8:35 p.m. - 03/17/03
i : am : trying to : evolve:::
So if you haven't been reading lately- I need help! But not in the usual sense. This time it's with my layout, and if you can be of service (help me fix/finish it), I'll be ever-so grateful. Danke.
*
Mistrandy showed up today wearing birthday-gift jewelry and St. Patrick's day green. I wonder what it's like to have war declared on your birthday. And to be entirely self-centered for a moment, I really don't need this. I don't need more conflict, more reasons to be confused, more reasons to feel afraid doing the simplest things. Thank you, stupid violent world. It's an odd reality when a stupid little leprechaun can take the microphone and tell me that he's fighting for peace by taking military action. I want Saddam Hussein out of power. Just, while we're at it, take Bush out, too. For once, I want a conscience and a sense of politics to coexist within one mind.
That said, there's trouble on the homefront as well. My dad's been staying at my grandma's and he keeps calling to ask permission to come home. I'm not sure why he needs permission, and I'm fairly certain my mom has given it (I have myself twice, and I know that's not my place)...so I'm not entirely certain why he stays away. Supposedly, he's coming home tomorrow. I'm not feeling like a frustrated young adult ready to cut herself free from the situation right now. I'm feeling like a scared little kid in the middle of things. I'm trying to keep my mouth open, so I remember I'm not seven years old anymore. So I remember my heart has a voice now.
Makes me think about the last minute begging-for-adoption I did before discharge. Too bad Brea was already involved in a custody battle. Somewhere out there, I have a home. But I'm sick of this metaphoric Orphan Annie bullshite.
Props to Veruca Salt- I want it now. Always remember: I, me, mine.* Are you ever self-centered out of pure desperation? Anxiety means all or nothing: I lose her or am obsessed. It doesn't have to be that way. I just need some true human contact with someone who can claim...health...
Welcome Home by Mary Brave
set my feet to the street again today
I still don't know my destination
but the journey has its lessons anyway
and I hold a compass tightly in my heart
everyday, I pick up the pace again
continue to progress without one beat missed
start from the middle, persist through
from who I am toward who I'm meant to be.
what I'm meant to do.
I've found
every fear has its foundation
every shame stems from some source;
legitimate if unconscious motivation
decides the curling course of action, so
we had best keep track of how we act,
record and respond to the discrepancy
between who we are and who we mean
to be. keep tabs on our identity.
or ask to be introduced. my mantra:
I will not be reduced to the patterns
of my past. I will identify, explore,
heal, integrate and steadfast in my
integrity, I will evolve. it works
to some extent at least. it has me
asking the questions I cannot yet solve.
for instance, what injury inhabits the distance
which separates self from soul
what resistence do I stumble across
(and through) in my quest for wholeness
oh, this pretty introspection's grown grotesque
and cleanliness requires I understand the mess
at best I'll learn the magic of my faults
find the wild beauty in the beast;
others will understand, acknowledge
and attach to me.
but in the very least, I'll understand
myself and thereby find good company.
at last, an explanation of the past
prepared to acquit me from all the charges
made against myself. a version of my story
securing future health. and the pain of
past disease liberating through that truth.
transfering the power of my story back into
my hands. my youth becomes my origin,
I myself that elusive creature who could understand
and still others rise up from the woodwork
to keep me on dry land. or- when I float away
to make sure I come back. and stay. stay. stay.
home. the concept I could never quite grasp.
in this manner home. at least. at last.
redemption from the methods of the past
survival.
replaced with recognition, retribution.
understanding and
arrival.
welcome home. those are the words
I would most want included
if I could fit my life into a poem.
