Scars

When I think about scars odd things come to mind. I’m referring specifically to the literal concept of scars, as opening the topic of figurative scars would necessitate a much bigger format.

I have a lot of scars, which is weird to realize. Does my tattoo count as a scar? I wonder. The permanent marks that are on my body that weren’t there at my birth. . . I wonder if the bright red stretch marks across my recently enlarged belly will disappear someday. Will they, too, be a permanent reminder of a past indulgence?

How many scars do I have? Well, there’s the large slash mark across the back of my left hand, where I brushed up against the top of my old roommate’s toaster oven. It happened a year ago, and though it was painful, I never thought it would create a scar. Yet there it is- a slight discoloration, ovular and long, parallel to my knuckles. It could be a birthmark. Just this writing about it conjures up a tangible image of that apartment. It’s dinginess, the pungency of old cigarettes, the yellowed timbre of the light- I could be there right now. The loneliness, too, seems to hang about in that memory. There are the sounds of This American Life playing in the background, a distant online chat looming from the bedroom. This is what I get from pondering the back of my hand too long.

I am wearing a short-sleeved dress today, so the next scar I’m drawn to is a small constellation near the crook of my left elbow. Ever visible to me, rarely seen by others, these four lines are imperfectly lengthened and imperfectly paralleled. They shine from a distant time and sometimes I wonder if they persevere in existence primarily because I prize them so. Do I will these faint scars into persistence? Perhaps. These are battle scars, and they are the first of their kind on my body. I pause for a moment to do math that should be quick, but because it’s attached to emotion, to experience, to memory, it takes a bit longer. Eventually I figure a sum: 6 years plus a few months. . . 6 years plus a few eons.

Such a short time ago, really. These scars are from self-inflicted wounds. They are detritus from a time of pain. Actually they are from a time without pain, a time when I needed to feel something, when it was easier to feel a pain that I had control of than to let loose the pain within. That torrent would have been uncontrollable.

Eighteen years old and I had no clue what to do with anger. I was continually frightened that if I let the secret feelings I had out that they would destroy everything. I believed my anger didn’t exist, I forced myself to have almost no feelings beyond the utterly permissible. This resulted in my life as a sympathetic automaton, capable of generous thought but never able to truly hear or understand any depth of feeling. I think I would have stayed like that forever if I could have, terrified to look at my true feelings. But as luck, or god, or the Universe would have it, that was not an option.

Every scar seems to have an entire world within it, and I haven’t even begun to think about the small scars on my abdomen. Of course just typing that sentence makes those memories rise. Three discreet little lines, surgically created, neatly closed. A nicely punctuated belly.

I’m not sure what to say about this set of scars. What remains to be said? They are there. They are the remains of a great loss. They remind me of what it is to hope for love, to long for a relief to loneliness, and to be helpless in the midst of grief. These scars remind me that the life I lead could have been very different. As if I needed the scars to remind me.

As if much more than a day could go by without thinking about that time. There is a part of me that worries that I will forever live in the shadow of that time. Hope is the the thing with feathers, and I am perpetually singing the tunes without the words, but as yet my life is still very much affected by that particular procedure and everything that happened before and after it.

It was a particular kind of loneliness. I was alone and I was scared, and at the same time I had friends across the country willing to listen to me late into the night. Willing to assure me that things would be ok.

I don't think I have much else to say about scars. Or at least about these ones. There's still the tiny scratch from my childhood pet, and Good Goddess would that come with an entire chapter about that poor little kitten. I think that for today at least, this is enough.

Saturday Nights are Alright

The completion of a heart? Impossible, maybe. What we long for, what I long for: to be understood. To be seen, to be recognized and felt with, and loved anyways. To say the unsayable and still be known. Is it a mirage? Is it an unachievable longing?

The little hurts bind together, in the pit of one’s gut. They merge and latch onto the parts that never cease. Loneliness is a sick master, dissipating at times only to surge forth again with greater resolve. I have found relief from such singularity so rarely. The loss of that relief starkly mocks the experience of compounded joy.

I suppose I’m feeling emo, which is an easy way to disregard the depth of my own feelings. It is so easy to mock oneself and then brush aside thoughts of sadness. Just a few minutes ago I was walking home past a playground where an eight year old was screaming in pain. His mother was walking away, ignoring him and leaving the park. He pleaded with her to wait, he just needed a minute, and she left anyways. His cries were desperate, sharp, painful. His cries touched me. They made the sadness in me more acute. I walked by with no way of helping him but to close my eyes in solidarity. Not to shut him out, just to feel it.

