Oh man, sometimes I read back through some of my posts and I am always caught off guard by the tiniest violin playing for me. It’s actually really funny always in hindsight. And though my reaction always is to post and then change my mind and hide those revealing pieces of myself, I think I am going to stop that. It’s me, unfiltered. You can’t deal? Oh well. You probably don’t deal with me in the flesh anyways so this is all voyeurism for you– while I think I need to go put some clothes on, or place tape over my lips, or rather, tape my hands to my sides so I cannot write all of this stuff. Again, it’s a point of human connection. I do this for me, but I know there have to be those of you out there who relate in some way to what I disclose sometimes.
A friend of mine remarked that these pieces of me were an illustration in words of what the tshirts pictured. That hiding pieces of myself and separating my personality out according to predetermined audience was kind of pointless. He painted it in a way that was hard to disagree with, so I am pretty sure I am sticking around here. Though I did recognize as I was peering through the workshops at a retreat I get to attend up in the mountains in July (I am so lucky with that, but more on that later), but that my writing waivers between being in your face obvious in its disclosures and needs perhaps a little more illustration to get my point across. In other words, when I do write my story out explicitly one of these days that I need to do a better job with my metaphors to get you to feel what I mean instead of me just pouring it out like this, factual and plain. Granted my fiction is not like this, but my nonfiction seems to be. All in due time of course. It reminded me of what a few people have said to me lately about who I am. That they like east coast girls and people because we don’t mess around with innuendo or beating around the bush. That we tell it like it is. Well, of course I will tell you like it is for me. Shyness never did anything for me but allow me to sit protected in my isolation. That is what NY taught me–that if you don’t speak up for yourself, nobody else will, and they certainly will not ever be able to guess how you feel, because people are generally awful with putting themselves in your shoes.
So I decided instead of berating myself for being a human being, and having a few “off” selling points, that thinking of myself as someone who needed selling points at all was rather pointless. BF taught me that yesterday in fact–me thinking I needed selling points kind of made me into a commodity instead of a person. And my disclosure that I treat people not related to me better than those who are is not necessarily a bad thing, I realize. Because if you were able to then step into my life and be elevated into a place of importance, that you would always be treated better than good. Going back through the 12 years I had in NY, I recognize I definitely was a massive giver, having no less than 9 people who needed places to stay and food to eat stay with me–feeding them, making sure they had roofs over their heads. My most recent ex also benefited from this sweeping generosity, me taking care of him for the year we were together–I made all of our food 98% of the time, I paid the rent for us, I paid all of the bills. I never asked him for anything. That’s just the kind of girl I am. And though the idea of “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” probably leans heavily in the other party’s favor, it does not make me wrong really at all.
Last night I got into it with a friend, well, friend is a loose term to be quite honest. The last remnant of my online dating world to be frank. I haven’t met him, but he got all nasty with me and sent me a message (a text message, of course) where he said, “so you flake on me three times and think that is ok (to be honest once was in my direct control)…maybe the problem is not the boys, it’s Denver girls.” So me in my incapacitated emotional state yesterday sent him back a message that said something along the lines of “I would rather be a flake than a douchebag. I don’t do guilt trips about things largely out of my control (those two times), lose my number, please.” He, undeterred, starting ranting off about me having walls up, that I needed to open up so that I could “let someone love me.” Uh-huh. After my realizations yesterday, I recognize that the type of person I need has to be as strong as I am, and maybe a little more so. Guilt trips don’t phase me, given I am pretty sure my entire adult life in my family has centered on me “not wanting to be a part of the family.” This is from the only family I have ever really known, my adoptive one.
Part of my goal in even moving here has been to learn what it means to have family in every sense. Two of my three sisters are here all summer. I feel a kinship with both of them I haven’t felt in many years after I left my own sister when I moved out as a senior in high school. I would do almost anything to feel that my own sister supported me and respected me as much as the two half blood ones do, but she is not exactly thrilled that I am making connections she does not understand clear across the country. I get it, I do. But the relationship I have with my adoptive mother has somehow gotten better in a lot of ways since I moved here. Always afraid to call her to get that guilt trip, I largely avoided calling her but once or twice a year. The past few times have been so pleasant I feel like maybe it won’t always be a war of words and insults directed at me. I told my birth mother I was a bad daughter and sister, and though she did not exactly disagree, she is struggling to make sense of me as well.
