Echo

We all come in here, masking our discomfort with having been born. Every single one of us, is scared to be here.

6.4.05

He was calm by the time I found him, standing in front of the door to our building as though I hadn’t spent the last hour frantically searching the city for him. He was calm by this time and just wanted to show me the little blue toy car he had bought. We started walking across the street together but I could feel the eyes of the neighbors hot on the back of my neck, their smugness, eagerly anticipating the public discipline I was expected to dole out as restitution for his tantrum. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction, those fuckers who believe in a social system where strangers have the right to berate other people’s children for perceived insolence.

Still, I was angry, fueled by the prolonged panic of not being able to find him, of losing him permanently, my only ally. He was talking to me timidly, eyes cast down; I could see that he hoped I wouldn’t bring up his earlier tantrum, what happens when he gets cornered in his brain and wires short-circuit. But I couldn’t control myself. I told him that someday he would go to prison, that someday he would meet a cop who would be happy to shoot a six-foot 220 lb. Asian kid who was acting irrationally, dangerously, screaming and waving his fists at passing strangers. He tried to have a civil conversation, sidestepping the bait but I persisted, relentlessly painting a standoff that escalates into violent inevitability, until it scares him the way it scares me and he explodes. He’s screaming at me, that he’s never going to go to prison because he won’t let them. I can see the scene unfolding in my mind, some trigger happy patrolman looking for stress relief, pulling the plug on a cornered animal exuding potential violence who won’t stop screaming in the middle of the street. It seems too possible of a reality to shake out of my head. I tell him I’m his only friend and he had better listen to me, that there are consequences and he has to learn to control himself. (Or else? I can’t stop thinking about it. Him laying in a black pool of blood that won’t stop spreading…because they don’t understand, they don’t understand that God speaks through him. And I know I’ve just been cruel). He tells me he hates them, he hates me. So I punch him. And leave.

When I get home I get his mom on the phone. I tell her she has to come home now, there’s been trouble. I make my voice cold so she knows that I blame her, that I want it to tear up her insides too, that I blame her for not being there. She hangs up; I look out the window. I see he has reached the street corner, stepping tentatively, looking at both possibilities of directions to cross. 36 more seconds before one light turns red and another turns green. Reckless scooters zip by, dangerously close. He contemplates, uncertain, frightened. I am not there for him.

I hold my breath until he’s made it safely across the street. Inside, I keep telling myself, robots don’t cry.

shelteredgirl–there have been very few times in which I’ve read something that could unlock tears in me. what you just wrote was the deepest, most insightful thing i’ve ever read and it made me smile in a way that opens up from deep inside, for the first time in such a long while, because it reminds me that there is still so much good in this world, and as long as I know there are good people out there, it gives me hope that there is, in fact, a heaven.

I don’t think heaven is any one tangible place. I think it’s just a safe maternal haven where our energies can peacefully rest, knowing that there is nothing but good around them.

*****

sometimes i feel like i’m hiding out. that i’m actually quite pleased with my life and who i am, but i’ve learned it was safer to pretend to be miserable so that someone bigger than me wouldn’t try to take away my contentment. it’s so stupid, in hindsight. as most things are, i suppose. the greeks used to talk about the competition between parents and children, how they would sabotage each other, often tragically, for their own benefit. i hope that within our collective evolution as a human race and culture, we continue to move beyond that. but honestly, each one of us gets over our personal pain eventually. for me…when you’re standing outside in blanketing rain as a storm dances around you, cleansing your darkness and blowing its spirit into every fiber of your inner workings, you’ll suddenly be filled with that wonder again, over how amazing it is to be a part of a living, breathing world.

they say, don’t get the rain in your mouth…it’s poisonous these days. but i can’t help it. that sweet, cool taste that lights up my tongue is like finding god again.

new beginnings are good…

new beginnings are good.

When the feelings have no place to go.

It’s almost 1am and I have to be up at 5am tomorrow to catch my flight back to LA. I’m tired beyond words yet I can’t sleep because there’s something I want to let off my chest. I’m so sick and tired of this whole thing in my family about how there are things we keep behind closed doors. I’m so sick of having no outlet for things because I’ve been told what I’m allowed to say and not allowed to say. I’m tired of sacrificing my own well-being, and my ability to lead a fulfilling life, and I’m so tired of being afraid of letting anyone come close to me.

I’ve been here for 3 days and my father has not said a word to me. In fact, should we cross paths in this house, or even at the gym, it’s not even a meaningless silence like two ships passing in the night, each with nothing to do with the other. He sets his face like he’s walking by the dog that once bit him but who’s shit that he can’t look upon. I know this face. He taught it to me as the one I should show my enemies, to defeat their existence by blatantly refusing to acknowledge it.

Trying to be the bigger person, I’ve said hello to him twice the first time we ran into each other the morning after I arrived (twice in case he hadn’t heard me the first time), as well as at the gym later that day, when my brother and I ran into him. Both times, he refused to deign me with a response, speaking only to my brother.

Today was my brother’s birthday. We had 30 relatives over for a big party, and again he refused to talk to me, making a big show of sitting outside and smoking a cigar all by himself. I mentioned to my cousin that my dad wasn’t talking to me because we’d had a fight. He asked what the fight was over and I couldn’t give him an answer. I mean, I trust my cousin. He’s one of my favorite people in the world. But when I opened my mouth to speak, I realized that I didn’t know how to make it sound convincing. I didn’t know how to make anyone believe the mindfuck that goes on in this house. That’s the way things have always been. No one believes you, so you just keep quiet.

You want to know what the fight was over? What could cause a father to make such a display of not talking to his daughter?

