Potpourri of a Dubious Scent

All right. Now can I say that my opinion has slightly changed? Let me confess: After watching S4 and the opening of S5 of Buffy, I can buy the Buffy/Giles ship. I'm not on the ship or anything; I can just buy it. It makes more sense now that I see Buffy coming into her own authority as a person.

In other news, I have added a Stories sidebar to my blog page. It's pretty much all the stories I've had anything to do with that are published on the web. Read -- enjoy -- review!

I've hit a small rough spot in my fic; a scene with my character and Willow and Tara that is going to be dicey. So I don't know how soon it will be before I post another chapter. I hope it will be by Sunday.

Blimey, I have too much to do. It's the end of the month, and here comes all sorts of trouble. Bills, work, housecleaning, writing duties I've taken on -- my car is making a frightening noise upon being started in this cold weather -- did I mention the bloody filing I have to do at work? I think I did. Breathe, Lisa. Okay.

Except that's not really what's bugging me. What's bugging me is a concatenation of three conversations that I've been a party to in the past 48 hours. The first, a blog conversation, is Rebecca's and Jemima's discussions of the nature of introversion, and how it makes high school suck for nerds. My memories of high school are suffused with a miasma of sycophantic misery and depression, which in college became a consuming need to be ecstatically welcomed by people who were already my friends.

It's such an ignominious feeling, to know that my uncontrollable impulse to bleed attention out of other people is the very thing that will drive them away. (Insert appropriate Four Loves quote here.) And it's terribly frustrating to be blindsided by that need when I know that to cure the need I must walk past it to do something material: to take initiative and let the chips of human attachment fall where they may. And yet I remain all sycophantic and Prufrocky; it never entirely goes away. (Note to self: read some more Henri Nouwen.)

The second conversation was with a friend who is going through a difficult time. I said something encouraging that came from my own experience; and though I knew that wouldn't be enough to make her discomfort go away, I was still disheartened to hear her say that she should seek out the company of another friend, who alone knew what to do. It wasn't a recrimination toward me, what she said; but it reminded me of my relative helplessness to make the truth I have into something that's of any use to anyone but myself.

The third conversation followed hard upon, and was with yet another friend who is going through a difficult time. We were discussing the Five Love Languages of Gary Chapman fame as applied to what she needed, and she asked me, "what the hell is your love language, anyway?" I said: "I think it's Words of Affirmation." "Oh." In context, it made me wonder fretfully if I appear to speak any love language at all.

I've been told numerous times, and with asperity, that my presence in people's lives is valued, welcomed, and beneficial. But it's these little clusters of disappointment that just get me down. "If you want to be loved, be lovable," and "If you want a friend, be a friend" are my twin schoolmarms, who pop up and shake their fingers at me at times like this. It only makes my pity party more loud and liable to wake the neighbors. After all, what if I have no hope of being lovable? or of being an effective friend?

I've aired this worry before, and was answered that I'm too hard on myself. So new? The thing is, I've caught myself being sycophantic again recently, toward people I know less well than the friends I live with, and I feel incredibly frustrated at the vicious cycle I'm perpetuating. I'm not meant to control how other people see me, so why should I try? And yet.

I guess the crux of the matter is, I've been educated to believe that if I want attention and affection, I have to earn it -- period. And what I put out better be damned good. Which makes me angry. Grace being a coin, I was never encouraged to study the obverse, which is that if I can't earn affection, I just as well can't unearn it.

But who wants grace, when you can have control?

I think I've discovered my Lent meditation.