Struggling

I've found myself struggling to write.

It's not new to me to experience writer's block and it's not new to start writing and realize that it's just not working.  I have entire folders of abandoned sketches and stories that never went anywhere. But that's not what's happening now.

I've tried all the usual strategies - setting aside dedicated time, going to places where I've written before, eliminating distractions, bringing books on writing and idea generating, in short, I've tried everything that's worked before and it's not working.

I'm suddenly scared to write.  Why?

Good question... I think I know, but even admitting it to myself is sending darts of dread and nauseous panic through me.  The walls are crumbling.  The walls that I've built over so many years and have shored up for even longer, to protect myself from feeling more than I can deal with or process, those walls are crumbling faster than I can rebuild and I'm panicking.  I've written about these defenses before, but I'll just say here that I've taken it for granted that they are solid and that they'll be there until I choose to dismantle them, in a slow and controlled manner.  I know, it seems laughable now to think that I was so certain of my powers of control.  But it worked for so many years so can you really blame me for buying into my own hype?  And yet, how sad is it to believe your own story?  Or how laughable?  And I would laugh, if I didn't think I'd just burst into tears a moment later.  This is where I am now - completely at the mercy of my ungovernable and illogical emotions which are clearly reveling in their revenge.  They are out now and I have fresh scars to prove it.

When did it happen?  When did these cracks appear?  I tried looking back, but I'm not thinking straight.  Every time I try to relax and think through things in a logical and calm manner, something erupts inside, derailing and tossing me back into the maelstrom.  It's exhausting and horrifying and it leaves me feeling rudderless and shaken.  I've gotten used to trusting myself and the logic that I felt was guiding my life and all that has been swept aside and I don't know how to get it back.  Every night when I go to sleep I don't know who will wake up the next day.

So what does that have to do with my inability to write?  Everything... For years, writing has been a release valve.  A brief, controlled, safe letting out of steam.  My writing, whether fiction or biographical, was always about carefully stepping into a role, experiencing the emotions of the situation, documenting it, and then stepping back out.

I'm terrified of water so this is the best way I can explain it... Writing was a slow descent into a shallow pool - walk down the steps, enjoy the calm, take a quick dip while keeping a wary eye on the guard rail, go back up.  Now, writing is jumping off a cliff into a bottomless ocean and I can't swim.  I can't swim.

Fork in the road

When I picture life and the effect our choices have on it, I picture a winding road with many paths leading off it into other possibilities.  You may choose to stay on the road you are on, you may choose to take one of those paths and it then widens into a road of its own with paths off that as well. It's an image that causes me a not inconsiderable level of distress because I am all about clarity, precision, and yes, certainty.

My discomfort aside, let's agree that the image of a road with many paths off it is an accurate representation.  You may hit a stretch with no offshoots for a long while and some may chafe under that while others might draw a sigh of relief at the thought of not having to make choices for a while.  It's a deception, though.  Every day you make dozens of choices that may inadvertently knock you off course and onto a path you didn't even realize you are taking until what's in front of you bears no resemblance to the place you thought you were heading.

But let's assume for the moment that you can always decide whether or not you stay on the road or take a path to a new course. Let's assume you at least have that much control over your life. Now picture that you've been moving along and you've taken some paths and have rejected others and suddenly you come to a fork in the road.  There is no option to continue the path you were on, it doesn't exist from this point - you have to make a choice.  To paraphrase a famous Russian WWII slogan, "Nowhere to retreat, behind us is Moscow" and the only way forward is to pick, under duress, one or the other.

You could say that every time you chose to stay on the road or picked a path to veer off it, you were making the same choice, so what's the difference?  It feels different, doesn't it?  When you're choosing to stay with what you already know, where you already thought you were heading it feels like less of a choice and more of a given.  Semantics, you may protest, but words matter.  Staying or veering off the road isn't the same as two new options you have to choose between.