On the day my brother was having surgery, I called my dad to find out how Michael was doing. My dad told me he was still in surgery. So in the meantime, I asked him how he was doing. This has been part of my efforts to connect with my dad more. My mom tells me he cries sometimes and says that I never call him, that I don’t care, etc. But the truth is, whenever I call, he’s very short with me and answers the phone with, “What do you want.” He usually either ends up yelling at me for being irresponsible about one thing or another, or complaining about my mother. So obviously, it’s not very pleasant to call because I can’t call just to talk the way I can with my mom, and usually, he doesn’t really want to talk to me anyway. But I’ve made an effort to try to call more and he seems to make an effort to be more pleasant.. Well, a week previously, I had called him when I found out about Michael cutting his hand and had suggested they look into other methods of behavior modification. He started yelling at me about how he’s under a lot of pressure because he’s doing this all by himself and the rest of us are so selfish, and hung up on me. This time, I asked him how he was doing and he told me that our lawyer needed me to create a timeline with specific dates for our lawsuit against my builders. I told him that all this happened so long ago (3 years) that I can’t remember specific dates, but I gave all the dates to our lawyer last year, so I just needed the lawyer to fax those over so I could do it. My dad flipped and started yelling at me about how this was BULLSHIT that I couldn’t remember and that I was lying just to get out of it. How he was sick of how I’m always asking him to do things and I never take care of things myself and I’m so irresponsible.

For whatever reason, I just got sick of taking his martyr act. Because I hadn’t asked him to do anything, it’s perfectly reasonable that I can’t remember specific dates from 3 years ago and I stated that I would write the timeline with the help of something I had previously given the lawyer. I tried to point out the fact that I hadn’t asked HIM for anything but he kept trying to tear me down. And I just had it. So I told him I was sick of him being a martyr and he needed to stop making things about how people mistreat him so he could feel sorry for himself. So he hung up on me.

I called him right back and told him that I didn’t ask HIM for anything and what I had asked (a fax of dates previously submitted to our lawyer) was perfectly reasonable. He accused me of not wanting to do it at all and how he was an old man and so tired of having to take care of me and everyone else. I told him that he was NOT taking care of me and that I’ve taken care of my life on my end. But he’s not even listening as he goes on a rant about how I’m just like my mother, so incredibly selfish and all he wants to do is go somewhere and live his life by himself. In my head I’m thinking, what the fuck? But I tried to reason with him. I ask him, “Is our relationship exactly what you always hoped it would be? Is it exactly what you always envisioned a relationship with your daughter would be?” He admitted, no. So I said, “Then why don’t you want to try? If we both want the same thing, to have a good relationship, if we both love each other, then why won’t you work with me.” And he says, “I don’t care. I gave up a long time ago.” I said, “You’re saying you gave up on me.” He said, “I’m done trying. I’m done doing anything for you and your mother.” I said, “I’m not my mother. Why do you keep lumping us together?” He said, “You and your mother are both so selfish. All you do is take take take and WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” And I had it. I said to him, “Listen to what I say next, because it may be the last thing I ever say to you. If you can’t even see me as my own person. If all you see me as is an extension of my mother and your hatred for her, then that is the cruellest thing that you could ever do to me.” And hung up.

I was very upset and called my mom to tell her about what my dad said. She just got really said and said, “I’m sooo sorry Julia. This wasn’t about you. He’s just taking things out on you. This is about me.” Apparently, they hadn’t talked in weeks. And as our family history goes, whenever he’s mad at her, my brother and I get the bitch stick. And with my brother hurt, that left me. My mom said, “He knows he can’t hurt me because I won’t talk to him anymore. But he knows that by hurting you, he can hurt me. He’s taking things out on you right now because you’re not as strong as me, and you’ll take it because you haven’t realized yet that you don’t have to.” And as much as it hurt to hear it, I knew it was true. And I saw it clearer than I ever saw it. And I remember, as I sat on that sidewalk sobbing into the phone, a healthy leap past hysterical, begging my mom not to die and leave me alone with him, I remembered a memory from my childhood, of being scared that she would leave me alone with him, because he could be incredibly cruel. He has a sadistic streak in him that’s crafty enough that if you’re a kid, you don’t know how to explain it to other adults. And I never could because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. He’s charming, you see…always has the best jokes, always willing to buy lavish dinners, always pulling out the most expensive whiskeys…but what you see in public, what my extended relatives see…they would never know. Because he had a rough child, abandoned by his parents, unloved by a selfish mother, a history that would make me weep as a child when my mom told them to me as bedtime stories. And it made me forgive him. For the little acts of sadism. For the anger, the violence that didn’t make sense. Because he’s had a hard life and I wasn’t exa
ctly completely innocent. But now, it seems that I’ve been sacrificing more than I realized. The reason I flip out when I’m faced with corrupt or unreasonable authority…it all stems from my relationship with my father. The way he could do things and no one would believe you. I used to watch him poke at my brother until my brother threw a tantrum, and then he would act like, “Look at THAT crazy kid.” But I knew he caused it, even though I never said anything. Because as long as my brother was the one getting into trouble, as long as it was my brother getting his sadistic attention, it meant I was safe. Sometimes he still purposely provokes my brother so that when my brother flips, he can act like, what the hell did he do to deserve this. Another miserable martyr act.

I’m so sick of it. This weekend of relatives coming up and telling me how I need to be a better daughter, I’m so sick of it. Because there’s no winning in this game. He’s made the rules so that we all lose. Because he needs this… to believe that I, like everyone else in his life who has failed him, make him miserable when I’ve done everything I could to make him happy…tried to be both a son and daughter to him when all he wants to see is disappointment so that he can keep feeling sorry for himself.

I’m done with it.

I ask my mom tonight, why should I give up my own happiness and self-esteem to play out the miserable cycle of someone intent on being miserable, all for the sake of culture? I’m 26 years old. I’m afraid of people, uneasy sometimes even around my friends because I’m afraid of being blindsighted by cruelty. I can never seem to shake the nagging feeling of dread that people might just be acting nice to me just to fuck with me when I least expect it. I’m terrified of relationships for the same reasons, all because one of the people I was most dependent on as a child was a Jeckyl and Hyde, prone to illogical bouts of sadism followed by contrite kindness all hidden under the guise of charm, whose violence sprung out of him without a second’s warning, who always made sure to undercut you the moment you were feeling any kind of emotional security, who always told me that we were one step away from the poorhouse because he had to support us, who made it seem like the reason he was always sick was because of the stress we caused him, who told me in secret he would commit suicide if my mom ever left him, who called me into the room and told me it was up to me to decide if they should get a divorce when she wanted to leave. Was he never a good father? No. He was always there for me during my knee surgeries and to shuttle me around. But even the worst wife beaters have moments where they were good, loving partners, and at the end of the day, it comes down to how good for you this person is. And I don’t want to play anymore sadistic games. Because I want to be happy, because I deserve it. Because I don’t have to be miserable anymore just because you are.

