I am lying in bed with my laptop. This is a rarity, for certain. My phone comes to bed with me often, a constant distraction as I attempt either rest or sleep, but taking my laptop to bed means serious business. This only happens when I’m feeling ill for extended periods of time and/or, I’m realizing, at the very end of my rope. So, in a way, the urge to bring my laptop with me to bed is a good indicator for me. It should be a red flag.
I have an album of lullabies playing at the moment. It isn’t in English, but various languages, which I am finding to be a good thing. My focus is stretched in so many directions as it is, and I realize that rather defies the idea of “focus,” but I feel it to be an apt idea in my regard.
My last blog was posted merely an hour ago. That pressure to finish something, to make something whole and ready for the world, was too much for that moment. I do still feel the need to write, though, and so I find myself in this symbolic position at nearly midnight. Writing does help me, but it does bring forth more thought, and even thought procured in this way can be something I want—need—to veer away from at times.
My thoughts are in a room, all shapes and sorts and colors. Some are loud. Some are quiet, whispering eerily. Others miserably fold themselves into pretzels and sink into corners. A few stand straight up and gesticulate rudely, menacing and ready for a fight. A few, a very small fraction, smile shyly in my direction as they pass through the room. “Just saying hi,” one will say shakily, with a hopeful smile. “I’ll be back later. I’m just checking in.” And then they leave, quietly shutting the door behind them.
I am stuck in this room. Or I am the room, or something, and writing helps me pull one thought from the crowd and focus more clearly on it. It will make its case, tousling its hair and stammering a bit at this newfangled attention, and insight will often be found. But as with so many things, this is a double-edged sword. Let’s call the thought Fred. Fred will tell me his story. Fred has blue hair and chapped lips. His eyes are bloodshot and he is just so so worried, so starved for attention with no solution in sight. And I want to fix Fred. I want to make his life better. But Clarisse sits dejectedly in the corner and Adolf is giving me the finger and the other thoughts begin to creep up on me again. I can’t just ignore them. They all need my help. I have to fix them all at once. I must be the epitome of perfection and answer all of their desperate, shallowly breathed questions. I can’t just pay attention to Fred when they’re all waiting for me, I can’t, but as I am drawn away his lip quivers and he bursts into tears. Then they all do. They throw stuff at me and call me names. “Fix this,” they say. “FIX THIS NOW.”
Recently, after yet another exciting visit with VoldeTread, I found myself sitting on the floor of our extra room with a box of photos. The sets were separated in their paper packets, some inscribed on the front in pencil by my mother with dates and events, jumbled in the plastic container. This is what I love about film, flipping through memories later. A tangible reminder. My age in the photos ranged from two to twelve, and as I located myself in all of these different locales and places in life, I began to think. Hardly surprising, but it wasn’t the painful sort of thinking I have before lamented. We—I—looked so happy in these photographs. My dad looked so normal and glad to be around us. Were we? Was it all just an act, a call-and-response to the cameraperson’s efforts for a good picture? I look at my life and find new things, new ideas I find to be true, and suddenly the bricks that compose my life are scrambling to find a different order. They crumble, or come close to it, perceptions I took for granted and admired suddenly a gaping hole. So I looked for landmarks in the photos, managed to find one freckle I still possess. It helped, somehow, but so much has changed. My life is constantly changing. I change. People change. People leave. People come into your life with so much [expletive] hope and leave you broken.
My lovely friend Erin has directed me here from time to time, and it rings such truth, but it is with a poignancy that I admit it. I want to find hope in this. I do. But still, there is that sadness in knowing that things cannot retain constancy. I look for this quality, desperately want for it, and it so eludes me.
This lullaby time has been good for me. Now I’m attempting to sing along. It isn’t quite working, as I still haven’t the first clue as to what languages the songs are in.
These words have been formed in the in-between of days. Call it a bonus, if you will, as I still do intend to blog tomorrow (today, to be technical about it). Somehow blogging fills a niche that journaling isn’t always able to. Something about the fact that you care enough to parse through my words. Something about the fact that my words are out there, wherever there is, attainable to others. Even just the fact that they exist.
But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
- Dinah Craik -
Oh Katharine, how is it that even when you're dealing with strong and difficult emotion you STILL manage to write so beautifully and cleverly?
ReplyDeleteWriting jealousy aside . . .
I can't pretend to completely understand what you're going through, as your experiences, emotions, and reactions to those things are your own, but like John Green says "we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs". I can certainly relate to and understand the idea of looking back and wondering when things started to go wrong, which may be impossible to know because neither of our fathers may even be able to say themselves, like how you don't realize that you're growing until you look in the mirror and suddenly you just SEE. But nevertheless it's an exercise I've never been able to avoid myself.
As often as I point you and others to that video, and as often as I watch it myself, I sometimes wonder if it can be dangerous to follow the ideas in it too closely. It's a good idea to keep in mind as you move through different levels of life (high school to college to your first career and so on) that you will have to move on between some of those levels with only yourself, but it's also important not to completely invest in a cynical worldview of being just alone in yourself - there will always be someone somewhere who will reach out to you, be they a family member like your sister or your honorary godparents. If any of that makes any sense . . .
And I can certainly relate to the idea that sometimes a journal isn't enough and you just want to put it out on LJ, twitter, tumblr, ANYTHING so that you know that someone else will read it. Even if they don't say anything in response to it, just knowing that someone else is aware of how you feel or what's happening is strangely comforting and cathartic.
Lovely lovely quote at the end :)
I'll leave you with a reminder that I am certainly always willing to chat should you need it, even if you would like for that chat to take place on the phone <3
<3
ReplyDeleteOh. John Green. How I love that man. It's all a bit messy in my head, but yes yes yes. There's always that wondering. Maybe it can't be helped.
The video brings forth a good idea, I think, but you're right: taking it literally might not have the best effect. While I think that it IS very important to love yourself and so forth, you don't want to give up on humanity completely. People will still be there for you, and they will still matter. Which is where I get caught up in it, personally, as a result of magic trust issues and stuff. We're all on our own journey, and all that.
It is comforting to have your words, your feelings, out there for the world. Like you aren't alone. That has helped me so much. Yay, internet. :)
Same! I'm here, too. <3
Katherine, I love you. :)
ReplyDeleteWe think really similarly. It's kind of creepy. xD
I, too, have that complete inability of being able to consider things one at a time. When I have too many thoughts in my head or things to do, I can't pay attention to ANY OF THEM, or I try to do EVERYTHING all at once. Which, you know, ends in me accomplishing nothing.
Anyway, I hope that things are good<3
I don't want to say much on this one, because I feel that I would only succeed in intruding and muddling your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI feel as if we will never truly know who we were, who we will become, and especially who we are now. Our humanity is intangible, but not inimitable--the blessing and the curse.
Interweb Hug? <3
Also, PS: I'm so impressed that you managed to Bonus-BEDA. I haven't even managed to BEDA-BEDA!