I had an email from an old friend this week, in response to one of mine, in which she said she was sorry to hear I was ‘down’ again. Which confused me, because I certainly hadn’t been particularly ‘down’ (if anything, I thought I’d been quite ‘up’ lately), I don’t really know what I’d said to give her that impression, except that I was moaning a bit about Christmas and about feeling de-motivated – all pretty normal stuff.
That set me wondering about what I would define as ‘normal’. The default setting on my emotional thermostat seems to hover around a kind of mild pissed-offness. This does occasionally slip into something which would be more recognisably ‘depression’, and it doesn’t make me incapable of flashes of humour, enjoyment, sometimes even joy, but my standard reaction to the morning alarm is more ‘Crap, another day’ rather than ‘Oh goody, wonder what today will bring!’
I don’t think this is related to external circumstances, and nor is it a conscious choice, it’s just an ingrained part of who I am, of my personality. And as such, I’m not sure that it’s amenable to change. Past attempts at trying to change it just seem to have led to frustration, irritation and sometimes (yes, the ‘g’ word) guilt. I THINK I’ve escaped from the guilt-trap (well, I haven’t fallen into it lately, though of course that doesn’t mean it will never come back), and I THINK I haven’t been beating myself up so much lately (but, ditto). So maybe some kind of change is possible after all. I guess I’m accepting myself more, and recognising that this is who I am ie, feeling vaguely pissed-off and frustrated most of the time. I’m sure it must be very nice to wake up every day and think ‘Oh goody, etc’, but it just doesn’t seem to be for me.
When Lifetraveller was talking a while ago about the time when she ‘couldn’t stop smiling’, I thought, ‘I can’t remember a time when I felt like that’, which is not strictly true, but I can only ever remember feeling like that when I was in love, and that doesn’t last, and you really can’t spend life serially falling in love (and besides, there’s an awful lot of crap that comes along with that as well). And it’s a very adolescent attitude. Better to not even think about it. But I digress.
Maybe this is why I get so angry with the ‘Happy Crappy’ Pollyanna types who try to cheer me up. Yes, I know they mean well. But it seems as though they are trying to make me deny a fundamental part of who I am, and, ironically, putting pressure on me to feel guilty and bad about myself. This is me, OK? Take me for who I am, or get the hell off my back.
And you’ll never know how much courage it is taking not to apologise for saying that…

Those of you who have read some of the earlier postings on this blog may recall brief mentions of a character referred to as the EMBM (Erstwhile Male Best Mate). This guy was a fellow student when I was doing my PhD, and I think I can say without undue immodesty that I was generally considered the brilliant, original thinker, but he had the balls – literally and metaphorically – and was good at the bullshit and self promotion, so consequently he was the one who got the job and moved on. The last communication I had from him was 7 years ago, when he accused me (without justification) of plagiarism, and threatened to sue.
So what did I find in my inbox today? He had evidently found his way to my ‘day job’ website, and had ostensibly got in touch to ask if I could let him have electronic copies of 3 conference papers we wrote jointly when we were both students, but also to tell me all about his brilliant career, past disagreements water under the bridge, let’s keep in touch, etc etc
I tell myself that life is not a competition, that I’m lucky with the life I have, with the freedom it gives me to think and write and do the research I want to do without being beholden to anybody. But there’s a part of me that thinks, ‘Why should that arsehole have a Proper Job and a Proper Career when I haven’t’.
How do I respond to his email? I have NO intention of re-initiating an acquaintance with him, even if, at one time, I would have given anything to see his name in my inbox or hear his voice on the phone. Is this my Gloria Gaynor moment? In a way it’s good that he was the one who contacted me. I wonder why he did that? ‘I bet he’s sinking/If he’s trying to get in touch with me’ (‘You wear it well’, Rod Stewart).
Given that I have no intention of letting him sneak back into my life, do I tell him exactly what I think of him: ‘You were a lying, self-deluding arsehole 10 years ago, and I have no reason to believe that you’ve changed that much’ – just tell him that I don’t have the papers (they’re probably on a floppy somewhere, but I can’t be arsed to go looking for them because they’re honestly not worth it), or just ignore his email and don’t bother replying? And would any of those reactions just be childish?
Am I wrong to hold a grudge? The last time I heard from him (in 1999) was coincidentally the last time I was in counselling, I was still pretty hung up about him, and the counsellor then said: ‘You have to ask yourself whether having any contact with him is likely to bring more happiness or misery in the long run’ or words to that effect.
So, I’m not going to let him back into my life, though admittedly I’m curious as to what he’s doing and why he’s contacted me after all this time. My life is busy and full – too full. I don’t have time for this, and I’m too strong to get drawn back down again. ‘Surviving is the best revenge’.

I thought of you..

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2450216,00.html

(For some reason, these links never work properly for me - sorry, you'll have to cut and paste to the browser)

Why do I feel so desolate this morning? Happiness is a chimera, whatever you think it is, it’s not. Life is just about getting on with it, day after day, one thing after another.
I don’t know why I feel so bad this morning, where this has come from. I haven’t felt quite this bad for a while, it just seems to have come out of the blue but here I am in tears again. Not just the grudging, day-in day-out little shit that you just have to keep putting up with it, but a real wave of misery.
I'm frustrated because I can’t find the photo paper that I bought last week. Now, I know how ridiculous and trivial that sounds, and I also know that anyone who knows me well would just laugh (like Hubby did when I told him) because, hey, how do you expect to find ANYTHING in that chaos, of course you’re going to keep losing stuff because you’re a disorganised idiot. But there are only a limited number of places where it’s likely to be and I’ve looked in all of them and it’s not there. It's not like there's piles and piles of junk everywhere, that it could be hidden in, like there normally is, because I actually tidied up quite a bit yesterday, so it's got to be SOMEWHERE ELSE, I just don't know where.
Now, why should that make me feel so crap? Because I can see where it’s leading – down the road of – if you weren’t so incompetent and disorganised and if you just kept on top of things and put them away in the right places this kind of stuff wouldn’t happen, but hey, that’s how you are, you’re a useless idiot and a waste of space and you’re not fit to be on this planet, what the hell have you done with your life, what have you got to show for the last 50 years? F*ck all.
The counsellor on Thursday was saying, maybe I don’t really want to be ‘happy’, whatever that means, because I would just have to change so much, I wouldn’t be me any more if I gave up my cynicism and my scepticism, and maybe she’s right, maybe that kind of ‘happiness’ requires a certain kind of blinkering, of refusing to notice the realities of a shitty world, a degree of self-deception and dishonesty that I’m just not capable of. But I’m kind of trapped in this box of mirrors, thinking that life shouldn’t have to be like this, but not capable of seeing how to break out of it. There’s a Cat Stevens song, I can’t remember what it’s called, or even what album it’s on, but the last lines go something like: ‘Life is a maze of doors and they all open from the side you’re on. Just keep on pushing hard, and try as you may, you’re gonna wind up where you started from’.
So now it’s time for all you ‘Happy Fascists’ out there to come back and tell me to put it all in perspective and count my blessings, and think myself lucky I don’t have any REAL problems and blah blah blah and throw all that guilt shit over me as well.