How lonesome to have such pain and watch as your god walks away, shaking her head and hoping you will grow up and learn to stifle your cries. As she learned to do so long ago.

I don’t know why I am so lonely tonight. I’ve been off all day. I could muster a few sorry reasons. I could ignore them and put on a face meant for happiness. All I feel like doing is burying. Digging a small, deep hole and throwing things into it. Throwing away my whimsies, my frustrations, my alabaster dreams. Then I’d really get down to the purging and rip out all the old hurts- they belong in a hole, too. I’d cut out my fears, my liver, my brain. So much of this comes from too much thinking.

Finally freed, I’d cover the hole in dirt and hubris and sit on it. Then I could be a simple automaton, a thing of beauty from where I’m seated now.

It hurts so much to live each day openly. To respond to pain with an open heart. To attempt in all things to give of myself instead of punishing. To attempt to live each interaction as a new thing instead of a dull repetition of past dialogues gone awry. It is exhausting.

I wish I could escape. I wish that I could imagine a day when I would know that the journey would forever be easier. I wish that when the good days came I could feel as though they might last forever, instead of the knowing that there will always be difficulties ahead. Today the difficulties are not exciting challenges. They mock my hopefulness.

Today I feel mildly hopeless. I count my gratitudes and I find them wanting, even though I know that I have more than my fair share. What is a fair share of gratitude, anyways?

How can I have so much and still feel so empty? Which is a funny question to see myself type, as I don’t feel empty at all. The problem in this moment is a lack of emptiness. I feel too much and I can’t seem to find a way of escaping it. I find nothing to draw myself out of my own self-satisfied moaning. Not that I’m satisfied, but that I seem to be enjoying my own pain. I’m not masochistic, per se, but I do seem to be wallowing in a martyr-like cloud.

I don’t want to feel like this anymore. In some ways I wish I could hide my head in the hole instead. Sleep a long, dreamless sleep while the processes of my body continue on their path toward healing without the constant commentary of my mind. It’s not that I want to give up so much as that I’m tired. I’m tired of training my soul to give more. I’m tired of counteracting the voices inside that speak defamatory screeds. I’m sick of having to actively conjure well-intentioned self-speak.

It’s very tiresome.

And I wish that I could feel less alone in this. I wish that when I spoke of this process I was met with more than a concerned eye, or the good intentions of understanding without ability.

I wish my experience was easy to relate to, and that I wasn’t the only one who saw my thoughts as such a thing of importance. I am so tired. Maybe there will be more hope tomorrow.

The other night I left a concert because I needed space. I was sitting there in the audience, the first song was playing, and I felt so sad. I walked outside to get some air and I sat on the pavement next to the parking lot and I watched the sky get a little darker. I hugged my knees to my chest and I searched for what was wrong and I cried a little. I needed to leave.

I left.

I was walking across a darkened campus, shivering and feeling awful, when a thought emerged: I am so lonely. In that moment I felt so alone. Walking away from a concert filled with people, walking away carrying a hurt that seemed to defy sense but hurt nonetheless. It felt like I could never be understood, a sort of loneliness at its essence. I felt burdensome and loathsome and pariah-esque, and in that moment I considered walking to my car and smoking the rest of a pack of cigarettes I had earlier bought and fumingly smoked. I thought about getting in the car and driving away.

I felt like an embarrassment, some sort of twisted puzzle without a solution, a freakish girl who seems to refuse happiness, who subjects those she loves to the ridiculousness of her willful neuroses. I wanted to put myself in a long time out, and then I wanted to be chased after, to be reassured. I wanted to be told that my hurts were seen, that I was loved even with my hurts and my bruises and my sillinesses. I felt scared and prone to false dichotomy as images of angelic Boy and harpy Girl drifted by, carrying with them a particularly sharp suggestion that I didn't deserve the angel Boy with all my horridness. I should find a rock and disappear. If I kept quiet maybe I would slowly turn into sludge and enjoy the blissful ineptitude of thought enjoyed by slime the world over.

I hated these thoughts. They're the worst bits of myself, compounded and minced into a black chasm of grossness. I banished the worst of the thoughts, tried to put the rest of the terrible things on hold for a moment and headed to the room. Still, the thought of how lonely I felt hovered, almost luminous but for its weight. I could barely understand myself and I knew it was asking for a boon of a miracle, but I needed to be understood. I needed the me I was struggling with to be seen. I felt alone because I was hurting and I felt like I had to be convincing that the reason I was hurting was a valid reason, and if I couldn’t explain it well enough it would never be seen- I’d just be some crazy girl who makes everything harder than it has to be. Who cries over stupid little comments. Who so desperately wants to be peaceful and fun-loving and is terrified that all my little wounds will never be done wreaking havoc.

