Is It Weird?

Is it weird that it still makes me sad when I hear Chris Cornell’s voice come on? He was one of my favorite singers since his Soundgarden days and as he forayed into his solo career I was excited to watch his journey. It was a beautiful journey to watch take place. Personally I felt he fearlessly entered into various musical genres.  His voice, to me, was always so haunting, beautiful and calming.  It didn’t matter if he was screaming or harmonizing.  His voice always sounded like it was coming from far away, like it was lost and trying vigorously to find its way back.  Back to what though and coming from where?  The power in his voice was like a beacon cutting through the darkness, reaching out… it reached out to me and on more occasions than I can remember it saved me.  It was something to guide, comfort and anchor me to a spot so I wouldn’t tumble into the endless abyss that has always been so close. So, when I heard that he had left us I cried.  I wanted to scream because I was so mad, but not at him.  I was mad because he had survived so much longer than expected that I had forgotten that there was a danger of losing him this way. His survival lulled me into a false sense of comfort and maybe the same thing happened to him. So he wasn’t watching and couldn’t see it coming until it was too late. 

What I mean is that kindred broken spirits recognize each other. It doesn’t take much to know the darkness that lives or haunts a person especially when that person can channel it into something like music and reach so many through song.  A lot of us know we are on borrowed time having stepped off the edge of the abyss only to be wrenched back by someone or gotten caught on an outcrop and had to fight our way back to that edge we stepped off of in the first place.  Usually this shit starts early, in the teens and then slowly it is supposed to dissipate.  And you know sometimes it does… and it goes away and you get the false sense of feeling that it is gone forever and won’t ever return. Don’t ever believe it is gone forever, don’t ever leave yourself that vulnerable. Eternal vigilance is required to hold the ground you gained from the darkness into the light.  Don’t ever believe that you are cured and never have to face that darkness again. Darkness is a part of life and like the natural world it will cyclically come in and out of your life.  

You must learn to not lose yourself in it and therein lies the most difficult part. Because the darkness remembers you and you will remember it too as it overtakes you.  The darkness & abyss are joined but just because the darkness is there doesn’t mean you will fall into the abyss. Most, don’t fall into the abyss without having stumbled in the darkness for a while. The problem is that the time in the darkness isn’t situational, it is cumulative.  So, when you find yourself back in the darkness, and you will, after not having faced it in a long while it isn’t like falling for the first time where you have to be lost or wandering around in it for a while.  It can pick-up and envelop the individual, re-infecting them, oftentimes, much faster than before.  The learning curve is greatly diminished with each revisit.  This can make each subsequent encounter with the darkness more and more perilous.  And if you have ever been to the edge of the abyss you can find your way back there really fucking fast. I didn’t realize any of this as I survived my teens and grew into my life.  My illusion was that the older I got the further away I would get from it.  Not true. So my advice is to learn to love yourself and your life. It’s not easy especially when you have wanted to throw your own life away. Make peace with your body so you don’t want to harm it. Make peace with your mind so it doesn’t torment you. Feed your soul so it makes you resilient, strong and compassionate.

Orphaned in an Instant

 I've known for a long time that my mother is a challenged individual with her struggle with bipolar disorder. All of kids have experienced the high and lows. The manias and the depressions and all of us have suffered for it by having an unstable, unreliable, self-centered, delusional parent. And since we all 3 were raised by this one single parent the problems were amplified and compounded. As the oldest of the 3 and being 10 years older than both younger siblings I've gotten a longer front row seat to the madness for much longer. I can remember being 4 years old and getting a wet cloth to put on my mothers head because she was falling apart. Back then there were no diagnosis just an amphetamine and barbiturate roller coaster that I couldn't possibly understand. I don't remember a time when I haven't been caring for my mother, defending her against the family and being her shoulder to cry on. That eventually turned into random yet continuous financial support once I started earning money. It wasn't any substantial sort of money mind you, I was a supervisor at a bookstore. But I managed what little money I had much better than her. For her money is like water in her hands, it lacks meaning other than to purpose whatever her manic heart desires. She used my unconditional love of my sisters to emotionally blackmail me into giving her access to my credit cards and lending her money. I guess you could say I should have known better but really I was 19 years old and raised by a person who conditioned me to anticipate and prioritize her needs over anyone else. She was the parent and she should have been seeing to my needs. The correct term for this is emotional incest, when a parent uses a child as and emotional support or seeks an emotional relationship with their child that should be sought through an adult relationship. It's weird to think that my mom did this to me but it's true. Because my mind is littered with painful memories of my mother falling apart in front of me and coming to me for help and support. 

