Echo

Today I was lonely.

L-O-N-E-L-Y.

Today I was bored.

Very, very bored.

My friend Max’s trailer.

Interesting article about mail order brides being abused in Newsweek.

World…the time has come to…

Push the freakin’ button so we can all get to sleep, a’ight?

Lots of thoughts spinning in my head tonight but so little time and so little energy as I’ve been up since 5:30am and I’ve got the earlier schedule on Fridays. The flood of intellectual synapses is due to my having to make a 2 1/2 hour drive to Irvine in LA traffic during rush hour for my cousin’s son’s birthday, and the 45 minute drive back. I actually love driving at night. The freeway puts me in a semi-hypnotic state and I do my best thinking on the road.

I realized that it’s been a long time since I’ve had rageful thoughts at Eli. Of course, I’ve also been avoiding dating and consequently, sleeping with people, which could account for that, as I usually feel most violent towards him when I want to get close to someone. Maybe I’m letting go of the anger. Or maybe I’ve voluntarily given up on my desire to ever get close to a man and be in a relationship, because I just can’t fathom it. I’ve always been able to “see” a little further ahead down the road, at the very least, see likely outcomes to things. And whenever I think about relationships and partnerships, I always draw a blank. I’m really not saying this in a depressed or frustrated way. I just…don’t see it. I think people’s life paths are all different, and I may just be someone who’s very fulfilled but not meant to walk that particular path, and that doesn’t really feel like a bad thing.

I went to my cousin’s party and the entire family was there. It’s great seeing them because most of my cousins are married and have kids, and I love those kids. I love my nephew Austin (technically my 2nd cousin because he’s my cousin’s kid) because he’s got such a great, open and caring spirit (he’s a Leo) and we have a great connection. And I get to be myself and crazy with them (tumbling!). It’s cool because no one’s judging me and making kids laugh is the the best thing in the world. I told my cousin’s husband that sometimes I look around and I feel weird that I’m just about the only one who’s not married. He told me, 26 isn’t that old. I told him that I’m 26 and can’t see myself in a relationship in the foreseeable, so I’m definitely not getting married and settling down for life anytime soon. But to be honest, I wouldn’t mind meeting a good person. A stable person who’s got an open mind and an open heart. I’m tired of really weak men. Really insecure and emotionally-inept men. But I suppose I would have to want to meet one, and I wonder if the reason I don’t is because I’m afraid of what it might imply (a real relationship that leads to possibly marriage. Yikes). It’s very hard for me to wrap my head around. But maybe it’s not my head that needs to be in play. But it’s very difficult for me. My fear of relationships is quite overwhelming. I’m an intimacy junkie…I like diving into the depths of other people and myself, but to me, that doesn’t imply a continual connection…a promise of consistency and expectations of more.

You know, my favorite stories when I was a kid was of those elves who would come in and fix things in the middle of the night but the people didn’t know. What was that story? About the cobbler who needed shoes but couldn’t make them? But these good elves would sneak into his workshop in the middle of the night and make the shoes for him, and when he woke up, there would be shoes to sell. But he had no idea who was making them. I want to be those elves. I want to affect other people, bring them positivity and compassion and love, without them knowing me or wanting to hang on to me.

And a real relationship, one where you have to promise to stay and really stay…I can’t…fathom it. I get “error” messages in my brain. I just can’t understand it. Isn’t it enough that I really love you? That I really care about you? I love almost everyone I’ve ever had a connection with–friends, lovers, acquaintances. I care about you and think about you often in the quiet spaces of my mind and soul. I’ll never tell you about it, and if you told me that you knew, I would be very, very embarrassed. I wish you well, even if I left things angry or told you I never wanted to see you again. I just can’t deal with goodbyes. Sometimes I get so damn angry that goodbyes even exist. And it makes me behave badly, because I want the goodbye, since it’s inevitable. Just give me the goodbye so it doesn’t feel like we’re sitting around, waiting for it. I don’t care if you all don’t care about me. I still wish people well. Because life, you know? It isn’t easy.

I know that if I don’t figure this out soon, I could end up spending the rest of my life alone. Because people have their own lives and if I don’t build my own as well, then I’m gonna be left behind. But is that really a good reason to cling to another person? Because I’m afraid to be alone? If partnership doesn’t feel natural to me, isn’t it just going to make both my partner and I miserable because I’m off my path and dragging him down with me? Everything has a trade off. And I prefer the intimate, intense connections with random people from around the world. I would rather spread love and compassion to many people than give it all to one person or one small group, because to do the latter feels selfish. But I also have to understand that by not funneling into one specialized place, I give something up. Maybe I just have to decide what I really want. But I guess I don’t have to right now.

