Monday, September 24
Sep. 24th, 2024 01:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Pleasant weather, and everything is nice and clean after some rain.
Our sweet animals. They are so beautiful and kind.
I tried to be optimistic about going to pottery, and tried to make the best of it.
The class is officially from 1 pm to 5:30 pm, which does seem like a decent block of time, if you can get there right at one.
I did my best, but today I didn't get there until about 3:30, and two hours is maybe enough time to do some trimming or something, but not enough time to throw.
So I basically arrived, and the first words that greet me are one of the other potters exclaiming "Oh look, she FINALLY shows up!". Just what I needed, someone just HAD to jab at me, right at the whole sore point of everything to do with this issue; that I can't show up early.
They really don't seem to understand that I am an actual night owl, not someone who is lazy, or chronically late for things, or disorganized. No. I actually TRIED to get here early, and this is actually close to two hours earlier than I used to show up for our evening class, but NOW IT'S CONSIDERED TO BE LATE because the goal moved.
So, right away I wasn't in a good mood anymore. Then, to add further insult, D my "pottery friend" chimes in saying "well, we're all done, because WE got here at 1 pm. I guess you're just going to have to show up earlier if you want to see anyone".
I responded with "well, I guess if I could, I would."
Her comment really hurt, because I have talked to her about being a night owl, and I thought she understood that it wasn't just a matter of getting up earlier. I mean, let's say a person gets up at 8 am fairly naturally. That's sort of how their body works. THEN, lets see if they want to get up three hours early so they can go to pottery class. They'd think it was insane to get up at 5 am just to make it to pottery class.
Well, that's what it's like for me. Today I got up at 2 pm, because I can't fall asleep until after my husband leaves for work, roughly 5:30 am. For me to get to pottery by 1 pm, I would need to get up at ten or eleven in order to have all the chores done and eat and change and drive to town half an hour away. It could be done, but you know what? I can't even do the chores or feed the animals at noon, because I do them just before I go to bed, in the early morning, and doing them at noon would mess everything up.
Every now and then I DO get up in the morning, or more accurately, I just don't go to sleep that day. I do it sometimes for vet appointments and sometimes for shows at the barn (though really, I feel like shit the whole time). I do it when I MUST.
I can't seem to explain to anyone that me getting to pottery at 3 pm is like other people getting there first thing in the morning, and getting there at 1 pm is like getting there at the crack of dawn.
I've also had enough of people telling me to "just get up early" for things. EVERYONE TELLS ME TO JUST GET UP EARLY for EVERYTHING THEY WANT ME TO DO. I've had my entire adult life of people who pretend to listen to my description of my sleep schedule, and then they say, as if this wisdom will fix everything in my life "YOU SHOULD JUST GET UP EARLY".
It always makes me feel bad about myself, as if I am somehow lazy or bad, that I am just doing this because I can get away with it, or that it's a flaw in my character. No one seems willing to accept that this is just ME.
I guess if I were tall, or short, or a different color, I'd never hear the end of that either, and I know of people for whom this is true. Yet, do people say to them "you should just be taller" or, "you should just stop having red hair".
I feel like telling THEM to just stop being stupid, but I bet that wouldn't help things much.
So, since they were all perfect human beings and got there at 1, they were also all gone by the time I was ready to work, and maybe that's for the best.
I made decent use of my time, and put glaze on two pieces that have been there all summer already bisqued, and cleaned up the two pieces I was working on from Saturday. I couldn't throw, no time.
Then I went to Winner's, and found a lovely light sweater, though I didn't need it.
Then I got groceries, and was ever grateful for being able to do so, and ever sad to see how expensive basic things like food have become. Even something as simple as a can of beans is almost two dollars a can. It seems like about ten years ago, they would come on sale for sixty cents a can, so they have tripled in price in ten years while people's incomes have probably stayed about the same.
I know that ten years ago, I would have been SHOCKED by a $200 grocery bill, but now that's often what we end up with, and that's with no meat and not a lot of processed food. A lot of vegetables, bread, hummus, milk, eggs. I can't believe what vegetables cost.
I came home and my Sweetie kindly listened to me talk about yet another shitty experience with people, and he had a good session at the climbing gym so that was nice.
You know what, my husband hardly ever seems to have issues with people. He is a very likable person, and he genuinely seems able to like other people, and I truly envy him this gift. He almost never has bad days, is generally relaxed and happy, and pretty much I would have to say that the only thing that ever bothers him is me, when I try to get things done on the house.
