| Creepy dream |
[27 Dec 2009|01:56pm] |
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mood |
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 awake |
] |
I come home late at night to my apartment in Cambridge. Olga is there and my friend Tommy is over with some people (he has a slight fro! haha). No one else is home and I go to bed. It's snowing outside and my blinds are up. People keep coming by the windows and looking in. It freaks me out , so I put down the blinds. For some reason, you can still see the people through my blinds and they still come and look in. I give them my middle finger and they give it right back. I realize they can still see me. I try to get them to go away, and someone punches a hole through the window.
I freak out and call the cops, saying that someone is breaking in, and the people slowly make their way into my apartment. It's a crowd -- about 8 people -- of mostly guys but approx 3 girls. They are climbing through the window and harrassing me. They don't seem to be stealing anything or physically harming me. The only point at which I get physical is when someone threatens me with a power drill, which in the dark I mistake for a gun. I knock it out of the mans hand and try to punch, kick, and hit him in the face with the drill (this man looks like someone from my high school, Josh W.) but it feels like I'm only hitting him with 10% of my power, but I'm throwing punches as hard as I can... like I'm too far away from him to reach him and he's not even reacting to the pain.
There are kids in every room. They are teasing me and I look in the bedrooms and it seems that none of my roommates are home to help me. All of the rooms in the house are dark, except for the hallway, which has a light on. The cops eventually come, I think, and shoo them off.
Later I am hanging out with Chelsea L. and one other girl. She was talking about being high and we had been drinking. We went into the bathroom and the toilet was covered with cellophane. She talked about how she vomited into the toilet and covered it with cellophane earlier, but she missed some since it got on top. We pulled the cellophane off and she flushed the toilet. But then she stuck her face into the toilet water and started cleaning the nasty "line" on the edge of the toilet by sucking on it and spitting it out. I was SO disgusted and disturbed. I offered her a toilet brush instead, which they used.
I'm then at a church. The room is dark with fold-up chairs. Lit by the room next door and some windows. A woman sits next to me and she keeps insisting on something related to the eucharist. She's bothering me and won't stop talking to me.
...
After all this meandering thought about traveling lately, I just got a message from Ross -- my traveling adventure hero -- inviting me to find him in Chiang Mai, Thailand. You know, whenever I get my shit together. Because he's never leaving.
Told him it might six months, but I am serious about coming.
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[27 Dec 2009|03:01am] |
Virginia left me The Kite Runner. I'm already halfway through it and crying half the time.
I asked Cat what we should listen to on the way home and she said Hanson so I put on "Underneath" and it brought me back for a minute. It was interesting to see three or four old Hanson friends who never write anymore pop up on my friends list. My throat hurts from singing all wrong.
I still see myself in them and maybe a version of me that I want to be. That sense of joy, freedom, and possibility.
Going back to Boston tomorrow. Daily uncertainty doesn't feel any closer to answered with time spent at home. I'll probably leave in the early afternoon, after I wake up. There are some people I want to catch up with once back in town.
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| Perhaps they're not. |
[25 Dec 2009|09:56am] |
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mood |
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 horny |
] |
I was not sufficiently warned about church this morning. My mom knocked on my door and mumbled something, walked away. Fifteen minutes later, or maybe five, she knocked again and seemed to be in a hurry. I looked at the clock. 8:15. WHY SO EARLY? Then I remembered that we go to church on Christmas at 8:30. We're always late because she insists on getting up at 8:15. Like good Catholics.
For some reason, when I'm in church I can't keep myself from thinking about all the sex I want to have and soon. There's a random verse they always sing at my church that says Jesus is "joy for all ages." It only registered to me for the first time today. What the fuck is that all about?
There weren't many people at mass this morning. I seem to recall Christmas morning being a lot more full, but my brother and Mom claim otherwise. There was one other person my age there, and he was cute but I have no fucking idea who he was in the community. Did not recognize the kid. I thought maybe the reason for lack of attendance was because all of the kids my age are now adults. As if younger kids aren't forced to endure Catholic church.
I realized two things about church going. 1) For the first time I found comfort in it and understood why people find comfort in God as portrayed this way. 2) Catholic guilt. Seriously, that creed. I can only imagine what a generation that read that shit every day in addition to having nuns hit them with things turned out like.