All of this has freshly surfaced in my mind because recently I've been struggling a lot with some pretty severe depression and old ugly thoughts of not wanting to exist were creeping into my consciousness. Recently, one night it got really bad and my partner didn't know how to help me and in a moment of desperation he called my mom to see if she could help by talking to me. To be fair there had been moments in my past when I was struggling with sadness that my mom had been able to talk me through. He was crying as he communicated to her that I was not well and he was worried that I might harm or injure myself. He said she didn't really respond and when I came in the room he asked if I wanted to talk to my mom. I was very dis-raught and I said  "No".  

Days before when I could tell things were getting worse for me I had reached out and called her. I'd left her a message and told her I was not doing great. This was not the first message she had received from me indicating my declining mental health. In the weeks before I had communicated to her that I was not in a good headspace and was struggling.  Though she had that information that had been communicated out more than once or twice she reached out to ask for $1k, to start, so she could do some fixes on a house she wanted to flip. She had also asked for money from at least one of my sisters. 

So, no I really didn't want to talk to her because she had not only made no effort to check on me, she ignored my messages and proceeded to ask for something to fulfill her needs, again at my expense.  So after I say no and I ask my partner why did you call her. He says "You are not in a good place and I wasn't sure how to help you.". 

He tells my mom "I worried for her safety she isn't acting like herself". 

My mom ask in an annoyed tone "are you guys fighting?" 

He says "no". 

Because we weren't he was just dealing will a severely de-stablized and depressed version of me.  The phone goes dead and he looks down at the phone shocked and then looks at me and says "I think I lost the call or it disconnected". 

In that moment something clicked in me and I came back to myself because I knew in my heart my mom's selfishness had reached its pinnacle and the call had not dropped she had hung up. All the times since childhood that I'd held her up on my then tiny shoulders, wiped her tears through the years, listened to her rant and been on the undeserved receiving end of her rage meant nothing. I knew this because I could hear the annoyed and bothered tone in her voice through the receiver when he'd been talking to her. I looked at him and said "Call her back. I want to know if she hung up." 

He says "No, I really think the call dropped." 

But he calls her back, has the phone on speaker and she answers and says hello with even more annoyance. He asks, "Did you hang-up?"

And in a flippantly defiant tone she state "Yeah, I hung-up. She didn't want to talk to me so why should I waste my time." 

Two things happen at that moment. One, I realize that I don't have a parent I have an emotionally stunted adolescent who is so self absorbed that she feels no concern for her child, and instantly I feel orphaned. Two, my partner's concern turns to extraordinarily controlled rage at her tone, actions, and callousness in regard to her child. He interrupts her statement by repeating her name a couple of times to get her attention. She goes silent. And he, with amazing control, says "You called my wife 2 weeks ago out of the blue when you knew she wasn't doing great to ask for $1000 and that request, which mind you wasn't the first, sent her mental state into a tailspin she has been struggling to recover from since then. Now if you could get your head out of your ass long enough to realize your daughter, who by the way has spent her life caring for you, needs your support because you are the parent and she is your child." 

