Tag Archives: my therapy

Circles

Scene: The basement of an upscale restaurant in a hip Chicago neighborhood

Cast: Her. And a throne of other women. It would be accurate to add “mostly young and attractive (and white except her and one other woman, though this has nothing to do with anything really…)” Being young adds 20% at least to the overall attractiveness btw. Youth is something the young does not know to appreciate.

Setting: A “women @ company” event aiming to “unite” women in the company. Tonight’s event is for a popular Chicago chef to share with her exclusive audience how she overcame the male-dominant restaurant business.

There have been several emails going out to all the women in the office promoting this event. Come meet your co-workers, listen to someone who’s braved the male-dominant world and made it, be empowered (well, they have never actually used the word “empowered” in any of the communications. It’s like we are so liberated now, and all these “women @ company” events have to be coached in a non-militant, non-aggressive way), and oh yeah, have some cocktails and food while you do all of the above. She was not planning to go because she does not have any friend in the office. She just joined the company this past year and for all her work duties, she works with a different office remotely. For all intent and purposes, the space she occupies may as well be a rental space. Proof? This office location had two holiday parties and she was not invited to either. Sorry.

Somehow she decided that it’s her duty to support this bourgeoning group, “Women @ Company”. It’s simply not nice to poo-poo these events and cry about women not being valued (or valued less) in the company. With the sense of duty and “Oh, how bad can it be?” thought, she walked the 3 blocks.

She was relieved upon entering the room reserved for private parties to see one of her cubicle mates. Great! Someone she knew. She quickly got a vodkacran from the bar tender who listened sympathetically as she recounted how the office holiday party in another city that she went to last week had only a not-open open bar. The bar tender, probably feeling sorry, gave her a heavy pour of Ketel One.

She stood around awkwardly with her cube-mate and a couple of women whom her cube-mate knew. She instinctively sensed that one of the other women would rather not be in this circle that they formed. You just know these things, right? You could tell from the body language. The angling out. The slight turning-away. The “Oh I am so relieved you are here because now I don’t have to be talking to this woman whom I don’t know and have no interest in knowing” expression when someone else showed up. So now the circle was broken into two. Inconspicuously. But not, unfortunately for her, imperceptibly. Leaving her and her poor cube-mate whom she suspected was cursing her own bad luck, “Wait. I want to be in that other circle. The new one!”

Cube-mate quickly announced, “Well, I have to leave. I have to be home by 6 to relieve my nanny.” Yes, cube-mate is one of the few other women in the office with kids, even though cube-mate is probably almost a decade younger than she is.

With cube-mate gone, she’s left in an awkward position. “No matter. I will go get another drink!” Bar tender was happy to see her friendly face again. “Another one?” “Yes.” It’s amazing how almost all the bars she’s visited she never had to tell the bar tender what she wanted after the first round. She turned around with her new drink, and was faced with one of the most horrifying realizations. She did not have a circle to go back to.

AWKWARD.

She went back to the vicinity of the aforementioned new circle, just to test the water. No. Nobody made that slight movement to welcome her. She’s now faced with a tough decision: “What the fuck should I do now?”

Cellphones.

She took out her phone and pretended to check her messages in the midst of women engaging in delightful conversations. “This probably looks really rude. People are going to think that I am being a-social.” Chastised, she put away her phone quickly and braced herself. She turned around, took a deep breath, and slowly made her way to the bar. With a FULL drink.

The few seconds felt like eternity and the short walk felt as if it’d never end. Sorry for the cliche. But it is what it was. Nobody. She did not know anybody. Nobody acknowledged her presence. No circles opened up. She positioned herself by the bar, with a FULL drink, pretending that she’s waiting in line. For what? Her drink was fucking full. Yes, she could have finished her drink quickly so she could get another one. But she’s going to be faced with the same hell with a 3rd drink in her hand. She quickly decided that drinking heavily and fast by yourself in a small, and worse, well-lit room where it’s easily seen that you’re drinking heavily and fast by yourself was probably more pathetic than the situation she was already in. She moved back to the new circle and she forced herself into the circle by physically tresspassing the invisible line that formed the circle.

“Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. Hi, I am XXX. Nice meeting you.”

Now, this was not her imagination: If people want to include you, they will move slightly to make room. If not, they will simply turn around in order to address you, without moving.

It was made very clear to her.

“Fuck. This is even more awkward than before.” She quickly thought. “Do you know what time the chef will start speaking?”

“Oh. She’s supposed to start at 5:30.”

“Ok. Thanks!”

The women went back to their conversation.

She moved away from the force field and looked at her watch. 5:15. She turned around to survey the sea of circles and felt her eyes getting warm.

She needed to get out of there now.

On her way back to the office, her tears started swarming out of the corners of her eyes. Luckily it’s winter and it’s already pitch dark. The turn of the event caught her off guard. This was one of the selves that she was not prepared to confront.

She resisted looking at the darkened shop windows as she walked by, as her vain self was wont to, afraid that she’d see someone from the past.

“I thought I’ve left you behind many years ago.”

And she’d been proven wrong. So. very. wrong.

I’ve never been to me*

18 Replies

This post is inspired by The Bloggess‘ latest post I have no fucking idea what I am doing which has inspired 500 (and counting) comments so far, including the three comments I’ve left there… *cough cough* yes, I am a comment hog…

I have been grappling with this question: Who am I? since high school, and it has induced a lot of angst and crazy shit, including reading and misreading existentialist novels, and a suicide attempt because it felt exhausting and pointless to go on living.

I remember one of my teachers was particularly asinine. For example, this being an all girls’ school, she would interfere in people’s friendships whenever she thought the young women were too close to each other emotionally. (More about that, and my life in all girls high school some time later…) Anyway, one day she decided to talk about our mottos in life. So she wrote a bunch of standard, expected, nice things, e.g. the Golden Rule, be grateful, Karma, etc. Then she asked us to vote. I did not raise my hand, thinking it would not matter. That bitch went and added up the vote, and got pissed when she realized she was one person short. “Who did not raise their hand?!” she hissed. She had that look on her face that made me defiant (otherwise I’m usually quite easy going) and so I raised my hand.

“Why didn’t you vote?”

“Because none of them are my motto in life.”

She smirked. “Well, what is it then?”

I got up and walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote my name. True (or truth). Then I sat back down.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She hissed again, taunting.

“It means one should be true to themselves and be who they are.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ok then. Let’s vote again.”

Nobody raised their hand for the first choice. Nor for the second one. Nor for the third one… … When she got to the last one, the one I added, every single person in my class raised her hand.

This youthful obsession with finding oneself and staying true to it came hand in hand with my obsession of Hermann Hesse’s Demian. I was hooked by the very first line from the book:

I wanted only to try to live my life in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?

This being one of the classic Bildungsroman, the protagonist’s main objective was to find himself, on a path to enlightenment and self realization.

Each man’s life represents the road toward himself, and attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that — one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can.

This sounds great and vaguely romantic on paper, unfortunately, it caused a lot of heartaches and confusion because try as I might, as pretentious as I wanted to be, I could not seem to embark on that journey. I did not even know where the Yellow Brick Road started.

During my “self searching” formative years, I wrote the only short story of mine that was ever published. Don’t get too excited, it was published by the school magazine. I don’t even have a copy of the magazine and I can only barely remember what I wrote. It was narrated in first person (of course!) fashioned after Notes from the Underground. The Narrator complained about having trouble recognizing her own face in the shop windows when she walked by, in the mirrors, and in group photos. What she saw was a young woman with an unnatural smile that made her look as if the corners of her mouth were pinned to the sides of her cheeks. She could not recognize her. Blah blah blah. She ended up carving herself a smile. (WAY before The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger as The Joker…)

Now that I am (much much) older and (debatable) wiser, I think I’ve got it figured out. The problem is that most people still subscribe to the idea of a true self being somewhere to be found, that there is this essence of oneself to be discovered. (I think this has something to do with Plato and Aristotle from the very beginning but I have given all my knowledge about Greek philosophers back to the teacher as soon as I received my diploma…) It is somehow our job, as we grow, to discover what that essence, that core, i.e. our true self, is.