I also realized that Christmas and its traditions in America are rooted in some past idealism that maybe once existed. Because they were all Christians and TV was still in black and white, and Charlie Brown was the truth of things. It just seems our generation has lost that sense of Christmas, which is now a secular holiday anyway. For Catholics in prior generations, Christmas was the only relief from 364 other days of an unrelenting guilt trip over the fact that they can't stop mentally masturbating in church and that this behavior has somehow provoked people to kill Jesus. How can you walk around with that on your conscience all the time? How traumatizing to children.
By the way. WHAT THE HELL IS UP with these livejournal pop up ads. I'm really offended by them. It's a fucking journal for Christ's sake. Is nothing sacred?
Merry Christmas.
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| Let me go. |
[25 Dec 2009|02:24am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 hopeful |
] |
My Dad got me a giant teddy bear. I was so shocked and simultaneously dismayed that I said nothing in response. He stammered and I felt bad later. He had put me off initially by also buying me a package of Tina's Bean Burritos which I was addicted to as a child. I hate discussing all of my weird childhood habits. I was an embarrassingly picky eater. My sister used to relentlessly taunt me for this. This and the internet. I released the food thing long ago but I'm still a geek. Unfortunately, the world evolved to my standards. So between the bean burritos, his insistence on serving shellfish in spite of my recently revealed allergy, and the teddy bear, I felt my Dad had completely derailed. I was appalled he was so off the mark about what I want or need out of life.
I decided not to sulk about it and gave the evening a chance and it turned out to be pretty nice. My Dad said he was sick of fighting in his life and came upon the realization that the pleasure of life is in the pain. I told him that sounded very Master Choi. I came back to the teddy bear and decided it was really a nice gift. It is soft and cuddly. He said he saw it and thought that I would love it, and in a way, I think maybe I do need a teddy bear in my life. If only to help me feel less alone.
My wanderlust is so incredible right now. I want to go on my own, but I fear it. I hate to be bogged down by people when I'm traveling, but I am afraid of all the possibilities of being alone. Driving. I know I have to just face that fear, and face the flack I'll get for it, if I really want to do it. I just crave it so badly. I want to see this country, I want to see nature, the mountains. I need to do more research.
Of course, I don't want to do this and come back to a life even more in wreckage than before. I am still intent on the work I need to do. But a part of me wants to start mapping a trip. Finding my destinations. Asking around. I think, somehow, if I start doing this, the likelihood that I will actually go increases. Afterall, I will be twenty-four in 2010. It's about time I stop fearing the possibility of being alone. Worrying what Mom will think (because she will disapprove). People have done crazier things than drive themselves across the country, and besides I'll have friends along the way. The real work will be getting in touch with them all again.
I have been so depressed for so long. I thought I had lost the desire, but now I can taste it. Like it's waiting for me.
CALLING me.
I have to take this one step at a time. There are a lot of logistics involved.
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| On my intuitive side, writing, and other fun. |
[24 Dec 2009|01:34am] |
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mood |
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 curious |
] |
"Never hope more than you work."
I pulled out my notebook from 2004-2005 (apparently), and it has some surprisingly strong writing in it. I'm looking forward to keeping notebooks again come the new year. It's been a long ass time. Admittedly, for a few years it was because I was writing constantly for school... but now things are different. I want to lament and lash myself for falling off the wagon, as it were, but that's not productive and I understand why these things had to be. Life itself has shifted. It is weird how much more content I am to be alone and do my work. To some extent, I believe in discipline. To another degree, I believe in life unfolding organically. This is, in part, because I'm really fucking clueless about life.
I found that quote in the middle of the book. No idea where it came from. I thought it was a good quote, one I truly believe in. Thus why I tend to shy away from things when I feel unprepared for them in some way.
I don't know if I am going to have time while I am at home, but there's some art and writing I want to finish over the next couple of weeks... while it's all still alive in me. I've found it's important to do these things when they're still hot. But, it's also good to have a running list around for the times (which never seem to happen by the way), when I'm at a loss for something to write about. So many topics remain uncovered.
