things didn’t kill me but i don’t feel stronger
I kind of hate everyone and everything today. For no particular reason. There’s something shifting in me and I don’t like it. This is crazy/dangerous part of bipolarism. I can see the ticks and warning signs, but I’m not sure what they are warning. I’m not sure how to make things better. Although crawling back into bed and hiding under the sheets until the monster passes sounds like a very good option.
I’m annoyed with my raid group. I don’t always think their instructions are clear enough. Especially for a tactile learner like me. I can read every single fight guide, watch every singe video and memorize every phase and ability in the fight. But all that will be completely different once I’m in the fight itself, when I’m actually seeing and coping with the phases and abilities myself. I need to do to learn. Its like explaining how to hit a ball with a bat without actually giving the person a bat and throwing the ball. You can explain it until you’re blue in the face, but there will always be a few missed swings before the bat connects. That’s problem one. Problem two is that I’m not the smartest player. I cannot rattle off stats and numbers and every single gem and enchant and piece of gear the way that they can. My brain is taken up by other important things. It also never did well with statistics and numbers; not as well as I think it needs to do to be great in this game. I rely a lot on guides and advice from other hunters and other players. I’m willing to do what I’m told, but don’t expect me to memorize every single piece of information that game holds. Its just not going to happen. So I’m annoyed with them.
Dave was very nice last night and asked if he could play with my character and see if he could finetune it and help make me better. I told him thats fine, but that if the officers really wanted to replace me, I was okay with that too. If I can’t hack it, I can’t hack it and I’ll go find other things to do. I’ve been dying to solo old heroic dungeons and raids. I won’t stop playing – I may just stop raiding. It is just a game after all and its supposed to be fun. Everyone defines fun differently, but I think thats one of the more awesome things about the game. You can find your own type of fun. Last night after the raid, Dave and I talked for a while. He’s going to play around with my toon this week and see what he thinks. I think I don’t have the gear yet and probably don’t have the best reforging. The reforging is an easy fix, but the gear is another matter. I hate dailies, and I’m starting to hate dungeon runs. You need the dailies to get the reputation high enough with the correct factions to buy the best gear using Valor Points earned in dungeons. You also get minimal Valor Points from doing dailies. Not fun. Dave said that he really wanted me in raids and I wouldn’t be surprised if he offers to run the dungeons and dailies for me to get what I need. I don’t mind. My computer is also a little older now and the game lags a bit. Honestly, I don’t care that much. I still enjoy the game. But Dave is going to talk to Mitch and they are going to… I honestly don’t know. Make it run faster. Put stuff into it that will make it run better. I’m not educated enough to understand exactly what they will do, but I do trust them.
I think I found it. Why I’m feeling so… vulnerable and attacked. Part of it is still reeling from last week and the argument with Manny. Calling it an argument feels odd. It was a fight, but it wasn’t at the same time. He lost his temper and we both… wounded each other. Only once did I wonder if our relationship would really work. I landed on the thought that neither of us were walking away yet. We were both trying to find a way to stop hurting the other person, not caring about ourselves. We both were able to say ‘I love you.’ Not in a band-aid fix-it-all way, but in a reminder that admist the anger and hurt we both still cared. We are both aware that love doesn’t fix it all and just because we love each other doesn’t make everything all better. There will still be friction and arguments and heated discussions. Its a whole new level of vulnerability for me. To be that hurt and that upset with him, to have nothing left to say but to still not want (not even a tiny bit) to walk away. I had a number of friends telling me that if he couldn’t see it my way, he wasn’t worth it and I should walk away. I also had people telling me to just get over it and let him do whatever he wanted. There’s a middle ground there which he and I were able to find, but… its left me incredibly vulnerable. Too many people telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about.
