9:40 a.m. - 03/02/03
|/don't sit and watch yourself grow old.:.
So, the poem is getting around in ways I wouldn't even imagine if I didn't have a little gold-member stats-tracker to tell me about them. I'm trying to resist the perfectionist voices that say things like, "Wow. So many people are reading this. I wish I'd written a better one." This is not true because...I wrote what I felt at the time, and it was sincere, and there's nothing more valid than sincerity, not even "perfect" writing.
"Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we aren't perfect." That's a quote from the man himself, so there. Blasted inferiority.
Yesterday, before all this please-don't-read-I'm-not-good-enough shit kicked up again, I had the sort of revelation that would probably make most of my friends slap their foreheads lightly and say, "Finally" in a pseudo-annoyed tone (before bursting into giggles and hugging me.) I'm hoping I eventually remember it on the cellular*, visceral level I felt it yesterday. Curious? Basically, on the subject of "I do not want to be a writer because I do not want writing to be my gift, my talent. I want my heart and my spirit and my need to connect to people and to better their hours to be my greatest gift. There I said it" I realized that...the two *aren't* mutually exclusive. This has never been obvious to me before. Years of dichotomous thinking led to the conclusion that my choices consisted of either a) writing the Great American novel from a messy, reclusive city apartment or b) going into some humanitarian profession as a side-course in my very happy, loving little life. I've had all this experience where my writing touches people the same way that I want to connect to them, and yet, I still didn't understand that I can use it as that tool. Just a tool, though, and just *one way.* I refuse to let my only exchange with people take place through words. I want, occasionally, to be in the same room as the conversation I'm having, or the emotions I express (as well as the person also experiencing this conversation.) I just realized yesterday that maybe my only viable options aren't to give up writing or become a self-help guru. Maybe there's a middle-ground for which play like nourish will prepare me. I don't know. Maybe I'm finally realizing that my adulthood (which is not approaching so much as developing within me) and my still, slow evolution at this time are creating, rather than dismantling, options. Maybe I finally understand that.
(Something wonderful about Dr. R - because would any chordchild entry be complete without a way in which he's wonderful? - he's teaching me that I can understand something one day and not the next, feel something today and not tomorrow. It's perfectly ok if this revelation disappears for a little while, or if some surefire feeling melts away. They tend to come back, and in the meantime, I freak out less if I'm not also worried of what I told people when I felt myself knowing something.)
I have new rings! Look, new rings. You know you want to join. Now I have the interesting dilemma of a scarcity complex superimposed on diayring creation. It's amazing how a complex, once refined, will fit *anywhere.* Mental problems are so *limber*- really...
So, I'm thinking I should stop at ten diaryrings. Any more than ten and I've really overstepped my limits, my boundaries, my allowance. Any more than ten and people will certainly walk around my profile with noses in the air, elegant attire, furrowed brows, and wine glasses saying things like, "Really, who does she think she is?" And I'll be too busy hiding under the table (who knew there was a table- with a white cloth, no less- in my profile) to yell, "I'm Mary Brave, damnit! What do you care, posers?"
I'm not making any sense at all, am I?
Something like this has happened to me: I believe that everything comes in a limited amount. I believe that everyone else knows about this limited amount. And if I say, go and take a share, I'm certainly going to misjudge that share. I'm audacious for taking a share, and I'm certainly taking *more than my share.* There is not enough in the world for me to have some. And "enough" can apply to anything. There isn't enough help in the world to justify that fact that I'm getting some- one example out of many. It can even apply to things that it doesn't *logically* apply to, like diaryrings, which there can be an infinite amount of, and which people enjoy the opportunity to join. I mean, before Shannon played Midas in my direction, I used to want to join rings that didn't exist, and now people who wanted those same rings can join them, and that's a good thing. That isn't me taking from a finite source. It's identifying parts of my self/life that have been important and sharing them to others (a gift.) That's very much good for me, especially in terms of "I need an identity outside of illness."
This is reminding me of the cake discussion Dr. R and I had. To have my cake and eat it, too, makes no sense because once you eat it, it's gone. His response: "But you're assuming there's not another cake." I'm assuming all resources are limited, and maybe that's not true. Maybe I'm allowed to give as much as I want to give without it mattering what other people think and without losing the right to pull back at any time. Is it at all obvious that I'm confused again?
Another example: Stores:
When I go into a store (which is, for me, similar to writing, "When I walk into a brothel") I want to hide. I feel ashamed. I'm excited (sometimes to the point of anxiety) by the light, the color, the people, the possibility, but I'm also nervous, scared, very small. Later, if I mention having gone "shopping" I will feel this same shame. I will feel as if I did something wrong. There is no money for shopping, it is not an enlightened/ing activity, it's something rich stupid girly-girls do. I don't want people to think of me as that rich, airheaded conformist. I'm afraid that I lose control (lose power) over my own identity, as if the impression people may or may not have based on one action of mine. No wonder I'm so scared to act all the time, hey?
