Residency sends me up and down constantly. I alternate the whole week, sometimes by the hours of the day, between feeling energized and excited by the writing craft, and feeling crushed and despondent with the surety that I will never be able to make anything of myself in this pursuit. When it comes to my art, I am incredibly sensitive to the fear that I am not good enough because of how hard it is to make it. I am entirely too sensitive, I know. My skin is too thin. But nothing inspires that fear in me like residency, where all my inadequacies are pointed out, where all the challenges I will have to face are brought out in sharp relief. And because my skin is too thin, I had at least two or three times a day when I felt wrecked. So I hate it. I hate being there, when I should be delighting in the chance to immerse myself in my craft with fellows who are supposed to care about it as much as I do.
And then there's the other thing. A big part of residency is making friends and socializing with other writers. But I'm an introvert. I've always found a useful definition for whether you're an introvert or an extrovert is how you recharge, how you recover when exhausted or stressed. Extroverts recharge by being with other people. Introverts, like myself, recharge by withdrawing. And if I'm feeling wrecked two or three times a day... I'm not going to want to hang with people I don't know well. I make friends slowly by my nature, even when the new people seem to be very cool and interesting, as these people seem to be. It would be hard enough to overcome that part of myself enough to connect with my fellow students; it feels freaking impossible when all I want to do is hide so nobody sees how sad I am.
That's the other thing. I can't stand pity. I can't stand people being like, "Oh, poor baby, let me build you up with meaningless platitudes about how it'll all be okay and how great you are because I feel sorry for you." Especially when everyone around me is facing the exact same challenges as me, and I'm just doing a lousy job of emotionally handling them. I'd rather be completely ignored than receive such condescension. So I don't want any well-meaning pitying person seeing how upset I am. Or worse, seeking me out just because they feel sorry for me. I like being alone, it's not a sad thing for me. Maybe it'd be nice to be able to be friendly with people, but I never mind being alone. Please don't patronize me by coming to keep me company out of pity. Way to find the easiest way to make me feel worse.
The biggest problem there, though, is that unfortunately, my profound desire not to be patronized often makes me suspicious of anyone who reaches out on their own. Even if they're not doing it out of pity at all, but a genuine desire to be friendly with me. But I'm inclined to think they'd have no reason to do that, since I haven't been all that friendly, so I automatically assume it must be pity. So I sometimes end up pushing that person away, even though they're trying to make a connection.
I should be trying to make those connections now. But I'm afraid without having done it when I first had the chance, I've missed the boat on really making friends with any of my classmates. I'm afraid they'll be like, "What are you doing all of a sudden? What the hell changed?" and they won't be receptive. It's been three freaking semesters already. I'm pretty sure I've screwed that up good by now.
And that's why I don't like residency. Because I really suck at it.
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