10:25 p.m. - 02/01/03
:/.maybe some tiny shiny key*...\:
I don't know where I am exactly. I thought I didn't feel up to writing, but was going to anyway. Now I've read and responded to a thread at sf, and I feel strangely like I want to talk for a long time, very quietly. Or maybe I want to mime words and have people interpret them. "I want to talk in the way mute women do." That's a variation from a line in a play that is not going up in April. The play that is going up in April is doing so despite our possibly having to recast two of the actors. We definitely have to recast one. We aren't sure about the other. And even though I'm glad that our having signed a contract keeps us from pushing it back (because I so desperately want to go to NYC now, and I so will not stand for the show to go up in the summer again- when no one's there) it still sucks that the outcome of the piece is kind of up in the air. There are far too many perfectionists working on it for it not to be amazing, though. So, I'll survive. Besides, even if it's awful, it's an excuse not to be in D!@#$%^. Not only that, an excuse not to be in D!@#$%^ with several other people who are not in D!@#$%^. Several other people who make living less a challenge, less a chore.
Some other weirdness came up today because of the play. I think I was trying to ignore the relationality issues again- (Damn. I'm just so used to having them go away) -and so I ended up really upset for part of the day. I actually went through something like last night in slow-motion. Decency to anger to tears. Well, I never actually went to the tears, but I felt them wanting me. At least there wasn't much added drama from my family. Other than a phone call from my terribly depressed father (who is disillusioned with meds and therefore not taking them.) No, what came up simply came up because we may- through no fault of anyone in the company- end up recasting two parts. And our first choice for the part we aren't sure of- is someone I really hoped would do it initially, someone we tried to schmooze into doing it while presenting Flower Arrangment at that university. This boy is amazing; he's spending the summer in New York because he won a competition he didn't enter. Correct. He went as a scene partner for someone who had been nominated to compete and won the competition. The only problem we have casting him is that he'll probably turn into Al Pacino any day now (no exaggeration) and we don't want to be tying him up when that happens. (Or losing him to it...) It wouldn't be a bad turn of events to have the person I first thought of playing this part actually playing it, and it's oddly similar to when Rachel was cast in the first play. (I was obsessed with her; then she performed in my piece.) That was the weirdness actually- realizing the similarity. I've been feeling a lot lately that makes the tally in my relational biography seem accurate; I've been more and more comfortable with the idea of girls and pretty unable to start a motor anywhere near the issue of guys...and then I remembered Al*, and I just started wondering if I really knew anymore than I did two weeks ago. This is how it always goes (though usually in, say, an hour- not two weeks.) I'm confused, I feel like I know, and then I'm even more confused and not trusting myself. So I thought about Al, and whether or not it was at all physical or just friendly (well, isn't it just friendly with all those girls? isn't it?)...and how does he look to me, et cetera. And the truth is he's really pretty. He's small and has dark curly hair and this amiable presence that's just wonderful. So? He's boyish. That's what hit me. He's a bit *boyish* in the sense that he's small and not physically intimidating the way most men are to a girl who barely passed the five foot mark in high school. And I thought about the other boys on my list of semi-crushes (not the ones who were into me- or the ones that I tried to make myself like for the sake of argument but the ones I actually feel something for, even now) and the truth is- they're all really harmless-seeming. I honestly don't mean that in a bad way, the way I imagine them hearing it when I describe the concept in my mind. I mean, "Al" treated me so sweetly- the way an older brother would, honestly. And the other one I'm thinking of- yet-another-Matt, whom I don't think I mentioned in the bio...I don't know of him ever dating anyone. He was bigger, and he didn't seem to have the confidence. But I just remember feeling safe with him. And people take that like it's a bad thing, but I really *liked* it. I really liked the idea of being safe with someone.
The idea of "Al" as an older brother has me back on a different track in my mind. Here's what it sounds like: What I have felt or do feel toward girlwomen can't possibly be about anything romantically relational because the drives are so often wanting to be taken care of or just wanting to fill that need-wound. When I think about an older sibling or maternal kind of person I want them to love me, I want to show affection (even physically) but that can't be love. It's transference or something. And then I wonder if love (or just- attraction) is really so simple, so separate from everything else. Is there physical attraction (by which I mean, the desire to be closer to, to be in close physical proximity with someone) in friendship? Are we physically drawn to our friends? Is my abandonment something bad-bad-bad that masks itself in attraction/ crushing/ love? Or is it just an honest influence on how I relate to people? And if it's the second one, do I need to "fix" it, or just accept that I always want a little bit of extra loving for the little kid in me?
