Envy: aka the color of my hater-ade is green

He was just so damn immodest about it I couldn't help but be a little disappointed at his success.  When someone gets lucky, it's just courtesy to acknowledge it.  No one likes a sore loser and every one resents the lucky winner who doesn't acknowledge that it wasn't their superior skill that made them the victor.  What am I talking about?  It doesn't matter really, it could be anything.  Football, Britney Spears, the Kardashians.  Some players are simply better than others.  When a weaker team or player makes a surprising upset, the operative word there is 'surprising.'  Some one is playing above their normal game or someone else is playing below their known skill level.  Either way, the universe resets eventually and the odds even out.  So why am I in a funk and wanting to retreat back into an even less-social cone?  I don't know.  Coming out of such a deep funk, I'm probably not as far away from it as I feel and thus am easily disturbed/perturbed.  My motivation saps easily and even when I'm doing all the right things I know to do, sleeping, exercising, eating reasonably well, I am easily overcome with emotional distraction.  I'm about 10 weeks out now.  It seemed like longer until I thought about it in weeks.

When I feel a certain way, when I can't really figure out what I'm upset about, I try to be honest and say exactly what I'm thinking even if I don't like what I think it says about me.  I don't think he deserved to pass.  I think he had an advantage that he refuses to acknowledge which I find duplicitous, especially because one week ago a person with superior skill was berated and harassed throughout their testing BY THE SAME TESTER and got lower scores than a guy who can not finish a single sentence without being corrected.  If you acknowledge the person who got the same score as you is significantly better, how can you not acknowledge personal bias was a factor in your test?  It's the kind of shit that makes me feel insane.  We are all working hard and it is not without skill or preparation that you can walk into a room and make conversation in a foreign language or even your native tongue.  I can not deny him the things he knows or his preparation.  But it irritates the shit out of me that he's celebrating his skill instead of his luck.  My instructor, who was his as well, said it best, "It's not what you know, but who you know."  This is how it is.

All a big distraction though and nothing I need to let derail or distract me emotionally.  It doesn't matter if it isn't fair, life isn't fair, not even a little bit, and what joy can be had should be had with a spirit of gratitude.  I was grateful to still be here this last weekend.  My sister visited, we hung out, caught up, hung out with my mother on the anniversary of her near death, played a practical joke on my father.  I was glad to be there; to not grieve my family with a sense of loss because I can't hold it together over here or more accurately, I just want to let it go.  There has been some unexpected laughter, some unexpected ease where I anticipated great difficulty (and had every reason to bet on it), and a departure process eerily devoid of major bumps or obstacles.  I don't know if I am finally at the end of my proverbial rope and God has decided to help me see him better lest I doubt he exists at all, or at least not in anyway that is interested in me personally.  I don't know if these things are a mild crest before the final descent.  I do know my curiosity about what comes next is waning and I'm not weathering the bumps with the same aplomb I think I managed before.   Now I'm just tired and largely over it.  I've moved so, so, many times but life isn't like real estate where location matters.  Still, there's a involuntary hope attached to a move.  It's the same feeling I think everyone gets when they play the lottery.  The odds are very much against it but there's a 1:170,000,000 chance it could change your life.

It feels bratty to the point of inviting personal disaster to be this ambivalent about my existence and my continued interest in it.  I recall DFW saying that by the time a person kills themselves, they are just being orderly (i.e. making the condition of the body match the condition of the soul/heart/mind).  There is so much loss in the world, there is so much that could happen suddenly to rip us/me from this mortal coil why do I even host this kind of party in my head?  Why does anyone?  I can't answer for anyone else or explain someone else's motives.  I don't think it's simply selfish or simply self-hatred or simply a desire to exercise control over something as terrifying and otherwise unpredictable as death, or simply unrelenting misery and lack of hope it will change.  It's like asking someone how they came up with a line of prose that touched you or a melody or a motive for murder.  One day, it totally made sense for that person and things just unfolded in a certain way.

What I've realized is that I have some significant tethers, the biggest one of which just started her countdown routine to herding me out the door to pick up her shit.  I am a little concerned how I will handle the inevitable with her.  Though I have friends/acquaintances, with 1.5 exceptions, we're not a big part of each other's lives; they depend on me for nothing and the general level of sharing doesn't normally delve beyond current events.  It's the folks I rarely expect to pick up when I call (and vice versa) and who normally don't call back the same day or even the same week.  But that 1.5--I really depend on them.  I realized a couple of weeks ago that talking/writing is a big part of my closest friendships.  I really don't need to go anywhere or be in the same room or same country. Conversely, if hanging out is your friendship currency, we don't have as much in the bank.  Just like any conversion from one currency to another there is a constant lack of parity and someone is always feeling a little guilty about something; for getting less than they think they should, for getting more than they know they put into it, whatever.  Bottom line, whether I have 1.5 or 15, I have tethers and now I have to go pick up tether poop.