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.

Ooooh…suddenly…the revisitation of another time, remembering a whole world that may or may not still exist…home alone in the dark…the torrential rain roaring outside, and the feeling that all the secrets of the world are out there…prowling those wet, empty streets…and thinking how delicious (yet frightening) it would be to go out and confront them…

i’ve learned this week how much i staunchly cling to my own survival…how much i care about the instincts that are needed for a soul to avoid death in this lifetime.

sometimes i think we’ve evolved in a manner in which neuroticism is the key to one dimension in the survival of our species. by being neurotic, a person is so subconsciously consumed by the things that can potentially bring on physical or emotional death, he or she is in a constant vigilant state of trying to avoid these things. Neurotic people are always on the look out for the dangerous physical/financial positions, the toxic people who may secretly want to hurt them, the intimacies that might subtly manipulate them into detrimental and dangerously vulnerable positions. because a physical death means there’s no more possibility of continuing in this world, while extreme emotional pain will lead to the desire of not wanting the physical capacity to continue in this world. All this keeps them away from things that threaten this survival. But then there are people who evolve themselves right out of existence by being so hypervigilant, that they burn out all of their sensors and are finally depleted of the psychic energy needed to exist on this plane.

geminis at their worst are most susceptible to these psychic-type deaths that inevitably induce physical deaths. that’s why, in this classification group, strokes, stress-related heart disease, and mental illness all tend to run high. it’s the perception related faculties are the ones that tend to fail. they just burn them out.

in europe, i was up late one night talking to someone, and i told her how people shed who they are the way snakes shed skin, but much more subtly, but more frequently. If you think about the human body and how often we shed our cells, even if some cells stay the same for a very long period of time, the majority of the cells from any given moment are gone. So I think about what percentage of my cells from when I was in Europe are still present. What percentage are still present within me from my last birthday? From the time I broke up with the last person I loved? From the first time I had sex? From my kindergarten graduation? And to think that the parts of me that were there are mostly gone, means that I am mostly a different person from who I was then, literally. Sometimes it’s weird think back to a time and realize, “I will literally, never be EXACTLY person again.” And it makes me miss that person, whoever she was. Each and every of thousands of versions.

sometimes what life is really about is just about calling into that dark forest, listening for any voice that may answer from the shadows, hoping to find out how someone else is doing in their own attempts at fumbling around in the dark so that we may not feel so alone.

and thus concludes friday’s stream of consciousness.

Weekend Recap

It’s kind of early for a weekend recap, as I have about 5 more waking hours within which I could easily get into all sorts of trouble that will end up not being covered because I chose to recap early. But seriously…I’m bored right now and have nothing to do.

So I’ve finished the 5th dvd of 24 (Season 1), with one more to go (I am so freakin’ irritated with the Kim character and storyline). Unfortunately, that last dvd is in some Netflix warehouse, because I’ve been lazy about sending back my dvds, so at earliest, I won’t get the last installment until Wednesday. I’m comtemplating just running out to the video store and getting it. I need to learn moderation. Here I am, spending extra money on a dvd I’ve technically already payed for that I’ll get in a few days, while sometimes, I can hold rented videos for months on end. In fact, I think I currently owe the video store over $40 in late fees, which is why I’ve been avoiding them.

Posted new pictures up on the He Looks Like Game. Quite proud of finding the most recent pic. Feel a bit diabolical. I hope he’s no one’s grandfather or dad or boyfriend.

I think Closer messed me up a little. I have that Damien Rice album that the title song is on, and I wanted to put it on today but was suddenly stricken with anxiety. I don’t want to think about the film anymore. I think the wonderful thing about it, is how well it pinned down the complexity and brutality of human relationships. But it shows us that no matter how much we analyze or confront, there really isn’t any answer. It’s like those questions of, “If you were on a sinking ship, and could only choose to save one family member, who would it be?” These kinds of questions can drive you crazy, as there is no answer that isn’t tragic.

It was raining out here and I loved it. I love the rain, which we don’t get enough of in Los Angeles. I went to the gym for a little bit and then wanted to grab lunch and read. I was craving a turkey spinach salad from Literati, but when I showed up, I saw the car of a former friend whose family and I are entangled in a messy lawsuit. I haven’t seen her or talked to her since all this went down so I decided that I’d hit up another place. I wanted to go to Toast, to hopefully catch a C-list celebrity incident that would make me “really uncomfortable,” but they were closed so I ended up at the Farmer’s Market. Had a smoked salmon/scrambled egg crepe. Still not a big fan of crepes. Went to Border’s to read. Realized I forgot to bring Bridget Jones so I read about the psychology of child psychopaths. Fell asleep. As I always do when in a seated position in a public place. Drove home. I love the sound of rain falling on the rooftop, the swishing of windshield wipers, and good ol’ oldies on the radio. “I’m so tired of being alone…”
Yeah…but look at it this way…at least you don’t have to constantly be aware of someone else and making sure they’re content. Everything is a compromise. When you’re alone, you’re lonely and wish you had companionship. When you’re in a relationship, you fight for your privacy and space. I’ve decided, Little Julia that is in this world wants companionship. Big Julia who is of this world and serves this world wants to be alone to do the things she’s supposed to be doing. And no, Little Julia is not a euphemism for my penis. His name is Phil.

Thought of the Day:

The only things you can ever be sure of in any given moment, are what you feel and what you want. And even those things are questionable.

Just saw Closer, which I’ve been eagerly awaiting since I first saw the preview months ago. Personally, I loved it. I understand that the play was probably amazing and it was nearly a direct adaptation so it’s not necessarily amazing by cinematic standards, but the performances were outstanding and I loved the dialogue and the handling of its themes. One scene, in which Clive Owen’s character demands to know every detail of his wife’s (Julia Roberts) extra-marital sexual encounter, was so brutally honest and painful that I really felt traumatized. Like watching your parents beat the shit out of each other. The whole movie was brutally honest. It has to be one of the most depressing movies I’ve ever seen, but I loved it. I’m just a masochist that way.

