Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Crazy Yet Dead Inside, Day 91

Why is it that my life is surrounded by craziness and yet I feel dead inside as though nothing is happening. I can understand why I feel like I'm not moving forward because I'm not! I wish I were, but I'm just in this standby mode or paralleled and isolated in a universe where everyone else is moving but me. I have to get out of this place! I don't just mean where I am in life but where I live!

I sent an email to a friend who moved away from here, updating him on the chaos of this life he left behind. It's crazy that he's gone. It's nuts what happens at this place. Yet I feel paralyzed in it. It used to be that craziness spiraled into insanity and chaos. I'd feel like I was going to fall off from a roller coaster I wasn't properly strapped in to. The abnormality of it all has turned into mundane. Lame! Something has to change.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Desire, Day 90

I wish things were different, but they aren't. If we're masters of our own fate, how much are we responsible for the outcome of things? And do we, as individuals, have the power to reverse what we caused? Or is some damage too severe to repair?

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Delicate Flower Fell Off the Stem, Days 88 and 89

When I was walking around earlier today, I came across a pretty flower that I decided to pick. It was pale pink with full petals curled back and it was freckled with magenta shades. As the tears rolled down my face and my skin was burning from the saltiness, the flower gave me something to focus on until the delicate flower fell off the stem. That simple action is symbolic to me of how life can be.

Before this experience, I was planning to title this blog, "I Feel So Alone" and elaborate on that. I could be surrounded by people, chatting breathlessly as I often do, but the emptiness never seems to fill. I met some people who have expressed that they're glad to have met me because they finally know people who understand what they go through and what they have to deal with. I'm glad I can offer them that, and it can't be a one-way street, right? But I don't feel as moved by it. They experienced this sense of relief, comfort, and community. I feel none of those things. Why is that?

I do feel alone, but I'm aware that it's just a feeling. In reality, I'm not alone. I'm not the only one going through this. A friend of mine complimented me on this blog and thanked me for it because it made him feel less alone. It's good to know that this blog has helped someone and touched someone's life that much. I just feel so alone, helpless, and filled with regret and sadness. I'm waiting for this to end, but I know it won't for a while. I'm waiting for someone to make me feel like I'm not all alone.

It's stupid to feel this way; I know that. To dwell on how alone I feel, as though my experiences are drastically different from others gives the insinuation that my feelings are so isolated and significant to others, and that's just untrue. I'm unique just like everyone else. Yet there's no comfort in trying to convince myself about philosophical ideologies. I've painfully discovered that emotions are too powerful and, at times, unreceptive to seemingly reassuring notions.
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Now that I'm not as emotionally-closed off as I used to be, I've experienced what it is about feelings I'm afraid of. I used to be closed-off because it seemed more convenient. Then I maintained that process because I didn't know the benefits of it. And it was partly also my addictive personality just systematically executing itself. When you're frightened to open up and you sense why, it makes it all the more harder until you no longer feel at risk. That's when everything I've been too afraid to face comes rushing in.

If I had written a blog last night it would've focused on my premonitions. They were powerful, emotionally-exhausting and frightening when I first got them. The intensity fluctuated from startlingly real, heartbreaking, and moving to about as interesting as typing. Eventually, they subsided for a while or I thought they did. It turns out that I have the ability to suppress my emotions, and I exploit that. Sometimes they would pour in, but I could ignore them.

Now they're all just rushing back in, mixing with the emotions I feel now, the emotions I felt then, the feelings that could've developed and exist now if things turned out differently. It's all very complicated, intense, confusing, powerful, exhausting, and mind-blowing. But what's most frightening about it all is that none of it may not even matter.

I hate this. The tears are burning my skin. I'm tired of drowning in my feelings. I'm tired of pretending that I'm not sad. I'm tired of the emptiness growing more and more vacant as time passes. I thought time is supposed to heal all wounds? No one ever told me that the pain and darkness would grow unbearable first.

There are just so many unanswered questions gnawing away at my soul. I have a friend who I want to seek advice from, but I'm not sure what it is I'm looking for. What do I say? I'm saddened by the loss. That sounds like I'm looking more for a therapist than anything, and therapy is not what he has to offer. I'm still new to this talking about your feelings crap.

A lot of people come to me for advice but generally it's about concrete life plans that I can create a formula over. I used to think it was so dumb when people would say they need advice when all they do is pour out their emotions. It seems more like they need to be heard more than to be told anything. I'm not sure if I'm ready to be open about this and especially with him, but I feel like he can offer me wisdom and insight as he often does.

Too bad we're not very close, and we don't talk at all now. He's a good friend, but sometimes I feel like he's not a good friend to me. Then again, I might be the bad friend. This is the time of year when he suffers over his own pain and past. As his friend, I don't want to add to his burden. Besides, I might've made it worse by expressing some concern I should've kept to myself. I probably came off more selfish than I did caring. He has to heal and deal with his own problems. He probably needs space more than anything. No matter how much we both have opened up to each other and how much we may actually care for one another, I feel like if neither of us make the time to put effort into maintaining our friendship and keep it as essentially a status, I have no place going to him for comfort.

I can type and type, filling up the pages of this blog. But that single moment when the delicate flower fell off the stem, that moment reveals both reality and what I've lost. Relationships are delicate, beautiful, and very, very fragile. All it takes is a single moment for everything you put your heart and soul into to fall apart.

There's beauty in sadness, though. When the flower fell off, all that's left was the stem and the base of the flower. I was looking at its bare skeletal structure and for an instant, I wasn't sad by what was gone, but I appreciated what was left. I may be sad that things fell apart and question how real anything was seeing how disposal the nature of relationships are. No matter how much I question what was once there and what's now gone, there's comfort in knowing that something was there, even if it wasn't what I thought it was.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Allergy Attack, Day 87

It wasn't long ago that the sky was a bleak gray. Something about the color and tone of that weather felt like death or the absence of life. But the silence becomes a memory as it rains so heavily that it feels like it'll beat a person down. As spring comes to bloom and the sun greets me, I'm expecting to embrace what I refer to as "skirt season." It's when I kick off my lifeless jeans and sweats. I turn to my flirty tops and tulip skirts.

The sky is a clear blue, the sun is shining bright, the air is crisp, and the weather is just warm but not too much. You'd think I'd enjoy it. But instead I sneeze throughout the night and the constant jerking motion wakes my body up. I don't even bother trying to go to sleep; it takes too much effort and with each sneeze, I grow more and more frustrated.

I wait until my body becomes too tired and inevitably gets to a stage where I'll collapse no matter where I am or what I'm doing. That usually rolls around at 5 or 6 am just as the darkness lifts and you know morning's approaching. What an inconvenient time to get sleepy. As my body gets heavy and my eyes continue drool white goop, my runny nose starts to dry uncomfortably, and my itchy sore throat is a sensation that dulls as the sleepiness becomes a more dominant feeling.

In a couple of hours when it's bright out and my sleep is disrupted by the footsteps of my roommates, my eyes are closed shut by the crust that formed along my eyelids. Sexy, right? How do you think I feel? It's been this way for almost two weeks now. I'm disoriented. I feel sluggish. I feel ripped off that I can't enjoy the weather with everyone else.

Since allergy attacks have kicked in this month, I know it'll be brutal as the season progresses. My eyes are already dark red. I'm going to try and fake it by wearing cute outfits. I'm going to my friend's birthday dinner tonight. Wish me anti-allergy thoughts!

Writing is a Fantasy World, Day 86

I'm a communicator. To get to know me, you have to read what I write and listen to what I have to say. Even then, you won't know me any better than I know myself. There's so much to discover, too much to explore, and not enough time in the world. There's a dark side of me that I try and conceal to the outside world.

Sometimes I'm not sure if it's deliberate or if most people are blinded by it because those who are as corrupt as me recognize how I am. Few people can see, sense, or even guess the pain I carry with me. It's too much to bare at times, and that's why I've learned to become detached. It's unhealthy, but it allows me to tolerate and endure circumstances that are otherwise too much.

When a person learns to disconnect themselves from an emotional power source, they usually develop an addictive personality (some way to replace or distract their thoughts from what they're trying to focus away from) and some other outlet. Mine is writing. I used to write thoughts I couldn't vocalize when I didn't have an audience or I went ignored. As frustrating and as hurtful as it was when I was ignored, I'd treat myself with the same form of punishment when I couldn't deal. I'd channel writing as a way to ignore myself. I'd write about anything to keep me busy. Now I'm much older and I realize the value in accepting my feelings and the dangers of rejecting them. So I use writing as a way to carefully reconnect with things I shouldn't have gone without.

This blog was born through my pain. When I could no longer deny them, I turn to the only constant in my life, writing. For the first time I used writing to demonstrate my strengths and my weaknesses. I focus so much on my life and my experiences lately, carrying the perspective of the writer, that I began to forget why readers enjoy reading so much. Writing is also a fantasy world.

I rarely get writer's block. But my mind is cluttered with an excess of thought. Sometimes selecting the right material is the most difficult for me. I find myself writing things that I feel are inadequate. And since I've been writing about my life, I relate that inadequacy to the quality of my life. That's dangerously unhealthy.

Writing is a way for me to reach the truth. It's my way of exploring the depths of my soul. That's a journey that'll never end and one I'll never stop pursuing. But every now and again, a girl needs a break. That's when I have to remind myself that writing is a fantasy world. I don't have to be stuck within the confines of tangible ideas. I can break beyond that.

I have to remember why I wanted to become a writer. Writing is a way to express myself the way I do when I talk, but I have an opportunity to think about the message I deliver, to reflect upon it carefully. It's also a much more powerful way to vocalize your concerns. There's something about writing that allows us to capture an audience's attention in a full-hearted way that speeches sometimes fall short of. Writing is a fantasy world.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

To Be Emotional is to be Human, Days 83, 84, and 85

A couple days ago I was thinking about how I'd like to begin my blog entry and this sentence came to mind. "I'm trying to really hard to be okay with this because what else can I really do?" With an introduction like that the entry has to carry a powerful and moving tone, but that's as far as I could delve into. When I'm not self-conscious, overly critical, or feeling guilty about appreciating my skills, I can embrace my writing talent. A lot of people have complimented me on my writing ability, but recently I've discovered that in order to truly evolve as a writer, I have to be more human; I have to feel. That's something I rarely practice. That sounds unnatural, I know. And I'm working on it. But obviously there's some kinks to work out because I don't know how to feel without my reflex neutralizing it.

My feelings are trapped within the confines of what I disturbingly and wrongly believe as a "safe place to be". As the feelings decay and the toxic "sanctuary" pollutes my soul, my mind escapes me. My feelings become lost within me. Days pass me and although I never quite deal with them, I carry the burden of those pains with me. Will they eventually decompose and be turned into compost, so to speak, that my body can use to flourish or will it just eat away at my flesh?

"Each day I try to discover who I am and as time passes, I feel like I lose a little bit of myself." I once wrote that in my facebook profile to describe me. I don't always feel that way, but what's scary is that I have felt that way and I will feel that way again. I don't want to become just another forgotten face, a glimpse in the shadow. I want the people who meet me to remember me, to feel like the experience of having met me has some significance. I want to have a powerful experience to those who enter my life, and yet I'm afraid to embrace the very elements that'll allow that, to feel, to be emotional, to be human...

