Sunday, January 30, 2011

Roommate Troubles

When I was younger, I started leaving rooms when I got really angry.  I didn't have to do it a lot, but occasionally I did.  I did it mostly to allow myself the time and space to calm down. 
At around one in the morning yesterday I realized I needed to do the same thing.  So I grabbed my key and left. 
I ended up in one of the common rooms, watching television.  The screen was all snowy, but I watched part of an episode of Stargate Universe, which I had actually never seen before.  I tried to concentrate on the show and not what was making me angry, although my mind kept wandering back to my problems.  I hate this. 
By the time I went back to my room, I had a compromise in mind.  It was too late to do anything about it tonight, so I tried to sleep. 
And couldn't.  Again, even though I tried to concentrate on sleep, my mind was wheeling around problems.  This is both a good and bad feature.  Good in that I can usually quickly figure out how to fix something.  Bad in that I have a hard time thinking about anything else, and when I'm trying to sleep, not being able to relax is bad. 
But also because, well, the problem was my sleep.  There's a lot of noise on the street below us, even well into the night.  My roommate won't let me close the window at night because she says she gets too hot.  And then the noise keeps me up.  (It apparently doesn't bother her one bit.)  Instead of her, say, not wearing winter pajamas to bed, which would be an obvious way to fix it, she said something that angered me last night, which is what prompted the retreat.  I was trying to be the better person, but trying to do that was meaning I was up half the night, the sound of ambulance sirens and car door alarms keeping me up. 
I tried to tire myself out.  I have all sorts of tricks that sometimes work.  I got on my computer for a half hour, hoping the harsh computer glare would make my eyes tired.  No luck. 
Around 4:30 this morning, still awake but in that state of "dear God, just let me sleep," another set of sirens went off and I finally shut the window.  It took me at least another half hour, but I finally fell back asleep. 
She woke my up in the morning, opening her drawers and doing something strange with liquid.  (Every morning there's a glug, glug, glug sound and I find myself wondering why she can't do that in the kitchen, since that is where she is heading next.  I am trying to be patient, but I am stunned by how generally inconsiderate she is.  When she is sleeping and I'm awake, I try to do things that are either inherently quiet or if they aren't and they have to get done, I try to do them as quietly as possible.  Every morning she must open and close at least six drawers.) 
I got up then because it's not worth trying to fight it.  I just got up and waited for her to close her drawers enough to let me walk past.  Once she was out of the room to get her breakfast I changed and got breakfast myself. 
I was tired at breakfast this morning.  My eyes were doing that itchy thing that tells me they're red and that I'm tired.  I didn't really feel like talking to anyone.  I thought about offering her a compromise, trying to decide which one would be the best. 
When I got back to the room, I sat down at my computer and started doing my usual morning routine of catching up with the news.  And she left.  I was going to offer it to her this morning, but she's gone. 
Part of me is still really angry.  Like, ready to pick a nasty fight angry.  But the other part of me so wants to make this work, since other then the noise thing, I mostly don't mind her.  I can try to forgive the early morning wake up if I can just manage some decent sleep in the first place.

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