After a short break...

I may have to take a break from writing as much for a week or so. I’m in the midst of trying to stop smoking - after being an avid one for 20+ years. Writing and smoking go hand in hand for me, it’s hard to even write this without wanting to light up. So here’s a quote showing how I feel about life in general.

"The word 'happiness' would lose all its meaning, if it were not balanced by sadness." ~ Carl Jung

Glee!

Now that the Muse has released her grip...

I am so freaking happy!

I want to express it, somehow - someway. But I can't place a finger on one thing or another.

Spending an evening with just M, curled up on the couch and laughing at Robot Chicken is one.
Painting again after not feeling the least inclination to do so for two weeks is another.
(I need to go get more white paint...)
Having a vehicle so that I no longer feel pinned here is another. (Though I still won't be going out constantly. I am a bit of a hermit naturally, it's not just circumstances which keep me home.)
Writing and reading almost non-stop is bliss to me.

I cannot stand to sit still and do nothing (unless I'm meditating - but that is Still doing Something.)

I am feeling mischevious and bouncy. I want to tackle M and have a tickle fight. I want to paint non-stop all night. I want to write pages and pages, I want to read book after book. I want to laugh and sing and enjoy the company of my friends.

I am in love with my life, I can and am doing all of these things.

Awakener

Not sure why I'm writing, I just have the urge to write and if I ignore the Muse on my shoulder then I am lost.

I am happy today, exceedingly happy. Within my personal daily life, I have little to be upset or sad about. Sure I'm not rich, everything I own is second hand, according to the strictures of my society I am in poverty and should be downcast appropriately.

What is poverty? The lack of money, of material things, of a house, two cars, a spouse and 2.5 children? I say poverty is blindness, the inability to see past all of the shit people accumulate in their lives to fill the hole of sadness, emptiness and loneliness which gapes inside them. I say poverty is when you are poor in heart and spirit. When there is no real meaning to your life, you just work for the money to keep your toys and pour the numbing drugs down your throat.

I don't care what people do for a living, what they own, how they dress, how they vote - I can about whether or not they are genuine to themselves, whether or not they can treat someone who seems different as an equal, whether or not they can push past all the crap and be real.

My dearest friends are very real, they accept the realness of others - they do not push away when things aren't going peachy, they don't say "You are acting inappropriately." When one allows their real emotions to show - instead they go right along with it.

Richness is flowing like water, taking everything there is in life and going with it, learning from it, improving your insides with it. It's pushing to clear stagnant waters, to leap and play and grab the hands around you saying "Come on! Let's laugh and sing! Who cares if you can't carry a tune."

The hard part is when the status quo pushes down and says "This is not appropriate." When you find yourself cornered by those who try to pour you into the mold of normality. What is normal anyway? Is it being cookie cutter or just being naturally you? I don't want to be an ant, mindlessly working to uphold the structure - I want to push the structure down and say "There's so much more around us! Look! LOOK!"

For this many turn their backs to me and try to exile me, say that I'm crazy and a danger to society. Some might even call me a terrorist, but I'm not into terrorizing people - I just want them to wake up and see where the real horrors are coming from. But now, awakening = terrifying and if you try to get people to wake up and stand beside you, insisting that everything needs to be changed - you are the enemy of the state.

So many refuse to see our current conditions as being the beginnings of a police state or a recession going into depression or being completely weakened and compromised - we've been pimped out by our President and instead of saying "NO!" we put our pillows back over our faces and hide from the shame which should be burning within us. We aren't a nation, we're the Whore of Babylon. We are fleshy and weak, overly decadent and bourgeois. Most of this country's citizens are NOT contributing members. What do we work for? To keep our toys running and our corporate slave collars sparkly and new?

This is a consumer nation, not a participatory one. Most could care less about participating in making anything better, they'd prefer to sit behind their computers and speculate. I've tried so many ways and times to get people excited about forcing changes - no body wants to be bothered. We have been lulled by fear into thinking that there's no way to make the changes needed, that we need the protection of our government.

