Transitions
Oct. 13th, 2000 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteI didn't go to weight training because I still had plenty of work to do under the new office ... Mike and I are running ethernet cable all through the basement, and I volunteered to affix the slack wiring to the crossbeams under the floors. The basement is bare earth, and ranges from about 2 to 3 feet in height.
So I was happily squirming around in the dirt, singing song lyrics out loud to myself and pounding nails like some kind of computer nerd lumberjack, when I realized I felt a little hungry. I tossed aside my hammer and crawled through the aperture into the garage on my fists and knees. I wanted to wash my hands before I ate, and since they were in my gloves which were threaded under my sweater arms, I had to shove them out under the sweater in order to fit them in the sink.
My sweater, however, was anchored to my pants via a belt run through slots cut in the fabric. So I had to undo that and shove the sweater up on one shoulder, with the limp gloved arms wobbling empty on either side. It was pretty comical. I thought I heard one of the guys down at the pier laughing.
So I ate some tempeh in this fashion, and was struggling to reseal my outfit when Carolyn walked up the steps to the office. Yesterday she'd told me about the job fair, but I'd said I would be too busy at work to attend it. By the look on her face, I could tell I hadn't missed much.
She sat down next to me and ranted, almost nonstop, about how the job fair was exclusively computer oriented, and how there was no way a math major could land a job there. I asked questions and was soon giving her advice to try and help her grim outlook. "I'd hug you," I said, "but my arms are absolutely filthy right now." She laughed.
Same old routine. She rants about her bleak universe and I cheer her up.
I felt sad, and informed her of my frustration with this, in a halting voice. "You never stop worrying about the future, not even for one second, when you're with me. It's huge, and it pushes out everything else. It's become the only thing we do together."
She went silent for a bit, staring out at the harbor, mouth turned down. I tried to invoke a metaphor. "It's like you're always looking at this mountain range in the distance. It's rocky and craggy and lifeless, and you're walking along staring at it and ignoring everything else. You're walking through a valley, with grass and flowers and animals and trees, but you don't notice any of it. I've seen you do this because I've been walking beside you for quite a while now. In the present. And you don't even see me, because you're staring at that mountain all day long, worrying about it."
She turned back to me and admitted that this made sense. We discussed it a little more and I offered her some of my Asian food. Since I had work under the house to do still, I went up into the building and carried down a folding chair, and set it next to the garage so she could sit and talk with me.
She'd brought her old diary, and to amuse us both, she read her old journal entries while I pounded around in the muck. The entries ranged between somber and hysterical, and we both laughed at the drama, and made little observations about how her thinking had evolved. I put up a half-dozen wire ties before I got tired of it. Along the way I talked about my possible futures, and all the advice I had heard and been given about what to do.
"I've heard justifications for all kinds of things. For one, I could go over the hill and take some horrible $80,000-per-year job, then use the saved money to go to Sacramento. Or, I could stay here at this job doing what I like, and save up for at least a new car."
"Then there's the romantic stuff. I've gotten advice about that too. I could go find some girlie and fondle her, though I suspect that would get old pretty quickly. Or I could marry you and immediately start raising kids, right now."
She grinned. Though neither of us took that prospect seriously, it still had a surprisingly forceful appeal to it. We'd been "officially" broken up for a while now, and had obvious issues, but there it was: We could turn on a dime and decide to spend the rest of our adult lives together; just like that.
Eventually we packed up and walked over to my regular workspace, across the bridge, to find Carolyn more food. On the computer there I started indexing the audio files I'd recorded from the Dark Circles radio show, and she surfed the web. Things were amicable until she asked me why I didn't seem to feel remorse about the possibility of never seeing her again.
"I do feel remorse. I don't want to never see you again, but I realize that if it's what you decide to be necessary, then there's nothing I can do about it. I mean, trying to convince you to do something against your earlier judgement wouldn't be very respectful of your decision. It would be selfish, wouldn't it?"
This made her very upset. She clearly didn't want me to feel so cavalier about losing her. But the breakup had been my idea -- or at least, I'd been the one to finally set it in motion. She accused me of being cold, and pitiless. We had a tearful argument about it. As she got up to leave, I handed her the finished Dark Circles CD, which had been burning and just popped out of the CD tray. The gift, combined with my pitiful expression, compelled her to put down her things and talk to me for a while longer.
She apologized for "being needy," and admitted that we were both going through stressful transitions in our lives, and that perhaps leaning on me so heavily had not been very nice. Whether she meant today, or our entire relationship, I didn't know and didn't ask. She talked for a bit about future decisions - how they were difficult, but would lead us to real personal growth - unconsciously recounting my own advice from a few weeks ago back into my ears, which was actually very gratifying to hear. She'd internalized it. She'd listened.
I hugged her and said goodnight. On her way out she paused, and said "Maybe we'll be together and maybe we won't, but what's most important right now is that we work on these things, these problems we have with ourselves." It made me proud.
She went back to her apartment and helped Kate with her math homework. I closed up the office and drove back to Watsonville.