So, how do you decide?  There you are, in front of the fork and yes, of course there is a time limit, you can't just stand there and mull your options forever.  No time to mourn the road you thought stretched into the hazy infinity, no time to blame yourself or anyone else for not foreseeing this possibility, no time to look back and wonder if you missed some signs along the way and it doesn't even matter if you did.  You are here, there's the fork, now decide.

You have your gut, your fears, and your dreams; what is each of those worth? How do you give due weight to your gut?  How do you acknowledge your fears without letting them overpower you?  How do you honor your dreams without getting lost in the unreality of the clouds?  In case you are hoping for some profound answer to follow, you'll be disappointed.  I don't have the answers.  I am just as lost as you might be. All I can do is figure out the mechanics, try to balance logic and inspiration and get to the answer before it's too late and life pushes me down one of the two paths before me.

Some days...

Some days writing is easy.  Not flawless, but effortless.  The words tumble out, bouncing off the page, some falling right into place, some needing to be shaped and slotted into the sentences.  The end result still needs polishing and rearranging; furniture moving into a new configuration in a brand new house.  But it works.  Somehow, it works and the same words you've heard or said before, magically assemble on a page to form something unexpected and different.  It's so easy, it's practically cheating.  So easy, you ask yourself why you don't do it more often. And then you wonder whether this truly is your writing or whether, without meaning to, you've just recreated something you've seen.  It can't be this simple, can it?

Some days writing is painful.  The words hide under the cushions or in the cobwebbed crevices.  You persevere, dragging each one out; a resisting toddler, bent on doing the opposite of what you want.  They are slow, surly and moody and they shuffle along, muttering to themselves, mocking you and jeering at your efforts.  They don't cooperate with each other and they certainly don't cooperate with you.  And still you keep at it, coaxing and pleading, and finally offering bribes in the form of new writing prompts and journaling ideas, but it's all for naught.  The sentences come out crooked, the paragraphs in need of an axe not a soft cloth.

You find yourself glancing at the clock, refreshing the lukewarm cup of tea, staring at the candle that you lit with hopes of inspiration hours ago.  You look anywhere and everywhere, except onto the page where a silent mutiny is taking place.  You ask yourself why you bother.  Your ear catches the distant sound of a TV in another room and for a moment you imagine yourself stretched out on the couch, lost in a numbing bliss of someone else's life.  You look at the page again, weighing your options.  It's not too late to scrap the whole thing.  Two keystrokes and the page will once again return to pristine whiteness.  And who would know or care, anyway?  These are your words, you dragged them out, you can obliterate them.

Is it your imagination or has the grumbling ceased?  Is there a chance of recovery?  Your eyes scan the awkward sentences, lingering on the half-developed phrases, tripping over pretentious adjectives and tired adverbs littering the page like leftover confetti after the party is over.  There's no use pretending this is salvageable.

Some days writing just isn't.

Hate

Fiction alert...
___________

Nobody has ever hated me as much as I have hated him. 

The mere mention of his name would send an involuntary shudder through me, culminating in clenched teeth and tense shoulders, leaving a sour taste in my mouth.  The depth of my hatred frightened me and yet I stoked it.  I allowed my brain to play out endless scenarios with him as a participant, fanning the heat of the disgust and revulsion.  Uncontrollable and barely suppressed under the veneer of forced politeness, the hatred was forever bubbling under the surface, ready to spew forth as so much pus from a festering wound.  I couldn't stand to be in the same room with him.  I couldn't bear the sound of his voice.  Every time he opened his mouth, I wanted to scream at him to shut up; scream until I was hoarse just to drown the sound of his voice. 

Avoiding him became a grim game of wills, but for each success, there were numerous failures and the hatred ballooned inside me.  When I had to endure his presence, I tried removing myself mentally, pretending that he wasn't there, but his presence filled the rooms.  I would catch a glimpse of him and the bile would rise in my throat, poisonous fumes of loathing pulsing through my blood.  When he invaded my personal space, my skin would crawl.  The enormous effort I had to expend to not recoil, to not lash out and hit him, when he got too close made me resent and hate him even more. 

