Goddam commit to not caring. I’m fucking serious. Fucking commit to it or caring is going to kill you, Julia. You need to turn it off.
I felt most peaceful in Seattle. I traded silence for the price of loneliness. And I finally felt like I could hear myself. Recognize myself.
Coming back to Fremont is like charging back into the center of the sun. Everything is painful. Everything is a draining challenge. Everything hurts. Whatever buffer I gained in that year in Seattle, it’s been burning off in the atmosphere and I’m getting more and more exposed. I came back a giant but little by little it chips away. My skin is raw in this air. My skin will burn up if exposed.
I’m not of this place. I found a way to sustain myself and my boundaries for a time but I can not breathe this air. And now my supply is running out and I am starting to suffocate. It is getting too close to being about survival. Fight or flight. My inner violence is a hot, hot anger. A tiger pacing, frantic to breathe. I resent this cage. I hate this cage. I resent those who I believe put me here. Hurt others or hurt myself to save others. This can not be the balance in which my life hangs. And yet every day, I make a choice.
At the base of every human, is a shadow that is no more than an animal. This is a world that demands compromise.