Weird things coming to mind lately. The strange memories that embarrass me (in opposition with the things that should embarrass me but never do)... how my sister used to lock me out of her room and I used to kick the doors screaming. It's weird returning to writing about "BURN" because I not only wrote really well about drugs I'd never done before and really well about love and obsession I had only peripherally experienced, but also because I was rewriting that piece while falling in love with Ben and so much of what I ended up pouring into it reflected our time together. Not all of it, of course, since those characters were alive in me for a long, long time before I met him (and the bulk of the messy stuff was written in high school), but a lot of their banter, some of the things they said to each other.
Even their problems. How they manifested themselves.
I still feel unresolved, but I have resolved to stand by my decision to stay far away. Whenever I stumble upon old letters, old journals, it's just the same old shit over and over and over. I just have to remember that, reassure myself. He probably won't call me again, because I told him not to, but I may see him. I don't know. He always seems to know what's going on in the lives of other exes who he doesn't speak to for similar reasons. I'm sure he'll keep track of me enough to find me again should he want to. I wish I could understand why he is unable to make peace with whatever it is that keeps him in this pattern. But I can't control that. I need to let go of that.
It's so frustrating to see people limit themselves because they are inhibited by something invisible. Some memory, some pattern, some defense mechanism. This is what Virginia was talking about. I haven't been able to accept this about him. As much as I accept HIM, I can't accept his inability to fully engage and his unwillingness to address that. I see it limiting him in so many ways and I just want to point it out to him and tell him exactly what to do, but I know the futility of that. Still, I sometimes wonder if I've withheld some truth from him... instead of just asking him direct questions outright, have I always wandered around the subject? He makes me feel uncertain, I think that's his energy deflecting mine. He knows I want to say something he doesn't want to hear. I want to ask a question he won't want to answer.
Is there a way of revealing this to him without appearing patronizing or condescending?
I have corresponded so much with him through letters upon letters. I even sent him a giant package of journal entries for a period of time. I go back to them and I see myself repeating myself. I do tell him how I feel about this, I know that I did. But it is perhaps possible that I didn't have the proper language, or the clarity to really express what I meant. Anyway, it's not even useful to debate over it. I'm never going to speak to the man again. Even if I did... I wouldn't be able to reveal anything to him to turn him around if he wasn't already open for it, thirsting for it.
My intuitive/psychic side has been so awake lately. I find myself anticipating EVERYTHING. Just yesterday I was playing my cello with a mute and I thought of how Rose was telling me earlier that the neighbor downstairs got a complaint about his late night keyboard playing. The mute makes the cello about 80% quieter than it ordinarily is, so I thought -- Oh, it's late, but they've never even mentioned my cello playing before so nobody will be bothered, Rose probably can't even hear it from her bedroom. And within five minutes of that thought, the neighbor knocked on my door to let me know he was trying to sleep.
Today when leaving work, I shut down my computer early, thought to myself, "Robin is going to have me print something five minutes before I leave, I can just tell." I couldn't imagine what it would be, and all was quiet until literally 5 minutes before I was due out the door. I had used the wrong ATTN line on a fed ex label and needed to boot up the computer and fix it! So typical.
I can sense people's presence around me. Like at the Pumpkin Catapult this year, I somehow knew Ben was there. I even expected he would have been working. I passed right by him. I looked all around, but I still didn't see him. I felt him, though. I thought it was just nostalgia of some kind (the smell of the fall and leaves? The bite of the chill?), though there was no reason to have nostalgia attached to this event or place that related to him. Then he appears in one of my photos, exactly where I knew he was, where I sensed he was. Somehow overlooking.
It's weird though, because I don't know what to do with this power or how to understand it. I only know that it's stronger now than it has been for a long time and I want to expand it to more than just a sense that my boss is going to ask me to do something before she does. Or knowing what my roommate is not telling me.
I know that this is some talent that I have. Of course, I think everyone has the ability to intuit knowledge from others. I just know that my ability to see what's actually happening in someone's head is usually pretty strong, and that when I'm especially grounded in myself, my life creates these really incredible connections. "Coincidences." I used to get so frustrated that they never turned out in the ways I wanted them to. They never provided me the opportunities that I wanted. But, I'm less attached to expectations now. I'm not sure I know how to make my life flow with the true openness I crave, but I have some ideas about ways I can be more connected.
One, for sure, is that I need to get out of the house more.
Another, I need to share. Virginia and I would read each other our work sometimes. It's the first time I've ever had anyone around to actually participate in my art aside from in a captive setting. I'm going to start letting people into it more often. I need to write more often, too.
