a note

I know that I have said this before, but I want to mention it again. I want to talk about how severely I was changed by ex-otter. I want to talk about how much my mother's death has changed me. not necessarily the act, but by all that has followed. and I think these two things, the reason they have had such an impact on me and the reason that I associate them with each other, is because I had to figure out how to be alone. I had to be alone with myself and it wasn't necessarily by my choice initially but it became that way.
my trust issues started a long time ago. I have learned that there is no such thing as a 100% trustworthy person. there is no one that exists that will not hurt me or do something that is entirely self-centered without thought of its impact on those close to them. including me.
so it's been a rough adulthood for me. I have loved and lost so many times. and even the good times weren't that great. it's been a lot of waiting and a lot of crying and a lot of depending on other people for my happiness. I don't know where I learned this. my therapist said I have a history of falling for emotionally unavailable men, and for people that are poor communicators. for people that don't let themselves feel. but I told her, I told her, I told her that this time it's someone that is actually working on his issues. but he lives over a thousand miles away.
so I will still be alone physically.
it's the emotional stuff that's always affected me the most.
I talk like I know what's happening. like I know how things will turn out. but there is no knowing, like there is no way to plan for love.
I'm tired now, but still with more to say.
I just don't know how to say it yet.

well, that took long enough

that thing again where there are words stuck just beyond my range of comprehension. I can feel them pressing on me, aching to rip through my skin and pour out of my mouth or through my finger tips. I can feel them but am too elastic. they push hard, then ricochet back and get lodged in my throat. lodged in my brain. lodged, unable to be released.
and I am not sad.
I feel content with this thing that I cannot touch. I feel content in my distance and this frequent contemplation.
we are two opposites, we are attracted to each other's eccentricities. our similarities bind us but our differences keep us coming back. I like how excited he gets about me. I like how excited I get him. and I like that he follows me.
it always bothered me that the person I was dating had direct access to my head and heart via these journals I keep, but never used them. the people now that read them, they say that the things I write about are too personal for them to discuss with me. how can you read these thoughts and then not want to talk about them?

we meander. we dance around subjects. our methods of communication vary, and the level of disclosure differs between each one.
I worry that my romanticism and his inexperience will doom us. I worry about a lot of things. the spring is making my skin itch and my awareness prickle.

I started writing this entry on april 25. it's now april 30. I can't finish it and I'm not sure why. tomorrow is the first day of may. I wonder if that's supposed to mean anything.
I saw my therapist yesterday. it had been three weeks. I told her toward the end of the session that I haven't been taking my medication because I ran out. that I tried to be responsible but it didn't work out that way. that I wanted to see what would happen. it's not that I want to stay off meds, it's that right now I feel ok because of the spring and because of my current state of affairs. I see my psychiatrist on friday, the same day that Fig is showing up. I'm nervous, not so much about seeing him, but about transportation stuff. riding a bike is fine when you're solo, but it makes having visitors a little difficult.
I hadn't told anyone that I haven't been taking my medication. usually it's something I mention, at least here. I am not off them completely, I've just been taking them infrequently. trying to stretch them out. I kind of want to start over. winter was hard. winter was so fucking hard. and I resent so many people because of that.
and I resent that resentment.
this is new, this is old, this is ... some messy mix of the two. I feel young, I feel old, I just feel like I am where I am.
there are so many contradictions in my life, even though I work so hard to smooth them out. I want to be ok with the fact that I basically lead a straight romantic life, even though I am still similarly attracted to women. It feels like I'm cheating myself by primarily dating men, but I'm not seeking them out. it's just how things go. months ago I changed my dating profile on okcupid so that I was only looking for women. Von remains one of the only exes I have that I don't carry some kind of animosity for.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess I'm just confused and I don't want people to think that I'm straight, and I don't want to be ordinary. I don't want to feel like I'm letting people down. I don't want Von to feel like she was just a phase for me, because she wasn't. I am still as attracted to women as I have ever been. but situations present themselves, and I am not one to deny someone based solely on gender.
maybe I worry too much about what people think of me.
even when I have no idea what it is that they are thinking.

