Man, I don't feel like writing tonight. To be more precise, I want to write, but I can't seem to move myself in the direction of anything I'd like to work on. I spoke to my dear friend (and cherished accountability partner) earlier today about writing an essay. However, when it came to channeling the many thoughts and ideas raging about my cranium, I resisted. Me. After all, that's who lives in me, right? I'm even stubborn against myself, and when I push against that inner resistance, what erupts is anger, anxiety, and confusion.
Why, oh why, must I be such a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional complicated enigma of a device?? Oh, how I wish to be a simple machine of smooth movements and dependability. How can I offer anything to anyone when I can't even depend on myself?
This is turning into a self-indulging, self-pitying diatribe. It's not what I intended or even desire. This is mainly meant to be an exercise of my daily writing and/or journaling to keep those juices flowing.
I have a physical notebook in which I write out whatever, and I did flesh out some thoughts about generational traumas passed down from mothers to daughters, but when I took it out to type it up and work on it, I just didn't....feel like it?
Writing makes me feel amazing when it clicks, and when it doesn't, it's more than frustrating. It can best be described as the emotional equivalent of the sound of unpleasant metallic grinding. I guess that makes sense, since grinding is forced, and clicking is more natural.
There aren't many things that come naturally to me, and it seems that most things are a struggle. But I have come to be thankful for the struggles. After all, it's struggle that builds strength, not ease. Once again, I can only hope - and this hope comes like light through a pinhole - that it means I will have meaning and use. I don't seek it for glory. I seek it for the same basic reason that drives me in everything I do and want; to be essential and to not be a bother. "To not be a bother" is more important; to be essential is more a wish than a priority - part of the fantasy of having meaning.
This is starting to sound self-indulgent again.
I digress.
This is yet another throw-away blog entry; meant only to grease the wheels of the machine instead of feeding it. It's all part of the journey.
"Yes, Lord, yes," is something I say to myself when I'm feeling a little frustrated but I want to thank Jesus for the challenge and accept the challenge - for the exercise to build strength. It also mostly quells whatever flutters of anxiety threaten to shake me.
Yes, Lord, yes. I accept this.
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Monday, April 13, 2020
Again with this
I had some darkness last night, during which I felt very strongly and helplessly that there was no escape and it was irrevocably all my fault. I was weeping bitterly, but that barely conveyed the depth of despair I felt. So useless, pointless, empty. So stupid. So wrong. So trapped by by own stubbornness, ineptitude, and poor decisions. Even the thought of death seemed unable to balm my scorching sadness.
Finally the darkness and pain could be corked enough for me to calm down and fall asleep.
Yet again, I dreamed of him. Yet again, his presence demanded more of a narrative structure than my dreams usually carry.
In this dream, he had once again been able to bring himself to forgive me enough to engender a renewed friendship between us. We were both in our hometown. He was riding motorcycles with his dad, saw my car (a certain red car I have long since owned), and stopped down the road, though I had ducked down. I saw in the mirror that he was mouthing words, so I stepped out of the car and approached him. He was asking me if I was planning on attending an event that our mutual friends had planned. I said that I wasn't sure (unsaid was that I wasn't sure that he wanted me there). He smiled and expressed a hope that I would be there.
The events of the dream that followed is not nearly as important as the feelings. Though the setting of the dream was fictional, it felt real enough - I was living at my parents' house, in my old room again, though still working my current job and still with my boyfriend - but the feelings shone through any dreamy haze and burned into me.
I was so happy that he was in my life again. I was so happy that he was trusting me again, but I was afraid. My attraction to him was re-asserting itself and I wanted him, but because I still had a boyfriend, I was scared that he might view any physical overture as validation of his past accusations. Despite this, however, he began to make passes at me as we spent more time together. I liked it, but kept myself in check. We even casually discussed marriage, and the possibility of him taking me all over the country with his naval career. He asked if I would be lonely and miss my family, but I said that if I did, it would be worth it to start my own.
Ultimately, nothing was resolved (neither the feelings nor the events), and the dream once again descended into whimsical nonsense before I awoke.
In the background of this dream, I had admitted to myself that I miss him. It wasn't a satisfying admission, seeing as everything involving his presence in my life remains unresolved. I'm not even sure that I do miss him. It's possible that I mourn what my life could have been if things between us had been different.