People - We ARE Our Government!! Without us, they don't exist as anything other than a tyranny. Are we the subjects of tyrants or are we a democracy? It is within the raising of our voices, in the standing up and saying "NO!" which makes us a democracy. We have ultimate say, yet we have been lulled into letting others make our decisions for us and because we have our toys we keep the blinders on saying "But I've got more than you, that makes me right."

Since when does having more make someone right? That just means you can overpower someone and enslave them more easily. What part of enslavement and power equals freedom, liberty and equality??

We are so lost as a species. We fight over nothing, we cannot see past our imaginary lines to the reality outside our glass houses and people cheer when those with truth on their tongues are beaten down. When will we learn?

I am happy in my personal life - in viewing the world and humanity in general I am sad.
How does one balance that? What must I do to bring the circle into fullness?

Slowly shifting forward

Today was a difficult day to say the least. I was faced with that which I am almost retarded against. Red tape bureaucracy, both governmental and corporate. The Dept. of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and my old Auto Insurance Company.

I get so angry and shocked by how horribly people in these industries treat others, I lose it and can no longer focus at all. I go from being intellectually appalled to a babbling, stuttering, hysterical fool in T-. Almost literally, it drives me insane, because in order for me not to get in trouble with Ceasar - I have to play this games, even though I know they are 100% Grade A(sshole) Bullshit.

I use the social systems because I have a skewed philosophy - I don't believe in the value of our money. I think it, credit and the entire financial institution system of the US are all fallacies. I think we should have to do away with the use of it, find a better way which puts the possibilities in the hands of all once again. Since I'm considered a citizen who cannot be placed in any nitch within the workers system, I'm paid to stay out of it. Literally, that was what the deciding judge said. So I use the money and the systems to survive, but it's like robbing Peter to pay Peter. Paul doesn't even enter into the equation, unless you have something to trade, like a skill or a handcrafted item. But that's community, not nation. And as a US "orphan" - I use the money and the time given me by Peter, to make and do things for Paul, though I'm still paying Peter back most of it anyway. To utilities, housing, food - the survival stuff, but the good stuff definitely is a swap with Paul anyday.

AnyWhoo. I was ping ponged back and forth between gov't and corporate for 4+ hrs today, just on the phone. It is still unresolved, but they had to go home after dealing with me all day at about 5pm. The Insurance Company is jerkin my chain so hard, the DMV lady felt bad for me and is supposedly going to bat with the Company herself to get the information I tried 3 times to get myself.

I started out with my tantrum, I was livid - I have been shafted, hardcore by certain Insurance people who didn't do their jobs and refuse to take responsibility for it. I lost my driver's license because of it - however, I lost it in Janurary and am just today finding out about it. Because nobody told me and my insurance agent didn't do their job. I paid for insurance that didn't count for ANYTHING for 8 months. Over $560 worth of useless insurance because they failed to inform the DMV I still had my court-ordered insurance and nobody told me, I didn't get a final "You're license is suspended" letter or anything. It happens, the mail sucks.

But as I went back and forth like Pong between the two places, I calmed. I pushed through the confusion, I regained my focus and I got things accomplished.

I got insurance on my car, so that no matter what I'm not driving uninsured. (I bought a car, by the way. lol) I got the lady at the DMV to go to bat for me and help me in a situation I cannot conquer myself. Tomorrow I go get emissions and temp tags, hopefully I wrap up the DL thing as well. I'm crossing my fingers that it all works out in my favor.

This is a first for me, usually I have total meltdown and lose everything in the process.
I'm proud of myself for calming and making the first step towards being able to function without losing it at all.

Life training

This one will be short, I'm excessively tired.

All we experience in life trains us, equips us to handle anything that comes our way a little better each time.

I think of it as, there is something(s) I am supposed to do with this life, if I don't have the experience I need to know how to accomplish it/them correctly, then I will not be able to do what it is I am ultimately here for or at least not very effectively. (I think I chose my path before I animated this shell, maybe it's just easier to cope with than Divine Will or Destiny or Fate.)

I think that we must go through both good and bad things, to show us where our boundaries need to be, to show us our strengths, skills, talents and our weaknesses, inabilities, fears. We must learn new ways of being before we are able to understand what kind of personal mountain we are attempting to climb.

