Questioning

I'm just like everyone else, sometimes. I want to be shown affection. I want to be wanted. This is something that seems to be suppressed. Therapy and self-help books all try to point people away from love and romance. We're supposed to be good alone, and to sometimes get to "lick the spoon" of love.

Yes, I did use that metaphor intentionally.

Is it any wonder that I feel the same? It's been a long time since I felt affection. Years. More than I'd like to say. The offers given to me leave me cold and hopeless, though. The people that I have met have been the opposite of the kind of people I want in my life. From someone who flat-out told me "the blacks were better off when they were slaves" to a person who told me he wanted "to pull out all our troops, and turn the Middle East to glass."

I am pickier than that. I must not be bombarded by this shit. I can't even entertain why people think someone who unashamedly claims the "liberal" label would want to listen to the shit they spew. And that killed any spark that might have blossomed. Yes, I would rather be alone than deal with that kind of bullshit. I was downright  grossed out by them, after such words left their lips.

But is it really so hard to accept  that I'd like to know love, again? Not a desperate, anyone-will-do love, either. Not manipulation, not pretend love to get sex, not something worse, but love.

What about this desire turns the people I talk to tell me I shouldn't think of love? Is there something so wrong with me that they feel they must deter me from talking about wanting love?

I just don't understand.

Repeat

The vast portion of my writing is done in private now. I give some of it to places where I don't associate this identity. I haven't stopped, at all. The work I've been doing is very self-centered. All of my sentences seem to start with "I" and they go dark, most of the time.

This is a place I wanted to let people keep tabs on me. This was where I wanted to show parts of me that are real, as well. Over the years, I was often rewarded with messages from those who felt that I was expressing things that they felt, and that made them feel less alone. It was nice to know I wasn't alone, as well.

Lately, though, everything seems unsecured. It's hard to know how much is paranoia and how much is really happening. When you have someone seem to answer things you said in private conversations, repeatedly, you begin to wonder if some people need some new damned hobbies. Glad to know I'm still so interesting. It would be nice to interest people for good reasons, instead.

This has been dragging me into a pretty bad place, I admit. I haven't succumbed to it, yet. My head and my heart do hurt to know there are few people I can actually count on, in my life. It wears on me. Here I am, though, still aimlessly pushing through the septic tank of my life. It'd be nice to move on from this, now. I have, so many times. It gets old. I feel like a toddler. "I don't wanna do this all over again. I don't wanna go through all this, again."

I want to make a fort and dream about the stars, instead.

It's been nine years since the last time I had to start from scratch. Seven years before that, something else made a massive crater in my life. I got two whole extra years between major upheavals. Of course, it took everything I had to get through the one nine years ago. It took a year and four months from the day of separation to the court decree. Then it took another three years to stabilize. The organization that has helped me get my footing is still backing me. I don't think I'd have survived without their help.

Now, I'd like to have a place to call my own. While I feel surveilled by people who use their religion as a tribal pack and not a foundation of ethics, I will remain here. It is the one backup I have, at the moment. After all, I've got a few months until my son starts college, and a few years before the other one flies the nest.

I have looked back on older journals. The place I was at nine to eight and a half years ago was far worse than anywhere I've been lately. It's good to know how far I've come. Sometimes it feels like this point here is the worst one ever. It is not, though. I am struggling sometimes, but not like then. Nothing like then. It just gets old to keep going through this.

Heading Upward Again

You know what? It's warm! The sun has been out a lot! There was a bit of rain, but it wasn't cold and nasty! There are leaves forming on the trees! You know what this means? I'm going to be on the upswing for a while. It better last a good long while. Oh, and it better not swing up too damned high.

But yes, the seasonal depression has passed. I don't even know what was wrong with me. And yes, I wish I could bottle this. Every single year, I say the same damned things. I want to do things, get things finished, pull out all the stops. I want to fly and drive and travel. Though my lifestyle demands I work more than I travel.

Why can't it be like this all the time?

Uncertainty

I'm fairly certain that my written words have been viewed by many people. Not as much now that I'm older, and haven't progressed. However, it warms my heart to know that someone I don't pay attention to has taken such a long-term interest in my writing. Cheers to you who come over to see how I've done over the years.

On a less vaguepost note, I am still having my moments of struggle. I'm angry with myself for having stepped down. Now that I've had a week away from the place, I feel like I gave up at a weak moment. A moment when I was dealing with things I dared not write, speak or even think, for the most part. Everything welled up inside me and I broke. I cried. Tears actually came out of me. It was intense and now it's gone, and I already gave up the challenge. Did I make the wrong decision? I can't just say "Wait! No, let me try again" now. This was one of those things that I can't get back. After vacation, though, I always feel better.