I had to be understood. I’m a skilled enough writer. . . why couldn’t I just sit down and explain it? The biggest and scariest question whittled itself down to “why is this such a big deal?” and I thought that if I could just explain it. . . If I could only show what I meant. . .

I can’t help that I hurt. I just do. I’m doing my best to take care of that hurt- to be open about it and learn more about what’s going on and not get lost in a sea of pain or hopelessness. I am already drafting contingency plans and small and large courses of action to change what about my life is making me unhappy. I’m trying to take care of my hurt, but I can’t control the fact that I hurt. I can’t control which circumstances set off this hurt, be they silly or socially valid. But I hurt.

When I got to the room I was firmly resolved to sit down and write the long sordid history of emily’s sexual orientation. I thought I’d just tell the story- how long it took to discover who I am, how many back and forths there have been, how many times I’ve been told that I was being ridiculous, how many times I’ve had to come out, how often being accepted by others has been contingent on so many things, how I subsisted for years on a sparse diet of external acceptance, how my orientation affected and affects that acceptance. . . It’s never been clear for me. It’s been a big struggle. A formative struggle.

I sat at my computer and wrote a few lame sentences. And by lame I really mean without the ability to move. I deleted them and began again, and the immensity of such a project overwhelmed me. The importance and the literal hugeness was too much in that moment.

I noticed my friend, K, online and I started chatting with her. Like me, K is a Queer lady in a straight relationship, but hers is a few years old. She’s out and a feminist and she was so empathetic. She struggles with the same thing that I’ve been bothered by, which though I haven’t been explicit yet, centers on making sense of myself as a non-straight woman in a monogamous heterosexual relationship.

One might ask why it’s such a big deal, to which I have no quick answer. Being out and Queer has been such a part of my life for the last 5 years, not to mention the prior closeted 3. Only one year ago I was fresh out of the first successful relationship I ever had, and it was with a woman. I moved across the country, leaving my beloved Bay Area for the decidedly less-Queer New York. I was sure that I had learned the biggest pieces of my orientation identity in the previous few months. I was sure (yet again) that I knew what I liked and would always like: women. I theoretically proposed that I might find some very rare male-bodied person who I would not dismiss if otherwise appealing, but I tended to say that with a strong sense of skepticism.

Then I was in Michigan, falling for a male, and the world turned around. But I was still Queer. A Dyke is allowed to fall for a man once in a while, especially if she still prefers women.

Then I was in New York, over-worked, typically under-slept, ill, detached, alone. I was too busy to find a new queer community. Too tired to do all the work involved, which is not to say that I made no effort, as I absolutely went on dates and tried to meet new people, but rather that it is terribly difficult work to nurture a new community. It takes consistency and attention and energy, which were running low after my summer and fall. Then came the winter and the whispers of spring.

Then I met the Boy.

Somehow I’ve settled into a magical arrangement: I love him, he loves me, and we laugh a lot. Simple, no?

What happens to your identity as a queer woman when you begin to contemplate a life-long heterosexual relationship? How do you define yourself? When you meet other queer people and you are standing next to your partner, how do you introduce yourself without bluntly inserting somewhere into the introduction, “Hello, I’m m and though I’m deeply in love with my boyfriend I’m not straight,”? What do you do when you suddenly discover that it’s Pride Sunday and you don’t even have a clue what kinds of festivities are going on in New York, nor do you have anyone to ask??? Or when yet again a lovely gay man assumes that you’re just another straight chick?

What happens, if you are me, is that you become filled with an overwhelming sadness. You begin to grieve for the part of you that you’ve lost, that you’ve let go missing. A part you fear may have disappeared forever. You begin to wonder what you can do to gain back those pieces, and ultimately, you realize that it’s very difficult to explain to non-Queers why it means so much to be Queer.

Being Queer is not like having been raised Catholic. It’s not like having been a Girl Scout. It’s neither a random bit of my history nor is it a part of my detached cultural background. Coming out as Queer- or rather, as Bisexual, then Lesbian, then Queer, was one of the first big ways that I gained self-acceptance. Furthermore, when I joined the Queer community, like it or not, I joined a dynamic that very much felt like Us vs. Them. You’re either family or you’re not. There are aspects of coming out as GLBTQ, of growing up, of discovering and searching, that cannot be explained the way they can be empathized. When I meet someone and I find out ze is Queer, I immediately feel a little closer to hir, even if we’re as different as can be in almost every other way. It’s a bond.