anti-reticent

I am damaged.
yes, I know, everyone is in some way. but the thing that is hard for me is letting go of the bandages and seeing how much I've healed. there's still a barrier between me and, well, everyone else. when I find someone that I think I can trust, that I think wouldn't hurt me, I begin to doubt myself.
the "what if"s start creeping into my brain. they dig holes in my reality and what I feel and I stop believing that good things can happen to me. I feel myself shrinking beneath my skin. I have to push myself not to retreat entirely. being vulnerable is terrifying.
my biggest anxiety has always been feeling like I'm making the wrong choice and people will think that I'm stupid. despite everything in my life, despite all that I have done and all that I have been through, I am still terribly concerned with how people view my choices. I don't care too much what they think about my appearance, but I care what they think about my decisions. I'm not even sure who "they" are. some nameless mass of people that are always lurking, waiting to disapprove? I don't know. I think they're just my doubt. they don't really exist.
one of my favorite bands has this song whose lyrics I occasionally quote to myself: "there are only two real extremes in any given situation: love and death." sometimes thinking that helps. sometimes it just bums me out.
but I guess what I'm getting at here is that I'm scared. I'm scared I'll fuck up, or that I'll get fucked up, or any of a number of things. I know I need to let go of the fear but sometimes it's easier to hold onto it than it is to feel nothing. right now I have an overload of emotions and when that happens, it turns into white noise and leaves me feeling empty.
try to deal with these things one at a time. try to deal with the stress of school, and my ever-changing living situation, and then some more stress of school from the incompletes I still have, and trying to keep up with my friends, and trying to keep up with my family, and just the things that I feel like other people are able to deal with without much thought at all. I talked to Bones the other day and she said that she still rewards herself for the small victories. the things that other people take for granted. when I complete an assignment ahead of time, that's a small victory. when I get to work early, that's a small victory. when I make a phone call to my psychiatrist, that's a small victory. when I remember to write back to someone, that's a small victory.
things aren't as bad as they used to be, in my head.
talking to Fig at night makes me feel better. when I wake up in the morning, I am happier. during the day I think about him and, for the most part, I am content. it's not the physical distance that makes things difficult. the older I get, the less that matters. it's the not-knowing how things will be in person. just because we spent a pleasant, albeit awkward, couple of minutes talking in person a year ago, and have spent the past year emailing each other, doesn't guarantee success. what does, though? nothing. I hate having such a peculiar attraction to small things, sometimes. because they can be what break me.
it's so strange when the world feels right and wrong for the same reasons.

stay.

this is not obsession. this is not regression. it's something like infatuation, but deeper. I spoke out loud to the dark just to see if the words sounded right. I'm still not sure.
this is not falling, or flailing; it's more like opening. and I can't determine the cause of the change of my mood. if it's him, or the weather, or some combination of that and other things.
what we wanted places itself squarely on our chest once we've given up hope of finding it, right?
there is a weight there, now, that I do not want to lift.
a weight and a fullness that I'd missed.

call it like I see it, call it like it is, just call

there were truths that I heard that touched me to my core. to the part of me that no one has been able to worm their way into for a long time. and he didn't make it in, he just said things that I could feel inside my chest.
he told me that I hide myself in the shadows so that people won't notice. that part didn't feel as true as everything else. I don't hide. I just don't put myself in the light like I used to.
he told me things I already know. that I'm sensitive and I feel other people. that I care, that I care deeply. as he was talking, as he was reading me, as we drove in his truck to the ocean to sit by the lighthouse and eat vegan brownies, I felt a lightness in my chest that I haven't felt in months. maybe years? I felt that part of me glow and it was strange for someone to see through me so completely. and I still kept my distance. because even with that eerie insight, I still expected him to want something more from me.
I feel cold, and closed, and I try to keep most people distant because I know eventually they will leave me. I wonder at the barriers I have constructed and I wonder how it is that I used to let myself be so vulnerable. I miss clinging onto someone in the night and sobbing against them. I miss opening myself and letting the light pour out. I miss telling the entirety of the truth.
I remember this man, this same man that described me to myself, told me after ex-otter left me that I would soon find someone to love me. but I didn't. what he told me then didn't feel true, just like some of what he said this weekend wasn't true either. but the parts that were left me speechless and close to tears. the truth burns.
it chipped away a layer I've been trying to hide from myself. it chipped away a part of me that had been making it more difficult to feel. little bits of me have withered away over the years, and they can never grow back. the last time I saw her, my therapist told me that in the years I've been with her, the greatest change in me came after ex-otter left me. I died. but people still expected me to be the person that I was. but how could I go back to that? and how can I go back to the friendships I had that left me empty after my mom died? I can't. I am too immersed in my past, even though I try to escape it. I'm getting better, I can feel it, but there's also something beautiful about being broken. there's something magical in trying to reconstruct yourself when you're missing pieces.
the spring is here. I feel as though I could blossom any day now. my thin stalk bends toward the sun. I am less cold. warmth touches me and my skin prickles in goosebumps. and I feel touched inside, too. I am frightened of distance, but feel its meaningless. I am frightened of distance, but know it isn't permanent. I can see through someone, too, you see.
and someday, they'll see through me.

