The old blog refuses to show itself to anyone but me, no matter how many settings I tweak, and the Google people can't fix it. I've exported the old blog into this one. Unfortunately I cannot move the comments, but at least now the blog is back. Ish.
[Edit] Never mind, the comments actually got reproduced! Wow! I'm quite thrilled.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Let's Go Fishing
I just reread the "Speechless" post, and it fished up the bucket of things I want to try.
Augh, I'm not actually patient...I just get distracted sometimes. And then when I realize that that thing I wanted to try so long ago hasn't happened yet, it's intensely annoying, and I feel like I'm slogging through mud.
What does it take to try something new? I'm so easily bored. There are so many things in the bucket that can quench that problem before it really becomes a problem, and yet it always has to become one before we can go fishing.
I'm working on the patience. Really, I am. But when enough time has gone by, it's not patience - it's giving up.
Augh, I'm not actually patient...I just get distracted sometimes. And then when I realize that that thing I wanted to try so long ago hasn't happened yet, it's intensely annoying, and I feel like I'm slogging through mud.
What does it take to try something new? I'm so easily bored. There are so many things in the bucket that can quench that problem before it really becomes a problem, and yet it always has to become one before we can go fishing.
I'm working on the patience. Really, I am. But when enough time has gone by, it's not patience - it's giving up.
Defining Boundaries
The moving part is finished, and the adjusting part is now in full swing. I'm operating in my new part-time schedule, doing two ten-hour days a week at my old job and three days a week at my own business (which was supposed to be just art, but has ended up including a lot of time devoted to league business, as well).
The first week in my new home, I had a lot of little moments where I would pause suddenly at the start of a task execution, imagining a spinning progress bar over my head and the word "Recalibrating..." That has mostly subsided, and now I'm dealing with another set of change impacts, those of seeing the people I know in very different allotments of time, and not having nearly as much control over my own surroundings.
I came home last week from practice expecting to find Aiden and Shelby playing games with a pair of their friends, but the friends had gone home early. The change was unexpected, and though I recognized it as neither my problem nor a big deal, I still felt disgruntled at not having found what I had expected to find in my own home. Last night, a similar thing happened, in which I came home from a class expecting to find Aiden preparing dinner for Shelby, her friend Posie, and his and Posie's kids. When I got there, everyone was pretty much done with dinner, and Posie's husband was also hanging out.
Again, I recognized it consciously as not being a problem, but couldn't help feeling put out. I did realize eventually that making the kids wait until 8:30 for dinner was maybe not the best plan and managed not to take it personally. After the guests went home, Aiden still hadn't so much as touched me, and I pointed it out. He said he had tried to hug me when I walked in the door, but I had seemed grumpy and not wanting to be touched, so he just handed me food and sat back down. I didn't remember that interaction.
This conversation continued for a few more minutes, and then there was silence. In which Aiden still had not actually touched me. My primary love language is physical touch, so avoiding touching me is something I tend to read as very insulting.
"This is your opportunity to fix this," I finally said, smacking him lightly on the side of the head a few times, "And you're missing it."
"Don't hit me in the head," he said, turning to look me full in the face. I paused. There was an intensity to his voice that surprised me.
"Really," I finally said. "What are you going to do?" Some part of me wanted to know, but the part controlling my hands decided it was a bad idea.
"Just. Don't," he said. He wasn't yelling, and he wasn't quite angry, but I honestly didn't know what might happen if I pushed. I desperately wanted to find out, but for just a moment, I was afraid.
We stared each other down for several breaths, until Shelby said, "You know what that makes me want to do?" and I started laughing.
He caught me alone a few minutes later and gave me a long kiss.
"I apologize for hitting you in the head," I said. "I'm sorry."
"And I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear that I wanted to hug you," he replied. I appreciated the apology, but I was excited about something else.
"Thank you for showing me a boundary," I said. "It's good to know where those are."
"Usually you approach them but back away," he said. "And I don't see a point in snapping at someone for just 'tap-tapping' on the wall."