Can you imagine living in that kind of eternal inner bliss? How does that even happen? I think he's actually some kind of sociopath. Not the kind that kills people, but just a person who doesn't feel a lot of the things that most people feel. I mean, his uncle died and he was never upset about it, he was just like "isn't it nice, he had a good life, la la la". He doesn't get torn up about our animals passing, doesn't seem to have bad interactions with other people in the first place so is never upset about other people.
I live in a never ending tornado of mainly anxiety, anger, fear, loathing, self-loathing, more anxiety, feeling rage at every perceived slight or injustice, feelings of impotence and vulnerability, more self-loathing, loss, embarrassment about either how I look, how I acted, or my inadequacies, and on and on. Every day is just this giant, swirling storm throwing me around.
If I stay away from most people and don't talk to my family, I can have okay days.
My husband has good days almost every single day. He is completely incapable of drama, feeling drama, or even recognizing drama. If I were not in his life, every day would be easy and uncomplicated, everyone who met him would be nice to him, or at least he wouldn't care if they weren't nice, and he pretty much wouldn't have much for dark thoughts at all.
I've often wanted to be him for a day, to feel what he must feel. Just...NICE ALL THE TIME.
Pleasant weather, and everything is nice and clean after some rain.
Our sweet animals. They are so beautiful and kind.
I tried to be optimistic about going to pottery, and tried to make the best of it.
The class is officially from 1 pm to 5:30 pm, which does seem like a decent block of time, if you can get there right at one.
I did my best, but today I didn't get there until about 3:30, and two hours is maybe enough time to do some trimming or something, but not enough time to throw.
So I basically arrived, and the first words that greet me are one of the other potters exclaiming "Oh look, she FINALLY shows up!". Just what I needed, someone just HAD to jab at me, right at the whole sore point of everything to do with this issue; that I can't show up early.
They really don't seem to understand that I am an actual night owl, not someone who is lazy, or chronically late for things, or disorganized. No. I actually TRIED to get here early, and this is actually close to two hours earlier than I used to show up for our evening class, but NOW IT'S CONSIDERED TO BE LATE because the goal moved.
So, right away I wasn't in a good mood anymore. Then, to add further insult, D my "pottery friend" chimes in saying "well, we're all done, because WE got here at 1 pm. I guess you're just going to have to show up earlier if you want to see anyone".
I responded with "well, I guess if I could, I would."
Her comment really hurt, because I have talked to her about being a night owl, and I thought she understood that it wasn't just a matter of getting up earlier. I mean, let's say a person gets up at 8 am fairly naturally. That's sort of how their body works. THEN, lets see if they want to get up three hours early so they can go to pottery class. They'd think it was insane to get up at 5 am just to make it to pottery class.
Well, that's what it's like for me. Today I got up at 2 pm, because I can't fall asleep until after my husband leaves for work, roughly 5:30 am. For me to get to pottery by 1 pm, I would need to get up at ten or eleven in order to have all the chores done and eat and change and drive to town half an hour away. It could be done, but you know what? I can't even do the chores or feed the animals at noon, because I do them just before I go to bed, in the early morning, and doing them at noon would mess everything up.
Every now and then I DO get up in the morning, or more accurately, I just don't go to sleep that day. I do it sometimes for vet appointments and sometimes for shows at the barn (though really, I feel like shit the whole time). I do it when I MUST.
I can't seem to explain to anyone that me getting to pottery at 3 pm is like other people getting there first thing in the morning, and getting there at 1 pm is like getting there at the crack of dawn.
I've also had enough of people telling me to "just get up early" for things. EVERYONE TELLS ME TO JUST GET UP EARLY for EVERYTHING THEY WANT ME TO DO. I've had my entire adult life of people who pretend to listen to my description of my sleep schedule, and then they say, as if this wisdom will fix everything in my life "YOU SHOULD JUST GET UP EARLY".
It always makes me feel bad about myself, as if I am somehow lazy or bad, that I am just doing this because I can get away with it, or that it's a flaw in my character. No one seems willing to accept that this is just ME.
I guess if I were tall, or short, or a different color, I'd never hear the end of that either, and I know of people for whom this is true. Yet, do people say to them "you should just be taller" or, "you should just stop having red hair".
