Insecurity

Now there's a word I haven't had show up in my livejournal for some time. I wonder if this is because I have time now? Because I'm sleeping, and my personality changes when I'm sleeping? I won't worry, for now, about whys. Let's look at what I've got. This is straight out of my brain, unedited, so don't worry about it, hm?

I'm in a relationship with someone who does not need me. He likes me, he's glad to have me around, but his world does not collapse when I'm not around-- instead it continues on, as interesting as before, with no diminishment. This is frightening. Have I been here before? I don't think so. I can't remember. Why would anyone stay with me if they don't need me?

I don't have enough time to spend with my rats, and keeping my home nice. I can't just wander home to my bed without feeling guilty about not having cleaned up my room. The fish need a water change. I keep putting off housekeeping in order to spend time with people, and then I feel guilty for enjoying that.

I haven't been home to sleep for a long time. I haven't been home at all except for very brief runthroughs for a long time. As I told Bevan last night, my mornings are always spent on someone else's computer as the sun rises-- not eating breakfast with someone, not in real solitude, just in that kind of absence that happens when bodies are here but souls are flown. I need to spend some time by myself. I always have trouble recognising this, and I gather irritability about myself.

If I spend time by myself, if I step out of this flow for even one night, someone will forget me. I'll be lost, uncared-for, the momentum will be broken. I'll be too drained to start up again.

There isn't enough of me to go around. I'm too scarce a resource. I'm too busy to be with the people I love as much as I want to be. When I'm elsewhere they'll be hurt and bored, and wander away.

I'm not perfect at work yet. These are plants, I should know them, and yet there's me overwatering a ficus or letting a spath go dry. How can this be taking so long to pick up?

How can I not even know if I have enough money to move? Why are my expenses always in flux?

I miss one-on-one conversations so badly that I'm rusty, I stumble, I draw back, I forget what do do. I miss them. I'm lonely in here. This is my twelve-year-old surfacing, I know, who used to draw all her intimacy from such things. Now? All I want to do is talk and wander around the city. Work seems to be an inconvenience. I suppose that had to happen sometime.

I'm impatient with myself. I've forgotten to look at myself, as well as my life and other people, with tenderness. I've forgotten to hug myself when I want to be hugged, because so many other arms have been available. I've been putting out emotionally for awhile, starting things, giving, yet I've forgotten to recieve much. In some cases, I haven't figured out how to recieve yet. Energy needs to cycle or it disappears.

The arms around my shoulders that I'm craving right now need to be my own. There's their weight, there's a cradle for me. It's alright, Greenie, it's alright. You should sleep more, love. Remember the feeling of warmth under the covers? Remember the feeling of warm shower water? Those are parts of your life. Let's go for breakfast on the weekend when no one else is awake. We can wander through the sunrise together and look at the frost, or the dew. Let's take care of ourself, wear nice clothing tonight because it feels good to do so. Let's go activity-lite this weekend. Let's spend more time in bed.

I see the sun has risen out there, a blue field with the heather outside the window silhouetted against it. It's a sunny winter. The sun is a joy to me. I need to find somewhere it spills in a window, and lay in it.

Wait. That's my bedroom. My home.

Greatpoets

And then back to bed.

A Brief for the Defense
Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Aha.

Paul Simon, Graceland. http://s10.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1U60245KKS7BP21K0L49OVJO76

Kynnin wanted me to listen to it when we first met, and I didn't want to. Then a friend on the internet recommended it, and I listened, and he was a little hurt. I remember.

I'm afraid of romanticism. I want Ye Grande Romance like I had with Kynnin, and then with Jan, but haven't had for a number of years. I want it, but I'm terrified. It didn't work so well those times. At least, in the one it faded out and left me so wounded, and in the other it wounded him because there wasn't the underlying compatibility there.

So here's me yearning and running at the same time. That's what's been weird. It's been informing the dynamic between me and everyone, really. There's where the friction is coming from between Juggler and I. There's... yeah. There it is.