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now is the time to follow through, to read the signs
Stephen Dunn's Between Angels is pure loveliness with a pale blue cover. The poems are memories that aren't mine but feel like they are; they just ring with absolute rightness.
Nice weekend, despite the loss of an hour. Spring weekend, but I only went to the fourth-floor thing and the house afterhours party on Friday night. Sangria makes me social, and alcohol always makes me like people more.
I'd really be a much nicer person were I only drunk all the time.
Actually, honestly, I do like the house a great deal more this year. A lot of that is the seniors, and I'll be sorry to see them leave. But the first years are a nice group. I think next year could be good, except that it's the last. And I'm no longer sure I want to leave.
I remind myself - freedom, new mexico, perhaps a kitten - but it's so easy and safe here, so hard to say goodbye to.
People have asked me if I've regretted not going jya or anything this year, and I've given a very honest no in response to them all. If I regret anything it's that jya wasn't right for me, because I think I could have loved it, were I different. But only if I were different. If things were different. They aren't, and I'm okay with that.
Mostly. I'm mostly okay with it. Sometimes I'm so overwhelmed by what I perceive in others - greater confidence, spontaneity, sociability, less anxiety and fear. I look at myself and know I fall short. Everything scares me and I let a lot of appealing opportunities pass me by because I'm afraid. Afraid I'll commit to something I can't handle, something that will send me over the edge for good. I can be melancholy, even morose, in comfortable, familiar situations, but it's the changes that turn me into someone I'm truly scared to be.
I don't like that part of me. If I could I'd drench it in acid and scrub it away. It's the part of me that goes deaf and blind to everything but the omnipresent despair and starts thinking, wondering, why stay here, why go on, what is the point. It's the part of me I fear, the part I know is capable of doing something really, really stupid. And god, I hate it, I hate it more than I could ever say.
Sometimes I look at myself and see the good things. But mostly I see how I'm weak, and passive, and lazy, and afraid, and so very wrapped up in myself. And as much as I wish I could change, to become someone I'd be proud to be, someone whole - I know I won't. It isn't in me. I despise all those qualities on principle, but most of those same things are the floor I stand on. If I tried to rebuild I think I'd just fall.
I use too many inane metaphors.
But it's true, I think. Because I don't live so much as cope. The ten year old did not know how to cope, but the twenty year old does, and this is why she no longer cries in bed every night or ponders the advantages of death or starves herself. But only because she has constucted a very careful wall around herself, a padded room for her mind, and so long as nothing really touches her she's okay. She copes.
I think there could be more than coping. But I think it would be very hard to find it. And I don't know that I have will enough to look.
In the end it really all comes down to me. I could live in my safe little world for the rest of my life, I think, quietly coping, being okay. Or I could leave it, go out into the big bright world with my thin skin and fragile heart and see which side wins.
I don't know.
I don't even know which choice is right. I don't know if it's smart to accept my narrow limitations for what they are, or just foolish.
Gyah. Enough.
Nice weekend, despite the loss of an hour. Spring weekend, but I only went to the fourth-floor thing and the house afterhours party on Friday night. Sangria makes me social, and alcohol always makes me like people more.
I'd really be a much nicer person were I only drunk all the time.
Actually, honestly, I do like the house a great deal more this year. A lot of that is the seniors, and I'll be sorry to see them leave. But the first years are a nice group. I think next year could be good, except that it's the last. And I'm no longer sure I want to leave.
I remind myself - freedom, new mexico, perhaps a kitten - but it's so easy and safe here, so hard to say goodbye to.
People have asked me if I've regretted not going jya or anything this year, and I've given a very honest no in response to them all. If I regret anything it's that jya wasn't right for me, because I think I could have loved it, were I different. But only if I were different. If things were different. They aren't, and I'm okay with that.
Mostly. I'm mostly okay with it. Sometimes I'm so overwhelmed by what I perceive in others - greater confidence, spontaneity, sociability, less anxiety and fear. I look at myself and know I fall short. Everything scares me and I let a lot of appealing opportunities pass me by because I'm afraid. Afraid I'll commit to something I can't handle, something that will send me over the edge for good. I can be melancholy, even morose, in comfortable, familiar situations, but it's the changes that turn me into someone I'm truly scared to be.
I don't like that part of me. If I could I'd drench it in acid and scrub it away. It's the part of me that goes deaf and blind to everything but the omnipresent despair and starts thinking, wondering, why stay here, why go on, what is the point. It's the part of me I fear, the part I know is capable of doing something really, really stupid. And god, I hate it, I hate it more than I could ever say.
Sometimes I look at myself and see the good things. But mostly I see how I'm weak, and passive, and lazy, and afraid, and so very wrapped up in myself. And as much as I wish I could change, to become someone I'd be proud to be, someone whole - I know I won't. It isn't in me. I despise all those qualities on principle, but most of those same things are the floor I stand on. If I tried to rebuild I think I'd just fall.
I use too many inane metaphors.
But it's true, I think. Because I don't live so much as cope. The ten year old did not know how to cope, but the twenty year old does, and this is why she no longer cries in bed every night or ponders the advantages of death or starves herself. But only because she has constucted a very careful wall around herself, a padded room for her mind, and so long as nothing really touches her she's okay. She copes.
I think there could be more than coping. But I think it would be very hard to find it. And I don't know that I have will enough to look.
In the end it really all comes down to me. I could live in my safe little world for the rest of my life, I think, quietly coping, being okay. Or I could leave it, go out into the big bright world with my thin skin and fragile heart and see which side wins.
I don't know.
I don't even know which choice is right. I don't know if it's smart to accept my narrow limitations for what they are, or just foolish.
Gyah. Enough.