The film makes you feel like relationships are pointless if we are looking to be fulfilled in every way, or are expecting permanence. Because at the end of the day, if you want to have a relationship with another human being, there is bound to be pain and disappointment, as all human beings are fallible and it’s just what you have to expect and accept. But we always expect more out of people–more love, more devotion, more honesty, more attention–than any human being can possibly give for as long as we want it (forever).

In the movie, Jude Law has an affair with Julia Roberts and the two leave their respective partners to be with each other. The two abandoned partners go through their own personal hell. But when Julia goes to get her husband to sign the divorce papers, he says he’ll only do it if she sleeps with him one last time, so that she can be his whore and he can get over her. So she does it, but tells Jude about it because they had always promised to be honest with each other. But of course, he can’t deal with this betrayal.

Here’s the funny thing that I understand. Yes, they are both guilty of cheating on their partners. But their reasoning was that they were both in unhappy relationships when they were truly in love with each other. So they both face that “honesty” and leave their partners for each other to start this partnership of love on a fated level. Nevermind that it was born in dishonesty and infidelity, their newly born love affair is now pure. But when Julia’s character sleeps with her husband in order for things to be better for them, this is a betrayal of this relationship, and that’s why Jude can’t forgive her. Yes, it’s both hypocritical and understandable. Life is so much more complex than black and white ethics. Emotions can not be rationalized and rationalization can not completely dissect emotions.

It’s amazing how distrust will undermine any relationship and every relationship. “I’m waiting for you to leave me.” This was a theme in the movie. One that everyone can probably relate to. How many times in your life have you found yourself looking for the moment when the other shoe drops and the relationship ends? If it’s not you, then it’s gonna be them. Because there’s only going to be one relationship that doesn’t end, and that’s the one that you just happen to be in when you die. So what do we do? I think we have to temper our expectations to make them more reasonable. But what about that need to rest? To be able to know that the person you love isn’t going anywhere? Why do human beings have to be so fallible? Or why do we have such a vulnerable need for security?

I hope I never fall for anyone again. I honestly do. Because while it’s amazing while it lasts, it’s terrible trying to recover from the disappointment and loss. Like getting off drugs. Euphoria followed by a devastating withdrawal process in order to get it out of your system so that you can return to feeling normal again. Relationships work best as a secondary system of support, not as a defining measure of who you are.

You Want More?

31. I get scared when I’m laying in the dark and things are too quiet.
32. I always sleep on my side with a pillow between my legs. Ever since I was a little kid.
33. I propositioned the lead singer of a somewhat well-known band and he was willing, but I chickened out.
34. I’m obsessed with my arms and like them when they’re cut.
35. Sometimes when I look people in the eye, I can immediately tell which ones occasionally cry themselves to sleep. And all I want to do is give them a hug.
36. My hands shake when I get nervous.
37. I once offered to read tarot cards for a stranger and she would always call me, asking me if she would gain custody of her kids. And I told her to work out her own feelings first about the divorce, even though I had a dark feeling of dread that she was unraveling and going to hurt her estranged husband.
38. I think women lie too much.
39. I think men lie too much.
40. I think we’re all trapped on this earth.
41. I resent gravity.
42. I think Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy.
43. I think there was more to our beloved ex-president than we’d care to know.
44. I think there were quite a few nights when Jesus sat alone into the wee hours of morning, staring at the sky, wondering what the hell he was doing here and freaked out that maybe he’d gotten in over his head, wondering if maybe all the things he was saying to people was idealistic bullshit, because he was just as scared of this world as everyone else.
45. I wish I wasn’t so afraid of life.
46. I constantly crave Gatorade.
47. I think my brother is gay.
48. I think we hold all of our loved ones as emotional prisoners.
49. I once sat for hours watching a line of ants devour a peach until there was nothing left except a completely clean, pock-marked pit. And I felt a deep sense of loss when the peach was gone.
50. I get severely depressed when people try to get too close to me.
51. I get severely depressed when people go away.
52. I wish there was a pill you could pop for loneliness.
53. My scariest recurring nightmare is the one where my teeth fall out.
54. Sometimes when I hug someone or talk to someone, I’ll just know that this is the last time I’ll ever see them.
55. I envy you all. All of you out there who don’t really exist.
56. There is no time to worry about the inevitable.
57. I think about it all the time.
58. But I still don’t know what it is.
59. Do you?

Speaking of Confessions…Pt II

1. I listen to cheesy love songs from the 70s 80s and 90s
2. I wrote secret admirer letters to one of my instructors in college out of sheer boredom and the fact that he was extremely unattractive, so I thought it would brighten up his day.
3. I have only 2 more signs to make out with before I’ve made out with at least 1 person of every sign.
4. I used to dial up random numbers on weekend nights because I have a theory that people are so lonely, they’ll talk to anyone.
5. I have videos that would ruin any political career that I could possibly aspire to.
6. I’m a complete asshole and don’t treat anyone well.
7. I once beat up a boy because I liked him and didn’t know what to do with those feelings.
8. I was sexually assaulted by someone I was dating.
9. Sometimes when I lie awake at night, I wonder, if I knew that I could get away with it in the eyes of God and the law, if there is someone I would happily kill.
10. I slept with a guy who looked like my ex-boyfriend just to prove that I wasn’t afraid of my ex-boyfriend anymore.
11. I once told someone I loved him just to get him to sleep with me.
12. I am terrified of cops.
13. I am homophobic towards lesbians.
14. I wake up every morning wondering if someone I love will die today.
15. I am distrusting of people with blue eyes.
16. I can not be in an enclosed space alone with anyone, male or female, without being scared of being raped.
17. I have the magical power of turning guys gay.
18. I have never kissed another girl.
19. I watched an older relative of mine cheat on her husband as I silently raged.
20. If there were no such things as STDs, I would devote my life to having sex all of the time.
21. I have talked to a ghost.
22. Getting people to reveal their inner most thoughts is like sex for me.
23. I have a doctor fetish because I have a thing for people who smell and look “clean.”
24. I wish I could know what sex is like for a man.
25. I’m terrified that people secretly think I’m dumb.
26. I won’t date Asians because statistically, they have the smallest penises.
27. I’d like to start a cult.
28. I think Jesus just had a good publicist.
29. I think women need to stop thinking with their hearts, and start thinking with their penises.
30. I am drunk as I write this.