At that point I said "It's okay it's done. Mom we are done, good-bye" 

It hurt, it still hurts but each day I feel a little lighter, a little stronger because for the first time in my life I'm not also carrying the weight of my mom and her baggage. For the first time I understand why I feel so tired so often and why I am looking for ulterior motives. I realize that I've been gas-lite by a woman who doesn't know how to love or care for her children properly but more importantly does not appreciate how much her children have tired to love and care for her. I wrote her and email that was a short "bye" and ended it by saying I loved you the best that I could but I can't anymore.

This week was hard. Hard in a way I never imagined, about something I never thought would be an issue for me. This past week i got asked a lot if I had children. I'm at an age now where most assume I have children. This weekend I cried for something I don't have, and it was weird because I'd made that choice years before and I thought I'd made my peace. But deciding with your head is so completely different than deciding with your heart. When I was younger I didn't want anything to do with having a child, I didn't want to be a single parent and thought it wasn't a big deal.

Now I find myself crying and not able to tell why? What is wrong... why do I feel so fucking weird and emotional?  What the hell, I just want to cry for days and maybe I will.

When you realize you are not as tough as you thought you were...

Yeah so I've believed i'm a lot tougher than I really am. More resistant than other girl, women, females... thinking myself so high and mighty at the insane, obsessive or "pathetic antics" I would watch so many put themselves through. Why? What for? What did you get out it? Why humiliate yourself? Why be subservient? Why belittle? Oh the list of harsh inappropriate questions goes on and on and.... So intolerant and unforgiving to the plight of the starving female ego otherwise known as self confidence or insecurity. Don't know if mine was so damaged that I couldn't truly understand because it was buried under so much anger and hate. So much distrust and disdain that unearthing the truth of my own mutilated self esteem would have destroyed the functional part of myself. It would have left me with a black hole of self and swallowed me entirely.

As I try to wax philosophical in the entry I'm distracted... by a guy. And I'd say he almost has me wrapped around his finger... rushing to answer him, talk with him, letting him turn my life upside down to have a quick conversation via phone or neglecting work to answer his text. And this is during work hours in the office. This has gone on for 1 week and it has been so great. Feeling giddy, feeling desired, feeling. Having the attention or no being the center of attention and made to feel like you are the center of someone else's world, yeah it is a pretty incredible drug. And like an addict I responded instantly and if necessarily apologetically, anything not to lose the high, the glorious, amazing, desirable high of being desired. Okay so how can I make sense of this while still in this drug induced state. How do even begin to answer the barage of questions I asked in the second paragraph.  Stumbling around seeing if I can provide sane or coherent answers.

Why? Because it's fun, it makes me smile, giggle, and happy to receive his attention

What for? refer to the first response and add "oh you were doing something sooooo important weren't you"

What did you get out of it? The joy of the crush, infatuation, desire, and a loss of the loneliness that you don't even notice anymore because it has been so long that you don't even realize anything is really missing and you have filled your time & life with things to do, classes to take, people to visit, and work

Why humiliate yourself? This one is particularly harsh... what is humiliating... maybe to the observer but if neither party feels humiliated then is that person doing that to themselves... why did I feel they were humiliating themselves. Because they had given into a man, his needs, his desires, his wants, his authority (Ah this last one was an assumption and a very bad one indeed)

Why be subservient? I answer this with 2 question from the opposition... How so, by catering a little to a guy by doing a couple of simple things to make him feel special, comfortable, sexy, manly? How is doing a couple of things (within reason ... pls note reason is different for different persons comfort zones) to make someone you care about or have feelings for a bad thing? Guess what genius it isn't, so get the fuck over it.

Why belittle? see previous response... really you just asked the same questions with the same one sided assumptions.

Okay now that I have answered those with some fevor let me switch gears and say the doubt and ugliness that live in that first paragraph never go away and those things live in every single female especially in the beginning of any new "thing".

Feeling Chatty

Don't know if I'm edgy too or restless but definitely feeling chatty... and I have no one to chat with but I do have a lot of work backing up on me and so I will probably do that tonight and be working from home again tomorrow. Actually looking forward to being in the office on Friday so that I have a change of scenery. Was so restless on Thursday that I went and bought some cigarrettes. Now you know it is crazy for me, but oh well what can you do right. Next week might be better with some interactions on both Tuesday, Wed & Friday. I have a b-day party on Tues, a dinner with old colleagues on Wed and maybe seeing

Restless and Trepid

Sitting through the workshops today was brutal and distracting me from my own distractions. Yet my nerves and imagination were way ahead of me and the possibilities that can and will never be. Lost in a web of lies created by my own need for something more than what is and what could ever possibly be. I just want to smoke, and smoke, and smoke some more. Lose myself in the smoke rising from cigarette after cigarette burning before me and extinguishing at the filter for lack of fuel. I want to cry and dance and scream just like my old crazy upstairs neighbor... maybe now I understand why she did what she did. Listen to song after song, replaying certain songs seeking musical relief. Wishing for just one small message, longing for a small hello instead of silent uncertainty. And now I understand how the girls in high school probably felt... wish it happened then, it would have been easier to process. Ill equipped and inexperienced when it comes to social protocol and male/female relations. Insecurities abound, it all wrapped up in weight and waiting. The weight of weight is weighing heavily and making me wait for a better time instead of seizing the moment and so I have to ask how long have you been weighting? and why and what fore and then I remember that no matter how I try I will never be fucking perfect or even close and the realization (no matter how many times it happens) crushes me just like when I was a teenager. Transporting me back to the ugly dark moments of my past and it hurts. It hurts all over again, it is like every old wound opens at once and the intense pain is temporary crippling. What are you looking for runs across the mental brain screen and there is no reasonable or logical answer to that. All I want to do is drink and smoke, smoke & drink. Paradoxically wanting to run and get filthy stinking drunk and I'm not a drunk. Why are you wallowing, why are you complaining? Only one answer ... I don't know how to handle the opposite sex. Usually they mean nothing to me, can take them or leave them, but somehow something has changed this times and I'm fighting every urge to be a "typical" pursuing girl. Fighting the "zah zah zoo" butterflies whatever the fuck you want to call the feelings I'm finding myself holding. Everytime I try to drop them I reach over and pick them up again. Everytime I want to toss them I end up putting them back in my bag. Not used to the feelings, not used to the feelings at all and there is a part of me that fines this so unbearably distasteful and then there is another masochistic part that knows how devestating the feelings and by products will be but wants it too happen. Wants to be broken, wants to know the exquisite pain that only heartache can deliver. Problem is you have to give a damn and allow yourself to love to have that... and I fear I'm only capable of imagined relationships and emotions. The real stuff is just to fucking real for a girl like me. He said "good girl" and I'm not offended, I actually think it is strangely endearing/erotic. But why he says it is beyond me because there is nothing good about my behavior or lack of emotional response. But then how could he possibly know that. I've dug a hole so deep I can only look up and see the sky in the distance. A small round artificial moon in the darkness of the hole I'm looking up from inside of and that is closing in around me.

I don't know how to trust a man. I don't know how to be vulnerable. I don't know what it means to love a man with complete abandon. I don't know how to forgive me for not living up to my own unrealistic expectations without hurting myself. I don't know how to stop hurting & punishing me for not being everything I imagined I should have been. I don't know so much about me and it terrifies me to no end. I don't know how to relinquish control and yet I don't know completely how to control myself. Everyone of my short comings is crushing me regardless of how very small and insignificant it is.

How can something so small crush you and squeeze your soul until you want to just scream? How can something so insignificant be so significant? How can you let it happen to you and matter so much? How can you not celebrate your joys for more than a day? How can you not commit to changing yourself? How is it that you cannot accept yourself anymore? How is it possible that you need so much validation?

Will it ever stop? Will it ever end? Will you ever forgive yourself?

Waiting for A trip to Colorado

Finally, feel settled into the new home. Bought a house at the end of Jan of this year and well it is just weird.