All The Old Phrases
May. 23rd, 2006 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormMy life is a cycle. It's round inside round, an endless progression of yesterdays set in a bigger progression of repetition. I change, everything changes, but the same things come around again and again.
I'm avoiding the wheel of life metaphor, because it sucks. Metaphor should be used mindfully, because the metaphor sheds light on the concept you're trying to convey, and not because your mind can conveniently buy into societally-accepted shortcuts. Well, unless you're trying to shortcut the thinking process, in which case, fine.
I was talking to an old friend online this morning. All my old friends are online, except Trevor. My old friend said, you say that you're happy, and that everyone is nice to you all the time, but you still have stuff to deal with. You sort of push it into a little back closet and take it out when you're safe. Things with Kynnin, things with your dad, they come out when you have control of your life and are doing well. I said, of course.
For the longest time I was trying to get back to where I was when I was three, or five, when I was living in Los Angeles and there was sunshine and the smell of fennel, when I was taken to the corner store for my birthday and told I could buy anything I wanted, and I bought a plant. I was trying to get back to the point where dad and I went ant-hunting with squirt guns (our apartment was infested with ants for awhile) and where I had jaundice and mom was told she could sit me in the sun for hours and hours each day and the sun would break down the poison or she could give me medicine, and so the beginning of my life was spent in the sun.
For the longest time I was trying to get back there, to the place before mom married dad who went crazy, to the time where I still remembered how to be happy with other people. I've always been happy; it's the other people that dropped out of that when we moved up to Grandma's and the most dysfunctional family I had never dreamed of. When we moved to the farm in Mission (I was eight) there was no one to play with for an hour of walking in any direction except my brothers and the one neighbor girl when she got old enough. I lived in my books and in the trees and my dogs, but not with other people.
I got back there, eventually. I returned to the time when I was five, I relearned all those things I'd forgotten. Kynnin taught me that there are people who are decent in the world no matter what you do to them, even if everyone is sometimes flawed. Kyle taught me that the world was bigger than Kynnin, and that I had power over my place in it. Jan taught me to playfight when he came from Germany, he taught me that you can have fun when you love someone. Juggler taught me steadiness and trust. CrazyChris taught me functionality. Mouse taught me the need for an internal balance.
These namings have power. These memories have power. Those people, whoever they are now, are burnt into me in the outcome of my life, and will be remembered. I am a mirror of the best in them, smudged at times but faithfully rendering at least some of the image. For the last couple of years I have been who I sought to be, more or less, and now it's time to move on.
When I was five years old I was fully human in the sense that a human is a social animal. I've come back to that. Now it's time to step forward. The next time that pulls me is the time I was fifteen or sixteen. That's when I met Kynnin (you're still with your high-school sweetheart they said to me, just a few years ago, how sweet) and began to step into the world. I got tangled hopelessly in my issues and in my past, I fell down, and I had to travel backwards to get myself on my feet.
Well, now I am on my feet. My feet are under my command. And instead of falling down, as I did then, I'm returning to fifteen to step forward into the rest of my life. I'm stepping into freedom, into power, into ground that shifts if you look at it too closely but not if you keep your eyes fixed on your goal.
I can't explain this feeling better than this. I can't tell you the whys behind it. Although I've always felt nostalgia for the pretty bits in my life, I've never wanted to return to my past, and I still don't exactly. I want to go forward, but the paths are circular, and so I go back and onwards at the same time. Now I can get on with the living part of my life, instead of simply the fixing from past mistakes.
I write cryptically now, only Kynnin will understand perhaps: Instead of my UBC, I've found my Winlaw. Instead of a boyfriend or a mom and a boat, I've found my plant company and soon my own apartment. I've finally learned the lesson Kyle was meant to teach me, and applied it to Juggler. I may be learning the lesson Jan was meant to teach me in that regard too. I haven't fallen down on these like I did before. Before I was a ghost, simply potential. Now, I'm me.
I'm avoiding the wheel of life metaphor, because it sucks. Metaphor should be used mindfully, because the metaphor sheds light on the concept you're trying to convey, and not because your mind can conveniently buy into societally-accepted shortcuts. Well, unless you're trying to shortcut the thinking process, in which case, fine.
I was talking to an old friend online this morning. All my old friends are online, except Trevor. My old friend said, you say that you're happy, and that everyone is nice to you all the time, but you still have stuff to deal with. You sort of push it into a little back closet and take it out when you're safe. Things with Kynnin, things with your dad, they come out when you have control of your life and are doing well. I said, of course.