But here is the right question to ask, imo: What if there is no core? What if we are more like onions? What if we are made up of all the layers? If so and you still believe in finding that core, no wonder you feel lost: as you peel away each layer of the onion, you are like, FUCK! There is another door behind this door! What if we shift the paradigm of how “selves” are defined, and that every single layer is YOU? The real you. Everything you do, everything you say, every decision you make, ~~every breath you take,~~ is what makes you you.

To steal Sartre’s famous line: “Existence precedes essence. ” Your essence, who you are, is defined by the way you live your life, the actions you take, the decisions you make. This also means one’s true self is constantly changing, because our actions are constantly changing.

The person you encounter each time, even though she may be slightly different from one moment to the next, is you.

~~Ergo, even when I am pretending, I am being myself because in some sense, when I become so sure of myself, I cease being myself. Ouch my head hurts! I need to stop right now!~~

Before I end this rambling, I just want to quote e.e.cummings, yes, again, because the quotient of pretentiousness in this post has not gone through the roof just yet!

* I am not endorsing the message from the one-hit wonder I’ve Never Been to Me. Just borrowing the title. Although I’ll admit, the song is a sweet sweet gem for a good old drunken Karaoke session.

Envy

20 Replies

Of all the Seven Deadly sins, ENVY arguably is the root of all evil, imo.

Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all. — Joseph Epstein

Kevin Spacey obviously agrees and that’s why his character in Seven saved Envy the Sin for himself…

It is also in the Ten Commandments in the form of the Tenth Commandment:

Thou Shall Not Covet.

Envy is an emotion that occurs when a person lacks another’s (perceived) superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. (Wikipedia. What else?)

Most of the strife and many of the abhorrent, cruel, cold acts men committed against fellow men in this world have been caused by envy. To understand Envy, we need to understand the differences between Envy and his close cousin, Jealousy.

“Envy” and “Jealousy” are often used interchangeably, but in correct usage, they stand for two different distinct emotions. In proper usage, jealousy is the fear of losing something that one possesses to another person (a loved one in the prototypical form), while envy is the pain or frustration caused by another person having something that one does not have oneself. Envy typically involves two people, and jealousy typically involves three people.

(Wekipedia. Sigh. Maybe I SHOULD make a donation to Wikipedia after all…)

Or as Aristotle said…

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.

In this sense, Jealousy implies that there is a “reason” behind the emotion that human beings should be able to relate to: the fear of losing a loved one to someone with something more desirable, whereas Envy causes you to stand alone with your rage (for the rage “It is not fair” inadvertently comes when one is envious of someone else for something; the rage becomes even more severe when one recognizes that there is nothing unfair about the situation and yet cannot help but feel the tightening of one’s heart)

The emotion used most often to explain the motif (if there HAS TO BE one) for Iago’s actions in Othello is envy. I despise any attempt by modern scholars and especially, theatrical directors to turn his motif from Envy to Jealousy, creating a plausible yet cheapening story of Iago’s potential infatuation with Desdemona or Othello.

Why does Iago’s action have to be interpreted with reason? Envy is irrational, pure and simple. And what makes it the worst of all human emotions: It is isolating, unproductive, and more often than not, destructive. And it lives within all of us.

Here is my confession.

Envy lives within my heart and I cannot ward it off completely, 24/7.

When I marvel at undeserved good fortunes and when I subjectively decide who is or is not worthy of such good fortunes. When I belittle the fashion world and the people living in it. When I complain about my sister-in-law whose husband does all her bidding and whose parents are at the ready to provide long-term free babysitting. When I go out of my way to ignore bloggers whose husbands cannot get enough of them in the bedrooms and, it seems, everywhere else. When I tighten my fists reading about husbands who help around the house after an 8-hour work day. When I make fun of the really wealthy for their frivolous purchases or idiosyncrasies. When I look down at the young for their recklessness and carefree-ness.