Monday, March 22, 2010

Facing Reality, Days 79, 80, 81, and 82

A lot has happened in the past few days. Perhaps not in the social activity department and they aren't exactly recordable moments. But the environment I've been exposed to and the proper mindset I've been in to be receptive to things has allowed me to experience and understand things at a deeper level. It's been a while since I've felt this way.

I made a new friend, and he seems genuinely interested in my opinions and viewpoints. I told him about this blog, and he's really interested in reading it. It makes me wish that this entry will be meaningful, powerful, and well-written. But I feel enslaved to fulfill my systematic desires and project that into my writing. I jotted down some notes about what I'd like to write about:

FACING REALITY
Paradox of Choice
Not Looking Forward to It
My OCD Relapse
Baring Your Soul
Where's My Community?
A Friend Interested in this Blog
The Need to Witness Growth

Something's happened in my life that I'm not ready to fully accept. I'm hurt and I feel betrayed by it when I'm not emotionally-dead inside. I'm saddened by how things turned out, but how I'm reacting or responding to it is what's so unsettling. I thought it'd be more difficult for me to deal with this. In some ways it's more painful, the idea that I'm able to resume my life so flowingly without choppy breakdowns. Is it that recoverable? How little must have it meant to me for me to be able to continue on this way? So managing this in such a collective way is tormenting. I thought I'd be paralyzed by the emotion intensity. I thought I'd cry myself to dehydration. But, in fact, I'm leading a mundane life. That's a little odd.

I've had the worst OCD relapse in two years! Experts say that people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder engage in repetitive tasks as a way to avoid or soothe themselves from emotions that are otherwise burdensome. I used to do repetitive tasks all the time. I lived and breathed that crap. It was a part of me. I would be talking and in the background, I'm making a list in my head. I'm listening to someone talk and I "see" a list I'm creating in my mind. Every step I took represented a symbol of a list I was reciting in my head. Cast ir-on, as I take three steps.

I never realized how disruptive and time-consuming it was. I had to work twice as hard to concentrate on whatever task I was occupied by and it took so much out of me to focus, but I developed the discipline necessary to endure such circumstances. I didn't choose to give up the very source of what was taxing for me. In a twisted way, it helped me cope with matters. It was an effective preventive measure for feeling and becoming burdened by the strains of human emotions and stressful times to come. What I didn't know was that once those feelings come rushing in, I'd feel suffocated by the very emotions I've spent my entire life avoiding. It would drown me, and I'd be helpless. No wonder why I was so dependent on my compulsive habits.

The fact that it seems "easy" for me isn't a sign that I'm handling it; it's quite the opposite. I should be a wreck, but I'm not allowing myself to. All of a sudden, my OCD just surfaced again and at an alarming rate. I don't exactly know when it started. I know what triggered it, but it feels like I'm on repeat mode that I don't have a clear idea of how long it's lasted, when it began, and if it ever turns off. I find myself reciting lists every hour! I feel the need to count and acknowledge each block I pass. But it isn't the frequency which is disconcerting in it of itself that's most alarming; I find myself waking up to list making! Sleep is when your subconscious deals with emotions we aren't ready or able to face in our waking state. And during those crucial times I'm engaged in repetitive tasks that suppress emotional processes! Is it so bad that I won't even allow myself the chance to deal with this?

Even my day to day activities and how I go about them has becoming increasingly compulsive and repetitive. I went to Michael's and made unplanned purchases. I bought nine things for 50 cents a pop, so it was a welcome splurge. But I didn't buy everything at once. I systematically viewed everything, extremely thoroughly. I selected only a few things to buy and then returned to complete the remaining purchases. I went back three times in a single day! And everything was 50 cents each! What, did I have shopping anxiety or something? Did I need to undergo an evaluation of careful shopping purchases? I doubt it. I just hungered for repetition, just as I do now.

I bought a recipe box that I'm going to fill with delicious recipes, and then I'm going to give it to my sister. With it, I'm going to provide her with a fat, short cute pen. I even bought myself one, too. I figure I'd give my sister a "Package Gift", so I also included a notepad that has yellow flowers on it. They're bright and sunny like her. There's a magnet attached to the back, so it'd be a cute way for her to communicate with her roommates. (Corkscrew bulletin boards are so male)!

I also got a collection of Thank You cards, and I've already used one to thank my parents for a generous birthday present. There's also a magnet that says BEAUTY on it, very decorative and pretty. I have it hanging on my kitchen above one of my favorite pictures. HOPE and BELIEVE, two things I really need in my life right now. I got those inspirational words on a magnet in pink and purple. Lastly, I bought a Michaels reusable bag in black. I've been meaning to buy myself one for quite some time now. I like the idea of being environmentally conscious, but I haven't made the investment. I have a couple bags already, but I'm not sure where they are. This one is black, so it goes with everything. But I have to exchange it because it's already starting to tear. -____- How unfortunate.

I may not be ready to be emotionally real with myself, but there's something about being so helpless that drives me to re-channel my energy elsewhere and my ability to help others spike up. It must be my way of helping myself. I'm not ready to help myself, but I have this desperation to solve something, to make something better. I won't do it for myself, so I substitute someone else for the job.

This time it's a friend who's the male version of me. He's extremely analytical, a high functioning intelligent to a fault. He has this facade of mellowness that I can see right through, but it's still an illusion that many people are deceived by. Underneath it all, the outwardly logical, critically driven, calculating, overly detailed way of our processing, thinking, and proceeding which has penetrated to the core of who we are, we’re psychologically corrupted and emotionally distorted in a way that most people can’t even possibly imagine. We’ve learned to develop this method of concealing it from both others and ourselves, diverting attention elsewhere and allowing ourselves to redirect our energies into something else. For me it’s my OCD. For him, it’s portraying an oppositional force of easy-goingness.

