The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Sometimes it takes sleeping for hours and hours to make you realize how tired you are.

Sometimes.

It bothers me how tired I am. Falling asleep at my desk at like 8:30 PM is completely lame. At the same time, if I didn’t need sleep, I wouldn’t be doing that, would I? When I go to bed at 10 and don’t wake up until noon or later the next day, it just kind of proves my need. I needed sleep.

Part of me says this is me getting old. I mean, I’m getting older. Time is marching on. I can’t just stress my body out like that. I need to actually get 8 hours of sleep from time to time.
The rest of me says that this is simply a sign of how stressed I am. Now, I feel like, for the most part, things are under control. Maybe not proceeding at the pace I want, but under control? Certainly. At the same time, I am being pulled in a lot of directions at once with no relief. I know that, if I admit to myself how I feel, that I feel that I need more time to myself. I need rest.

I need to sleep all day on a Saturday.

So, you know, I guess that’s what I did. It would be better if I could go to a Prospit or Derse to get more stuff done during that time, but I suppose I’m not that lucky.

Basically, I’m tired! That’s what I’m saying. I’m tired.

I think what I’m really wanting is a respect for what I’m doing. That’s all. I’m not against doing favors. I’m not against waiting a little bit longer if it makes everything else go smoother overall. I am against doing these favors, and they are completely favors, if it isn’t understood what I’m sacrificing to do them.

I feel like my dad gets it. When we talk about these things, he talks about it in a way where it’s clear he understands how much I’m hurting, and how significant waiting is. He makes it clear that he wants to help, and will help, but that this is how he sees it going down the best. He isn’t really on board with the idea, completely, but he knows my mind is made up and I have to do this to be happy, and he’s going to do what he can to make sure I’m happy in the smartest, best way possible. I can respect that. I want it to go down the best, and I’m willing to do what it takes to have it be the best. My family is super important to me, for better or worse. I can handle doing something for them, as long as they’re behind me.

My mother, however, doesn’t get it. Every time we talk about it, it’s clear, to me, that she’s simply stalling. She’s attempting to discourage me, and she doesn’t have my best interests at heart. She’s being dismissive of my problems, and how much waiting is going to hurt me. She does not take a decision to wait as anything significant. She makes me want to cry. She makes me angry. She makes me want to go “fuck this!” to doing things the right way and just get it the hell over with. She makes me wonder why I am even trying to connect with her and make her happy, when she seems so uninterested in it.

For my dad’s reasons, I’ll wait till after the wedding, no problem. If it means a stronger connection with my family, and more support when the actual time comes and things get tough, I can stall for a tiny bit longer. For mom’s reasons, they can just fuck off, because I have to start living my life. I only get one life. I’m tired of wasting it, and I get absolutely nothing out of waiting in her scenario.

I’m going to keep talking to them. I’ll probably have talked with them again before this goes up. I hope things go better. I wish I had a solution to all this bullshit. I wish it wasn’t crushing my belief that things will get better.
I wish a lot of things. Of course, in the end, I have to go out and make them happen.

I don’t think I can afford to buy a new copy of Kirby’s Epic Yarn.

For some reason, this is kind of a big deal to me. I feel like I’ve cut down my game purchases a lot. I only really buy maybe one game a month, if that, instead of the three or four I used to buy. Sure, I supplement that with a few cheap iPhone games, but mostly, it’s a net gain. I made hard decisions not to buy stuff all the time. But there was always this idea that, because I was making these hard decisions, I’d be able to have no problem playing the games I really wanted to play. I could still support my favorite franchises on day one, I just wouldn’t waste money on the filler stuff I used to buy all the time. I’d not buy the random chance games that my whims told me to. I’d just Gamefly those. It would work.

I’ll still get to play Epic Yarn. Hell, it’s going to be a short game with limited replay value. I probably SHOULD just Gamefly it. But Kirby is one of my most beloved series. I love the SHIT out of Kirby. I want all the Kirby I can wring out of Nintendo without ruining the charm the series has. Kirby Super Star has to be one of my most replayed games of all time, probably only topped by, say, Space Channel 5. I love this shit, I love the new art style, I want to be a fan and get it day one, even when others wouldn’t. I really do.

In the big scheme, it’s not like it’s a big deal. I’m working on big deal things, you know? That’s why I don’t have any money for such purchases. Maybe it’s just part of growing up, having to start making these choices. Maybe I should just deal, and move on. In fact, I know I should. I don’t have enough money for VIDEOGAMES, for fuck’s sake. I’m not starving or anything. I’m doing fine.