I wanted him gone.  Not just from my presence, but obliterated.  In my happiest fantasies, he was gone from my life; not just the present, but wiped from my memory.  I wanted my life washed clean from the residue of his existence.  What I wouldn't have given for our paths to never have crossed.  It's too late for that, but one can hope.  And hate.

_____________
Disclaimer: This piece was written purely as a writing exercise.  It is not based on any specific person, past or present.

Before and After

Imagine that something happened, some major event, one of those monumental moments of change that split your life into the before and after.  Now imagine that you're in the after, looking back at the before and thinking about how much you failed to appreciate it and how it's much too late now.  Eventually you'll adjust to the after and it will become the new normal, but you'll always remember that moment of splintering and you'll always be able to look back at the before with a mix of longing and perhaps regret.

These days I feel acutely that I'm living in the before.  No, I'm not psychic and I don't know what's going to happen, but I find myself picturing with great clarity the various afters before being drawn back into the present.  I don't know why it's happening now with such regularity, except that I'm under a tremendous amount of stress and perhaps that's the single creative outlet that my exhausted brain found to release some steam.  I think we can all agree that it's a rather morbid outlet, but one can only control so many things in life and controlling my brain has never been my strong suit.

I am not sure what's worse, living life in the constant see-saw between the possible future horrors (because of course the mind never paints a rosy after) and the relief of returning to the before or living in the present without ever acknowledging that it can end in a matter of seconds.  Perhaps I should prefer ignorance, but my desire for control is of course screaming that knowing the future is better than being ignorant of it.  

Except, I don't know the future.  Of course I don't.  I don't know which, if any, of the horrors that my mind is painting for me will come to fruition.  Perhaps all of them.  Perhaps none.  Perhaps a disaster that I haven't even tried imagining myself living through.  Does it matter?  Is picturing them now in all their gory detail and bloody aftermath better than being surprised?  Let's face it, we're all surprised by things every day, even things we imagine happening because even as we're picturing them happening, we are thinking and hoping and praying that they won't happen to us.  As if by imagining ourselves getting that diagnosis in a doctor's office or watching our car careen off the road we can somehow ward it off.  Magical thinking at its best - if I imagine it, then it's not a surprising catastrophe anymore and therefore life won't throw it at me because the whole point is to be horribly surprised by bad things, isn't it?

So, what am I imagining as the possible afters?  It doesn't matter... What does matter is that it's forcing me to appreciate today just a little bit more and maybe that's what my brain is trying to tell me.  To stop, take a breath and allow myself to experience today because the splintering will come whether I'm too busy for it or not.

Reading

I've written a number of blog posts about writing and my struggles with it, but I don't usually write about my other obsession - reading.  Perhaps it's because reading is as natural to me as breathing or eating.  I tend to take it for granted and I don't usually think about it or about how it affects me, but reading is the biggest and most enduring influence in my life.

I will often reread books.  In fact, I would say that for every new book I read, I reread three to five others.  There are a few authors whose books I've read dozens of times.  Rereading these books is like sinking into a warm bath - you know the sensation you're about to feel the moment your toe breaks through the water's surface and the anticipation of a sure thing makes the contentment that much richer and more enjoyable.

Oftentimes, I'll reread an older book and in the middle of a book I read a decade ago, I'll stop and see an exact sentence or turn of phrase that lead to specific events in my life.  I can trace entire passages of books to turning points in my life.  And this isn't the kind of association one forms between a traumatic event and a piece of music one heard at the same time. This isn't a correlation, this is a clear causality.  I will reread a book and realize that one of the character's action is what caused me to question my first marriage.  I'll reread another one and know, with absolute certainty, that a specific scene was the reason for yet another turning point in my life.  Of course not every big event in my life was precipitated by a book, but enough were that I know it's more than a coincidence.

I reread books not just for the comfort I draw them the familiar phrases, but also to understand where I am today and how I got here.  I reread them to figure out how I became who I am and to remind myself why I am the person I am.  But that's rereading...