When I first met him at work, we both executed our one-dimensional work personality. Neither of us had no idea how similar we are to each other. I hadn't seen him in years when I learned that he moved into my apartment complex. I was glad, relieved, and disappointed all at the same time to see him here because I understood what it meant to be here, how bad things have to be for a person to resort to this place. But in a twisted way, I felt better because I didn't feel so alone.

This is a place people go to when there's nowhere else to go. No one really wants to be here, but we don't have much of a choice. We're all stuck here for different reasons. My roommates, as unsatisfied as they are to be here, still choose to be here because this is the better choice for them. While the opportunities presented to them aren't very favorable, they have choices. We don't. This is all there is for us unless we count the streets. And that's a place neither of us are going back to.

We're the same age. We worked at the same place. We have similar work experience. We had a twisted childhood that still haunts us and affects us to this day. We've developed the ability to cope with difficulty in an effective but unhealthy way. We had a somewhat similar upbringing, the prominence and family dynamics anyways and the experience of it all being stripped away from us. We got through it and became adults. Fast forward to here and the now. We got laid-off, we lost our apartment, and somewhere along the way we lost our livelihood and our coping skills became compromised when it became polluted with human emotions we've turned ourselves off to for so long.

I can't relate to others who live here in the same way. They don't understand especially my roommates, as great as they are, they just don't get it. For most of them, this is their first experience with independence. They're exploring it here, so as much as they dislike this place, it's a great stepping stone for them because no matter where they go, they'll be moving up. He and I got thrown on our ass. We're used to having our own place, our privacy. Now we share everything and with everyone.

It wasn't so much misery loves company. It's far more complex than that. There's something comforting knowing that someone is going through what you're going through, to know that you aren't alone. Maybe that is misery loves company. Whatever it was, the dynamics of it changed for me recently when life challenged him with the paradox of choice. He had an opportunity stay where he is now or start fresh with advantages and securities he wouldn't be offered elsewhere.

As sad as it would be to see him leave, as his friend I want to see him succeed. As a desperate person, I need to have hope that it is possible to not just escape this place but to leave it, to be removed of the toxic crutches this place contaminates a person's soul with. But, alas, he chose to stay here, which doesn't necessarily mean he's staying behind if he doesn't self-sabotage himself. And I have faith in me.

His perspective seems clearer than it has been in a long time. I'm receptive to his energy because it's so much like mine. I understand it in some ways as though it were my own. Feeling such a refreshed and revised outlook had an affect on me, too. I created this blog focusing on the Earth-Air-Fire-Water philosophy because these are elements that exist in all of us. It's a universal understanding and struggle. Most of us experience imbalance within these elements. It's my hope to work towards creating harmony among them.

For most of my life until very recently, I domineered a firey essence. Fire is associated with anger and power. As emotionally-detached as I am, anger is the emotion I'm most intimate with, probably because it's the "safest" (least vulnerable) of them all. Power further shields me from emotional vulnerability. But fire can also symbolize passion and strength, which I possess an adequate amount of.

Water is flowing, sometimes calm and peaceful but just as such, unpredictably wild and uncontrollable. The unpredictability and fluidity of water movements represent human emotions. It's usually referring to dramatic feelings, but the water element reflected the strength of my passion and what it can drive me to. Nowadays, though, the water element reflects my emotional variabilities.

I barely grazed the air element, the floaty essence that allow people to be still themselves until outside forces move them from place to place, just drifting along with the wind. The earth element has a grounding and much more stabilizing presence, something I've possessed little to none of until recently. I'm weighed down by the earth element. I feel stuck, trapped where I am, and it's left me stagnant. When you become a victim of the earth element, you inevitably become a hostage of air. When the air moves, you move with it because there isn't something forcefully powerful and oppositional like water challenging it. There's no fire suffocating the oxygen, leaving no air behind.

There's something I haven't looked forward to in a while. When I'm not interested in something, I'm not known to yield to the desires of others unless there's a mutual interest involved. There's none here, and yet I voicelessly agreed. Maybe it's because I've become so firm in the earth element and so floaty from the air element. But talking to my friend about this gave me clarity. If I don't want to do something, I shouldn't do it. He usually advises others to proceed if they're indifferent because the fluctuations are so slight between interest and disinterest. But when it comes to people like us, he said that the variations are too extreme to balance out. It's so true. He said if I participate in something my heart's not into, I'll ruin the experience for others, too, and not necessarily because others do anything wrong, but because the presence of my energy will poison everyone else's. I'll just fuck it up somehow, and it's true. This is all assuming that all goes well on everyone else's end, which is questionable, as well. Maybe the reason why I don't want to go is because my intuition trying to communicate with me, but I've been deliberately emotionally detached that the message is being received too weakly to make sense of it. I have to release myself from the heavy air and earth elements.

Then again, maybe that's why I fell upon the musical "society" that's been here all along. Music isn't a part of my world. It's something I understand little of and have almost no connection to. I admire people with musical talents and I envy them for the depths they can reach. I feel isolated and alone when I see them bond. All I see is the paralleled realities we live in, mine where music has no meaning because of my ability to grasp it and theirs where music nourishes their soul.