"But sometimes that's what I'm looking for," I said. "I want to know in no uncertain terms that that's where I am."
Thinking about it again later, the more succinct explanation is that if I back away from a boundary before he's shown me where it is, it feels like he's willing to take more disrespect than I'm willing to dish. And that leads to further disrespect. But it would be pretty easy for him to push the balance back.
Have I mentioned he's hot when he's angry with me...?
The first week in my new home, I had a lot of little moments where I would pause suddenly at the start of a task execution, imagining a spinning progress bar over my head and the word "Recalibrating..." That has mostly subsided, and now I'm dealing with another set of change impacts, those of seeing the people I know in very different allotments of time, and not having nearly as much control over my own surroundings.
I came home last week from practice expecting to find Aiden and Shelby playing games with a pair of their friends, but the friends had gone home early. The change was unexpected, and though I recognized it as neither my problem nor a big deal, I still felt disgruntled at not having found what I had expected to find in my own home. Last night, a similar thing happened, in which I came home from a class expecting to find Aiden preparing dinner for Shelby, her friend Posie, and his and Posie's kids. When I got there, everyone was pretty much done with dinner, and Posie's husband was also hanging out.
Again, I recognized it consciously as not being a problem, but couldn't help feeling put out. I did realize eventually that making the kids wait until 8:30 for dinner was maybe not the best plan and managed not to take it personally. After the guests went home, Aiden still hadn't so much as touched me, and I pointed it out. He said he had tried to hug me when I walked in the door, but I had seemed grumpy and not wanting to be touched, so he just handed me food and sat back down. I didn't remember that interaction.
This conversation continued for a few more minutes, and then there was silence. In which Aiden still had not actually touched me. My primary love language is physical touch, so avoiding touching me is something I tend to read as very insulting.
"This is your opportunity to fix this," I finally said, smacking him lightly on the side of the head a few times, "And you're missing it."
"Don't hit me in the head," he said, turning to look me full in the face. I paused. There was an intensity to his voice that surprised me.
"Really," I finally said. "What are you going to do?" Some part of me wanted to know, but the part controlling my hands decided it was a bad idea.
"Just. Don't," he said. He wasn't yelling, and he wasn't quite angry, but I honestly didn't know what might happen if I pushed. I desperately wanted to find out, but for just a moment, I was afraid.
We stared each other down for several breaths, until Shelby said, "You know what that makes me want to do?" and I started laughing.
He caught me alone a few minutes later and gave me a long kiss.
"I apologize for hitting you in the head," I said. "I'm sorry."
"And I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear that I wanted to hug you," he replied. I appreciated the apology, but I was excited about something else.
"Thank you for showing me a boundary," I said. "It's good to know where those are."
"Usually you approach them but back away," he said. "And I don't see a point in snapping at someone for just 'tap-tapping' on the wall."
"But sometimes that's what I'm looking for," I said. "I want to know in no uncertain terms that that's where I am."
Thinking about it again later, the more succinct explanation is that if I back away from a boundary before he's shown me where it is, it feels like he's willing to take more disrespect than I'm willing to dish. And that leads to further disrespect. But it would be pretty easy for him to push the balance back.
Have I mentioned he's hot when he's angry with me...?
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Moving Day Approaches
I move this weekend.
Two more days to go. It's really happening. Tomorrow night, Aiden and Shelby are coming up after work. We're going to do dinner, pack his car full of my things, and then spend one last night in my apartment.
Saturday morning, Aiden will drive south to pick up his kid and take the first carload of my things home, Eben will come over to my place, and Shelby, Eben, my roommate, and I, and possibly Bruce, will pack up the rest of my life and empty out the place I've been for the last two years.
It almost doesn't feel like it's been that long. But it has. Twenty-five months, to be exact. I moved in on February 1st, 2013, and I'll be out on February 28th, 2015. I'm not sorry to see the back of the stupid freezing-pipes problem, but otherwise, I'll miss it here.