Then there's the idea of actually shopping, distinct from being in the store. To actually shop means to walk from rack to rack, shelf to shelf, to consider that I have tastes and preferences (i.e. an identity...gasp, I might even have *opinions!*) I might discover that there is something I *want*, a material object that I would *like* to *have.* And that's very much not ok because we all know that any people who don't live simplistically as Buddhist monks are capatalist pigs. (Does anyone else find it at all interesting that the insult for someone who eats too much and the insult for someone who consumes too much- in terms of product- is the same animal? Considering that these are two ways my scarcity complex is bent within my life? Food and product? Consumption, these days, is a whole different disease.) More dichotomy for you. I need to start letting there be line segments between such points; this two-option business makes me crazy in a somewhat literal sense. There needs to be a spectrum between someone who shops unnecessarily and someone who sits in a dirt hut, meditating. There needs to be a balance between despising certain fundamental pillars of American culture, and accepting the fact that I live within it.
I think the main reality I experience within a store is different (not separate, though) from pure ethical delusion, though. The main reality is something I've talked about before, that I go into a store wanting to know that I can have something. I want to know that I have rights. Even the right to feel something about what I'm not able to have. I have, on occasion, bought something or asked to have something bought for me, for the sole purpose of knowing I could have it. These are the purchases that I find an hour after getting home and no longer really want. (The shirt/skirt the other day was a different sort of issue, for the record.) I have, on occasion, tried to have something bought for me to know that I could have it, and not received it. I get brutally not-ok. Twelve little children throw tantrums inside me, screaming and crying and knocking over shelves. (Twelve. Do I know why it's twelve? Of course not.) I remember *one time* where I realized that what I really wanted was not the product, or the imminent guilt-trip I was about to give my parents, but the right to not be ok. I wonder what happens to a child who never throws a tantrum in a public place. I wonder what happens to that child who stays quiet, who stays placid, who stays "good." I wonder, a little, if I'm what happens to that child...
And just saying that makes my head sway and rage a little. I'm saying that I didn't have enough (freedom? space?) at some point, and that I'm not ok now because of it. I'm judging someone or something; I'm saying my rights were violated, which suggests I have them (and, even more disturbingly, *claim* them) in the first place. That's really, really difficult. Still.
I'm not happy when I go into a store and buy something just because I need to know I can. I'm not happy when I go into a store and am given something just because I need to know I can be given it. (Whether this occurs without event, with coercing from me, or because of an all-out guilt trip.) I'm not happy when I try to get something, for the sole purpose of knowing I can have it, and this doesn't work out. I'm not happy when I begin beating myself up for wanting it, for asking for it, for "pouting" or "punishing" my parents, after I realize I can't have something. The experiences I have in a store- where I go in, buy something I wanted, come home, still want it, enjoy it, and feel alright, are so rare they seem non-existent. Add to that the purchase of clothes (et cetera) which can lead to seeing myself in new clothes and returns and some of the craziness Friday...well...I really need to stay away from commerce completely.
Or not. That's *not* what I need to do. This website has some very good tips on what I can do, though it assumes I'm a forty-year-old homemaker married to a prominent lawyer or some such nonsense. I'm so precocious. I notice my mental problems so much earlier than most. Maybe it's good to realize you think in scarcity-terms before you have any money to mess with. Then again, I find ways to apply it to other forms of currency. Food, attention, affection, time- they can all be currency. People. People can be seen through this filter. I don't want you, but I want to know I can have you. That sort of thinking definitely interferes with my being-a-loving-person-who-betters-the-days-of-those-she-meets wishing. It's much harder to pawn people.
Aigh. I feel bad now. I need to focus on something a little more peaceful before I leave...First off, there's this good abundancy tip, "Do something!" which I will start using to keep my all or nothing thinking at bay. If I can do something, than obviously all-or-nothing is a sham. Maybe not obviously, but eventually. Eventually, I'll know that.
Secondly, Mr. Rogers understands the possible consequences of not throwing tantrums.
What if I were very, very sad
And all I did was smile?
I wonder, after awhile,
What would become of my sadness?
What if I were very, very angry
And all I did was sit?
And never think about it?
What would become of my anger?
Where would they go?
What would they do,
If I couldn't let them out?
Maybe I'd fade
Maybe I'd scream and doubt
But what if I could know the truth
And say just how I feel?
I think I'd learn a lot that's real
About freedom.
That would be nice. And finally, I need a random affirmation of the day...Hmm...I'm thinking Dr. R..."It's not how screwed-up you are. It's how injured you feel." And feelings are manageable. Feelings change. Feelings and injuries heal; they do. I'm not a beast.
I'm a brave.
chord
*it really pisses me off that this word has come to mean annoying phone commercials and ring tones...
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