The Roulette Wheel

So yeah, May has been a pretty shitty month around here.  No two ways about it.  I might have to make a point to get back to writing in this thing on a weekly basis.  Just to keep my head on my shoulders.

Mel and I are having a little trouble being in the same location at the same time right now.  That's a little weird for me.  Usually that isn't much of a problem, but right now we both care a little too much about each other without letting our emotions bubble to the surface within about five minutes.  Which sucks.  A lot.  From best friends to not even able to think about the other person without crying is a little outside of my normal post-breakup operation.  Hers too.  But oh well.  One of these days we just might be that couple that breaks up for a while and then miraculously gets back together years later and lives happily ever after.  Luckily I don't intend to wait that long and I'm well on my way to recovery.  I'll love her for the rest of my life, but I'm too old to wait on her for that long.  Sadly.

No worries though, I've done this many times before and I'm doing what I know works for me.  I'm staying so busy my eyeballs are bleeding from lack of sleep, and I'm double and triple booking myself for almost every night.  The nights I'm not busy I'm either at the bar reading or playing one of the several games I have here around the house...or watching entirely too much television.  Those hours are few and far between though.  The funniest thing is that I'm avoiding showers just about as much as possible.  Not because I'm lazy or just feel like being filthy.  Quite the contrary.  It's the only place I can't seem to keep from thinking too much.  Maybe I need to get a radio in there or something.  That's not a bad idea.  I'm also trying to avoid sleeping in.  The dreams aren't pleasant.  This is more difficult to comply with.  Obviously.  Because sleeping in is awesome.

I wish that was all that's going on.  Sure, right now it's taking the vast majority of my attention.  Really it is, but that's understandable. On the sidelines my mother is quitting working with me and another of my closest friends around here is on the verge of moving to a different state.  These three things speak to something I've been dealing with for a while.  People keep leaving.  I really don't know how that works but they keep doing it anyway.  I don't think there's anything that depresses me more consistently.  I guess it's probably because my mind just works differently.  I just, honestly, didn't think my thoughts on the matter were so different than everyone else's.  I guess that's what makes me more sad.  Let's be clear though, I don't blame anyone.  Anyone.  I just think it's shitty that it keeps happening.  I stress "happening".  I'm not a crazy person.  I don't somehow thing this is happening TO ME.  That's absurd.  Just having another moment (of which there have been many on this blog...I checked) of being left behind.  Kinda makes me wanna do some leaving of my own.  I just don't know to what or where to.  Also I think I would probably be doing it out of misplaced spite.  Which is just about the worst reason there is. 

Not looking forward to being the head of a department though with no help.  Unless it involves a serious pay raise.  I have a lot of planning to do over the summer.  With time I don't have.  I'll have to spend a lot of time with mom, trying not to be really angry at her.  Letting her boss me around for one final act.  We were a good team and I'll miss that.  The program will never be the same, and it will never be better than this.  I know myself well enough to know I probably won't rise to the occasion.  I just hope I don't drive it into the ground.  That would be really uncool. 

Also on the list is AFFD.  I simultaneously love and loath working for them.  This time around I'm liking it a lot more than previous years because people are actually taking my suggestions.  I'm going to get to work down with Post Asylum again this year and we've seeded another film festival with student shorts.  Which makes our fourth.  I'm pretty proud of that.  Also my idea for the teaser trailer is the one we're going to be going with.  Which also makes me feel pretty awesome.  I've never been much of an artist but evidently I'm a decent idea man.  I might just take some time to talk to the bosses at Post Asylum and see if there's something I can do for them for the summer.  Ya know...so I don't have to spend every morning sleeping in an dreaming.  That would make for a shitty summer.

Let's see...I'm gonna wrap up.  I should have more interesting things to talk about next week.  I'll have just spent the weekend with some of the best of you reading this at Moen's bachelor party weekend.  I'll also be just about to finish school so I'm sure I'll be a little nuts.  I'll also be just about to visit the Friedman's.  Which will be awesome.

Ok.  Probably done typing.  Nothing more to say of any relevance right now.

Tommy "fuck you May, fuck you" Schubert

So.  I have once again failed to recognize when a relationship is working.  Melanie broke up with me on Thursday night.  It was rather cold and matter of fact.  The decision was made long before she came over that night.  She called two hours earlier and spoke for 20 minutes as if nothing was wrong.  Just like every day.  Then it was like she flipped a switch.  She called.  "I think we should probably talk."  Everything else from there forward was the coldest breakup I have ever experienced.  It was full of "I'm sorry you feel that way", "I never wanted to hurt you", "It's not you, it's me" and all sorts of other things you hear about people saying during breakups.  Not a shred of emotion in any of the words.  It didn't seem to matter to her.  I think that made it hurt worse.  Actually, I know it did.  The final kick in the jimmy was that she even wanted me to keep her $300 lovesac I was hanging onto for her.  She didn't even realize that an offer like that felt like nothing more than a consolation prize or a parting gift.

It wasn't until morning that I started to feel bad.  The evening was a blur of cold words and meaningless apologies and me sobbing like a baby.  I said things I didn't mean. I said things to try and make her feel something.  Anything.  To make her feel at least the slightest bit like I did.  The words I didn't remember come morning, but the guilt I remembered.  Nothing unforgivable, I'm positive, but I still I felt horrible.  I felt like I had done something or said something I really just shouldn't have.  I've been racking my brain trying to think of the thing that I said so that I could make the right apology.  I'm still coming up empty in more ways than one.  I've already texted her under the context that I needed to apologize and give her some more of her stuff  She's going to see if she can find some time this weekend.  I hope she can.

I wasn't myself that night and now that I'm myself again (only far far sadder) I know that there's nothing I could have said to make her feel anything.  She's got a lot to work on because she probably DID flip a switch.  Compartmentalizing me to where ever she puts the pain of her mother's death and the other horrible things she's experienced.  I should have known better that night but I hadn't experienced pain like that since Kelley.  She didn't deserve anything I might have said.  Her reasoning for breaking up with me was all about her inability to connect with her own emotions.  She didn't say as much but I know her well enough to know that was what it was all about.  She can't physically feel emotions like romantic love like she told me she could when we started.  She only hoped she could.  She's been incapable of the physical side of the relationship (and with herself) since Valentine's Day.  She just isn't ready for a romantic relationship of any kind and won't be for a very long time.  Which makes me even more sad than I had ever expected to be.

The only thing I have left to do is be there for her if she needs me.  Love her.  Let her go. Hope that time and therapy can heal her.  I know it sounds stupid and naive, but I hope she comes back to me.  I haven't ever had a relationship as good as this and that includes the absence of the physical and the problems with her connecting emotionally.  Despite all that, the new bar she's set is impossibly high.  That fact combined with the other that I'm still doing this bullshit at 33 makes me more sad than I have ever been.

Anyway.  I have a film festival to program and mountains of other work to do.  I should probably drag my carcass out of my room and get to that because work and most of the rest of the world really doesn't care how sad I am.  (Present company excluded of course).  Catch you guys later.

Tommy "gave this one 120% and it didn't make a difference" Schubert