It keeps coming back to the same thing; the bottomless regret of my own stubbornness and impulsive actions. There are moments in my life wherein I feel no control over my actions. It's terrifying, and in hindsight it is just as frightening. The thoughts accompanying the past actions are a blank space. I can't recall what I thought or why I did what I did. I do what I can to be more mindful and more present in the moment to prevent such things in the future, but it's not something I can trust in myself because of my lack of focus. So. I can't always control myself, and when I can, I can't seem to force myself to take advice or do what I need to do.
So here we are on the other side of a meltdown caused by the belief that my life is not what it should be, and the feeling that I'm a failure of every dimension of my existence. And in the wake of that meltdown, I received a visitation in a dream to hammer the concept home. And to bring to surface a fear which, until now, I didn't want to put into words. This is the fear that in the future I could only experience any kind of vivid feeling or emotion in these dreams of fiction, and that in my waking state, I would continue to barely feel "ok" enough to function and that my existence would be just survival.
I do feel actual joy slowly ebbing away in my life. Feelings of true contented happiness, joy, excitement are becoming fewer and farther between as I go on. What's worse is that I don't even know what can make me happy anymore.
I don't know how to sustain myself. I do know that I have to, though, and I can at least do the things that I have to.
Finally the darkness and pain could be corked enough for me to calm down and fall asleep.
Yet again, I dreamed of him. Yet again, his presence demanded more of a narrative structure than my dreams usually carry.
In this dream, he had once again been able to bring himself to forgive me enough to engender a renewed friendship between us. We were both in our hometown. He was riding motorcycles with his dad, saw my car (a certain red car I have long since owned), and stopped down the road, though I had ducked down. I saw in the mirror that he was mouthing words, so I stepped out of the car and approached him. He was asking me if I was planning on attending an event that our mutual friends had planned. I said that I wasn't sure (unsaid was that I wasn't sure that he wanted me there). He smiled and expressed a hope that I would be there.
The events of the dream that followed is not nearly as important as the feelings. Though the setting of the dream was fictional, it felt real enough - I was living at my parents' house, in my old room again, though still working my current job and still with my boyfriend - but the feelings shone through any dreamy haze and burned into me.
I was so happy that he was in my life again. I was so happy that he was trusting me again, but I was afraid. My attraction to him was re-asserting itself and I wanted him, but because I still had a boyfriend, I was scared that he might view any physical overture as validation of his past accusations. Despite this, however, he began to make passes at me as we spent more time together. I liked it, but kept myself in check. We even casually discussed marriage, and the possibility of him taking me all over the country with his naval career. He asked if I would be lonely and miss my family, but I said that if I did, it would be worth it to start my own.
Ultimately, nothing was resolved (neither the feelings nor the events), and the dream once again descended into whimsical nonsense before I awoke.
In the background of this dream, I had admitted to myself that I miss him. It wasn't a satisfying admission, seeing as everything involving his presence in my life remains unresolved. I'm not even sure that I do miss him. It's possible that I mourn what my life could have been if things between us had been different.
It keeps coming back to the same thing; the bottomless regret of my own stubbornness and impulsive actions. There are moments in my life wherein I feel no control over my actions. It's terrifying, and in hindsight it is just as frightening. The thoughts accompanying the past actions are a blank space. I can't recall what I thought or why I did what I did. I do what I can to be more mindful and more present in the moment to prevent such things in the future, but it's not something I can trust in myself because of my lack of focus. So. I can't always control myself, and when I can, I can't seem to force myself to take advice or do what I need to do.
So here we are on the other side of a meltdown caused by the belief that my life is not what it should be, and the feeling that I'm a failure of every dimension of my existence. And in the wake of that meltdown, I received a visitation in a dream to hammer the concept home. And to bring to surface a fear which, until now, I didn't want to put into words. This is the fear that in the future I could only experience any kind of vivid feeling or emotion in these dreams of fiction, and that in my waking state, I would continue to barely feel "ok" enough to function and that my existence would be just survival.
I do feel actual joy slowly ebbing away in my life. Feelings of true contented happiness, joy, excitement are becoming fewer and farther between as I go on. What's worse is that I don't even know what can make me happy anymore.
I don't know how to sustain myself. I do know that I have to, though, and I can at least do the things that I have to.
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