I don't harbor any resentment towards them, but I'm confused by their humbleness. Who has the real talent and who doesn't? I don't really know. They all amaze me. One guy has a band and a record label, without a doubt talented. Another guy developed his vocal skills in a year, which means that he was a musical talent all along because of how naturally it came to him. This other guy has an incredible story to tell. He was playing a guitar at a music store when a random customer was so impressed by his skills that this stranger bought him a $100 guitar! How insane is that? Can you imagine being so incredible at something that you can move a stranger to such generosity? His brother has musical talent, too. I guess it runs in the family? There's this other guy who describes himself as he "dabbles." But the same guy who developed his singing abilities in a year said that this guy has a really good ear for music and picks up on it quickly. The one with the record label was the first one to recognize how swiftly his fingers move along the strings. He's certainly qualified to make such an assessment. How is that these random strangers came together and found each other so that they can bond over a common interest? And they're all so adept at it.

I'm happy that they formed a community, but it makes me feel even more alone. Where's my community of writers? Where are they? Where do they live? Does a community of writers even exist? Is the fact that I'm asking some sign that I'm not a true writer? Because writers are introverted by nature, they seclude themselves from community-based lifestyles that I'm desperately seeking. Or does a community of writers exist and have I just not found it because I don't belong with the writers? Why not? Am I not good enough?

Am I not good enough? That's not the right question. It seems that virtually anyone is good enough to be a writer. You just need adversity and life experiences that people can relate to. As one of the guys put it, "Going on stage and performing your music is frightening because you're baring your soul." That was really a powerful message. It really spoke to me. I've always been afraid of baring my soul to anyone. As if that doesn't hinder my writing.

Poor writers are rising everyday. So, I'm certainly "good enough." But the real question is do I deserve it? And how exactly does one measure that anyways? Is it a relative scale? If so, how significant is a relative scale? Sometimes I'm proud to call myself a writer. Other times I feel that I can only call myself a writer because so many people are so bad at it that by default, it raises my status. I have to believe that I'm better than that. I identify myself as a writer. Take that away from me, and what do I have left?

Answer: A desire for growth. That's what I'm left with. Whenever I feel undeserving or inadequate, I'm left with this desire for growth. I have this desperation for change. But a lot of times I'm not ready or I don't know how to make that happen. That's when I re-channel my energy into something else.

Since I've been feeling so stagnant, I've been desiring change and growth in me. I think that's why I bought myself a strawberry plant at the farmer's market. There's something that quietly stirs within me when I leave the market with a living, breathing plant. I'm overcome with this calm pleasure as I enter the farmer's market, walking by tent after tent offering fresh seasonal produce, waiting to be re-invented in the kitchen or just enjoyed as is. I leave as the market closes or when I'm finished with my purchases. I'm satisfied with the experience and ready to go home, but the excitement that I was bursting with in the beginning fades except when I bring home a plant. That's when I feel like I'm cheating and I bring back a part of the farmer's market home. I believe that the strawberry plant symbolizes my desire not just for growth but for transformation. It's as though I'm manifesting it through a separate entity. I feel connected to it in some way.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Once Again Spiraling in His Chaos, Days 75, 76, and 78

It’s a really bad lie spiraling out of control taking me hostage and karmically punishing me for involving myself in such deceit. What was I thinking? I’m not fit to rival the asshole that is my landlord or at least not in any formidable way. I’ve proven myself sufficiently as an incompetent participant in a chessboard that he staged and twisted with built-in schemes, hidden from the naked eyes of others, that he’s developed over the years. My intelligence doesn’t come with a revealing feature of all things scumbag. I knew that! So again I redundantly ask, what the Hell was I thinking???!!!!???

Why did I want to give him the power and pleasure, even if it is under false pretenses, that he achieved exactly what he wanted? What purpose does that serve really? Was I just going to quietly smirk because I knew the truth? No! So why even let him think that he’s winning when he isn’t? I'm an amateur at scheming. No, not just an amateur, but I'm an idiot at it, as I should be! The cowardly tactic I used of avoiding him at all costs including but not limited to jumping over balconies and hopping fences when I hear his voice may be a depressingly spineless approach, although it did keep me out of the trouble I just got myself into.

The more you talk to him, the more information you provide for him to use as leverage, blackmail, and some form or another as a way to demonstrate his power over us, rendering us helpless. He disapproved of my couch taking up the other side of the living room for exaggerated reasons and claims that I believe to be are fictitious. My roommates don't want it there, and, more importantly, I'm not paying for the entire living room. Therefore, I'm not entitled to that space. But he allows me to move my couch into my boyfriend's living room which is in the same complex, situated right next to his roommate who's only paying for half of the living room space just as I am. So why is it okay to be in another person's living room when he and I are in the same situation?

All I can think is that by seeing us do what he asks of us, it gives him an exhilaration of power that he hungers for. I can't afford for my rent to get higher, so although his demand is illogical, redundant, and outrageous, I have no choice left but to permit such an inconvenience. By making the mistake of talking to him, I singlehandedly dismantled this arrangement. What the Hell was I thinking?

I've contemplated and openly expressed my desire to sue him because of his illegal operation. The landlord has become more careful in his approach and how he manages this complex or at least under my vision. It's a well-known fact that we both hate each other. So it's really no surprise that the bastard tried spreading a rumor about me by saying that I had a new boyfriend aka cheating on my current one. And, yes, this is a true story. No, I'm not being paranoid, even though I am. This one is true.

The two of us haven't moved out together as planned or as quickly as estimated. So I decided to tell the landlord that he'll be stuck with us for a while because my boyfriend and I broke up after a rumor destroyed our relationship. Maybe I was thinking that he'll think twice before spreading words that can't be taken back, as though he hadn't already considered this and made a calculated decision. That asshole had a sneaky smile that he couldn't conceal, although he tried to. What possible benefit did I think would come from telling him, to make him believe that?

This is a benefit for him. He has tenants who will be extending his stay and an opportunity to unleash the restraints he put on himself to make our dismissal more cordial. Now, he's claiming that my couch being downstairs is no longer acceptable because he and I have broken up. Why did I create my own weakness that he can prey on? What, I wanted to offer him a convenient opening? Of course, that power hungry monger would say such a thing!

