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greenstormThis is me, not knowing what to say.
I was going to go to bed, to swallow the whole lump and bury it deep. Maybe someday it would be excavated as fuel. Then I read estrellada's entry and I thought I would try this. It's dangerous territory, skirting around you and what you can and can't bear for me to say in this way. It's dangerous territory skirting around anyone and what they can and can't bear to hear in any way.
I've broken something today. That's a true thing in two ways, one meaningful, one perhaps more trivial. I've never physically acted on an angry impulse before tonight; tonight I broke something for the first time when I was angry. I was never going to do anything like that. It scares me, I'm not sure what to do with it. I don't like it in me and I want it out very powerfully. I won't say it's impossible to avoid doing what the people around you do, but it is so much harder. It's so much harder.
I don't know who I'm turning into. I don't know what I am. When I'm alone I feel like a whole shape, I can see myself length and breadth and I can feel myself on my own two feet as a whole thing and self-sufficient. The more that's so, though, the less I'm finding I have patience with other people, the less I have empathy and gentleness for them. I keep thinking, I've got strong and I can get through this to what purpose? So that I can be the responsible one for everyone else? So that they can say, I can't do this, I need to vent that, and I can take up the slack?
I don't know what's wrong with me right now. I don't want to feel this way. I want to care, and to feel cared-for. Do you know how those usually come in a pair, together, both of those feelings? I keep falling more distant from each one.
This is the problem, perhaps, with intense and periodic relationships. They demand a whole lot in a rush and if you've been giving on a steady state in between there's less ability to meet that.
It's deeply frightening to me how two people with such good intentions can have terrible things happen between them and never lose their good intentions. Sometimes, I suppose, we get distracted from them -- but they're there, that desire to be close, that love, and it crashes into pieces despite everyone's attempts to stave it off.
That fear, the irrational (perhaps?) fear of that all, is worse for me than anything else. It's worse than any actual fight, it's worse than the actual action. I'm always thinking, somehow, how can the both of us be doing this given that we both care for a good resolution? It's what keeps me calm so often when I am calm, and it's what freezes me into helplessness when my hope fails.
There's a lot of fear around me today. No, there's a lot of fear in me today. There are little fears: how is my buttercup rose doing, something's nibbling the leaves. There are medium-sized fears: the landlord may ask me to move all my plants off the deck, I need the house set up for the folk fest and I need that to go smoothly. I haven't had time to water my plants and they really need it. There are big fears: I've fought with the SO and it feels like it will never be fixed, like I'll never feel safe. I need to figure out stuff about the Exotic and I need to get it right the first time. There are the always fears: Will I always feel lonely? Will there be someone to hold me when I cry? Will I remain opaque and impenetrable to the whole world? Will I be able to find my way back to myself? Can I live up to my responsibilities to be myself?
It's a lot of fear. I can feel it pressing in on my skin sometimes, and I'm scared to breathe. Sometimes it goes away, of course, it's just tonight that it's so strong.
I need to do something relaxing, but all my usual things aren't available to me. On my game there's the Exotic, and I worry about doing or saying the wrong thing when he's around. In my garden... well, the landlord is worried about its weight on the deck, I may not have it after the owner comes around. There's no room in the house to dance due to the rearranging of beds that happened on the weekend (snug two up next to each other on the weekend so we can all fit) although I suppose I could remedy that given half an hour's gruntwork.
Okay. So I could do some relaxing things, I just choose not to because I don't feel it's worth it. That makes me feel better. No one's preventing me, I'm just exercising my choice. I could choose to try really hard and do breathing exercises until I relaxed and that would work. It would be hard, but it would work. Choosing not to do that, and choosing not to dance, I am instead choosing to retainthis way I'm feeling.
What does that mean? It means I'm in control. This is mine, and it's okay. I take ownership of myself and my choices. I can do what I need to do out of what's available. There's no feeling of panic anymore, the fear has receded. Thank you.