But not all of these are true.

So I’ve spent 3 days and 2 nights at home and things are still tolerable, despite the fact that my mom is currently yowling Bryan Adams on our karaoke machine. I, myself, have entertained her with a brooding version of Superstar by the Carpenters before escaping to where I’m most comfortable…in front of a computer.

I went to see The Grudge tonight with Julius, a brilliant illustrator trying to get into animation, and my brother. My brother really wanted to go with us even though he handles horror movies even more poorly than I do. The movie was terrible—it seemed like the director was more focused on what to do that would scare an audience held captive in a theater, rather than what would make sense of the plot. Lots of creepy things jumping out at you. Luckily, there were plenty of vocal African American women in the audience (you know the type) and so their quips gave us plenty to laugh at. In fact, the whole theater was Mystery Science Theatering the movie so it was fun.

When the end credits began rolling, I asked Michael if he was okay. He said yeah, but then bolted out of his seat and out of the theater, like someone about to puke. I think he was really freaked out. I felt bad. Michael wants to follow me everywhere, and sometimes he’ll end up going to places that he hates.

I’ve been going to the gym and playing basketball. Played a five-on-five game the day before Thanksgiving and it was hell because I’ve got this sprained ankle and the back issue and I haven’t run in over 6 months. But I tried and my moves were slow (my crossover was pathetic. and painful!). My line? 1-3, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 turnover. Pretty weak. But my guy went scoreless so that was good. I was always a great defensive player. Loved playing defense. No baskets ever scored on me by my defense assignments during the one season I was healthy enough to play in high school. But I also fouled a lot. And was regarded as a mean player and hated around the league. But I didn’t care. I did my job.

Which speaking of, I kind of understand where Ron Artest comes from (read this article). On the court, you’re intense when it’s all you’ve got. When this game is the only outlet you have for all your anger, all that is wrong in your life. And all you care about, is to feel like you’re good at something, for something. And here you are, the only place where you can dominate, when outside, the world makes you its bitch. So you make up in heart and desire on the court, what gets beaten out of you off of it. Yeah, a lot of coaches could tell I had a lot of anger. But I got things done. Gave 110% at all times and demanded that the people around me did as well. It was heart that won games, no matter the level of talent. And I scared the fuck out of the other teams because I was strong and aggressive and played every minute of every game like it was life or death.

Speaking of anger, Mike, the ugliest guy I’ve ever dated (both inside and out), said once that he was afraid to have kids…he was afraid he’d beat them. And I said something noncommittal like, “Oh…no…you…probably wouldn’t” when I was actually thinking, “Dude, I hope you never have kids.” He was a textbook abusive, borderline personality. A terrible human being, even though I was always encouraging him, telling him he was a good person in hopes that he would be able to see himself that way and work towards it. I was hoping he would break the cycle so he didn’t fuck up other people on his path towards self-destruction. It was worth a try, as fruitless and frustrating as it was. Are there are lot of abusive people out there in the world? Or do I just have a propensity for coming into contact with them? Just want to break that cycle…too many innocent kids are getting fucked up in this world.

Things have been heavy lately and I’m just trying to ride this period out. November is always the worst month of the year for me. It’s like being dunked underwater. Completely dark and suffocating. And you just have to hold your breath long enough until it’s okay to resurface.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. And yeah, it’s such a cliché, but clichés exist because they’re true. Sometimes it’s about risk management. If you can see clearly enough, you look ahead and predict different outcomes of situations, and then you work towards the one that is better, with less consequences and more benefits. Sometimes there are no benefits and you have to go towards the one with the mildest consequences. Whitney is always saying that happiness is the most amount of pleasure with the least amount of pain. And if you think about it, if something gives you a great amount of pleasure along with a great amount of pain, by the Whitney Meter, it comes out to zero. Whereas, if something gives you a moderate amount of pleasure, with a smidgeon of pain, then it’s like a +1.8* (measurement is an approximation. ;). And by quantifying it, you can see that it is actually better for you. Anyway, math aside, I just want my life to be clean right now. Quiet.

Being home, in our haunted house. It’s funny, neither my brother nor I will sleep in the guest room. I told you guys before, there’s something wrong with the energy of that room. I’ll either sleep with my mom in her bed, or in my brother’s bed and he’ll sleep on the floor, but no matter what, no one is willing to rotate over to the guest room. It’s always noticeably colder and draftier in that room, even though there’s no logical reason for it. I used to lock myself in that closet in the dark to punish myself when I was a kid. Trying to toughen myself up by putting myself in the scariest place/situation imaginable. Whenever I thought I was weak, because I hated myself when I was weak. Made myself learn to detach from fear. Now in hindsight, I don’t know if that was a fucked up, sadomasochistic thing to do, or something that ended up making me stronger in the long run. I really do think that no one can be crueler to you than you can be to yourself. And no one can mistreat you unless you give them permission. Unfortunately, we so often give people permission to mistreat us, without realizing it. Ah…we must all be careful of our own unconscious agendas.

Okay, it’s now 2:51 am. Time for bed.

Final Words…

It’s 12:32am. Officially Monday. This weekend was a good one. I am almost ready to come out of my cave. I am finally finding my life again, able to get my radar in tune to the quirky little corners of life and follow the signals, towards hopefully, weird and wonderful anecdotes to share with you all.

