20190811.0430

In the event, Stonecutter's birthday yesterday went generally well. So far as I could tell, the people who attended the party had a good time, and the kids had fun afterwards. If there was a problem, it was not a problem because of anything Ms. 8 did, but because of what I did around the party. (During, I managed to keep more or less quiet and out of the way when I wasn't helping move things or hand food out, so there wasn't really much opportunity for me to fuck things up. There's that, at least.) I confess to frustration in the lead-up to the party, as well as failing to hide the effects of my fatigue and lingering frustration after the event was ended--as well as to directing those towards people at whom I ought not to aim either.
It is not the first time such has happened, to be sure. I have often commented that I do not do well around celebrations, noting that my demeanor does not tend to admit of jollity when many others will feel it. Yesterday, I did well enough at the event itself, so there is that. But, again, around it, I did less well, and I begin to think again that I need to absent myself from festivities and celebrations. My presence does not make things during enough better that my...ill-contentedness around is an acceptable cost. Or, if that is not acceptable, I need to remember to focus on getting work done--which I do adequately, most of the time, though never well enough--and being present but removed for the rest of it, keeping my mouth shut. There's not much I can add, but there's a damned lot I can take away, and with few words, indeed.
I have a lot of practice with making things worse for people, as I've noted. My voice takes on sharp tones quickly, and what little I can see of people focuses on their vulnerabilities; it becomes easy for me to find the place where they were held when dipped into the waters that wash away their weaknesses, to touch them tellingly with a tongue-tip sharpened and hardened through too much use. Too often, it is a first reaction to events, one developed to keep people at bay--but that does not make for a good life for me, or for those who have me in their lives for whatever reason. (After days like yesterday, I wonder that I am still tolerated. Then I look at the ratios of income to expense, and I am reminded of earlier comments that have been made, and I think they continue to apply. And if it is an economic argument alone, then I have to think that other calculations will begin to become relevant--and there is no good figuring in such equations.)
I am being melodramatic, almost certainly. I erred, and there is no punishment for it other than mild rebuke--and what I foist upon myself. But retribution does not yield sufficient penance; nothing will make right what has been wrong, but the prevention of further wrong can at least be of some use. That work likely exceeds me; it has so far, clearly, else what continues to motivate such comments from me as I have made would not continue. I can only try again--or finally learn the lesson that I recall from the man Caspar Pallavicino would not name, and leave myself oiled in the closet, lest I grow more rusty yet than I am.