the grand facade

I just spent three hours driving in my car.  I just up and left. 

Okay, I’m making that up to try and provide a little drama.  It was a planned excursion.  It had some drama, though, being that my car almost overheated, but I made it safely to my destination after all.

I needed to get away; I’m grateful for even being a few hours down the highway.  My life was starting to get a little intense. Sometimes I think the best way to stop the drama in my relationships is to drive off somewhere alone.  Weird because I am the biggest extravert you’ve ever met in your life, no holds barred, and therefore I generally HATE being alone (note from previous post(s) that I tend to go stir crazy and overwhelm people once the aloneness ends).  However, when I am driving I consider it a completely different state.  There is something about the action of moving forward that I think allows me to generate lists and document facts about all the things that are wrong, and so very right, in my life.  It’s amazing actually because from time to time I will get really stressed and think to myself, I need a drive. 

I am certain I’m not alone in this state of being; I think a lot of people feel this way.  To me a long drive is the cure for almost anything.  I think that’s why people run away, but then they come back.  The time spent alone, running, and yet still, does something to people.  Even Peter Gabriel so effectively noted, “when I want to run away I drive off in my car”.  Obvious, and genius.

Eventually my visit will end and I will drive again.  My problems will be at home waiting for me, but I choose not to think about that for now.  This is the substance of the sandwich, the time in which my problems are removed and yet I exist.  Now I can live and enjoy.  On the way here, I ponder.  While I’m here, I live.  On the way back, I will solve.  Then I will live again, and act, once I arrive.  It fits into a somewhat neat little metaphor.  (Most things do; ask an evangelical, or Dr. House.)

Maybe already in a few hours I will want to go back.  It could happen; it has happened.  I will long for the intensity of my life, wonder about what I’m missing, and ache for the complication I once knew and the desire to ponder the solution.  As Peter completes, “but whichever way I go, I come back to the place you are”.

Something in me cries out for complication.  For deep intimacy that has no beginning and no end.  (You’re like that too, though you may not admit it.  In fact, you may not even know it, but it’s true.)  Long drives make me think that it’s possible, that I could do it, that I can do it, that I am doing it.  Truthfully those long tokes on reality–previous, current and potential–actually bring calm to the storm in my soul.

regrets, decisions, momentum

From time to time I decide that I should have been a therapist.  (Ironically, most people who become therapists have some past issue that they got over, or maybe they never got over, and for expressly this they become a therapist–to help someone become, or overcome, something they never did.)

Everyone has a regret.  Few like to talk about this, for obvious reasons.  I think though that every individual on the face of the earth feels there is one defining moment, or maybe day or season or year or whatever, where they deeply wonder, what if I would have done this differently?  (What if I had/not changed my major?  What if I would have/not resisted kissing her?  What if I had/not fallen off that ladder?  What if I would have just said/not what was on my mind in that moment?  Why was I dis/honest?  What if I had/not married this guy?  What if I would have said no?  What if I would have said yes?  What if I had/not left?  What if she had/not left?  What if I would have been more dis/trusting?) 

These questions are pretty powerful.  It can get out of control.  For whatever reason, I’ve been pondering these in my life lately, and adding questions to the mix.  It brings about mixed feelings, I guess.  (I may write more on this another time, we’ll see–I still haven’t written about “it’s developmental”…)

At the same time, I’ve made some decisions.  I haven’t made the actions.  If you properly make decisions, it’s argued that you decide what you’re going to do, evaluate it, and then act.  I’m giving that a go.  It’s this process, however, that has forced me to bring up all the questions I might be asking myself after these decisions are made.

In my mind, a diva needs no help making decisions.  She flies by the seat of her pants, and she is wise.  She wisely flies, maybe.  Because for a diva, the feeling of invincibility seems so real that it translates into more of an experience.  Anything can happen, yes, but a diva can happen to anything. 

I suppose I would be lying if I didn’t admit that being that I’m consistently trying to write about how I want to be and become more of a diva, maybe more of who I truly think I am (diva or otherwise)…that I hope that I can learn to live in such a way that I happen to life rather than life happening to me.  I may get there. 