Over the years, reading new books had become steadily more difficult.  I tend to be picky about what I read; the book has to hold my attention, it has to be written well, and it has to be something that I can relate to.  It doesn't mean that it has to be realistic, it just has to be a place where I can see myself and that's where I get into trouble.  If I get into a book, I sink into it and the more I enjoy it, the more difficult I find it to surface.

Sinking into a book means I have to let go of at least some measure of self-control that shades every waking moment.  The deeper I sink and the more I identify with the characters, the more I become them.  I take on their worries and their fears and their lives.  Their problems become my own to solve, their struggles invade and overtake my own.  I will close the book but I am now changed; no longer the same person who opened it days or hours before.  Each book that I become completely immersed in, changes me and not always for the better.    

Because I know that this will happen I try to avoid books that will be difficult to shake off, but as any dieter knows, the more you deny yourself that cupcake or bowl of ice cream the more it becomes the focus of your desire until you say to yourself, cringing at the lie, that it will be just one cupcake or just a small bowl of ice cream.  We both know that's not true.  We both know that it's never just one.

It's an un-winnable game - I won't read books that don't suck me in and I can't stand the consequences of reading those that do.  Of course, I could steel myself from falling into them the way I do when I watch movies, but then it's like going to the dentist - you know something is happening but you feel nothing.  What is the point of reading then?  For me, my obsession with reading started as a chance of stepping out of my life and for many years I read "happy" books that accomplished that exact purpose.  Through those books I left a life where every day brought pain the way sandpaper rubbing against raw skin does and escaped into books.  They were a balm and a drug and a way of distancing myself from a life I couldn't manage.

These days, I still occasionally read happy books, but they don't touch me and truth be told, they tend to irritate or at least annoy me because I can't feel or take them seriously.  The books that do touch me are the ones that stir up the sediment, the ones that take me days or weeks to get over.  These books are ones that I'll never reread because I'm too much of a coward to put myself through the agony the second time around; now that I know what's coming.  And yet, I cannot resist reaching for a new book, all the while consoling myself with familiar lies... This time I'll stay above the fray.  This time I won't fall into it headfirst.  This time I won't emerge with scars invisible to all but me.

Masochism comes in all shapes and forms, I suppose.

On pain and suffering

A brief preamble before I get to the topic of this post...

For the last few weeks I have been engaging in meditation practice.  It started, as many of my obsessions do, with a fairly innocuous reference to a meditation phone app in a local newscast.  The newscast itself was about the stress in everyone's lives and the increase in the aforementioned stress that accompanies the holiday season.  The commentator mentioned a couple of phone apps that are now available to help people deal with stress by guiding them through brief bursts of meditation that can be done anytime and anywhere.

While I found it ironic and somewhat counterproductive to think of meditation as yet another thing to quickly squeeze into a busier and busier day, I did remember the name of one of the apps mentioned, Headspace, and downloaded it for a free trial.

The first couple of times I tried it were a spectacular failure - one time I drifted off into my thoughts completely and didn't even realize the ten minute session had concluded until a few minutes after it was over. The second time I just fell asleep.  Not an ideal start, but after a few days I tried again.  And again...

Since an obsession isn't really an obsession unless it infiltrates multiple areas of your life, I decided I wanted to learn more about meditation and started looking for books on the topic.  There are a lot of them... I mean really, really, a lot.  I have neither the time nor the interest to wade through all of them but I did go through numerous reviews and settled on one that is a series of lectures by a professor of theology at Rhodes College (Mark Muesse).  Normally, theology and I don't mix well so I was going into it with some reservations.

And this is where I finally get to the topic of the post...  One of the lectures from the book focuses on pain and suffering and on drawing a clear distinction between the two.  Prior to learning more about meditation I wouldn't necessarily have tied it to pain and suffering, but as anyone who has ever tried to sit cross-legged on the floor and keep still for longer than five minutes can attest, pain can quickly become an integral part of meditation practice.  The part of the lecture that I found fascinating was the professor's determination to distinguish and separate pain from suffering.