It seems I've been relegated to drone status. Patted on the head and moved out of the way. And I hate that even more.

Damn it.

You know what? I really like me. I don't know why others don't.

I give up too soon on many things, though. Maybe that's all.

I don't know.

I'm floundering. I don't know what to do.

A Note at the End of Staycation

My lack of posts must mean one thing. Yep. Life has been good on my vacation. I feel rested and ready to face up to the task of 40 hour work weeks pretending to be someone I am not - someone much happier and well adjusted - again. I do wish I could bottle up all the ideas I've had for dealing with things, and just pull it out and sniffing it as needed.

Alas, that will never happen.

The next vacation is in June. Based around the Chicago Cure show. I wasn't excited about it until this week. The excitement has returned, though. Live Cure in a few months. Another week off work - and I do have a third week after that, too.

Now, if this weather would just break, all would be great. February was late this year. It's still haunting us. I fucking hate February in this region. It's like a slime on the bottom of my shoe. A heavy slime. Depression sucks. Depression based on the weather sucks. Both of them together means a total suck machine for me.

So, I played Simcity, ordered a few new toys and enjoyed myself as much as possible.

From now on, the regular work week jokes will make sense to me, again for the first time in a decade. That will be strange. Again, that which others find normal is strange to me. Heh.

*Note: I only say "staycation" because I get tired of saying I'm not going anywhere. I'm just off work for a week.

On Healing

Every ounce of delusion has passed. I guess I was right. I don't need it anymore. I can't help but wish I'd managed to dig it out of me much earlier. The need was there, though. It was a survival tactic. There are those who know some of my delusions, and maybe I should feel shame, but I don't. I've listened to enough people who were delusional and opened up about their experiences that I understand and I feel compassion for myself that some others cannot feel. One who was working as a social worker with children sticks with me the most. I hope she managed to overcome her prejudices to learn to work with those kids who might be suffering, better. I hope she learned that mental illness doesn't just switch off at adulthood for everyone - or that those of us who do need assistance into adulthood aren't frightening creatures.

Yet, I did use my intimidation tactics to keep people at arm's length. It was easier for me to let people think of me as a threat of some sort. It was like a wounded animal lashing out at others, though.

I no longer need that, either. There's no rage left in me. There's some snark and some bitterness, but no rage. The intensity of all that emotion has left. I no longer feel empty with its absence, either.

There are limits in my life. The metaphor in my head of having only so much cloth that I can use to cover all aspects of my life only goes so far. It's not as far as others' allotments. It isn't a bad stretch, but it'll never be all I want it to be. That's okay, too, though.

It's the same idea behind the way people were never passionate about being with me. I didn't inspire that level of acceptance. I was the good-enough girl. And that's fine, too. It helped me see very clearly the truth of people's intentions and personalities. I never had to suffer after finding out someone wasn't what they claimed to be. When a guy in my senior year lamented and whined about what a good guy he was, it took everything not to snort and yell, "NICE? You're a total ass to me. But then, you don't want to fuck me, so yeah, I can see how un-nice you are." I was able to retain information and spit it back out on command, though, so I looked smart. I know now, though, that too is just good-enough. And I think I'm coming to terms with that.

I've healed a lot. I've learned my limits. I've learned where I still falter. My recovery or whatever the hell you call it is nearing completion. I feel the best I have in a very long time.

BUT GODDAMNIT WHY THE FUCK DID IT HAVE TO TAKE UP HALF MY LIFE?

Middling

The words I write online serve as a way to share some of the things that go on inside my head. While it may not be often, there have been enough moments that someone tells me that what I've written helped them.

I hope this is true.

The only thing I feel I have left to offer is a shared experience. The writing I once did, in fiction or in poetry and sometimes in essays, has gone. There are few things left to say, but sometimes experiences need to be shared. These missives I send are always in the hope that someone will again tell me that they don't feel so alone and weird because they see now others are experiencing these things, too. Most people just refuse to talk or write about it.

I hope that my drops in the vast ocean help strip away some of the stigma of my illness.

I'm faring very badly. I'll never be completely healed. I see that now. I am functional, but I am not exceptionally so. I do what I can, and it is okay. I'll never be great. I get it. All the fighting I used to do to prove everyone wrong. I was wrong. It just isn't in me to be great. I'll always be just okay. I have to learn to accept that.

Someday.

Not today.