Spinning Wheels

So often . . . when faced with intense emotions . . . I write. Sometimes the focus of the writing is to someone. Most of the time, it's just a faceless audience. So much of the time I feel that what I write falls upon deaf ears. I get so little feedback from this forum, with a few notable exceptions, that I wonder if anyone is reading it at all. But the counter at the bottom ticks ever up, so someone must be coming here.

It's the 4th of July, 2008. Today was one of those rare days that I had off completely. There was no school today, and this is not one of my holidays that I have to work. The day was going along fairly well. I made a point of getting out and going and doing something. It's never good when I have time on my hands to just sit here idle.

I went to Riverfest . . . a summer celebration held yearly here in La Crosse. I went out, got a bit roasted, bought and ate some 'bad for you' fair food, and saw some entertainment. There was a pretty cool (though his jokes were rather corny) juggler. He was very good looking! I'm rather sure someone has snagged him . . . and I just am not the type to walk up and flirt. He was very good at juggling, including a brief stint with three (count em . . . 3) bowling balls. There was a karate demo, which I watched while waiting for the shows to start. I then caught a trained dog show . . . mostly frisbee dogs, but all very good. Along the way I saw and went up to the Commodore. Every year a person of note in the community is given the privilege of being the Commodore . . . kind of the king PR guy. They hand out buttons with their names, and the year they are Commodor. There were two of them . . . the current Commodor, and last years. They both gave me a pin for my blouse, putting it on themselves, and then distracted me with a raised hat, both planted a peck on my cheek. I thought it rather quaint!

I returned home and cleaned up the place a bit. My 'nube is shedding like mad . . . and doing so all over the house. I vacuumed. Liz was having company over.

This is part of my disquiet. I introduced her to one of the online dating sites. She's been out there for only a short time . . . and has already met someone that she seems to be hitting it off with rather nicely. I've had my name out there on multiple sites for two years . . . and most of the people I've met just really were not interested in me . . . . or there was some very glaring thing that I found wrong with them. He's here visiting for the weekend. I stuck around for dinner . . . as we had grilled steaks. But afterwards I made myself scarce. After all . . . it's her house. She tells me I don't have to leave . . . but I've been in this situation before . . . being a 'third wheel' . . . . it brings up way too many emotions that were going on in my marriage, just before he left, and prior to the big event that forever sundered my relationship with him and my former best girlfriend.

I've been too often in the position of not being wanted. It's starting to get very wearying. For whatever reason, I feel that during this time in my life I'm supposed to walk alone. But it doesn't help when I feel very little to NO support anywhere. My family is far away, and most never provided much in the way of emotional support anyway. What few friends I have also live far away. I'm here . . . . facing some of the hardest decisions I've had to make, living them, working my ass off to make a new life for myself . . . . and doing so . . . . by myself.

I was coping OK today . . . I left after dinner and called my girlfriend down in Illinois (Hi Darla!!) and then took myself and found a spot to watch the fireworks. I found a pretty good place on the top floor of one of the parking garages downtown. I waited for it to get dark, and was able to position my car pretty good, so I could see, and stick near my car, and had it tuned to the station that was going to play the music for the show. Well . . . . there was a large, and getting larger by the minute, crowd of obnoxious, drinking, boorish college kids. La Crosse is a college town. They had their radio turned up playing some obnoxious rap crap. As the show started I turned my radio up so I (and anyone around me that wanted to) could hear the music that was played for the show. It was your standard assortment of patriotic songs. Well . . . the crowd of drunk idiots at least turned theirs off . . . but during the show, one particulary brazen asshole walked over and reached into my car and turned it off. I passed him as he was getting out of my car, and stated it was the music to the show. He mumbled some incoherent complaint about "that crap music". Well . . . I turned it back on, and stood near my car so he could not come back. But the crowd of drunk idiots proceeded to be loud and obnoxious during the whole show.

Even watching a patriotic and public show, with the music intended for it . . . I'm an outsider! I got the sense that if they started anything, none of the people around would intervene.

Once the show was done . . . I got in and left quickly. I don't want a confrontation. But it pissed me off.

I feel so terribly out of place here! There is an incredible urge to leave, and to go. At this point the goal seems to be Oregon. I so hope that I will find my "home" there . . . . for I've been uprooted for so long, and I feel like I'm drifting. I struggle with the emotion that if anything happened to me . . . very few would miss me. A counselor would probably make some good money off me . . . if I only consented to go to one. I've stopped making an effort to meet anyone, any men, for I just seem to be beating my head up against a wall. I've deactivated what dating sites I was on. My heart is tired of being bruised by rejection. I'm lonely . . . . . and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of comfort for me!

I finished my Summer I class, and got for the first time in my college career, a B. I'm currently in my Summer II clinicals. This past week I spent a full day both at Gundersen and at Franciscan Skemp. I'm now tagging along and observing what I'll be eventually trained to do. It was interesting! There is so much I must learn.

I'm anxious to get on with it. The sooner I accomplish this . . . the sooner I can leave.

I have a plan. On my left shoulder is a kestrel tattoo . . . . it is my 'totem' . . . an animal that I feel a kindred and spiritual connection to. When I am done with my training, and tested and certified and licensed, and MOVED, and establish myself in some new place, a new job, and put down new roots . . . . I will have a phoenix on my right . . . to symbolize my rebirth.

I hope it is a rebirth!

I hope once I get there . . . that I can pick up a normal life. That I can make friends that will stay, that will want to stay. People that will want to talk to me, want to spend time with me. And I hope some day that there will again be someone to love me. My house-mate barely started to try . . . and she is now upstairs, in her bed, in the arms of someone who by all appearances is very interested in her.

It's been so long . . . . . . . I've not known this for myself. There are some nights I feel very weak and depressed. Tonight is one of them.

I'd hate to think that whole world of belonging is no longer someplace that I will get to live in ever again.