None of us mind the couch being where it is. He claims that it's no longer appropriate or acceptable because of our break-up. My couch being in another unit is between those tenants and I. It has nothing to do with him! He kept re-inserting himself, assuring me with that vacant, menacing smile that it is indirectly his problem on the offchance that it gets destroyed. What a moron! As if damage done to my couch is magically gone when the relationship was intact. I'm aware of the risk my couch is in, and I accept them.

He persists on telling me that I must not know because I allow my couch to be there by narrating stories of how someone may accidentally spill something and then what happens? If that happens, it's still none of his concern. I won't complain to him, which I addressed. The culprit certainly won't bring it up. Then the landlord asks what if no one admits it's their fault? What the fuck did I just say? That's exactly what I stated, which is why it won't be his concern. Not to mention that I specifically indicated that I won't go complaining to him about it. Of course, that statement went ignored. Or else he would be unsuccessful at arguing his point.

He, then, transitions onto a meeting that occurred and how no one is okay with the couch there, as though the status of my relationship now changes the seriousnss of the complaints. If the complaints existed beforehand, why is it now worth addressing but it wasn't initially? The inconvenience of others is now tolerable? How unfair is that? And this is all assuming that these "complaints" are true, which is questionable in it of itself.

As I became increasingly skeptical and apparently uncooperative, he tries to reason with me about how it's my couch and how it shouldn't be there in the first place. Well duh! I reminded him of how I wanted to keep my couch upstairs and how he forbade me to do so, which is why it's down there in the first place. It's not like I enjoy my couch being somewhere else when it can be where I live! He seemed enthusiastically relieved by the direction I was going as though he managed to successfully steer me to his will and delightfully agreed. Now he's claiming that he's willing to work with me, so the couch can be reunited with me. Where the Hell was with helpfulness months ago when I had to yet again inconvenience my friends to shuffle my couch from point A to B to A and now to possibly B again?

The power hungry jackass is just excited that he's been presented with an opportunity to pre-determine our actions according to his demands. I had to surrender when he threatened to increase my rent, something I'm unable to avoid or fulfill. However, he also manipulates and borderlines stalks tenants to annoyance to the point that people become desperate for his absence by showing our faces in hopes that we can successfully make him leave, a task no one has been success with. And now I'm spiraling in the chaos again.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Dash, Day 74

My life has all of the characteristics that earn a person a title, "My life sucks!" I'm unemployed. I rent a part of the living room. I take whatever desperate job is offered to me. I eat whatever the food banks provide for me. I'm unable to go to school because I can't afford it, and my schedule has to be completely open on the off chance that a job will be offered to me. If I'm lucky, I get two or three temp jobs in a single month, allowing me to pay rent. 3 days of work = one month of rent. I feel detached from life and from myself.

That intuition that developed rapidly within me has vanished or gone into hiding. I no longer hear that inner voice that used to speak to me. I'm unable to trust myself. The premonitions that used to stalk me have long forgotten about me. It's a relief to not be burdened or attacked with feelings and visions I didn't ask for or am ever prepared for, but the absence of them in my life is a reflection of how emotionally dead I am inside. Such irony that assessment is considering how emotional I've been lately.

I'm in a relationship. That's something that's not perceived as a downfall or is it? It's hard to say. For one thing, I've never really seen being single as a drawback. So I don't really consider being in a relationship as a plus. And the past couple of days have seriously left me wondering if it's a positive in my life. All I really know is that I'm in a relationship and I've never been in love.

Am I looking for love? I'm not looking for it. But I'm saddened by the idea that I've never experienced it because it makes me wonder what's wrong with me. Am I so emotionally inept or deficient that I can't experience it? Sometimes I worry. Let me make it clear that I'm not expecting my boyfriend to provide me with this. But when a girl goes without ever being in love, she starts to worry if it even exists and, more importantly, for her.

I've dealt with so much crap in my life. I may be small. I may not be the physically strongest person. I may squeal at the sight of a gnarly insect. I may get shaky if I skip a meal. But I'm by no means a weak person. I've gone through a lot. It's made me a strong person. I've been pushed, and I've fallen, fallen hard. But I've always gotten back up and I always will. My strength has been tested, and it has always persevered.

I've had a lifetime of experiences, and I barely experience what I consider to be happiness. Happiness isn't just pleasure and joy but feelings experienced with the absence of fear, insecurities, doubts, worry, and/or sadness. If I can't even feel that, love seems like it's a galaxy away.

