The Sea Jar

Why am I so awkward? This is the hardest thing for me.

My heart is still jittery, tight, in my throat. Walking fast helps.

Glad I did it, though I could only stay an hour. Could only stand to stay an hour.

Walking as I write this. Feeling better the farther I get away, the closer to home.

Walking helps.

On a bus on my way to see some people from my grad school days. Feeling my heart fluttering and feeling like I’m going to puke.

I hate these people. I’m going because its the first invite I’ve had in a while. And…

The jealous bitch in me wants to brag a little about my internship. But only if they ask me about what I’m doing now. Or if they put down the bookstore again. Cause fuck that, it’s rude to trash where I work to my face.

I think I figured something out.

So last week I saw my therapist and we talked a little about how I was an angry teenager but with no outlet. I was so angry all the time about how trapped I felt and was, at the time, unable to understand why I felt that way. (Most of it had to do with how controlled I was by my parents and how ill equipped I was for adult life and how frightened that made me, but I was too close to see it.)

Yesterday I got really angry by the critique from the AD, so angry that I wanted to scream and break things.

But i then internalized that anger as my fault, that my anger was unfounded, that my ego is too big, and I’m a terrible animator and that’s why I got such a bad review— because I’m awful, obviously.

Now I wonder if this is how I deal with anger? I feel anger then feel guilty about it, like I deserve whatever irritations come up because I’m inherently bad.

Because when I used to get angry at my parents they often told me that I was bad and spoiled, that i had too much and i was ungrateful for everything that I had, and then I felt tremendous guilt over my feelings, that of course they were right. I was all of these things. I was a terrible person for feeling angry.

I wonder if that’s where that very strong emotional response from last night came from?

I felt so bad last night that I wanted to just forfeit life and be done with it all. I see now how that’s an extreme response. I wonder if that intense rage I felt triggered these other, conditioned feelings of worthlessness?

I wonder if that kind of emotion is linked with the way my parents emotionally manipulated me while I was growing up?

Well I woke up.

I’m less hysterical but no less heartbroken. I’m on a bus on my way to work because I was so late leaving my apartment that I couldn’t walk there in time. That happens when you cry all morning. It sucks having roommates because you can’t cry when you want to so it had to wait all night until now.

I’m trying to be more rational now but I still think I’m going to run up to target and buy a box of tissues because cant have running mascara at the cash wrap.

I don’t know why I put so much stock into this. Why is my entire self worth riding on my work? I know this is destructive.

But knowing it and not doing it are two different things. How do you not feel like an utter waste of space when you are so thoroughly terrible at the thing you love?

I am a big huge failure.

I am sucking at this animation gig. I cannot do what the director wants. I’m not good enough to do it. I don’t see the problems that she sees. I don’t understand how i’m supposed to make the changes she wants. I deleted everything and tried to do what she wanted but it looks like shit and i don’t know how to make it right.

I rewatched what I submitted and still do not see what’s wrong with it.

I can’t stop crying. This is my worst fear that I truly am awful. I just want to close my eyes and never wake up.

Sometimes I think that if I could just die in my sleep it would be all over and my struggle would be done and that would be best. Its such a relief, that thought of not having to face more disappointment.

I’m a non-contributing zero. I’m so tired of not being good at anything. Everything i ever wanted to achieve is too ambitious for me.

It’s like my sole purpose in life is to make other people look good by comparison.

I feel like such a failure. I just want never wake up again.

I think I might cry. Feeling tears welling up, getting that rumbly feeling in my stomach.

Been missing my father. And being angry with him. Been missing my mother and being homesick.

Wishing to break free of my monotone life. I desperately want to travel as if changing the scenery will change my life and my problems.

Maybe I will go somewhere Thursday-Friday before my internship starts. Not too far, just someplace different. Maybe even just across the bay.

Feeling strange these past few days, like on the edge of irritability and restlessness.  

Met with some of my ukulele gals yesterday and the practice turned into a gab session about lack of jobs.  