This is not a cold-feet thing. I want to be in my new home slightly more than I want to stay in this one, but that doesn't mean I'm excited to leave here. This town is wonderful. Lots of my friends are here. My apartment is great (aside from the pipes).
But it's time. Sometimes, it is just time.
Two more days to go. It's really happening. Tomorrow night, Aiden and Shelby are coming up after work. We're going to do dinner, pack his car full of my things, and then spend one last night in my apartment.
Saturday morning, Aiden will drive south to pick up his kid and take the first carload of my things home, Eben will come over to my place, and Shelby, Eben, my roommate, and I, and possibly Bruce, will pack up the rest of my life and empty out the place I've been for the last two years.
It almost doesn't feel like it's been that long. But it has. Twenty-five months, to be exact. I moved in on February 1st, 2013, and I'll be out on February 28th, 2015. I'm not sorry to see the back of the stupid freezing-pipes problem, but otherwise, I'll miss it here.
This is not a cold-feet thing. I want to be in my new home slightly more than I want to stay in this one, but that doesn't mean I'm excited to leave here. This town is wonderful. Lots of my friends are here. My apartment is great (aside from the pipes).
But it's time. Sometimes, it is just time.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
On Depression and Redirected Anger
I've been known to use the phrase "getting over" when I refer to my depression, and how it's now in my past. But it's kind of a misnomer. To be over something means that it's in the past, it's done with, and that's that. Depression doesn't really work like that, though.
It's more like a wild animal that I've mostly tamed. Occasionally it bares its fangs, and I have to remind it what happened last time, and it backs away. Most of that is automatic now, requiring little in the way of focus or effort, which is what leads me to use the word "over" to describe it.
Then there are the times - and they are few and far between these days, thankfully - that it sneaks up behind me and body-checks me off a cliff.
I can feel it coming. It doesn't sneak in unnoticed. I can smell it.
Sometimes that weird feeling doesn't actually amount to much. I'll eat a meal, see a friend, go for a drive, distract myself...and it fades away. For that reason, I don't always pay it a lot of attention. I just focus on changing my surroundings and that's usually sufficient to head off disaster.
I tend to get the sneaking weirdness on chemo days, which isn't all that weird; the whole situation is super stressful, and Mom is really good at pushing my buttons, as moms are. There's a limit to just how much of her I can deal with at a time. Small doses, as they say. I hold it together until I get in the car, and then I take a deep breath and listen to some loud music and go back to everyday life.
Tonight I just had some extra bad energy, I guess. It was chemo day, and I started to list a whole bunch of things that were maybe a little bit sub-par about the day, and then realized it was all irrelevant. I got the sneaking weirdness, I left before dinner, and I jumped off the fucking cliff.
The drive home was a battle with myself. Interestingly, the internal battle no longer seems to affect my driving; there was a time when all my aggression came out through the gas pedal, but not anymore. I drove like a sane human being while the inside of my mind melted into a puddle of anger and loathing.
I reached out to a couple of friends to make evening plans, hoping someone had the time to save me from myself, but no one responded. Left to my own devices, I tried to plan some structure into the looming void of the evening.
I talked myself out of cutting. It's been nearly six years. I can't ruin a streak that long.
I talked myself out of driving to another state to set my ex's truck on fire with a gallon of gasoline. Doing things like that in a bad state of mind leads to getting caught.
I have several friends who would demand that I call them if they knew I was in this state right now. My friends are good like that. But I won't do it. This is the only place I'll reach out, and only because I know no one will hear the call until the crisis is over. Tomorrow I can shrug it off as a "bad night." (What a stupid, generic, meaningless phrase that is.)
Dinner is in the oven, I paid the rent on my way home, and I'm holed up with sweat pants and my second margarita. Is this what getting "over" depression means? That I just get more responsible about what I do when my brain is melting?
There were so many things that I wanted to say, and now most of them seem to be gone. When I'm driving and pondering something I'll have strings of little revelations that are really enlightening, and then I don't write them down (because I'm fucking driving) and then they disappear.
There is one that stuck with me.