Being unemployed is a drag, but I know I'll find work again. Just because it feels hopeless doesn't mean that my realistic nature has been demolished. Love, on the other hand, is something I only know exists through the experience and stories of others. It's something my insecurity can feed off of. It's a foreign concept, something I know nothing about.
When people ask me what do you think about love, what does love mean to you, do you think true love exists, etc.? I don't really know what to tell them. It's one of the few things that manage to silence me and really leave me baffled. That's why I wanted nothing more than to attend my friend's wedding. Every year I create a New Year's Resolution, which is more of a to-do list and attending his wedding was on the top of the list. I'm still devastated that I couldn't make it.
I can't really define or explain what love is. I don't think anyone really can, but I have a particularly hard time with it and that's impressive considering how articulate, opinionated, and knowledgeable I am. It's something you have to feel, to experience, to know, and even then, there's a mystery to it that'll never be solved. That's the beauty in it. I don't want the magic torn away from me, but I want to touch it, to feel a whisper of it, to feel its presence, to be changed by it. I have none of those things. The closest I've ever come was seeing my friend with his significant other.
When people ask me what is love to you, the two of them come to mind. I don't fully understand it. But intuitively I must recognize it because they're the image that pops up in my mind. I'm slowly discovering that my heart understands things long before my mind does, if my mind ever does with some things. This isn't something I can't understand or experience through other couples, but it's a start. I don't want it to be my only exposure, but I certainly don't want to turn away from it, either.
It does make me wonder when I find myself "intellectualizing" love, a crime in it of itself, why them? What is it about that couple that draws me to them? All of the clique answers apply. They're a perfect couple, two peas in a pod. They go so well together. Blah blah blah. But how many couples fit that profile and fail miserably? I've seen other couples fit the same profile, manage to stay together, and be very happy with one another, and yet I was never impressed by them; I was never moved by them. Just those two.
So what gives? I can ask and ask and ask until the end of time. I'm confident I'll never find the answer. When I'm alone with my thoughts, I have a hunger to seek these answers. But what I really want is to witness that connection. That's why I wanted to go to that wedding. Who knows if I'll ever meet another couple that makes me feel that way?
Does it matter that my friend and I used to go out a lifetime ago? We're really good friends, and I'm not saying we didn't care about each other in that way. But it was never meant to last. We both knew it. I wouldn't go as far as say that the relationship should've never happened, but I do feel like we could've not gone out and it wouldn't have made much of an impact on his end.
I know what you're thinking, and no I'm not pining over my ex. In fact, I told him that it was inevitable that our relationship wouldn't last but it wasn't until I saw the two of them together that I was ecstatic that we broke up so that he could be with someone like her. I've never felt that way about anyone. I meant every word of it.
There's one conversation I had with him that still resonates in me. We had a really good talk and he was saying how much he cared about me, that he wished the best for me, so much so that he'd be willing to die for me if it came down to his life or mine. That's incredibly sweet and touching, right? I think most girls would be moved to tears, but me being me practically ripped his balls off from over the phone!
I recited the summarized gratitude speech as though it was merely a requirement I said just to say it, so I can move onto telling him what an idiot he is and how he can no longer follow the philosophy of a single man now! Because I know him, he meant it. But he has someone in his life now and not in a casual way, either. So you can't be willing to make sacrifices like that. You have to think of others and prioritize in order of importance. I'm below her.
Then we entered a religious territory but still within the topic. He's Christian, so he believes in life after death for himself but not for me. So he'd be willing to die because he believes that he'll be reunited with the one he loves either way; he'll still have a life with her. But me, when I die, that's the end. That's it. No life thereafter, no due over, just vanished, existing only in the memories of the ones who love me. So he's willing to give me a fuller life that he feels I won't receive after death.
Furthermore, he believes she'll understand. He's right. She would understand. How crazy is that? Can you imagine being left alive with the guilt that your friend died leaving his wife widowed and she'll be understanding? Now that's love. That's powerful.
If one of them faces an early death, the other wouldn't remarry. I honestly believe that. They would continue life looking forward to the next chapter after death. I don't think anyone would ever do that for me. There are some types of women men would wait for. She's one of them. I'm just not.
Okay, so confidence isn't one of my strong suits, but that's not where this is coming from. This is like some women are housewifes and some women are businesswomen. Neither one is superior or inferior to the other. It's a lifestyle; it's a status. That's how it is with me. I don't think anyone will wait for me. If I meet my fate at an early age and I'm married, I believe that he'll remarry. And I think I'd want him to. I don't like the idea of him going through the rest of his life single, alone, and lonely. But it saddens me that I don't think anyone will make that kind of sacrifice and commitment for me. Couples like that are so rare that I'll never be okay with missing their wedding. There will never be another Dash.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Catching Up, Day 73

It's become rather stale for me to explain my absence with a lack of passion and interest. I can only use being unemployed as a card for so long, if ever. I wish there's something more I can deliver. The truth is that there is, but I'm not ready to share it. I may never be. There's something empowering about writing. You give a part of yourself to anyone reading what you write. You can never take back what's left on paper, exposed for others to see, and unlike spoken words, there's a paper trail to reference. Sure, there's a delete bottom. You can remove what was once there, but that act of putting something out there can never truly be erased just because the evidence disappears. I'm not ready.

A Meaningful Note, Day 72

So I've been cheating lately. I haven't been blogging everyday and not because I've been super busy. Sometimes it slipped my mind. But being a writer being busy is never a valid excuse. The truth is that I really haven't been inspired to write. It's a perpetuating cycle. I write to inspire me, and I'm inspired by writing. When writing doesn't offer me something exhilarating or an experience, I ignore my craft. But the only way to be invigorated by writing is to engage in it. So I have to start somewhere. I suppose if I lose my passion, I have to find it wherever I can. I can't wait around until it returns when it's ready. A friend of mine wrote a note on facebook that inspired me. I copied it below.

This was originally a response I was writing to my friend, Frank, about a note he tagged me into. It really inspired me and I realized that as I kept typing and typing that this is more than a response, it evolved into its own Note. Having spent years developing this detached persona, I became emotionally dead. I worked diligently to manifest that synthetic version of me. As detrimental as it was for my emotional health, it was one of the best things I could've done for myself. I'm not going to claim that it was the only choice, which I believed at one point because that's crap. I chose that course of action, and actions have consequences.

Since then my life has changed drastically. I no longer needed to be detached as a way to strengthen my survival or even manifest synthetic willpower, so to speak. But after spending years refining such a detachment, I didn't know how to reverse it. It was no longer "colored tape" I put over something, so I could ignore it. I created a brick wall to conceal what was difficult for me. And the worst part is that I didn't even notice what my subconscious has been building for years because I was too busy looking away.