If it is an ok part of how I relate, or even something that doesn't justify immediately discrediting the feelings I have...then is what I felt with Al and Matt the same thing? I felt past my fears of boyness with them, so I was able to feel safe, and want the things I want when I'm not scared? Or was it something different. I can imagine myself being very close to a girl, and I can't imagine that with a guy. I can't imagine lying against a guy the way I'm desperate to lie around with girls...even just curled up on the couch, talking, watching television. I'm desperate for that kind of thing, and I can't do it with boys. And I don't understand it. I don't understand how that plays in. Am I supposed to heal it, and work on feeling safe in case I'm straight/bi or am I supposed to accept that feeling this way keeps me from being more than friends with guys and move on? (I am not asking anyone to answer these questions, just letting them bounce between my fingers and my brain a bit.) The main point in all of this, for now, is what I want the answer to be. I want the answer to be, "You're just supposed to let them go; let yourself be only friends with guys." That sounds so much like permission to me, something I'm desperate for. It's not that I know this is what I need; it's that I'm not kidding when I say I'm terrified. I'm terrified of the boyness. And so...I just really want to feel like I have a protection against it, since I'm trying to loosen up on my old protection- the I don't have that particular wire so don't ask me again layering. I don't want to push it away simply because I'm scared; I don't feel like that's fair to myself. But I don't know how trauma and relation go together. How much is the mark of what I've been through simply who I am, and how much is it something I need to work on? Whether it's abandonment or whatever-caused-this-hiding-from-the-boyness...how much of it is just human, just Mary, and how much of it is sick?
That is a question I'm utterly tired of having to ask.
I am starting to realize some good things, though. Number one, it's beginning to sink in that I am the one in charge of my life- in a very non cliche way. I am the one who gets to say what my past, present, and future mean. I am the one who gets to interpret what I've been through. If I were to come out tomorrow, and people were to say, "So that's why you" - "...felt this way about so and so" or "...developed an eating disorder" or any other b*shit, I feel a little more confident about my rights. I have the right to point out to them that I got sick for reasons that have nothing to do with this. I have the right to believe that whatever-I-find-out, while having been a part of me, has been a rather dormant part of me, and influenced my behavior only in the sense of, it's who I am. I didn't act based on sexual feelings when I wasn't having them. My sexuality, however, is part of my identity, and that force might have contributed to innocent expressions of affection in my life- even up until now. That's a new thought, too. Maybe this is simple, gentle, kind, sweet, beautiful, *innocent.* Maybe there's another dimension existing in the space between virgin and slut. Maybe those words are misused.
I'm excited about that. I'm excited about having feelings and new power. I've learned that giving up self-suffocating power for something new (while far from painless) is genuinely worthwhile. And even though I haven't the slightest idea what my real power in this situation is, I'm glad to think there's something better than squashing myself down. I was having strong memories (somewhere between body memories and deja vu) of sixth grade this evening...and now that I'm past it again, I feel some sadness for my sixth grade self. I was so lost in the fog tonight while I was feeling it. The opposite of my, "I feel safer with my glasses off" reality. I felt unable to see with my glasses on, unable to reach through the fog and the mist and the thoughts that weren't quite formed. I'm not entirely sure where I was or what it was about, but I know it's important. I'm starting to see the link between thinking of who I've been in my life and all this relationality brainweather.** I mean the relationality has been on some level a part of who I am, and who I am has contributed to how I accepted (or didn't accept) the relationality. I need to understand better why I had to stay quiet before I understand what it was I didn't say. I've had strong desires lately to talk about the pain I felt in my illness, which I very rarely do. (Let's talk about recovery. Everyone talks about illness. Let's talk about the good that comes after the dark.) But I think I need to go back into what happened a few more (hundred) times. And I think I need to go into the health as well as the illness. There are stories beyond how I got sick and what that was. There are stories that branch out of that and that nest on the brances. There's more and I think I need to know it now. Or soon, at least. I think I need to start listening, to accept that maybe I want to talk the way a speaking woman does.
Otherwise, how am I ever going to finish the play about all of this?...
!chord
ps- I'm sorry that I haven't responded to you yet. It doesn't mean you didn't make my day.
*I got scared as I started writing this, so we'll just stick to calling him Al, as in the next Al Pacino.
**Brainweather: (n.) similar to brainstorming, brainweather involves continuous thought, usually on a single subject or a small group of related ones, with mixed feelings (stormy, bright, etc) regarding the issues...
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