I feel like telling THEM to just stop being stupid, but I bet that wouldn't help things much.
So, since they were all perfect human beings and got there at 1, they were also all gone by the time I was ready to work, and maybe that's for the best.
I made decent use of my time, and put glaze on two pieces that have been there all summer already bisqued, and cleaned up the two pieces I was working on from Saturday. I couldn't throw, no time.
Then I went to Winner's, and found a lovely light sweater, though I didn't need it.
Then I got groceries, and was ever grateful for being able to do so, and ever sad to see how expensive basic things like food have become. Even something as simple as a can of beans is almost two dollars a can. It seems like about ten years ago, they would come on sale for sixty cents a can, so they have tripled in price in ten years while people's incomes have probably stayed about the same.
I know that ten years ago, I would have been SHOCKED by a $200 grocery bill, but now that's often what we end up with, and that's with no meat and not a lot of processed food. A lot of vegetables, bread, hummus, milk, eggs. I can't believe what vegetables cost.
I came home and my Sweetie kindly listened to me talk about yet another shitty experience with people, and he had a good session at the climbing gym so that was nice.
You know what, my husband hardly ever seems to have issues with people. He is a very likable person, and he genuinely seems able to like other people, and I truly envy him this gift. He almost never has bad days, is generally relaxed and happy, and pretty much I would have to say that the only thing that ever bothers him is me, when I try to get things done on the house.
Can you imagine living in that kind of eternal inner bliss? How does that even happen? I think he's actually some kind of sociopath. Not the kind that kills people, but just a person who doesn't feel a lot of the things that most people feel. I mean, his uncle died and he was never upset about it, he was just like "isn't it nice, he had a good life, la la la". He doesn't get torn up about our animals passing, doesn't seem to have bad interactions with other people in the first place so is never upset about other people.
I live in a never ending tornado of mainly anxiety, anger, fear, loathing, self-loathing, more anxiety, feeling rage at every perceived slight or injustice, feelings of impotence and vulnerability, more self-loathing, loss, embarrassment about either how I look, how I acted, or my inadequacies, and on and on. Every day is just this giant, swirling storm throwing me around.
If I stay away from most people and don't talk to my family, I can have okay days.
My husband has good days almost every single day. He is completely incapable of drama, feeling drama, or even recognizing drama. If I were not in his life, every day would be easy and uncomplicated, everyone who met him would be nice to him, or at least he wouldn't care if they weren't nice, and he pretty much wouldn't have much for dark thoughts at all.
I've often wanted to be him for a day, to feel what he must feel. Just...NICE ALL THE TIME.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-24 06:57 pm (UTC)I am "nice all the time"; it's my default, and it gets tiring sometimes. Though I don't sail through decline, death or tragedy involving animals or close people.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-24 08:23 pm (UTC)To the people at the pottery studio, and other places, what I resent is needing to CONSTANTLY DEFEND myself, as all I hear is "well, you'll just have to get up earlier"..as a solution for everything under the sun. Everything.
I don't think a day goes by that I haven't been made aware of how my sleeping pattern makes me an oddity that is inconvenient and strange, and is is tiring just to have to keep dealing with it, or being made aware of it. Day after day after day.
It's a bit like what I read about being left-handed, in that the whole world is just not designed for a left-handed person, and they go through life with one thing after another being just harder for them. I know that at one time, those people were barely tolerated, being told to "just stop being left-handed", and forced to use their right hand in school.
In the right circumstances, being a night owl might be considered a gift, such as for being creative and then this gives you large chunks of time alone to work (which is what I do with it), but people only seem to celebrate those kinds of things if you actually become a very good artist, then you're "delightfully eccentric" instead of weird.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-25 07:49 pm (UTC)You don't have to explain yourself, and you don't have to defend yourself, either. It isn't the potters' business.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-25 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-26 06:25 am (UTC)I also don't know what makes a person likelier to prefer late rising. I can say the preference intensifies as the years go by.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-25 05:08 am (UTC)The thing that struck me again and again is that if you had been a medical worker working night shifts, no one would think anything of it. They may pity you and think less of you that way like oh she comes in bedraggled because she's so busy working at night and why does she have to work those shifts anyway and on and on. These ladies or women I should say seem like people that have too much time on their hands. They should be there to create and encourage others to be creative not to squelch that creativity. I'll bet their competitive with each other as well. Remember this, people only put others down in order to feel better themselves. So try when you can not to rise to that occasion. I think it's the hardest when it's with friends and people you like and know. It's hard not to defend yourself because you feel like they should believe you because that's what friends do. They believe the you of you. And I remember friends that were lovely one-on-one but quite catty in groups. It's the peer pressure. And I'm so sorry you're dealing with feeling that way about it. It's like Junior High all over again!