I cannot honestly say that I do not feel envious.

When I witness brilliance and genius.

I cannot honestly say that I do not feel Antonio Salieri’s pain, that I do not understand where his hatred of Mozart came from.

Even though I could comfort myself with the understanding and perhaps acceptance that “There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy” (Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the guy who wrote The School for Scandal), I despise and scare myself when I recognize envy in my heart. I look in the mirror and I see ugliness. Embarrassed and ashamed. I close my eyes, shake my head, breathe deeply, willing it to go away by counting my blessings.

I learn to truly recognize and sincerely admire the brilliance and genius in those surrounding me.

This has served me well in blogosphere.

Called My Bluff

63 Replies

The phone rang and I noticed the number was an unfamiliar one. Even the area code was one that I did not recognize.

“Hello. Hi. Let me introduce myself. I am So and So calling from blah blah blah…”

That’s all I heard since I pegged her as one of the telemarketers. I was more than a little bit peeved and was about to tell her off: she had made a telemarketing call to my work place. Absolutely not cool.

“So we have a bunch of private investors pouring xx million dollars into this new company…”

Ok. So great. Now this is a scam. “I get to blog about it!” I thought.

“We are looking for a VP of ________ . Are you interested in the position?”

I was about to say, “You must have mistaken me for someone else.” But I stopped myself.

Career Building 101. Never ever show lack of self-confidence or self-doubt. Never.

That meant I tried hard not to burst out laughing in the first five minutes because of the sheer ridiculousness of it. “You must be kidding me!”

As I listened to her spill, it suddenly dawned on me that SHE was trying to sell the position to ME.

Me.

I was in shock. Nay. My chest was closing in on me. My heart was pounding so hard I could not hear clearly what she was saying. I began to hyperventilating while trying to carry on a conversation while puffy messy goo swirled inside my head.

Goo of terror.

I was petrified. I had a full-on panic attack because just as suddenly it also dawned on me that THIS was the moment of truth. I had been called on.

It is one thing to be stuck in a job where you feel you are not being appreciated and utilized, where you feel you are not getting the promotions you deserve, where you feel your talents are being wasted. WHINE WHINE WHINE WHINE WHINE.

It is a completely different matter, I found out today, to be offered an opportunity and realize that you are not able to take it.

You are too chicken. You are not convinced that you are ready. You just want to be Grasshopper. Forever and ever. Less terrifying that way.

Who do I think I am? What do I think I will do showing up at this place trying to pretend that I can even interview for the position?

I started making up excuses that would not expose me as the fraud that I am. Hopefully.

Unrelated industry. The need to relocate. Not the 100% match of experiences. Oh and did I mention that the industry is completely absolutely totally different from the industry I have been in?

I started to shiver. I wanted to tell her, “You’ve got to be kidding me. You must be the worst executive recruiter I have ever heard if you even called me!”

My hands were shaking so hard and really I just wanted to end the phone call so I could lie prostrate, banging my head and arms on the floor. I was utterly, desperately, disappointed by myself.

The phone call called my bluff. I showed my hand and it was empty.

p.s. I don’t want to end my post on an alarmingly low note. I have issues. I know. I need therapy. But if I see one more so-called life coach follow me on Twitter, I will go berserk!

p.p.s. On an unrelated note, I will be getting a letter tomorrow, along with everybody else in the company, telling me whether I still have a job.

p.p.p.s. I am trying not to think of this phone call as a sign. A sign for what?! anyway. Or an omen.

p.p.p.p.s. Sorry for the sad vibes. Drinks on me!

The white flag goes up…

10 Replies

Remember the tagline of my blog? These posts are supposed to be my therapy sessions. Ranting about the demise of Thanksgiving and gloating about making shotgun Christmas ornament is not very healing. The following is one of my therapy sessions. I am getting on the coach now. You have been forewarned…

I am not quite sure about the whole Twitter and the blogging thing any more. First I have the follower counts to obsess about. Then I agonize over how few of the @’s I have been getting. Now there are the LISTS that scream “Popularity Contest” more than ever. The same with this blogging thing. I installed the WordPress Blog Stats plug-in. Now I get to watch the pot boil.