I'm super angry at Kevin. I don't waste much energy on it, because there are better uses for my time and my thoughts, and dwelling on anger only makes it worse. But when the occasion comes up that I think about it, I actually harbor a lot of rage toward him.
I was mucking around in the anger a bit tonight, and started thinking, was it really him that I should be angry at, or myself? He did a lot of awful things to me, but I let him do those things. And then I wondered, if it's my fault, why would I be angry at him? I directed the anger at myself for a moment and found the answer: accepting all of that coming my own way is destructive. Directing it toward him means that I can learn the lesson and not have to hate myself.
Pattern recognition spotted a parallel. All those years I spent being angry at Aiden, only to realize I'd never hated him at all...same thing. As long as I viewed our relationship as a mistake that only a horrible person could make, I directed that anger away from myself to avoid complete self-destruction.
I was able to re-accept the blame for what I'd always known that I did wrong after I no longer cared about Kevin, because then I could see the bigger reasons for why I'd cheated, and they went beyond just me being an unfaithful slut.
It's more like a wild animal that I've mostly tamed. Occasionally it bares its fangs, and I have to remind it what happened last time, and it backs away. Most of that is automatic now, requiring little in the way of focus or effort, which is what leads me to use the word "over" to describe it.
Then there are the times - and they are few and far between these days, thankfully - that it sneaks up behind me and body-checks me off a cliff.
I can feel it coming. It doesn't sneak in unnoticed. I can smell it.
Sometimes that weird feeling doesn't actually amount to much. I'll eat a meal, see a friend, go for a drive, distract myself...and it fades away. For that reason, I don't always pay it a lot of attention. I just focus on changing my surroundings and that's usually sufficient to head off disaster.
I tend to get the sneaking weirdness on chemo days, which isn't all that weird; the whole situation is super stressful, and Mom is really good at pushing my buttons, as moms are. There's a limit to just how much of her I can deal with at a time. Small doses, as they say. I hold it together until I get in the car, and then I take a deep breath and listen to some loud music and go back to everyday life.
Tonight I just had some extra bad energy, I guess. It was chemo day, and I started to list a whole bunch of things that were maybe a little bit sub-par about the day, and then realized it was all irrelevant. I got the sneaking weirdness, I left before dinner, and I jumped off the fucking cliff.
The drive home was a battle with myself. Interestingly, the internal battle no longer seems to affect my driving; there was a time when all my aggression came out through the gas pedal, but not anymore. I drove like a sane human being while the inside of my mind melted into a puddle of anger and loathing.
I reached out to a couple of friends to make evening plans, hoping someone had the time to save me from myself, but no one responded. Left to my own devices, I tried to plan some structure into the looming void of the evening.
I talked myself out of cutting. It's been nearly six years. I can't ruin a streak that long.
I talked myself out of driving to another state to set my ex's truck on fire with a gallon of gasoline. Doing things like that in a bad state of mind leads to getting caught.
I have several friends who would demand that I call them if they knew I was in this state right now. My friends are good like that. But I won't do it. This is the only place I'll reach out, and only because I know no one will hear the call until the crisis is over. Tomorrow I can shrug it off as a "bad night." (What a stupid, generic, meaningless phrase that is.)
Dinner is in the oven, I paid the rent on my way home, and I'm holed up with sweat pants and my second margarita. Is this what getting "over" depression means? That I just get more responsible about what I do when my brain is melting?
There were so many things that I wanted to say, and now most of them seem to be gone. When I'm driving and pondering something I'll have strings of little revelations that are really enlightening, and then I don't write them down (because I'm fucking driving) and then they disappear.
There is one that stuck with me.
I'm super angry at Kevin. I don't waste much energy on it, because there are better uses for my time and my thoughts, and dwelling on anger only makes it worse. But when the occasion comes up that I think about it, I actually harbor a lot of rage toward him.
