3:05 p.m. - 12/31/02
i found the secret to life ://: i'm ok when everything is not ok
A little bit of migraine today, to take my focus off whatever effect not taking meds yesterday has had on me. I'm mostly ok, though. I feel a little icky in the head, but I've mostly managed to dull it down with crazy amounts of soda I don't like and complex carbs. One of these days, I'll buy some actual migraine medicine. Until then, my tactics work fairly...they work somewhat.
Lately, I have lots of memories clicking into focus like they never left, pushing me to believe what my psych book says- that what we encode is rarely lost. If I knew it once, I must know it now. Yesterday, I remembered sitting in church in my early adolescence, not standing for Communion, letting my family pass by me. I remember the judgment, the sadness at my action, and the anger at my rocking the boat. Yesterday, I realized how odd the idea is to me now, the idea of eating God. I don't think I could ever do it again, and I hate sitting in the pew when people pass. I almost went to church with my dad Sunday because I knew it would make him happy, and I like it when he smiles; it's so rare. Instead, I slept, and read Dune Messiah, ate Kix for breakfast and spoke small talk to myself.
I had forgotten, just a little, that New Years was when I started purging. Not when I started learning to, but when it first worked. After that awful, awful New Year's Eve. So maybe it isn't just that this is supposed to be The Year Mary Grows Up and Takes On The World All By Herself (tell me tell me tell me you won't leave if I want you here). Maybe the holiday has grown into something I don't like, all in itself. I hold to the fact that our New Year is misplaced. I guess I'm just trying hard to continue doing what I am, to handle that. I'm not ready for anything new yet. I'm not ready for anything more. I don't feel I am.
If you go, make sure the fairy greets you. She has a tendency to hide.
When I was in third grade, I was in love with this picture book that had to do with ghosts or Halloween. I used to check it out repeatedly, sometimes even before October, and always during the season itself. And now, I don't remember anything except the vague outline of an illustration. I remember the librarian who started working at the school (I think) my third grade year, and gave me extra money at the book fair because I was poor and devoured books like no one else around. And I remember feeling grateful at the time and shameful later, (years later), and it's sad to me, that she was that nice, and years afterward, all I remembered was that I was poor, and even though it had nothing to do with me, I felt responsible, inferior, aggrieved.
This is the sort of thing I've been thinking recently.
This and...I need people to accept me as much as I accept myself on the best days. I don't expect anyone to ever love me quite that way, though I'm working on that old thought which squeaks up about "no one can love me at all" but I want them to accept me that much. Only that much. I don't ever want to be judged so harshly as I have judged myself, and I don't ever want the parts of me that I feel disapproval toward to be let off the hook. I wrote a version of that in my girlboy list ages ago- that I want a love who doesn't think my scars are ugly and doesn't think my scars are beautiful. I want someone who can see the basest parts of me: the animal instinctiveness below everything I've built, and be ok. Be ok with my anger and my violence, and still not pretend that's all I am. There is so much that I want. First, I want it to be me. I want to do these things myself. What I want of you, I want of me. First and best, I want it out of me.
My mom will be home soon, and all I can think is I don't want the noise. I don't want the pounding that outrages my migraine, and I don't want the tell-me-this-and-thats that pound against my introspection. I just want more time, more books, more motion inside silence and good songs. Massive Blur is incredible. Ten Friends, Happy Song? Massive Blur is raw and lovely and proof that even if I do like "Beautiful" I am not a worthless being. I'm allowed to step outside the box they've built around me without stepping into any other box. I'm allowed to wear cardigans and fishnet and kneesocks and henna and glitter and make sense only to those who suspend judgment long enough to see. Only to those who understand how constantly I must be reevaluated. I want to understand that of myself. Who I am in the moment doesn't make me less valid. I am always who I was and who I am becoming, and that quiets me, calms me, makes me feel safer than I know I am.
I think about seeing my friends in my city's favorite neighborhood, and one of them saying, "God, you seem so different" and responding, "Well, how long has it been??" to which they say, "I don't know. Two years?" "Two years?! Not quite. It's been so much more than two years." "Really?" (They recalcuate.) "No, Mary, it's only been two years." (I shake my head.) "No. Time is ever-so different in recovery. And I'm completely different than I was. You recognize me because I'm so much more myself, which makes what we had stay real, but I'm not who you knew me as."
And I like this. Even though I knew I carry that girl with me, I like the thought of throwing my Frames of Subtle Mystery and kneesocks to their glance. I like the prospect of my syntax, my Wisconsin Os, my confidence that's still so much a choice. I like the idea of flitting down temporarily, enjoying them, enjoying me, then mounting my magic, and taking to the sky.
chord
�
�
