Crafting the Impossible

Instability is like a fucking drug.

I wish I could continue on that vein, because it's the sort of thing that sounds real and raw and makes no sense but burns in me in a way that can only be explained as understanding.  But I don't think I'm really that passionate about it.  It's just the sort of thing that sounds nice, and sometimes, I just want to write until my blog reads like tide pools with rivulets and thundering waterfalls.  Water is a good analogy for how I want it to flow, because it can be calm and peaceful or forceful and choppy, but it still undeniably flows, it is continuous, and sinuous, and elegant and beautiful.

But anyway.  I think somewhere along the line I got addicted to rush of instability.  I first remember feeling the longing for this particular rush three years ago.  A little bit less, actually, but it's close enough.  I think that he introduced that longing for the unstable into my life.  And like I said, I don't like his habits, but they didn't make him any less interesting.  Meeting him was like a rude awakening.  He's really the factor that threw me out of my sheltered life.  I'd always been good and kind and polite and thought that everything and anything was sacred.  He lived his life like Marla Singer, to draw an odd connection there.

So when we stopped talking (I still don't know why, but it seems now that I could guess), that living-on-the-edge fell away.  And for the first time, I found myself longing for something I couldn't place.  I wanted something to happen.  I was restless.  It went away eventually, because things started happening, but until it did, it was a constant itch I didn't know how to scratch.  I tried a number of things, quietly, mostly pulling different strings in my own brain, but none of them worked. I wonder if I would have become more desperate if I hadn't been snapped out of it by events that did create change.

I've come back to that feeling since.  Some part of me has become addicted to that edge.  And I may mean that in more than one way, if only one edge is really a way of reaching the other.  I miss never knowing what was going to happen.  I miss the panic, the rush, the elation, the waiting.  And in a way, when there is nothing to create that rush for me, I do it myself.  I mentally create all of these impossible scenarios, some which could potentially happen, others which I know never will, and I relive them over and over again until they stop exciting me, until the appeal dies down.

And then I move on to something else.  I come up with another scenario.  I imagine this or that or something else.  I picture the impossible hook-up (and let me assure you, it wouldn't involve me), I craft the atmosphere and the outcome.  I build all of these scenarios in my mind and all for what?  All for this edge that I've been missing, and don't know how to find back.  The problem is though, I'm not terribly imaginative...this cheap thrill is bound to run out soon, and I wonder what I'll turn to next.

Words

Can words belong to people?
...this word is yours, your world, and for another to utter it is to steal your world.  To steal a word is to steal a world.


That was a while ago.  And in case you couldn't tell (for all none of you who frequent this establishment of mine), they're not my words, either.  Oh the irony of me using that phrase in this context.  But alas, I didn't write them.  I would have done so differently if I did.  I'm pretty sure nobody realizes I ever read those.  And unless I'm sorely mistaken, I was definitely not supposed to ever see it, especially not when I did.  The writer of those words has long since stopped writing where they appeared, perhaps unfortunately.

I've gone back there a lot recently.  Perhaps it's all been a misguided attempt at torturing myself, although I have no idea why.  It's just an association I maintain, of pain, from a time when it was relevant, although it certainly no longer is.  I think that something is missing, misguided, mistaken.  Something isn't right, and I can't place it, because everything that used to hurt no longer hurts, no matter how hard I try and everything that once brought elation is tinged with the subtlest streak of pain.  So even though I hope I'm wrong, I think I may have worn something out in myself.

And maybe it's just that I need a break or that the excessive work of the past few months has finally pushed right through any sanity I may have ever had, but I find myself doubting things and wondering why.  I don't fight for it anymore.  To pull this back to the beginning of the post, I don't fight to keep those words.  I'm not afraid of them flying away from me, even though I know, consciously, with dead certainty, that it should bother me beyond anything else.

Embraces scare me right now.  So maybe that's just it, that I need to be left alone for a little bit.  But I'm afraid it's deeper than that.  And I don't want to fall into the mistake I did three years ago, where I stay around even though everyone knows I should be gone.  If I was so sure of this, I'd say something, but I'm not at all sure that this isn't just me being paranoid and sensitive, so I don't want to say anything or cause alarm.

I think what I'm looking for in all of these attempts to torture myself with the past is simply an excuse to fight for this again.  Because I feel like that's gone, and maybe I'm slowly slipping away with it as well.  And I don't want to, because this is good and makes me happy.  I think I've lost it entirely now...

*N.B. Credit will be given if the original author of the phrases which began this post would like.  On that note, my apologies to this individual.  For many, many things, the least of them being the use of the phrases at hand in this context.

Stability on a Cliff

Stability is a good thing.  I appreciate it.  I really, really enjoy the fact that my life makes sense and it is stable and I am honestly happy.  And I am generally okay with the fact that I beat down my emotions a little bit to get them to fit into a stable life, because it's been a very long time since I can remember my thoughts even remotely resembling something stable.

Let me clarify this simply, once and for all: I am anything but stable.  And I like that. I'm okay with not being able to rationalize my emotions and I enjoy my occasional wild urges to disobey convention.  I've learned to reign them in and frolic in the thoughts, which is enough for me.