But there’s still something lost there, even if it’s just a tiny little thing that I’m being too emo about. That feeling that, if I work my ass off, things will work out… it’s just a tiny little example of how they won’t. I’ll work hard, and I still won’t have money for all the games I want to support, even if I cut it down to the bare minimum. If I can’t have a stupid disc with a program on it, what else am I going to miss?

Bleh. Should really just get over myself.

I had a Dentist Appointment Monday. I hadn’t been to the Dentist in years. Like, seriously, a whole lot of years. But I have a tooth that’s giving me hell, so I knew I needed to go. It would probably need some sort of surgery, and I was worried as fuck. I haven’t had anything even vaguely like that done before. No surgery of any kind. Plus, I knew it was going to cost a lot, but I didn’t know how much. My mother was nice enough to promise to pay for it, but I still feared how much it would set her back, and being a burden. I was sick to my stomach until my appointment, really.

Showing up, things went pretty straightforward. No lectures. No real problems. Of course, what I needed done was obscenely expensive. It would blow through all my savings if it was on my dime, and I felt like shit about her covering it. My mom was trying to tease me playfully and get me to relax a bit, but her teasing about all the things she could spend the money on just made me feel worse. Maybe these things were partially true, and that’s why she was teasing, but I could tell she really did want me to calm down and she didn’t feel like this was a waste. A stressor, maybe, but not a waste.

In any case, I made another appointment for another person to look at my teeth again next week. Then I get to make another appointment for surgery if the first appointment goes well, then after that another appointment for more dental surgery. I had kind of hoped to just put a stop to that whole particular problem that day, but of course nothing is that easy. Now the stress gets to be drawn out over the next month, on top of everything else I have going on. I am super-excited by that.

Gods, I have so much shit to deal with. That’s why I totally fucking slacked off for the rest of Monday. But more on that some other time.

Still, the appointment wasn’t for nothing. I got some antibiotics, because I was told that the tooth was hurting because of an infection, and that the infection was draining when it stopped hurting. This made perfect sense to me, as I’ve been sick and coughing up stuff that could easily be that drain: it would make sense that that ick would be making me feel worse. Hopefully those antibiotics will kill two birds with one stone that way. That’s a benefit, right? Or something similar?

Eh, just like everything, it’ll be fixed in time. But fuck, I’m tired of things taking so long. Really am.

Okay, so there are two health meters: Physical and Mental. The main problem is that a lot of the healing techniques for each use up the other meter. For example, to free myself of stress would help to refill that Mental meter, but it comes at the cost of the Physical meter, because I have to go out and work, probably, to fix things, and I get tired. Same with Physical. I could lay down and sleep all day, and maybe I might actually feel rested in the end. However, it’s at the cost of that Mental meter, since I’m going to be worrying about all the shit I’m supposed to get done. There are quick fixes, too, of course. I could eat some candy to help keep my Mental stats up, because that’s enjoyable and relaxing, but that’s bad for my Physical meter. I could drink a bunch of caffeine to keep my physical side working fine, but that can potentially do something to my mindstate. In addition, there are plenty of activities, such as, say, homework, that eat up both meters. There’s lots of interacting gameplay systems at work here.

Life is kind of a back and forth fight between those things. There are more wants and desires than you can ever comprehend. You just have to do your best to feed those desires and make them work. Somehow. However, I’ve always taken a firm anti-physical stance. Since I hate my physical form, it was easy to destroy it, and keep my mental abilities and feelings in tip-top shape. If you just fuck over one, hey, you have half as much to worry about. You can make it work easily.

Basically, I guess what I’m saying is, I never really realized how difficult it is to attempt to deal with both meters. Giving a shit about things like my appearance and health for what may be the first time in my life is incredibly taxing. Of course, I also chose to start doing it at a time where I am already very stressed attempting to deal with mental issues and things. I’m doing all sorts of stressful work. Really good planning on my part, I know!

I know none of this is new information. It’s just, as I sit here, having to schedule time to sleep in between work and commutes to St. Louis and grading and denistry, I realize how hard it is to make it all work. I’m having trouble with it, that I never had before, and it’s because I’m giving so much of a shit. That’s a good thing. Caring about myself was the goal. But damn, that’s hard, especially knowing that I could remove all this stress from myself

I kind of wanted to not write about more doom and gloom. I’m too much that recently. But fuck. I had no time to write a blog today, so this is what you get. Sorry! But hey, you could always watch this video Val shared with me of a dog dancing if you want something more positive to do with your time. Go dog go!