I know that I haven’t caught my thoughts about this yet. They’re still amorphous and drifting, and maybe they will never settle. Maybe that’s ok. I’m left with a directive from within to go out and forge a new community. I must discover again where I fit and how to go about in the world as a person with an irregular orientation identity.

Running

Is there anything so delicious, dear reader, as a shower after a sweaty run?

Ah- I see your querulous eyebrow, my loyal or imagined reader. I see your question. To answer, you are absolutely right. It is even more delicious to pour yourself a glass of golden, dewy, belgian triple ale to take into the shower.

Oh?

That wasn't your question??

Oh. . . I see. You're confused by the subjects of running and your erratic writer in the same trajectory?

Well, I have a confession to make. Another Absolute to withdraw. I have, yet again, found myself on the brink of hypocrisy. Thank Goddess we all change with time. I, the sometimes-hater of all things running (oh, who am I kidding? The every-before-now-times-hater) have succumbed to the sweaty grave of throwing oneself about in the july heat of central park.

How did this happen? Huh.

I have a lot of memories of running. Rather, I have a lot of memories of wheezing, and burning, and being last in class to finish a mile. I'm clumsy and awkward and large. And I like things like hiking. And walking. And occasionally lifting weights or karate. Running has only rarely come across my radar as a possibility, and honestly, it has existed mostly as a punishment.

As in, 'I'm feeling fat and ugly and that means I'm bad, so I should feel bad. I know! I'll go running through Easttown at 5AM.' *Cough* Yeah, at the time I think I actually believed I was going to stick with my flagellistic plan and run and run and lose weight and not feel so terrible. It was a poorly crafted plan.

Or there was the time before that when my mother and I were members of a gym and would use the running machines. God were those awful.

I have many times explained to people that 'I am just not a runner'. I would accept that maybe, possibly, for some people running might bring a speck of enjoyment (or at least not be complete and utter torture), but I was just not one of those crazies. From time to time a person might respond that maybe I just didn't have the right information before trying to run- maybe I hadn't warmed up enough, or stretched enough (uh- warming up? STRETCHING?!? HAH!! I uh, I mean, of course I, uh. . . well, no- it's just that I just hate running. Period.).

And then. Enter a period of time filled with bad body thoughts. It seems to me that we all have these periods from time to time, but it has been a long time since I felt this badly for this lengthy a time. So I thought about what to do.

I was feeling fat and shameful, and like my body was a useless sort of sack. The curves that I'm usually so pleased with- the softness that I mostly love, because it is me and I am it- began to be loathsome. I'm a big girl. I'm tall and I'm curvy, and rounded in some places and though most people are terribly surprised to learn it, I weigh more than 200 lbs.

Most of the time, at the very least, I like me. I like my belly and my breasts and my feet and my thighs (ok, well, my thighs are maybe something I feel neutral about more than positive, per se, but I'm imperfect, so. . . ) you get the point. My tummy is a part of me, so why would I actively engage in hating it?

Lately, though, it's been a struggle. I added a few more pounds to my frame. Happily added -eating ice cream and drinking beer with the Boy- but pounds nonetheless. And I've gotten a little squishy about the edges. Usually when I look in a mirror I can see the imperfections with a reasonable head and still appreciate what is nice, but of late all I've been able to look at is my profile, and how un-flat my stomach is. And how squiffy I'm becoming. And how if I continue this way I'm not only going to be unlovable, but I will have to smash my mirrors and eat bran for the rest of my days.

I hate bran.

I was unhappy, so I did my usual. I examined my life to see if there was something to change to create a greater sense of peace. I just wanted to be able to look in the mirror and be proud. The thing is, I don't think I'm actually eating that much bad food. Yes, I do drink beer, AND I enjoy ice cream from time to time, but this isn't really new. It's just more of the same. I haven't added much weight, so that's not really a concern either, but I felt a need to feel good in my body.

And a funny thought occurred to me: Maybe I should start running.

At this point, I have gone running the past six days in a row, which I learned today may be a bit over-doing it. It's been so fun, though, that I haven't wanted to skip. I feel strong and accomplished. There's no burning, no coughing, no essence of self-punishment at the edges. There's me, and there's my competition with myself, and there's my renewed respect for what my body can do all mixing together and busting out through the seams of a glowing smile on my face.

I feel elated. I feel strong and capable. I love the feeling of growth. And I know, I know, I should take some recouperation time to let my body adjust. I will, I will. That's tomorrow and maybe even Friday.

It's amazing to become older and watch the shades of gray mince amongst the world. I have made so many absolute statements- I will never date men again, I will never speak to ___ again, I could never be a runner, I could never date a meat-eater, or eat meat myself (ok, I'm still a veggie for now and the foreseeable future)- I love living through those times into this one, where I am given the opportunities to discover who I am in different situations, with all their complexities and chaos and wonder. It's beautiful to be able to flow with change. Which is not to say that it's easy, but when it happens I am pleased.

