Saturday, January 29, 2011

"That confirms it, then."

("can't believe I got so far with a head so empty...")

I've permitted myself such not-greatness.

When an education in the classics was standard, generations and masses of people did great things, thought, felt, believed great things.

Where did that go?

If you permit randomness, you will express randomness. If you permit greatness, you'll express greatness. There can be no other way. What goes in, must come out, and you cannot make something from nothing. And all other applicable cliches (read: truths) that apply....

This is what stands for all the rage, the frustration.
I haven't had the hardness I required, so I became hard on myself. No matter what, it was supposed to be there. Whether they extolled it or whether I inculcated it, it was meant to exist, irrespective of author, irrespective of agent. It was supposed to exist in the air, between me and them, and because they couldn't give it, I introduced it. And I think I still need much, much more.

His dignity is what compels me most. For all the wealth of pain, abuse, embarassment, and agony, there was an impenetrable core that carried through, with enough exuberance to permit a full life, to permit tenderness and dedication and commitment. That's what grounds you, that's what permits compassion, permits loyalty, permits servitude, promotes leadership. This is what causes you to triumph. The worst thing you can do is spare someone of these challenges. These, coupled with the legacy that is an education, are the soil filled with the most nutrients. Look at the alternative.

Compassion is what permits instant wealth of intelligence, when there may be none in exercise. You go from human and finite to Godly and Infinite in one choice. One.choice.

The world, Life, God, is not standing there, chaperoning your choices. Life looks to you as God, as the ultimate arbiter, as the ultimate Executive Decision, and there is no veto. None. Not regarding the decisions that matter the very most. It all, all of it, stands aside and actually says "You're right." Life is a Yes Man. So you better watch.your.fucking.ass. You better have a great cabinet at your disposal. You better have the most trusted advisors who will say when they disagree, and you better get over yourself and fuckinglisten. Because no one else is guarding what you permit. So be very.very.fucking.careful when handing out those permits.

His face was pink, and dewy, but you only noticed this once they opened the door and you could see that it was raining. Then his face came into focus and it had meaning. The one said "The Duke is terribly busy." The other opened the door, and what was meant was, "You are to leave." The rain was falling hard just outside that opened door.
--I wanted to caress his drooping face; because what else could my role, towards him, be? And I wouldn't even know how to do that.
I failed at that. I failed at my role.
But I was supposed to fail at that.

It's very comfortable to me. The linens. The shined shoes. The hairpins. The jewelry. The starch. The stiffness. The propriety. The decorum. The distance. The maintenance of that distance, because what underlies that distance, is the overwhelmingness, the feelings of it all, the bravery, the dignity, the sadness, the concern, the etiquette, the divinity, the legacy, the heritage, the pride, the servitude, the faith, the leadership. Service requires servants. There is no other way. I am fond of these things I've seen.

The grandness of that entrance hall made me want to break down and cry. When I visit it, I'll be sure to go alone so that no one causes me to compromise my time there, to be spent staring up at the ceilings, for hours, for certain.

"It's supposed to be this way."
The guy coughing to the left of me. My mom kicking my heel accidentally as she shifts in her seat. The guy who asked us, as I knew he would, 'could you please move down a seat, if you don't mind?' which caused me to have to look away from the screen just as the back-ground info was up. It was all supposed to be this way. This is what gives me comfort and peace, no matter how frustrating, no matter how annoying, no matter how rage-inducing, no matter how sad. "It is all supposed to be this way". Because, were I to think otherwise, is an agony - given all the possibilities of what could have been - it's an agony that I can no longer afford to feel.

So this is why arrogance is, shall we say, suggested against? Why humility and tolerance are advocated. Why patience is proposed, but why gentle encouragement, accountability, especially, are emphasized. "To live in expectancy, not expectation."

The truth is that I'd been looking for any excuse to leave it. To leave all of it, all of this, behind. Any chance I get, I may still take.

How far off is that? Not far off.

It's not too far, it's not so impossible, it's not so improbable. I guess this means, I'm still looking to be saved. From....? And how? And by whom? And how good, honestly, would that be? How wise would it really be? Are we so weak that we cannot help but to beg for salvation from our own choices?

Or is it just me?