So what else to say? Well, tense weekend with a very nice start -- I had some time with the Juggler alone for the first time in ages, and the first time ever really alone overnight. We relaxed and did Greenstorm-stuff, playing and fucking and reading and talking all rolled into one unstructured block. I really needed that; I will again. It is, I think, my favoured method of interaction.
Got home with the Juggler to meet the SO and TOW. Watched a movie that was kind of fun... the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, sounds like something out of Sherlock Holmes. It was a very nice, light, unpretentious movie that reminds me of the scenarios I used to invent so I could get a bunch of the heroes from different books in my pants at once when I was twelve. Not recommended: you'll probably hate it and worry about the fact that it has no plot or character motivations or something.
Met up with the SO's Sean who works in the theatre for just a little bit afterwards, in The Group. He looks like he needs someone to talk to, and I need to go about looking him up (when this settles a bit, I'm hardly stable just this second) because I want to. I haven't talked to him since... two New Years' ago?
Mediated/interfered with a discussion between the Juggler and TOW the day after for about five-something hours. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut better. That was... pretty exhausting, to be honest. I feel pretty helpless when I'm not involved, because there's just nothing I can do, and that's probably why I interrupt to try and help too often.
Juggler went home, I spent the night with the SO and TOW here (another first) and we ended up doing another go-round at discussion, this time with me as the central figure, that next morning. Stuff was helpfully resolved although there'll probably be waves of it coming up a couple of times again until we're practiced at making things smooth. That was Monday, I think more stuff happened that day... hrm. Well, it ended up lasting pretty long, I guess, and then there were general errands, but something ate the day.
Today I spent doing dishes from the last two weeks of absence/irresponsibility/weekend houseguests, reading, checking in on the game (my homework's not due till next week, thank gods), and napping (exhausted, did a lot of that) until the landlady came and asked me to clean up the garden because the manager was coming and he was worried about the weight, so it should at least look nice. I went into panic mode and started on that, a lot of heavy hauling, cutting back, rearranging, and some heavy carrying down the stairs to the dumpster that I didn't finish.
Then: the SO wakes up, and somehow we end up fighting. I don't even remember why, or what about, but it meant I couldn't finish the deck and was thrown off doing the laundry, which needed to be done (I got it in last-minute, literally) and because I was trying to get this stuff done I couldn't focus on the fight properly. I guess that wasn't good, because it must not have come to resolution properly and exploded right before the SO had to leave for work in a new, more virulent form. It was after a bit of that that I threw the thing and broke it. I have the urge to make excuses for that, but I won't. It was stupid, it wasn't good, I don't want to do that.
Longshort? He's at work now, I've just realised it was actually a hell of a weekend even if it didn't seem like so much at the time. I need to probably think about staying out of TOC's discussions if I don't need to be in them, to reduce my discussion-stress. Having only one SO with whom there's no tension at a time sounds like a bad plan, and I don't need to borrow other subgroups' tension.
I need to sleep, and tomorrow I need to do something that makes me feel myself again, powerfullish and Greenstorm-like. Something in the garden, maybe, or the proper kind of walk, or who knows? I'm flirting with taking up art again, just a little, though it won't be tomorrow.
I'm pretty tired, unbloodied, unbowed, unbroken. Well, a little cracked, a little blood-smudged, but whole and still structurally stable in the end. I still don't know how to deal with the fact that these things can make me feel pretty terrible but can't end me, when other people seem to believe it will in fact end them. When my stakes are so low in comparison how can I help but give in? And if I keep giving in, how can I help but resent? How can I learn to be gentle but to keep my boundaries at the same time?
Such are the life-questions I'm presented with right now, no different from earlier this month and probably no different from anything I'll get till I solve them in a way that places me at peace with myself. I only wish you guys didn't have to live through the experimental stages.