Who knows what obscenity I'll be up to next. . .

A Poem

To love you is such a simple thing
I open my eyes, I breathe, and there it is
smiling into my eyes,
with its lovely fingers twining about mine

Some moments it is so big there is a swelling
in the space behind my navel,
and my belly feels full of warmth and knowing

and a poignant not-knowing

I look at our love
and I know I cannot know its birth

I don’t remember if it lay in the shallows, waiting,
between my toes,
while I looked for you without knowing your face

I don’t remember if it sat, curled and sleeping,
somewhere within me,
or if it tagged along one midwinter morning,
when I was too busy to notice a small shift in the wind

Sometimes I am curious,
as it stares at me and I smile at it,
and I wonder if I am allowed to ask our love
a few polite questions-

I wonder if emily post would argue,
or if our love could speak what it would say,
and how

I wonder if it would speak with the voice of divinity,
a rumbling vibration of velvet or stars

would it be lighter than wisps of candy cotton,
soaring through the space between us-

I wonder if it would say anything at all,
or if it would just take my hand in the gray morning
and hold it

gently.

Ho-Hum

At this particular moment in time, I feel exhausted.

My uterus has been stuck in a perpetual ache for the last seven days. My right flip-flop, previously purchased for the rare price of $2 at a local Target, has worn through in a patch at the heel, subjecting my tender skin to the harsh realities of New York pavement- glass, rubble, refuse. My plans to attend Shakespeare in the Park tonight have been flouted by the idiosyncrasies of the virtual ticketing process. And perhaps most tiresome of all is the absence of my most favorite person.

The sky has been particularly beautiful today- a sort of creamy landscape above the building tops, accented by wispy clouds and bright sunshine. There is nothing actually wrong in the world today, and there is even quite a bit right with it, but I feel wistful despite myself. I feel like curling up and sleeping for a few days, which is so unlike me. I crave comfort- a delicious bath, a rich chocolate delicacy, a gentle touch to the center of my back.

The prospect of socializing sounds positively dreadful. So does the prospect of traveling across and up town to my bed. My bed which is covered in the various leftovers and paraphernalia from the last few months of sleeping away from home- stopping by only for deposits and withdrawals from my wardrobe or bookshelf. I am as yet unwilling to put the things away, for though they constantly irritate me with their disorder, I loathe the idea of occupying a bed solo, with only the help of two teddy bears.

Perhaps I ought to just buy a beer or two, bring 'em home, and watch a few movies. Maybe I’ll finish Doctor Who.

Resurfacing Poetry

I was looking through some of my old writings today in search of something in particular, when I came upon this old piece. I wrote it sometime in the fall/winter of 2006/7. I think I like it again.

It's amazing the different opinions one can have about one's earlier work. Usually re-reading my stuff makes me cringe a bit. My writing is so often time/place-specific that re-reading a piece brings me back to where I was when I wrote it, which is often not a pleasant experience. But This poem is speaking to me in a different way today.

So here it is-

Feelings of weight and poise, simultaneously pulling and pressing the skin on my arms toward a place unknown; reaching for a glass that moves mid-blink and knowing I must reach all the same. Without cause or purpose, agenda off missing in action, sending its notes back anonymously. Following their backward prods with one eye on the door and one finger on the trigger. Maybe I could squeeze if I wanted to, but I'll never know because the sound of opportunity is always beyond the next door. Working and running through a world colored only in a heightened shade of gray, distinguishing a base immorality on the surface of every smile, never judging why. Waiting for the order to push through another window, to break another fist, always blaming the pain on that faceless voice, mind paralyzed by the thought that it might come from within. Name-dropping and show-stopping for all I'm worth, which, after the run, isn't much. The ruin and the rain and the sleet, all beating my head and my back.

But the word is yes, and I will try, and that is, in a word, all.

Reading List, 2010 Thus Far

So. One of my goals this year has been to read as much as possible. A few years ago, after I dropped out of Calvin the last time, I set myself a goal of reading 10,000 pages in that year. I surpassed that goal, but then felt like it had been an arbitrary goal post, as reading middle school literature adds pages more quickly than more difficult tomes. So this year I have not been judging by counting chapters or pages or words, but I have been trying to keep a list of the titles. And I've gotten a bit lax of late.

