake. I kept it quiet, I didn't fuss (you don't know how clearly it's been spelled out to me since I got back that this is Britain and my fuss is Not Acceptable Here), I didn't panic, I just said it to them. Numbly, probably.
There's been an earthquake. It's a big one. I don't know if my family or my friends are alive.



#1 - didn't listen. Replied with a light comment about her haircut.

#2 - silence. No response.

#3 - heard. But then forgot. Six hours after, did at least ask why I was crying.

#4 - said "oh dear." Then repeated it to senior manglement immediately (see why I try not to "share" with these people?) Big Boss has a child in Peru. She interrupts my meeting, tears in her eyes. I reassure her that Peru is bigger than half of western Europe, and her child is 2000-3000km from the epicenter. Yes the quake was felt in 4 countries, but no, it's not physically possible that child was actually damaged by it. Later Big Boss emails me to thank for my support during her difficult moment.

Is it me?

Because it is making me fucking furious. Fifty percent of my family at the epicentre of a 6.4 quake, but it's not up for comment, or it's her holiday drama? Not even a question? [Are they alive? Did you hear anything?]
BBC doesn't even report the quake; no major cities, see. FCO ambassadors / european journalists, they live in big cities.

And I'm coming out of an abusive and dangerous situation, dragging myself out of it alone and unsupported, this year. And I'm starting to wonder on so many levels what the fuck it would take for anyone else on the frigging planet to be actually concerned about me?

Posted by Sarsparilla at 9:34 pm ~ There are shitloads - 4 - of notes [ View ~ Add ]

I hate telephones

If separating, divorcing weren't hard enough. If forcing your gameplaying partner into the zone of your limits, your rules, weren't enough. All that receding I did.

Then there's a 6.4 earthquake, and he's at the epicentre of it.

God forgive me, I reach for the phone, and then I hesitate. I put it down. I can't call him, I think. They all told me about this, they all said No Contact. If I break my own limits, he'll never stick to them. He'll be calling me forever.

I email him.

I have this mental image of a hand sticking out of rubble, trying to connect a keyboard.

Then I feel godawful at how shit, how petty, how small and nasty and spiteful this all makes me. I need to fucking know if my husband is alive.

I call.
I call, and I keep on calling, till I can raise a 4am answer.

No dead, no wounded. Nationally. Earthquake the size of Haiti's. No dead, no wounded.

Posted by Sarsparilla at 4:13 pm ~ Nobody Likes Us and We Don't Care [ Add ]

All That I Threw in That Hole

I can't sleep. I can't study. I can't remember things, so I can't function. And so I can't move on.

When I think of how much I've lost, it amazes me. The old version of "amaze", the dizzy, swaying feel.
I think of something else every day. Yesterday it was a future. Today it was a potato peeler. The only potato peeler in Amazonas.



It's like taking things - the things, the accumulated stuff, the detritus of three long relationships - and throwing them into a well. A bottomless, black well.
I throw in that £800 bed from 2001 that never worked and sent me plunging to the floor at odd moments through the night. Another creaky squeaky one from 2005. A mattress with broken iron, painfully erect springs from 2008, so heavy you can't lift it. Into the hole.
No sound of it landing. My smile, 2003. A china tea-set, 1992. Innocence, 1991.
A dull brown sofabed, the same year. A glued together futon in 1991. Self definition, 2002. The ability to dance, 2006. A fridge. Several fridges into the hole. I have owned more fridges than a person should.

This si what I do. All my love, all my careandsupportandcherishing, down into the bottomless hole.
I throw all my love into a hole, and listen, fruitlessly, hearing it drop.

Posted by Sarsparilla at 4:06 pm ~ Love Letters Straight from One Heart [ View ~ Add ]

Things I've been reading

What are practical ways to be a source of safety to someone?

What are practical ways to deal with too much closeness or too little connection?

What are practical ways to support the expression of differences?

What are practical ways to support shared decision making?

What are practical ways to support people discovering and pursuing their goals in life?

Who were your teachers?”
If you find yourself being critical, who taught you to do that?
If you find yourself yelling, who taught you that?
If you find yourself holding your emotions in, who taught you that it was safer to hold back?
If you find yourself withdrawing to reduce conflict, who taught you that?
If you find yourself never grieving, who taught you that?
If you find yourself unable to speak, where did you see this before?
If you find yourself interrogating your partner, who did this when you were a kid?

Let’s take one last quick look at what is really going on in Divorce. Divorce is a move toward Safety. The pain of the threatening togetherness, of being on the receiving end of all those hurt ‘em skills, is over. But breaking the connection with your partner hurts a lot. Why? Separating directly threatens your need for Reliable Membership. Divorced people talk often of the freedom and the peace of living alone. And I think all that is true. Now there are no threats, no arguing, no pushing, no hurting. Ain’t it great!

But after a while, loneliness appears. That’s the basic need for Reliable Membership which you cannot escape. As that need grows, people begin to think of seeking all this safety and peace with another person. They begin to miss that one component of the Biological Dream that is missing for them – togetherness, belonging.

Posted by Sarsparilla at 4:03 pm ~ Nobody Likes Us and We Don't Care [ Add ]

the Letter

I got a present.

Twenty years worth of letters I had written to someone. From 75 different countries. Because "rereading sometimes brings perspective."

It brings fondness, is what it brings. For my earlier self. Twenty years of both sides of a long correspondence, from the ends of the earth.
It feels like a treasure somebody put into my hands.

Posted by Sarsparilla at 4:32 pm ~ Love Letters Straight from One Heart [ View ~ Add ]

Talking to Duch about things.

I have avoided talking to Duch, even though she's one of my closest friends on earth. I avoided it because we had some disagreements about the last breakup. I avoided it because she tells a good story. Because she's bright, and she analyses. And her analysis is sometimes more interesting and compelling than the reality. And sometimes the story becomes the reality, while the dull unvarnished truth lies forgotten.

So I have really tried not to give her earache about all this. I don't want to know her analysis, I want to find my own, before getting her perspective. I value her perspective, but I don't want it to take over.

Duch's analysis. Given in two short bursts over a three week period. Throws up one big sparkling oddity that I had not considered before (never considered before).
She says I have low self-esteem.

Immediate slight bridle. I don't have low self-esteem. For god's sake, R left saying that he found me arrogant. So many people find me too forward, too strong, too arrogant, too bullheaded. So many people.
But I am reeling from the shattering of a marriage in which I got bullied, the small voice says. Whatever else you call it, however else you present it, so the light shines just so onto it, you cannot deny that you were bullied. Like it or not.
Not.

Posted by Sarsparilla at 4:01 pm ~ There are shitloads - 5 - of notes [ View ~ Add ]