Actually, come to think of it. I used to have more readers on LJ. And more friends online to read my work. This used to motivate me -- back when I used to write all of those stories, that is definitely what motivated me. I think reading to Virginia motivated me the way that many of my online writing communities used to. I now understand for the first time why musicians get together and play together all of the time. It's to build a community and keep the art alive and heard. When you have an audience, you work more responsibly. Both in the production of the work and in the actual creative content. I know that when I'm reading, all the stuff that's stupid or redundant just becomes glaringly apparent. It would really be amazing to be around more people in real time that are up for creating and sharing.
How did I drift so far away from this? Wasn't Emerson supposed to be like... this community of artists I was supposed to somehow find and connect to like all of those writers who first motivated me to even embark upon writing?
Lately, I've started to accept my writing a lot more. I think I've been resisting it for a long time, maybe years. I've either been denying it or constricting it. Because I was so uncentered, I also lacked the ability to tell the proper truth. Or see past my own self indulgence enough to write with any clarity or sense of reality. It is weird, because I knew that, and it frustrated me. I tried to tell people about it, but I think they thought I was just being hard on myself. Yeah, I was, but it was also the truth. I know that you can't always work when you're clear, when you see, when you're inspired. That it doesn't always work that way. But that is why it's called "Wrtier's block" isn't it? Huh. I never defined it that way, but that is precisely what it was. Total writer's block. Especially by the time I was writing my thesis. I just couldn't believe my own bullshit. I didn't like my own voice. It didn't sound true to me. I don't think it sounded true to other people. I wasn't getting to the middle of it. I wasn't solving anything.
Wow. I'm really liking my journal writing lately. I don't have much attention span for review, but each time I write I unearth so much. It's been a long time since journal writing has been this productive. More than just a place to vent. I don't know if anyone reads this stuff anymore. So many years of useless self deflation have scared most people away, and many others are just inactive. That kind of sucks, but I'm okay with it at this point. It'll make it easier for me to let go.
This is curiously also how I feel about Boston.
I just noticed that the calendar in my bedroom is open to September 2007. Interesting. The events of that month affected me for a long time. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I left it on that page for so long. Some sort of psychic stuckness manifested in my physical calendar. I only put it on that page because I liked the picture. Maybe it's time to take it down. Get unstuck.
My life is opening up. At the same time, I'm learning to feel more comfortable with my present place in it. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so weighed down by my physical reality, so I could just move on and CREATE CREATE CREATE MAKE MAKE MAKE instead of always reviewing, archiving and organizing. But I'm starting to feel more okay about both aspects of myself. The periods of chaotic creativity and the periods of putting all of that stuff into the correct compartments. Right now I have to live with doing a little bit of both.
Eventually, I hope to learn to let go more of the latter.
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| Daily Gripes |
[23 Dec 2009|05:46pm] |
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mood |
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 BLAhHHAHHAHH!gjhds |
] |
So tell me. WHAT THE FUCK is the point of having bus stops if the bus neither stops when there are passengers BLATANTLY WAITING by the sign, WAVING THEIR ARMS (or worse, in an actual bus-stop booth) nor when riding the bus does it stop when you hit the "Stop Request" button. Not only do you hit the "Stop Request" button, you get up out of your seat and wait by the door RIGHT NEXT TO THE DRIVER, and he still fucking blows by your stop.
If this didn't happen on a semi-daily basis, I wouldn't be so fucking annoyed by it. IT'S FUCKING ANNOYING.
NOBODY IN THIS CITY USES BLINKERS.
And MASS HEALTH needs to fucking stop sending me letters once a week. They're always like... SEND ME THIS OR WE'LL REVOKE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE, right after they finally granted it to me, and then tried to call me into court over something that was just a misunderstanding and now they need my 1040 for the job they JUST requested info on. SERIOUSLY. GET OVER YOURSELF, MASS HEALTH. FUCK.
I am not looking forward to driving home in the next hour or two.
I was so preoccupied with all this Christmas stuff that I missed my appointment this morning for therapy. I just completely forgot about it. And I'm sad because once again I won't have the time to see Master Choi this weekend. He's closed all the days I'll be home. Not that I'm surprised. I'll have to make time for him in the new year. Jesus, I've become such a spaz about planning. I don't have time in my life for anyone. It seems all the people I've needed to get in touch with the most have been the same people I can't seem to get the life coordinates to match with.