Anyway.
Today sucked!

I was booked the entire way through. On top of that, I hadn’t really slept. I felt sick for most of the night before, and didn’t really rest, and as the last blog post says, I was already really tired. So I was working on no sleep and no energy, and I was feeling really depressed. I sent my mom a pointless depressed text that I instantly regretted, but I was making it through.

Then my phone broke.

Nothing gets me more angry than technology that doesn’t work. I was out having lunch with Cara, but I was angry. I was feeling disconnected, and I didn’t really have the money to buy a new phone I really wanted. Things were bad. I went to the AT&T store, and they were useless, as expected. I got on the phone for two hours talking with people. To their credit, they were very polite, but I ended up having to escalate the call. See, maybe this is selfish of me, but I didn’t want another Blackberry Bold 9000, because it would be my 6th one or so? The construction quality on them sucks. Since I was out of warranty, I didn’t want another one that was just going to break. Eventually, I got them to send me the new model Bold instead, the 9700. That’s something, at least. One problem solved.

However, due to the tiredness, I had expected to use those two hours on the phone doing my homework for class. I then had to rush to get that done. I finished literally a minute before class, thankfully. But it was sub-optimal.

Also, during the break at class, Cole borrowed a dollar and we both went to buy a soda. We went to the only machine not marked “Use Exact Change” and he got a soda… and I said “You know, with my luck today, that was probably the last bit of change in the machine.” And I was right. It was. Yay.

Now I’m home and writing a depressing blog post. I hope something goes my way soon. That would be super nice!

I’ll try to write something more fun tomorrow. Wish me luck.

You can tell I’m stressed because I’m standing up for myself.

Or at least being very clear about it.

Allow me to offer some examples.

A student who has shown up about 35 minutes late for class every time so far e-mails me asking me about assignments he’d know about if he’d actually show up. Instead of just ignoring this, as I normally would, I said, though in a polite way, that if he’s show up to class he’d already know this.

Similarly, once at Kohl’s, I left a passive-aggressive note telling people to actually pay attention and put toppers away in the right spot so I don’t have to sort them, as well as standing up for how ridiculous some of the accusations against my team are. Anger was the basis for this.

I’m just tired of being pushed around. I’m still a professional. I’m not going to break down. But shit, something in my life has to give somewhere. Even if it is just little things like scolding these little transgressions. Something needs to go my fucking way.
I mean, things are. I continue to have the BEST FUCKING FRIENDS AND SIGNIFICANT OTHERS I could ever ask for. You all help me get through the day, and you’re all completely, without restraint, awesome. Still, I feel bad for leaning on you constantly. I’ve had to. I shouldn’t. Something has to give so I can stand on my own.

Maybe this is the prelude to bigger things. Maybe once actually being proactive and working to make myself happy works, I’ll finally finish off all the stupid bullshit standing in the way of my happiness. Eh, even if it doesn’t work, I’ll go that way. Of course I will.

Of course I will.

Until then, though, don’t like… throw cans in the trash can. They don’t go there. Little things. You know?

On Monday, my students came to class having read the wrong chapter. I wrote the wrong one on the board, and they did the wrong assignment. This kind of caused me to have to ad lib for the class that day. I feel like I did alright with having planned to talk about a completely different thing. It certainly wasn’t a huge deal, and we got over it. My schedule for the semester is not thrown off really badly. It’s just a thing that happens. A small oops.

However, it kind of destroyed me. It threw me into a huge depressive state, and I went home and hid, even though I still had things to do that day. I haven’t done that in a long time. It was really upsetting. I tried to explain this to Brer, but unfortunately for him he chose the wrong time to use humor to try to cheer me up, and it didn’t really get across. I couldn’t really explain why this was such a serious event. I guess I’m about to try here.

There were those two years of school where I got nothing done because I was so depressed. I stayed at home, hid, and played video games locked in my room. I didn’t get anything done, because I couldn’t muster any energy to. Then, I turned myself around, and focused. I haven’t fucked up since. I’ve kept a 4.0, kept up with my job and such with no issues. Even as I’ve gotten depressed, more depressed than I can ever remember being, I stuck with it. I didn’t make mistakes.

This was a mistake. It’s a mistake I could have made, even if I wasn’t depressed, and it isn’t a big deal. But it’s a mistake.