You're an incredible woman, with a good heart, exceptional skills, and diverse interests. Most people don't see the value of that unless they are in crisis. All I can think is these ladies sound like Society ladies that cannot at all be pleased and happy with who they are when they sit alone. You at least have peace sometimes, but I'm sorry that the reactions and opinions of others swirl around in your head during those moments a freedom away from people like that, pulling you down still. I've started collecting quotes and pictures from Twitter and other places. When I download them I save them straight to a screensaver folder. Those quotes have helped a few times because I need someone saying things like that or I need that inspiration until I can remember it for myself.
For whatever it's worth, from someone way out here looking over there, and if it's not helpful you can throw this out always, for whatever it's worth, from what you've shared you have grown up and raised yourself through very difficult Family Social circumstances. It's amazing you have a good marriage in this world in general, and then with how you were raised even more so. You've also mentioned about having to teach yourself how to learn to be a woman. Here's what I found. The hardest thing with being a self-made woman or a self-made person, even a self-made man, is that you never have that parental figure or somebody like that to let you know you did do well, that you did achieve. Other people may look at you and think you're incredible in this area or that area, they may secretly be envious of you, which is often the only reason to put you down, but you or whoever it is that is self-made will remember the fears that drove you to be amazing. You don't know when you've arrived because you we're never given instruction to even know what the goal was. You had an idea and you went for it. So in all this rambling I guess what I mean to say is that I honestly think you could get to a place where you do feel just nice all day. Maybe for you it would be not having a lot of interaction with people for that day and enough days to be able to detox from all the toxic behaviors. They may not be toxic people but their behaviors may be in those ways. Well I've said a mouthful, but I'm so sorry you feel that way. You deserve to be happy and peaceful. You've created a happy and peaceful place to live, if you didn't your animals would feel it. And I don't think it's fair at all that people treat you that way when a lot of night shift workers choose that. Yeah some don't have a choice, but I have one classmate from high school that chooses to work night shifts every other week. She works for schedule with getting the kids food and sleeping while they're at school. She even cooks dinner for the family I believe. Though I'm sure her husband helps. And then the next week she switches back to normal and goes back and forth. That's her choice and she says she likes it. So I wish I was healthy enough to be there and walk in with those catty and say as much. I've never had a problem being able to size up a group of catty women and put them in their place for hurting someone else. It's just hard when you're sick or the people that see your vulnerabilities are people you wouldn't want to see them. For me that's the caregivers and my family. My friends would never put me down and if they do like SC did the other day, it's really really upsetting and eventually I just have to walk away from it for a while and that friendship until I can cool down enough to remember she's human, she's wrong at times too, and I know her heart behind it all is not meant to hurt me but she's speaking out of her own opinions. And guess what, I don't have to let them be the answer. It still hurts and it still is hard to wipe that muck away, but I'm trying. I'm trying! To learn to let it redirect me to different people or different things. I won't let other people to find me because that's putting me in a cage and I'm already trying to break free of enough of them. So here's hoping I can build more backbone that way like I used to have decades ago. And as to you there, anyone that calls you lazy is possibly certifiably insane! An hour of the work you can do with all of your animals, and the training and understanding it takes to know how to do all of that, is high level. Oh I know that there are experts out there and I know that you've met some of them that will know more than you do, but I've been around enough country people, and when you talk about what you do, you're no slouch! You choose some of the way you live, and you choose a way to live through what you don't have much of a choice over or what works best for you. The quickest way to silence catty women is to see their faults and throw back that kind of snide remark in a veiled polite manner. I don't know that you're the kind that can be that false, but anyway I'll stop writing. It just makes me mad that they would treat you that way. ❤️ hugs
no subject
Date: 2024-09-25 07:08 am (UTC)I've probably done the same thing at some time or another to someone, maybe not realizing how it hit home. We all think we're just being funny or making an interesting observation until it hurts someone.