Just as someone who is an actual mountaineer must train themselves and learn a lot through experience before attempting Mt. Everest. Or an athlete can go to the Olympics.

Whatever your personal goals are, you must train and get experience before realizing them. I think this goes for anything in your life which comes with difficulty.

Example: (Since half of my friends and I are single with dating issues.) Instead of looking at every failed relationship you have endured as proof that you should be alone and cannot be in a successful one - instead, look at it as training and experience for when the person who will suit you the best comes along. Maybe you both have habits which are not usually conducive to a healthy relationship, however, in the experiences you learn through, you are able to change the destructive patterns and become better equipped to accept faults in others, or if not accept fully, at least know how to work with them.

If you looked at the pattern of what was the common denominator among all of your past lovers, what would it be? It's the thing that attracts you the most, so, if it's not normally considered a positive characteristic to be attracted to - does that mean that it is Always a negative one? Or is it just nasty when displayed in extremes?

I tend to choose those who are unavailable or very withdrawn and silent. I know why I am attracted to this, it's absurdly obvious - but I don't always see the signs until I have allowed my emotions to commit. I've even thought in the past "This one is totally available, no way I've picked another one." Only to be smacked in the head with their special brand of it.

However, I am really all that available? No, not really, I'm a self-proclaimed misanthrope after all, one is normally silent in big groups and has problems being in the outside world. So I am attracted to those who are like me because it is comfortable, but it hasn't worked because I habitually have picked those who not only don't like interacting with the world at large - they also don't want to interact with me that much either.

Does this mean I give up? Nope, it means I learn the lessons, pick myself up, brush myself off and say, now I know something new. Eventually all of the experiences will help me to see and accept the person who wants the same back from me. Possibly this has already happened, possibly not. Either way, I'm still learning, training, becoming more equipped to face and achieve my life in the best way I can.

I am slowly accepting myself and I like me, there's some things which still need a lot of change and growth - but I hope to be able to say this until the day I die. Accepting the negative experiences as necessary for learning how to not just survive but thrive is an integral part of my growth, how about you?

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My Silent Irony

I prefer silence in my home when I'm alone, no music, no tv - just the hums and clicks of the place, the cat talking to me, the occasional *bloop* as the fish does flips out of the top of the water.

I am the silent one when we're all out and about, I sit and listen, I don't contribute much to conversations - usually back in the shadows watching people. Not good at small talk, so I found that being a listener is almost as good (except with people expect me to take a fuller part in their dialog and turn it into a conversation... 9 times out of 10 I ruin it with some oddball comment, they look at me weird and excuse themselves from my company as quickly as possible.)

Hence I prefer the company of other quiet ones, silence doesn't really bother people like us. It's a comfort thing, to have someone there and not Need to constantly talk. Sometimes I babble when others are at my place and it's just the two of us, because I talk outloud to Faust while I'm cooking or housecleaning - it's an old habit from the days of Donovan. When you're a hermit, sometimes even hearing your own voice relieves heavy feelings of aloneness.

It's kind of redundant to say that my conversational skills when it comes to mundane things are not very good at all.

But I have a fear of silence from others. I have been put into the hole of silence so many times, overlooked and ignored, left behind with no word of farewell, no closure, no indication of why they walked away. My last big love did this to me in 07, the last thing I heard from him was "give me a few days, I'll call you and we can talk about all this."

Then the silence began and stretched into eternity. I'm still trying to shake the sorrowful blanket his silence wrapped around me and held me so fiercely in it's clutches. I almost went insane in the beginning, wanting to say goodbye or why or I'm sorry or AnyThing. But all I got was more silence every time I tried. So I turned off my head and buried myself in my sorrow, the year of death was hard - an underlying constant drag of claws across my gut in the midst of this encompassing silence. (The year of death refers to the 18 months where 10 people in my life died between 06 and 07.)

I am trying to get past this, I really, really am trying the hardest to get past this. It's a patten that breaks my heart repeatedly ad nauseum. I was left in silence in my bedroom for hours at a time as a toddler and child, I was treated to silence by friends and loved ones my whole life. So what is it about me that causes people to walk away without a word, to wrap me in their silences as a punishment and to exile me as often as possible?