Therefore, as the year is almost half over (sheesh!) and I'm almost 25 (Huzzah!!) I thought I'd post a list of the year in books thus far, so that when the year is finished I can more readily evaluate my progress. And I am admittedly curious, so I'm going to list page numbers here as well.

Maybe I'll rate them, too. . .

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen (331)

Naked, David Sedaris (224)

Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott (239)

The Somnambulist, Jonathon Barnes (384)

One Big Happy Family, Rebecca Walker (288)

Searching for Mary Poppins, Susan Davis and Gina Hyans (320)

The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell (248)

The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby (140)

Hamlet, Shakespeare (171) Admittedly for Humanities

Candide, Voltaire (144) Also for Humanities

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth, by e.l. Konigsburg (117)

The Prydain Chronicles (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King), Lloyd Alexander (701)

Litttle Bee, Chris Cleave (266)

Push, Sapphire (177)

The Prisoner's Wife, asha bandele (219)

Crooked Little Heart, Anne Lamott (324)

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, J.D. Salinger (92)

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, Carl Sagan (304)

Atonement, Ian McEwan (368)


Whew!! Which makes a grand total of 5,057 pages read since Jan 1st. Crazy how it's almost exactly half the 10,000 mark. . .

Recent Excerpt

I don’t know if stars can be jealous or sympathetic. I don’t think that stars have feelings, but it’s amazing to me how much power I have given them in my life.

It’s amazing how much power they have given me.

When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter at all to me if stars are benevolent beings or personified lights or epically distant clusters of reacting chemicals- what matters is the feeling I get whenever I look at them. I really do mean whenever, as even in passing an upwards glance met by stars is ultimately an invitation for time to stop. Or maybe just to slow. But a warmth touches my heart (or some viscera at least near my lungs) and again something catches. I lose all interest in watching where I step, so long as that light is flowing directly into my retinas. So long as that feeling of profound connectedness, of ancient wisdom or guidance, or perhaps even the simple but unprecedented feeling of being nurtured is there, then I can feel like there is still beauty in life- like my life is worth living. And that is all that matters to me.

Balancing without Acts

I don’t know how to walk a balance beam and trust that it’s not going to move of its own accord. It seems the most natural thing in the world to me that it should suddenly toss me off, or that a gigantic gap might appear, or an earthquake might force me off. I know what to do when the unexpected happens. When the center of my gravity is shifted without my approval, or when the only ground allowed to me is removed. Uncertainty and disloyalty I can deal with, but security? What is that? How do I take care of myself in such untenable circumstances? How can I possibly cope with a secure balance beam?

Either way, I needed something and I couldn’t grasp it in that moment. Walking on a thinly edged balance beam, arms stretched toward the ends of my vision, seeking some semblance of a straight path. For all the pressing on thin air my palms do, every second or third step comes only after an intense wobbling- an almost catastrophe. And there are no mirrors with which to watch the terror creep up in me. I walk, toe to heel, toe to heel, focused so intently upon my next step that I am utterly ambushed by the sudden cramp, the seemingly unavoidable tension that wracks my ankle, grips my leg, and threatens my body with collapse. It is all I can do to pause mid-step without flailing my arms toward some imagined pole or arm. Anything to keep from the desperation of a fall. Anything.

And the unintuitive reality is that the more I reach for help, after the fear has set, when I’m shaky and threateningly near a meltdown, the more I seek to grip, to squeeze tighter on whatever air is before me, the less secure I am.

I must put my arms out, straight as the wings of a blue jay on the soar. I must step. Only one foot at a time- That is all. Toe to Heel. And again Toe to Heel. And I must learn to breathe. Breathing with each step. Breathing between each step. Breathing to fill my arms with soul. Breathing- that simple action I can repeat without fear- to remind myself that the beam below my feet is solid and beautiful. It goes on and on and my feet are sure upon it. I can learn to let the old expectations pass.

Joy Joy Joy

I realize that I've been absent from this blog for an inordinate amount of time, and I'm sorry.  Life has been just about as busy as possible.  

Between 4 part-time jobs and school, there hasn't been much time for deep ponderings or feminist rants to be transposed to the blogosphere.  Even now, this update isn't to discuss anything thought-provoking.  I'm just really, really happy.  

I met someone, and it's springtime and I'm in love.  I'm a little crazy about this guy.  I feel as though everything is right with the world, as though I'm walking a golden path set straight ahead of me.  Perhaps I'll devote another blog entry to the difficulty of identifying as queer while in a heterosexual relationship.  Perhaps not.  At this moment I just wanted to share my joy.  

Because it's pure joy.  

I do not know how to make my life work.

I officially have way too much to do and not enough time to do it. No, it's not exams week or mid-terms. I don't have any out-of-the-ordinary expectations on my time.

