All the good and all the bad

Oh how life takes its turns, huh peepers?

So, I quit law school. The short version is that I chose wrong and it sucked. The slightly more detailed version is, I do not fit into that world, or belong with the people in it. But it's not a sad thing, really. I quit a year ago, but I didn't make much fuss about it, cause it was a calculated move. This spring I reapplied for college, and in late August I started studying psychology. In less than a month, I have my first exam. And I love this study. The campus, the classes, the people, the whole dang vibe. My study group is amazing, they are the sweetest people ever, and we work so well together. We have similar ideas and feelings about prioritizing, workload, how often to meet up and about what, and everyone respects the deadlines we set. We just had the first assignment where we could choose other groups to work with if we wanted, but we all agreed we'd rather stay together.

I'll be honest, I hate statistics, which is one of my courses this and next semester. But I'm getting by in it. Not amazingly, I never will with math stuff, but! I'm not a total failure at it either. I have faith I'll be able to pass it, even. Social psychology is probably my favorite, though. And then there's.. how to translate it. Scientific theory? Yeah, that'll do. It's hard as shit, but I love the wins when I get something. And I love that A is doing her masters in pedagogical psychology (enabling her to teach it!), cause we have a lot of overlapping material, and are able to discuss and help each other out. And bitch about it when forced to read translations of Sausurre.

Next semester will be personality psychology and neuro-bio. The latter worries me a bit, it sounds heavy, but it's okay. I'm sure it'll be fine. I definitely made the right decision switching. And in a handful of years, I get to call myself a psychologist! How fucking cool is that!

On a different note, in a few days, I'll be getting to finally enjoy my birthday present from the friends. We're visiting an Alpaca farm! And I get to walk one! M is walking one with me, but the others are just tagging along. Well, AD isn't, cause car space and probably rocky ground to walk on. I'm glad M is joining, though, she's my co-animal-lover. Our love for the fur monsters are strong enough for everyone though. Afterwards they're treating me to a candy-shopping spree, then we head home and have my favorite cake (carrot cake with loads of frosting!) And then! In the evening, we're trying out Korean bbq for the first time! A is not joining for that, but AD is, so I get to spend time with everyone throughout the day. It's a whole day of fun activities and stuff I like, and I'm really looking forward to it!

And after the last month and a bit, I feel like I need it. There's been drama with an older friend, that blew the heck up, and I have to admit I ended up completely losing my goddamn shit over it. The thing is, a lot of it happened behind my back, even though the person had all the opportunity in the world to talk to me about it, but chose not to, yet blames me for not clearing things up. I absolutely get how there was confusion and something was misunderstood, don't get me wrong on that. But I thought this issue was at a 2, while this other person victimized themselves and escalated it to a 9, declaring me the villain, without actually just calling me a villain to my face. And that is just. Yeah, I can't even. It all blew up when her trusty meddling friend tried to defend her, and was the most obnoxious little shit about it. At least to my face. But he pushed all the wrong buttons with me, and I ended up actually screaming at him in anger, and that's not something I'm proud of. I pride myself in remaining composure with stuff like that, but he was just so provoking! Telling me that I was angry in a situation where I wasn't, as if he knows better than me what I felt, laying claim to me creative work, having already tried to steal it behind my back, telling me I had no copyright on it, but being extremely butthurt that I removed his access to it, and wanting to discuss semantics about when I did it, like it has some bigger meaning than what I told him. He was baiting me, and I was already bottled up with anger, so I blew up. It was handled very gracefully by the people around us who, given the situation, which I'm not explaining, should very much be handling it with us. But it wasn't resolved. And it needs to be, at some point.

What really pisses me off about it, is the fact that it all sprang from me setting a boundary. The friend it concerns said something that I feel was super disrespectful. And the thing is, they didn't as much apologize, as insisted on explaining how it wasn't what they meant. And undermined my reaction and feelings, by saying I must have been having a bad day or something. But initially, my response was just 'don't talk to me like that some other time', and I consider it a closed issue. I don't owe anyone to hear their reasoning when they step on my feet, and when they're more busy defending themselves than apologizing, I really, really don't need to waste my time on it. But I was over it, I stated that much. It didn't need to be anymore of an issue.

But because a series of completely unrelated things happened, this person chose to connect them to this issue, that they were apparently very hurt I had been so blunt about. So they chose to talk to every other person than me about it. I even reached out to open a conversation to clarify about the unrelated things, because they did involve them. But I wasn't aware of it being this huge thing, till one of the people who should get involved, contacted me, wanting to hear my side. And I realized what had happened. The friend was ignoring my messages, knowing full well they were there, they just didn't open them. Until last minute before we had to see each other again, and again they did /nothing/ to take any responsibility in the whole thing. Not. One. Thing. But they did use disability to excuse why they could barely have the conversation. And later on, after abandoning the conversation, opted to post on Facebook about it, thank God leaving names out of it, but again victimizing themselves about being pushed beyond their capability (due to a lot of activity on related subjects, not quite having to do with me, but sort of related, but could easily have been avoided by opening my fucking message, maybe a week before, or just at any point during all the assuming). I pushed, yes, for keeping things to messages where I had things in writing, cause at this point, I wanted fucking proof of her behaviour.

Gah. So much anger! It's just frustrating really. That me setting a boundary is being turned into her being a victim. I am not apologizing for anyone's hand hurting, after they punched me.