Work is kind of the last safe haven for me at this point. While I’m working on things. I don’t have time to be depressed. I don’t have time to worry. I have to complete the tasks at hand, and I do complete them. I do them well. No matter how shitty things got, my work wasn’t going to slip. I was still going to be a hard worker. I was still going to be someone you can depend on to get things done. These things are important to me. They help keep me going.

Writing the wrong number in class makes me feel like I am truly falling apart. It makes me feel like I am, slowly but surely, being defeated by all this bullshit, and that just makes me even more depressed. I can’t lose this fight. But I wrote the wrong number on the board! It’s the first glimpse at how I’m going to slip. Or so the evil part of my brain tells me. It’s frustrating and makes me want to cry.

I know I’m going to do just fine. As I said, I’ve already fixed the problem. Not a big deal. Nothing got thrown out of wack, and I’m still a good teacher. Plus, while I was so obscenely depressed, Jonathan, Spaeth, and Kevin came over to game and cheer me up, and that was a huge help. (It also taught me that, man, I have lost all skill I once had at Smash Bastards.) I’ve got great friends, and I’m a good worker. I’ve got this covered.

But that stupid 14 instead of an 11 was an omen. I wrote a poem about how it all comes down to 14. Fourteen times I fucked up and fourteen times I didn’t, and I’ll do it again fourteen times.
Bleh.

I guess I’ll write an update on how the whole “fighting with my parents over me transitioning” thing is going.

I feel like it’s going better. I certainly feel less like complete garbage. I’m not great, but it’s not bad. This has a lot to do with how awesome my friends are. Cole and Cara, Essner, Jonathan, Spaeth, Ecks, even the wolfie, and of course Brer… everyone has gone above and beyond the call of duty. I am so, so fucking lucky to have such good friends. I can’t express how lucky I am. They’ve helped me to survive all of this so far.

In addition, I think things are turning around with the parents. My mom said the other day that she is “trying” to be mad at me, but she can’t because I’m still her “child.” Maybe I’m reading too much into that… but “child” was a weird word to pick… and I feel like that means it was chosen on purpose. Instead of “son”. Which made me feel a lot better, certainly. She’s also just talking to me again in general, which is a good sign. She’s also at least slightly backing off on the kicking me out thing, which is also nice.

I’ve screamed at my parents, I’ve called their bluffs, I’ve done all sorts of things I really don’t want to do to make it clear this is something serious, and I suppose it is working. It’ll all work out. I wish I didn’t have to force my way through, though. I wish they could just get it. But this stuff is so hard, nobody really could immediately. I understand that. But I understand I can’t let that stop me from making my way forward. Things are going to work out.

It just takes a long time, you know? A long while.
It’s certainly a closer while than it used to be, though. I tell myself that all the time. Affirmations. Etc.
Yeah.

How’ve you been doing?

I’ve been doing pretty shitty, so… that’s good. I suppose.

Standing up for yourself sucks. It really, truly does. There is rarely any time when standing up for yourself makes things easier, or makes you feel good. It’s a constant battle. A constant struggle. Especially when something this huge, this big is on the line, it’s really tough.

I’ve tried to tell my parents this. I’ve tried to tell them how every dream I have for the future, everything I want requires this. I’ve tried to tell them how long this has been going on, and how much it means to me. I tried doing it by being soft, by being gentle. But they wouldn’t get it.

So I put my foot down on Monday.

There were a lot of tears, and a lot of “you didn’t warn me” talk, which is silly because they’ve known this stuff for years. I only exploded once, and that was because Mom’s talking about me as if I was going to be dead after this really made me angry because it really hurt. I did my best to not waffle. I remade my points again and again. I didn’t let them tell me things that weren’t the truth, because I know the truth about me. I’m me. I know why I’m doing these things, and I know how I feel. How do I feel? Shitty. Really shitty. What’s the solution? To deal with my problems, not to hide from them. Especially not to hide from them for my parents’ sake.

I love them both so much. This is really, really fucking hard. To listen to my Mom beg for “just one more year, just one more thing to be proud of” like she will never have anything to be proud of ever again… it hurts. A lot.

The good things that have come out of this is that they will be talking to my psychiatrist soon, like they should have months ago. In addition, my dad said he was trying. Nearly in tears, he told me he was trying to understand. Trying to figure out how to help me. That made me sob. That meant so, so much to me. I don’t expect them to just get it instantly… but that he’s trying… that’s important. That’s meaningful.

Anyway, I have a class to teach, somehow… I’m going to try not to be super-depressed. I’m going to try to keep functioning. Have so far, even if it’s been a bit robotic. I’m going to get things done…

Dammit…