In these tough economic times, one is forced to mindfully navigate the day to day routine in such a way as to expend the most frugal of economic energies. This is not really what I think. I just wanted to implement the ubiquitous phrase. I, myself, don't feel affected by a harsh economy any more than usual, except for the rising price of cigarettes and burritos. Just kidding. I don't smoke or eat.
What I mean to say is that I have felt more compelled to navigate my day to day more mindfully than usual in terms of my self awareness in relation to my thoughts and feelings. I had not been kind to my heart over the past few years. This is to say, I recklessly allowed myself to think emotional symbiosis was occurring when, in fact, there were varying degrees of leeching going on in varying flows in varying directions. While processing my lovelorn emotional self, I remember telling myself that it was time for me to try to thicken my skin, pull in the reigns on the impulses of my heart, refrain on falling in love with everyone I meet. [See perhaps the moment of this plan's conception here: Bleeding and Pleading Pygmalion. You've been warned]
So I tucked that to-do plan into the back pocket of my psyche and trudged ahead. I now find myself, after having focused for so long on my one foot in front of the other, having succeeded, having developed a thicker version of discipline than my former self. Compare it to today's leather jacket with yesterday's thin sheath of rice paper. I fear though, dear readers, that I may have succeeded too well. That I've maybe zipped up my leather jacket at the expense of feeling even the sunlight on my skin, even the smallest tinglings of rapture in my heart. (Keep in mind I am using this space to vent the most severe version of this potentially fearful fantasy and that I do no, in fact, think I've lost all sense of loving) It's just that in the past year or so I have successfully channeled the way I have in the past obsessively attached myself to crushes into the musings of other writers. I used to page through past lovers in my head almost daily, recollecting the injustices they performed against my infinite capacity for loving them (editor's note: I mean this halfway sarcastically. Only half way). I realized myself obsessed rooted in self-doubt. Michelle Tea says: How Could An Attraction Rooted In Such Insecurity Not Result In Obsession? Amen. Recently I have found myself at the gate to the door to the living room to the bedroom of love (meaning I've been confronted with the potential of a potential for some degree of romantic intimacy) only to carry less and less heat at every step. And so I've not entered the gates as quickly as I used to. I have not entered them at all. I instead have turned around and out of the space of an us, returning only to a Me. It was not out of fear of any kind, as may be expected. It was hardly a question to entertain, in fact. As if there were no messages in the inbox of correspondence between heart and head. I have struggled with deciding whether or not this is based on a legitimate un-attraction or if my leather jacket successfully keeps my emotions focused in on myself, preventing the possibility of attraction.
I'm not exactly disappointed, though. In fact, I'm almost proud of myself. Because for the first time in a long time, since, like, puberty, I genuinely do not feel the need to seek this kind of affirmation elsewhere. I have it beneath the lining and in the hidden pockets of this leather jacket. I seek solace within my own thoughts. Instead of searching for the qualities in a mate that would make me feel more complete or whole or whatever, I have long since been working on cultivating them within myself. Not only do I feel I have developed a better relationship with myself, but now I feel like I am cultivating things that will make me a more capable and accommodating lover, one who could fulfill someone I also sought fulfillment from, creating a wider, more vast capacity for genuine love, instead of the kind where one or the other or both seeks a satiation of fear from the other. I think from where I am now, I'm continuing to look inward and waiting for the right moment to reveal that my jacket is reversable.
I think I'll end (if you're still reading this far, thank you) with something from my journal 2 years ago and something from my journal now.
(At this point in time my writing style was rather cryptic on purpose. Not writing names or actual events made it feel more romantic to write about. Everyone was also incredibly dramatic.)
Circa January 2007:
'doctor, please. can't you see my insides & how they
twist & knot around themselves? as if they
were dire attempts to protect each other from
that which lies outside the outermost layer of organ.
It was for him that thing you thanked me for
in repugnance. like that tongue dance I know
you've performed a few more times than once &
refuse to partner up with me for. You left me
without a chair, &, musical or not, the map you
left me lead directly to the floor.'
And now- circa March 2009
'It's like being really
fucking hungry - starving -
& bitching about it
all the time &
envisioning the bliss
of being
full
but then
your food comes
& you just kind
of look at it
& feel naseous &fat'
Which brings us back to now for now.
Mosephine wants to chase you around the table, wants to touch your head
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