A shear stress, denoted 
(tau), is defined as a stress which is applied parallel or tangential to a face of a material, as opposed to a normal stress which is applied perpendicularly.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_stress
This week I've been a veritable Nutcho of stresses, pushed and pulled into contortions of compression and tension. It begs the question: How much displacement can take place before irrevocable deformation results?
I do not understand much of material science, but grasp that there are several types of stresses within physics and engineering. The so-called normal type of stress is force exerted perpendicular to the face of a material. If you've ever broken a bone, chances are it came from blunt impact of this kind. It can snap a radius or femur in two with casual ease. Hopefully, it's a clean break that can knit itself strong again, once set and cast.
I liken this normal stress to the infinite number of aggravations and motivations that propel us through daily life. We learn to expect them--the traffic jam, the nosy co-worker, the extra-large phone bill--and fortify ourselves accordingly. We just deal with them. These normal stresses make us resilient over time. It's mental conditioning; we learn to deflect and absorb these perpendicularities.
Shear stress, however, occurs parallel to the face of a material. This stress is more difficult to counteract. It's not delivered in a blow we can see coming, and either deflect or steel overselves to absorb. Enough of these tangential stresses in a short period can leave us feeling frayed, pulled out of recognition, deformed.
My shear point was reached this week. First, some context: PMS week. My best friend and I recently had a conversation about this topic, when I was expressing embarrassed recognition over my state.
"What do you think happens to us during PMS?", she asks.
"Well, personally I just get a heightened sensitivity to things that normally I take in stride. I become swollen, physically and emotionally. Everything has the potential to scratch at me, I'm in a state of rawness."
"No." She says this emphatically. "No. What's happening is that your body is full of all the shit you've been taking all month from people. At the end of the month, your body is about to do some serious house-keeping, and get rid of everything you've been carrying since your last period. And if too much shit comes your way, your body rebels. It can't take it any more, and your reactions are just that: not being able to take anymore from anyone."
"Men swing in and out of their "period" all the time, and this is known as being assertive. Women try to keep it together until their bodies can't take it anymore, and this is known as PMSing. It's bullshit."
I see her point. Instead of looking at PMS as a weakness peculiar to the fertile feminine, it could be seen as a heightened state of self-defense. When my body aches and cramps and I feel alternately murderous and depressed and ardent and hungry, this is a distillation of feelings and desires I've suppressed over the course of the previous weeks. This would explain why some months are much worse/heavier than others. Food for thought.
Anyway, it is in this state that I begin to experience my shear stresses. It begins with a creeping feeling that something is off at work. I've just started working on a new and significant project as a subcontractor. The person I'm working through is normally a reliable communicator, in daily contact via phone or text. A few days pass where no or very little response is forthcoming, and I start to worry. I discover he's out of contact with everyone, and that the brief texts I'm getting are more than anyone else has heard.
Already fretful, I'm visited by another tangential stress. It's been my companion for so long I've become inured to its presence. My Ex, he calls and disturbs me deeply. He is in his own state, due to the one-year marker of our break-up and his birthday. He has a penchant for extremes, made more dramatic by an inability to express himself and perfectionist tendencies. Throw in some ADHD and an addictive personality for good measure.
The phone call rips me up. It's terrible to hear him suffer, a person I'd loved so fully. It's terrible to be manipulated by someone who doesn't know how else to be. And it's a terrible relief to hear him say that the break-up wasn't my fault. He told me I'm an amazing person, and had done and been than he'd thought possible in a mate. I hadn't realized how filled with self-doubt I'd been until I heard that.
Dark and light. The dark being his hinting at self-destruction, the dark being his use of my terrible need for approval against me, in an attempt to pull me back towards him. Tangential stress number two; now where's the third, the inevitable third?
Next is the arrival of Guyfriend with a few hours notice. We have a lovely, friendly dinner together, watch some tv in bed, and nestle down as comfortable as childhood pals to sleep. Except both of us are creatures of dreamy desire, and find ourselves thrashing around together before one or both of us wakes up and rolls over in the knowledge that we just don't do that anymore. Habit, mistaken identity, generic desire, the id versus the superego. Who knows?
A night of frustrated sleep leaves me has me behaving gingerly in the morning. One more normal stress I've accepted as part of the terms of this strange relationship, right? Except I'm scraped raw again, upon learning that my work colleague has officially gone AWOL. An alcoholic flare-up, is there ever a good time?
Faced with deep uncertainty over how I'll make my living in the next few months, I reach my shear point. I can't take it anymore. Now, guyfriend's funny stories about his sexual adventures and his esoteric thoughts on love and most of all, a damn picture he has pulled up on my computer of himself with a gorgeous woman he has not winnowed out, well, it all is too much. I cannot understand why a "friend" would hurt me like this, and ask for an explanation.
