enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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Perpetually suspended between this and that.

(Let me preface this entry by stating that if I were someone else I would read this and think, "My God this woman is dull and pathetic !" So read at your own risk.)

This could get unfortunate and 'deep' pretty quickly, so I'm going to keep it short and sweet.

I begged out of a little work get-together this afternoon because I was truly tired and stuck in the inferiority complex that plagues me around my colleagues. The thing is that I don't need to have an inferiority complex around them. I'm just as good as most of them, only not quite as experienced as some. The difference between me and them is that I finished two-thirds of a dissertation in economics and they went all the way. Going all the way is important, of course, but I made a decision in difficult circumstances and I have to live it. It was never a case that there was a problem with the quality of my work.

Anyhow. So it is not other people who are punishing me. It is me who is punishing me. Every moment of every seminar, and each time that I speak with one of my colleagues at work, I feel as if I should be deferring to them. I create and enforce a rank order that tortures me. It's like I was made for hanging my head in shame. And you know what? I was trained for it. My mother is incredibly insecure. And she passed this along to me. She passed along the implicit message that I am not good enough, because she was not good enough.

I'm not blaming my mother. I'm too old for blame. But I get it now, more than ever. And I wonder if I can stop punishing myself for not having whatever I needed at the crossroads that I reached with my PhD to see it through to the end. I really wonder if I can stop punishing myself...ever.

Otherwise today was a shitty day because I found out, in fact, that the Conservative government has a panel reviewing the part of my department in which I work. So I haven't heard yet about any hiring freeze that will prevent me from getting a permanent position, but I must brace for the news. Short-term contracts are limited to four months, so at the end of the year I will have to move on to another department if a freeze is in place (and, of course, if I can find a contract at another department). So, not the worst thing ever. Not the best, either. I'd like to have the strength to see this as an opportunity rather than an ending. I must see this as an opportunity rather than an ending.

So it's not a great idea to feel sorry for myself. I made my bed and I must lie in it.

Enough of that. I've decided that this weekend will be spent reading books, curled up in my cozy armchair. The tricky part will be seeing to it that I adhere to this plan. But I'll get up in the morning and brew some of that lovely coffee that C. brought up from Montreal in my little French press, turn on the radio, and plop down in that chair and see what happens. :) I'm going to read and read and try to forget my troubles, which are really slight in the grand scheme of things.

A friend of mine is flying to Israel on Monday. He hates to fly, but he says it's mostly because he loathes the crowds and lines at airports. In my case I hate to fly because I mostly seem to get stuck beside people who can't fit into their own seats. (Flight attendants do this as I am often one of the smallest people on the plane.) I do not mean to slam overweight people in saying this. It is only that I do not like strangers touching me as a rule, and strangers touching me for hours in a row is, of course, worse.

My head is spinning a little. I'm not quite myself.

Anyhow. So I was recounting to the friend that I actually quite like the process of being in airports, in spite of the unpleasantness of flying. When I'm in an airport I know that I am starting a journey--or am still on one, if returning--and in this sense can suspend knowledge of my past and my future. In other words, travel is one of the few things that forces me into that whole 'living in the moment' thing. Travel for me is a genuine escape from actually being anything in any rigid sense, I realize; this is clearly why I spent most of my twenties running away from work and into its reckless, beckoning arms.

Sigh. Speaking of sighing, I found myself sighing repeatedly in my office today. My life is suspended in such a way at the moment that sighs seem the only appropriate response.

Well, enough complaining. I think a hot bubble bath is in order. Bubble bath+ late night movie sounds like a pleasant distraction from the trials of the day. These trials, too, of course, will pass.

10:31 p.m. - 2006-10-27

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