We'll see what happens. In all this, M has been dragged into it too, cause in the specific setting, we're a unit, and the consequences of all this has been hitting her too. And that pisses me off even more. She's very pissed too, at this point. She only just found out about the Facebook posts. And honestly. I need to see the old friend take responsibility for shit. Otherwise, go on and call me a villain. I'll be a villain. I will be the best fucking villain you've ever seen.

All I can say is, don't piss off a Libra. We take forever to get there, but when we do? Run. Not physically, but emotionally you better fucking run and hide.

I don't like that side of me, and I sure hope I reign it in in time.

Sometimes little things add up

 Hey Peepers.

New year, same me. Slightly more depressed than last year, but hey, we can't win them all, right? I don't even really know how to start reeling in the beast that is my emotional stance, right now, but it's bothering me too much to ignore it.

New Years was... Well, it was. On the surface I suppose it was fine. There were just a bunch of little things that made me feel.. unwelcome? Like a nuisance. It started when we were talking about how to go about dinner, really. I suggested it was a bit unrealistic to expect to eat right after the queens' speech, cause we'd have things to set up, so maybe set it for half an hour after, and the responses were bitey enough that I felt like I should have just shut up, my opinion wasn't welcome. And maybe people were just a bit on edge from one of the guests having to cancel cause they got covid, I don't know, but I didn't feel like the sighs and annoyed expressions fit what an expected reaction should have been.

I started cutting potatoes a little after that, and I dropped a piece that skidded across the counter. I expected to drop more pieces before I was done, so I figured I'd leave it and pick up all at once, rather than drip all over, cause my hands were wet. But the other person in the kitchen picked up the piece and dropped it back in the pot, and I didn't manage to stop them. I wanted to rinse it first. Cause when it comes to food and cooking I'm a bit bacteriophobic. It's not very different from how I don't feel a piece of clean laundry stays clean, if I drop it when hanging it up to dry. If it's been on the floor, it's no longer clean. If food drops on a surface I haven't just cleaned, it's no longer suited to be cooked. However, the person I was in the kitchen with felt it necessary to, in a very defensive tone, point out that where it had landed had just been cleaned the day before. Like it was an attack on them.

A short while after, I was peeling apples, and they made a comment and then asked me rather condescendingly why I was doing that in the sink, rather than directly in the bin. Which is out of habit, I've always peeled things in the sink, so I wouldn't have peels flying around and having to pick them up. Also, the bin was full and they have a different type of peeler than I'm used to, that I feel like I have less control with. And I like to have the water right there, to rinse off the little flecks of stuff that ends up on things as you peel them. There's a ton of reasons.

Later yet, the others had to leave for a while, to drop someone off at work, and I was alone with the person, just talking. We discussed ethics and politics, basically. I like that sort of discussion, usually, and for a while I enjoyed it. We believed in the same goal, just disagreed on the road to reach it, but I felt like they got a lot more upset than anything, and eventually I did my best to disengage, pointing out where we agreed, to end it. I perfectly understand their point of view, I just don't support it.

Another person also seemed very ugh-ish every time I went to help out in the kitchen, and eventually, I kinda just tried to avoid it.

And there were a few times where I felt like little jabs were being made at me, using my own flaws against me. Like.. It's so hard to describe, but like using how I ask questions to understand why people are doing things differently than I would, to ask me things but meant to ridicule or jab at me. Like with the apples. It wasn't the question, it was the way it was asked. The tone. I don't ask to be malicious. I ask to learn or understand. I did not feel like I was being asked so someone could understand me.

I didn't want to make a fuss, cause the cancellation already had upset one person enough, and even though I internally debated just going home to sleep, I had a reason not to. We had a friend who doesn't live in the country join us, and we don't see them very often. They were leaving early in the morning, and the friend who had to work would come back in the morning and have breakfast with the rest of us, and the one leaving, so we could all say goodbye. So we all talked about being woken up when the working friend got back, so we could do that.

No one woke me up. I woke up, apparantly, ten minutes after they left. The others had basically finished breakfast. And had that stood alone, I don't think I would have been as bothered. But I was the only one not to be woken up, not to have breakfast with the others, not getting to say goodbye, and not one of them had thought to wake me? It's really hard for me not to take that as them not caring or wanting me there. And that really hurt. I don't think I spoke much, I just got ready and left as quick as I could. Ended up going part of the way with the friend who had been working all night. I talked to them a bit. But I was still relieved when I could be alone.

Alone. I've been feeling that a lot lately. More and more often I find myself wanting to share something, and being disappointed when I do. Cause most of the time, I feel like I'm throwing the ball against a wall and catching it myself. No one is catching and throwing it back. I don't feel like my interests and passions can be shared to the extend I want. To the extend I need.

It's not enough. Brief comments of affirmation and praise. And then disengagement. I need interest, questions, debate, suggestions. And I'm not getting that where I'm at. And that's hard to admit, cause I'm craving it more and more, it's not going away, and I can see where it leads me. The easy answer is obviously 'go find someone or someones who can be that or those peeople for you'. Of course. But a friend of mine once said something very true. I only have so many chairs available in my circle. And I could try and stretch myself, that'll probably happen. But what if I'm not flexible enough? Then I'm risking people I love for the option of something I can't be sure of. It's easy now to say I'd never risk it. But if they can't provide something I need to function, do I have other options?

Don't even get me started on the whole 'how ungrateful am I to feel this way' aspect.

I'm just.. tired and really really sad. I know I'm not a common flavor. I'm not for everyone. I guess I just didn't expect to be made to feel like this, by them. I thought they would tell me to my face.