The point he was making was that while pain is an unavoidable and ever present part of life, suffering doesn't need to be.  By his definition, pain is the physical manifestation of sensations and while we often equate pain with suffering, they are not at all the same thing and they aren't even tied together, except that we join them out of habit.

I found that stance so fascinating that I actually listened to the entire lecture again, taking notes the second time around.  As I was listening to it, I realized that what the professor was saying wasn't exactly new to me, it just hasn't previously been spelled out that clearly.

I've always known that pain for me doesn't necessarily equate with suffering and it isn't always a negative experience.  And I readily acknowledge that it's possible to suffer great anguish without physical pain.  But here is an interesting definition of suffering that I haven't come across before.

Suffering: A sustained resistance to reality; a mental and emotional struggle against the way things are.

This definition explains, perfectly, why we so often equate pain and suffering.  For most people pain is unpleasant and something we want to get rid of as soon as possible.  We don't want to feel it, we may find it downright offensive, the thought "I don't deserve to be in pain, I want it to go away and I want it to happen right now" is one that often accompanies pain.  By greeting pain with distaste, fear, and sometimes panic, we are refusing to acknowledge the reality of being in pain and resist it.  That's suffering right there.  A sustained resistance to reality.

If you follow that logic, then separating pain and suffering is simple - acknowledge the pain as the reality that is and don't fight it.  You don't have to like it, you just have to accept it.

Blank

Is there anything more frightening than a blank page in front of you?  Why, yes.  Yes, there is.  There is a blank page in front of you and the clock ticking down the minutes until the page has to be filled.  Leaving it blank is not an option.  No, truly, that would be too cruel for words, but the words aren't coming so perhaps they deserve some cruelty in return.  Perhaps they do.  Perhaps he does as well.

If only...  If only he had checked the pockets of his coat before handing it to her to put in the donation bin.  If only she hadn't felt it necessary to go through them herself.  But he didn't and she did and now there's a blank page waiting to be filled.

What to write?  What does one write in a final note to someone?  I'm sorry?  But she's not sorry.  Not sorry at all.  It is he who must be sorry, but we won't go there now.  The fiery rage had died down to a slow and steady simmer, the tears have dried up, and the broken china has been cleaned up and swept into the bin.  It's time to write.

That damn blank page.  Any words she coaxes out and smears across it will carry but a shadow of the racket in her head.  What good is that?  What good is she?

Stare at the page, press the point of a pen against it and watch the ink form a tiny, jagged edged blob.  Words.  Words are failing her.  No.  He failed her, but words won't.  She'll be damned if she lets them.

Eyes focus on the ink stain; unfocus and now the stain looks shimmery around the edges, softening and blending into the pristine whiteness of the sheet.  Her right hand is gripping the pen, harder, harder, until the clasping fingers become pale and tremble under strain.

The words are hiding.  Huddling together, whispering nervously among themselves in some dark corner; spooked by the guttural screams and shattering glass.  It's no use, they aren't coming out.  Not for all the blank pages in the county.

Blank.  Blanks.  No, no, she can't think about it.  One hysterical meltdown per morning is enough.  She pauses in thought.  What if she left him a blank page?  Would he understand what she meant, what she found?  A blank page for months and years of intentional blanks?  Does it matter?  In the end, does it matter if he sees it and knows that she knows?

Pen still pressing into the ink spot which has now grown to the respectable size of a baby jellyfish, she slowly drags the nib across the whiteness, forming two words in the bottom right corner of the page, capping them with a tiny, final ink blob.

Good bye.

Dreaming

I am not sleeping well.  It's one of those things that you realize is happening but you brush it off as a random occurrence.  It's just a late night or a glass of wine too many before bed or a stressful day.  And then before you know it, you look back and the number of bad nights stretches behind you in a line too long to ignore.  I might as well admit it now - I'm not sleeping well.

