It's a Boat Metaphor

He is the “wind in my sail,” my sister once said of a friend who is very close to her. Who isn’t here anymore. So do I.

At one point, when the freshness of discovering facts and tastes about the other person was magical, he made me feel so free. I found a way to soar in our little boat which we, mistakenly, assumed was sturdily built. Suddenly, it leaks. Holes welcome water and my new skirt: water damage, water damage, water damage. What do I do with the notions of Cyprus? Or Spain? These notions…I amused myself with them. And he amused me with his. To learn foreign tongues among our foreign tongues, until irregular verbs were the most regular parts of our vocabulary. We made promises of forever. We swore it to each other.

And now: leaks, holes, wet dress, wrinkly crinkly fingers, stupid tongues. Like prunes. We were supposed to turn to prunes together, but in a different way. There is the hope, I realize, when we reach shore and get out of the water. Nevertheless, the sea is big and so are our hearts and our hammers. Hope and reconstruction lie everywhere. But to keep building and mending old holes, to dry off only to be immersed again, to drown while learning the breast stroke, to learn to swim at all will not achieve the ‘forever’ dream. It just perpetuates the fantasy and the pain. One must realize their ability to survive in the deep waters without that ‘reliable and sturdy’ boat locked into the notion of forever. 

Clicking

Today I was very conscious of my lack of boyfriend. Perhaps it’s because I’ve taken up masturbation again…or maybe it’s the natural wanderings of rumination during quiet summer afternoons. They are having an ill-effect on me. 

Humps

I talked to a llama a month ago at the zoo. I remember how I expected this to heal me. The sporadic and carefree grown-up heartbroken girl takes herself to the zoo in the middle of a SF winter afternoon, and figures it all out. Because the sad little girl version of herself shared a moment with this animal. I am so tired of these fantasies. 

S.O.S.

Who is this girl seated here--waiting for an answer? If only to explain her.

Swimming within my head are thousands of toils and heartaches 
Coming ashore on a daily basis to torment and greet; 
They do the former with great insensitivity and
the latter with a mocking tone. 
I only wish to drown them, but they are such good swimmers.

I can see my need for perspective; 
that I'll always be coping with some problem or another. 
It feels though that now, it's all at once.

If only to have a mother,
a lover, 
a sister, 
a job, 
an education, 
a friend, 
a novel, 
a religion, 
and a self. To have myself would supersede the desire for any of the latter. 
But, that is the most difficult to attain.

Someone could approach me now with the will to repair my broken life
And I would deem it a miracle,
Because, you see, 
it's too much work for me.

My apathy arrived unexpectedly and without viable references. 
For this reason, I don't know whether or not to take it seriously. 
Ask not for weakness to accept you, but for you to accept it. 
After X amount of fighting, 
my fatigue reaches relentlessness, 
my apathy is astronomical
and only matched by my insatiable misanthropy.
They're all swimming within the current of bullshit in my river of self-induced suffering

and so I surrender to weakness. 
Let's see where I end up from here.

X

"Wonderments" Isn't a Word

Therapy has welcomed unannounced visitors:

-the realization that the complete version of myself is obsolete unless there is a man to complete it

-the necessity to stop approaching the death of my relationship as the death of the man with whom I was in the relationship

-it’s not him I miss, but being in a relationship with someone to whom I was so attracted

-The comfort in knowing that all of this is ok

The first one fucked with me most, as it means that I have become the woman I hate. So now, enter the forced self-accolades and lauding of my wonderments in order to gain perspective. Fuck that. It’s easier for a man to just tell me how pretty I am. 

It Doesn't Add Up

To feel with a heart: a desire; to think with the mind: a goal. Performing each action reflexively with the other creates confusion. The mind works much better pragmatically—so why do I muddle it in emotion? Not to mention the breathtaking role of the heart as ‘feeler’ which positions the individual as a disrespectful host. 

I am hosting these guests of heart and mind and by not allowing them to play their respective and designated roles, I am insulting my guests. I have created havoc within the home, dirtying the dishes on which are served the foods for thought.

Indeed, I have lost the ability to correctly assess and process—even recognize thoughts vs. feelings. I have surrendered to my guests of heart and mind, hoping they can just figure out how the rest of the party should go. Maybe they can find sense in the havoc. I scramble. Not seeing myself from the mirror, or maybe just concluding I am that reflection I see in the pupils of others’ eyes, I have arrived at a quasi-reality. What should be truth is muddled and stagnancy pervades every version of reality. The factors to achieving a unity in this mind-heart conundrum…well, it is, at the very least, an algebraic nightmare. 

Emotional Surgery

Djuna was intrepid in awareness, in painful exposures of the self, and dared more than most in the matter of emotional surgery, but she had a fear of violence.

-Anais Nin 

C'est facile, non? Not Really.

Much time has passed since my last entry. Probably because I spend most of it with a wonderful man who fulfills me. 

There are no complaints—except one, from him: my drinking. This has resurfaced into a potential detriment to a relationship. 

He told me to fix it or he would leave. It wasn’t as so much a threat as it was a testament to what he is able to tolerate.

I appreciate his honesty and wonder why I am so reluctant to undergo this change that I so badly want myself. 

Things That Happen in the Past Only Happen in Your Mind

Ziggy Stardust is playing at the Red Vic the day after tomorrow. 
I probably won’t go. 

The Divine Comedy of Mr. Alighieri waits patiently for my eyeballs on the nightstand. 
I know I won’t read it. 

Cognizance of my idleness will definitely be key to the melancholy of my later years. I can only say to start now. NOW. For a project. A reason. An amusement. I go search. Now. A reason to wake up tomorrow. 
I won't find one.

Things That Happen in the Past Only Happen in Your Mind

Ziggy Stardust is playing at the Red Vic the day after tomorrow. I probably won’t go. The Divine Comedy of Mr. Alighieri waits patiently for my eyeballs on the nightstand. I know I won’t read it. Cognizance of my idleness will definitely be key to the melancholy of my later years. I can only say to start now. NOW. For a project. A reason. An amusement. I go search. Now. A reason to wake up tomorrow. 

Radical Face

So, the long awaited rise of the phoenix, results in waiting for phone calls from men while practicing a false version of self-preservation. Where did she go? That broken-hearted girl equipped with the confidence to play the heart-breaker. To suck them in and discard them when she’s through. It’s humorous: to recover from a man who didn’t care enough by turning to the arms of a man who doesn’t care enough.

Waits by the phone. Checks it frantically. Sadly realizes that her enjoyment of life is directly linked to male attention. Not friends, education, travels or wit. Men. With this she realizes how she compromises self-respect…but will stop this destructive pattern tomorrow, because he might call today. Her concept of self-worth is made, molded and stripped by men. In a world of sadness, she turns to masturbation…if only to continue the fantasy. 

The Present is Your Present, Idiot

 “An intense, a vivid present was the best exorcist of the past”

-Anais Nin

So is my present tense, pregnant with intensity and vividness. I exorcised his demon and now live in a healthy world devoid of fantasies. The present is vivid, indeed. I was betrayed by a man who didn’t believe in me or our union. And now I encounter men who stumble or glide into my life…and actually recognize a future tense with me. However much I resist playing the role of the fatalist, I look to these men as symbols of progression, transition and enlightenment. Like the phoenix I so often laud and valorize, I rise. 

Baby New Year

New Year’s resolutions:

1-maintain unavailability to men
2-Not hook up with anyone younger than me
3-Not hook-up with anyone I met in a bar