He claims to be startled. Turns out he had not realized the extent of my feelings for him until that moment, and his response is (wince, wince) pity and concern. He tries to point out why he's not fit for a typical relationship, why I'm better off not thinking about him in those terms, and how much he values me as a friend. Fuck. Me.
It is a relief, in a way, as I don't believe him. He has known the extent of my feelings for some time now, or at least suspected enough to break it off; if not, he is more monstrously self-involved than even I can accept. Either way, the effect is the same: a loss of love for him and all its attendant sorrow. I was gratified to hear him use the word "joy" in describing our time together in the early days of the Experiment, but that's about the only light in the situation.
After he leaves on his perpetual roadtrip, I engage in a flurry of damage control for work to buy us a few days. Then I sit in my kitchen, gripped by the need to get the hell out of town. I've reached the point where it was not going to be enough, to hang out with galpals or clean the house or kickbox or any of the other coping mechanisms I usually rely upon. My sanity is ready to cleave.
(tau), is defined as a stress which is applied parallel or tangential to a face of a material, as opposed to a normal stress which is applied perpendicularly.-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_stress
This week I've been a veritable Nutcho of stresses, pushed and pulled into contortions of compression and tension. It begs the question: How much displacement can take place before irrevocable deformation results?
I do not understand much of material science, but grasp that there are several types of stresses within physics and engineering. The so-called normal type of stress is force exerted perpendicular to the face of a material. If you've ever broken a bone, chances are it came from blunt impact of this kind. It can snap a radius or femur in two with casual ease. Hopefully, it's a clean break that can knit itself strong again, once set and cast.
I liken this normal stress to the infinite number of aggravations and motivations that propel us through daily life. We learn to expect them--the traffic jam, the nosy co-worker, the extra-large phone bill--and fortify ourselves accordingly. We just deal with them. These normal stresses make us resilient over time. It's mental conditioning; we learn to deflect and absorb these perpendicularities.
Shear stress, however, occurs parallel to the face of a material. This stress is more difficult to counteract. It's not delivered in a blow we can see coming, and either deflect or steel overselves to absorb. Enough of these tangential stresses in a short period can leave us feeling frayed, pulled out of recognition, deformed.
My shear point was reached this week. First, some context: PMS week. My best friend and I recently had a conversation about this topic, when I was expressing embarrassed recognition over my state.
"What do you think happens to us during PMS?", she asks.
"Well, personally I just get a heightened sensitivity to things that normally I take in stride. I become swollen, physically and emotionally. Everything has the potential to scratch at me, I'm in a state of rawness."
"No." She says this emphatically. "No. What's happening is that your body is full of all the shit you've been taking all month from people. At the end of the month, your body is about to do some serious house-keeping, and get rid of everything you've been carrying since your last period. And if too much shit comes your way, your body rebels. It can't take it any more, and your reactions are just that: not being able to take anymore from anyone."
"Men swing in and out of their "period" all the time, and this is known as being assertive. Women try to keep it together until their bodies can't take it anymore, and this is known as PMSing. It's bullshit."
I see her point. Instead of looking at PMS as a weakness peculiar to the fertile feminine, it could be seen as a heightened state of self-defense. When my body aches and cramps and I feel alternately murderous and depressed and ardent and hungry, this is a distillation of feelings and desires I've suppressed over the course of the previous weeks. This would explain why some months are much worse/heavier than others. Food for thought.
Anyway, it is in this state that I begin to experience my shear stresses. It begins with a creeping feeling that something is off at work. I've just started working on a new and significant project as a subcontractor. The person I'm working through is normally a reliable communicator, in daily contact via phone or text. A few days pass where no or very little response is forthcoming, and I start to worry. I discover he's out of contact with everyone, and that the brief texts I'm getting are more than anyone else has heard.
Already fretful, I'm visited by another tangential stress. It's been my companion for so long I've become inured to its presence. My Ex, he calls and disturbs me deeply. He is in his own state, due to the one-year marker of our break-up and his birthday. He has a penchant for extremes, made more dramatic by an inability to express himself and perfectionist tendencies. Throw in some ADHD and an addictive personality for good measure.
The phone call rips me up. It's terrible to hear him suffer, a person I'd loved so fully. It's terrible to be manipulated by someone who doesn't know how else to be. And it's a terrible relief to hear him say that the break-up wasn't my fault. He told me I'm an amazing person, and had done and been than he'd thought possible in a mate. I hadn't realized how filled with self-doubt I'd been until I heard that.
Dark and light. The dark being his hinting at self-destruction, the dark being his use of my terrible need for approval against me, in an attempt to pull me back towards him. Tangential stress number two; now where's the third, the inevitable third?
Next is the arrival of Guyfriend with a few hours notice. We have a lovely, friendly dinner together, watch some tv in bed, and nestle down as comfortable as childhood pals to sleep. Except both of us are creatures of dreamy desire, and find ourselves thrashing around together before one or both of us wakes up and rolls over in the knowledge that we just don't do that anymore. Habit, mistaken identity, generic desire, the id versus the superego. Who knows?