I learned the absolute worst lessons from him. It's as though I shook off anything that was good - what would that have been again, anyway? - and absorbed only the worst. I cannot afford to soak up like that anymore, from any of them. The next one has to be a fucking maverick at life. It's just too expensive otherwise.

That's why the Year. "It has to start somewhere. It has to start some time. What better place than here? What better time than now?" It's to be prepared. It's to know the only thing that matters, until I find something new that can matter on top of that.

"I would stand in line for this...it's always good in life, for this...."

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

How-To Remember You Are a Human Being

If we didn't laugh, where would we all be?
Joan Rivers


So it's funny.

It's funny as hell:

"So, what I'm basically asking is, Would your life be better off without me in it?"

"...(two days later).....Yes."

"WHAT?!

WHAT?! I didn't mean that! I take it back, here'swhyIloveyouandhere'swhyIcan'tlivewithoutyouImeanitallreallyquicklynow!"

"...But I think we should see other people.

"OHMYGODthenhere'swhereIdidyouwrongitwasallmyfaultI'lltakealltheblame!!It'scalledanAmendstheydotheseinAAwhichbythewayI'vestartedattendingeventhoughIcompletelydonothaveadrinkingproblembutI'llstilltakethe blameforEVERYTHING!!!!!!............

...............

...............(two hours later).................

---How do you feel now? --You want to come back, right? You got that 8-page email I sent, right? And that letter in the mail you got that too right? How do you feel about it all? Want to talk about it?"

"....(silence...three-month-long silence and counting...and I'll be counting forever....so I've stopped counting....)...."


So, it's funny.

It's actually funny.

Because if it's not, then I'd have to kill myself.

(I think I may still have to leave town though)


It said,
"love what is to come by loving what has come before", which I was able to do for about a month. ("No matter how far we've fallen, our experience will still prove to be beneficial to others." --- Excuse me, but why the FUCK DO I HAVE TO FAIL SO THAT SOMEONE ELSE CAN STILL NOT LISTEN TO ME AND FUCK THEIR SITUATION UP AND THEN NO MATTER WHAT I'M STILL WITHOUT THAT WHICH I JUST FUCKING WANT? Why the fuck can't I just win at this, Goddamnit!?!....WHEWdeepbreathsdeepbreathsSerenityPrayerAAmeetingsprayingonmykneeswhewaddanothermeetingoreightfor goodmeasure....) and then something switched. Because when I was praying "Your Will, God, not mine," I felt the most intense and constant sadness. My conscience was flooded with grief and guilt, and even when I was able to calm my mind about it all, the grief was so full up in my stomach that I didn't have space for food, so I dropped 15 pounds in two weeks.

At work, at times, it got to be so much, barely even thinking about it, that I would be choking back tears, suddenly, in the middle of phone calls. I'd have to get up from my desk and go to the bathroom to get on my knees to pray to relieve it. Or take a walk outside. Or take a walk outside and sit on these church steps and pray and then still go to the bathroom to get on my knees to pray. And there was temporary relief, but not enough. Because I still thought that he was right about it all. And that was destroying me. I had to switch things in my mind, or else literally, I may as well have jumped off the fucking roof. Why? Because what kind of organism deserves to believe that their existence is a fucking mistake? and that everything in their head is evil? (Fuck you.) When that relationship ended, I felt like a murderer. I had to remind myself "you're not a murderer. and even if you've committed fucking genocide, you hold your head high."

So even if I'd had to completely adjust my morality and reality, then fuck it - I'm cutting the cord to what came before. Because I can't live a life in which the greatest sadnesses in my life are due to some major error in my very being.
Fuck it, and fuck you.
Cut the cord.

Here's a little tip from me to you:
Creative Destruction.
Aka, Not knowing how to get the fuck out of a situation without bombing it and burning it all down to ashes around me.
So, creative destruction. Let the forest burn so that the next one has a chance to grow.
Here's to the next one and knowing how to say "No, I disagree. Get away from me" sooner rather than fire-ier.

I didn't know how to not judge myself. I saw "him" as "Him". And it was either, Him, with that capitol H, and I die, or Me, with a capitol "M-E" and I live. So I feel alive, and I move forward, but it feels like there's a price, like something got lost in the process. I could be wrong about how I went about this; I may have skipped over the grief. ("she skipped over her grief, and she tapped into her pain.")

