Movement

You'll only get about 5 seconds to read that:

I've Moved to: identitykrysis.ca

...before you're automatically moved there.

Haha.

No More Pretending

I'm awake. It's 2 am and I'm awake now. Every time I turn over to try to fall asleep again I start dreaming about everything that's scaring me right now and so I wake up. Startled. And I have to start all over again.

I'm struggling with the unknown.

I used to believe in psychics. I used to believe in tarot cards and in pendulums. Pretty much anything that I thought could just give me a glimpse of what was to come. So I could position myself where I needed to go to get to that outcome. No matter what the psychics or cards or swinging crystals told me, it rarely came true. I started to shift behaviours. Still act superstitious and do things without really thinking them through. Like in my previous entry. "If I talk about the good stuff, it'll go away."

That's fucking ridiculous.

No amount of premonition is going to change the path I'm on. Because premonition doesn't exist.

What does exist is feeling. And right now I'm terrified.

And it's keeping me up at night.

I spent ten minutes laying on my back, watching what light from the streetlight that managed to find it's way onto my ceiling and started composing a blog entry before I finally went and got my computer. I struggled with what I thought should be my blog entry. A story about why I'm feeling so anxious/tired/worried. How could I weave it to express just what I'm feeling without showboating the situation.

And I couldn't do it. Not because what I write always shows off (sometimes it does). But because I am definitely shifting my tone of voice these days.

I've felt the need to put my big girl shoes on in the last couple days. I was looking around my apartment and as I do my Week Without project it's making me realize I need to act my age. It sounds so silly to say, as if I'm a parent, scolding myself for having tantrums. Then I tell my friends that I need to stop acting like I'm 21 and they sneer at me because some of them are 21 or 23 and wonder what I hell I'm saying about them.

But what I mean is I need to stop acting like when -I- was 21.
26 holds a fair amount of responsibility. It's encroaching on serious career status. You're supposed to be doing all these things and I'm only doing part of them. And I know I shouldn't listen to what I'm "supposed" to be doing because it's all subjective. But really, there are some I should be.

I talk a lot about taking responsibility for my actions. And I am. I -am- happy right now. Just simultaneously terrified. Because right now, things are terrifying.

Dad's in the hospital. There. I said it. He had surgery this morning and there were complications and we can't see him because he's in recovery.

All I keep thinking is: 'I'm glad I went to visit him on Sunday.' Because we talked and I told him about what's going on because he wants to hear about everything. We supported him and had family time.

He showed me his amazing collection of typewriters and told me stories about them.
Then he let me have one.

So as I was sitting on my couch, waiting for news, I looked at that typewriter and thought about the history behind it and thought about my Dad's history and thought about mine.

History is all I have to go on. Reason and reflection. What does the past tell me about what I should do right now? No pendulum is going to explain what's going to happen or why things have happened the way they have.

Time will tell. Even then, time is an elusive storyteller. Nothing is ever objective and everything is skewed. Therefore: I'm scared. I'm scared to step into those big girl shoes, because that means letting go of that security blanket. Everything I'm used to, even if it doesn't work. Familiarity was everything and made it okay. Even if it was only for a second. I could hold onto that for long after.

But everything is different.

And every time I fall asleep, I dream that it's never going to be the same again.

Tendrils of Servitude

"Right now, I am the happiest I've been in so long." Ava proclaims to her friend, dancing in the aisle of the movie theater. It's alright. There was a 60's theme dance party going on.

---------------------------

I've been drawn from non-fiction recently. Drawn away from writing stories about happenings and situations. It's a new feeling. Things still occur of note. Exponentially so.

Truthfully, I'm hesitant about writing about the good stuff. The good stuff is so good that I worry if I write about it and ponder on it, that... it'll disappear. I don't want to look too hard at what's going on right now in case the good things that are happening get a case of stage fright.

"Oh my god. Everyone's looking at me."

And flee.

I feel like I'm relearning how to live like a normal woman in her mid-twenties. I've been pretending for so long that the way I was doing things was normal. Fine even. But it obviously wasn't because fairly straightforward concepts suddenly hold a sense of mysticism.

I'm able to participate in girl-talk without the other girls shaking their head at me anymore. Some shaking their head and saying they: "Wish they could be as free as" me. Others shaking their head and saying: "Damn it. Don't do this again!"

We all get so caught up in our bullshit and sometimes all it takes is some perspective.

Man, perspective rocks.

But I still feel like I'm in unfamiliar territory all of a sudden.

My Disclaimer

Maybe it's naive of me. Naive to think that someone can handle this aspect of myself. Sometimes I wonder if I met someone who wrote about pretty much everything that happened, the 95-99% true short stories, would I be able to handle it? I'd like to say I would. If I were still me. But not everyone's like me.

I was corresponding with someone recently and wrote this:

"I know my writing is pretty voyeuristic/exhibitionist. I embrace that about my work and it seems to get a good response from people. I’ve gotten to the point in my writing that holding back seems to detract from how things come across. I try to keep in mind, whenever I do anything, “...am I prepared to let people read this if I write about it?” And I have to say yes to myself. Mind you, sometimes this is a hard pill to swallow for the people in my life. I figure it’s the price of knowing me. If you can’t handle me writing about us, then I guess you should move along (or stop doing shit you’re not proud of... One or the other)."

I've made concessions. I've adjusted things. Hence the 95-99%. Hence the nicknames. I've altered and mushed things together to reflect the ridiculous. Sometimes I aim to make people uncomfortable. Sometimes I just can't say what I feel at any given time.

And as I said in my previous post. This is all simply snippets of space. Things change.