But I sometimes think, like tonight, that stability has stolen pieces of me away.  I used to go on walks, especially in the winter, and cry.  I had no reason, but I would just cry, because I liked the tears, and they made me feel alive when I felt barren. I miss walks.  By myself or with others.  They're part of what made me who I am.  Nothing, even now, makes me feel as alive as a good walk.  That's how I got to know you, if you remember.  Walks bring back memories and give root to new thoughts.  They make me feel better.  And I miss them.

And maybe writing this here is merely a passive-aggressive way of telling you that please, I want to take walks again, and that please, I want you to come with me.  And in a sense, that's the reason I started writing this.  But that's not the whole point or anything, I'd just really enjoy it.  Please?

Stability also stole my writing.  I don't really blog anymore.  Three times (including today) in this entire month, that's all.  That doesn't count as blogging anymore.  I don't know how to write about my feelings because they're no longer so vivid or poignant as they once were.  I read one of the most truthful pieces I've ever written and shared again today, and I wish I could still write that well.  But there's nothing for me to draw from in that way.

Stability has made me boring, and that bothers me.  I don't focus on the wreck of my emotions because my emotions are no longer a wreck, really.  My life has become mundane and regular.  I still have highs and lows, but they are dampened, and the glimmer of rebellion in my soul is displeased with this.  There is something in the pure recklessness of what my life was that I am sad about moving past.

So in a way, this goes back to something I've said before.  I need a new source of adrenaline.  My pain is no longer so bitter, but my joy is never so incredibly uplifting as it was then.  And while I like this stability quite a bit, I do miss that range of emotion.  I don't really feel alive anymore.  I feel like a machine designed to do work.  My space feels like a prison.  It's all work I like and a prison I am very much at home in, but I still want to run as far away from it all as I can.  Please, please tell me how I can have both.

Everything Hurts...Or Maybe That's Just Me Strangling Myself

Sometimes I think I'm slowly killing myself.  More slowly than anything the least bit intentional.  More slowly than smoking or drinking myself into oblivion or trying hallucinogens until I throw myself off a bridge.  I'm not so melodramatic.  Anymore. But still not completely slowly.  Less slowly than the natural course of living.  Less slowly than enjoying my youth and the spare time of my maturity and waiting on a beach in my retirement years for it all to catch up with me.

I'm worn to the bone.  I don't want to be alone, but I don't want to be touched.  I hope to god you don't read this because I'm not writing it for you, I'm writing it because I need to get it out of the caverns of my mind it's echoing through now.  I've always hated pity, and I think you'll pity me for this.  Or maybe you'll just be sad, but the point isn't to make you sad.  It's not even that I'm sad.  I'm just worn so thin, so tired.  My mental state feels like the emaciated skin-stretched-over-bones body of someone who has been wandering in the desert for weeks, even though it's not the least bit reflective of my physical state.  Just my mind, my emotions.

I want something to happen with her.  I don't even care if it's you or me, but some part of me that is busy loathing myself needs a fuck-up, need someone to make a mistake.  I'm tired of being poised and motivated and hard-working, because that's all I've been these past few months.  And some part of my mind defaults to thinking of her when I hit these points.  Moods, maybe?  I'm not sure what to call this.  I feel like if I met her now, I would.  Which makes no sense and is pointless and stupid and unrealistic, but I need to feel like it would actually happen, even though it couldn't.

I don't know what I've been saying.  If you read this, don't tell me.  I don't want to talk about it.  I just need to spew my thoughts at the internet right now.  I want to do something reckless and foolish.  I want my chances to make a mistake back, because I've been so busy avoiding every single wrong path.  And maybe you're right, maybe I push myself too hard, but what am I supposed to do if I don't?  I'm better at dealing with highs and lows than a mediocre constant.  I need the change.  I'm afraid that I'm too restless for the sort of life I want to (or perhaps am expected to) lead.

I'm okay.  Really.  I promise.  And I'm not just saying that.  This week is hell.  So let me deal with it my way--by drowning my sorrows in empty, hopeless words.  I'll get past it, and I'll get everything done.  I just need a little bit of time to hate myself before I can go back to being okay.

This Doesn't Feel Right

Typing the URL of this page into my browser is strange, now.  It's no longer familiar, and it's not something I want to type anymore.  I've watched the number of readers dwindle steadily since the start of the summer, and the number of hits decrease still more rapidly since then.  I doubt anybody reads this.  Not that I ever wrote it to be read, but I'm out of things to write and there's nothing here for anyone to read.

I want to say goodbye, I want this to feel significant.  But it doesn't.  Maybe it's just that I'm so tired right now, and so overworked, but to me, right now there is no such thing as significant.  I don't want to care, even though I know I have to.  So maybe if I tough it out, and push through the apathy...maybe I'll get somewhere and start caring again.  I hope I will, at least.

Nobody really uses blogger anyway.  Everyone is on tumblr.  Even the people who did at one point maintain a blog with blogger have moved on to tumblr.  I don't like it as much.  It's nice for collections of things you like, but that's never been the sort of thing I was interested in.  I didn't start a blog to post pictures I like or copy other people's brilliant ideas.  I really just needed somewhere to write, and wanted someone to read it.

Now none of that is relevant.  I still don't want to collect other people's ideas, but I'm also out of things to write.  I want things to hurt, I want to be pushed somewhere, I would like something to worry about, think about, anything.  I'm tired of the only things I can do being work and more work and not enough sleep. Maybe it's just that this is a bad morning.  Or maybe I really do need this to throw down the remnants of my angst.  Whatever.  I give up.