Anyway, gotta pack my car up, and my things and get my ass down to CT.
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| Random momentum |
[22 Dec 2009|11:25pm] |
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mood |
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 productive / exhausted! |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Crazy - Gnarls Barkley |
] |
I am so productive lately. I just completely reorganized my closet, the living room closet, and cleaned the hell out of the apartment. Yesterday I did a lot of the same type of stuff... now my whole room is cleansed, as it were.
Anyway, I filled out more 2009-2010 surveys and wanted to post them. I know. GEEK.
Filling out this survey made me realize that I spent a lot of time this year (when I wasn't working in excess) either drunk or high. Need to remedy that. My memory is increasingly foggy. Also, this year was really really really really really really really crazy from beginning to end. Seriously -- so many jobs, roommates, extremely random & highly intense encounters/events. All this instability has really worn on me in a strange way. It's made it hard for me to feel emotionally attached to anyone or anything... Even my music taste was unstable and I could only read books in short bursts (helpful if they were broken up into individual essays, but mostly a "short burst" means that I read 50 pages of 15 books). It feels like all that stuff is over with, finally (maybe why I've been in such a cleaning frenzy). I just can't believe all this stuff happened in one year. My life has changed so much. I can't imagine what it's like to live a normal, stable life with normal relationships, normal jobs, normal... anything. Seriously.
Anyhow. Onward!
( Redundant, but fun! )
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| Rambling v.4,503 |
[21 Dec 2009|09:34pm] |
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mood |
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productive |
] |
Virginia is leaving tomorrow. She gave me a boatload of her old clothes. My closet is full. Doing my laundry.
Mariposa kind of let me go today, I think. It was more that they couldn't schedule me anymore / scheduling restrictions. Eh. I was going to quit eventually anyway, and I somehow knew that I wouldn't be working there much into the new year. I'm fine with it, but I know that soon I'm going to need to find other supplemental employment. Luckily, this frees up my schedule pretty substantially for me to actually start freelancing, etc. if that's what I eventually decide to do.
Hopefully I'll get some $$ for Christmas.
Just been doing some cleaning and organizing in my life in general. I've found a good place to stash all my old journals and sketch books among other things. I have plans tonight, but as of now, I really just want to stay in and keep on sorting through stuff and go to bed early. I haven't really been able to do this kind of stuff for a while... just mentally. I haven't had sufficient calmness or the energy.
I want a different desk chair. I'm tempted to just get rid of the desk chair all together and replace it with one of the wooden folding chairs. It's just that I don't even like sitting in it and it consumes so much space.
When I move I'm probably going to sell all of my furniture but keep all of my other crap. And the futon. Though, I gotta admit for like... $100, I furnished this house pretty well. It's weird to think about leaving Boston. I hated this place for so long, but still. I'll have spent five years here by the time I leave.
Anyway, my laundry is done, FINALLY, and I am starving. So I'm going to go worry about all that stuff now.
Tata...
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| Amusing exchanges |
[21 Dec 2009|02:46am] |
| [ |
music |
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You Never Give Me Your Money - The Beatles |
] |
Me, holding up a water bottle filled with red wine: Does this look like it's obviously wine?
Virginia: Yes.
Me: Eh. WHATEVER.
(in a conversation about being Kleptomaniac poor people)
Rose: I saw two AA batteries on the bus the other day and I was like MONIKA GO GET THEM!
Me: You can have hours of fun with two AA batteries!
Rose: (laughs) I know. That's exactly what Monika said!
Me: What else are you going to use them for?
Matt: What are you talking about? ...........Augh!!!
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| 2009 |
[21 Dec 2009|02:33am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 busy |
] |
| [ |
music |
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Shame - The Avett Brothers |
] |
I spent today organizing my music. It was pretty nice. I didn't leave the house once. The perfect snow day. Tomorrow I'll go to work, do yoga, and hang out with my friend Andrew. I have to make sure I go to Soo Bahk on Tuesday since it's the last class of the year. I paid tuition for this month and then barely went! Augh! Go figure. Well, it's to support a good cause. The cause of Steyerhood.
Santacon was fun. Fairly uneventful this year. Most events seem that way to me right now. Kara came along and I felt bad because I'd hyped it up as such a wild time, but I think she still had fun.