Part of this is making these decisions, taking action.  I will.  I will also, though, take pleasure in evaluating the actions beforehand.  If it makes me think of past regrets, that’s okay.  I do regret stuff.  I’m sorry about that.  But at the same time, isn’t it at least a little true that I wouldn’t be who I am today without those regrets?  That without those regrets I would just have other regrets?  Yes.  And so, with the next batch of decisions I make…. I may hurt.  I may win.  I may regret; I may risk bigger next time…and yet, I’ll roll the dice. 

insomnia

I’m tired.  I’ve been up since about 3:58 or so this morning.  This has become a somewhat regular habit for me.  I generally wake up between 3:45-4:00am and then I lay in bed wishing I were falling asleep, and or I spend the time daydreaming, but still wishing that this sleep had not been interrupted.  I have intensely vivid dreams (sometimes frightening and sometimes excellent) and I usually fall asleep again about two hours after waking, which is about 20 minutes before my alarm wakes me.  After this I feel physically miserable for hours, and the dreams follow me in my mind, sometimes for days or even weeks afterward.

Such has been the pattern for about a month.  I admit, I’m pretty stressed out of late.  There are a lot of things going on in my life, and I just plain have not made time for self-care.  Truthfully I don’t know how I can any longer make time for self-care considering the fact that I basically just lost my job, so any left over time I may have in life must be put toward figuring out how the heck I am going to pay my rent.  The thought has occurred to me that I would rather be indebted to an actual debtor than my landlord.  Debt ruins relationships.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  I won’t try to decide right now.

My birthday is coming up.  This is one of the things I daydream about during what I’ve come to refer to as the “extra hours in my day.”  Since my true desire in life is to be an awe-inspiring diva, I plan to practice living as one for one night, at my birthday party. 

I guess I have been more so planning to grow into diva-hood, rather than to just arrive at it one day; so, I imagine that this performance will be less than awe-inspiring.  However, in my mind a diva lives in such a way that is completely untouched by everybody else’s issues.  I am a people pleaser.  I am easily nervous (but I try really really hard not to show it).  In my mind, I am myself, and on my outside, I try incessantly to be what I think and hope everyone wants me to be.  This affects, naturally, my heart my emotions my posture my appearance my attitude and, well, my behavior.  I wonder what would happen if I threw caution to the wind and let the self that lives in my mind emerge for one evening.  Though she’s in my mind I fear I don’t know her very well and that I won’t be able to temper her.  Truthfully, that’s what makes me want to let her live all the more. 

evading reality

I have been home alone for four days.  Basically by my own choice.  I could have gone out to see people, and I did, here and there–but mostly I spent four days all by myself.  Normally I don’t go for that kind of thing because I get way too introspective and I word vomit all over the first person I see once I emerge into real life again.  This hasn’t really happened (unless I’m word vomiting all over the internet; I guess you can draw your own conclusions). 

I have been really stressed out lately, like abnormally.  I think I have been taking way too much on in my life and then not compensating with any kind of fun or care for myself.  That will max you out pretty fast I suppose.  I imagine that’s what’s happened to me.  I like to think that it’s normal and I’ll get by just fine. 

Until today, when I found out that I may get laid off from my job.  Ouch.  I’m not sure what will happen…I won’t really know anything for a few more days.  But when you take someone who is really stressed out then tell them something like that, encouragement is the last thing to follow.

There were a lot of things I was thinking about writing about recently, but the might lose my job thing kind of pales in comparison with any of the existential diatribes that have been running through my mind while being alone for four days.  Truthfully I don’t much care.

I think it may be safe to say though that I would rather hide from reality and not think about a thing for awhile.  It might be nice to imagine someone else’s life for awhile and try to escape from mine for a few hours. 

waking up

Last night I stayed up too late. This morning I woke up before the alarm (it’s daylight savings time; it always confuses me). I shut off the alarm and I went back to sleep.

I didn’t want to wake up.

It wasn’t because I was depressed or dreading going to work this morning. Neither. You’d think, with the state of things lately, it would be that. That’s what I would have thought. But, I was having a dream. And I didn’t want to wake up.

That dream is sticking with me today, hours later; I can’t shake it. And I don’t care.

