Go Team

Behold! A visitor from the shores of the River Styx:

At roughly 3 a.m. a couple nights ago, I was slowly awakened by the very strange sound of water splashing. It gradually dawned on me that the sound was coming from my toilet, at which point it also dawned on me that, either there was a weird wave machine in the sewer or that some critter was jumping and swimming. 

Hello, magic toilet rat. Apparently, he or she swam up from the sewer, as explained in this cool National Geographic video. 




I wasn't entirely sure what to do about this situation. I've handled rats and I know even the domesticated kind are prone to biting if you try to pick them up. The last thing I wanted was a rat bite from a roof rat turned sewer rat. I also had no idea how to get the rat the short distance from my toilet to the great outdoors. Eventually, I decided to use a couple plastic shopping bags as hand protection and a deep storage container I had outside as the mode of conveyance. I reached down and grabbed the rat near its rear haunches, and it seemed almost relieved that something was going to change the situation. But it also let out a few pathetic squeaks, as I gripped it hard enough to get it into the storage container. I took it outside and released the poor wet bastard into the oleander. 

Unrelentingly Stygian, life is, these days. 

I expect to see John McCain down here any minute.

Another tangled and highly regrettable reality involves me at least temporarily losing $4700. Because I did not read my offer letter from ASU carefully enough, and failed to notice that the University was not offering me tuition remission anymore, because I have 114 credits. So I stayed enrolled in the 7 credits necessary to remain full time, and got charged $4700 as a result. I didn't snap to the situation until the deadline for a refund of tuition was past. Gut wrenching. That is a shit ton of money for me right now. Fortunately, the Graduate Student coordinator is trying to work something out for me, as is my committee chair. My fingers are crossed that I'll get at least some of it back. I would have used it as a downpayment on a much needed new car already. 

The past nine days since the loml and I broke up have been either one minute/hour at a time, or, as I posted yesterday, fierce cold functional long stretches followed by incapacitating sorrow and/or simple grey gloom. It's weird when I realize it's only been nine days. It has felt like a much longer time than that. But I reassure myself that all of my responses are completely proportional. It is not problematic, unwell or abnormal to hurt in light of the reality. It would be abnormal not to, in my opinion. I am committed to not becoming bitter, cold, closed off or angry. 

The loml and I had an unexpected email exchange last night. Seeing an email from her in my inbox sent an electrifying thrill through me. I think this will probably be the case until my last day. It feels like that. 

The standing agreement is for her to not contact me unless she's available, and for me to not contact her unless I feel like we can be friends. I've blocked her on Facebook, since I often had trouble handling all of the Facebook interactions very well anyway, especially the attention she gets from other men, even when we were not broken up. I also was regularly driven fucking mad by the goddamned green dot in FB messenger, seeing that she was active but not interacting with me, imagining that she either didn't want to interact with me or that she was flirting with other men or whatever. It was excruciating, the stories I told myself, in spite of her protestations otherwise. 

I also blocked her number on my phone, because one of the recurring patterns from me was compulsively checking my phone for anything from her at all. A text, a hello. I once half-jokingly suggested that she simply send acronyms for romantic phrases if she was too busy. TAY (thinking about you) ILY (I love you) CFM (come fuck me). It was playful and charming, but it didn't last. Most of the time, I felt I was an afterthought for her. And I would get resentful. But then I would realize I was being codependent, and she was probably communicating at a relatively normal frequency. And I would beat myself up and feel like an idiot. So, to get that energy of waiting and waiting and waiting and then being disappointed and angry the fuck out of my life, I blocked her on my phone. It's unfortunate that the boundary has to be something of a wall now, but I know myself. I also know that, when we broke up before, but remained in contact, we inevitably and, usually quickly, tumbled right back to each other. It's not a wall built out of hostility, but out of love.  

She emailed unexpectedly last night asking for my physical address because she wants to send me some presents. It was a loving email, to which I responded lovingly, and that was that. I'm happy about it. I don't mind allowing for certain exceptions to the agreement we made. I wanted to communicate much, much more to her in my response email, but for now I know that is simply a bad idea. My top priority is protecting myself. One of the repeated ways that I felt unsafe and damaged in our exchanges leading up to the break up was that I was overgenerous. Over communicative. I would write a long, multi-paragraph email and the response often would be "yes, that all makes perfect sense, thank you for telling me." I would understand why the response was so brief, but that didn't prevent me from having hurt feelings and resentment. Or I'd write an elaborate, sizzling bit of erotica and my perception was that it was met with indifference, which may or may not be true. 

So I knew I had to keep it restrained last night and was able to do so, in spite of the flood of communication I would prefer. I hate this fucking situation. I hate this whole measured, controlled way of being, but, like I said, I am committed to taking care of myself first and foremost in the current situation. I rarely think this way. I rarely stop and ask myself: what is the absolute best thing you can do for Peter in this? But I have been doing that, and so far, as fucking awful, painful, sad and bereft as the basics are, it also feels solid. Like-- I am the only friend I will never lose. Right?

I keep having dreams about us. We're usually not involved in any drama or unhappiness in these dreams. Just enjoying each other's company, free and easy, nothing hanging over our heads. I often wake up at about 3 a.m. from these, and feel intense grief. 

There's been a lot of those weird 3 a.m. wtf moments. 

Usually no rats.