look.

another dream about shiny. I'll have to stop writing about them, because I think bringing attention to it only makes them multiply. last night I dreamed that I was living in the house where I grew up (or visiting? hard to say) and he came by on a tractor with a power-washer, there to blast the dirt off cars by order of the government. his hair was a washed-out blue (ie grey or green) on the tips, and he was growing a beard-no-mustache. I was shocked. "I thought you hated facial hair!" he shrugged. he offered no excuse. he told me that he'd moved back to california for a while because he'd become so poor. he'd since returned to boston, but lived in a different apartment than before. he was surprised that I didn't know. "who would have told me?" I asked. his roommates and I make it a point not to mention his name.
while he was outside, I started thinking about the letter I wrote him. maybe he never got it, since he had moved a few times. maybe he still loved me. he'd changed his appearance, maybe the rest of him was changing too.
so I asked him if he got my letter. he had. crash crash went my hopes again. and I can't remember how the dream ended, or what else happened, just that he had changed his appearance but not the way he felt about me. but he seemed touched by me but still left. and in my dream, I missed him.
I don't miss him that much when I'm awake anymore. I remember how hard it was to get him to talk about anything. I remember how dispassionate he seemed about most things. and the most telling thing, I can't forget his silence. his silence that has stretched now for four months. in my dream it had been much longer. my therapist taught me to take silence as an answer. I have been steadily killing my persistence. it's hard. but I'm doing it.
these dreams are the last-ditch effort of my psyche to hold onto something that used to comfort me. this happens. it has happened before. it will happen again. it happens more strongly when I start to get close to someone new. maybe it's my brain trying to remind me of the last person that hurt me? I don't know.
I have said it so many times... someday I'll find a love that doesn't hurt.

simplicity without remorse

my ipod had it out for me tonight while I was painting. it kept playing sexy song after sexy song while I tried to concentrate on whether the color on my masonite was neutral enough or not. I found myself squirming on my stool, paintbrush in one hand, while the music creeped over my body. I cursed it and my lack of a sex partner. I cursed it and the combination of nice weather and the hormonal influx that PMS brings.
it's been a while since Spring felt like anything to me. well, it's been a while that I can remember. maybe it was only a year ago. but I wear blinders when I'm with someone, and this time last year I was with shiny. the year before that I was desperately heart-broken. the year before that? ex-otter. and on and on, back to when I was 20. ten years since the last time Spring felt worthwhile.
or at least that I can remember.
maybe I wrote about it. I don't feel like checking. that's a lot to climb through, and it's not that important.
I just want to be excited about things again. a new friend told me that I'd lost my enthusiasm, that he could tell it used to be there. he could hear it in my laugh. the word I would use was "passion," but his phrasing works too. a lot has happened to squeeze it out of me. it gets to the point that life feels grey and the bursts of color amaze me. but I've stopped looking for the color. I let it find me now. I used to make my own color, I think. even though I've always been sad.
it used to be a different kind of sad.
things change, people change, people leave, people die, nothing stays the same.
the Spring is coming, and I wish it could always be that way. that sense of standing on the edge of hope. just a nudge could send me careening either way. but over all, things have been improving. I'm trying. and I'm trying not to be quite so hard on myself. I'm working against a lifetime of conditioning, though.
things help. like family, and friends, and my cat. seriously. I love it when she sighs. it makes my chest feel like it's going to explode, but in the best of ways. maybe someday I'll get to feel that for a person that can return the sentiment.
how many times have I found peace in watching someone breathe?
at least once for every person I have loved.