And now on with the experience of life and less the wordiness, to wonder why my kiwis are slightly chlorotic and how the book ends.
Gentle, you all, and be well.
I was going to go to bed, to swallow the whole lump and bury it deep. Maybe someday it would be excavated as fuel. Then I read estrellada's entry and I thought I would try this. It's dangerous territory, skirting around you and what you can and can't bear for me to say in this way. It's dangerous territory skirting around anyone and what they can and can't bear to hear in any way.
I've broken something today. That's a true thing in two ways, one meaningful, one perhaps more trivial. I've never physically acted on an angry impulse before tonight; tonight I broke something for the first time when I was angry. I was never going to do anything like that. It scares me, I'm not sure what to do with it. I don't like it in me and I want it out very powerfully. I won't say it's impossible to avoid doing what the people around you do, but it is so much harder. It's so much harder.
I don't know who I'm turning into. I don't know what I am. When I'm alone I feel like a whole shape, I can see myself length and breadth and I can feel myself on my own two feet as a whole thing and self-sufficient. The more that's so, though, the less I'm finding I have patience with other people, the less I have empathy and gentleness for them. I keep thinking, I've got strong and I can get through this to what purpose? So that I can be the responsible one for everyone else? So that they can say, I can't do this, I need to vent that, and I can take up the slack?
I don't know what's wrong with me right now. I don't want to feel this way. I want to care, and to feel cared-for. Do you know how those usually come in a pair, together, both of those feelings? I keep falling more distant from each one.
This is the problem, perhaps, with intense and periodic relationships. They demand a whole lot in a rush and if you've been giving on a steady state in between there's less ability to meet that.
It's deeply frightening to me how two people with such good intentions can have terrible things happen between them and never lose their good intentions. Sometimes, I suppose, we get distracted from them -- but they're there, that desire to be close, that love, and it crashes into pieces despite everyone's attempts to stave it off.
That fear, the irrational (perhaps?) fear of that all, is worse for me than anything else. It's worse than any actual fight, it's worse than the actual action. I'm always thinking, somehow, how can the both of us be doing this given that we both care for a good resolution? It's what keeps me calm so often when I am calm, and it's what freezes me into helplessness when my hope fails.
There's a lot of fear around me today. No, there's a lot of fear in me today. There are little fears: how is my buttercup rose doing, something's nibbling the leaves. There are medium-sized fears: the landlord may ask me to move all my plants off the deck, I need the house set up for the folk fest and I need that to go smoothly. I haven't had time to water my plants and they really need it. There are big fears: I've fought with the SO and it feels like it will never be fixed, like I'll never feel safe. I need to figure out stuff about the Exotic and I need to get it right the first time. There are the always fears: Will I always feel lonely? Will there be someone to hold me when I cry? Will I remain opaque and impenetrable to the whole world? Will I be able to find my way back to myself? Can I live up to my responsibilities to be myself?
It's a lot of fear. I can feel it pressing in on my skin sometimes, and I'm scared to breathe. Sometimes it goes away, of course, it's just tonight that it's so strong.
I need to do something relaxing, but all my usual things aren't available to me. On my game there's the Exotic, and I worry about doing or saying the wrong thing when he's around. In my garden... well, the landlord is worried about its weight on the deck, I may not have it after the owner comes around. There's no room in the house to dance due to the rearranging of beds that happened on the weekend (snug two up next to each other on the weekend so we can all fit) although I suppose I could remedy that given half an hour's gruntwork.
Okay. So I could do some relaxing things, I just choose not to because I don't feel it's worth it. That makes me feel better. No one's preventing me, I'm just exercising my choice. I could choose to try really hard and do breathing exercises until I relaxed and that would work. It would be hard, but it would work. Choosing not to do that, and choosing not to dance, I am instead choosing to retainthis way I'm feeling.
What does that mean? It means I'm in control. This is mine, and it's okay. I take ownership of myself and my choices. I can do what I need to do out of what's available. There's no feeling of panic anymore, the fear has receded. Thank you.
