may 30, 2004

walk are winding

. : : :migration: : : .
we're moving this next month. away from the room with a view and into a house again. i'll miss looking out over the city at night, its windowpanes shimmering back at me with brazen flirtiness, but it will be so lovely to have a porch--even if the view is of the houses across the street.

. : : :transformation: : : .
my new therapist referred me to a naturopath with the hope that it might have a positive influence on my bouts with depression. she performed extensive bloodwork and diagnosed me with a barely functioning thyroid and low levels of the hormone dhea. both states contribute to lethargy, sluggishness and the feeling that even the smallest of tasks are insurmountable. since wednesday i have been taking balancing supplements for both conditions and have had the most incredible burst of almost nervous energy--so much vivid coursing through my body's unfamiliar territory, all the veins quivering and quaking with the newfound movement.

. : : :incantation: : : .
it is lovely to feel wanted. i try to give it out just because it's so revitalizing and uplifting but sometimes i think it's misinterpreted as neediness. maybe it is--maybe i give out so much that i'm hoping i'll get a little bit back. sometimes i do, but most of the time i don't and it's difficult to get around that. i don't feel that anyone has ever truly wanted me, including myself.

may 14, 2004

emerge

i guess i feel sort of alone in this. my feelings are hard to quantify and express, pain comes in waves -- hours will pass and although i will think of her, it seems distant and ineffectual; then, suddenly, it will sink in that i will never have the opportunity to see her again, and it's difficult not to sob. it's almost panicky.

i can sit here and obsess about what could have been, and why someone so wonderful chose something so stupid, but it's not going to do me any good unless i internalize it a little bit and learn. this week has been chaotic and torturous in more ways than one, i need to sit back and process.

"hate" or "detest" are the closest text descriptions, but they barely translate the way i feel about losing the possibility of ever sharing time and space with jenn again.

may 13, 2004

it's so difficult for me to grasp why.

i've made so many mistakes, but only this one i truly regret.

may 12, 2004

three weeks late

you were looking for someone to take salsa lessons with. i was looking for some new friends because everyone i knew i had met through work, and i was also interested in learning salsa. the first couple of times we met, i wasn't sure really how to act -- you were the first girl that i was that shy with, and since you were in a committed poly relationship with another woman, i tried to keep my distance. i was scared of it.

but months passed and we hung out more and more, and you showed me all these inspiring new things and we fell in love a little bit. i was still scared about how to be someone's other girlfriend, how that would parlay into our relationship, how to express what i needed. you told me about the ethical slut. you introduced me to the wet spot. you taught me how to love sex again after having been celibate for too long. in your last letter to me, nearly two years ago, you told me you were planning on trying celibacy on for size yourself, because you needed to take a break from all the jargon. i responded that it was all a sham, but you never replied because you were already walking up the coast from san francisco to seattle.

on my 26th birthday, you tried ecstacy for the first time and ran around in your orange jump suit unzipping your top and begging random people to suckle your tiny little tits. i was high out of my head on too many hallucinogens and amphetemines, it was my last night to dabble so heavily in narcotics, and you made it absolutely wild. you held me up on the dancefloor as the entire planet whirred around us, so tiny and petite but strong in your baby butch way. at the risk of sounding cheesy, it was an absolutely modern english moment.

i have to be honest: i'm really fucking pissed at you for doing this. we never got around to taking salsa lessons because we weren't organized enough to get it going at the century during their regular schedule, and all the other dance schools acted freaky about two girls dancing together (my god, who would lead?!?!) and i'm angry that we now will never have the chance. i'm angry that you didn't love yourself as much as everyone else did. i'm angry that you just decided this on your own, with no input from anyone else, and you just robbed us all of the chance to learn from your existence. it is so senseless that you did this, i hate how much you threw away. and as much as i hate that it happened, in this you will teach us as well.

we fell out of contact and i will always regret that, but knowing that you were alive in this world, sharing your unique, colorful and spirited perspective -- and making hot lesbian porn (FINALLY!) -- comforted me. in my own struggles with depression, thinking about what wonderfully bad shit you'd gotten into made me feel less alone. i know i probably wasn't fair to you and god how i wish i'd had my shit together then so that our relationship hadn't just fizzled out due to my own inability to express what i wanted. i suppose i had always hoped we'd reconnect again, and i tried, unsuccessfully, with what little contact information i had to do so, but i left it up to fate.

and fate, that fucking bitch, had other plans. i guess i can't blame you for deciding to end the pain that you were in, god knows i've considered it too many times to count (and continue to), but i'm still angry about it. i wish you had just given me a call, or dropped me an email, or somehow reached out to me before making that decision. it's selfish of me to want that, but now i will never have any closure with you, for the rest of my life i will be wishing another path had presented itself.

i have never and will never forget you jenn. you inspired and taught me and i am an infinitely better person from having known you. i wish you'd given me the chance to share all of this with you three weeks ago -- maybe things would have turned out the same, but i'd like to think that if you'd known how much you were admired, missed and loved, suicide wouldn't have seemed like a viable option. i know i'm not the only one -- there's thousands of us -- we just didn't clamor loud enough for you to listen. yeah, i'm angry, but i'll get over it, and then the true weight of this loss will really hit me, and i can't begin to imagine the sadness that will follow.