For the longest time I was trying to get back to where I was when I was three, or five, when I was living in Los Angeles and there was sunshine and the smell of fennel, when I was taken to the corner store for my birthday and told I could buy anything I wanted, and I bought a plant. I was trying to get back to the point where dad and I went ant-hunting with squirt guns (our apartment was infested with ants for awhile) and where I had jaundice and mom was told she could sit me in the sun for hours and hours each day and the sun would break down the poison or she could give me medicine, and so the beginning of my life was spent in the sun.
For the longest time I was trying to get back there, to the place before mom married dad who went crazy, to the time where I still remembered how to be happy with other people. I've always been happy; it's the other people that dropped out of that when we moved up to Grandma's and the most dysfunctional family I had never dreamed of. When we moved to the farm in Mission (I was eight) there was no one to play with for an hour of walking in any direction except my brothers and the one neighbor girl when she got old enough. I lived in my books and in the trees and my dogs, but not with other people.
I got back there, eventually. I returned to the time when I was five, I relearned all those things I'd forgotten. Kynnin taught me that there are people who are decent in the world no matter what you do to them, even if everyone is sometimes flawed. Kyle taught me that the world was bigger than Kynnin, and that I had power over my place in it. Jan taught me to playfight when he came from Germany, he taught me that you can have fun when you love someone. Juggler taught me steadiness and trust. CrazyChris taught me functionality. Mouse taught me the need for an internal balance.
These namings have power. These memories have power. Those people, whoever they are now, are burnt into me in the outcome of my life, and will be remembered. I am a mirror of the best in them, smudged at times but faithfully rendering at least some of the image. For the last couple of years I have been who I sought to be, more or less, and now it's time to move on.
When I was five years old I was fully human in the sense that a human is a social animal. I've come back to that. Now it's time to step forward. The next time that pulls me is the time I was fifteen or sixteen. That's when I met Kynnin (you're still with your high-school sweetheart they said to me, just a few years ago, how sweet) and began to step into the world. I got tangled hopelessly in my issues and in my past, I fell down, and I had to travel backwards to get myself on my feet.
Well, now I am on my feet. My feet are under my command. And instead of falling down, as I did then, I'm returning to fifteen to step forward into the rest of my life. I'm stepping into freedom, into power, into ground that shifts if you look at it too closely but not if you keep your eyes fixed on your goal.
I can't explain this feeling better than this. I can't tell you the whys behind it. Although I've always felt nostalgia for the pretty bits in my life, I've never wanted to return to my past, and I still don't exactly. I want to go forward, but the paths are circular, and so I go back and onwards at the same time. Now I can get on with the living part of my life, instead of simply the fixing from past mistakes.
I write cryptically now, only Kynnin will understand perhaps: Instead of my UBC, I've found my Winlaw. Instead of a boyfriend or a mom and a boat, I've found my plant company and soon my own apartment. I've finally learned the lesson Kyle was meant to teach me, and applied it to Juggler. I may be learning the lesson Jan was meant to teach me in that regard too. I haven't fallen down on these like I did before. Before I was a ghost, simply potential. Now, I'm me.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 12:32 am (UTC)Ha, well that was cool because now I know just a little more about you. You had Jaundice? You lived in a dog? These are things I would never have guessed about you. Man, that's a fine tale told and read, good ons! Also, I'm glad your 16 again, it means I can boss you around or ignore what you say (I would do this using ageism).
z.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-24 08:38 pm (UTC)I'd like to visit you at your new apartment sometime, when you have it settled enough. I'm tired of staying away, but I think I know better now how to step closer without falling back into you.
I keep being stilted in these comments.
Aside on Winlaw: Sandy's partner, Donyn, is from Winlaw. You could get in touch with him and meet her, and talk about it. They spent the summer up there last year and could probably tell you a lot.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 03:37 am (UTC)I can never remember dates. Neither Juggler nor I know our 'anniversary' actually, which makes me smile somehow.
I don't think you *can* fall back into me. I'm someone else now, and there are so many people in my life.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 04:27 am (UTC)Maybe I can't. Then again, I'm the one that insisted that people never really change at the core, so there's something that I, at least, see that I might fall into.
True, I do have your number. In any case, here's me starting to creep in at the edges.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 02:15 pm (UTC)