Life As Is
restless, discontent
loneliness seeps, anger creeps
I sink like a stone
by Isabelle Palmer, copyright 2009
I've been exhausted all week, not sleeping well. Management is on a rampage at my day job, and even though I'm a good employee, I'm now on the $#*! list (along with all the other good employees) for not being perfect, and at this moment, I feel why bother even making an effort to do a good job if it's not good enough, if the rules are more important than the people. If the boss is going to threaten to cut my hours because I'm "not reliable" because I've missed so much work due to the vertigo. (Scheduled for an MRI in a few weeks.) And I feel the rules are being applied to me more harshly than the other employees (I'm expected to set an example, after all) because I'm the owner's niece, and my dad is VP of the company.
So as I tread water in that emotional place, exhausted, feeling used and insignificant, the rest of my life comes crashing in. Most of the time, I do a good job of pretending that I'm okay, numbing myself to it all, avoiding thinking about it. Until yesterday. Once again, I'm too tired to protect myself from it anymore.
I see so many of my actor friends and acquaintances making progress in their careers, national commercials, supporting roles. And I am so happy for them, honestly, but at the same time, it only reminds me of my own lack of progress. Yes, I've got my web series in development, but it's moving so slowly, and there are no outward results to show for it yet. And it feels in some ways like another avoidance of actually doing the necessary work; I'm not learning how to give better auditions, I'm not getting my headshots out there in front of CDs, or building a solid professional reputation for myself. And still not being able to drive, I feel so stuck. I'd being doing something about it if I could -- but it seems that all I can do at this moment is work on my web series.
And my personal history comes crashing in hand in hand along with all of this. I suddenly see so incredibly clearly why the Pomeranian Facade was created in the first place: People don't like me when I'm just myself. I'm awkward and say the wrong things, and there's something about me that makes people not want to look me in the eye, that makes them go out of their way to avoid me. I'm too intense, I need too much, try to connect too deeply too quickly, the way I am wired to interact with the world and other people as an HSP is too different from the majority of people. So I shut myself down, (don't feel, don't want), shut myself away, (live a solitary life with few friends, romance isn't an option anymore), and pretend to be a pomeranian in social circumstances. These have become my survival techniques. Survival is not living. I am the walking dead.
Most of the time, somehow, I am okay with my life the way it is. It is too exhausting trying to fit in the way society expects me to. But at times like these, times when I'm exhausted and can't distract myself or pretend anymore, I get so lonely, so angry that I'm different, that I'm not able to connect in a meaningful way with most people, either because of my own actions/attitude or because they won't let me, angry and hurt that most people don't/won't take the time to understand me.
And how the hell am I supposed to build an acting career like this? How can I be a skilled actor when I'm so shut down? How can I network with other professionals when I can't figure out how to connect in a real way with anyone? Business is business, so maybe it's just a matter of creating a Professional Facade and using that instead of the Pomeranian Facade, and therefore it isn't necessary to connect on any other level. (Maybe that's my problem. See, too intense, need too much.)
I'm so lonely.
No comments:
Post a Comment