I compartmentalize. I am under the impression most people don’t. Generally, things that upset me in one area do not bleed over to effect other areas. Is it so unusual?

I am so upset/angry/aggravated about something, but it isn’t bleeding over to my home and personal life. I know that no one actually believes that, but it’s true. I mean, I carry some of the upset home with me, but it dissipates. It does not effect what I have to do at home, how I treat my family and friends. It only effects me there.

This is the latest in my upset (I posted it late night to Punky Moms)

I want to preface this with, this is not interupting my life. It’s gonna sound like it is, but I promise it’s not. It’s not interfering with my daily stuff, or my relationship with Michael or the kids or anyone. It’s fully internalized. Which also isn’t good, but I externalized it with him, He knows it upsets me, I know it’s upsets me, I also logically know it’s my own weird mental problem and not anyone else’s, and it’s pointless to ruin someone else’s life because I feel like mine just got put on hold even longer.

Look, it’s my weekly I’m gonna erupt post.

It has me stupidly upset, to the point that I don’t want to go to the shop and enjoy what little adult time I get outside of DH and my dad, because someone is there who I don’t want to see/deal with/be reminded at every turn someone else is doing something that I feel I should be doing.

She is going to be there for a long time. The customary learning time, plus the job after. She isn’t going anywhere.

I can’t even stand to look at stuff around there because I know she is using it/labeled it/whatever. It’s this ridiculous now. I don’t even want to be reminded of why she is there.

It isn’t effecting my home life, it isn’t effecting my relationship (it is, but not like that, I’m just angry and it keeps me pissed off for part of every night I pick him up at work, and then I get over it until the next night). I am not angry at Michael. I am not angry at her. I am angry at me. I am so angry at me for being so angry about this. I want to hide from it, but I feel like every time I turn around, it’s right there.

I NEED to get over this YESTERDAY.

I thought if I found something else to focus on, something just for me, it would help. I bought a book on digital photography, to help me touch up my own shots. I was really into photography in high school, haven’t just taken photos for the sake of taking photos in over seven years. I am working out what all the settings and custom settings on my camera are, but I feel silly taking photos of “stuff,” because I know it’s pointless. I’m not gonna submit to a gallery, so why waste the digital space, you know?

I tried to draw some of my tattoos. I couldn’t even draw a damn tree. It looks like five different species of tree lumped together. It looked like crap. So I tried to draw some abstracts. It’s a fucking abstract! Who cares what it looks like, right? Even they came out for shit.

Can’t write. Nothing comes out.

I am so blocked it’s ridiculous. It’s like I can’t focus long enough on one thing for something wonderful to be created, or even something moderately OK.

In some ways I feel like no one expects anything of me, so why bother. Michael stands behind me in everything I do, but he has never put his foot down and made me finish anything, because he knows I would resent it and if my heart isn’t in it, I’d be bad at it anyway. He’s seen me through more hobbies than I can remember. More “I want to do this next!” and a month later I’m over it. I feel like nothing is calling to me, that this is it, the thing I am supposed to be doing.

And maybe I’d suck as a tattooist, but I’ll never know without being given the chance, and I hate that I feel like she is getting my chance.

I can’t ignore it. I know that. I tried. I tried real hard. Every little thing that isn’t how I know it was, that I know has been changed so she can learn, it bites at me. I feel like it’s being flaunted in my face, because I just can’t deal with this. I know it isn’t. I know it, but I can’t help how it feels, and I can’t make it go away, and I wish he could, but he can’t either.

So there it is. All laid out for everyone to see. I don’t want advice, or pity, or anything. I just want it to go away. I want someone to pick this bit of sand out of my bed for me, so it stops keeping me awake at night. I can’t seem to actually find it to brush it away. Maybe that means my problems isn’t actually that he is apprenticing someone else. Maybe it’s just an excellent scapegoat for me, and came at the time this would have erupted anyway.
I am so stagnant. I looked into getting teacher certification, but I’d have to go back to school for another two years (bachelors) before I could even think about taking the test. I have no interest in being just a sub (which apparently I can do without the BA). You know, before Dorian, before all of this, I wanted to go to Hopkins. I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted it so bad. Now? I don’t want to do the work, I have too many other things to go. My Zaide started law school at 40, nights only, to become a lawyer. Some days I feel like I can’t live up to the potential, because the potential just isn’t there. I am doing exactly what I have done for my entire life: Taking care of everyone else. I have flitted from hobby to hobby to hobby. Why didn’t any stick? They are useless. They don’t do anything. They don’t give me a deep sense of satisfaction, of a job well done.

I want to do so much more in my life, and I just feel like it’s never going to happen. I know, that’s a damned sight fatalist, even for me. Look at it from my viewpoint: my entire life, my entire life I have literally taken care of people. When I was fifteen I said fuck this, I’m not doing it anymore, and I left. Scared the crap out of the very people I had always taken care of, who, had I known at fifteen I was to take care of for the rest of their lives, I may have stayed away a bit longer. I needed that break. Well, I five children dependent on me now. I can’t just up and leave. Running away isn’t the answer anyway. I think that my anger has found a target, and just won’t let go.