I was mucking around in the anger a bit tonight, and started thinking, was it really him that I should be angry at, or myself? He did a lot of awful things to me, but I let him do those things. And then I wondered, if it's my fault, why would I be angry at him? I directed the anger at myself for a moment and found the answer: accepting all of that coming my own way is destructive. Directing it toward him means that I can learn the lesson and not have to hate myself.
Pattern recognition spotted a parallel. All those years I spent being angry at Aiden, only to realize I'd never hated him at all...same thing. As long as I viewed our relationship as a mistake that only a horrible person could make, I directed that anger away from myself to avoid complete self-destruction.
I was able to re-accept the blame for what I'd always known that I did wrong after I no longer cared about Kevin, because then I could see the bigger reasons for why I'd cheated, and they went beyond just me being an unfaithful slut.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Forty Reflections on 2014
1.What one event, big or small, are you going to tell your grandchildren about?
Playing my first tournament with my amazing team
2.If you had to describe your 2014 in 3 words, what would they be?
Exciting, loving, impatient
3.What new things did you discover about yourself?
Not only a skill at, but actually an enjoyment of helping to solve interpersonal problems
4.What single achievement are you most proud of?
My first Most Valuable Jammer award
5.What was the best news you received?
Nothing sticks out in my mind.
6.What was your favourite place that you visited in 2014?
Maine
7.Which of your personal qualities turned out to be the most helpful this year?
Diplomacy
8.Who was your number one go-to person that you could always rely on?
A combination of Eben and Aiden
9.Which new skills did you learn?
Dealing with other people's anger and my own emotions - thanks to Shelby
10.What, or who, are you most thankful for?
I couldn't pick just one. My family, my friends, my teammates...
11.If someone wrote a book about your life in 2014, what kind of genre would it be? A comedy, love story, drama, film noir or something else?
An uplifting love story/drama with comedic moments
12.What was the most important lesson you learnt in 2014?
That being honest and straightforward, even to the point of being blunt, is the most effective way forward.
13.Which mental block(s) did you overcome?
Speaking my mind - I'm still working on it, but I've made a lot of progress.
14.What 5 people did you most enjoy spending time with?
Aiden, Eben, Mom, Ninja, Alejandra
15.What was your biggest break-through moment career-wise?
Deciding to quit my job and move on to greener pastures
16.How did your relationship to your family evolve?
I've become much closer to my mom, through learning she had cancer and seeing her through chemo. I'm unsure where my relations with my sisters stand, since they agreed to pay the legal bills they caused me to incur but our only communications have been through lawyers.
17.What book or movie affected your life in a profound way?
Year of No Sugar
18.What was your favourite compliment that you received this year?
Possibly one from the tournament, when my coach told me I had really come together as a blocker.
19.What little things did you most enjoy during your day-to-day life?
The outdoors, long pun trains, tubing on the river, trying new foods, the swing set in the park
20.What cool things did you create this year?
Logo art for fire camp
21.What was your most common mental state this year (e.g. excited, curious, stressed)?
Probably excitement. I get excited about a lot of things.
22.Was there anything you did for the very first time in your life this year?
I climbed a radio tower to 160 feet and didn't have to change my pants afterward.
23.What was your favourite moment spent with your friends?
Any of the multiple parties thrown by myself and my roommate, or any of the crazy bout/tournament days.
24.What major goal did you lay the foundations for?
Changing my career to become a self-employed artist
25.Which worries turned out to be completely unnecessary?
I'm not yet convinced that they are unnecessary.
26.What experience would you love to do all over again?
The tournament. Either of the trips to Maine. Aiden and Shelby's first derby bout, where I got my first MVJ
27.What was the best gift you received?
A beautiful leather flogger that Aiden made himself
28.How did your overall outlook on life evolve?
I've become more decisive. I'm not the only one who looks for a leader, and sometimes it's best that I be that for others.
29.What was the biggest problem you solved?
Getting away from a league that wasn't fulfilling for its skaters. Realizing that some relationship problems that I used to live with should not be overlooked, through the process of finding a relationship that is so much better.
30.What was the funniest moment of your year, one that still makes it hard not to burst out laughing when you think about it?