But then that begs the question: Who is in charge of how sad I am and for how long? Someone or something other than me? I wondered if the point of all the sadness, the constant feeling of it, was to prevent rage later on. ---WHOOPS!!----(loading shotgun)

He is, no matter what anyone says, and no matter what I experienced of him, an inherently valuable human being. I can say this honestly, from a very neutral standpoint. I've always had the ability to do this, to suspend self in order to understand the value in another, and yes, that's a pat on the fucking back about it. But to do this after a break-up? Youmustbefuckingkidding. Commence Wiki-hows: How To Get Over A Break-Up. ("write out a list - and don't be forgiving! - about why it is for the best that you are no longer together, and why it could never have worked.") Wiki-how: How To Get Closure. Wiki-how: How To Overcome Depression. How To Overcome Serious Regret. How To Forgive Yourself. How To Get a Guy To Like You. ----Whoops! -- How'd that one get in there? (delete delete)

It is possible to see myself without blame, without all the guilt I've taken on from this thing, so unnecessarily so. We were two separate people, and we were too separate people, and these things often just don't work, and neither one should ultimately take it personally. I'm just a human being. He's just a human being. These things sometimes just don't work.

When I asked him, while we were still dating, if he still talks to his exes, he said yes, but just for casual stuff, birthdays and such on Facebook. It was only after we broke up that I actually checked out pictures of his ex-es. ("....uh,....really?.... and, you, pursued, and then, dated, me?....

...Why?")

I said,
"I don't; I don't talk to any of my exes.
Too volatile."

And that's the end.


The majority of the gold from this situation, as it now stands, is in my head. There was a gold-mine of information, revelation, and beauty to be gleaned from this, and the reason why is entirely because I am a great thinker about things. This stands as fact, and yes, I perceive this to be humility on my part, as long as you define humility as "a healthy awareness of one's divinity."

I had a dream once in which I was a clone, in direct competition, in a very small bio dome, with other clones. We had to climb huge blue structures, and the goal, the meaning, was to get to the top. When I did, I was pushing off other girls, to their death. I have moments every so often in life, in which I feel like that dream's horror is a reality. And it's not even in moments of competition; that sensation will arrive at what seems like an un-related time; thinking about a nail polish color; thinking about a better notebook to buy. That's the last feeling I want, and yet, at many times, I have the thought "I want to be the best."
But not at the expense of anyone else.

The converse of this, is that a few years ago, the only thing I wanted to do was to sacrifice. I wanted to be the one to take the hit, I wanted to be the one to suffer so that no one else would have to. I don't know if that was me at my most intelligent, or me at my least healthy. I don't know that I'll ever "receive" a definite answer ("there are no answers. there are only choices.") And that not knowing, is what scares me the most: that my choices in life will not be judged until it's too late. Or that they won't be judged at all, which is perhaps more unnerving.

---this is what terrifies me: that I'm so broken down, that my doubts, my absolute disbelief that I'll ever, ever get what I want - that in fact, by proxy, I cannot help but to view life as something where I'll never get the very things I want most --- that this belief, which shows itself at the core every time I think something good (and thus, untrue) is headed my way, is going to drive me to the breaking point... or to something else, like...compromise... or mediocrity...or safety, in some things that are not at all what I find meaningful or the ultimate. "when happiness shows up, give it a comfortable seat" but I doubt that these things are real...I doubt so resolutely when it even appears that I could have something beautiful, that when that thing doesn't materialize, the pressure on me, that I've broken it, with my very thoughts, with my very beliefs, my negative beliefs, my doubts is....crushing. that I'm the one bringing about my own hell, and there's no one and no thing that can stop me. this is killing me. (I cannot exit my own mind) ---- (i am having to re-define heaven and hell and frankly this is too much fucking pressure for one small cell)

and I think of April of 2007.
my apartment on Dearborn.
being in my bathroom, having thought about Jesus, thinking only about Jesus, at that time, as I had been doing for months, weeks, hours, minutes, all the time. thinking about how unfair it would be that those who didn't decide to accept Him were condemned to hell. and I thought, "then, if they can't go to Heaven, then I'll suffer in hell with them."

and the tide that rushed in....

the emotional high that I rode, from that moment.....

I don't know if it was God or the devil that was standing up and applauding me harder.... but I heard that applause, I felt that ovation, as if the entirety of the universe, all angels, God, Jesus, everyone I'd been thinking of for months, were cheering for me.

and four years later, I am washed up on the beach of that decision.

because if it's all only what we believe, then what did I just lock myself into? to whom did I just give my soul?

