Last time I met with the LSU Professor, he asked me, "What has been the overall effect [Morpheus] has had on your life? Is it positive or is it negative?"
I don't answer right away. I think a little. "Negative."
***
I've spent hours on the couch today, miserable with back pain. The GP wants me to re-consider having surgery.
I asked my mother (since she's had three back surgeries) if I would need to miss a semester of school because of it. She told me that it depends on whether or not I could sit through lecture.
The facts are in: often back surgery doesn't work. From what I've read about chronic lower back pain, the only thing that does work is exercise, any type of exercise, although yoga is often recommended. The research behind using opioids for chronic pain isn't good. However, if you dig deep enough, some medical scientists still say it's an option, and often, doctors prescribe them anyway.
***
I thought about the email for a long time, deciding that I was going to walk the dog and run errands in town before I actually replied. I tried to come up with ways to sound assertive without coming across as angry or insulting.
Sitting down and writing the damn email took about an hour. In the end, I couldn't help but sound frustrated or mad. The letter started off as being considerate and even sympathetic, but then in a couple of paragraphs it turned to an inevitability. Frankly, I'm pissed that we had a cup of coffee, and then I didn't hear from the guy for a month. I had no idea what to make of the absence. I told myself that he was just busy, wasn't checking his school email account because he's not actually teaching classes there this semester, and it's break, and maybe--
Maybe he didn't know what to say, so he chose to say nothing. I could accept that.
I felt like I had suffered an indignity, a feeling that I am somewhat familiar with. For anyone who's my close friend or a reader of this blog knows that Morpheus regularly disappears for a month or even a few months, and then pops back into my life when it suits him. He makes excuses, he even may apologize, but it happens again and again. I suppose my stupidity allows this since everyone who I've ever told the story to has recommended that I refuse to speak a word to this man. I wish I could do that, and maybe, someday, in my recovery, I'll have the strength to.
But honestly, another guy who just disappears because he doesn't give a fuck? Addressing this issue with the English instructor, I started off by saying, "In the future, I just wish to be treated with more consideration and respect..."
But, I was high, or maybe I was confusing two men into one big, bad example, and I was taking it out on the English instructor when I really wanted to talk to Morpheus. It's all a psychological, interpersonal blur. "I know you don't like talking about this shit, even though you'll have to deal with it for the rest of your life, I will be blunt: don't email me unless you have some kind of personal interest in me."
When you think about the words "some kind of personal interest," then that doesn't actually say anything specific or anything clear. Personal interest can range from friendship to fucking, and back again. But what personal interest does translate into is personal investment. You just don't leave your friends hanging, wondering what you're doing or what they did wrong, and so on.
"That being said, however, I am not a good mind reader...I had no data to understand why after we met in person for a cup of coffee that I didn't hear from you for a month..."
Honestly, I get it or at least I think I do (which is dangerous). He probably just wanted to put some distance between us, kind of like the push-pull dynamic that goes on so often in relationships.
But I didn't think that was fair either way.
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