Reality in Review

[kiya]

Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, aleph-null bottles of beer
Take one down
Pass it around
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.

I've been dealing with the packing up of stuff and preparation for moving in the abstract -- we're not to the point of being ready to put the house on the market yet, so this is preparation for that, and we're not looking except in a strange abstract sense, but -- yeah. I've covered most of one wall in the dining room with stacked boxes.

At this point, the task feels discouragingly infinite. I'm trying to deal with this in a couple of ways, as I was discovering that the more work I actually did on making progress, the more depressed I got, which is the opposite of my usual problem. One is that I've been focusing on de-crufting one room in particular -- partly so I can finish it and thus Have Something Done, partly because it's really the worst room to process through as it's where we put undifferentiated junk that we never bothered to sort through effectively. (Of course, the fact that it's really the most annoying room to deal with makes doing so depressing.) I've also put together a to-do list, and since doing so have crossed things off it, some of which were even on the list as originally written.

The early part of packing stuff up felt like accomplishing things. This was mostly because, for one, going from no boxes to twelve boxes is a really remarkable shift in number-of-boxes-full-of-stuff-and-packed-away quotient. But also, most of the first boxes I packed was clearing up piles that we didn't have enough storage space for -- things that were heaped up on the floor or stashed in tottering masses here and there. Which means that that first pile of boxes made a big difference to the tidiness level of the house. After I ran out of large piles, it's been a bit more scattered.

teinedreugan has made tremendous progress on getting the outside contractor people we need in to do house things in to actually do the house things. I haven't had to throw any fits. We got the leak in the basement fixed (and I amused the plumber, who commented that the cats were fascinated by the work, by telling him that Lennon wants to be a plumber when he grows thumbs). Our banged-up front door will be replaced Tuesday-week, as will the back/side door that has not been functional for pretty much the entire time we've lived here. (The doorknob came out, like, the first week.)

I'm still not feeling like I'm accomplishing anything here. Despite spending, I know, several hours today going through boxes, throwing things away, sorting, packing boxes. Defective sense of perspective again. I'd actually be doing better with feeling that I was accomplishing something if it were 'we're planning on moving in three weeks' or something concrete like that, though that would be leavened by a certain amount of panic at the prospect of having to get it all actually done. So in the abstract I know I'm doing better to be working ahead and getting things done without time pressure...


High-maintenance low-maintenance
Had a really nasty ricochet off some severe emotional insecurity yesterday, which cascaded in a couple of messy ways. I'm a lot less emotionally fragile than I was at the beginning of the year, when I was still in the immediate post-breakup-with-brooksmoses emotional shock and hadn't done any work on addressing some of the issues there. But I'm still twitchy, and there are some areas that I've got even less resilience than I consider normal, keeping in mind that 'normal' for some of these is 'no cope here, really, but I can dip into emergency reserves'.

Which gets back to my old comment that I'm high-maintenance low-maintenance; I have a fairly high baseline need for stability, commitment, security, and so on in a relationship, but if that baseline is met, I can, for the most part, manage to be drama free, as opposed to what I think of as 'high maintenance', which is requiring active intervention to keep the drama down.


Back to that sense of perspective thing
Though that interacts weirdly with one of the places I appear to have broken perspective, which I've been chewing on since arawen told me that I was very supportive.

I have a certain standard for what I consider a default expectation for what I'm obligated to when I'm in a relationship, especially a partnership relationship. I don't always meet this standard -- depression issues frequently make it very difficult -- but most of the time I feel I do an okay job on it. I don't always do much better than what I think of as reasonable basic expectations.

But apparently my reasonable basic expectations are actually extremely high standards. Or something. I don't know. I'm not entirely sure where they came from, quite, though I suspect a certain amount of modelling on my father, who is both a romantic and who defaults to a lot of intense, personal investment in his close relationships. At least that's my best guess.


Miscellanea
I'm no longer keeping the flame on my house shrine going all the time; I'd like to, but I don't currently have the lamp oil supplies for it. I do a candle's worth of oil most days, though, so it's at least consistently maintained and attended.

I tried a small shrine ritual sort of winging it, but I really need to put together something more formal to suit my sense of actually doing something there. I'm not sure what that would be just yet, unfortunately; I'll keep with the milk offerings as a good core practice, at least.

