Forgiveness

I think I figured something out.  Something very important.  And while I don't think it'll really change anything for me, that doesn't make it any less important.

I need to learn to forgive myself.

Maybe I don't deserve it (to be perfectly clear, I believe that I don't).  But that doesn't matter.  The point is, I've been so busy blaming myself for things that have happened that are long gone.  I did it again.  I let myself get caught up in the past, after promising myself I wouldn't.

I've spent so much time hating myself over what's happened.  I've apologized.  Repeatedly.  To everyone.  I can't change what happened.  And really, everyone but me has moved on.  Everyone has their own life and new problems.  What happened then is in the past.  That's what finally hit me.

Whether I deserve to be able to or not, I need to move on.  It's over.  There's nothing I can do about it.  So I need to stop torturing myself with it.  I need to live my life.  The one that's happening around me now, not the one that was two years ago.

I'm okay.  I know I'm okay because things don't hurt the way they did.  I wrote letters and I was content to let ink flow rather than something else.  They calmed me down instead of angering me.  We're no longer the people we were then, not at all.  Pieces remain, but on the whole we are different.  We are all better.

And again, this gasping realization that I'm okay.  That I can breathe without breaking.  That everything is really fine.

Yes, I still feel responsible.  But it's over.  I can't keep reliving it.

Letters and Denial

I need to write.  I don't know why.  I just really, really need to.  So I will.  I'll put a pen to paper and write all of these things, because they don't belong here.  Just like I don't belong here.  All of these things I write will be burned.  The words will become ashes.  I don't want them in a box any more than I want them inside of me.  I want them gone.

I want to forget.

Blessing or Curse

I don't want to start writing again.  I like my last post.  I like the scattered nature of it.  I like how honest it is.  Was?  Is.  Definitely is.  It's no less honest now than when I wrote it.  I like my writing most when I put down the truth about what hurts.  My writing is most fluid then, and I'm sometimes actually proud of it.  So now that I've written a good post, I don't want to write another one.  I'm scared that it won't be as good.  I want it to be better, but when I don't know how to make it better, I really don't want to write something that's worse.

I never ask for what I want.  Most of the time it's because I don't really know what I want.  I don't know if I want to be left alone or surrounded by people.  I'm never sure if I want to be congratulated on my accomplishments or have them shoved aside as though they don't mean anything.  So I just don't say anything.  I make no requests.  I try to keep everything as low-key as possible because I'm afraid of being embarrassed if something does happen, or being disappointed if it doesn't.

I'm just conflicted lately.  Everything has been a mess all year, and we're already a month and a half in, which is damn near impossible to believe.  Nothing makes sense anymore.  I just want to lie down and rest.  Everything is rushing around me and I'm tired of the fact that I can't keep up with whatever is going on at any given time.  People don't make sense to me.  Worse yet, I don't make sense to me, which is undoubtedly a big problem.

I just want to spend the day wallowing in my misery, because maybe, just maybe, if I do that, I'll figure out why I can't fix myself.  But I know it doesn't work that way.  I know because I've tried, because I've spent entire days staring at things that bother me, hoping that maybe it'll hurt so much that I'll fall through to the other side.  But it's never happened that way.  I guess life just doesn't work that way.  Or maybe just I don't work that way.  I don't know.  I just don't seem to be able to work in a way that's functional or convenient for this world.

I've been told countless times before that being weird and different is a good thing.  Maybe it is.  Maybe it isn't.  I don't think I'll ever know.

Stories and Stars

The most beautiful people are the broken ones.  The ones who have had everything taken away from them.  The ones who are at that edge where there is no reason to lie.  At that edge, all that's left are the stories.  And that's when it all pours out because suddenly, there are no walls, no dams, no barriers.  The truths flow as smoothly as the tears, even if the mouth stumbles over them.