I take a picture of it to remind myself of how I feel. How I felt. Because nothing is static. And because sometimes I feel so much that if I don't get it out somehow I get incredibly confused. I find myself jumping from rock to rock so quickly that I trip and fall face first into the muddy pond water I was trying to avoid in the first place.

So I write about my friends and my work. Because they're what keeps me going.
And I write about complicated, emotionally unavailable men. Because unfortunately, I've liked complicated, emotionally unavailable men.
And I write about sex. Because I like sex.

And I write about my mistakes. Because I have a propensity to forget the things I do, gloss over the details and make the same mistakes all over again.

I'm complicated, dramatic and probably willing to try just about anything except drugs and sky-diving.

Because essentially I'm so high up, living everything I possibly can, I'm practically sky-diving all the time anyway.

"After All This Time... Who Would've Thought I'd Meet You Here"

That's two nights in the previous week that she's felt on top of the world. Two more than she's felt in months. Letting go for moments at a time.

Snippets of space.

She tried to explain to him what her writing is, and that's what she felt it came down to... simply snippets of space that were previously supposed to be let go. She grasps them with both hands and stretches them out before her eyes

And dances the to music that results from the chords and fill the air around her.

The moment she saw him she wanted to know him.

So she stretches herself open
unrestricted

And free.

Bent Puzzle Pieces

"It's raining."

Ava sits on the edge of the bed. Perched, but reluctantly so.

He shifts and wraps his arms around her waist, nuzzling into her side. Her hand strokes down his back and over his thigh.

"You can take my umbrella."
Ava laughs, "No I can't. I lost the last one. I don't deserve it."
He laughs in return.

She stands and gathers herself together again from the corners of the room.

Even when she gets her clothes on, she's still on the hunt. Fingering through his collection of pens and pencils, she manages to find one suitable (quite particular about her pens, you see) and retreats to the other room.

He sleeps.

"I don't want just any signature either."

For him? Of course not.

She had been unprepared, but honored, to sign her book the previous night at her reading. Shocked when people had thrust books at her, she asked around if anyone had a pen. Offered a bic she inwardly wrinkled her nose and then remembered what was actually happening.

She had worked for something and was now being rewarded.

Focus, Ava.

Sitting down she opens the book, bent slightly from being ferried around Vancouver until 2am, and stares at the blank inner cover. Be funny? Be sweet?

Be present.

She writes.

And has to pause as she nears the end as tears well up in her eyes. She leans back and stares out the window, knowing her hesitation was threatening to make her late for work but still needing to take a moment.

She finally writes it out and clumsily signs her name. Probably the worst rendition of her signature yet, which was still a work in progress. Perhaps one day it would look much like her Fathers', simply a series of loops.

Circles.
Cycles.

She looks around for a box of tissues. Frustrated that she was ruining her makeup already. Finding none she uses her scarf to dab under her eyes before turning back to the book she'd written in. Her book. Scanning what she'd written she closes the cover and returns to the bedroom. Crawling atop of the covers she finds a spot to hide beside him.

"You leaving?"
"Uh huh," she mutters back before sniffling again.
"You okay?"
"Yea."

Her arms, wrapped around him, tighten their hold. He strokes a hand through her hair and nudges the top of her head with his chin.

"It's a whole lot of nothing," he assures her.

The statement somehow calmed her. Though the effect could have simply been gained from the sound of his voice so close to her ear.

She soon slid off the bed to finish getting ready. Gathering together her things she stands in the doorway of the bedroom.

"I'm taking your umbrella."

She sees him smile before he raises his head fully to respond.

"Sounds good. Take good care of it."
"I will."

She pauses at the street corner, attempting to ignore what was still descending onto her. Covered head bows slightly and she just wants to keep walking for hours. It was as if writing those words in a place so obviously marked by her means she has nothing left to hide behind. Words that don't disappear the air between quivering lips.

Words that she hopes don't just act like a hammering fist over two pieces of a puzzle. Pieces that... don't seem to fit just right.

Just now.

She hopes they express her edges. The curve of her spine and outlined the length of her hair. She hopes they speak of who she is and not what she might to be. So maybe he can know her better. If only for a moment. Because that's all they are.

But those three words are still there.

Burned by pen.

Schitzopolar Biphrenia OR I'm The Girl Next Door

So much has happened in the last five days. In the last week. Week and a half. Whatever it is. A lot has happened. And there were moments when I did have stories. When, if I'd paused in the eye of the storm, I could have drawn that big X mark on the map in order to find out where I was as I look back at it all now. But it's obscured. Like hearing someone speak to you on their speaker phone. A hazy removal.

It still happened.

I bounced from high to low to high again. Usually in the span of hours. And even though it exhausts me, I still enjoy living with each moment full of something that expands my lungs so perpetually full of oxygen.

It doesn't matter what it is. If it's an argument, or sex, or a session of tearing-laughter, or sobbing until I fall asleep... I feel full of whatever it is. And I'm living it.

I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what's going to happen. And I frankly... don't want to know. Anytime anyone has ever told me about the future, it hasn't been a lie, it just hasn't come true. Perhaps they meant it at the time. But that moment passed. And it's gone. And nothing can make it come back again.

You never know.

I have found The True Secret, for me at least, is to tell myself that something won't happen. Then, when it really doesn't happen: I'm fine. If it does: I'm fine with that too.

The Secret, which is nothing more than a big game of pretend, just breaks hearts and minds. It causes you to think in fantasy.

And I won't think in fantasy anymore.

I won't put anyone else on a pedestal in order to knock them down, pick them up and knock them down over and over again. It's unfair for both of us.

And I need to stop asking "Why?" Because no answer is ever satisfactory.
Except, to me, this one: "To feel."

Even then, I dare you to try to explain it.