(when their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone
they shall have stars at elbow and foot
though they go mad they shall be sane.
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again
though lovers be lost, love shall not
and death shall have no dominion. dylan thomas)

(what will purify this from me? can this be undone? do I want it to be, ultimately? ---is this a sacrifice that actually exists? and if so, is there a relief from it at some point? what did I commit myself to....)

"the only sin is to act against yourself...."

("oh sinnerman, where you gonna run to.... where you gonna run to.... the rock cried out 'I can't hide you'....")

My wishes, when I'd blow out candles, would literally be "May everyone around me find happiness in love, even if it means I can't."
I'm tired of wishing for this--- know why? Because it's still in anyone else's hands to fuck up their situation. My stepping out of line makes no difference for anyone else's happiness.

I don't know that I fully "feel" or "think" that I deserve the things I want. But I do recognize that the time to stop feeling and thinking this way, is now. I don't know how you undo this kind of damage that exists in your mind. Exorcism? (I'm not kidding.) Retreats to Buddhist sanctuaries? Extended stays on ashrams? Working at orphanages? Readings and meditations on the Guru Gita? How does it get to this point, where you disbelieve you deserve what you want, when you want wonderful, beautiful things? And if that's not the question that matters, then what is the answer to the one that does matter:
how do I undo this?


I was riding it so well for a while. It was prayer in the morning, prayer in the evening, it was a conscience during the day that I reclaimed because it had absolutely been lost; because when I'd been dating him and I disagreed, I'd stay silent, and I'd let down those gate-posts in my mind. So when he left, he took everything with him. everything. I'd compromised, in the worst sense, my values. I didn't realize, until after my mind was gone, that my values are my mind. Each man being a philosopher, a custodian of a specific, valuable set of distinctions and judgments that actually ARE our membrane, and given that we have skins that separate us from each other, the letting down of those judgments? for the wrong people? fucking.disastrous. guaranteed disastrous. Sanity is the holding up of those judgments. If I burn those gates, those judgments, then the flood comes, and when the reason for that burning leaves, then everything that was protected by those gates, goes with it. I know this for a fact. ("fire and water damage? we've changed our policy limits on those...") It's the worst possible way to be burned, and the guarantee is that you will always be burned. Personal philosophy is such a...nebulous thing. Perhaps I need to sit down and write it all out: "I do not agree with x. I think that y is a bad thing. Z is permissible but only under these circumstances." Because when I said "well.....ok..." to all of those, cart-blanche, I both knew what it was to love without judgment, and I lost my mind. Those are two sides of the same coin. I ceased to be an individual, and I was nothing that could recognize nor be recognized.

I wonder, often, what that means for me, for the future.
It feels like an eternity, each day, to be so hyper-aware of time, and to recognize that I may not be ready for anything remotely like that, for a very, very long time. ---I cannot fathom that it's been only three months since this happened - haven't at least 6 years passed? - why does my face still look young... ---

In the past, I didn't think about it: if something ended, that was fine, and I lived my life day to day and the time flew by and I had fun and it was onto the next thing.

But lately it's like a mania... I wonder if declaring a desire for family and kids has placed this unnecessary pressure on myself. Now there's a (time)bomb and it's ticking like a motherfucker. It has to have, because before, when I never thought about those things with agenda, when I hadn't said 'yes' to those things, no deadline existed. And now I feel like I'm going to die, at least once a day, I will do something with absolutely no.possible.fucking.link.to.mortality (like adding a song to my 'favorites' on fucking Youtube, and literally, my reaction is "oh, now that I'm compiling the music I like, I'm going to die tomorrow.") , so the heat is on. Literally.

So, I've released myself from it. I can't take the fucking pressure.
All it took was an afternoon at a diner, and I happened to be seated near a table of kids, and I thought "My God, that is NOT what I want." At least not any time soon. (Of course I say that, but with the right person, this could all be thrown out the window and I could want to get pregnant likethat.) It all seems to revolve around a person. On my own? As my own free agent? No. Last thing I want.


I don't know how to wrap this up cleanly, so.....

this is How To: Be a Human Being.

"Welcome, Jessica."

(Are you sure you want to continue?)