you will have my love, always.

thank you.

may 3, 2004

mouse back

tonight i went to see a therapist, martha, who came highly recommended by my good friend leslie -- when we were working together in the cafe years ago, she suggested that my mother go to see martha to help her with some of the heavy emotional issues she was going through during and directly after her divorce from my father, and this woman had helped her immensely. one session with her and i can see why.

talking with her was very grounding, it was wonderful to feel the emotional release of complete honesty without reproach. it made me realize that even when i think i'm being fully honest with those that i love, i'm still carefully choosing my words, which ideas to share. i'm closed to everyone i know, really, for fear that if they actually knew how i felt, they may not like me as much. i suppose most of my adaptive behaviors are rooted in my intense need for approval.

it's terrifically important to me to feel useful, essential, necessary to other people's lives. in fact, that is where my true jealousy lies: when i feel that i am simply cursory to another's existence, i am deeply hurt and it's difficult for me to overcome the feelings of worthlessness and envy for those that are considered by that individual to be of importance. i strive so hard for validation, i hunger for it, and it appears that i have not yet learned how to provide it to myself, for i still lace all my relationships with this craving -- it's an expectation from which i can't truly release anyone in my life, even if, intellectually, i feel that i have/do.

martha asked me what my one fear or concern was regarding romantic, sexual relationships and i honestly had to say that i am terrified of overburdening them with my intense expectations and needs for validation.

yesterday, brett and i spoke about our differing expectations regarding our relationship. it was difficult to hear some of what he had to say, because i want so much to feel more of a commitment from him, yet i understand that he has shit he needs to work out on his own. i wish i could just be angry and pissy and blame him for hurting me, but i empathize with what he's going through and so i can't just walk away from him. i've learned so much in our relationship and don't want to lose all the joy that it has brought me -- that it still brings me -- but i don't know how not to want what i want. and, to top everything off with a creamy wax of confusion, i don't even really understand what i want -- except to say that i want to be with someone that wants to commit to wrapping themselves up with me and i them, and however we define that or wherever it takes us, so be it. i can't quantify it in tiny experiences -- i just have this need from which i feel a painful hollow. it likely wraps right back around again for this desperate need for approval and validation . . . .

miss thing, you ain't got no bidness getting wrapped up in someone else when you ain't figured you own shit out, okay?

may 2, 2004

and if i scream, it's cuz i want to

i established this journal in my father's cramped & cluttered office, constructed the heart of it in the moody little basement with the blue velvet view, refined it to the sounds of the crazy old woman next door speaking with her precious varmints and continue it atop this carefully constructed tower, staring out across the city below. since 1997, my relationship with this space has changed in accordance with my own personal evolution, yet i feel that i've hit a glass ceiling of sorts -- i can see the space beyond it and it feels like i should be able to progress, yet something is holding me back and won't allow me to move on. what is that?

my new favorite astrologer wrote this week:

I’m such an emotional guy it sometimes takes me a while to just push through the raw feelings a situation stirs in me before I can get to my deepest choices about how I can respond to it. While it’s often good to just go with your gut, your first reaction, it’s nevertheless useful to take a few minutes to give yourself time to figure out what your second, third, and seventh reactions are going to be before you select from among them—especially now when those gut reactions are going to be so big and dramatic (thanks to the full moon in your sign this week) that people could get fucked over, hard.

nice reality check. i'm on the verge of making something out of nothing, or nothing out of something (not quite sure just yet), and naming the names of all my haunting intellectualized hurts. but the reality is that i need to accept that what i want just ain't gonna happen and i've got to either pay to play, and like it, or walk away.

may 1, 2004

flirty

it may come down to the fact that although i would love to imagine myself as strong, secure and emotionally available, i'm not. it may come down to me accepting that my ideal of non-monogamy is far too one-dimensional for actual practice, or that i'm in a non-monogamous relationship that isn't providing me with what i need. i shouldn't be feeling this colossal need to put up a wall between me and my sweetest pea, yet i do. i want to shut down and not care because caring is too painful when differing expectations are on the table.

so much has changed over the past few years -- some of it good, some of it not-so-good -- and i feel empty, alone and without compass. what have i been working for? what have i sacrificed in the name of "security"? how has my need for companionship ruled my decision-making?

i have intellectualized too much, and the emotions have yet to catch up. therapy will help, of course, but i've got this gut instinct that it will reveal how much of a pretender i am. and that part of not being that anymore is giving up things that i have pretended to be; i don't even know what it means to live authentically -- all i know is how to survive. in this zeal, i have adapted beyond all recognition; one morning waking up and staring at the world around me, its colors and scents unrecognizable in the haze that is my healthful reinterpretation of reality.

one thing is certain: i need to make some big changes, otherwise i'll be saddled with regret for a life spent treading water.