I am dreaming and it frightens and irritates me in equal measure.  I don't have good dreams or if I do, I don't remember them.  If I'm dreaming and I remember it, then I'm having nightmares.  It's always been like that.  I can't relate to people who tell me about their good dreams.  I don't know what that feels like.

So, I've been dreaming...  J remarked on it a few times, saying that I was restless and twitchy in my sleep.  Perhaps I am, but I don't know how I behave physically, I just know that I wake up wishing I never had to close my eyes again.  Sleep has always been a welcome escape for me and it's rapidly losing its appeal.

My dreams are particularly disturbing to me because they defy logic.  Not waking logic, I don't expect quite that much, but they defy even logic one might expect from dreams.  In my nightmares two things are happening in parallel - there are the actions and then there are the emotions of the dream.  The break in logic is this: the actions do not match the emotions, at all.  I could be dreaming about utterly mundane things, making dinner or shopping for groceries, but the emotions that come along are wildly out of context and scale.

In my dreams all the strong emotions that I suppress, often without knowing I'm doing it, during the day, come out to play and they are merciless.  They infuse my dreams and take over, heedless of the actual content of the dream; leaving me shaken and confused.  I woke up crying the night before last, the sound of my own moans and the wetness of tears is what woke me up.  I opened my eyes and while on some level I realized that I had been dreaming, the grief I felt was so profound and so real, I couldn't seem to loosen its grip.

It's not always sadness that invades my dreams, although that seems to be the most prevalent emotion.  Sometimes it's fear or crippling anxiety, but more often than not, it's sadness.  Usually sadness associated with loss or abandonment.  I don't understand it.  I have no fear of abandonment in my waking hours and I've coped with loss before, although I might as well admit that my way of coping with loss is to shove it as far down the pit of my psyche as possible and pretend it's not there.

Still, that's neither here nor there...  I'm dreaming and I want it to stop.  I need a fix and I need it soon, preferably before I close my eyes tonight.  

Not antisocial

I am an introvert.  There, I said it.  It's not like I didn't know that I had those tendencies, but knowing isn't quite the same as boldly admitting it.  It's the difference between being told you drink too much and walking into your first AA meeting.  So, now I've admitted it and in the same breath I'm going to insist that there's nothing wrong with it.  I'm a functioning introvert and the fact that over the years I've expended so much energy trying to prove to people that there's nothing wrong with me makes my insides twist with anger and annoyance.  All that wasted time and effort, all that pretense of being someone I'm not for the benefit of people who told me that I need to go out more, to make more friends, to socialize, to be "normal".

The anger is directed more at myself than at anyone in particular because I do believe that the people who tried to bring me out of my shell meant well.  I'm sure they thought that if only I would try, I'll find the meaning of life that according to them I was missing.  I'm angry at myself for not having had the vocabulary and the conviction to tell them all to f*ck off and leave me in my solitary peace.  I'm angry that I didn't trust myself enough to stand up for what made me happy.

I accept that I'm different in that I dislike many of the things that others find pleasurable.  I don't want to travel, I don't tolerate change well, I don't want to go out and socialize on a regular basis, I don't want to join my co-workers for lunch, I don't enjoy loud and boisterous parties.  If I must, I'll do all of these things and do them with good grace, giving every appearance of enjoying myself, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't rather be home, curled up on a pillow with a book in my hand.  Being good at adapting to whatever the situation calls for isn't the same as wanting to be in that situation in the first place.

Don't misunderstand this as me saying that I don't like people or new experiences.  I like both.  I just like them on a much smaller and less frequent scale than most.  I enjoy occasional new experiences, as long as they are circumscribed and manageable.  I love cooking and experimenting with different foods, but I much prefer doing that in my own kitchen rather than going out to a food festival or to a loud restaurant with a crowd.  I like meeting and getting to know new people as long as it's one or two people at a time.  In this way, I can spend hours talking to a single person, but half an hour in a group just about wipes out all my reserves of energy.