It's one of the reasons I became a hermit, since people placed me in that position so often I just grew used to it and am most comfortable staying away from most of the human race. The masses are evil and selfish and immature and deceptive and conniving. I maybe selfish and immature from time to time, but I'm pretty straight forward, kind and open. People take advantage of this, calling it gullibility or naivite, thinking I'm too dumb to see when they are trying to con me. It's usually when I've had enough and call people on their bullshit ways that those disappear. (Though to those I say good riddance!)

But when I'm allowing someone to see the real me and They disappear into silence, it panics me. It makes me wonder if I'm really a horrible person and I've just been blinding myself to it. Thinking I'm good and just misunderstood, but in all reality I'm a terrible person who doesn't deserve the respect of a goodbye.

There are so many equations into any situation, I know that this is mostly just crap out of my head from years of conditioning by truly bad people in this world.

I'm persistant and excitable when I meet really cool people I can actually, really connect with. I wish this part of me didn't cause people to flee, leaving me wondering what the hell happened and sad that yet another person couldn't find it in themself to like ALL of me.

My closest friends accept me 100%, that's why they are allowed into my life all the way. I can be my usual oddball self, with my fits and paranoia and moments of surprise bliss which cause me to rejoice like a 5 yr old on Christmas morning. Those who can't deal with All of me, fairweather folk - they can stick it where the sun don't shine and use a tree sapling as the stick.

Danger, Will Robinson!

Brain is shorting out, I feel like I'm drowning and it's stupid.

I'm allowing the talk of my friends to get to me, make me wonder if I'm missing something and just being purposefully blind to make things easier on me. I admit that I initiated some of the conversations, but those were with my closest girlfriends who know what I'm like. To have male friends initiate conversations on my relationship with M, very suddenly at the club and tell me "You can disclaim all you want, but it sounds like you two are dating to me." THAT's what messed me up. Guy friends just don't do that.

And why, oh why are all of our friends suddenly so excited about it? When we keep saying that we're not dating, not fooling around - they get even more excited and excitable about us. Emotions range from jealousy to ecstatic glee and I am getting more input than ever on how to proceed. What if I don't want to "proceed", what if I'm fucking scared shitless about messing up an amazing friendship in the name of social expectations?

See, this is why my happiness pops like a soap bubble. I can't leave well enough alone, I listen to others and get all worked up, I suppress it in order to not mess things up like usual and then "Wham!" it all hits me at once and I fuck everything up anyway.

For once, I don't want to do this. For once, I'm willing to go whatever pace is needed with no expectations of anything further, other than a closer friendship.

Then there's the unasked for advice from another guy friend, that we're both just so scared of messing it up that we're blocking something amazing.

Aargh! Stop it! I want to be happy and if it means staying in the current configuration then why does it have to be more?

*banging head against desk*

I'm just so excited to have a guy in my life whom I get along with so well and enjoy so much, I'm beyond freaked that I'm going to scare him away - even as just a friend. I'm such a weirdo, I'm so uptight and in my head, I blather about meaningless shit because I'm still frightened of the reactions to my real voice. I still have a hard time believing anyone in this world would actually want to be with the real me, not just hang out from time to time - but be able to be around me on a regular basis.
Nobody has so far, not friends, not family, not lovers. I'm good in small doses it seems, which means no real companionship.

That's what I'm so happy about, that for once someone seems to be ok with being around me for long periods and doesn't get upset or freaked out nor runs away in terror. So many times I've been told that I'm too much, that I'm just not good enough and pushed away completely. Too many times I've been stabbed in the back and exiled. Too many judgements rained upon my head and I believed them for so long.

I'm new at this whole not feeling guilty about being me, a few slips are bound to happen. It just sucks when it does, big donkey style with a gag reflex.

Love isn't the true hell, it's the uncertainty of whether the other person is on the same page as you and the torture gets worse when you find out they aren't. So the usual survival mode is to just brush it all off as not needing to be on any page at all and putting up a few walls. Maybe decorate them with huge, heavy tapestries showing previous battles as reminders of why they are needed.