I told them that I was going to give up on 3D because of my lack of luck in it and the state of the industry right now (it’s a train wreck, fyi) and I was trying to segway into “I’m giving his up because I got a 2D opportunity” meaning the internship and they both just jumped on the band wagon of “don’t give up” and “you never know” and “are you doing everything you possibly can?” — which, let me tell you is like waving a red flag in front of a bull with me.  

I no longer believe in this up beat “work hard and good things will happen” bullshit because that has not been my experience. No one has worked harder than I have at this and I still have not succeeded.  

Good things do not always come to people who work hard or who deserve them the most. It’s all luck. It’s all a crap shoot.  

And then when I tried to tell them that I did not subscribe to their religion, that I follow a new belief system, it turned into “it’s the self fulfilling prophecy— you failed because you said you would” which only turned up the dial from angry to livid. 

Why would you say that to somebody?  So what’s next, they’re going to tell me my father died because I was afraid he would? So it’s my fault because I worry?

I hate that. Of course people who believe in the “be happy and rainbows and sunshine will follow you” take on life would not be able to understand the “sometimes bad things happen to good people and there’s nothing you can do about it” aspect of life. 

Maybe enough good things have always fallen into their laps so that they have the power to brush off the bad things that flit across their paths like dried leaves.  But since 2009 my luck has mostly been bad and it falls like a piano out a window.  

It’s finally starting to turn around now with this internship. I do not believe I got the internship because I worked hard and kept trying. I got it because I was prepared, in the right place at the right time, and had a friend on the inside who helped me.  Lady luck took pity on me. 

I say work hard because you have integrity, and you take pride in your work, not because it’s going to get you anywhere. Because in this world it won’t. It’s just not enough, not anymore.  

Ugh. In a terrible mood. It took forever to do my bit for the production project and my roommate came home early and now I can’t do any of the things I had planned with her home.

I cannot draw with her in the room because she can see my screen and that inhibits me, AND she talks to me while I’m trying to work.

Sometimes it’s not so bad but right now I’m in bad spirits and I just want some privacy. >:(

I’m going to fix myself a snack because maybe I’m “hangry” and watch an ep of parks and rec.

I’ve been slowly telling people about my summer internship.

I am equal parts proud and guilty about it.  Even when I have something good coming down the pipeline, I can’t seem to accept feelings of pride without having guilt about it… like, who am I to brag? I just got lucky. I’m not so great. It could be taken away in the blink of an eye. You don’t really deserve this internship, you just got it because your friend got your application through HR. 

I have been telling people in my life one at a time and with the caveat that they can’t talk about it because I still have to tell work. I’m waiting until May because there’s no need to give an 8 week notice. I think a 4 week notice will be more than adequate. 

So, I finally told my former Department Head. He’d emailed me about possibly helping out a student of his with her thesis project, doing some animation for her. I’d been waiting to tell him all the things I’ve been doing until I saw him in person, but I had to let him know what’s been going on— my production project, working more hours, the approaching internship— so there’d be a valid reason for my to decline his request.

I just— I don’t know— i’m stupid but I’m also usually right but I’m also an anxiety sufferer with GAD and excessive negative self talk—

We were emailing back and forth every few minutes and then when I sent the email about the internship, he stopped emailing me.  And he didn’t email me the whole next day either.  When I woke up this morning there was an email from him waiting for me in my inbox that said “That’s really, really great.” and “GOOD LUCK WITH THAT”… which, me being me, worries me.  I know, why would that worry me? What, am I crazy or something? Well, yes. 

I suppose he could be sincere about it but then that exact phrase is also used sarcastically to mean, “I don’t think you are going to succeed”.  Why did it take him an entire day to respond with that?

I also know he’s kind of funny about things when it comes to his helping students.  I know him pretty well and I immediately got a bad feeling when reading his email. This internship is not 3D work and I worry that maybe he’s irritated that I’m doing something else instead of what he taught me.  

I don’t know. It’s probably just my worry that he’s disappointed in me and has nothing to do with what he actually thinks.  I just— why would he wait so long to write something so simple when were were already going back and forth in email every few minutes unless he was upset? Why did it take him an entire day to respond when the day before he’d been replying right away?