Subjective realisms

I was stuck, in one of those episodes or chapters that will either turn out to be a transitional crescendo to some stable good form, or will, in retrospect, be remembered as just the beginning of attrition, the useless kicking action of a thing that needs to die. The problem with optimism is knowing when to apply it.

When we finished our meeting, I turned with profuse thanks to M, a touch on the shoulder and wet eyes. What did I want? To make it personal. To feel loved. To actually thank her. To re-establish the solid ground of a consensus of upward mobility and things being OK - things are basically OK! Look, we are joking and making plans and saying, see ya later. But this feels wrong: I need to feel tragic in order to be tragic.

I hate knowing that my projections of affects and moods so obviously affect people's strategies toward me. If I want reassurance, I project gloom. I project ease and confidence if I want to move to the next thing. But what if I feel both gloomy and confident about what I am doing? I feel both these things at once way more often than I feel either on its own.