I have not yet re-established my dance practice regularly. Will put in good faith effort on that tomorrow. My legs ache a lot lately, and I'm not sure why; I should ought settle in to a good stretching habit. I also really need to soak my feet in something hot, and/or make pathetic faces at autumnesquirrel at games.

I need to do garden work, which may or may not go on the to-do list -- I need to weed out the uglies in the front dirt, I need to take a machete or something to the side dirt and clear out all the weed maples and other foo, I need to harvest more lilac sprigs.

And it occurs to me that this is sort of a planes-of-stability checkin, so I'll point my classmates at it. Heh.

Comments

[larksdream]

Take a magnesium tablet, see if that makes the leg pain go away... (it should work within a few hours if that's what it was).

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

No pathetic faces needed, just come stick your feet in my lap.

[mindways]

When packing/unpacking for the move to Yorq, I noted that the closer I got to the halfway point, the less I felt like I was getting anywhere. Early on, the ratio of "work-just-done" to "work-done" was high; in the end stages the ratio of "work-just-done" to "work-left" was high; in the middle...

Thus leading to the definition of "feeling of progress" as:

 f(p) = max(p / t, p / (1 - t))

...where p is "progress just made" and t is "total progress", both as proportions of total work needed (in the range of [0, 1]).

(Which I mistyped as "the rage of [0, 1]", which may be more appropriate.)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I'm still not feeling like I'm accomplishing anything here. Despite spending, I know, several hours today going through boxes, throwing things away, sorting, packing boxes. Defective sense of perspective again. I'd actually be doing better with feeling that I was accomplishing something if it were 'we're planning on moving in three weeks' or something concrete like that, though that would be leavened by a certain amount of panic at the prospect of having to get it all actually done.

Yeah, I know that feeling. It's what's driving our total lack of motivation to work on house issues, because we know we're going to be living here for the forseeable future, so there's no real need for us to get organised - even though it would be much more pleasant for both of us to be living in a tidy environment with all the junk sorted out!

I must say, it does sound extremely stressful to be sorting things out in preparation for a move that is in unknown time in the future :/ I don't like unresolved issues.

Which gets back to my old comment that I'm high-maintenance low-maintenance; I have a fairly high baseline need for stability, commitment, security, and so on in a relationship, but if that baseline is met, I can, for the most part, manage to be drama free, as opposed to what I think of as 'high maintenance', which is requiring active intervention to keep the drama down.

Now that is interesting. I've been described as high maintenance before, but I think actually I'm much more what you're describing here. I need to know what the relationship is, and know that it has certain levels of commitment and so on rather than just feel that's what the other person thinks; but then, assuming that's the situation, I just get on with enjoying being in the relationship. Crises arise due to various people's health issues and external stresses, but we all work together to get them sorted out.

[kiya]

As stresses go, I somewhat like this one better than the 'Waugh, need to have this all done in three weeks' variety, but it's deeply discouraging to wade through. teinedreugan wants to have all the contractor stuff done by the end of June so we can put the house on the market, so that's a sort of goal, but it's less concrete than "We're moving in on Tuesday" sort of thing.


I think one of the things with the high-maintenance low-maintenance thing is that a lot depends on whether the stuff that leads me to believe a relationship is secure/committed is in the realm of stuff partner-finds-easy. One of the things that is very effective for that sort of thing for me is a partner who talks about what they enjoy in the relationship, what matters in the relationship, what their hopes and dreams are with regard to where the relationship is -- and I don't think I've ever been involved with someone for whom that is easy or natural as a major component of things. teinedreugan probably does it the best, and those people who know how much he communicates about his state of mind will now fall over laughing ....

But I do tend to think that the 'maintenance' thing needs to be divided up into established minimums and ongoing requirements, because otherwise it gets muddled like that. I seriously dislike it when I'm in a state where I'm producing regular emotional fluxes (generally a state where I'm not secure in a relationship); at the same time, I know people for whom some level of regular emotional flux is pretty much default. I deal better with high baselines than extensive flux.

*smiles*

[suzanne.livejournal.com]

*obligingly falls over laughing*

Really though, he isn't that bad, comparatively. Especially if I'm sure to ask questions and be clear on what type of answers I want. What's hard for me is reading his body language, which always makes me feel sad. I always have to end up asking "what does that look /mean/?"