emotional rollercoaster

[chanaleh]

Funny how it always seems to take me until Tuesday to recap the weekend.

Happiest moment of this weekend:

Walking into the LSE housewarming/Halloween party Saturday night, and immediately being enveloped in warmth and appreciation (to say nothing of ego-stroking). You look fabulous! What a great costume! We're so happy to see you! Come over here, baby! Let me take your picture! Mrrrrowr! I felt radiant and cherished.

Saddest moment of this weekend:

About an hour before that, at the previous party, where Matthew was also in attendance. Which I genuinely believed would be fine, and it mostly was. Until I finally (having kind of followed him around the party, being unable to help myself) got him alone for a moment. Which was precisely the moment where things had gotten a little awkward; and within about six seconds he says, "Well, I'm going to get something to drink." And splits. Leaving me standing alone in the empty living room with the dance music.

For a flash I thought he must have meant he would be right back -- until a good five minutes later I saw him ensconced in a conversation on the other side of the dining room (this really wasn't that large a party). And suddenly I was so hurt I could barely see, because I couldn't believe I had just been handed such a blatant exit line.

Unfortunately this resulted in a small psychodramatic display on my part before I made it out the door; but fortunately that resulted in my actually getting Matt to stand still and talk to me (in the front stairwell) for 10 or 15 minutes before I really did have to go.

And as usual it was attributable to mutual general angst and crossed wires -- much like the micro-psychodrama we (or I) experienced the previous Sunday night after set build. Where it's hard for both of us to figure out how we should interact in person, and the tension is compounded by being in a group setting (an additional stress on his socio-cognitive load). And he's so busy trying to manage his own feelings at seeing me that he can't even tune into (never mind address) my feelings at seeing him. -- And all the while I'm driving myself crazy trying to work out whether I'm a complete fool for letting myself want to be back with him; and the answers I get when I actually see him are never reassuring ones! ("But," he counters, "you should know that a party setting is never going to be a good place to get reassuring answers from me..." Well, true enough.) *sigh*

Neither of us really wants to let go, and yet neither of us really trusts the other enough to actually come back.

Yet, anyway.

Second happiest moment of this weekend:

Going over to Brian's place Sunday evening (after spending the day out at the maize maze with Pup as his 30th birthday outing-- which was fun too, don't get me wrong -- and going for yummy sushi with Pup and Joelll and Alex and Bridget).

We talked for a long time. And we cuddled. And we watched the first episode (not the pilot) of Babylon 5, which he's slowly initiating me into. And he played me part of the CD of the Yiddish production of Pirates of Penzance -- Di Yam Gazlonim! And I gave him a backrub. And overall the whole evening felt... soul-feeding.

Second saddest moment of this weekend:

Crying in shul again. This has been happening to me practically every week lately. As I was explaining to Brian, it's because it provides me a fair amount of private meditative/introspective space (especially during the silent Amidah prayers, which can involve a lot of energy for personal petitions; but also during the Torah reading, when I'm not actually reading).

This week, the part that got to me [and I'd cut away from this further, but there are no lj-meta-cuts!] was in the Haftarah, which was the story of the prophet Elisha and the Shunnamite woman in II Kings 4. She's a wealthy woman who has shown him great hospitality, so to reward her, he tells her she will bear a son within the year (she has no child and her husband is old). So she has the child... and then he dies of sunstroke. Whereupon she immediately jumps on a horse and rides out to Mount Carmel to find Elisha.

27 And when she came to the man of G-d to the hill, she caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi [Elisha's manservant] came near to thrust her away; but the man of G-d said: 'Let her alone; for her soul is bitter within her; and HaShem hath hid it from me, and hath not told Me.'
28 Then she said: 'Did I desire a son of my lord? did I not say: Do not deceive me?'

I see a lot of myself in this accusation. 'Did I ask you for this favor? I refused to make myself vulnerable by asking you for this, but you gave it to me freely -- and now, it was only to take it away again?' That pretty well sums up a whole set of my deepest, darkest fears. (Fortunately, in the story, Elisha comes home with her and restores the boy to life -- but the real resonance for me hinged on the passage above.)

Then again, I'm starting to see myself in a lot of the barren-woman themes of Jewish literature. Not that I'm in a position to suffer from literal infertility (being as I haven't ever tried out my fertility -- kaynahora); but take the line in Psalm 113 about how God "raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the needy out of the dunghill" -- and in the last line "maketh the barren woman to dwell in her house as a joyful mother of children". Metaphorically, that encapsulates the kind of transformation I've begun pleading for in my personal prayers.

And of course, I should add that this particular Saturday morning was a bat mitzvah for a kid I've known since she was six, and lots of life-cycle, Jewish-family thoughts were piling up on me as well. But the upshot is that I'm getting really bone-tired of this business of crying to myself in shul every week. So much so that I actually said as much to Jonathan, on the phone in-between shul and rehearsal.

Additional happy moments of this weekend:

Driving back from the maize maze with Pup Sunday afternoon, we took the scenic route (or routes: 62 and 2, specifically), and stopped off at one of the many farmstands on Route 2 to buy local apples and cranberries and cider and cinnamon bread, and pet the calves and baby bunnies. Yay, fall in New England!

Having Jonathan get so psyched about my Maenad costume that he worked up a thoroughly smashing satyr costume to accompany me. (And on him, believe me, it works; he can even play a satisfactory dithyramb on the pennywhistle.) He's so cool... damn it all.

I could go on in this vein, but I'll leave it at this, except for one postscript.

Most simultaneously-happy-and-sad moment of this weekend:

Late Sunday night, I got email out of the blue from a onetime long-distance lover who, for all intents and purposes, disappeared out of my life three years ago (and who I gave up on completely two years ago once he'd ignored two or three emails in a row from me). I was tempted to write back with pointed comments about how long it had been since I fell off his radar... but his letter was actually so mollifying and pleasant that I didn't, and was civil back. So maybe this is the beginning of a renewed correspondence. (Or maybe it's a fluke, who knows?) However, it also inspired me to sit down and read through the email file I still keep -- the end of it, chronicling his rather abrupt drift away, and my utter inability to make sense of it all. Which, of course, was a way of walking through the pain all over again. But also reminded me how intensely I can feel about someone (even when they thoroughly fail to deserve it).

Comments

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

thanks, and thanks :-)