Other People's Decisions

I think one of the hardest things about this trundle through Hades for good old Percy is that it has been precariously affected, repeatedly and chronically, by the decisions of other people. Many things have occurred that are against my will. For one thing, the starkness of this has made me much more aware of how often in the past I have, for better or worse, gotten my way. There's a line in an otherwise not very good Helmet song that goes "all the good that never comes, from always getting your way." And I'm feeling it. 

All the good that you discover

In people that you hate

Draw them close and pencil thin

Then they're easy to erase

You've got it down just feed them lies

And watch them starve to death

Keep them crowded and short of air

Then you can take their last breath

I'd rather be insulted by you

Than someone I respect

If I don't share the same view

It's just my birth defect

All the good that never comes

From always getting your way

For a couple of years now, the decisions of others have had a huge impact on my life. My ex, A, decided she was sick of me and had fallen in love with another man and basically evicted me from our home. My progress in my PhD program is entirely contingent on the decisions of my committee members. U could have chosen to restructure her life to get us into the sunlight but decided not to. Or could have decided she had the psychic endurance to stay in the shadows, but decided she did not. My own passivity was *MY DECISION* not hers, and I "could" have bailed anytime along the way for my own very good reasons. (Of course, I never wanted to bail, at least not for very long. I wanted to do what we were doing forever, if we couldn't be in the open. Pathological or not, them's the facts).  Her husband's passivity also affects my life-- he "could" decide he doesn't want to be in the situation he's in, as well as she "could," but then I am reminded of the statistic that only 25% of people who have an affair leave their partnerships as a result and this seems so sadly human to me. Understandably human. 

It's been very important for me to realize that I am under no obligation to allow the decisions of others to fuck my life up. Their decisions are theirs, and I am a free agent (within reason) to make my own decisions accordingly. For long stretches of time stuck here in Hades I have assumed without reflecting much that I just have to find a way to arrange my life around the decisions of others. I am realizing that this is my own passivity and is a delusion, and if people make decisions that fuck with me I can just change my own course and not drag out suffering for the decisions of others. 

I am experiencing a lot of anger the past few days arising out of my hurt feelings of being thrown over for an existing situation that I have a lot of judgment about. I haven't expressed that judgment directly very often, out of respect for the people involved. It is a weird reality, respecting someone's choices completely, understanding the reasons, respecting the person making the choice 100%, but simultaneously thinking they are...unnecessary?... choices. Yes, it is possible to do both at once. 

I am finding ways to deal constructively with the anger within a context where there is no communication. U has completely shut down any direct communication between we two at this time without explicitly setting a boundary, but by just acting out a boundary, so there's no room for conversation. It was not possible for her to make space for a conversation we could have benefited from in the past week because of circumstances out of her control, and so the communication came down as an edict, a unilateral decision of hers via a few text messages. So be it, what the fuck ever. I must continue to try to remember that her choices are not mine, and after a certain point, my life does NOT have to be impacted by the decisions she makes. 

Anyway, back to work with me. A hair's breadth from finally getting the draft of chapter two of the diss off my desk. Met with committee chair yesterday and he had completely forgotten that I sent him the draft of chapter one way back in mid October. This pisses me off no end and seems unprofessional and stupid in the extreme, but there's no way for me to express that, of course, other than firing him and getting another committee chair, which I just do not have the energy for right now. 

Fuck, basically. Not liking any of this. Is the converse of all the good that never comes from always getting my way, having some good come from never getting my way?