It is then perhaps ironic, knowing these things about myself, that I'm about to embark on a people-centered career.  I'm not sure why I think that I'll do well in an occupation where interaction with strangers is mandatory and forms the foundation of the profession.  Perhaps it's a way for me to push past my own boundaries, to challenge myself to do something that I know I'm not very good at.  

In the end, I think the saving grace for me will be grounded in these two premises: I'll be in control and I'll never be faced with more than one person at a time.  As a devout introverted control freak, I think I can handle that.

After I was dead...

After I was dead, time lost all meaning and a great veil of boredom threatened to suffocate me.  This wasn't at all what I expected.  I suppose things might have been different if I had left behind children or a grieving husband, but being a loner meant that my funeral was attended mostly by those who felt it their duty to be there.  Perhaps to ensure that I really was dead and gone.  Who knows?  They didn't care to be there and I didn't care to see them there.

After the mostly dull and uninspiring eulogy by whatever clergy member the funeral home was able to rustle up on short notice, the visitors (one can hardly call them mourners if they barely noticed I was gone) gratefully dispersed, returning to their humdrum lives and leaving me in limbo.

Funny how being alone never bothered me when I was alive.  I suppose then it was a means of escape from people I had no wish to interact with, but now that the loneliness was enforced and permanent, I found myself unreasonably annoyed by it.  Of course, there were other ghosts around, but most seemed busy watching over their families or haunting the dreams of those who wronged them, gleefully reporting the details of the nightmares they inspired as they returned from their exploits.  Frankly, I was as uninterested in joining them in their escapades as I had been in joining my coworkers for a Friday night pub crawl.

The ability to be anywhere at will was at first intriguing.  I went in and out of random people's houses, regardless of whether they were home or not, but that soon lost its novelty.  There are only so many scenes of harried domesticity that one can witness without getting bored.  Then I took to going in and out of high security buildings, art galleries, backrooms of stores I liked - visiting all those places I'd never gotten a chance to see in real life.  The local hospital was interesting for a while, but it was always crowded with ghosts coming and going and the constant noise and activity grew tiresome.  

Eventually I took to spending my nights in my favorite bookstore, floating up near the ceiling tiles and supervising the closing procedures of the staff.  Some evenings I even snuck into the storage room, but the utter chaos of it annoyed me and somehow devalued the experience.  I would have loved to rearrange some things and reorganize the shelves, especially the ones where books were piled haphazardly, causing pages to crease and lose the lustre of newness.  I couldn't, though.  Ghosts can't touch or move things.  Well, it figures, doesn't it?  Nothing is solid to us, otherwise how would we get through walls?  

Anyway, there I was, hovering near the bestsellers stand, bored out of my mind and seriously wondering whether I should join some of the others in their nightly haunts of the local abandoned quarry when the light in the children's section went on.  Near closing time the lights are always going on and off and doors are slamming, but it was near two in the morning. There was just no good reason for anyone to be in the store, well, other than me, that is.  Staying near the walls (I never did get over the unreasonable dislike of having my back exposed, which is especially ironic considering how I ended up dying) I floated over to the children's section.  At first, it looked like there was no one there, but then I saw her.  Sitting cross-legged on the little storytime stage, hair falling into her face and almost touching the book in her lap.  At first I thought she was reading, but then I realized that she was drawing.  She had one of those How to Draw Anything books in her lap and the pencil in her hand was flying over the blank page on the right as she occasionally referred to the instructions on the left.  

I moved above her to see better but her head was still in the way.  It was almost like she was intent on hiding what she was doing from the light.  Sighing to myself, I floated down until I was right in front of her and craned my head to the side.  She had already finished a picture of a large, leafy tree and was now working on what looked like a...  well, not a person, that's for sure, maybe a bear? sitting under the tree.  I moved to the other side to see better and that's when it happened...

"Stop looking, it's not finished yet.  And anyway, don't you know it's not polite to spy on people?" she said, looking straight at me.