My dreams are always unique. Generally they don’t have sound. Periodically they don’t make sense. Often they could never come true. Once in a blue moon I have a dream and I wake up still experiencing the emotions (and even physical sensations) experienced in the dream. Sometimes they stay for several hours, and there are moments within those hours that I sincerely can’t tell what has been dreamed and what is real. When this is a bad dream, this is awful and it can take me a whole day to recover from the drama–I wake up fearing that the dream is real–it’s always a terrible experience. When this is a good dream, I relish it, as today. I remember these dreams. For years afterward. I still remember some of the first dreams I had like this when I was a kid. I remember almost all of them. Funny I don’t always remember the details, but I remember the emotions, I remember burrowing back into my warm bed and not wanting to wake yet because the feelings were so real, decadent.

Emotions are such a funny thing because you can’t truly share them with anyone else. Other people feel, but not like I do. What was unique about this morning’s dream was that I could actually tangibly experience the emotions of certain others in the dream, and mine simultaneously. In reality I can’t really let anyone in that far, no matter how intimate we are. Some people wear their emotions on their sleeve–but that only makes us aware, it doesn’t make us feel identically. Sometimes when I have these dreams I forget that…because I’m remembering how rich emotions are, and how much I have hidden them, from myself, from others.

In many ways, especially in this context, I am only now waking up. This season of my life is glorious and frightening and wonderful and awful because when you wake up you have no idea what’s coming the rest of the day, the rest of your life. Things can turn on a dime–life can make you celebrate or make everything come crashing down in a moment. There’s something about this that is so exhilarating and so frightening. Even so, I’m glad I am waking up to truly experience it. On mornings and days like this I feel like I can open myself up to things that I have been hiding from or fearing. Life doesn’t seem so foreboding or full of wonderment in a bad way. It feels exhilarating and refreshing and full of expectation, in a good way. Emotions are weird and wonderful, and I know that they can trick me. Funny I don’t mind knowing that I’m being tricked on days like this.

fifth shower

I used to love the TV show “Friends.”  Obviously you’ve seen it.

There’s this particular episode where Monica goes for a job interview; it goes very badly–she walks out–I mean, it’s not her fault, it’s just that the guy interviewing her was a complete moron.  Later, Chandler asks her how she is doing–she’s coming out of the bathroom and says, “yeah, I think that fifth shower actually got the interview off of me.”

I have to laugh heartily at this because it is just at that point of the series where Monica’s obsessive tendencies are just coming out, Monica is becoming Monica, I guess. 

Most of the time I end up making fun of people like that, but for the first time in my life I feel like I can relate to Monica a little.  I could use a fifth shower right now.  I have been getting all kinds of unsolicited advice from all kinds of people…because people know that something is on my mind that I’m not sharing with people.  Everyone says that I should talk about it.  Maybe I should.  Normally I’m a big believer in this kind of thing (if you knew me you would laugh at that).  When it comes to myself I tend to be rather closed off about the deepest things of the heart.  Well, things I haven’t really worked out yet.  I haven’t worked this out.  I would like very much to work this out on my own.  When I have decided better what I believe, then I’ll go to someone who will likely agree with my point of view.  They will affirm me and we’ll be on the same page and it will seem like I have processed the whole thing and it will just go away. 

Or, I could talk to several different people and see what their thoughts are and none of them will agree and I will just feel more conflicted inside.  This is what has been happening so far. 

And so here I am.  I would like very much to discuss this with someone who has absolutely no bias whatsoever.  However, there is no one who has absolutely no bias whatsoever about this. 

What I am going through is not about a decision.  Everyone thinks it is about a decision.  I think it is about a decision.  But it’s not.  It is about a way of being, a way of feeling, that everyone experiences completely differently.  And no one can get inside my head and see what I’m really feeling about this.  And yet here I am, feeling and being and wondering if there is anyone like me in the world.  I can’t remember the last time I was confused like this, just wanting that fifth shower to remove whatever debris I have gathered into my life.  But every day I shower and the thoughts are there.  I can’t sleep and forget to eat.  It’s not a good state of being.  See, I know full well that this is temporary and I am fine.  I would say so if I weren’t (really, I would.  If you knew me, you would know that I’m very serious about that kind of thing).  I just need some time to figure this out without people interjecting their opinion. 

It’s developmental.  Maybe I’ll explain that next time.