I'm essentially a lazy person

last night I dreamed my sister died in a car crash. but later on, I realized it was just a dream (a dream in a dream, how poetic). maybe that's my wish for my mom's death.
I remember, after ex-otter left me, I spent months in a daze. I kept thinking I would wake up and it would be october again, and dru would be alive, and ex-otter and I would still be together. nothing felt real. I remember a classmate, in the last week of school, finally convincing me to get high with her, and I spent most of the time crying because I missed ex-otter. she and I haven't talked since. that's probably just coincidence.

last night I dreamed that my teeth were falling out. but they weren't rotten, or merely loose. they were my baby teeth, and making way for new, stronger teeth. so maybe that's what I'm doing too. but one of the teeth got stuck on some skin in my mouth, and it wouldn't come out cleanly. so there's always a catch. it's never entirely easy. some of the teeth crumbled, but I still got most of the pieces out. what I couldn't remove, the new teeth would push out.
maybe I dreamed about that because I was talking about dentistry with a friend, or maybe it's because I've been thinking about getting older. maybe it's because I've been stressed (when am I not?), and I'm about to make some changes in my life. maybe it's because I've gained some weight (no more than in the past) and now I'm a little more self-conscious about my appearance. Maybe it's all of these things. but in my dreams, the teeth coming out is almost always a relief. so that is something.

last night I dreamed that I hung out with the person that's supposed to be moving in. I dreamed that he was skeevy and I didn't trust him. I dreamed of an apartment with two floors, and a boyfriend who let people walk all over him, and a group of people who decided to have a party in our apartment. I dreamt I was angry and felt unsafe and just wanted people to leave. there was somewhere I wanted to go. I didn't want these strangers in my house to steal my stuff. I didn't want them there at all.
So what does that mean?

last night, so many dreams. family and friends and weirdness and the crushingly mundane. school. riding a donkey. getting lost. missing class. pulling teeth. finding out a crush is married. how to reconcile? I can't be attracted to the attached.

When I was dreaming of my teeth, I asked my mom if I shouldn't have lost my baby teeth a long time ago. she shows up like that. on the periphery. like she was to me in the years before she died. there to answer my questions. there when I called.

I wish I'd treated her differently. I wish I'd touched her more. I wish I'd asked better questions. I've never really known how to act around people. I guess because it always felt like acting.
last night, all those dreams. and when I wake up, I'm still in the same place where I fell asleep.
mostly I wish I could be someone else's dream.
it would be so much less work than being the dreamer.

disjointed

I have been writing unpublished posts lately.
last night: dreamed about shiny telling me he wants to get back together. dreamed he wrote me a letter and explained it. dreamed he came over and he was different than he used to be. he was happy. he wanted to be with me. he wanted. I guess that's the kind of dream I get, so vivid and aching, for me just repressing all my thoughts of him lately.
dreams of a desired reconciliation? and I dreamed I was in a car with ex-otter and deafgirl and I mouthed the words "I hate you" to her. she made a shocked face and when she turned around to talk to me, I hunched down in my seat and said I didn't want to talk. no one else had seen the shapes my lips made. no one else saw what she did.
dreams of getting something back, but improved. that's never happened for me and I don't think it will now. every time I find myself thinking of shiny, I drown the thought. so it surfaced when I couldn't push it down anymore. I wondered if I'd hear from him or ex-otter on my birthday. I didn't. but my brother wrote.
can't remember the last time he did that. he didn't reply to my response, but at least he wrote to me at all.
I don't know how to kill hope. I don't know why I feel like shit today, or why I'm missing spanish class again. I don't know why it's been so hard for me to do anything. yesterday I felt fantastic and I thought, "why not just feel like this every day?" because I can't maintain that high. because people don't call me or text me every day. because 50+ people don't write to me every day to say they are glad I'm alive. because that isn't normal. it isn't normal for anyone. and I forgot to take my medication all weekend, but I felt fantastic. so today I crashed.
what do I need? more sleep. friends around here that are dependable, creative, fun, and outgoing. more time to relax. better focus. something to look forward to.

ugh.
I need a better distraction.

noticing as I pass on by

burnt you in effigy. in five inch, papier mache, marker-decorated effigy.
the past few weeks I have been trying to break myself of the thinking-about-shiny habit. last night was a good culmination of that. I was surrounded by people that I love and that love me, and I burnt up his memory.
symbolism has always been important to me. two years ago, I burnt my own huge effigy so that I could try to move on from ex-otter. this year it was about getting over shiny, whom I have not heard from since december.
let's learn from this. let's try. let's be bigger than our own lives.
it's so easy to forget that suffering is suffering, no matter the source. no matter the size.
I turn 30 tomorrow.
every landmark that I pass, I wish my mom was here to see it.
I hope I never burn her memory from my brain.