Submitted the dissertation to ProQuest this morning, and filed the copyright request through them also. Checked my bank balance after days of anxious avoidance and things are okay. I still haven't gotten my government bribe, and every penny of that is going toward the article processing charges for Ecology and Evolution, because of their mandatory open access publishing system. I'll tell you what, it is a serious impingement on my motivation to address the reviewer comments on an article, that, when it is accepted, will cost me $1700. Before I started to publish, I had no idea that even highly reputable, high impact journals are charging authors to publish these days, if they have a mandatory open access policy. Well, my committee chair co-author is pitching in some funds toward that, but has not specified how much. Every time I sit down to work on returning that manuscript, I recall the financial hit in a time of total financial shut down, and stall out. It just seems like the biggest rip off. If I had a job in the fall, it would be different, of course. And, of course, getting a job also hinges on publishing. Catch-22.
Meanwhile, I slogged my way through revisions on another article and submitted it to the journal Taxon. There are no article processing charges for that journal, since I am a member of the International Association of Plant Taxonomists, but there is a color figure charge of about $650. It seems so retro that they charge authors for color figures. The whole publishing system just seems like total shit to me. And they know they have authors in a tough spot, since publishing is absolutely necessary for employment. Anyway the deal has me quite discouraged and having a difficult time summoning much motivation. And revisions and responding to reviewer comments takes a lot of energy for me, for sure.
I also realized over the weekend that the job search involving more than a dozen rejections (or just no response, which I find irritating) has me flat out demotivated as well. I kept beating myself up for procrastinating on checking job boards and so on, as well as getting going on an application for a postdoc, but this morning I was like, hey, wait a second buddy, *anyone* would be a little discouraged by the total lack of traction. Just go easy on yourself. And, re: the postdoc: it's a stretch, a highly competitive program, and I am looking at stretching and stretching and stretching my own research project idea to fit their program in the first place. I used to have all this fire for bullshit and re-framing things to fit opportunities, but after like 12 times doing that and being rejected anyway, I am feeling a combination of resignation and resentment. Not a helpful place from which to get all optimistic and sell myself.
My sister continues to pose a variety of emotional challenges for me, mostly around not taking on her moods. She reminds me on a daily basis how empathic I am. On a practical level, I agreed to take on the project of loosely appraising and selling her dead husband's old musical and stereo equipment and some other items, creating an account on eBay. This will give me a dumbass thing to do to while away the time I am resisting both article work and job search. It also definitely feeds the need I have to be useful, which I am also meeting by cleaning her house once a week and cooking dinner most nights.
In matters of the heart, a dumb meme someone posted on Instagram ended up hitting me hard, and making me think, and led to a series of realizations and resolutions. To wit:
At first I just chuckled and moved on, but then I started thinking about it. I suddenly got this very fierce and fiery feeling of "oh fucking hell no!" in my gut. I want to be free and clear of imaginationships. No situationships. And I don't want haunted love, as beautiful as the Tal Wilkenfeld song is. I want to be clean, clear, single and have integrity. I want to be single *with intention*, and contain myself, so to speak. I also especially do not want any narratives about exes. The past is past, is dead, there is no more past. Those people do not even exist anymore, as unforgettable as the experiences will always be (or at leas until I don;t recall anything, and then, talk about the past being dead, right?). No past, no future. Heart, be here now, kind of thing.
There are many opportunities via social media especially to feel pursued, or to pursue, even if half-assedly and vaguely. A couple women in the "real world" are interested in a relationship, or at least, in a situationship if not an imaginationship. And I realized with some force that I am absolutely fucking sick and tired of the grey areas. Not as a result of the behavior of women I know, who recently have much stronger boundaries than I do, but in my own bloody and torn up heart and imagination. I have kept things vague in some cases because I have felt unavailable and bleeding out, still. I think some women have (wisely, no doubt) kept things vague, in that realm of possibly maybe, sensing that I'm a risky venture at best these days. The reality right now, today, is that I have a few friendships with smart, compassionate, inspiring, grown up women, and those friendships are very valuable to me, and in some, there has been an undercurrent of sexual tension, or flare ups of interest followed by distance. I get why all of these dynamics would exist in each case, for the same or different reasons, depending, but I suddenly felt this intense desire to just be fucking clear, period. Nothing. No anything. No hang ups, no situationships, no imaginationships, no maybe, no what if, nothing, no goddamned thing. No thing.
I am single and unavailable.
It's odd but it is one of the very few times in my life that I have consciously realized that I want to cut off all lines of projection, hope, "maybe," possibility, playing flirty games, being open to what might happen, and just take some time to be completely, intentionally, decisively, 100% single and unavailable. Closed for business. It feels like a great time to do this, since of course we're all socially distancing due to the pandemic anyway.
I'm especially eager to be in an actually lived, manifested, creative, mutually supportive, PHYSICAL, daily or at least real partnership with the right woman, when that is even possible. And until then, I want to honor the friendships I've developed with women but at the same time clear my psychic, astral, and heart space. Marie Kondo of the heart. Working on doing this with kindness, self compassion.
Having that realization also made me realize, by contrast, how muddy, hopeful, unconscious, and vague my state has been for a long time. My boundaries have been bad, my heart mashed to bits, blood everywhere, lots of unconscious hopes and fears, a lot of precarious energy. There have been a very few clear, kind, supportive moments I have let myself have. I have cherished those but realized I have been assuming they were ephemeral, that I was somehow bound to be trapped in the haunted and bloody uncertainty zone. A friend of mine helped me realize, a couple months ago, that things can be safe, nurturing, supportive, reliable, kind, and clear, and that I don't have to roll in broken glass at all times. It has taken a couple of months to realize the degree to which my own bad boundaries have really fucked me, and fucked me again, and how I simply want to be clear, clean, self contained, mostly free, and stand in integrity. How odd that it has taken a long time to identify what I want. I guess it's typical. I have to remind myself regularly that I am still in early relationship recovery, really, only having started in earnest about three years ago, and following a decidedly non-linear path since then.
It's also true that wanting this clarity and integrity means dying completely to some hopes and wishes that I've secretly cherished. Not only in particular ways, but also in lifelong, general ways. That a lover would solve my problems. That my loneliness can only be healed by a woman. That my happiness is contingent on the behavior of my beloved. That my life is complete within a partnership. Intentionally standing in single unavailability means that all of that gets discarded. It's a painful letting go, for sure. Even when I realize nothing is permanent, and that standing fiercely in single unavailability shall pass, it's still painful letting go of a lifetime of expectations, especially in the context of feeling like they "could have" been met, but were unable to be met. But no, no fucking could have; if could have, then would be, and would be real and reliable, and is not; so could not have. Period. Could have can go fuck itself. Kindly.
I still love fiercely, but I'm learning to accept that, with absolutely zero expectations. Part of what is making these gears tumble into place is accepting how I feel. Trying to change how I feel meant also trying to manipulate or hoping to manipulate the outside world. Accepting how I feel leads to letting go of all hope. And that's the ticket.
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