It's a stage where there is no fear.  In a sense, it is rock bottom without actually being rock bottom.  It is quiet and calm alternating with desperation and madness.  It's this beautiful edge that only happens under this precise set of circumstances, no more and no less.  It's just one of those lines, one of those things you have to walk to understand.

I remember walking out of the building and seeing the clouds before I took a picture.  We were fighting.  I insisted on stopping anyway.  It's those little moments of liberation.  I remember watching the sunset that one day.  It was beautiful.  I wanted to cry.  I remember the drizzle that morning and god I wish it never happened.  I want to go back and make it all disappear.  I remember the walk and the traces of blood and I knew but I lied and I remember the way the air smelled.

The coming of spring is hard for me to handle now, because it always smells like that day after the rain.  I don't want to remember it.  It's one of those things that's okay most of the time but hurts so much others.  I remember lying under stars with someone else and saying it out loud for the first time four days later.  And I didn't know what to say to "congratulations" because ever since that kiss, it didn't mean anything.

And even though I'd like it to, it still doesn't.  It haunts me and it tortures me sometimes, even though I'll never admit it out loud.  I'll write about it and sometimes I'll cry about it at night when you can't see me and I'll stare at photos of another person entirely because they make me want to die.  None of the passivity of simply not wanting to be around anymore, but an actual, active desire to make myself cease to exist.

I'm not broken the way I was then.  I was so vulnerable, so cracked, so shattered, and it dripped off me like blood, it was impossible not to notice.  I'm okay now.  I just have my "bad days" if you want to call them that.  They're not days.  They're hours.  Or minutes, more often.  Episodes, perhaps?  It still happens.  It still hurts.  It hurts like hell.  Sometimes I think it might hurt more than it did back then because the wound may have healed but the bullet can't be removed, so it digs deeper and deeper into me.

It's not the same.  It never will be.  I made my mistakes and I can't fix them.  And that's just something I have to live with now.  Nothing I do can change that.  Even if I wish it could.

There was always something

I just want to write this down.  And I know that I probably shouldn't be writing it here for any number of reasons, but I'm doing it anyway.  Mostly because, well, it's my blog, and nobody but me gets to say what does or doesn't get written here.  Things keep bothering me.  Which isn't unusual or terribly bad or anything, but it's just there and I'm tired and don't want to work, so of course throwing words around is the solution.

I can't get you out of my mind.  It's like you've become my ideal in a twisted way, in the same twisted way she was, except that ended simply and passed.  I can't do that with you.  Really just because there are so many things in the way.  Everything is in the way.  This is another one of my obsessions and I don't know how to fix it, how to make it go away.  It's like you somehow embody perfection, except that you don't but you do.  Which I know doesn't make any sense.

I haven't told anybody.  It's not really because it's something I have no reason to know (although I'm sure you figured I'd find out).  And it's not because I feel like it's any real secret or anything.  But I can't say it.  Even though appropriate context has come up naturally in conversation and it would have fit in perfectly and I'm itching to talk about it.  About you.

This sounds like a shitty romance you'd read about in a novel off the adult paperback fiction shelves of the library.  It's not a romance at all.  It's just me being twisted, caught in the past, unable to move on, fucked up, tired and confused and still a little bit depressed.

I don't think I'm even trying to make sense of this anymore.  I feel like I'm supposed to say something about how this curiosity is consuming me, but it's not.  It's not that I'm constantly thinking about you, not even close.  It's just that when I do, I fall into a certain mood which often comes with more than a bit of self-loathing and is extraordinarily unproductive and difficult to escape.

Nobody should read this.  Ever.  The you here is different from the you that is a label and appears more often throughout this blog, in case that wasn't obvious.  I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.  I want to delete this but I need to keep it somewhere, and it's too concrete, too verbose to be put into my private stash.  So here it stays, I guess.  For now at least, if nothing else.

If you want to get out alive...

