bad fortune

sometimes, without my conscious permission, i enter into a blackened state. char-grilled swordfish. i don't usually realize this is happening until i go to work, where i must interact. when people speak to me, they're speaking into a vaccuum. there's something violent about it. everything they say to me, everything they're saying that requires a response, which is everything, is a nuisance to me, because i don't have any good responses, they've all been taken, or everything i would think of to say would sound horrible coming out of my mouth, and people tend to observe me as "tired," which makes matters worse, because i must then respond to a judgement of the state i'm in that i had no awareness of. because when i was by myself i seemed completely fine. in an environment where i was the only one i had to answer to, there was no need to answer, and therefore no effort and no reflection, and no tiredness. but when i have to start responding, reflecting, it all turns hopelessly stale, futile, exhausted and angry. kind words are seen as judgemental attacks, observations turn into indictments. it's sucky.
monday and most of today were like that. during monday's rehearsal i quietly attacked one of my students, terribly hurting her feelings, because of her seeming lack of preparation. when another student showed concern, i said it was nothing and that i didn't know he was talking about.
this morning i talked with the girl i'd flayed for being unprepared. i apologized, looked at her sad eyes and listened to her feelings of being overwhelmed by all the end-of-the-year tasks in which she's required to excel. at the end of rehearsal today, interacting with that same student who had shown concern, i felt myself beginning to emerge, through no effort of my own, back into some sort of tangible daylight.
i am pretty sure that these dark states are primarily physical in origin-- something's going on in my body that is causing these strained emotional reactions. if i were watching my diet better, if i were exercising regularly, if i were getting enough good rest, these states would become non-existent, or at least manageable. i believe that's true because when i am more in touch with my body, these states have been less able to dominate me.
it's not good fortune, it's not bad fortune. it's a natural fluctuation that i can either be prepared for, or not.
one thing my physical state might have made me susceptible to was the news, yesterday morning, through e-mail, that the theatre where we were going to perform the pillowman rejected the script because of its provocatively negative portrayal of christ. will we find another space? maybe. but performing in the space we had counted on was one of the things making me so excited about that production. that news might have pushed me further into the crappy blank gaze.
conversely, one of the things that may have aided me in my eventual turn towards daylight today was the visa bill that came in the mail. eh? you may say. a visa bill caused joy? well, in this case, yes, for you see, i cut up my visa card with scissors back in january, after being sick to death of my balance hovering around the unpayable $1500 zone. i cut it with scissors into the trash can, immediately thereafter feeling the ability to take the first deep breath of the new year. since then i've been paying it off slowly, bit by bit, without accruing much debt in the meantime, so that now i'm set to make my last payment of $400 which will bring my balance down to $0 for the first time in years. (ah, the vapid joys of a consumer in overseas-wartime america.)
so yes, there are little factors that may push me in one direction or another, but at bottom, it's up to me how i react to them, and it's up to my mind to keep my body in mind.