Sinking Aiden in the river by mistake while trying to re-inflate his inner tube. He called me the Deflating Cat.
31.What purchase turned out to be the best decision ever?
My new skate boots, which actually fit
32.What one thing would you do differently and why?
If I did something differently, I wouldn't learn the lesson, so I don't think I would change anything.
33.What do you deserve a pat on the back for?
Conquering my fear of heights
34.What activities made you lose track of time?
Drawing. Tubing the river. Sex. Swinging in the park. Playing bouts.
35.What did you think about more than anything else?
Relationships
36.What topics did you most enjoy learning about?
Exercise, food
37.What new habits did you cultivate?
Drinking coffee and tea without sweetener
38.What advice would you give your early-2014 self if you could?
Relax.
39.Did any parts of your self or your life do a complete 180 this year?
No
40.What or who had the biggest positive impact on your life this year?
Aiden
Playing my first tournament with my amazing team
2.If you had to describe your 2014 in 3 words, what would they be?
Exciting, loving, impatient
3.What new things did you discover about yourself?
Not only a skill at, but actually an enjoyment of helping to solve interpersonal problems
4.What single achievement are you most proud of?
My first Most Valuable Jammer award
5.What was the best news you received?
Nothing sticks out in my mind.
6.What was your favourite place that you visited in 2014?
Maine
7.Which of your personal qualities turned out to be the most helpful this year?
Diplomacy
8.Who was your number one go-to person that you could always rely on?
A combination of Eben and Aiden
9.Which new skills did you learn?
Dealing with other people's anger and my own emotions - thanks to Shelby
10.What, or who, are you most thankful for?
I couldn't pick just one. My family, my friends, my teammates...
11.If someone wrote a book about your life in 2014, what kind of genre would it be? A comedy, love story, drama, film noir or something else?
An uplifting love story/drama with comedic moments
12.What was the most important lesson you learnt in 2014?
That being honest and straightforward, even to the point of being blunt, is the most effective way forward.
13.Which mental block(s) did you overcome?
Speaking my mind - I'm still working on it, but I've made a lot of progress.
14.What 5 people did you most enjoy spending time with?
Aiden, Eben, Mom, Ninja, Alejandra
15.What was your biggest break-through moment career-wise?
Deciding to quit my job and move on to greener pastures
16.How did your relationship to your family evolve?
I've become much closer to my mom, through learning she had cancer and seeing her through chemo. I'm unsure where my relations with my sisters stand, since they agreed to pay the legal bills they caused me to incur but our only communications have been through lawyers.
17.What book or movie affected your life in a profound way?
Year of No Sugar
18.What was your favourite compliment that you received this year?
Possibly one from the tournament, when my coach told me I had really come together as a blocker.
19.What little things did you most enjoy during your day-to-day life?
The outdoors, long pun trains, tubing on the river, trying new foods, the swing set in the park
20.What cool things did you create this year?
Logo art for fire camp
21.What was your most common mental state this year (e.g. excited, curious, stressed)?
Probably excitement. I get excited about a lot of things.
22.Was there anything you did for the very first time in your life this year?
I climbed a radio tower to 160 feet and didn't have to change my pants afterward.
23.What was your favourite moment spent with your friends?
Any of the multiple parties thrown by myself and my roommate, or any of the crazy bout/tournament days.
24.What major goal did you lay the foundations for?
Changing my career to become a self-employed artist
25.Which worries turned out to be completely unnecessary?
I'm not yet convinced that they are unnecessary.
26.What experience would you love to do all over again?
The tournament. Either of the trips to Maine. Aiden and Shelby's first derby bout, where I got my first MVJ
27.What was the best gift you received?
A beautiful leather flogger that Aiden made himself
28.How did your overall outlook on life evolve?
I've become more decisive. I'm not the only one who looks for a leader, and sometimes it's best that I be that for others.
29.What was the biggest problem you solved?
Getting away from a league that wasn't fulfilling for its skaters. Realizing that some relationship problems that I used to live with should not be overlooked, through the process of finding a relationship that is so much better.
