system overload

I've been feeling a bit down lately. No doubt the effects of my lost friendship with C. I started thinking a lot about friendship, about the friends I have, and what they mean to me. But with a kind of dark view, because I've been feeling a bit down. I guess it's the depression thing. I didn't make it to yoga on Sunday, and then on Monday, I felt like I hadn't done yoga for ages; I was tight and hurt when I tried to get into certain positions. It was very frustrating.

So yesterday, I tried to talk myself out of going. But I was feeling pretty bummed about things and decided the meanest thing I could do to myself was go and deal with the frustration. (I knew it was also the nicest thing I could do for myself.) Actually, I let work decide for me. If there is no work to keep me at home, then I'll leave at 3 in time to get to the 3:30 class. That's what I told myself. And I even almost talked myself out of it when 3 rolled around and there wasn't a transcript to do. But I had already worked 37.5 hours in the preceding six days (12.5 of them on Sunday), and my eyes were bothering me.

When I got to M's apartment (the yoga studio), he was cleaning windows. He asked how I was; I said, "I'm here." He said, "Oh, it's like that, is it?!" He's a cheerful sort. Good-looking, strong, patient, funny, intelligent, a great teacher. I told him I couldn't think of any reason not to come, and he said, "You could've cleaned windows!" I said, "Yeah, if I had thought of that..." He said, "Call me next time and I'll give you some suggestions!"

Inside, I told him I deal with depression. He said he does too; he told me if he wasn't on anti-depressants nobody would be there. Interesting. He pushed me a little harder than I thought I wanted to be pushed yesterday - I thought maybe he would take it easy on me since I was feeling down (I wanted him to take it easy on me) - but he pushed me to do a jump-back. I struggled with it a while, complained some, got more instruction, then viola! I saw the light. I even said that. He said, "I wouldn't have told you to do it if I didn't know you could...for future reference."

And so, he gave me the ability to accomplish something difficult. I didn't do the jump-back very good, mind you - and boy were my arms tired after - but it felt good to have succeeded at something, to have done it that well.

I have a friend that I needed to take a break from. I realized after the loss of my friendship with C that it is a friendship that takes (a lot) more from me than it gives. And I think I need to surround myself with people who lift me up, people I want to be like. At least my close friends. There are some people in the improv community who annoy me (their sense of humor), but I don't feel close to them. I feel my friends should be willing and able to listen to me, that I should feel that they're listening.

With this one particular friend, I don't feel like that is the case. I never have. It has felt more like I am a caretaker all along. I came to this realization when I thought about telling this person about what had happened with C. I couldn't imagine saying anything because this person doesn't deal well with that kind of information. I don't need that in my life.

So, I ignored this person for a while, and kept getting phone calls that I didn't respond to, which caused the person to call another friend of mine and ask if she knew what was up with me. I didn't want to be rude, so I sent an email to this person saying that email was a much better way to correspond with me, that I was lying low and not answering the phone. The person responded to the email by calling me! I ignored that call, and then started getting emails and texts, asking me to do this or that. When I responded in the negative for whatever reason, I got a follow-up request for a different date and time and event. So, I sent an email saying I was not going to be socializing for a while, that I was concentrating on working and writing and doing much of anything with anybody.

The response was "Okay. I understand. Unless it's something I've done." Followed by another two paragraphs about how we could deal with it if it was in fact something that this person had done to upset me or push me away.

Too much work, that's what I say.

So that's where I am. I'm still feeling a bit blue, but I feel like I'm getting through it. And I'm very happy about the writing I've been doing.