So what else to say? Well, tense weekend with a very nice start -- I had some time with the Juggler alone for the first time in ages, and the first time ever really alone overnight. We relaxed and did Greenstorm-stuff, playing and fucking and reading and talking all rolled into one unstructured block. I really needed that; I will again. It is, I think, my favoured method of interaction.
Got home with the Juggler to meet the SO and TOW. Watched a movie that was kind of fun... the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, sounds like something out of Sherlock Holmes. It was a very nice, light, unpretentious movie that reminds me of the scenarios I used to invent so I could get a bunch of the heroes from different books in my pants at once when I was twelve. Not recommended: you'll probably hate it and worry about the fact that it has no plot or character motivations or something.
Met up with the SO's Sean who works in the theatre for just a little bit afterwards, in The Group. He looks like he needs someone to talk to, and I need to go about looking him up (when this settles a bit, I'm hardly stable just this second) because I want to. I haven't talked to him since... two New Years' ago?
Mediated/interfered with a discussion between the Juggler and TOW the day after for about five-something hours. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut better. That was... pretty exhausting, to be honest. I feel pretty helpless when I'm not involved, because there's just nothing I can do, and that's probably why I interrupt to try and help too often.
Juggler went home, I spent the night with the SO and TOW here (another first) and we ended up doing another go-round at discussion, this time with me as the central figure, that next morning. Stuff was helpfully resolved although there'll probably be waves of it coming up a couple of times again until we're practiced at making things smooth. That was Monday, I think more stuff happened that day... hrm. Well, it ended up lasting pretty long, I guess, and then there were general errands, but something ate the day.
Today I spent doing dishes from the last two weeks of absence/irresponsibility/weekend houseguests, reading, checking in on the game (my homework's not due till next week, thank gods), and napping (exhausted, did a lot of that) until the landlady came and asked me to clean up the garden because the manager was coming and he was worried about the weight, so it should at least look nice. I went into panic mode and started on that, a lot of heavy hauling, cutting back, rearranging, and some heavy carrying down the stairs to the dumpster that I didn't finish.
Then: the SO wakes up, and somehow we end up fighting. I don't even remember why, or what about, but it meant I couldn't finish the deck and was thrown off doing the laundry, which needed to be done (I got it in last-minute, literally) and because I was trying to get this stuff done I couldn't focus on the fight properly. I guess that wasn't good, because it must not have come to resolution properly and exploded right before the SO had to leave for work in a new, more virulent form. It was after a bit of that that I threw the thing and broke it. I have the urge to make excuses for that, but I won't. It was stupid, it wasn't good, I don't want to do that.
Longshort? He's at work now, I've just realised it was actually a hell of a weekend even if it didn't seem like so much at the time. I need to probably think about staying out of TOC's discussions if I don't need to be in them, to reduce my discussion-stress. Having only one SO with whom there's no tension at a time sounds like a bad plan, and I don't need to borrow other subgroups' tension.
I need to sleep, and tomorrow I need to do something that makes me feel myself again, powerfullish and Greenstorm-like. Something in the garden, maybe, or the proper kind of walk, or who knows? I'm flirting with taking up art again, just a little, though it won't be tomorrow.
I'm pretty tired, unbloodied, unbowed, unbroken. Well, a little cracked, a little blood-smudged, but whole and still structurally stable in the end. I still don't know how to deal with the fact that these things can make me feel pretty terrible but can't end me, when other people seem to believe it will in fact end them. When my stakes are so low in comparison how can I help but give in? And if I keep giving in, how can I help but resent? How can I learn to be gentle but to keep my boundaries at the same time?
Such are the life-questions I'm presented with right now, no different from earlier this month and probably no different from anything I'll get till I solve them in a way that places me at peace with myself. I only wish you guys didn't have to live through the experimental stages.
