More random notes
For some reason I don’t want to write recaps lately. Perhaps I’m feeling more private than usual. Even though there isn’t much to hide. Anxiety, work, netflix, sexual abstinence…blah blah blah. What’s ever different.
I’ll tell you something that bugs me. Cancer. Yeah, it bugs me and does a lot worse to other people. It comes out of nowhere and fucks up the lives of good people and the good people who love them. Fuck Cancer. FUCK YOU. No one invited you to this party. But still, you show up, you park your stupid death-trap hatchback in the middle of the front lawn, you drink the last of the keg in your little red Solo cup, you grope people’s girlfriends when they’re passed out in the coat room and you let out the nastiest farts on the dance floor…
Honestly. Just go home. No one likes you and you ain’t got no friends. I fucking hate you.
*****
I’m at home in the bay area. There have only been 3 plane rides in my life where I seriously thought I was going to die, and today was one of them. My flight out got delayed for 5 hours and we took off in high turbulence. The plane got hit by lightning or something because there was this flash and a metallic CRACK! and people screamed. The woman behind me kept mumbling to no one in particular, “They wouldn’t let us take off in a storm if it was dangerous would they?” But we got to a higher altitude and it was fine. I was kind of sad though, in that I really like sitting at home with the door to the balcony and all the windows of my room open, just listening to the rain. Or waking up to the sounds of a storm outside, but knowing it’s the weekend and I get to stay under the covers. It doesn’t storm very often in LA, and I was sad that I would miss this one. Mostly, I just don’t want to be in this house.
*****
I figured out today that sometimes people have intimacy issues because they are afraid of criticism. They’re afraid that someone will get deep inside of them and then go to town on their most delicates, the inner chamber where their flaws stand naked and vulnerable. This points an accusational finger straight to a childhood influenced by someone who was unabashedly and relentlessly critical. It lends itself to a perpetual feeling that something is broken inside and will garner disapproval and disappointment, and that things will be okay once it’s fixed, whatever that may be. But unfortunately, it’s a phantom feeling, kind of like when people have their legs amputated, but they’ll still itch like crazy even though their legs are no longer there. That feeling will ALWAYS be there, and no matter how much you fix of yourself, it’ll still mysteriously exist. At some point, you have to stop fighting with it and start living with it. People will internalize something–in this case, a general environment of being criticized and feeling as though they’re seen as flawed along with feelings of incompletion–and believe that their imperfections are the causes of discomfort. And so they feel that once they fix whatever is causing the discomfort, whatever it is that will garner criticism, they will finally feel 100%. But it’s phantom–that feeling will persist. So they’ll keep fixing and fixing, driven by a fear of being wounded by criticism and of being seen as inferior, and end up being afraid to let anyone near them before they’ve fixed whatever will (or potentially might) be criticized. They in essence, piss their lives away. For the most irrational and frustrating of reasons.
Be good to your children. Let them know that no one is perfect and even if they make mistakes or don’t look or act a certain way, that they are still loved and that love is unconditional. Don’t nitpick at them until they get so scared of doing things wrong that they would rather not do anything at all. Because what a stupid reason not to let people get close to you, as a grown adult, just because you think that people will take away their love once they discover your flaws.
*****
I don’t trust people. I don’t trust people who can walk into a place and seem to be buddies with everyone. I don’t trust people who sit back and seem to know something that no one else notices. I don’t trust people who smile too much. I don’t trust people who silently brood. I don’t trust people who always get angry. I don’t trust people who never get angry. I don’t trust people who say they’ll call but never call. I don’t trust people who constantly call. I don’t trust people who want to know everything about me. I don’t trust people who don’t care who I am. I don’t trust people who tell me to trust them. I don’t trust people who say they can’t be trusted. I don’t trust people who need to be paid money to be trusted. I don’t trust people who think trust is a payment. I don’t trust people who have never met me. I don’t trust people who want to meet me. I don’t trust people who think highly of me. I don’t trust people who think I’m just shit. I don’t trust people who can see deep inside of me. I don’t trust people who have no idea who I am. I don’t trust people who believe things only after they’ve seen them. I don’t trust people who believe everything they’ve seen. I don’t trust people who claim to know where we’re going. I don’t trust people who want me to trust them. I don’t trust people who want to be trusted. I just don’t trust people.
And yet I’m in love with people, all people abstractly, most people quite spiritually, some people very literally. Everything that carries life, somewhere, there’s something beautiful that flows within them, and you can’t help but defer to that.
So how does this work? This trust and love thing? Why aren’t they automatically co-existent and integrated? And if I don’t trust people, why is my trust so often getting taken advantage of?
I think I need a lot of love and it makes me angry and scared to admit it.