So last night I stuck my head in a book, something I have done since I was 10 to escape the confusion of the life I led. And even though the books I read are about non-existent characters sometimes, I definitely feel hope that I won’t always be floating out here alone. Because if it can be imagined, it certainly can be. And no, not in the Secret sense where you focus on only good mythical things which are supposed to happen just because you wished them to be, but because sometimes reality does take a dream-like turn when you least expect it. And though I am done focusing on people who clearly could care less about me, I know that one day my reality will flip and I will be sitting there with the understanding that dreams really do come true, and they certainly aren’t all nightmares.
June 13, 2011 at 8:06 am
🙂
June 13, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Yes, pretty much! Much different perspective than I had the last time we spoke…but I blame the damn moon–we are always on the same schedule it seems.
June 13, 2011 at 9:50 pm
I hate it when I fall into the Debbie Downer zone of thinking/speaking. I’m sad to admit that unfortunately, if there is somebody guilty of it, I am usually that girl. Which is weird because I am such a pep-talkgiver too…maybe compensating for the subconscious harsh realist side of my perspective that haunts me.
It tends to happen all too often when I’m trying desperately to keep a situation cheerful…
Some kind of Murphy’s Law of Thinking Positive or something
I guess I don’t always perform so well on the spot in conversation..
When this occurs I try to think of showtunes, like “I Have Confidence In Me” from The Sound of Music, or “Cock-Eyed Optimist” from South Pacific (can you tell I belong to the rainbow brigade? LOL)
Silly yes but it makes me smile, which tends to be effective at helping me get to a place where, if I can’t contribute something helpful, I can at least smile to myself and be quiet. 😛
The other potential outcome is spastically blurting out some awkward fortune cookie from Erin’s life experience, thrown at helpless bystanders under the auspices of sharing in the spirit of “I Just Gotta Be Me” (another good goofy ‘chin-up’ number); with any luck at all this can at least be amusing, if at the risk of embarrassing myself, but I am so accustomed to doing that at this point that I barely even register it.
June 13, 2011 at 10:45 pm
I was the same for a long long time to be honest. People, including my close friends, hated my guts for it. Well, hate is probably a strong word, but they were none too thrilled to hear me whine and cry about being lonely, or being unhappy (shocking I am sure) and would always try to show me the bright side of things. Problem is, when you are in that state of mind, happy people make you want to puke. You want to punch them in the face for being so positive. It isn’t a normal state to be in when you feel like that, and it is impossible to identify with anyone who is happy when you are miserable and see grey skies instead of blue.
When I was heavily into that it was always easier for me to give advice to other people while ignoring it myself. It made me kind of a sad hypocrite…I could tell YOU how it was done, but apparently was too paralyzed to learn it myself.
All in all I am trying very hard to stay in the right frame of mind so that I don’t slip back down. All of this sun is impossible to be unhappy with, as is the extreme beauty of nature around me all of the time. There is a hollowness that cities vibrate that is hard to shake. What I used to do, sometimes twice a day, would be to ride my bike down and do that giant loop of liberty state park with one earbud of my ipod rocking out in my ear. It always calmed me down, made me feel better, and recognize that my sadness really could not be as big as the world, no matter how hard my little mind tried to convince me of that. I would dance out on my bike all of the time. Exercise always helps depression too, if you didn’t know. It gets blood pumping into the recesses of your brain hiding the happiness, I think.
June 14, 2011 at 9:05 am
Ha
I like that descripption about the brain’s recesses.
Yes I have read in the NY Times about studies citing how a prescription of five miles of walking a day was as or more effective in treating depression and schizophrenia than psychoactive medication
I definitely feel better when my body is happy and active
I also agree about the weird disconnected feeling one gets from being hemmed in by concrete, even though I grew up surrounded by it…that halting feeling of dizziness and void vibrating the heightened awareness of physical isolation in the urban environment
Liberty Park has saved me often, as well the hilly paths that criss-cross up into the Palisades cliffs–although difficult to take by bicycle, they make a nice scenic off-the-treadmill workout 🙂
June 14, 2011 at 9:08 am
oops “description”
hic
not drunk
just caught keybboard hiccups
June 14, 2011 at 4:24 pm
All good, I know you know how to spell, and who cares either way?
I am all psycho-active lately but more on that later. I find that it makes all of the difference in the world. I grew up in small towns and cities so I have had a taste enough of both to understand what differences there are between what has what and what doesn’t have what. It’s a fine line to roam considering the benefits of one over the other.