And now on with the experience of life and less the wordiness, to wonder why my kiwis are slightly chlorotic and how the book ends.
Gentle, you all, and be well.
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 12:43 am (UTC)Advice feels nice tonight. Thank you again.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 01:41 am (UTC)And you through ours, etc. As far as I'm concerned, it's experimental stages all the way through -- the whole thing is experimental. Stopping that process is, at least in some sense, death. This is life -- it sucks ass sometimes. I *want* to live through it.
You are hereby given the right to impart similar sanctimonious neo-pagan claptrap to me the next time I'm having a hard time ;-) but please don't feel *sorry* for blessing people with your presence in their lives.
I am saddened to hear of your rough day. You do know that you can call me and/or Juggler for TLC when needed, right?
Love, hugs, light, peace, growth, rest. All that good stuff.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 07:33 am (UTC)And sometimes your experiments will work: you will find some simple little action producing a delicate crystal flower of ineffable complexity; and sometimes you will do something that you think you've done every day, and be handed a live hand grenade in response.
'Cause humans are like that.
Just ask Björk. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 08:38 am (UTC)Dammit. Dammit, I hate this. I need to relearn how to care for people and I don't like not being able to do it but I'm unwilling to sacrifice this handle on myself in solitude quite yet.
*grin* Grrrrr, the world always slips me something new that I can't deal with. The pace seems to be speeding up, too; I need to finish the last challenge quicker because right now they're lingering around and layering. Layered stuff's complicated.
Okay, perspective somewhat regained, humour inserted, what's this about Bjork?
no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 10:55 am (UTC)Then don't -- you can't be strong all the time. It's OK to be the one who is being cared for -- it all works out in the end. Don't give away too much of what's inside you; you need it too.
Grrrrr, the world always slips me something new that I can't deal with.
Yeah. It can get really overwhelming.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 09:32 pm (UTC)I wish I had something more useful to offer you. I've kinda been in a vaguely similar place, I think, if I'm reading you correctly, but I just kinda eventually stopped being there, and I don't know if I have any useful advice, except "hang in there" and "here are some more hugs and tea".
no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 08:31 am (UTC)Realistically? Not on a useful level. It feels bad to call potentially busy, potentially (and really, in this case) happy people to be icky at.
I'm also not sure what TLC would be like over the phone at this point. It seems that talking past the initial plumbing of the depths makes things worse -- what would be ideal is someone undemanding conversationally to snuggle up to and some hot chocolate and maybe a reason to avoid talking to them if silence seems awkward, or some amusement for them to keep them wandering away.
Talking more just leads me to saying more depressed things which makes me feel bad because they sound excessive and yet don't convey how I feel. Well, that's true this morning, at least. So, of course, here's me talking a lot. ;) Maybe I'll answer this again later? But still, realistically, I dunno. When -do- you guys normally go to sleep when I'm not there?
no subject
Date: 2003-07-16 10:35 am (UTC)Just putting it out there -- not sure what I can do to make you believe that it's there for you (I guess over time following through will do the trick, but not if you never actually use it!), and of course it's your call whether it's any good to you or not.
It feels bad to call potentially busy, potentially (and really, in this case) happy people to be icky at.
I've gotten really good at listening and being supportive to people I care about, and empathizing without owning or absorbing their problems and feelings. When I'm happy, or at least content and whole-feeling, is when I have the most energy to give for those purposes. In that sense, you would not bring me *down*. When I'm healthy I can keep my own stuff mostly independent from the empathic stuff I pick up from other people. And the flipside -- if I'm feeling good, I can still generally communicate with others on an appropriate emotional level when they need my support (be warned when I get the flippy manic phase, though -- I don't have that kind of control then).
When -do- you guys normally go to sleep when I'm not there?
That's me that's having trouble sleeping; Juggler went to bed a good bit earlier. I didn't fall asleep until probably 5am (and got up with him at 9am... argh).