So the universe brought someone into my life with a sledgehammer. It's painful to experience any form of feeling after so long of going without them. It's a shock to your system. I understand why he was brought into my life. I'll forever be indebted to him, but he also has the burden of knowing that I resent him for it.

The one thing that I think is worse than a lack of direction is the absence of feelings, experiencing emotions, good or bad. When we're hurting we want nothing more than to not feel. But when it's gone, you don't even realize it's not there anymore. As excruciatingly painful as it is to hurt, feelings make us human. Without them we can't have a sense of direction. We're not capable of it. We'd merely exist mundanely. It's that my friend asked is worth it for anyone.

While he rarely expresses his own emotions in his writing, it's something I've committed to doing in a blog, a 365-a-Day Project. I want to feel human. I want to have meaningful experiences that touch me. For writers there's something about pain that makes us grow as writers. Sometimes I wonder if I exploit pain as a way to develop my writing.

When things are going well, it's hard for me to write with passion, insight, and depth. I try to enjoy good moments in my life. But I realized that living here has given me an opportunity to look within myself and so has my friend. In a long time I think I found something worth writing about.

NOTE TO FRANK

Thanks for tagging me into this note. Living here does force us to look within ourselves. And as insensitive as it seems, I'm more saddened by a lack of direction and merely existing because we have a pulse and breath than an early death, too. It's tragic, but some people are fated a shorter lifespan and never had the chance to live and aren't given opportunities many of us are offered everyday. While what we're offered isn't nearly as fruitful for many of us as we'd like it to be, I don't think it's about the limitation life imposes on us. It's about what we make out of what we have.

Some people do find it offensive and dishearten us for how we feel, that the death of a six year old is less tragic to us than a bunch of teenagers deliberately leading lifestyles that'll offer them an early death. We're not talking about curiosity leading down a dark path, which I believe all of us have become victim to at one point in our lives. We're talking about kids who say they have to drink and get high and not with something mild like weed but meth, coc, or heroine on a daily basis to function and proceed to live as they get hospitalized for seizures and comatose states. I do agree that what we see in this apartment is far more tragic. If anything, early deaths and denied opportunity of experiences should be savored because others aren't so lucky.

You made me realize something, Frank. For so long -- Damn of all the times to not just experience writer's block but completely lose my train of thought! Fuck you, Sam! I can't remember what you made me to realize that I can express through the sentence, "For so long..." But I do remember what you made me realize. I may not be one of those kids completely co-dependent on drugs to keep me from suicide because I have no direction, but I do feel like I can't see my direction, even though it's there.

I want to become a writer. Pursuing a writing career is difficult because it requires so much willpower, sense of direction, inner strength, tireless persistence, diligent effort, ability to distinguish between positive and negative criticism, and stay optimistic and self-encouraged through an inevitable paper trial of rejections. If I'm to ever make it, I can't afford to lose my sense of direction. Writing is so abstract and intangible, too. Our ability to write is directly linked by our ability to experience things, be receptive to them, and find insight even in the most mundane experiences.

It's tough because writing requires us to be all of those things and then some. Part of becoming a writer is to become rejected in a competitive field where it's likely that in most circumstances our writing samples won't even be examined because of the overwhelming applications. And for me I want to make it as a writer. I don't want to settle. I'd rather die trying and failing. So perspective and willpower is so crucial for me.

Jason once mentioned that this place is like a community of and for people who don't want to be here. It's offered and we take it because we need it, but no one really wants to be here. We're here because we have to be. And I believe that's why so many of us want to escape it! I know his description sounds like a shelter and while it may be described as though it functions like one, it's far from it. Shelters are structured with the intention to convert their residents to mainstream into society as productive members, while this place has a landlord that manipulates and strategizes his tenants to keep us here longer as a way for him to profit.

He attempts to bond with us, so he can gain resources he later uses to exploit us. That bastard knows our vulnerability and weaknesses. And if he doesn't, like a bloodhound he tries to find it. Once he does, he bleeds us so we're helpless. Even the wounds that begin to close, he tries to re-open them by poking at it because he knows that once we're capable without him, we're gone! So he cripples us!

As dramatic as I sound, it doesn't make it any less true. He's not on our side. He's out for blood. Only we can defend ourselves. Even the friends I've made here can only be a friend to me about as much as I can be for them in an environment like this. We're too busy having to save our own asses that we don't offer each other the kind of friendship we all deserve and want to provide. So all we're left with is our willpower. Take that away and what do we have left?

For such a long response, I know I haven't provided you with the answer you're looking for. The truth is that I don't have one. You already have your answer. You believe that living without a reason to live isn't living. I agree. But that's why you wonder why people do it. Now that's an answer I don't have for you and one that I'm hungering an answer for, as well. I once responded to a poem my friend, Torres, wrote about the kind of world we live in. That response feels appropriate here - "It's funny how when someone conveys what we already know and feel, we're at ease even when the message is of no comfort but a reality." You've asked a really good question. "Are you really so dependent on something other than your own will? Whatever happened to hope? Whatever happened to reason? When in the world did you become such a conformist?" The best advice yet - "Man the Hell up and push forward. This is your life and you only get to live it once."

While this example is something only Frank, Stephen, and Eason can fully relate to, I saw something yesterday that reminded me of what I already knew - you can't judge a book by its cover. Eason, this scrawny Asian guy who albeit is a former marine borders on looking malnourished and he was looking upset because two much buffer looking guys were having difficulty arm wrestling him. You can't always judge a book by its cover. Life may not always seem so great, but life is complex and complicated. It's almost never what you see is what you get. So no one should ever give up because it doesn't seem that great.

I wish I could end this entry which has truly moved me with something meaningful, but I can't come up with anything. Thank you for this note, Frank.