I've been trying to let go of that idea - of finding love with just one person. That love is meant to be shared openly with all and received in the same way - not just pegged to one person's chest cavity. Why is it so hard to let go of? It's ingrained in most of our heads from an early age, you aren't really a full member of society until someone claims you as their own and sticks a ring on your finger (or let's you stick one on theirs.) It's considered a right of passage into adulthood. Those who don't marry or at least settle down with one person are considered immature or there's something Very wrong with them.

Why?!? I'm trying not to be a mess, I don't think there's something terribly wrong with me. Just a little neurosis from time to time, mixed liberally with paranoia. But when you've had as many people do nasty shit to you with a smile on their faces as I have, paranoia comes with the territory.

I don't want to be paranoid anymore!! I want to trust people to be who they say they are (as much as they have figured out at least) and to not feel like I have to watch people like a hawk to make sure they aren't just fucking with me or plotting against me or planning to use me as a scapegoat. I'm not a conspiracy nut, the FBI are not after me - but I've had so called friends butter me up to find the best way to hurt me and then stab me where it counts as hard as possible. They even admitted as much themselves to me afterward in spiteful words.

How do I get past these wounds and try to trust again? I used to trust 110%, my Dad would say. Now it's barely 50%, even with close friends and family. Maybe it's time to let go of the wall and be honest with myself, to stop fighting the excitement of my friends and their words.

Even if it means that all of my current joyful experiences disappear, I know that I am able to be happy and relaxed in the company of someone I like a lot. Gods this is like pulling teeth!

Look, I don't know if I can go on with this in such a round about way, especially since he reads this from time to time. I'm writing you, M, a letter right now.

...
an while later.

I can't believe I wrote that! Holy cow! I reserve the right to remain silent on the contents of it until further notice.

It's nervewracking and exhilarating at the same time. This is who I am, this is what I do - I am hopeless romantic of the literary sort. I write. A lot. I want to write letters to those I fancy and get sappy poetic. (I don't think I did that with this one though... more like Eeek! *blush,blush,blush* I can't believe I'm writing this!!) Instead of visions of the perfect American wedding, it's more visions of Victorian Era Russians courting each other on the cusp between old and new morals.

I like Russian fiction, what can I say? It turns me into the blushing hopeful girl, sighing with a book in her hand and the lovely romantic ideas spinning round her head. Man, there are times I wish that was the way of it now. The courting seems so thrilling, blood pumping, woozy with glee. LOL

This just showed me why I'm reacting the way I am. I'm such a nerd for the Russian romance, I play it out in this life and people aren't used to wooing slowly causing such a passion. But it stirs the blood to a higher pitch than sex. It's the bait and release, hunting and be hunted, stirring the waters to see the reactions and then wonder about it aloud with sighs later. It is intoxicating, innervating, it spirs one into fits and sighs and letters of pronouncement. I want it to continue this slowly, I just want to know if it can go any further or if my sighs are in vain. See I just get all sappy and girly and dreamy, the wait for each tiny step goes into eternity but each one taken is amazing and so worth the wait.

I'm a Tolstoyian romantic, who woulda thunk. (No, he's not the only one I've read. He's just the first one whom I have read his entire works. At least those translated into English. And he's mentioned in almost every other Russian novel written after him, usually as a hero, you tell me he sucks and I'll wonder what your idea of good is. I could go into my love of their literature for quite a while, even the detail heavy, slightly confusing, battlescenes and war histories.

I've wandered off topic, I'm going to be perfectly honest, even though I allowed myself to be me without feeling like a criminal about it - I'm wondering how he's going to respond to the fullness of me. It's crazy this risk has caused me to feel better about myself and to figure out why I do it. I'm no longer ashamed or embarrassed I wrote him that letter. I meant it and I am happy in saying it. It's a relief to say it and I hope my intentions of honestly sharing who I am without shame gets across to him. I don't want to be embarrassed by my real self, I'm kinda cool and quirky. I do thinks oddly, so what? That's who I am and if I'm embarrassed or ashamed of it, then others will feel it too and how is that attractive even on just a friendly level?

I need to remember Maude's example and be me. Cause there's a million ways to be, you know that there are.

(I love that movie.)

...if you want to sing out, sing out
and if you want to be free, be free...

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