Do I date a lot of gay men in the sense we’ve been talking about them today? Yes. Gay in that they don’t feel comfortable with something about their innate nature so they have severe intimacy issues. Usually they’re not necessarily gay. A lot of men who have been molested (by men or women) often wonder if they’re gay or emasculated, and therefore, have severe intimacy issues and issues with women. It’s not really about a sexual preference. It’s about how they feel about themselves as men. For some reason, I’m drawn to men who have been abused in some way because I can always see it in their eyes. I can always feel it radiating off of them, in that place between their chest and their stomach. You feel it psychically as a hard tension, muscles like a clenched fist clinging for dear life to a dark object, probably the same way a massage therapist can feel a knot in a person’s physical body. And you have to approach them the way you would a terrified animal, using your most gentle energy to soothe them as you work that place inside of them, trying to get them to let go of that dark object. Because what they do is they’ve compacted the thing they are most afraid of, all that hurt and rage that goes along with it, into a tight little ball in the deepest part of them. But they’re so afraid that if they let go, this thing will expand and overtake them, that they spend almost all of their emotional energy containing that compacted little ball. Do you remember how scared you were of letting go of that bar on the roller coaster, as if holding onto that bar was the only thing that would keep you from flying out? But at some point you realized that even if you let go, you wouldn’t die? The illogic of letting go and the relief when you realized you weren’t going to die is an incredibly cathartic and life-affirming experience and it’s one of the reasons why I think people love roller coasters and other “near-death” simulations. Once these people can let go of that ball, they will finally be free–to live, to grow and to love, however they choose. They spend so much energy trying to protect themselves and control this thing, that they have nothing left to experience life and give emotionally to other people. You need to soothe them until they can imagine that if they unwrap their fingers from this ball, it will overtake them, but then it’ll be gone…dissipated into the atmosphere. Why do I know this? I have no idea. How do people know how to approach frightened animals and soothe them? You just do. But you get bit and scratched
a lot before the animal trusts you.

So why is this particular pain so important to me? I have no idea. For some reason I’m tuned into it. And it matters to me, that people let go of this particular pain. Sometimes I don’t really care for the person; they’re actually not nice people and not my first choice for a romantic partner. But I just want them to not have that pain. Because the person inside who’s holding that explosive ball is a child. And that’s who I see when I look into their eyes.

Can I be honest with you guys?

It’s haunting. I look into their eyes and feel that heavy, diseased ball in their centers and all I can feel is what the world is capable of doing to innocence–destroying it and leaving wounded children to pick up the pieces. And if I come across someone and see this, it can bring me really down. And in a way, as long as I see this out there, see people walking around this wounded, I’ll never have faith in the world. I went to therapy and then to hypnosis because I wanted to know…why sexual abuse? Why molestation? Why specifically when men are the victims? Maybe because they are most likely to hurt women when they’ve experienced this type of pain? Why does it enrage me and haunt me? I have no memory of anything ever happening to me. I wanted my memory regressed and still, nothing. I was never afraid of anyone touching me, though I was just generally afraid of people, men and women. I like being touched affectionately. It doesn’t make any sense. But it’s there. I try not to look for it, I try to avoid it, but when I see it in someone’s eyes, I just can’t look away.

I care about these guys as human beings but usually, I don’t really want to date these guys. I don’t want to sleep with them or be in a romantic relationship with them. But I do become obsessed with that pain, and it draws me. I think the level of intimacy that is required to get to that place confuses a lot of guys and they assume this is love, which it is–but I’m motivated by my desire to alleviate the suffering of another human being rather than a romantic connection. And the dating thing is just the conduit which allows me to gain access to their deepest wounds. Sometimes I feel like sleeping with someone is the price I pay to gain their trust and have them allow me to get near that place where things are locked up. Sometimes it’s a relief to be with someone where there isn’t this exchange. I would rather date someone where this dynamic isn’t present and be able to help others in another capacity, but I’ve found that 1. I can’t help everyone (like by becoming a therapist) because I won’t have a connection with all of them where I can see their insides as clearly as I do with certain people, and some of these people who have this pain are hellbent on self-destruction and thus, are dangerous to me as they are willing to take anyone down with them so that they don’t have to do it alone; and 2. Men don’t tend to allow a women in unless there is something romantic/sexual to be gained.

So that’s how it happens. How these types of people get into my life. I’ve been trying to be better about walking away, about pretending I didn’t notice something wrong with their eyes. But whenever I do, I get so angry at the world, with how it so often sacrifices innocent and trusting children to harm.