Getting the last slice of pie

I used to have a friend who described life as a pie. Each part of your life is a separate wedge – personal relationships (family and loves), living situation (apartment and roommates), health (physical and emotional), and professional life (or lack thereof, in my case). And that is about it. The pie is always 100%, but the wedges can change. So you can’t have it all. (Sort of like that thing about you can’t have a balanced budget, social welfare programs, and low taxes – something has to give). So when one wedge of your life gets noticeably bigger, you’ll notice that another goes down.

I thought that this was a genius idea and immediately subscribed to it. But today I found myself examining the pie and realized that because one particular slice of the pie is so small, it is actually effecting (affecting? damn it, I’m in grad school – why do I have to look this up every time?) the other slices of my pie. And the fact that one of my slices is so slim that it might as well be absent exacerbates minor problems I have in other parts of my life makes me very, very sad. And screws up the pie theory because it doesn't seem like everything adds up to 100%.

Biker Boy and I were recently watching the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD with a bowl of popcorn between us. I picked up a piece of popcorn and went to feed it to him (aww, aren’t we disgusting?) and he said, “no, I’m done” and shoved my hand to my own mouth. Immediately I had these thoughts that he hated me and my popcorn and he was never going to tell me he hated me and this was just one of those slights that was a sign that he hated me and I should read the signs and end the relationship now and why wasn’t my popcorn good enough and how could I possibly attract such a wonderful, smart, caring man and damn it, WHY WASN’T MY POPCORN GOOD ENOUGH? Then I started crying. Silently. As I watched Willow grow more and more evil, I cried. Biker Boy eventually turned around, saw me crying, paused the DVD, and talked me out of my growing hysteria. Poor Biker Boy. He has done nothing to deserve this. My only excuse is that you only have so much self-esteem and confidence. Waning confidence in one area of your life can drag you down to a place that even the best love of others can’t fix.

My friend Topaz recently had a baby boy. I was chatting with her on the phone when she told me that Anna Nicole Smith died. I immediately started crying. That poor little baby girl. She has no mother. And poor Smith. Her life was so awful and painful and no one ever really loved her the way a person should be loved. Did she trust anyone? Ever? And, hey, can anyone answer me why the paternity test hasn’t be done yet? Dude, they can do a paternity test in half an hour on Maury Povich. Likewise, I hear about Britney Spears going crazy in New York, shaving her head in LA, and being a nutjob every place she goes. And I feel so badly for her. The pain she must be in to have to do all of this must be borderline unbearable. I don’t act like Spears when I’m in pain, but the things I do are equally self-destructive, just not on public display for everyone to see. I don’t know if she has post-partum depression or just depression in general (I mean, K-Fed isn’t my type of man, but she must have loved him and to just have a man leave you is anguish inducing). So I hear about all of this and I cry. And the day I start crying over celebrities is the day I know I have to do something about the state of my life.

So, slice of the pie, I’m coming to take you back.