I Am Learning, Little by Little Mind You, That I Am Human.

Before I get into the details of my humanity and all, a quick update on last week's post. Yes, I am still a vegetarian. No, not for much longer. I will actually be giving it up in two days. You may be asking yourself why while raising your hands above your head exasperatedly. Well, there are several reasons. The main one being that of the three people that started in July, I am the only one still doing it. It's a lot more fun being a vegetarian when everyone else is doing it and you have someone to commiserate about the fact that you have to pay the same amount for a dish with four sides and no entree even if it is not as fulfilling as what everyone else is getting. Another reason for giving it up is because I am going on vacation to Portland in a week and a half and I want to be able to enjoy my vacation without having to worry about what to eat. Also, I am starting to eat meat a week in advance of my vacation so that my stomach gets used to it again and to avoid any episodes as I know I will be stressed enough by the travel alone. Other than that, I did enjoy my little forage into vegetarianism. I do believe sometime I will be able to do a permanent transition to a vegetarian diet but that may just be wishful thinking.

On a different note, they have changed my work duties, however temporarily, so I am unsure if I will have time to type this from work as I used to do it in my down time. It's not really good news though. Duties have been added to my schedule and I will even have to spend time away from my desk but there will be no pay increase and I am already frustrated with the way things are being handled. Since I am unaware of how much down time I will have, I may have to start writing from home. What will this mean to you? Nothing really. I will still try to do a new post every Monday. However, the length of the post may be considerably shorter to allow me time to go about my daily life, i.e. watching TV, drinking and such. Anyway, enough with the intros and on with the main point of this post.

So, after much thought and consideration, I have arrived at the conclusion that I am human, after all, with human emotions and everything. You may be wondering why my humanity was up for discussion but I am not a typical human. Especially when it comes to emotions. Yes, it is possible to bring me to tears but it's not through typical means. A good poem, recently W.B. Yeats Easter, 1916, a good movie, Fernando Leon De Aranoa's Princesas, or a good song, Stavesacre's Gold & Silver, will have me bawling like an infant. Yet, the tale of someone's misfortune or death just revs my brain into overdrive trying to find the most hilariously inappropriate comment I can make. I am often accused of being heartless and when that happens I often have no more recourse than to shrug my shoulders and agree with my accuser. It's not all great though. It does bother me that sometimes people don't tell me things because they are afraid that I will make fun of whatever they are going through. They don't understand that I am totally capable of exercising restraint and, though I will make light of the situation, I know when not to do it in front of them. I guess some people will always find a way to make everything about themselves though.

I have no idea where my callousness comes from so I will simply have to blame Medea. She was never really expressive of her emotions and I guess I learned from her. I remember that when I was a kid and used to hug her she would ask me what had gotten into me and if I had dreamed that she had died again. Most of the time, she was right as I would only hug her if I had a particularly vivid dream in which she died and when, upon waking, I was glad to see that she was still alive. However, that gladness was short-lived by her abrupt reception and accusing remarks of how I did not appreciate her unless I thought she was dead. Thus I learned to not express any emotion that may be seen as weakness and preyed upon. I called this living.

I have recently realized though that, even if I don't acknowledge them, the feelings are still there if buried deep within me and so strange to me that I almost do not recognize them when they dare surface. Two such cases happened a few weeks ago and they all happened due to the amazing person that is willing to put up with all my quirks, the BF.

The first one happened on a Tuesday. I don't remember exactly what was going on. I think he was in town but for some reason we had not seen each other in a while. We had talked daily but only for a few minutes because we both had things to do. On Tuesday, we talked as soon as I got off work but once again we had to cut the talk short for some reason or other. We always said we would talk later, but I knew that he would not call back til the next day. After I finished dinner and while I was watching TV and with no good reason for doing so, I called him. When he answered, I had nothing to say. I really had not thought it through. Nothing had happened since we had talked earlier and I found myself telling him that I had called him because it seemed like we had not talked enough even if I had nothing more to say. He gave a quick laugh and said that I had called him because I missed him. I immediately recoiled at his accusation because missing someone is something that I just don't do since it seems a sign of weakness. After all, I don't need anyone because I can take care of myself. I balked at his arrogant assumption and told him nothing could be further from the truth. The subject was then changed and we ended up talking on the phone for about an hour. While I was falling asleep that night, I was still thinking of his accusation that I missed him. I realized then that he was right. I was missing him but I did not recognize it because I have never really missed anyone in my life. I live a pretty independent life and I stay in touch with the people I want to stay in touch with when I want to stay in touch with them. I do not even miss my family. I feel more comfortable when my parents are here because my mom cooks and I know they are all right, but I never have the desire to call them and just talk to them. In fact, since they are in Mexico, I have to remind myself and force myself to call them once every two weeks. I was not aware that I could miss someone and, at first, was embarrassed that I could miss someone. I felt weak and stupid for letting someone influence how I felt. Thankfully, the second case which happened two days later changed my perspective.

Two days later, we had started making plans for the weekend. I was planning on spending the weekend at his place. We had been texting plans back and forth all day but when I called him after work he told me that the plans had changed. See, the BF has a dog, puppy as he likes to call him as he dislikes the word "dog," named Diesel. Since the BF travels a lot for work, he leaves Diesel with a friend of his that also has a dog, Nora. Therefore, whenever the BF is in town, he has to take care of two dogs, puppies, as they keep them together. That however is not important. What is important is that he told me that his friend was coming into the Dallas area for the weekend and that he was going to stay at his place so that our plans had to change. I felt an uneasiness at that moment but chalked it up to the fact that I don't like it when plans change. I told him that it was OK though because we could change our plans to accommodate his friend easily. I was not aware of anything unusual until the next morning when I woke up and remembered what I had dreamt. The BF's friend has a name that can easily be seen as unisex. I don't feel comfortable revealing his name so let it suffice that, in my dream, the BF's friend turned out to be a woman and that, upon meeting "her," my mind was put at ease. It took me a minute to realize that I was jealous. I have always stated that I am not a jealous person, but I have never really had a relationship, so I did not know for sure. In this case, the BF has a friend that shares with him his animals and love of animals and whom I never met and I was a little bit jealous. I was not even aware of it on a conscious level but, obviously, subconsciously I was troubled by it. Now, I have always maintained that jealousy is pointless but I should amend that to say that "excessive jealousy" is pointless. As things stand, I don't begrudge the BF having friends, but it is nice to know that I care enough to feel some jealousy as long as it does not affect the relationship.

I was super excited that I was jealous, to say the least. It was then that I realized that if being subconsciously jealous of the BF was a good thing, missing him was a good thing too. I told my friends at work about my new discovery as soon as I got to work and they were surprised and were the first to say that I may be human after all. I was elated for the rest of the day and told the BF the good news as soon as I saw him that night. He was not as excited about the new developments as I was but I don't think he understood how monumental these changes were. They kind of re-defined who I was which is not easy as I try to be a very self-actualized person. Also, I had proof that I was a person because persons miss people and get jealous. He still did not quite fully grasp why I was so excited kind of like he does not understand how I can enjoy being depressed. He's got a lot to learn about me but the good thing is that, apparently, so do I and I can't wait to find out what else there is to learn. I am a scholar after all.