*
It feels like there's not a great deal to talk about lately, maybe because so little of it is new. All my subjects feel worn out, but maybe that's just my own exhaustion speaking up. I'm doing a fair job of taking care of myself, though. The doc talked a few days ago about how people who are able to rest between performances (whether it's corporate, athletic) perform consistently better than more talented people who remain at that "high." I'm definitely living my life from that perspective. Lots of resting. Not a small amount of accomplishment, though. I'm doing reasonably well, without making myself sick in the process. I worry about my food, and about the fact that I haven't seen Tammy since October or November of last year, but I really don't think it's in my best interest to see her right now. It's so inconsistently effective, and so bad when it's not good, that I don't think it's worth the risk. I doubt the reward, I suppose. And what's more, I've used those visits as a way of keeping myself safe, as a way of knowing my weight was ok, and my body was ok, and I was ok...because if they weren't she would know. Which was perfectly legitimate. I just feel, right now, like I need to be the one to know. I need to say to myself, "You're more hungry now because you're at a low point of your set point, and you're appetite is kicking up. Maybe you've been restricting, maybe you're just hypermetabolic, but whatever the case is, you need to trust your body and eat what it tells you to eat." I have all the dialogue around food memorized, and I think it's time I internalize it a bit more. Plus, I'm on shaky ground, and she really does push me back as often as she pushes me forward (through no fault of her own.) I don't want to risk that.
To jump "plates"- I'm at a place with sexuality that I wouldn't call a standstill. It's hard to explain; I don't think my status has changed since the last entry on the subject (I still feel much safer with girls, but wouldn't want to be anywhere near sex, and I have a hugely adverse reaction to boys through no fault of their own) but somehow it's still working its way through. I don't think I'm static, even though there's visibly no change. I feel like the same ingredients are being stirred and mixed and eventually they'll be something whole, something I can understand, and even though we're closer to that now than we were once, it still looks like butter and cocoa and eggs...
As for my future, that, too, remains a mystery. I continue to hold onto the firm rules of my past- that I must go to college, that I must do it next year, that I must study something relevant, that I must graduate and find a good job that makes me more happy than not but not necessarily peaceful all-around. I can't revise the part of my head that believes I have dues to pay. I can't stand up and say that I have a right to live my life the way I want to live it. I think I'm scared that (even if I manage to figure out my way) I could fall on my face doing that, and the chorus of I-told-you-so's would be too much. But wouldn't never doing what I want or going with my own instinct be too much also? Wouldn't not knowing who I am, making even one choice against my own tides and not rectifying that, feel a bit overbearing as well? I don't think I want that either. I think I want to know what I want and gather the courage and the practical understanding of life to go for it.
But people are sweet. Beth Ann told me that I'm already helping people tell their stories which remains all I want to do (other than finding home...) I want to hang onto my voice, nurture it into orchestral power, and I want to help other people find that for themselves. I'm less afraid of misstepping than I have been. I'm just so caught up in all the stuff of now that to consider this fall takes something out of me. I don't know what I want to do about college. I don't think I can stay safe if I think about that, not because it's triggering but simply...because I need every ounce of my strength to deal with the present right now (including those bits of the past that are surfacing.) Sometimes, I work on school, and I think, "I absolutely adore learning," and sometimes I think, "I never want to have to do this again." Worksheets. Essays. Proof of worth. I wonder how I'd convince myself of my own worth if I didn't choose college as my course. I wonder what world I would construct for myself if I didn't take that path. I have the option of going down a path already prepared and tested time and time again, and within it, to personalize my course and have my own never-before-experienced experience. Or I have pure wilderness and confusion and possibility. Plus the entire spectrum in between. Part of me wants to fall out of contact with everyone from my high school world, so I can make this decision entirely independent of what my friends are doing. I'm not the type to choose my school based on where they're going, but I'm the type not to create a new universe because everyone else seems ok with the way this one stands. I'm not leaning toward any sort of decision right now, so no one with plans or preferences for my life needs to worry. I think I'm just flowing with the continued expansion of self-knowledge. The better I know myself, the more focused what I want becomes. I may be confused right now, but I'm also far from who I used to be. It's a unique task determining which parts of myself have stayed and which have adapted...I don't mind it all that much.
Those are all the plates I feel like covering right now...
chord
*Melissa Ferrick, who is the woman not meeting your eyes; (she's chosen those of her guitar)
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