missed the party

I am so mad at myself for missing a party I have been looking forward to for months and months if not all year. I just couldn’t get myself up and going. I finally got out of the shower around 10pm and needed to eat. It was 11:30 before I would have started getting dressed. Some years the party has ended around 1am, other years it has gone on longer. My typical angst was in full force.

I had ideas on what I wanted to do (came up with the idea to do Jane Austin’s Fight Club which would have been funny) and some files I promised someone years ago. Just things like that and each one of them became something I had to do in order to go and each became more than I could face. I feel rather proud that I took the shower and ate.

I know it wasn’t that hard to go. I don’t have any reason why it should have been hard, or at least I feel like I don’t. I have been able to do things lately. Like organizing and cleaning house with Ragani and attending an 8am meeting for work type stuff. The work thing was pretty amazing. I think the main reason I made it was because I didn’t sleep the night before. It was at the end of one of my 24 hours awake stints.

This thing I did with the party is very familiar. I would face it a lot when trying to get ready for Gaskills and Baycon. Loscon is different. I think because the plane leaves at a particular time if I am ready or not. It is hard facing packing and I end up throwing together stuff at the last minute but I don’t have the angst about the event itself. Or I should say I have less event specific angst.

It might have been hard this time because I have hardly spoken with anyone for a couple of weeks. Tracing backwards, I meet a bunch of strangers at a work related meeting (I owe emails and need business cards, I am not good at following those things up lately), I talked with Jrain on the phone. I saw Ragani on Wed when I went to her house to help out. I saw my therapist on tues. Nothing Mon, Sun, Sat, Fri, Thur. I think I got a phone call from P during this time when he was on a break and bored. I am not sure if I got a call from my mom during this time or if that was the previous Sun. Since then we have had a bit of a rocky spot where we both need to just shut the bleep up.

Wed,the 21st I went to two work agencies and took care of half of the paperwork for them. I got a lot of info from a critique of the presentation of my portfolio. That is very good and it gave me some place to start on making it better but it was also really hard on my ego and it seems like I have a huge hill to climb and it is daunting to even look at so I am hiding from that again. Tue was therapy and nothing on Monday. Sun was Stern Grove with the girls. Sat was another day when I couldn’t get to what I had planned on going to. Hmmm, both things were costume events, I couldn’t allow myself just to throw on clothes and go. One was near, last nights was far.

Prior to that I was doing good. Friday was a night out with a friend, Thursday was a scouting trip to a local craft place with another friend, Wed was seeing a play with another friend, Tues was therapy day. Monday was nothing. Prior to that I had a week of nothing punctuated with three things trying to happen all on the same day. I made choices and went with the thing I had planned for that day and had a great time downloading ennegram info.

The week of having three really good things was the last of me trying to make things happen with other people. I am so tired of pushing and pushing to put together someone to do something. For every success there are two to three misses, which is appropriate. It just seems like there is never any momentum. That I have to work as hard to get things going every single time. I am always starting at zero (ok not always but enough that it feels that way). Things don’t seem to come back to me. I can’t think of the last time someone asked me to do something. I have responded to general calls for help and that has been good. But that still counts under me making it work but is at least costing less in terms of start energy.

I am aware that I have trained people to leave things up to me to organize. It works well for me when I am doing well because that way I can be in charge of how much I do things with other people. But I have been trying to change this for a couple of years and I don’t seem to have gotten far.

I started this entry out whining about missing a party and here I am whining about not having others set up things for me. Seems like the party is just what I am saying I don’t have. Hmmm. I do know there is a difference between an event it happening and you are welcome/encourage to attend and Gina I want to do something with you. There are things where people would be more than happy to see me and I have a hard time going to those and that is all on me. I think the sort of thing I am missing is people who just want to see me and do whatever with me, rather than come across me at some event. If someone was going to go with me to a party, that would be very different, I think. I am aware that I feel some constriction with that idea but I need to get past that. It is hard to Butterfly when attending with someone. I much rather have the get together be one-on-one than a big social thing.

Maybe I am having difficulty with big social things. I am fine when I am there but I have such a hard time facing actually going.

Sleep schedule Sun up at 9am, went to sleep at 3am. Wed awake at 10am, went back to be Thursday 1-5pm dozed, sleep 8pm I think. Friday slept through most of the day I think. Awake in there somewhere. Sat awake at noon.

5 thoughts on “missed the party

  1. There also seems to be a connection to how much prep you have to do for any given event. To help me all you had to do was show up with helping hands and be yourself. For the party, BayCon, Gaskels and the like there is a lot more prep to do, and it is easy to let yourself get bogged down in the details. Having to work at just getting out the door seems to slow you down to the point of non-action. You also see the connection to the events where you are welcome to show up, vs the specific invitations to get together. The other time we got together it was a specific commitment to carpool to an event that if we had not agreed to carpool might have meant you could have talked yourself out of going. Making commitments to others does seem to be more of a motivator than making commitments to yourself, which is not that unusual, really.

    1. That is a pretty good summation. This is why I try really hard to set things up with other people because I will undermine things that I am the only person affected.

      The prep also plays a big role. There have been times when just the fact of needing to get dressed to be able to go out my door has stopped me from doing something.

      Making commitments to others is where my idea of helping others in order to help myself comes from. I don’t seem to be able to pull myself up by my bootstraps but can by helping others pull on their bootstraps.

      I just don’t know how to make this system work for an extended time. I have to work hard to set things up and I have run out of umph to keep putting into that system.

  2. It’s not too late to do something Jane Austen Fight Club-ish for the Peers Austen picnic this coming weekend. Well…maybe not. Depends on how much you’ve already done. And you might well be able to find co-conspirators on this…

    1. The idea was more good one in terms of timeliness than in execution. I had something I could wear that was…. in a general way… sort of like… sort of thing. Going to an Austin event would show off how poor the execution really is.

      The thing that I could bring to it was the make-up. I am getting good at looking like damage has been done.

      Given how similar our situations can be, I am very impressed with your extensive social schedule.

      1. And I’m impressed by your attempt to work schedule. Your learning schedule. Your attempts, at least.

        It’s like between the two of us, we’re approximating normal behaviour.

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