30.What was the funniest moment of your year, one that still makes it hard not to burst out laughing when you think about it?
Sinking Aiden in the river by mistake while trying to re-inflate his inner tube. He called me the Deflating Cat.
31.What purchase turned out to be the best decision ever?
My new skate boots, which actually fit
32.What one thing would you do differently and why?
If I did something differently, I wouldn't learn the lesson, so I don't think I would change anything.
33.What do you deserve a pat on the back for?
Conquering my fear of heights
34.What activities made you lose track of time?
Drawing. Tubing the river. Sex. Swinging in the park. Playing bouts.
35.What did you think about more than anything else?
Relationships
36.What topics did you most enjoy learning about?
Exercise, food
37.What new habits did you cultivate?
Drinking coffee and tea without sweetener
38.What advice would you give your early-2014 self if you could?
Relax.
39.Did any parts of your self or your life do a complete 180 this year?
No
40.What or who had the biggest positive impact on your life this year?
Aiden
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Speechless, Monster
Any person that one encounters is actually two people: the person they are, and the person you think they are. I've never experienced such an intense dichotomy between those two with anyone else as I have with Aiden. He has existed as at least two people in my head alone...and then, of course, there's the real boy.
Way back when, there was the boy I fell unexpectedly head over heels for. In comparison to how I know him now, I didn't know him very well. Then I had enough of the way that things were working - or more accurately, not working - and put myself back in the magician's hat and disappeared. I convinced myself that he was a terrible person and wasted a lot of energy balancing that house of cards.
Then that house crumbled and we rediscovered each other...but this is all old news. I'm not rehashing merely to rehash, as entertaining as storytelling is. I'm still reconciling. I'm staring at a photograph that has been exposed not just twice but many times.
Having that many images stacked in my head of one single person can be confusing. I don't have too much trouble separating the nasty image I built of him when we were apart from the person that he actually is; that image served a purpose, but it was false, and it exists now only as a distant memory.
But then there are the grey areas. Even in the dark days, I occasionally threw things in the bucket that weren't entirely negative. Now I don't know what to do with them.
I'm powered by music. Aiden described it as having music woven into the fabric of my life, and that feels pretty accurate. I'm a musician and a singer and a dancer, and music has a more direct path to my feelings than any other passion. Every period of my life has at least one associated album. I've got music for seasons, music for activities, music for past events, music for friends and family and enemies. Needless to say, Aiden has quite a lot of music.
What brought all this up was playing an album tonight that I hadn't listened to since more than a year ago. (It's been a year now, as of December 8th...hard to believe, in a lot of ways.) I listened to these songs while drawing and while working, and they have associations with certain pieces of art and a certain school-bus yard in winter...but even more strongly than that, somehow I associated them with Aiden.
My first reflex is to claim that I have no idea why that happened. It was February of 2011; we hadn't spoken in nearly two years. If his name were mentioned to me, I probably would've had something unkind to say.
And yet, I put a passionate image of him into the music...not an outright sexual fantasy, but something that wasn't overwhelmed with stupid hate. The association was strong enough to have lasted this long without losing much intensity. I believe it was because there wasn't much passion in my life at the time, and when the music created a need in me to feel a memory that fiery and intense, I reached for the last one I had, and it was Aiden.
Why is it worth discussing? Because I'm reaching for it still. Fantasizing from that distance had an underlying assumption of truth, that if there was ever again a reality between Aiden and I, at least some of it would look like that. The reality recurred but the fantasy didn't.
I've never struggled so much with explaining the hook of music and its associations in my soul. Sometimes I send Aiden songs that I like, and he listens to them and shares his thoughts. Some of those songs are just things I hear on the radio that amuse me, and his response is sufficient, and life moves on. But some of them mean much more to me than that, and the first time that I was bitterly disappointed by his response of, "I dig it," I was blindsided. The response was positive...and yet I wanted to yell that he didn't get it. I don't care if you 'dig' it. These are not bumpin' beats to jive to. This is me telling you something important...