A night of frustrated sleep leaves me has me behaving gingerly in the morning. One more normal stress I've accepted as part of the terms of this strange relationship, right? Except I'm scraped raw again, upon learning that my work colleague has officially gone AWOL. An alcoholic flare-up, is there ever a good time?
Faced with deep uncertainty over how I'll make my living in the next few months, I reach my shear point. I can't take it anymore. Now, guyfriend's funny stories about his sexual adventures and his esoteric thoughts on love and most of all, a damn picture he has pulled up on my computer of himself with a gorgeous woman he has not winnowed out, well, it all is too much. I cannot understand why a "friend" would hurt me like this, and ask for an explanation.
He claims to be startled. Turns out he had not realized the extent of my feelings for him until that moment, and his response is (wince, wince) pity and concern. He tries to point out why he's not fit for a typical relationship, why I'm better off not thinking about him in those terms, and how much he values me as a friend. Fuck. Me.
It is a relief, in a way, as I don't believe him. He has known the extent of my feelings for some time now, or at least suspected enough to break it off; if not, he is more monstrously self-involved than even I can accept. Either way, the effect is the same: a loss of love for him and all its attendant sorrow. I was gratified to hear him use the word "joy" in describing our time together in the early days of the Experiment, but that's about the only light in the situation.
After he leaves on his perpetual roadtrip, I engage in a flurry of damage control for work to buy us a few days. Then I sit in my kitchen, gripped by the need to get the hell out of town. I've reached the point where it was not going to be enough, to hang out with galpals or clean the house or kickbox or any of the other coping mechanisms I usually rely upon. My sanity is ready to cleave.
Throwing caution to the wind, I decide to go visit the man I'd met recently, who lives two hours' drive away. Whether I end up hanging out with him or sleeping in my car, I just need to go.
So I do, and make a wonderful discovery, In my raw and fractured state, I throw myself upon the kindness of a relative stranger. Not knowing what to expect, I find solace.
It sounds prosaic: he takes me for dinner and asks me about what's going on and listens to what I'm willing to share, without prying or passing judgement on anything. He cheers me up with good tequila and great sex and is all in all so damn sweet that despite myself, I relax into genuine affection. I've resisted for many reasons, but now just give up. Interesting.
I explain this to my best friend, his small acts of thoughtfullness, like stopping me on a hike to do up my shoelace like it was no big thing. "It sounds like you're finally dating a man", she ventures. "Someone who's not afraid of doing things like that, who's able to give and to take. Who's not afraid of showing how they feel. A man, not a dude or a guy."
She's right, of course. I've finally graduated to dating men instead of manchilds. Interesting, soothing to feel a sense of comfort from another instead of having to be the constant source.
At any rate, there are still thorny and unresolved issues galore. I still wonder how to move to go to school, my house still does not sell, I'm encumbered by my past as much as ever. I still worry about my ex, grieve my unsuccessful romance with guyfriend. I'm cautious about a new man thinking I'm so great. Financially, I'm beyond broke. My colleague is still M.I.A. on his bender. I've had an on-again-off-again sore throat for three months, and the engine light has come on and stayed on to indicate some puzzling electrical issues with my car. It is not bliss.
Despite stresses both perpendicular and tangential, I think I'm past the shear point for now. Now it is just the logistics of dealing with all the shit, and holding onto the belief that it'll all work out eventually. I find some intrigue in having had to get to a vulnerable place to find strength. There may be hope for me after all.
Stay flexible,
-G "is for Gumby" Rutte
I explain this to my best friend, his small acts of thoughtfullness, like stopping me on a hike to do up my shoelace like it was no big thing. "It sounds like you're finally dating a man", she ventures. "Someone who's not afraid of doing things like that, who's able to give and to take. Who's not afraid of showing how they feel. A man, not a dude or a guy."
She's right, of course. I've finally graduated to dating men instead of manchilds. Interesting, soothing to feel a sense of comfort from another instead of having to be the constant source.
At any rate, there are still thorny and unresolved issues galore. I still wonder how to move to go to school, my house still does not sell, I'm encumbered by my past as much as ever. I still worry about my ex, grieve my unsuccessful romance with guyfriend. I'm cautious about a new man thinking I'm so great. Financially, I'm beyond broke. My colleague is still M.I.A. on his bender. I've had an on-again-off-again sore throat for three months, and the engine light has come on and stayed on to indicate some puzzling electrical issues with my car. It is not bliss.
Despite stresses both perpendicular and tangential, I think I'm past the shear point for now. Now it is just the logistics of dealing with all the shit, and holding onto the belief that it'll all work out eventually. I find some intrigue in having had to get to a vulnerable place to find strength. There may be hope for me after all.
Stay flexible,
-G "is for Gumby" Rutte
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