This is just life, and I don't know how to make it work. Too much to learn- too much to see and hear and speak. Too many friendships to grow and maintain and love. I love everything that I'm doing, but feel unable to devote enough to anything. I want to be totally committed to so many things and people and projects.

Can I give up sleep for the month of February?

Recently Read: One Big Happy Family, Searching for Mary Poppins, and The Somnambulist

Pretentious

I was feeling rather down for most of today. Feeling out of sorts or down usually prompts me to examine my gut and figure out what's causing the problem. Today was no different and thus I spent a good majority of my solitary driving time lost in thought. I seemed to be no closer to understanding my sadness (though a great deal sadder for all the trying) when a very clear thought cut through the noise:

I want to be

• The sort of person who has an endless supply of patience-
• The sort who can simply listen and validate others without needing to press her own worth-
• The sort who sees the inherent and genuine good in all she meets-
• The sort who knows intrinsically that she is a thing of value, and thus doesn't have to constantly seek validation or value from her surroundings. . .

In short, I want to be super-human.

I am continually frustrated by my shortcomings. I know the argument that one's shortcomings provide the lessons for one's journey. I even believe that argument, but that doesn't mean it's fun to live through the times of utter humanity. Well, at least not always.

I get so tired of growing. I find myself longing for things, for status, for roles, and for people that I somehow believe will fulfill me. I self-righteously proclaim that I know things cannot fill me or make me feel whole. I know. I've heard about the AA god-shaped hole. I'm not 'simple-minded' enough to believe that getting the job, car, house, etc. will make me happy or finally put me at the level where I can sit back and relax til check-out time.

No, not me. I know that that stuff is all empty if you don't have awareness or actualization or whatever other big word I choose for the day.

I clearly know everything, so how is it that I find myself longing for the day when my career will be launched- with the direct expectation that such a day will surely bring with it a sense of total completion in that arena of my life? I find myself thinking of an imaginary future significant other who will not complete me (that would be silly!) but will give me a sense of arrival and I won't feel lost ever again?? Because that's totally different from being completed by a partner, right?

I find myself thinking that the things and people I long for will push me into the next stratosphere, where I will no longer feel down at times and where I will not have to work so hard at hiding my humanness. And in the same thought I look down my nose at others who believe that someday a partner will make them feel whole.

I smell hypocrisy. . .

The funny thing is, I go through a lot of extra hoops trying to avoid thinking that I'm better than others. I spend a lot of time looking for how I am related to others- our commonalities, our shared trials. I abhor the idea of thinking oneself better than others. . . and yet I do it all the time.

I see someone sneer at a homeless person as ze passes by, and I stiffen my neck a bit. I watch lovers quarrel over something petty and my eyebrows shift slightly while the corners of my mouth raise the tiniest bit. A hundred times every day I make split second comparisons between myself and the people around me, and when I decide that I come out ahead, I feel pleased.

Once upon a time I based these comparisons on things like how one dressed or who one's friends were or what books one read (ok, I still do this sometimes), but basically I compared your external status frills with mine. This is not how I think so much today- which is probably why I'm so darned self-righteous. See? See Me? I don't judge whether I'm better based on socioeconomic level! Or style! Or culture!! HaHAH! I have graduated beyond such pettiness and have moved on. . . to the same pettiness re-packaged based on where you are on your personal journey.

Instead of judging your clothing or what you scored on the last test, I've moved on. How grateful are you? Really?? How much do you take your anger out on others? Are you more honest than me? Damn!

And this is better somehow? *sighs*

Why am I so obsessed with the idea of better? The concept of 'better' by definition requires a comparison, which just leads to trouble if you're trying to be at peace on your journey. I acknowledge that sometimes comparison can be a truly helpful thing -it can be a powerful motivator- but the flip-side of that coin is the possibility of obsessively looking to others to gauge whether or not one can be happy, and that is a foolish method of trying to attain any sort of meaningful or lasting joy.

I guess this is really just me trying to hold myself accountable. I'm putting it out there that I know, deep down, that I'm not actually holier than anybody. I also realize that I am my own harshest critic, despite all my countless pep talks and lectures about being gentle with the self.

I just have to continue to remind myself: It's ok that I'm not a super human. Though I wouldn't mind being able to fly. . .

Currently Reading: Bird By Bird

Loving Oneself When Things are Good and One's Brain is Bad

It's shocking how difficult it is to stay positive when things are going well.

Shocking and annoying.