I wish I could stay up all night and finish watching the first season of 24 (I’m at 4am-5am. Or, Episode 5). That Jamey chick looks like a drag queen. Reminded me of this Asian girl I worked with last year. I also started Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk who also wrote Fight Club. I’ll share the two passages I like so far:

“To stand here and try to fix her life is just a big waste of time. People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”

I liked those lines because earlier today, I made a resolution to avoid as much needless drama in my life as possible. I have a tendency to attract drama. A lot of times, it’s because I’m willing to listen to people, to be compassionate. I get drawn into the intimate details of other people’s lives quite consistently. And while I learn a lot and become wiser with each interaction in terms of my own life and human existence in general, often times, those traits get me into situations I absolutely shouldn’t be in. I’m a magnet for all kinds of weird situations. Just ask my friend Matt, who I stopped talking to for a couple of years because I heard through the grapevine after that really bad situation with the evil ex, that he was at a party telling people that I had gotten myself into a crazy situation again. “As usual.” [And then I called him on it and he was embarrassed and apologized and said he would call me later and make it up to me, but then he never, ever, ever contacted me again for years. Until I finally ran into him. Coward. But that’s in the past since we’re talking again.]

I think drama was what we did when we were younger, because being young can be boring sometimes when you’re waiting for life to happen. So you have to fill it up with some excitement. We would go out looking for it, drumming it up, jumping into it, getting sucked into it, whatever.
And it was fun for a while, like playing with firecrackers–dangerous yet exciting until it killed our senses and we get tired of it.

But the older I get, the less I want to go near it. I think I figured out why Geminis don’t like to get close to people. Why we’re so mentally/emotionally detached. Because everyone knows we’re high strung. We have issues with anxiety. We’re the chronic worriers. And when you get too close to other people, as is required in order to have human relationships, emotional intensity is sometimes directly correlated with emotional drama. And high intensity (close emotional proximity) means risking the dangers of being too close to the furious fires of emotional drama. And when a Gemini gets a worrisome thought in his or her head, trust me…it will consume that person, whether the people around them realize it or not.

Usually people can’t tell. I’m always “fine” and friendly. Only those closest to me know just how obsessively I can worry. And I don’t know if even they know to exactly what extent I can obsess over nagging thoughts. Drama makes me physically sick. Because first I worry about the littlest things, from if a comment might have hurt someone’s feelings to if a friend is in an unhappy situation. And this thought is a constant throughout the day(s). If it’s not at the forefront of my mind, then it’s on a shelf where I can see it from whatever thought I’m currently thinking. Sometimes, the worries even take the place of thoughts about sex (God forbid!), which, if I have no drama in my life, I’m usually thinking about constantly. And then my stomach is constantly wound up, I’m nervous and jumpy, I have a constant tension right behind my eyes that I can’t seem to shake, and sleep becomes something my body forgets how to do. Once this process has started, it is very, very difficult to disarm. Unfortunate but true.

So I try to keep my life “clean,” avoiding people who are co-dependent and want more out of a generous person than is reasonable, and trying to recognize people who want to play out negative cycles, and give them a WIDE berth. But the only problem is, my idealism makes me think that if I see a problem, I need to fix it. I see someone who’s unhappy and I want to solve it. As Sarita says, I like to pick up three-legged kittens, even though I don’t really want a kitten, but I’m afraid that if I don’t do it, that kitten will never have a home. And before long, I’m some old lady with a ramshackle mobile home that always smells funky because it’s filled with cats (disfigured cats, no less!), and I only venture out in public to pick up cat food, carpet cleaner and last week’s National Enquirer at the 99 cent store, always wearing the same purple mumu and that filthy chewed up straw hat with piss stains on the brim. Not pretty, I tell ya.

But since life has it’s ups and downs and its natural occurrences of drama, usually it’s fine. Most people just want someone to listen to them, to feel like they are being heard, and to maybe get an objective opinion and to be able to see their situation from a different angle. But sometimes, when you get into the oppressive and tenacious whirlpool of people who thrive on drama, require drama, invite drama and use drama to keep you in their lives, that’s a really bad situation. Completely draining.

I think I’m jaded these days. I’ve met so many people who have kept me around because they wanted me to play out something unhealthy with them, and who created drama just to keep me in their lives and bat me around, that I’m so wary of almost everything that is dramatic. How can you tell if a person is really someone in need? Or if the person is just pretending they’re drowning so that when you reach out to help them, they pull you in because they’re intent on drowning, but they don’t want to do it alone?

I said it a long time ago. “The devil likes to play a drowning man.” Be careful.

I think the difference is what you do with the people in your lives. I know I’ve had my share of drama in my life. I know that I’m not completely blameless in some of them. But these days, I’ve done a lot of soul searching and have gotten better at recognizing things that shouldn’t be in my life, that will create needless drama and endless suffering on my end (endless because someone who craves drama will NEVER be the one to let go of the person whose presence helps them whip it up). And it all comes down to: Set reasonable boundaries, and STAND by them.

When a person is truly in need, they ask for your support, and you let them lean on you so they can heal or figure out the situation. But at the end of the day, they want their suffering relieved. They want the issue in their life resolved. I’m all about being supportive of that person. Because this is healthy. But then there are the people who don’t really want the things resolved, even though they say they do, or they honestly think they do. So often, drama is so engrained in these people, that they can’t imagine a life without drama, so they cling to it, and will whip up more if they feel the current level of drama in their lives is being threatened. STAY AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE.

These are the people I was afraid of when I wanted to go into a career of clinical therapy. I’ve got a woman’s intuition and empathy, but a man’s mind. I’m logical. I’m solution-oriented. And I go nuts when I give people advice and it becomes clear they don’t really want to solve the problem and are just making me go through the motions for attention. There are a lot of people who go to therapy and it’s like emotional masturbation. They get to outlet about their
misery, wallow in it, and the therapist is the audience. And they want to do it over and over and over again because it feels good. Masochistically good. And when you don’t want to feed this cycle anymore, they get upset with you, acting like you’re abandoning them. But they would never want to solve the problem so they could end the misery. It would mean not getting to emotionally masturbate anymore. I mean, if you were told that once you achieve an orgasm, your sex organs shut down and you would never feel anything down there again, wouldn’t YOU avoid having an orgasm at all costs? Most def. You would FIGHT against that orgasm so that you could keep masturbating and never have it end.

Anyway, now I’m talking about masturbating and I sense that I have severely digressed.

I’m just saying, Survivor is a good book, drama makes me sick and depressed, and I don’t want any more three-legged, one-eyed kittens.