So I was happily squirming around in the dirt, singing song lyrics out loud to myself and pounding nails like some kind of computer nerd lumberjack, when I realized I felt a little hungry. I tossed aside my hammer and crawled through the aperture into the garage on my fists and knees. I wanted to wash my hands before I ate, and since they were in my gloves which were threaded under my sweater arms, I had to shove them out under the sweater in order to fit them in the sink.
My sweater, however, was anchored to my pants via a belt run through slots cut in the fabric. So I had to undo that and shove the sweater up on one shoulder, with the limp gloved arms wobbling empty on either side. It was pretty comical. I thought I heard one of the guys down at the pier laughing.
So I ate some tempeh in this fashion, and was struggling to reseal my outfit when Carolyn walked up the steps to the office. Yesterday she'd told me about the job fair, but I'd said I would be too busy at work to attend it. By the look on her face, I could tell I hadn't missed much.
She sat down next to me and ranted, almost nonstop, about how the job fair was exclusively computer oriented, and how there was no way a math major could land a job there. I asked questions and was soon giving her advice to try and help her grim outlook. "I'd hug you," I said, "but my arms are absolutely filthy right now." She laughed.
Same old routine. She rants about her bleak universe and I cheer her up.
I felt sad, and informed her of my frustration with this, in a halting voice. "You never stop worrying about the future, not even for one second, when you're with me. It's huge, and it pushes out everything else. It's become the only thing we do together."
She went silent for a bit, staring out at the harbor, mouth turned down. I tried to invoke a metaphor. "It's like you're always looking at this mountain range in the distance. It's rocky and craggy and lifeless, and you're walking along staring at it and ignoring everything else. You're walking through a valley, with grass and flowers and animals and trees, but you don't notice any of it. I've seen you do this because I've been walking beside you for quite a while now. In the present. And you don't even see me, because you're staring at that mountain all day long, worrying about it."
She turned back to me and admitted that this made sense. We discussed it a little more and I offered her some of my Asian food. Since I had work under the house to do still, I went up into the building and carried down a folding chair, and set it next to the garage so she could sit and talk with me.
She'd brought her old diary, and to amuse us both, she read her old journal entries while I pounded around in the muck. The entries ranged between somber and hysterical, and we both laughed at the drama, and made little observations about how her thinking had evolved. I put up a half-dozen wire ties before I got tired of it. Along the way I talked about my possible futures, and all the advice I had heard and been given about what to do.
"I've heard justifications for all kinds of things. For one, I could go over the hill and take some horrible $80,000-per-year job, then use the saved money to go to Sacramento. Or, I could stay here at this job doing what I like, and save up for at least a new car."
"Then there's the romantic stuff. I've gotten advice about that too. I could go find some girlie and fondle her, though I suspect that would get old pretty quickly. Or I could marry you and immediately start raising kids, right now."
She grinned. Though neither of us took that prospect seriously, it still had a surprisingly forceful appeal to it. We'd been "officially" broken up for a while now, and had obvious issues, but there it was: We could turn on a dime and decide to spend the rest of our adult lives together; just like that.
Eventually we packed up and walked over to my regular workspace, across the bridge, to find Carolyn more food. On the computer there I started indexing the audio files I'd recorded from the Dark Circles radio show, and she surfed the web. Things were amicable until she asked me why I didn't seem to feel remorse about the possibility of never seeing her again.
"I do feel remorse. I don't want to never see you again, but I realize that if it's what you decide to be necessary, then there's nothing I can do about it. I mean, trying to convince you to do something against your earlier judgement wouldn't be very respectful of your decision. It would be selfish, wouldn't it?"
This made her very upset. She clearly didn't want me to feel so cavalier about losing her. But the breakup had been my idea -- or at least, I'd been the one to finally set it in motion. She accused me of being cold, and pitiless. We had a tearful argument about it. As she got up to leave, I handed her the finished Dark Circles CD, which had been burning and just popped out of the CD tray. The gift, combined with my pitiful expression, compelled her to put down her things and talk to me for a while longer.
She apologized for "being needy," and admitted that we were both going through stressful transitions in our lives, and that perhaps leaning on me so heavily had not been very nice. Whether she meant today, or our entire relationship, I didn't know and didn't ask. She talked for a bit about future decisions - how they were difficult, but would lead us to real personal growth - unconsciously recounting my own advice from a few weeks ago back into my ears, which was actually very gratifying to hear. She'd internalized it. She'd listened.
I hugged her and said goodnight. On her way out she paused, and said "Maybe we'll be together and maybe we won't, but what's most important right now is that we work on these things, these problems we have with ourselves." It made me proud.
She went back to her apartment and helped Kate with her math homework. I closed up the office and drove back to Watsonville.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-12 04:28 pm (UTC)Regarding working in the crawling space, I discovered that if you bring a roll of plastic there, and cover the dirt with plastic, it is much easier to handle after that. But you probably already know by now.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-12 10:12 pm (UTC)Generally!