Life has been full of unexpected joy and brilliance lately. My first semester back at school (4th attempt at college) went incredibly well, especially considering the health setbacks. Coming back to New York after my visit to Michigan for Christmas, I was surprised by a multitude of warm feelings for this city- it felt good to be home after being gone for a week. This Thursday I start my first professional gig as a singer in this, the city at the center of the performing arts world. While working last Thursday, my boss casually asked me if I would mind taking a week off school at the end of the month to accompany her on her vacation to the Bahamas.

There's more. Friday I was living in the tiniest excuse for an apartment with a dog and her man who smokes and has loud sex, and the next day I was moving into a palace. I'm almost not exaggerating, either. My new room is more than two times the size of my old room, with a (small) walk-in closet and personal vanity nook with sink and mirror. It came with a bed (a real one, no air mattress any more!), a dresser, a desk. . . I could use another bookshelf, but only because I have too many books. The apartment also comes with a guest room, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a professional cleaner every two weeks. I'm only paying $60 more per month. Did I mention it's the same distance to school? It's a quicker commute, though, as the bus stop is barely outside my door. Health Nuts, my favorite health food store, is right across the street, too.

It's Sunday and I have been full of such excitement for the past three days. I've carted almost all my things via minivan the requisite few blocks, and I've unpacked and alphabetized my books. I am excited about today and tomorrow and the next day. I'm full of gratitude,

So Why Do I Feel So Damned Mopey???

I keep looking around, wondering when I'm going to screw it up. Today I've caught myself at least 3 times inwardly berating myself for being behind on homework. Of course, as it is Break, I have no homework. I conveniently remember this only after a sufficient moment of shame has taken precedence. It seems every quiet moment today finds me listlessly searching the ceiling for proof that I have done something for which I ought to be ashamed. This is infuriating.

I will say that I am pleased that it has taken this long for me to begin to search for the other shoe and its impending drop. Usually at the first sign of the possibility of goodness I am transformed into the Magical Harbinger of Pessimistic Boding. I haven't been skeptical of any of the good things in my life of late until today.

Ah, but can I focus on this little bit of goodness? Of Course Not. I must, it seems, zero in on the gaping fact that I have yet again failed at being a perfectly positive person. I eventually succumbed to the dark side of misgivings and shame-seeking. I am a failure.

Or so says that annoying recurrent voice in my head. Ugh. It's so obnoxious. At least it's not the only voice vying for attention in my skull. There's still a pretty loud voice yelling 'Bullshit' every time that sick masochistic voice cries failure.

Perhaps to spite the truth-telling voice that sick bastard piece of me doesn't stop with the failure line. I push onward with the self-deprecatory monologue (is it a dialogue? Can you have a dialogue with yourself if the conversation is hypothetical and only semi-conscious??) and I find every instance of petty conversation I've taken part of in the last week. I'm sad to say it's a lot more often than I'd like.

I think back on every time I interacted with someone new, someone I wanted to like me, and I see a caricature-esque version of the conversation in front of me. I hear the whiny, neediness of my words. I see the desperation in my anecdotal and self-absorbed discussion pieces. And I want to crawl further into my new comfy bed and hide.

It's not a debilitating sort of situation, and I'm mostly aware of the fact that my current replay of all those conversations is a bit distorted, but -frankly- it's annoying as hell to be spending this kind of energy rooting around in the recesses of my present experience trying to find things to be upset about.

WHY CAN'T I JUST ACCEPT GOOD FORTUNE WITH GRATITUDE??

End of story.

Finis.

Right? Apparently not. At least not for tonight.

My boss often says that the good thing about music as a career is, especially for me, that I will never be bored with it. I will never tire of trying to be better at it as one can never truly perfect the art of music. It's a double-edged sword.

The same is true of life, it seems, though I haven't seemed to truly accept this yet as I still endeavor to do things perfectly to some point. "Progress Not Perfection" should be drilled into the backs of my hands on days like this, because for the life of me, I can't seem to forgive myself.

You see, logically I accept that it's perfectly normal to have a day where one feels a bit down, or a bit skeptical about one's situation. One won't feel bursting with gratitude every single day. So you have a day that's a bit mopey! So What?!? It only becomes a real problem when one loses the ability to see that very large picture and instead gets held up on the individual day. Ahem.

I can't forgive myself for being mopey instead of grateful. Not today. The best I can do today is to get comfortable, make some tea, and watch a bit of whichever program I find most appealing, because sitting on my bed, contemplating my belly button and the state of my immense failures is incredibly unproductive.

And not helpful at all.

Currently Reading: I've been behind- finished 9/10 volumes of The Sandman, Water for Elephants, and something else which is slipping my mind. Currently working on Naked and volume I of the Diary of Anaïs Nin.