Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Gravity
The further I get from the things that I care about, the less I care about how much further away I get.
Grumpy vs. grateful: the eternal dilemma
Occasionally when I am doggedly trying to stay empty and hollow, I find myself receiving regular and diverse bursts of encouragement from kind people who seem to be determined to lift me out of my misery. Today for example I started out nicely dug in for my quotidian sulk: Despite it being a work day, I lay in bed all morning, listening to the radio, hating myself and my life, and ignoring the phone, until well past noon.
But after I showered, shaved, dressed and left the apartment for the safety of my "third place" multinational coffee chain outlet, things started to get off track. Following up on my innocuous introduction, my seatmate struck up a conversation with me about her marriage, which led to her telling me that she knew a whole bunch of single women who would kill to meet an attractive and stable man like me, and then gave me her phone number as she was leaving and told me to call so we could pick up our conversation again.
A few minutes later, I got an unexpected text message from K., the vitality girl I met last week who runs the meditation seminars, who asked me out for a "spontaneous drink" tonight.
And then I got an elaborate email from A., offering me a choice of four activity "packages" for my birthday evening, with a diverse set of choices such as skating, dinner out, dinner at her place, movie, etc.
With all these women throwing themselves at me, I am finding it extremely difficult to focus on destructive thoughts about the past. I am of course open to any tips on how I could best ignore all this genuine affection I keep receiving and get back to ruminating about how I will never be able to replace the desperate and selfish neediness masquerading as attention I used to get from my ex.
But after I showered, shaved, dressed and left the apartment for the safety of my "third place" multinational coffee chain outlet, things started to get off track. Following up on my innocuous introduction, my seatmate struck up a conversation with me about her marriage, which led to her telling me that she knew a whole bunch of single women who would kill to meet an attractive and stable man like me, and then gave me her phone number as she was leaving and told me to call so we could pick up our conversation again.
A few minutes later, I got an unexpected text message from K., the vitality girl I met last week who runs the meditation seminars, who asked me out for a "spontaneous drink" tonight.
And then I got an elaborate email from A., offering me a choice of four activity "packages" for my birthday evening, with a diverse set of choices such as skating, dinner out, dinner at her place, movie, etc.
With all these women throwing themselves at me, I am finding it extremely difficult to focus on destructive thoughts about the past. I am of course open to any tips on how I could best ignore all this genuine affection I keep receiving and get back to ruminating about how I will never be able to replace the desperate and selfish neediness masquerading as attention I used to get from my ex.