I need an out.  In every situation, be it corporeal or hypothetical, I need to have a way out.  I need to know that I can end it.  That's why I always give the same answer for all of the hypothetical situations, because even if it wouldn't necessarily be the case, I absolutely need to know that it can be an option.  That if I want or need to, I can get out.

I'm not quite sure when this need for an escape began, but I know it hasn't always been the case.  But now I always have a contingency plan.  At least one, usually more.  Before I get into something, I must be sure that I can get out of it.  If I had to hold someone responsible for it, I know who it would be, but I'm not sure I can narrow that down to one person or one situation.  It's just something that's become more and more a part of me over the past few years.

It's probably also a large part of my fear of commitment.  It's just one of those things where I have to be able to get out of something.  I try to avoid, as much as possible, all of the things it's not possible for me to escape from once I start.  I'm cautious for a reason, because I'm afraid of the irreparable, the irreversible, and all the things one can't undo.

I think the only thing that got me through that was the fact that I didn't have to get through it.  Knowing that I have an out is a relief.  It's a comfort.  Like a security blanket.  It's just one of those things I need in order to be okay.  So while my responses might not be entirely accurate or pleasing to you, it's just something I need.  I'm sorry.

Two days worth of thinking, still no title

Am I the only one who has doubts?  Because while I doubt that's the case, it certainly feels like it.  And I'm not sure if this is the sort of thing I should take very seriously or not.  Since my emotions make little enough sense as is, I don't know whether I should base any decisions or actions on them.

I always said that you would break me.  And it was true.  For an entire year, you could have broken me.  And you didn't, so thank you for that.  But I don't think you can anymore.  And it's not that I don't love you or anything like that.  It's just like you lost some sort of power over me, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

On the one hand, it's probably good that I'm strong enough on my own (or whatever cliche phrase you'd like to use there).  On the other hand, I feel like it makes me more likely to fuck this up, because a change like this indicates to me that I'm supposed to care less, even though I know I don't.

I just needed to put that down.  I know I'm too tired to make any sense right now, so my apologies.  I may try to be more coherent about this later.  For now though, good night.

Fade Away

I'm in a weird place right now.  It's not good or bad, per se, but just weird.  By which I really mean some things are really good and some are probably really bad but most are just in between.  So I'm okay.  And my life is really going pretty damn well. No complaints there.  I'm just in a weird place.

I want to fade away, sometimes.  I want to slip back into the person I was almost a decade ago, the quiet one.  I never opened my mouth.  I was polite and diligent and respectful and intelligent and my superiors loved me because I did everything they wanted and never rebelled or talked back.

And then all these people and all these things had to go and change me.  I had to go and develop opinions and something resembling confidence and then I had to actually learn to speak.  And sometimes I wish like hell that I could do all of it, because it's really nice to be seen as the quiet one in the corner and not the judgmental one with a few good opinions.

Because that's who I've become.  Some of the things I say sting and others are downright terrible.  I know that.  Sometimes they reflect my true opinions, but other times they exaggerate or understate them.  But nobody really likes that much honesty.  It's all so much better if it's at least delivered gently, but that's not something I ever bothered with.

I have two modes: biting criticism and absolute silence.  And I really wish I wasn't in a field where conversation and discussion are imperative, because I really just wish I could revert back to that.  I wish I could fall silent and never speak again.

I know this is exacerbated by the fact that it's late and I'm tired and I'm in a weird place, but I really just want to shut my mouth forever sometimes.  Unfortunately, I know that if I started, I wouldn't stop.

Tu et Vous

I considered writing this out as a letter, at first.  Because that's how it really makes the most sense.  It's one of those things where I could just start with "Dear you," and continue forward.  Except that I can't start with that because the person it would be addressed to is not someone I can imagine being referred to as "you."  That probably doesn't make very much sense, so let me put it into context with a different language.