Second passage from the book:

“To calm this girl down, to get her to listen, I tell her the story about my fish. This is fish number six hundred and forty-one in a lifetime of goldfish. My parents bought me the first one to teach me about loving and caring for another living breathing creature of God. Six hundred and forty fish later, the only thing I know is everything you love will die. The first time you meet that someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground.”

Yeah, of course I would like this passage. I was talking about this in September, I think. About, how people have to realize that the statement, “I would never hurt you” is always false and misleading, because they will hurt the ones who care about them, just by being human. People you love will eventually hurt you, guaranteed. Because they die. You’ll care about them and best case scenario is that they’re awesome and bring all kinds of rays of sunshine into your life……………….before they DIE. And that’s tragic.

I have trust issues with God.

Naked

It suddenly hit me today.

My blog is an extension of me. It’s my way of tentatively testing the world to see how it reacts to a “real me,” which is secretly a milder, simulated me, before I risk my true self in the world outside. Just trying to learn how to feel safe and not be afraid of the world.

I guess all this time, in terms of all the people I’ve never met who comment, I’ve never really been able to visualize you as real people, having entire beautiful, dimensional universes of your own. That was just too overwhelming for me. You were almost like abstract people, almost voices in my head, characters in an imagined reality. Because a life of loneliness is like a life of being always on the run, creating your own reality because you’re playing this game all by yourself and if you rest, you might just find out there’s nothing there. And deep down, you wonder if it’s possible that there might be people who understand you out there. Like life on other planets, you know? You’re afraid to hope, but deep down, you would do anything for that to be true.

But to really think about all of you guys as real people, scattered all around this great expanse, who somehow feel connected through my writing by a sense of mutual existence…..wow.

Is it possible?

That there exists true understanding of each soul in this world?

And that in fact, each and every one of us is never alone?

Is it really possible to be able to reach out and touch people, even if in your mind, you can only see them as faceless, shadowed forms yet undoubtedly, kindred spirits?

Life is so amazing. There are so many days that I want to pause, take a moment to just appreciate how amazing and full and vibrant life is. The act of living and being in a world that is living. The feeling is so huge it challenges the notion of infinity. But it feels like the world doesn’t allow for that. Our world makes us focus on day to day mundane living, giving us no room to appreciate everything else that makes up life, our universe.

But then the day that someone opens your cage and makes you realize there’s a world out there? It changes your life.

We all live in our little cages. The cruelest joke is that we can see how to open the cages of others, but never how to open the cages which have trapped ourselves.

Sometimes I feel like there are two types of people in life. Those who refuse to let go of hope of escape from their own personal cages, and those who resolve to make the best of their caged life, embracing a narrowed vision of the world and convincing themselves that this is all that exists. Sometimes the lines are divided very closely along the division between the logical left brainer and the flighty artistic right brainer. But I’d rather have hope for me. A chance to glimpse what’s out there. Of heaven.

Okay, I’m totally streaming tonight. I’ve been on a strict diet and exercise regime and tonight I let myself have a glass of red wine (for antioxidants!) and here I am. Lightweight drunk. No not really. But that’s my excuse if tomorrow morning, I reread this post and find that I’ve been streaming about inappropriate things again (read: my sex life).

What’s it like hanging out with Geminis? I think if you just keep in mind that all these contradicting personalities are really just different expressions of a multi-directional but overall, integrated being, then it’s okay.

Hey ex boyfriend who recently got in touch with me. Were you referring to me when you mentioned “stormy women?” Well…I never promised you a rose garden…

Speaking of old memories and my going through life on auto-pilot. When Drew and I were breaking up, I told him a couple of times, “You just can’t corral the human heart to where it doesn’t want to go.” What did I mean? Was I telling him that I didn’t love him? Or was I telling him that it was okay to admit that he didn’t love me?

Why is it I can have entire conversations with people and say things that seem loaded with subtext, but I’m the only one who doesn’t get the subtext? Who the hell is using my mouth???

By the way, I made these turkey patties today with ground turkey, fresh chopped basil, cilantro and mint, bread crumbs, garlic, lime and chili garlic sauce, and they turned out really well.

If you’re an old friend of mine who stumbles upon this site, or even if you’re someone who’s been in my life, even casually, who’s hiding in the shadows, drop me a line and say what’s up. A lot of old friends have gotten in touch with me by stumbling upon my site so that’s been really awesome. I like to hear how people’s lives progress past the point in which our lives had connected.

Anyway, I’m off to do something other than sit in front of the computer. Like go into my room and listen to music by candlelight. Yeah, it’s what I like to do. Lay off.

No more games, please…you’re hurting me.

I was having trouble falling asleep as usual last night so I figured I would watch the rest of Notorious C.H.O. At least keep things light, right? At the end of it, she gets really serious and talks about self-esteem and her eating disorder (s). She talks about how her father enforced this need to be thin, showering her with positive attention when she was thin, and acting like she was invisible when she was fat. That was really, really hard to watch, because as much as comics are all about telling jokes, most of them have just excelled in their defense mechanism of using humor and detachment to deal with a lifetime of pain and perceived rejection. And Margaret’s pain while talking about her father was palpable.

This subject struck such a chord for me. Made me so, so very sad. Mothers will nag, but it’s that kind of rejection by a father to a daughter based on physical appearance, that can cut the deepest.

My father came from an environment where the very basic things like security and love were withheld. His mother divorced his father and remarried, thus abandoning her children from the first marriage. By all accounts, my dad took it the hardest. He used to go to her house with her new family and meticulously do all of the housekeeping while her kids from the second marriage sat around acting like he was “the help,” all in hopes of winning her love. But of course, it didn’t work. She’s a cold, selfish woman.

So given that upbringing, you would think that he would be mindful of not perpetuating these negative cycles that can hurt a vulnerable child so much. But thus is the nature of bad emotional/psychological cycles…unless you recognize them and go out of your way to fight them, you perpetuate them.

Growing up, for both my brother and I, food became a touchy subject. We were always anxious about eating, because there was always a risk of suffering a cutting comment directed at us about our weight. Food…it was something we needed, yet sometimes, if our dad was in a sadistic mood, all kinds of issues and mind games came into play. Ironic considering he’s not exactly skinny himself.

