A Walk in the Rain

I got home from work today thinking it would be a nice night to take a walk in the rain and write for a while at the Starbucks, and then I discovered that it wasn't going to be an option - it was gonna be a necessity.

I came home to find that everything had changed. Not only was Liza now not moving out (very good news -- had I told you that bomb had been dropped?), but that the brits had already started the move that we'd discussed before she announced her intention to go, so now Liza will be living on the other side of a glass-topped pocket door, rather than two rooms away.  The middle room and my room were all torn up and everything was thrown open and the apartment was in serious disarray.  I could have just allowed myself to be pulled into the move and made everything happen tonight, but I was so flustered at the surprise (and yet another instance of things being done without my knowledge or participation) that I was, like, "Fuck this, I'm going for a fucking walk."  In my head, of course.

Poor Liza, I think, knew that I wasn't happy about the suddenness of things, and she did what she could to comfort me -- explaining that the move had begun while I was out, offering to help me move stuff... to help paint my new room.  She's so sweet, and such a calming presence.  So laid back.  Everyone should have their own Liza around.

I suspect, sometimes, that she's got much more going on under that calm facade than she lets on. But then again, I suspect that most people have a lot more going on than they let others know.

I was sitting here trying to think of a way to put into words why this episode bugged me, and I had a bit of a revelation.

Aside from the natural aversion we all have to intrusion into our personal space, I suddenly remembered, for some reason, what it was like to grow up in a really large family with with five bedrooms for 8 kids.  There was no privacy, of course, and I was, even at the time (though I had no idea what "gay" meant, let alone "sex"), paranoid about having what little privacy I possessed invaded.  Feeling, essentially, powerless over my environment.

I've often wondered where the powerlessness I've often felt came from, and now I suspect that maybe this is where it was learned.  I think I've long suspected that the powerlessness one feels in depression is a learned behavior, much like I've often believed optimism and pessimism are learned behaviors.

I've tended not to dwell on my childhood because I've never been able to really clearly grasp it.  There are no sharp specifics surrounding my childhood.  I feel as though I was this unformed being who haunted the places of my youth, waiting for all the bits to coalesce and form a whole -- a whole that could, from that point beyond, have memories and a sense of self.