I have to figure out what I'm going to do for New Years. I'm thinking of having people over, since no one I know seems to have plans. Maybe take a group exodus to see fireworks? It would be a nice way to ring in the new year. I just want to have something low key and happy :)
Gotta pack for Christmas. Gotta do laundry. And also a bunch of other shit, like waay too much shit!
All this new music I stole from Virginia is making me happy.
Anyway, I like to do these surveys every year. I usually do a series of them. I'll start with this one.
( 2009 in review )
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| Today's writing |
[18 Dec 2009|03:31pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 contemplative |
] |
Virginia and I had a long talk last night. I mostly listened. She was lamenting the ending of a tumultuously emotional relationship and all of the things that went into it. It's one of those things where on the outside it's obvious that these people aren't right for each other, or are in incompatible places in their lives, but on the inside it's so complex. It seems like there's something to be worked out. It's too intense, too right. Too wrong, somehow. I wanted her to stop abusing herself and just understand that some things just ARE.
Rose is in the middle of a similar relationship dilemma. Except her's postures and tries to escape, which of course, in turn, upsets her and leads her to shun him. He calls back all day long and all night long and all day long. She keeps getting drunk and assumes the worst. Neither of them can be honest about the situation, just own up to their feelings.
It is the first time in my life that I've lived with people who are struggling with love in this way. Mostly, it's me whose struggling and I'm surrounded by people who either have never experienced it, or who have in such a distant past they can hardly remember what it was like. It's shown me a lot about myself, my own struggle. Perhaps I'm only able to see now because enough time has passed and the emotions have calmed enough for me to look at it rationally, realistically, before falling into a reverie of wishes and wants. The difference for me here between these two, though a negligible one, is that I had a long term, very positive relationship that turned into a battle of misunderstandings. One that has left me. No, both of us. In ruins.
Kara said some people never experience something that deep or open. Virginia described the openness as amazing. Something she couldn't allow of herself all of the time. Where do I lie? My openness is something I've been told of time and time again. That people admire me for how honest I am about my feelings, how unselfconscious I am in the way I am, whatever way that is. I was told about my courage. Maybe it was this openness that drew him to me, caused him to fall open, when all this time I thought it was the opposite.
I still think from time to time about the day he told me he loved me for the first time. I had shared with him a deeply personal story and he was arguing that I had it wrong. I felt embarrassed. I wished I'd never shown him. I parked my car and finally I look at him and he says, "I think I'm falling in love with you, but you scare the shit out of me." I saw some tears falling out of his eyes. It blew me away. It was not only the last thing I expected him to say, it was real. What he meant by it, I'm still not sure. I just know that it was true. He loved me. He still loves me. Passionately, without compromise, without falsehood, without fear. It's deep, it's real, it terrifies him.
He ended it abruptly because he couldn't tolerate it, I think. He told me then that he felt it was the only way he could go forward without hurting me over and over again. So instead I forced him to hurt me over and over again. I don't know why. It's such a familiar pain in my life. I'm always alone, and when something starts going right -- the instant I accept that things are actually going to be okay, I stumble once and fall straight off the cliff. How is it that my relationships are this fragile? So mind-bendingly deep, but seemingly destined for failure. Like this has somehow been programmed into my life. The need to love people who are planning to leave me before we even meet. The very people I promise myself I will not commit to.
It's like I was talking about the other day when I was writing. I excel so much -- at relationships, at my skills, at whatever, and then start subverting myself. I start falling into these patterns that ruin everything. That make it hard for me to be around.
The thing about all of these things people have said to me is that I don't know if I am any of those things anymore. I don't know if I'm worth admiring. Worse, I don't know if the friends who once felt so strongly about me are able to have respect for me at all, anymore. I used to get emails and friends would appear all of the time telling me how much they loved me and what I did and the way that I was and how much it improved their life. Somehow I snuffed that out. I stopped admiring and respecting myself. I started filling the role of someone who doesn't respect herself. I learned from all of the wrong people to smother myself and to feel bad and regretful. Some people did it to me the way it was done to me in fifth grade -- shutting me out, making a petty deal out of it -- those people I've forgiven. But I've found it hard to overcome the people who did it when they only wanted the best for me. I feel regretful of the things I projected onto people who didn't deserve it. I feel regretful of the things I allowed to be projected on me when I didn't deserve it. I am saddened by the friends I lost through this period of my life, who left me behind because I was too sad and defensive and difficult to talk to. I was very alone. I was lacking supportive relationships in my life, ones I had grown accustomed to having. After being held at an arm's length for so long, I stopped being myself since I felt it was myself at fault. And then I kept distracting myself and distracting myself and distracting myself because it was too overwhelming to think about what I needed to do to get better. I couldn't let go of my past self. I knew that this was the problem but I didn't know how to stop holding on.
My biggest fear is that I've lost myself completely. That I will be held down by this forever. But I believe rebirth is possible. I believe life is long and that I can open up again. I believe that this period was a process I needed to help me understand some things about myself, my tendencies, my past... the things which will block me again and again if I don't really face them. Before this time in Boston, I had no self awareness. Well, that is not exactly true, but in respect to the wisdom I have gained, I had no consciousness.
Virginia said she gets disappointed in me for self harming and engaging in behaviors that lead me to stagnancy. I do too. So do my friends, obviously. I have felt in the past several months more of my honest self than I have in years. Sometimes I catch my cynicism fighting this part of me and trying to stuff it down. It says things like, "That's stupid." I know it's fucking ludicrous, because what I admire most in others is their ability to be honest, even when that honesty is ugly or innocent or foolish. I'm at a point, now, where I have sapped this way of thinking, this way of being, for all its worth. The drugs don't do anything for me. Ben and I have spent five years playing out what should have taken six months because of so much distance, literal and figurative. Whatever relationship I have with Soo Bahk Do (I still haven't sorted it out yet), and with music, doesn't resemble what it was once.
I have no choice but to view this moment in my life as an opportunity to expand myself beyond my prior reaches. I have no choice but to believe in this work that I'm finally doing. The most important part is that I commit to each change. I am committing to the changes, however slowly. And I need to be patient with myself in the process. Every day I get better. It's true. Though the changes are small, they are worth celebrating. It helps me feel assured that one day I will be ready to do the work of life again, beyond this. That I'm returning to my dignity, the feeling that I have truly earned and worked for my way of life and that I really uphold its values, believe in it. That is what makes a virtuous person. Practicing good behavior. Becoming, manifesting, expanding. I know it's possible, I've been there before. I must allow myself that power. The tenacity of my childhood, the games I used to make up -- determination I once had. It didn't disappear. It's there. I am just slowly relearning, as I imagine I will have to relearn again and again, how to access it.
I've never been through anything like this before. Like the past several years. That's what life is. That is how you make discoveries and make changes and become what you need to be. Adulthood is such a disembodying and overwhelming thing. For those who struggle constantly with creative living and truth, it can be hard to strike the right balance, to find the life that's right for you. It's always within my power to create my life. It's always within my power to open the door again. I'm slowly plodding through recovery.
I can tell there is still much left to do. |
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| Quickly |
[17 Dec 2009|11:15am] |
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music |
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Free Fall - Cornelius |
] |
The windshield repair man is replacing my windshield. Alas! He was late and I spent the twenty minutes peeling off my registration sticker and taping it back together.
I also ordered my entire LJ to be printed at Kinkos last night. It cost a little more than I was expecting and I wasn't sure I wanted to commit, but after a few shots of tequila with my roommate, I said ah, what the fuck? It may seem a waste to print it all on hard copy, but I prefer it that way. It makes it tangible. Something I can put in a closet to pull out at a later day with the stacks of notebooks and journals. I've been meaning to do this for years. Now that I've done it this one time, I won't have to do it again -- only this month until its eventual end. I have a few more things to print out, but all are less substantial. I might be able to swing it at home, but my printer is at a point of near death, so it's unlikely.
I feel like these things are important somehow. I know they're not. It's just my connection to the material.
I ran into someone I hung out with a few summers ago at 1369. We went to school together. Typical. EVERYONE goes to or works at that damn coffee shop.
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| This entry was not the one I meant to write, but it works just the same. |
[17 Dec 2009|12:02am] |
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mood |
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busy |
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I was overtaken tonight, as I sometimes am, by the inexplicable pain of my womanhood. I woke up and immediately wanted to distract myself, but knowing the work I have to do -- that I have been avoiding -- I reminded myself that it was okay to sit home and write. I was originally going to go to the Falafel Palace, but it was too cold. And I was lazy. So I stopped at Store 24 and picked up a box of Mac and Cheese.
My life of pasta and take out gets to me sometimes. I am not a cook. Sometimes I try, and even succeed, but I just don't have the drive to cook. My life is too full with other things. With writing and distractions. Distractions. I fill my life with so many distractions. This internet addiction, a distraction I began over ten years ago. I couldn't articulate why at the time. I am unsatisfied with the way it takes me away from living in my present.
I'm thinking of putting "toona" to rest, again. I'm going to start printing my journal soon. My whole online archive. I have no idea how much this is going to cost, but I figure at Kinkos it shouldn't be too outrageous. I think it's nearly time to create something new instead. I feel there's still more to work out about this, but that it is something I am going to have to end. It might be this month, but more likely, it will be another six. It will come naturally.
The space I come to here is a habit. It's productive on a certain level, but no longer valuable in this format. It takes me away from what I should really be doing. This persona is outdated and the people who befriended it are all ghosts.
I will never have the time to extract what's valuable from this journal if I don't close it. Leave it a while. Review it when the time is right.
I have known this for years. But like many things I have known for years, I've been unable to act upon them until now.
I think I just want to cut ties for a while. This is something I can't own up to quite yet. I don't know what it means. I think it means I want a new identity. I think it means I want to just finish these past few years as gracefully as possible, leave them behind. I'm afraid of thwarting myself over and over again. I want to release it already, be done with it, be done with the fear.
Even as I write this, I find myself turning away. I must stop this turning away. This is the real stuff. I can't avoid it so long as I expect to move on and create a life that makes sense for me. There are so many patterns, so many loose ends to work through. I need to create the time in my life to do that work.
Man, I started this thinking I was going to write about something much different than what turned out. I guess this is what I needed to write. I have some things I want to accomplish tonight before I crash out.
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| Plight of women |
[16 Dec 2009|07:01pm] |
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mood |
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exhausted |
] |
Lots of stuff coming up lately. About family and some friends I still feel unresolved about and upset with. I am exhausted today because I'm again plagued by the fightin' vagina. So I'm laying down. I had things to write about, but they escape me now.
I forget to write about the positive things since I'm feeling so disconcerted in general. So here's one -- last night was super fun. Former co-worker Dan just graduated from his internship at Bristol and we vaporized all night. It was soooooo gooooddd... vaporizing is so much better than smoking. No hangover today at all. It makes me never want to smoke again.
I still need to get some Christmas gifts before next week... I have mostly everything. I drove around in my car and bought things in record time with Kara on Sunday.
I received my Sigur Ros LP in the mail supposedly, but it turned out to be a book. I was really disappointed about the order fuck up and emailed them so hopefully they will remedy this issue. I'm sure it's no big thing.
I think I should take an advil, read some tarot and play cello.
I'm struggling with wanting to remember people for positive things but being stuck on the negative.
I started filling out my "end of the year" surveys and my life has changed so much since last year.
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| Driving in Boston |
[15 Dec 2009|09:20pm] |
I just moved my car up to Boston. I don't use it too much because it's so difficult to park around these parts (especially if you are out of state and refuse, like me, to register). While I probably have more experience traversing Boston by vehicle than most Boston pedestrians, it is still a pretty new experience for me.
The thing is, Boston is the worst clusterfuck you've ever seen. I just printed out 10 step directions to go pick up my friend who is 10 minutes away. The route on the map is a completely straight line, but the road name changes like six times, there is a traffic circle (which of course makes the directions say confusing things) and what appears to be a small highway. It advises me to get off an exit, but it appears that the once-highway is actually the same road as the one I'm exiting to.
WELCOME TO THE CITY OF DRIVING WET DREAMS!!! For people who like to make things complicated.
...
Tonight was one of those nights with Soo Bahk where I WANTED to go, but I just couldn't physically make it. I don't know why my life is so incredibly draining for me lately.
...
Every two weeks or so playing the cello I have a revelation about how to play better, and every other week or so, I manage to completely forget it and form some new, catastrophic, bad habit. Haha. I guess the overall progress is still in the positives, so I'm still winning. That is, if it were a game of cello vs. me. Cello may have more power points but I have more smarts ... hahahahahaaaaaaaaa!
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