jibber jabber

i'm trying to be better--i am trying. trying, for example, to tell people things instead of letting them just compress like sediment and eventually turn into rock. but it feels so...self-indulgent, unnecessary...i can handle myself, sort of--i don't want to worry anyone, i don't want anyone to feel like they're not doing enough for me. and i'm terrified. i don't know why. that is, half the time i'm happier than i've ever been--the new depth to things hasn't gone away, and everything has much more muchness (oh dear, did i really just go there?) than it ever has before, plus i don't feel pushed so far to the tip of the isthmus of my isolation. but the other half of the time, things are very very dark.

and it's hard to acknowledge, you know? i guess it's like, what i know how to do is deny myself. that's what i'm good at. i'm okay with being uncomfortable--okay with using any spare ounce of comfort to push myself into discomfort again. if it can be denied, it should be, has always been my philosophy. if i have to suffer, i should suffer in silence, but most of my suffering is window-dressing, a dream, an excuse to feel something, to make my life more interesting. it's wrong to suffer because suffering is never real for me--it's real for other people but never for me.

or that was the accepted wisdom in my head. now that whole thought process looks a lot like a protective mechanism, something i got hold of because i couldn't handle what it meant to feel the way i did, the way i still do. little religious nugget of thought: maybe that's part of what peter was up to in denying jesus--to save his literal body from being hurt by the authorities, but also to save his soul from the knowledge of what was going to happen to his friend and god. i'm not christian, exactly, but i feel like the passion is a really good story.

i'm damaged. and instead of healing, the damage has been putrefying inside me for a long time. i'm grateful as hell for this whole process. i mean, it sucks, but whenever something basically vomits itself up from out of that void--whenever i have to break and cry and crap--i feel better after it's there, after i can face it. i have responsibilities that keep me from being inside myself all the time, but, hell yes, bring it, putrefied void. "use me as your spaniel--spurn me, scorn me, strike me dead."

it's odd to realize that the process is basically analogous to throwing up mental food poisoning over a protracted period of time. i'm still shy of the repressed memory concept. i just don't know--it's the only thing that makes sense, but i don't know. cuz i can't remember. WEIRD.