Sunday at church, Mary and I got into an argument over how the accompaniment for one of the praise songs should go. First of all, she gave Greg, the bassist, the wrong music. Then she had given me a double-sided copy of the piano music. So I had to be flipping pages back and forth. The copy machine wasn’t working, which wasn’t entirely her fault except I had asked for single-sided music and I had told her to give Greg the piano music for the song. She told me he could just read the letters. Some people have a much harder time reading letter names than reading the notes on a staff. It would be like asking someone to read phoenetical pronunciation instead of the words actually written. You can do it, but its much more difficult. I found music for Greg which was half the size of normal music, but he could read the notes. Mary was mad because we hadn’t practiced it with that music and Greg didn’t get to try it out. But Greg told me that he does read staff markings better than letter names. And it went perfectly in the service. The other song has a very sombre third verse, talking about Jesus’ death. It opens up in the last line with a resurrection statement. I wanted to do the accompaniment that I had done the very first time we sang the hymn. It mirrors the words. Since Mary hadn’t given me the single-sided music it was a little more difficult to figure out how to make the interlude the same. She told me to just play the verse one over and over. Except I’ve told her I don’t like doing that because then I can’t sing along. I am cheated out of part of the worship service. I also cannot provide good support on the verses as the melody changes slightly. It works, but its not nearly as good. Little things could make it so much better. She told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I nearly lost my temper. I don’t know a lot of things. But I do know music. I do know how to play piano and I do know how to support a congregation. I went to school for music. I’ve been doing this my whole entire life. Her first time playing in public was when she was sixteen. At sixteen, I was accompaning multiple choirs and various instrumentalists and studying on my own as well. I don’t know lots of things, but this is something that I know.
I mentioned to my mother on Sunday that Emily (the most awesomest cousin in the world) came over on Saturday night and did my dishes. Such a little thing, but it was a huge help to me. She knew I had been stressed out over Manny and moving and other things. She wanted to do something to help me. Seriously, most amazing person ever. So I told my mother that she did this because she knew Manny and I had a tough week. My mother’s response was to ask if I still really wanted to go to Portland with Manny if we were fighting. I was too tired and distracted to have a good comeback, so I said something simple along the lines of "yes, its fine." Now I wish I had retorted, "Do you want to divorce Daddy every time he loses his temper and needs time to cool off?" I haven’t really told her whats going on with Manny and I because its so much more complicated than any relationship she’s ever had in her life.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother but she’s had a fairly normal life. She did the high school, college, master’s, career path complete with marrying just after college, two dogs and having a child at age thirty. Its hasn’t been perfect or easy, but its normal. Average. What is expected. She has very little context in which to understand the relationship Manny and I have. Part of it is that I don’t talk to her about much of it, and I know thats on me and not her. But she doesn’t understand right now and thats just the way it is. Her questioning if I really wanted to go to Portland with Manny again put me on the defensive and angry that someone was questioning something I knew so clearly.
All of this mixed together is what is making me feel so… attacked. It feels like I have to be on the defensive and constantly ready to defend my point and position. It wears on a person. Especially when I can’t curl up next to the one person who makes me feel better.
Forgive me someone, for I have sinned
And I know not where I should begin
Some days it feels like you just can’t win
No matter what you do or say.
Things didn’t kill me but I don’t feel stronger
Life is short but it feels much longer
You’ve lost that drive, you’ve lost that hunger
To pull yourself through the day.
But if ever I stray from the path I follow
Take me down to the English Channel
Throw me in where the water is shallow
And then drag me on back to shore!
‘Cos love is free and life is cheap
As long as I’ve got me a place to sleep
Clothes on my back and some food to eat
I can’t ask for anything more
Come on everybody sing it 1, 2, 3, 4
We’ve all got secrets that we hold inside
The worst little things that we try and defy
The worst one of all that you never can hide
Is that you’re never quite as strong as you sound
So I’m sorry baby, for the times I’ve hurt you
Sorry friends, for the times I desert you
Most days it feels like I don’t deserve you
No wonder that you’re all still around
But if ever I stray from the path I follow
Take me down to the English Channel
Throw me in where the water is shallow
And then drag me on back to shore!
‘Cos love is free and life is cheap
As long as I’ve got me a place to sleep
Clothes on my back and some food to eat
I can’t ask for anything more
Come on everybody sing it 1, 2, 3, 4
Come on and join me in the water
And we’ll Swim for home
Sometimes it’s hard to remember
I couldn’t do this on my own
If ever I stray from the path I follow
Take me down to the English Channel
Throw me in where the water is shallow
And then drag me on back to shore!
‘Cos love is free and life is cheap
As long as I’ve got me a place to sleep
Clothes on my back and some food to eat
I can’t ask for anything more
I can’t ask for anything more
The path I chose isn’t straight and narrow
It wanders ’round like a drunken fellow
Some days it’s hard for me to follow
But if you’ve got my back I’ll go on.
If you’ve got my back I’ll go on.
If Ever I Stray ~ Frank Turner