Whittling

May. 15th, 2004 02:10 pm
j4: (hair)
[personal profile] j4
Went to the bank and after waiting for nearly an hour (they said 20 minutes, they lied) finally got to talk to a human being. Apparently I haven't incurred any charge for exceeding the overdraft limit yet, and they've now given me a temporary limit that's a bit higher until the end of the month, by which time my salary will have gone through.

They did however insist on updating all my details (they still had me down as unemployed, despite the fact that I told them when I got the job at ProQuest, and told them how much I was getting paid; they also still had my parents' number as my daytime number) which was horrible because the bank man just looked at me as if I was stupid when I said I didn't know the exact figure for my take-home pay, and didn't know how much we still owed on the mortgage.

Thank you to [livejournal.com profile] juggzy for some useful suggestions by email but I really think the answer is that I just have to stop buying things. At all. I don't need anything else really. And I need to shift the mountains of useles stuff that I already have. I also have to stop lending money to people, and buying things for other people on the understanding that they'll pay me back as soon as possible.

I hate money. I hate all the Stuff I own, at the moment, too; I just want to throw it all away. And then run away to an island somewhere and eat berries and fish, and think for a bit, and make some pretty shapes out of sand, and then die.

* * *

Just so tired. Tired and shaky and headachey. Yesterday on the way home from work I came so close to just lying down on the pavement and going to sleep. Today I knelt down to put some of the shopping (thanks to [livejournal.com profile] sion_a, we have food tonight) in my rucksack and just couldn't get up. I just stayed kneeling there thinking "I should get up", but somehow I just couldn't. I could visualise myself getting up, but I couldn't make my legs obey, for a few minutes. I think, in retrospect, I wasn't sure why I should get up. My head hurts, and my limbs feel half-numb, as though it's taking longer than it should for signals to reach them and/or get back to my head. And if I rest my hands on the keyboard I can see them shaking.

Wish [livejournal.com profile] hoiho could be with me but he's got family crises to deal with. I feel horribly selfish for wanting him to be here when he's worrying about the people he cares about & wants to be with them. Now worrying too that if he knows I'm not well he'll just say I'd be better off without him, which isn't true. :-( Guilt, stress, guilt.

Was wondering about going over to see my parents tonight after the concert, staying for most of tomorrow -- somewhere that's nearly home. I'm just scared that a) I wouldn't be able to manage the drive in this state, and b) if I do get there I'll just cry the whole time and then they'll be worried about me and not want me to come back to Cambridge until I'm feeling better, and I can't call in sick, ever, not after the last job. At least not unless I have something really obvious that I can point to like a broken arm, or measles, or something.

* * *

Town was heaving, with all the nausea that the word conveys. Looking up Sidney Street from ... not Carfax, no, what do you call the, where the barrier is, outside up along from what was Joy and is now Eat (named for our modern gods) ... the hordes of people looked like an army of tiny dolls, picture-perfect with their miniature gesticulations, open-mouthed and mindless and terrifying.

[Somebody is itching to correct me on the road-names. THIS IS NOT A TECHNICAL MANUAL. Try reading rather than debugging.]

Date: 2004-05-15 03:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] juggzy.livejournal.com
If they feel like real reasons, that's what they are. I'm taking a guess here, but part of the problem is feeling that you have to live up to what other people want you to do, whereas you really, deep down, want to do stuff for yourself, even if you don't know quite what. ANd you feel terribly responsible for what other people do, and worry too much about doing the wrong thing for them. And however much you do what other people want you to do, it's never quite good enough, it doesn't make things different the way you keep thinking it might.

Sorry, I didn't mean to add to that pressure. And now you will go feeling bad because you think you made me say sorry. You didn't; saying that was my action (and I meant an African sorry, anyway), not yours. You've got to do what you want to do (as long as it doesn't involve buying things!) IYSWIM.

Date: 2004-05-16 03:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] j4.livejournal.com
feeling that you have to live up to what other people want you to do, whereas you really, deep down, want to do stuff for yourself, even if you don't know quite what

Sort of. It's sort of... I want to do stuff for myself, but it feels rather meaningless to do so, because I don't really exist except in relation to other people. Urgh, that sounds dreadful, doesn't it? But it is sort of true. Even when I don't feel like I'm going mad, it's sort of true, in an up-its-own-existential-arse kind of way.

ANd you feel terribly responsible for what other people do, and worry too much about doing the wrong thing for them. And however much you do what other people want you to do, it's never quite good enough, it doesn't make things different the way you keep thinking it might.

Oh, this is definitely true. Bits of my brain still haven't worked out that I can't make people love me when they don't. The problem is consciously I know this and I want to just Be Myself and hope that people will love me for that. But.

And I don't think you are adding to the pressure. What is an African sorry? Is that a way of saying sorry-as-in-regret without people assuming it's sorry-as-in-apology? If so, hurrah. Often my 'sorry' means that and then people shout at me for apologising too much.

Date: 2004-05-16 07:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] juggzy.livejournal.com
What is an African sorry? Is that a way of saying sorry-as-in-regret without people assuming it's sorry-as-in-apology? If so, hurrah.

Absolutely. I didn't realise there was the Other Meaning for Sorry, until I got to University because that's what most people meant when they said sorry when I was a kid. Sorry as in regret for something bad happening to someone else.

Often my 'sorry' means that and then people shout at me for apologising too much.

Haha. Me too. Only they don't any more because I have decided to stop feeling regrets for stupid things other people do. If only they knew.

June 2025

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15 161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jan. 28th, 2026 10:03 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios