Dutifully blogging another sleepless night

I gave up on sleep at 5:30, thinking that there are plenty of people who regularly get up an hour before the sun. I'm not particularly thrilled to join them this morning, but at least I'm taking the time to record some of my thoughts here.

I have a pretty bleak opinion of humanity overall. It disturbs me to realize that this is so. I make light of my pessimism regularly, and though I can be perky and chipper in certain situations, anyone who knows me at all is well aware that, in general, I have a negative outlook on life and the future and pretty much everything. I've understood this about myself for long enough that I'm not particularly phased by it, and tend to think of myself as keeping it in check by being uncompromisingly positive on the topic of people. It's fundamentally disturbing to realize that that particular optimism is, at least at this point in time, a facade. I'm faking it, and poorly enough that I'm not even fooling myself right now. I don't like most people most of the time, I can't think of a single person I like all of the time, and I distrust pretty much everyone. I'm ashamed to read back over that, and that shame creates a tidy little coda for the thought: most especially, I don't like me.

Perhaps this is a temporary thing, one of those perspectives that will shift with my mood. I certainly hope so. I'm slowly coming to terms with the idea that being depressed doesn't make me a failure as a human being. I've taken to telling myself that it's okay to be kinda withdrawn and mopey, because I'm fundamentally kind and generous. But is that even true? If I fail in my actions, if I'm hostile and withdrawn (and I have been for the past couple weeks), and my heart is all twisted up with anger at humanity in general and the people around me in particular... Is there anything good in me at all?

So often I feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of simply being alive, of caring for myself from day to day. I resent the people who get to share that burden with their spouses and parents and lovers. I desperately want a partner, but I can barely trust that my closest friends actually mean it when they say they want to spend time with me. I've got this little lecture playing constantly at the back of my mind that starts off as affirming insight and ends up as bitter judgment. It's twisty and not-quite verbal, but a rough approximation would go like this: Am I taking care of myself today? If I don't take care of me, who will? I can't expect anyone to give me anything, and everybody leaves sooner or later, it's only a question of time, and I'm counting on other people way too much, they're going to see how needy I am and when I cling all I'm really doing is pushing them away, and oh god am I pushing them away even faster by being alternately needy and withdrawn, they must see through this and everyone's insecure, life's hard for them too, so they don't want to hear how bad it is for me right now, if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all, just shut up already you stupid little girl, nobody cares.

It would be fair to say that this is unhelpful. I try to stop myself each time I catch myself on these familiar little trails, but I've been failing pretty spectacularly here lately. Maybe writing it out like this will give me some distance from it. It's exhausting enough to be filled up with this vitriol without having to be on the receiving end and be shamed into silence over feeling any of it.

So in conclusion, for anyone reading this who's frustrated with my negativity and moping: me too. I wish I could promise it will get better soon, but I honestly have no idea when, or even if, and I suspect that even if I perk up for a while I'll find myself back here eventually. For what little it's worth, I am trying to repay the kindness I'm given, but I'm doing so with a heavy, bitter heart, so it's likely to seem flat and insincere. Yes, I'm fed up with you and everyone else. Yes, I'm achingly lonely. No, you can't fix it, but your patient company is the only thing that actually cuts through this mess and lets me feel anything other than bitter and lonely, even if it only feels that way about 25% of the time right now.

Winter for One

Crass commercial hearts tell me
I've got fourteen days to find love,
just a couple more weeks
or it's another year I spent alone.

I'm trying to tune it out
listen to my self, listen to the rain
and remember that March
is for the fishes who swim upstream, down.
But sunshowers seem miles away

and this cold, dripping rain
trip-trap trapping,
your talk, talk talking
is falling on deaf ears.

I wriggle harder, but it only cuts my mouth:
February's got its hooks in me.

Today was another day of trying; while I succeeded in a couple obvious ways, I still feel like a failure. Stupid February. Stupid fucking depression. I've given up winning this battle, but at the moment I don't even really want to keep fighting it. I'm trying to be healthier and save some money, but what I want right now is to get really, really drunk and cry myself to sleep.

My day started later than it should have; I think "overslept" is an understatement of inexcusable proportions. I went to bed shortly after five yesterday (that's pm, for once), slept until 10:30, ate some "dinner," went back to bed at midnight, didn't get up until almost noon. That's close to 18 hours by my count. I think it's a safe bet I'll have some trouble getting to sleep tonight. I woke up every bit as weepy and emotional as I was when I went to bed, and got next to nothing done for the first couple hours I was awake. Realizing I wasn't going to get anything done at home, I packed up my notes for my Monday night class and went to a coffee shop. I bought a bagel and too much coffee, managed to get all my homework done, even did a bit of writing.

Class was good, I think, but I felt like I kept interrupting the flow every time I opened my mouth. I really liked all three poems we workshopped tonight, but I it seemed like every time I said anything my voice was too loud, too harsh, and was followed by too much polite silence. I'm pretty sure I'm still that over-eager, pushy little swot and everyone just wishes I would keep my big mouth shut. We didn't get around to my poem, and I was more disappointed by that than I want to admit. I cried the whole way home, for no discernible reason beyond simple self-pity. I feel attention starved, and I want to tell myself to grow the hell up. I don't have a valentine, boo-fucking-hoo.

Yesterday I identified anger and the individuals I'm angry at. Today I seem to be sulking and re-directing that anger at myself. Sam taught me to recognize this pattern, but I still haven't figured out what I'm supposed to do to stop it. I want it to be all about me and how great I am, and it's not. I hate when feeling small is coupled with feeling alone, helpless against this overwhelming, indifferent world. I'm trying to meet my own emotional needs, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do tonight. Wait it out, I guess. Make dinner, try not to cry, or drink, or call David. Keep trying. Keep waiting.

thinking cheerful thoughts. grumpily.

Another sleepless night, roughly a month since the last one. I'm starting to think this might be as much a hormonal thing as anything else. Maybe I'll start marking them on a calendar or something.

Urg. I'm doing my best to fight through this awful February funk. I did a good job of it for the most part yesterday: cleaned, bought groceries, cooked, watched a movie with a friend. The cooking was pretty awesome and cheered me considerably. I baked a butternut squash (with maple syrup and a bit of brown sugar) and tried to make black bean and turkey chili, but got a bit distracted and ended up with something of a stew instead. It was thick and hearty and delicious, and complimented the squash perfectly. A little low on starch, but that's probably something I should aim for, diet-wise. The beans came from a can, but pretty much everything else was from scratch. It felt good to flex my domestic muscles (figuratively speaking; the physical flexing comes later today when I make bread).

I haven't kept up with the cleaning as consistently as I had set out to last month, but it certainly could be a lot worse as well. I've put off doing laundry for lack of quarters, so I've been reduced to baggy pants and an oversized corduroy shirt this morning. I'm reminded why I chose to dress this way for so many years. In a word: cozy. Giving myself a bit more latitude to be girly is all well and good in many circumstances; I feel more confident when attempting to blend into crowds or make new friends, and marginally less ridiculous when trying to flirt. But when it's just me and my laptop, it feels nice to revert to the frump. And David told me I should take this shirt to Goodwill. Hrmph. Shows what he knows.

Not going to dwell on him right now. More musing on positive things: In the past week I've had a couple moments with new friends that cemented in my mind certain character traits that I appreciate and want to cultivate in myself. Clark has this gentle intelligence coupled with a sharp wit that makes for fantastic conversation. He's more verbal than most men I know and much less preoccupied with awkwardness and social grace than most women. It's hard to explain what this adds up to, so I'll go with an anecdote. He was telling me about his grandfather, who has some serious health issues and is in palliative care, and that raised the subject of end-of-life care in general and the notion that choosing to end a long, full life as a very different thing from suicide in adolescence or early adulthood. I got a bit self-conscious to be expressing my thoughts so freely when this is all abstract to me, but to him it's a very real, immediate issue. I covered with my usual verbal bluster, a stream of rambling that ended in a terribly awkward mixed metaphor: "…so the body is a temple, sure, but what do you do when the temple is falling down around your ears?"

I didn't quite mange to stop talking even then, just mumbled an apology for a botched metaphor and was starting to feel really stupid, but Clark gave me his gentle little smile that's almost a smirk and said "Find some big, long-haired guy." It was so quiet and subtle it took me a minute to realize that not only was he not derailed by my rambling, not only had he actually kept up, but he somehow managed to save the metaphor for me. We were talking about his grandfather's failing health, and still he was considerate and self-controlled and smart. I'm sincerely proud to call him a friend.

What I saw from Josh that impressed me so much can't be shared in too much detail, as it's much more his story than mine, but the bare bones of it should get the idea across well enough. I was hanging out at his place and he invited another friend over, someone I've met before and liked well enough. Said friend got a little drunk and a lot belligerent, picked a fight, and generally turned an awesome night sour. Josh dealt pretty well at first, but eventually lost his temper, raised his voice, tried to set a boundary and kinda failed. Drunk and belligerent stuck with what he knew and drank faster, yelled louder, and eventually stormed off in a huff (far too drunk to be driving in my opinion, and I don't think it helped things that I chose to point that out). Josh paced around for a bit after he left, clearly upset, but didn't take his frustration out on me in the least. He didn't even badmouth his friend, which is what I would have expected to see in that situation. Instead, he poured himself some water and asked for my input, wondered aloud what he could have done to make things go differently.

The next day he mentioned it again, said he was planning on air quote apologizing. I'm not sure that's the best thing for him to do, in the long run, but I can't help but think it's exactly what I would have done in his position at his age. I'm very impressed by his humility and willingness to examine his role in creating conflict. It makes me trust him more to realize that, should we find ourselves in a serious difference of opinion, he's more likely to talk it through and try to fix things than just vilify me and play the victim.

Wit and humility. Turns out, when coupled with compassion, they're pretty much the best things ever. That gives me hope for me.

In which sadness and anger are really the same.

I've been feeling blue since I got back from visiting Ryan, not deeply melancholic or terribly anxious, just... down. Sad. It's February and the weather is being entirely true to form, so really that's explanation enough, but I'm a curious little creature so I keep looking for other whys. I'm tired, but restless, and there's a subtle ache that seems a bit like loneliness but hasn't been easy to soothe even with good company.

I fell asleep last night thinking of good things and the people I care for, but I dreamed of Livvy. It was another violent dream where I was cruel and said all the vicious things I wouldn't ever say aloud, won't even allow myself to think about when I'm awake. I scratched her face, held her head down, but she didn't mock or ignore me the way the people in those dreams usually do. At first she made a show of telling me she didn't know who I was, then laughed with apparent pleasure at being attacked, gave every appearance of enjoying my abuse. She seemed utterly certain of her moral high ground. I felt guilty even in the dream, aware that I was the one in the wrong and that I should have had the fortitude to just ignore her in return. We were at a party, and once I saw her I couldn't socialize with anyone else, because I was afraid they had seen the way I had treated her. I was ashamed and outcast, but there was cake, and people kept saying nice things to me, so I was more or less okay.

And now that I put the whole thing into words, it's almost too obvious to be taken seriously. I guess I hadn't realized how much this was still weighing on me, but there's nothing to be done for it now. I've been avoiding people and events that I associate with her, sticking to the parts of my life that she was never really a part of. I suppose that's really fairly limiting, since this isn't that big a town and facebook informs me we share 25 friends (a massive underestimation by my count). I'm still angry after more than a month. I'm angry at Lain too, of course, but the geography makes it much easier to ignore that. In truth, though, I haven't made time for any of the events down in Dallas that I went to last fall, and it's a tossup whether that's more about the risk of seeing Livvy or thinking about Lain.

I don't like feeling this way. I've also been feeling angry with David the past couple weeks, and I'm not sure whether to file that under "still" or "again." The last several times I've reached out to him he's made transparent excuses and dusted off the same cold, insincere apologies that were the thing I hated most about being involved with him. I wish I had more time to talk, but I've just been really busy. I'll spend the next 20 minutes telling you what I don't like about my life right now, but only if you keep your mouth shut and don't ask me about anything that has any emotional depth. Sorry. Which is a valid boundary to set, even if I don't like it, but I hate hearing it wrapped up in that bullshit "sorry," as if it's out of his control or something.

Hollow apologies and broken promises bother me in a way that little else does. They're almost a challenge to take someone at their word in spite of my experience and intuition, and I almost always take them up on it. Maybe he really is sorry this time, maybe he'll call when he as more time. But experience suggests he'll call when no one else in his life is offering him the sort comfort and support he's come expect me to give at the drop of a hat. And the worst part is, I spent the last three years training him to treat me this way. It's as much my fault as it is his.

half paralyzed by fear today

My voice is all stoppered up, tight, and I'm afraid to even go looking for it. Want to reach out, but not sure how. I know this sounds melodramatic and I'd like to stop. The solution is simple, I'm sure, but my stomach is twisted up and my hands and feet are cold. Probably not sleeping last night has something to do with it, and I'll feel better tomorrow morning, but only if I can sleep tonight. That means staying awake for the rest of the day, probably should get out and do something.

I need to pick up my prescription from the pharmacy. I'd like to see Clark. The weather is nice and I would probably be happier in the sun. And yet I feel inadequate to all of these, afraid of them. Maybe I should give myself the rest of the day to be twitchy and fretful, but then maybe I'll feel even worse tomorrow if I do.

Why does today feel horrifyingly open and empty, when I've just had weeks of no responsibilities and enjoyed all the space? It's analogous to agoraphobia, I think, but I can't work out the particulars. This feeling is self-perpetuating, doesn't want me to sort out why I feel this way. I'm calming down as I write, yawning. I don't want to sleep yet. Maybe some caffeine? Maybe some simple affection? God, the one's so easy but unhelpful, and the other's completely out of reach.

I want a lap to lay my head in, fingers in my hair. I want to not want those things. I want to curl up and not wake up until I know what my future's going to look like, and I know that's a self-defeating, irrational thought. Maybe I'll just settle for a some tea.

In which my temper gets me in trouble, again.

Bad, bad, bad day yesterday, followed by the worst night I've had in a long time, and then my first ever hangover this morning. I'm mixed up and hurt and angry, completely unsure if I've been taken advantage of, or if I'm being an inconsiderate asshole myself. It's probably both, and I have no idea what to do about it.

I'm trying to recenter myself by any means I can, because I know I make crappy decisions when I feel like this. Watching the snow is helping. It's hilariously out of keeping with the weather, but I've been trying to clean up a poem I started a couple weeks ago. It's out of step with the snow, maybe, but crushingly appropriate to my mood.


Dandelion in December

You're too pale, you know,
spindly and awkward on a bent stalk.
Trying too hard, that's what,
like you're trying too hard.
The grass is so young.
Youth out of season
is bright smooth green,
not your pale sad yellow,

but there's nothing else blooming
for miles.

*grump*

I've discovered a flaw in my reasoning: making others a priority works best when it's reciprocated. And it's fucking exhausting when it's not.

He can still gut me with a word.
I hate this.

It's like watching a tennis match

or a pendulum, or a yo-yo, or some other overplayed metaphor.

This morning feels not so much like morning as it does some unnatural midnight sunrise. I just spent another sleepless night tying myself in knots over things I can't change, trying and failing to distract myself from thoughts I know will only upset me. I sincerely wish I knew how to stop doing this. The voice of my therapist in my head (a metaphor, not a creepy hallucination) tells me that, on some level, I'm choosing to dwell on these things, I need to process them, and I won't be done dwelling until I'm ready to be done. I recall this making sense at some other time, but it's decidedly unhelpful at the moment. It's eight am, sunny and clear, and I just spent the last two hours watching my bedroom wall get incrementally brighter as I got incrementally sadder.

This shit needs an off switch.

This is a negative thought pattern. It is not the sum total of my existence. I will feel better later, possibly even very soon. I have not always felt this bad. There are people who care for me, even when they're not around. Yes, I'm lecturing myself, and yes, I'm doing it on my freaking blog. It's not helping yet, but I seem to remember that it has in the past, so I'll keep at it for awhile.

But in my head, 'cause purging or no, this is sounding pretty pathetic.

"When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you, believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

"For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses you tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

"Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant; and then he assigns you to his sacred fire that you may become sacred bread for the sacred feast.

"All these things love shall do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of life's heart.

"But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you will laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

"Love gives naught but itself and takes not but from itself. Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed; for love is sufficient unto love.

"And think not to direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

"Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if in your love you must have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at noon and meditate on love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips."

-Kahlil Gibran, "On Love"

When I first found this, more than ten years ago, I spent months reading it constantly, compulsively, and I couldn't tell whether it was shaping my thoughts or articulating things I had been thinking all along. I realized tonight that I couldn't remember any more how it went, and pulled it off the shelf for the first time in at least four years. It's not as poetic as I remember, but every bit as powerful. I am convicted and humbled and encouraged. I still don't love like I want to, and I probably never will, and I love so much better now than ten years ago.

I had forgotten that this pain, right now, is nothing to fear or to be ashamed of. This is the pain of knowing my own heart, of too much tenderness, of loving as best I can. There's no reason to keep wishing it away.

So much drama

A couple weeks ago I had a one night stand. I know. Seriously, I know. This is so far out of character I don't even know what to think of myself right now.

He's only 20, and I was just supposed to be earning a bit of spending money by helping him with a research paper, but somehow I got distracted. There is an incomparable strangeness here, it goes without saying that I didn't feel at all like myself at the time, but I'm surprised by how strong and capable I did feel. There wasn't even a trace of the shrinking, guilty, unworthy feeling that I've always had any time any guy shows even the slightest interest in me. Instead I felt confident and somehow almost… superior? Not quite, but I'm not sure how to describe it. Maybe I just felt like I was on equal footing with someone for once, and I'm so unused to the feeling that I have trouble recognizing it. I felt self-controlled and in control of the situation, which makes my choices even stranger and more suspect. And I specifically informed him that he would not be seeing me again, and that I didn't want him forming any sort of attachment. And I meant it. Who am I and what have I done with myself?

All the same, I resolved not waste too much of my time moping and feeling guilty about it. I refuse to just sit around and mourn the loss of David, or try to save a place for him in my life. Errors in judgment aside, that night was a good exercise in both; I had a genuinely good time, and sleeping with someone else goes a long way to ensuring that David won't share my bed again, even if he did feel the momentary impulse to do so. I'm still pretty conflicted about that last one, but I expect it will be better for me in the long run.

Then a couple nights later, I was hanging out with John and we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking and… cuddling, I suppose, though I didn't think of it in those terms at the time. I enjoy his personality quite a bit, I'm not even remotely attracted to him, and he's been eager to spend time with me lately. All of this had me very happy and hopeful; it's so hard to move from acquaintances to friends, and I thought it was a sure bet with him. But, no. Apparently his interest is at least partly romantic. And, like an idiot, I didn't notice until way too late. He was so subtle about it, everything had a double meaning, and at some point I just realized that while I was exulting in having a friend I could share some simple, uncomplicated affection with, he was over there thinking of this as a date, and trying to take things somewhere I really didn't want them to go. If I had caught on sooner, or stayed calm at least, I'm sure there was a graceful way to deal with the situation. I was completely incapable of that, though, and instead worked myself into a hard little knot of anxiety that blossomed into a full blown panic attack the next day. I'm sure I confused him to no end.

I'm still trying to figure out what frightened me so much about it. I felt completely powerless and incapable of doing anything right, and I'm not sure whether that was cause, effect, both, or neither. And the thing is, I need to figure this out. I recognize it as the same thing I felt with Ben, and that didn't go so well for me. John's a sweet guy and he deserves a tactful, honest explanation. I have no idea what I'm going to say the next time I see him.

And I didn't get much of a chance to think about it before being distracted; a couple nights after that, David called. We talked from 8:30 until well past 5 in the morning. He told me about his new (largely failed) romance, and it's obvious that she's taking advantage of him and he thinks he deserves it after what he put me through. I don't know what to say to him about it, past explaining that if I don't hold it against him, then certainly no one else has the right to any sort of punishment, and I sincerely want him to be happy. Telling him all that, however, made him cry, which left me even more flummoxed and stuttery. He sobbed, to the point he couldn't even speak, and was less in control of himself than I've ever seen before, completely unselfconsciously heartbroken. I don't know if it was about her or me or both. When he recovered enough to communicate intelligibly, he told me that of all the girls he's been with, I'm the one he thinks the most of, and then went on to enumerate my virtues. I had no idea how to respond, especially when he went on to say that he loves me and always will. Which isn't that strange of a thing for an ex-boyfriend to tell you, except that he never directly said he loved me when we were dating. Unsurprisingly, I was crying by this point as well.

We went on to exchange some truly ill-timed tenderness and encouragement, and eventually recovered with some light jokes (all of which hinged on our knowing each other so well, but neither of us addressed that part). We talked about music and exchanged some songs, listened to a couple together and cried shamelessly during the sad ones. I think he might still be in love with me, and I don't know what to make of that after months of trying to reconcile myself to the idea that he never was. I did my best to be gentle and honest, but still self-controlled and aware of the situation we're in. There is too much history, too many things in the way at this point, to pretend that just caring for each other fixes anything.

It still felt incredible to hear it.

He's promised to help me get my grad school applications in, despite my telling him several times not to. I hadn't told anyone about dropping the ball with all that, but somehow he must have guessed… no, that's not giving him enough credit. He knows me very, very well, and I'm every bit as overwhelmed and terrified now as he was two years ago when I held his hand and cajoled and nagged him into completing his own applications, knowing all the while that in doing so I was setting him up to leave me. He insists that he's going to do the same for me. And he knows me so well that he can manipulate me completely overtly and with light-hearted references to pushing my buttons, and still have me completely under his thumb. He checked on all the deadlines for each of the schools I want to apply to and helped me (read:bullied) put together a to-do list , and told me he'll be disappointed if I don't get everything done on time. Flagrant manipulation, and it worked like a charm. I don't think it's a good idea to lean on him or give him such an important role in my life, but at the same time I hadn't so much as looked at a GRE schedule before I talked to him, and now I've scheduled my GRE, written emails requesting my letters of rec, and started three different applications. And he's called three times in less than 48 hours to make sure I'm on schedule. I love him more than I can say, and I'm so afraid that's just going to bring me more pain.

So now, I need to figure out how I'm going to comport myself as a sexually active adult, explain to a sweet, gentle guy that I'd love to be his friend but won't even consider anything more, and try to keep some significant emotional distance from the man I love even as he forcefully inserts himself into my life entirely at his expense and for my own good. God, I'm so confused. Sometimes I think things were easier when I was all awkwardness and bad hair and got noticed at best once every couple years. I have no idea whatsoever how to deal with positive male attention, and I need to figure it out, quick.

Collapsing rooms

The way I deal with extreme emotional unrest is to compartmentalize. I suppose this is still a fairly new coping mechanism for me; it’s hard to say for sure, because I wasn’t entirely conscious of it at first, but I think I started a couple years ago. When I feel something that’s simply too much to take, I put it out of my mind during the day, when I’m out with people or when anything needs to get done. And then, when my responsibilities are taken care of and I’m alone, I let myself wallow in whatever anxiety or hurt I’ve been putting out of mind, give myself free reign to cry and sulk and generally be a big, blubbery mess. Overall, it seems to be a pretty good strategy. These past couple years I’ve been able to keep up with my practical responsibilities without totally cutting myself off from my emotions when things get rough. It seems to have broken my previous cycle of oscillating between irrational, purely emotional decision-making and total emotional shutdown and denial. Which is good, because neither of those ever worked that well, and this new system seems to have worked for a while. Except right now, it isn’t.

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with me. After more than four years of therapy largely focused on being aware of and honest with myself, that’s a strange and unpleasant thing to realize. I’ve had trouble putting my anger and hurt away for a while now, and worse, a lot of the time I can’t seem to fully feel anything when I’m alone and it’s safe to feel. Or, maybe, I’m afraid to feel any of it? I’m not sure. Which is in and of itself scary and anxiety-provoking. I’d gotten very used to being clear on what I was feeling and what I wanted, even if I couldn’t always do anything about either of them. I’m incredibly anxious right now, almost fearful, but I can’t say what about. It’s almost like there’s too much that I don’t want to feel, and I’m afraid of it on this peripheral, pre-conscious level, so I don’t quite feel the full impact of it but instead there’s this incredible stress of keeping it at bay.

And those times when I do feel it are really, really bad. Maybe it’s the build up of setting it aside for too long, but that hasn’t been an entirely conscious choice here lately. I’m being far too abstract for this to be clear. An example: right now, I’m sitting in a cafe full of quiet, studious people enjoying a peaceful afternoon. And I feel, on the whole, pretty good. I’m chatting intermittently with a friend on Facebook, and when he asks how I am, I surprise myself with how much sincerely positive stuff there is to say about my life right now. But a moment later, I look across the room and think about how many times David and I sat on that couch over there, sharing chamomile tea, and then I have to clamp down on that thought, and I can feel something huge and awful just on the periphery of my awareness.

And all of that sounds like good, effective compartmentalizing, but I’m not consciously choosing any of it, and I’m afraid to face that big, awful chunk of unprocessed emotion even when I’m in a good situation for it. It’s snuck up on me a couple times, and I haven’t coped well. This isn’t the usual melancholy that’s embarrassing and undignified but ultimately just part of life, the sort of thing I secretly get a kick out of. It’s… overwhelming and terrifying. I want to sort through it and analyze it here, but I can’t even begin because I haven’t faced up to enough of it to know what’s there. It’s way too much for me right now, and I don’t know yet how I’m going to deal with it.

On a completely unrelated note: I promised an updated version of that last poem, and though I’m still not quite satisfied with it, it’s much closer to done.


An Inquiry into the Basic Nature of Fluids –
Water Flowing Apart

I wanted to know if water
scooped from a stream
knows what it’s lost or
does it just feel
smaller
diminished, not divided
is it content to fill a space
or does it remember the flow

you won’t speak of it
these rivers beneath our skin
yours are gears and keys and bits of wire,
so very clever,
but they will never flow

like water that is poured
a measure in your glass, in mine,
and I will always wonder
do they know each other
sitting side by side

you have brought me more
poured out until
water, which can’t remember
how it came to be,
knows it is
full
to the brim

but still you insist
a watchmaker’s wasted hauling water

the drops between us,
sips and spills,
must be the loneliest of all