I think I'm kind of glad that February's over. It's kind of an overdetermined month for me to begin with, and it's one where, increasingly, its meanings aren't readable until much later anyway. It also inevitably seems long and sloggy--perhaps even because it's so short, you're always surprised it's still going on. Mostly I'll keep telling myself that at least I'm far less wretched than I've been at this time in either of the last two years.
And I feel slightly better today, calmer. Could be it's all just Saturday, something about the way I experience a week making it inevitably--something. I've never really had a comfortable relationship with the weekend, not when I was growing up or working a 9-5 job either. Saturdays rarely sit well with me, and I can't really remember the last time I felt like I actually accomplished something on them, other than going to the farmers' market and making a nice dinner (or going to the museum to meet a cute boy whose recent silence has me going a bit churny). Perhaps there's a lesson in this, about changing my expectations. (I feel much more ready to work today, much more ready to go to school and sit down with all this. The idea of going to school on Saturdays, especially if the next plan is to just go home when I'm done, is incredibly, crushingly depressing even now.) Like perhaps I could have gone to the afternoon sitting at the zendo yesterday--that might have been a good thing to do, something to take me out of the loop I got myself into. These happen once a month; perhaps I should look up the next one and plan for it now. (Of course, now that I look at their calendar, I see they don't have another one on there for awhile. Anyway.)
I suppose the point is that I should maybe ease up on myself where Saturdays are concerned. I'm starting to do that informally already, but even when I'm cleaning the apartment I feel a kind of guilt of how I should be reading or working; I sit down to read and immediately fall asleep no matter how much sleep I got the night before. Perhaps as the weather gets warmer (which is not happening this week--wtf, winter storm warning?) I'll just make a point of being outside, trying to do something to ease some of the anxiety I felt yesterday. Of course this will / would always be easier with another person around. I know what gets me on Saturdays a lot of the time is the solitude, which is why it was so great to have D around those couple of times. But right now I'm not sure that's something fully in my control.
But I'm feeling calmer this morning. I hope it lasts. About to sit zazen, then make an egg sandwich or something to fortify me on the way to Manhattan, which will probably suck. Going to hide out in the department as long as they'll let me, only going to the library under duress. (Though something tells me that if I do go to the library I'll run into K. Which might be amusing. I do occasionally wonder what he's up to, how he's doing.) Mostly, though, I want to spend today really focusing on the strength / productivity / creativity / non-wretchedness that's bigger than the last couple weeks of having D. in my life, something a bit more--grounded, perhaps? I don't know if that's exactly the right word--less contingent, maybe, or at least something that's expressing its contingency in a different way. Like one that isn't so tied to another person, because at least at some level, I know it's not, not entirely anyway. (On the other hand, I don't think that my conference paper for this Friday would be starting out the same way, but that was something I've been thinking about ever since I read Hegel last year.)
And maybe he'll call me. Maybe he won't. I don't know what I'll do in the latter case. I may call him and I may not. I'll see how I feel several hours from now; I'd very much like to get in a solid 7-8 hour workday if I can. (Which means I should have been sitting zazen like 20 minutes ago, but, alas.) I'm getting to a point where I'm simply ready to say: I want a boyfriend. If he can do that right now, if he wants to do that right now, then--great. I'll be in 100% as they say on teevee. If not...then I have to think of something else, someone else.
I often have a hard time figuring out my posture when I sit--I don't really have a good sense of my own body position, whether I'm actually sitting up straight or not. The foregoing paragraph is more or less an emotional correlative of this physical confusion.
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