In French (and most other languages, except for English, of course), there are two words for "you."  In French specifically, one uses "tu" informally, generally when addressing a close friend or a member of the family, and "vous" formally, for acquaintances and people one has very recently met.  English doesn't make this distinction, and I tend to think of "you" more in the sense of "tu," that is to say more informally.

So starting a letter to this individual with "Dear you," even if it's a letter that's never going to be sent, never going to show up anywhere other than right here, right now, is strange to me.  For the past few months, I've honestly been meaning to write to this person (ask my significant other, I've mentioned it before).  The problem is that I don't know where to start.

How does one write a letter to a former mentor?  I'm in this strange position where we no longer have the mentor-mentee relationship, but have not had any opportunity to develop a friendly relationship.  Which leaves me in the awkward position of having nothing to say except rambling about myself and asking a generic, open-ended question or two.

And while I've been told, repeatedly and by multiple people, that this individual is in fact interested in how I'm doing and what's going on with my life, I can't get over the fact that I can't ask the same questions.  "How's your job?" seems to be the only appropriate thing to say, because the way our mentor-mentee relationship always worked is that I would do most of the talking and that's just the way it was supposed to be--more of my life was put on display.

So I don't even know where to start, even though I'd love to sit down and chat again.  I want to talk about all of the things I've been doing, everything that's changed, anything, really.  I just feel that it would be selfish of me to send an email with all of this rambling and no substantial questions of my own.  So me being me, I think I'm just going to wait this out and go visit in a month, which is as soon as I can.

Dirty Little Secret

Sometimes, I get this overwhelming urge to have a secret.  I miss having something that nobody else knows about me.  I want something to hide.  I always thought that secrets made people more interesting.  And maybe that's what's been making me feel so boring lately--because I don't have any secrets.  There's absolutely nothing that nobody knows about me.  All of my weird habits, strange thoughts, unbelievable quirks.  They're public knowledge in a sense.

I miss having something to myself.  It doesn't even have to be about myself.  I'd just like to have a secret.  I always enjoyed keeping other people's secrets at least as much as, if not more than, my own.  I miss feeling like I'm privileged to information.  And to a point, maybe this is reflecting that I miss being close friends with people who tell me such things.  It all fades a bit with distance, and I'm noticing it more this time around.

A large part of it, I feel, is that I'm still largely disconnected from many of the people around me.  I've formed some excellent professional relationships, but very few close personal ones.  It's because I'm used to have these deeply involved and serious relationships with people.  I feel that nothing brings people closer together than going through something stressful with one another's support.  And I don't have any new friends here who I have been through that with, on one side or the other.

I think I'm beginning to develop the sort of relationship with the rest of the world that my parents probably evolved when they moved.  It's the sort of thing where crises are taken care of at home, with a significant other, and friends are for occasional gatherings and mostly good times.  The adjustment is odd for me because I got so used to being in these very intimate friendships where the most personal of problems and concerns could be shared at the drop of a hat.  And now, suddenly, that's not the case.

I'm still adjusting.  I'll be adjusting for a while yet, I think.  And that's okay.  I'm sure I'll figure it all out eventually.  I just hope I get used to it before my confusion leads to messing things up.

I Think Too Little and Read Too Much

I had a moment today, walking down the street, where I watched my shadow on the sidewalk and realized that this is steadily approaching what had always been my idea of perfection.  To be independent in all of these ways, to be loved, to be in a new place in a new time.

I remember how a month ago the thought of coming back was unbearable.  I couldn't stand the prospect of returning to this place.  It sickened me and made me cry.  There are moments still when being here is unbearable.  And in that same moment when I realized that this was perfection, it became unbearable.

I don't think I'll ever really be happy.  Not in the way you picture retired couples happily sitting on beaches for days in this constant state of contentment.  My happiness hinges too much on opportunity and unpredictability to be this attainable state.  It comes and goes.  It fluctuates.  And then I have moments like today, when perfection is equivalent to heartbreak and I don't know what it means.