There were always the questions of, “Are you still eating?” “Haven’t you had enough?” “You want MORE?!?” Made us feel like pigs if we were hungry.

Sometimes he would bring home food and eat it in front of us without offering. The choice would be…ask him for some, or not. But the risk with asking him for some, would be him saying, “Yeah, keep eating and getting fatter” before giving it to us. But if you were hungry, that was the price you paid. It was often the feeling that he was setting up the situation that way so we, as people dependent on him, would have to beg. So that, as someone who had come from a life of begging for the basics such a mother’s love, he would be in the situation of being the one who has the power to give or withhold. Often I wanted to be proud so I didn’t ask, going hungry, even though I knew that he knew I wanted it, and was so smug about knowing that he was making me ask for it. Kind of like being homeless but being too proud to beg for money even though you need it to survive. And the smug rich people only giving it to you if you show suitable humility. Fucking bullshit.

My brother and I would sneak food when he wasn’t around. Before he came home. After he went to bed. It shouldn’t have been a big deal…eating. But it became this covert thing you did, but were ashamed about doing the whole time. It became this thing we were ashamed of, being hungry. Being fat. Being disdained by our father.

I used to hide food in my room, so that if I was hungry, I could have it without getting caught, without having to deal with any comments that would hurt my feelings, hurt my self-esteem. I remember one year, some ants got into my stash and it was a mess. And he went ballistic, about why anyone would keep food in their bedroom. That was a really bad day.

Years later, living out here, I was going to a therapist. We were talking about other issues (if you’re Asian, you have all kinds of family issues), and she noticed that I always brought up the issue of food…how conscious I was of eating healthy and of everything I ate, and how self-conscious I was about other people judging what I ate, how much I ate, how often I ate. I told her the story about my dad bringing home food and my being too proud and afraid to ask him for some, even though I was hungry. And I remember, her eyes teared up. Trust me, it’s a scary thing when your therapist does that. She told me, “That is so sad.” And I got angry, angry at her for saying that. Because anger was my only defense against that slide into the dark well where all those demons and grievances reside. Because I didn’t want her to tell me it was sad, I didn’t want to feel or understand that it was sad, because once you do, then what? Sad is such a hopeless thing. Vulnerability is such a sad, hopeless thing.

Writing means nothing until it means something to someone else. Emotional defenses of that statement aside, it’s expression existing in a vacuum. It’s the tree falling in the forest with nothing to experience it except itself. Symbols without the symbolized. But the moment it means something to someone else, the moment it strikes a deep chord within an “other,” there within the fabric of that abstract yet deep connection is where the spark that lights the true being of our very existence can be glimpsed.

Sometimes you just want to reach out into that dark unknown and touch someone whose face you don’t even recognize yet.

11/11 Recap

It’s getting harder and harder to remember everyone I’ve ever met’s birthday. That used to be my Rain Man ability. But it seems like, as I progress further on this journey that is life, the people I’ve met along the way start to fade away, moving closer and closer to the dark edges of my memory until one day, they’ll fall off into oblivion and I won’t be able to remember if they ever existed at all.

What happens when we get old? And we want to remember these people who have been in our lives, either as featured players or as extras, and we just can’t? Is it like the phantom itch that terrorizes amputees? A burning itch that can’t be soothed because it’s not really there? What happens when you can’t remember all of the people you have loved over a lifetime, even though you desperately want to hold onto them, if only in the cherishing reaches of your mind? What about the ones you have loved over many lifetimes?

I feel like I’m going through life trying to remember this incredible love I once had, a long, long time ago. And I search the eyes of everyone I meet hoping to find something that will help me remember. I am so close to remembering…what it is…who it is…who I am…this knowledge is so close to reaching the clarity of light sometimes that I think I am on the brink of deciphering the language and purpose of my life, but then it dissipates just as it’s about to take form, receding back into the shadows of my mind. It’s like spending a life time on the verge of sneezing, but never actually getting enough momentum for the relief of release.

Torturous.

But could I abandon this quest, and live a happy life having never solved this great personal, private mystery? No. It would always be in the back of my mind, causing unrest in the deepest levels of my soul. So it’s what I do. I’m trying my best. And I’m meeting a lot of interesting characters along the way.

Don’t give up on me just yet. I’m still capable of some surprises.

Today’s Mood: To understand life, one must understand the ocean…

Breathing Underwater

You know how you’ve been told your whole life that when you go underwater, you have to hold your breath? Or very bad things will happen? Like dying?

I used to have recurring nightmares where I would see a tidal wave coming and I would be running away and screaming for my family to run, but knowing that no matter how fast I ran, I was still going to drown. And the inevitability of it made me feel so desperate and terrified. As the water crashed over me, I struggled against my fear and my impending death.

Until a funny thing happened. One night, when the wave came down and I found myself underwater, I just accepted it and relaxed, and breathed. And then I realized…I could breathe underwater. And somehow, just mastering a recurring nightmare and the element of inevitable doom within it made the biggest difference in my waking life.

That dream is so symbolic. We’ve all been told that no matter what, when you’re literally underwater, you hold your breath or very bad things will happen. I mean, obviously, it’s scientifically proven that if you try to breathe underwater, you’ll probably drown. But it also represents the things in our life that we’ve just accepted because we fear the consequences that have been ingrained in us, despite the fact that we’ve never challenged those assumptions. We’re put in cages early on in our lives, and have just accepted our captivity, never testing the door to see if it is, in fact, unlocked.

In my dream, once I’m underwater, I assume I’m gonna die. But once I challenge what others have told me to accept as the Truth and find that it’s actually untrue, the freedom I felt was beyond words.

Sometimes I think dreams are test runs. You test the boundaries of life, the rules and technicalities. While whatever consequences that arise are erased by the morning hour, the lessons learned and secrets unraveled are your keys to empowerment in your waking life.

In this case, once you realize that you can symbolically breathe underwater, you’ll realize that you’re so much bigger than just your life here on earth and therefore, there’s nothing within it or about it that can cage you or destroy you.