This has happened enough times now that I've become reluctant to share the songs that mean the most to me, because I don't want to hear the reaction. I know he intends the things he says positively, and yet I hear them as dismissive.
I still want to express it. But I don't know how to share what's there without being able to magically project an image from my brain. I've gotten some satisfaction on that front from dancing with him, to music that I associated with the dark days. It's the closest I've come. I wonder occasionally if sex to music would help, and then I consistently forget to ever make that happen. This isn't a fantasy that can become reality through simple explanation. This is a room in which I desperately want company, but where I cannot figure out how to make a door through which others can enter.
Way back when, there was the boy I fell unexpectedly head over heels for. In comparison to how I know him now, I didn't know him very well. Then I had enough of the way that things were working - or more accurately, not working - and put myself back in the magician's hat and disappeared. I convinced myself that he was a terrible person and wasted a lot of energy balancing that house of cards.
Then that house crumbled and we rediscovered each other...but this is all old news. I'm not rehashing merely to rehash, as entertaining as storytelling is. I'm still reconciling. I'm staring at a photograph that has been exposed not just twice but many times.
Having that many images stacked in my head of one single person can be confusing. I don't have too much trouble separating the nasty image I built of him when we were apart from the person that he actually is; that image served a purpose, but it was false, and it exists now only as a distant memory.
But then there are the grey areas. Even in the dark days, I occasionally threw things in the bucket that weren't entirely negative. Now I don't know what to do with them.
I'm powered by music. Aiden described it as having music woven into the fabric of my life, and that feels pretty accurate. I'm a musician and a singer and a dancer, and music has a more direct path to my feelings than any other passion. Every period of my life has at least one associated album. I've got music for seasons, music for activities, music for past events, music for friends and family and enemies. Needless to say, Aiden has quite a lot of music.
What brought all this up was playing an album tonight that I hadn't listened to since more than a year ago. (It's been a year now, as of December 8th...hard to believe, in a lot of ways.) I listened to these songs while drawing and while working, and they have associations with certain pieces of art and a certain school-bus yard in winter...but even more strongly than that, somehow I associated them with Aiden.
My first reflex is to claim that I have no idea why that happened. It was February of 2011; we hadn't spoken in nearly two years. If his name were mentioned to me, I probably would've had something unkind to say.
And yet, I put a passionate image of him into the music...not an outright sexual fantasy, but something that wasn't overwhelmed with stupid hate. The association was strong enough to have lasted this long without losing much intensity. I believe it was because there wasn't much passion in my life at the time, and when the music created a need in me to feel a memory that fiery and intense, I reached for the last one I had, and it was Aiden.
Why is it worth discussing? Because I'm reaching for it still. Fantasizing from that distance had an underlying assumption of truth, that if there was ever again a reality between Aiden and I, at least some of it would look like that. The reality recurred but the fantasy didn't.
I've never struggled so much with explaining the hook of music and its associations in my soul. Sometimes I send Aiden songs that I like, and he listens to them and shares his thoughts. Some of those songs are just things I hear on the radio that amuse me, and his response is sufficient, and life moves on. But some of them mean much more to me than that, and the first time that I was bitterly disappointed by his response of, "I dig it," I was blindsided. The response was positive...and yet I wanted to yell that he didn't get it. I don't care if you 'dig' it. These are not bumpin' beats to jive to. This is me telling you something important...
This has happened enough times now that I've become reluctant to share the songs that mean the most to me, because I don't want to hear the reaction. I know he intends the things he says positively, and yet I hear them as dismissive.
I still want to express it. But I don't know how to share what's there without being able to magically project an image from my brain. I've gotten some satisfaction on that front from dancing with him, to music that I associated with the dark days. It's the closest I've come. I wonder occasionally if sex to music would help, and then I consistently forget to ever make that happen. This isn't a fantasy that can become reality through simple explanation. This is a room in which I desperately want company, but where I cannot figure out how to make a door through which others can enter.
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