I know it doesn't have to have a meaning.  Not everything needs to be over-analyzed or investigated under the microscope.  It was just so beautiful.  You can feel spring slowly starting to creep into the air, the green returning to the grass.  And the sun was golden in the way it usually only is around sunset, except that it wasn't.  There's no word for such a moment other than perfection.

Perfection, strange as it is to say, isn't perfect.  This was perfection in the sense that nothing could ever get better than this.  That it was as good as it could possibly be.  Not that nothing was wrong.  I don't think it's possible for nothing to be wrong.  And that's not a bad thing.  It's just a slightly saddening realization.

And then there is no mystery left

I think I've grown boring.  Or maybe I've been boring all this time and only just now realized it.  I used to pride myself on being unpredictable.  I thought my smiles were mysterious, curious, tempting.  I would look into my eyes in the mirror and wonder what people saw there, if they ever looked.

But see, maybe that's where I went wrong.  I don't think anyone did ever look.  And that, in and of itself, is my own fault.  Because something you said really bothered me, mostly because it's so true.  I isolate myself.  I'm not sure how to not isolate myself anymore.  It's just so easy.  I'm quiet.  I always have been.  And a little bit afraid of people.  So I don't start conversations, and I look up when someone is about to sit down next to me and apparently I look evil or terrifying or something, so they move on and sit elsewhere.

I don't have a genuine smile for when someone tries to sit down and I don't have anything to talk to them about.  If I have nothing to say, I don't start a conversation.  Especially when I'm deep in thought, I don't want to make small-talk about the weather or about this person's career when I doubt I will ever see them again.

And I think that getting to know me is the same way.  I have my stories.  I have my quirks.  But once you get past them...that's it.  There's nothing left.  I don't radically change or grow.  My personality is not dynamic or infinite or exciting.  I'm a workaholic.  I like reading but hardly ever do it.  I'm nostalgic and dip in and out of depression.  I get obsessed with all sorts of things, but especially with people.  I have great hopes and expectations but never the initiative to accomplish these things.  I rarely start or stop things, but tend to go with what other people want to do.

That's me in a nutshell.  You don't need to say anything else.  That covers everything and anything you'd ever want to know.  So yes, I get boring.  It doesn't take particularly much discovery to learn everything there is.  What else can I do with myself?

No one ever tells you that forever feels like hell

I don't know what to do with myself.  And I think it's just tonight because it's getting late (can you believe 22:00 is late for me now?) and I have a headache and it's been a long week and next week is going to be even longer, but this is frustrating.  And things are rubbing against my emotions in bad ways that haven't bothered me since a month ago.  And that's frustrating.  And I've started the last three sentences (four if you count this one) with 'and' which is the worst thing you can do or something and I don't care.

Maybe I just need to take a deep breath.  But everything seems to be imploding right now, even though nothing is.  It's one of those times when everything's moving too quickly but nothing is really going quickly enough.  And maybe it's because I remember what happened a year ago, or maybe I'm just being a wreck or something.

I can't believe we're already a month into the new year.  Maybe I just can't stand other people's happiness.  I think it scares me because it's not something I think I can ever attain.  Not that kind of happiness, anyway.  I'm not happy unless I'm being pushed and prodded and challenged, with periodic breaks, of course.  But that's not how this form of happiness works, it doesn't come with constant pushing and prodding.  If anything, that stops.  And that's where I have issues, because I don't like things just sitting there.

The weirdest things trigger me lately.  If you could call it triggering.  I don't know.  Trigger isn't the right word because nothing happens.  It's not a trigger at all, not a snap, not even anything.  Things just change, go up and down, upside down and backward.  My own mind makes no sense to me.  The problem is that I let myself think.  If I didn't think there would be no problems.

This is bordering on existentialism.  The same sort of existentialism that started all of this.  Except it's so different now.  It doesn't feel the same, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad.  I don't know.

This has been an angsty, ranting, not proofread post.  Apologies.