So even though I started the day in a really good mood, it quickly deteriorated into seirous depression. Now part of that was due to sleep deprivation. (When I don't get enough sleep, i get seriously depressed.) But of course not ALL of it can be simple sleep deprivation. (Because of course the sleep deprivation was caused by anxiety attacks, which are caused by god knows what psychic trauma I went through so many years ago that there really is no point even being in therapy for it.) I digress.
So the days starts I come into my office. And like all women I'm mindful of my weight. I'm not crazy about it. I don't live on rice cakes and dreams, but I try to be pretty responsible about it. You know, no high fat food, no high calorie food, no eating late at night (if I snack it has to be something healthy like baby carrots or a little salad). So this woman who has the office next to min comes in and says to me, "You know I've been meaning to tell you, you've put on some weight. You look heavier this winter." I'm like "Great, thanks for stopping by. Is that all, would you like to call me ugly and stupid before you go on your way spreading joy to the rest of the teachers?" The truth is I lost weight, although I probably looks heavier because I put on a lot of muscle because of dancing (my thighs are all muscle now). Or at least that's how I'm justifying the fact that I have lost weight but look heavier.

I am mean that's not all that happened. The day just went downhill from there. I show up at my therapist's office to find that my mother has called to ask "what she can do to help." Translated this is "My daughter isn't getting better fast enough so I have situate myself into the therapeutic relationship." She has done it with past therapists too. She doesn't see how this behavior is invasive. For someone who doesn't believe in therapy for herself she certainly is very invovled wtih mine Of course this goes to my theory of therapy by proxy. She needs to go, and she knows this, but doesn't go so she kind of tries to horn in on my therapy. And since I pay for my therapy, it is mine and she should get out of it. If I wanted her involved I would have told her, or asked her to join for a session or some other craziness. But therapy, and the beautfy of therapy, is that for an hour you get to have things be all about you. You don't have to pretend or worry about other people's feelings or negotiate. So that was a totally unwanted and unnecessary intrusion.

Then I go to ballroom. Now ballroom is a "safe space" for me. It used to be my apartment, but that's not so anymore. Un the last year my apartment has become the enemy, the place I don't want to go to, not the safe womb like presence it used to be. When I was growing up, even in college, people used to love to come my bedroom. I used to create this very comfortable relaxing energy. Gone. It's just a god damned mess now. I sit on the couch and think something has to change, but I'm not sure of what or even how. So I go to ballroom and the last of my favorite teachers, all of the others, including Poor Max have been fired, is leaving. He can not stand the studio anymore and so he is leaving to visit his sick mother in Russia and he doesn't know if he'll ever come back. Now for a person like me, a person with limited social resources, a person who becomes emotionally attached very quickly, to have a teacher I have been dancing with for almost a year just up and leave, leave the whole country, is very upsetting. Its another abadonment. My upset was so clear from my face that through the lesson he kept trying to reassure me. "Well, I don't know if I'm going to stay. Maybe I'll go back and hate it. Maybe things here will change if they realize that I'll leave. Nothings definite." Right nothings definite, exept that it is. Except that I already know he won't come back and I will have lost another safe space, another thing that makes me happy. And its getting much harder to replace these things. To find another activity or space. Without Oleg, studio really has no hold on me. But where do I go then? What activity do I try next?

There are those that would see this as an opportunity. Now i can devote myself to getting the PhD. But what these people don't realize is that the one thing I always wanted to avoid in my life. The one thing that I never wanted to do was be all about my work. I learned that much from my parents. My father the doctor and my mother the CEO of a hospital. I never wanted my job to be the most important thing never mind the ONLY thing period. And so I rebel at the idea of just being about teaching and learning. Am I good at it? There is no doubt. But do I want my whole life to be about it. No.

Of course the flip side of the argument is that this is like Quentin Tarrantino saying that what he really wants to do is act, despite the fact that his acting is awful. Maybe whatI should do is simply accept my talent and go with it, that I'm spending too much time on something that was not meant to be. Apparently I was not meant to have friends or a boyfriend. I was only meant ot be an academic. And apparently a fat one at that.