Don’t worry. I am not going to whine. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die. There is actually a funny story I want to share with you. I want to explain why I am scared to death of popularity contest. Literally. Anxiety attack type of reactions. Chest closing down on me. Disorientation. Hard to breath kind of thing.

As soon as I sense that something is in essence a popularity contest, I never bother trying. I just give up. I am scared to death of popularity contest. I am also scared to death when I have friends. When people take a liking to me.

In short, I am afraid to disappoint.

I am not a shrink, but my guess is that you would be scared of popularity contest if you went through fourth grade through sixth grade with NOBODY in your class speaking to you. The entire three years… Silence. As if you were not even there.

No violin in the background. I will save you the drama and just list the facts:

I was one of the popular kids in my class from first grade to third grade. I remember that because I remember being one of the first ones to be chosen whenever a game demanded such cruel device of pitching innocent children against each other.
One day, out of the blue, during fourth grade, I noticed that nobody in my class would talk to me. They willfully ignored me. I was suddenly invisible to them.
Since all the kids stayed in the same class throughout the remaining grades, this silent treatment lasted till I graduated from grade school.
I thought about running away from home because my mother would not believe me. I was unable to convince my parents to transfer me to a different class or school.
I started thinking about suicide early on because I had no idea how to end THAT. Please don’t be alarmed: When you believe in reincarnation, the thoughts of suicide do not carry the heavy concept of sin and ending.
This childhood experience affects what I do, think, say from that point on.
I still have nightmares about THAT.

This is actually a funny story. Well, what happened AFTER the grade school is. As the years went by, I would see some of my tormentors classmates in the senior high school we went to. Apparently there was going to be a class reunion the year we entered college. “You are like the ugly duckling turning into a swan now.” Code for: you cleaned up good. Mind you: we all went to same-sex senior high schools so the person that said this to me was female. Would you like to go?

Of course, as needing therapy as I am, I went. I was curious. I wanted answers. I of course also wanted to show that I turned out ok. Despite everything. Somehow I also managed to charm.

On the long bus ride home, the man-child sitting next to me was very obviously smitten. I have been wondering for six years why they all treated me like shit, actually, worse than that, like NOTHING, back then, but I was also lucid enough to have guessed that probably nobody else remembered THAT but me. I took my one chance and gingerly brought THAT up.

“Do you remember when in grade school, none of you talked to me for three years?”

“Huh. Oh. Yeah. You still remember THAT?”

I proceeded to describe in simple terms how it felt to be me in those years. I was looking out the window when I spoke. The last thing I wanted to see was the expression that proved my suspicion that none of my sufferings were real to anybody else, that I might as well have imagined them. Soon I heard sobbing. I turned and saw tears streaming down his cheeks. Then came the Confession of the Century that I was not expecting:

“It was ME!”

“Huh?”

“It was me that told everybody to stop talking to you.”

Then I remembered that we were best buddies in the third grade. I recalled watching him hogging the Pacman machine until the store owner came out to give him his coin back. I even recalled going to his house and playing with him and his younger brother, and his mother saying, “Come back again soon!”

“… why?”

“Hmm. I guess because I liked you.” More sobbing. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know it was so difficult for you.”

“There. There. It’s ok. I am ok now.” I ended up having to console him.

The truth of course was: I was not ok.

Later, through college years, he wrote me several love letters. I did open them but could never bring myself to read them.

Hi. My name is L. I am forty years old and I still have nightmares about my friends not talking to me. In my nightmares we are all still 10 years old.

You are probably in the wrong place!

The Absence of Alternatives

My therapy sessions…

Tag Archives: my therapy

Circles

I’ve never been to me*

The white flag goes up…

You are probably in the wrong place!