This is going to be disorganized and not very well written.

I hate it when I use this place as my personal therapy session. I’ve already got a therapist. And this place isn’t private. This is a place where I put myself forward to the public.

(Shades of Josh Lyman. “This is a place where solemn work is done. This is a place… this is a place… let me say this… this is not a place where one’s personal things… where things among people… this is not a place… let’s… This is a place where work is done and nothing else.”)

I remember something Mike wrote when I first quit blogging a few years ago. “I’m sad that you never really considered devoting most of your blogging energy to the less emotional aspects of your life, choosing instead to live a very big chunk of your life out in the open. It made for some very compelling reading… and it wore you down in little more than a year.”

I’ve tried hard to avoid doing that since I resumed blogging. But sometimes it slips through. Sometimes I tend to feel things… intensely. I can be oversensitive. Not all the time, but it still happens.

I realized something about myself a while back. I used to think I hated competition. I told myself I wasn’t competitive. But what I realized is, I am competitive. I’m very competitive. I just don’t like having to compete. It’s much easier to feel jealousy or envy instead of actually doing what it takes to compete. In theory I’m against competition, because I think you should focus on yourself instead of on other people, and competition brings up conflict, and I hate conflict. And yet, I focus a lot on other people’s accomplishments in comparison to my own and wind up seething with resentment inside – sometimes subconsciously, so I don’t even realize I’m doing it. So basically, I hate being competitive, yet I can’t help but be competitive.

There are certain blogs I don’t read anymore because they stir up lots of negative feelings in me when I read them, mostly envy. Part of this comes from the fact that I’ve been blogging for such a long time that I resent people who’ve been blogging for much shorter periods of time and are much more popular. Which I know is totally stupid. But they don’t have to be newish upstarts – they can be older bloggers, too. Regardless — I think to myself, what have they got that I haven’t got? And the answer is, drive, or more writing talent, or more focus, or something inherently appealing or attractive about their personality.

I am such a competitive person. I get envious *so* easily.

Sometimes I wish I could get back to that place where I wrote about things in a compelling manner. But too many people know about this site now, which inhibits me.

I’ve been bummed lately in general. Part of it is this dark and gloomy weather that’s hung over New York City and Newark the last few days. Part of it is that Matt’s been really busy and frazzled with getting things set for the new students to move into our building and hasn’t been around that much. Part of it is that I’m worried about us maybe having to move, and about the dent that’s going to put in my finances.

Sunday was one of the worst weekend days I’d had in a long time – complete and utter boredom and loneliness and gloomy weather, resentment over lost or deteriorated friendships, self-flagellation for not being as social as I should be, self-doubt.

I don’t know why I am the way I am. Years of therapy have not gotten rid of it.