I don't know that anyone REALLY intended to hurt me with their comments, but it's just the years of being different with my sleep, and hearing the same thing over and over again, and you get so you can't tolerate those comments any more.
I think your insights about me having to create a life for myself are VERY TRUE, and I don't know if I ever thought of it that way before.
Trying to figure out what kind of person to become (because I needed to be different from how I grew up, with all the bad relationships, smoking, drinking, having kids with three different fathers, not putting the well being of animals very high, and so on) without having any good examples hasn't been easy.
I always wanted to be cultured in a way that wasn't snobbish or rude, but cultured in an honest, curious manner. Not to be pretentious about art or beautiful things, but to just experience them and learn about them. To feel like I was allowed to participate in things like an art gallery or the pottery studio, or the riding barn where there is a certain kind of refinement.
I was so embarrassed most of the time in school for not being "cool", for being put in a category of "less than" for not having money or being conventional, that I ended up not even wanting to be cool or conventional either, because that just seemed like a way to exclude people. So, I didn't even have the goal of conventional standards, the easy norms like just listening to mainstream songs and wearing whatever stupid sweatshirt was cool.
To figure out a way to live in the country and not abandon my roots, but to also be something else too.
You're right about trying to figure out how to be a woman being very hard and confusing. My Mom more or less became a man when our Dad died, with no trace of femininity left. In a way it was nice to have the freedom to be a feral child, to run in the bush with the animals and ride my horses, and pretty much do whatever I wanted. That was nice. Not to say that any job was a "woman's job" or a "man's job", but just a job for whoever could do it.
Yet, that meant that there was also no help with looking nice, no one to take me shopping for nice clothes until my sisters did so, but they ended up helping me buy "women's clothes" not "teenager clothes" so that was weird too.
I've constantly felt like I had to create every part of myself, since I didn't want to be much like my family, or even most people in my peer group, but something else altogether.
I buy a lot of clothes, trying to come up with things that work on me, and I know they're still kind of "interesting" outfits sometimes, but they're part of my ever evolving identity. I'm not trying to be "trendy" or dress to fit expectations, but I'm looking for an authentic style or range of styles, so I don't know when I've hit those goals either because there ARE NONE. No finish line.
I haven't really found too many role models that give me an anchor either, though a few people in Wyoming, mainly the instructors from the college that we remained friends with during the time we lived there (since I wasn't the usual kid in those classes, but a thirty something year old woman, so those instructors weren't too old to be friends).
I've taken bits and pieces from people and hoped to incorporate that into myself, always towards some hazy vision of an ideal me.
You're right, without any way of knowing if I met any standards, and to be honest having lost all faith in the standards set by society, I had to come up with my own standards too.
I've probably set those standards very high for myself, and for the people I want in my life. I think the raw, imperfect authenticity of the way I had to build myself makes it impossible for me to tolerate people who just coast by on the way they imitate others, or are happy with the generic standards of our culture, because they've never challenged or examined those standards, or explored the rich variety of possibilities that exist outside the norm.
I do recognize in others that trait of having had to invent themselves, or being willing to examine the common values to see if they are really any good.
I'm not exactly wide open to any kind of woo woo hippy bullsh*t that people come up with to avoid responsibility, but when you find people who are just a bit different or creative, that's a sign. Also, generally there's more compassion in their mix, and a way of understanding how we can have been awkward and a mess at times, and made mistakes, but are trying.
Anyhow, thank you for that insight. It helps me understand why I feel so vulnerable all the time, because I am so unsure if what I am doing is "right", or if I'm making mistakes. I'm unsure of the goals, or if there even are any goals anymore other than "be true to myself and be good to others" (which is also tough, because I am not always sure of how to be good to others), and that's a tough one to always know if I've done it today. I have no idea when I've achieved something, or what it means. No idea if I'm "good enough" for myself.
You're right, when other people see your different-ness or your vulnerability and decide that they don't understand it and they want you to STOP BEING LIKE THAT, it's hard to let anyone see who you are. So you end up being this strange being struggling to be authentic all the time, but unable to do so in front of people. I think that's where the loneliness comes from.
Thank you for taking the time to put all of that down.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-26 04:43 am (UTC)💖
I also remember someone saying that don't forget that we judge everybody else is outside by our insides. And everybody else does the same. The majority of the time I completely forget how I actually come across to people. It's not at all the way I feel inside most of the time around them.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-25 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-27 05:55 am (UTC)