On the perils of sensitivity

"You are too sensitive" isn't a phrase that I hear often.  In fact, it's not a phrase I've heard applied to me in years.  Frankly, most of the people who met me over the last decade and have not known me prior to that will laugh at the thought of such a phrase being aimed at me.  "Tough as nails", "determined", "single-minded", "coldly rational", and yes, even "hard-hearted" are the more likely epithets.  

And sure, I won't deny it, I am or I can be all of those things.  Those descriptions are my shell, my way of masking and hiding the crippling sensitivity that I've spent years beating down and suppressing.  And I've succeeded... Oh, how I've succeeded.  My reward for this act of supreme willpower and self-training is that unless I actively try to, I feel absolutely nothing.  

Well, that's not strictly true - I feel fear, anger, anxiety, frustration, and physical discomforts.  Those were never an issue, never something I tried to suppress and so they remained (mostly) untouched.  I've learned to conceal them when appropriate, but that's just part of growing older and hopefully wiser.  What I don't feel is the things that most other people take for granted - sadness, grief, happiness, joy, need.  In grinding to a halt the roller-coaster that I couldn't control, I ended up suspended in the air, neither up nor down.

It's not that I'm incapable of feeling these emotions, I just have to consciously allow myself to experience them.  Well, what's wrong with that? you might say...  I didn't think there was anything wrong with it.  Not at first, not for years as I've worked on building this wall.  It was a slow process and an inconsistent one.  Life would get in the way and tear giant holes in the barricade, but I'm nothing if not determined so on and on I soldiered.  When I could retreat behind the wall at will and it held, I rejoiced.  If you've ever had the dubious pleasure of listening to a blaring car alarm through the night, then you know the utter bliss when the siren is replaced with blessed silence.  At first you don't believe that it's actually over and you keep a wary ear out for the alarm's bleating to restart, but then after a few minutes of silence your shoulders unhunch and you take a deep breath and you convince yourself that yes, it's finally over.  It was a bit like that.

Muting the emotions that I couldn't control was a high like no other I had experienced to that point.  And then a further revelation that the barricade held.  No matter what life threw at me, I could retreat behind the wall and weather it.  It was blissful, except I wouldn't let myself get too excited over it; no chinks in the wall. 

But you know this doesn't have a happy ending...  I wouldn't bother writing about it if it did.  Single-mindedness comes with a price.  The fatal flaw in my plan was not leaving an escape hatch.  Feeling nothing is great when you need to be cold and clinical and analytical in your approach to a problem.  It's not so good when you're a human being instead of a robot.  Instead of learning how to temper and manage my emotions and prevent them from overrunning me, I imprisoned them with no way out.  I wasn't the one behind the wall, my emotions were and I was left on the outside, cold and feeling nothing.

So, what now?  Well, I have two options, neither one of which I like much.  The safer approach would be to accept that this is how it is.  I can continue to live life at low volume, enjoying the calm and trying not to dwell on what I'm missing.  Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad life.  It's calm and restful and probably a lot more stable than it would otherwise be.  It's also like living wrapped in layers of cotton.

The other option is to loosen the restraints and see what happens.  Let myself feel without reservations or holding back.  How bad can it be?  Unspeakably bad, actually.  As bad as it was before I did all this work to fix myself.  Knowing what I know of my past struggles, this isn't an option that I'm eager to pick and yet is it worth a try? 

What's holding me back from deciding on a course of action is not knowing the answer to this question...  Can I learn to control my emotions a little at a time or will all my work of the last decade come crumbling down taking me with it?

Imperative

Move.  I know you don't want to, but you must.  Move.  Now.  Just a small step first.  Turn your head on the pillow to take your eyes off the grubby ceiling and face the window.  You know it's there, on your left even if you have yet to see it.  But you'll do it today.  Yes, you will.  Because I'm telling you to and because you know that I won't leave you alone, no matter how much you want me to.  I'm in your head and I'm not going anywhere.  Move.

No, don't close your eyes, you can't shut me out.  The light from the window is getting stronger, turn toward it now and you'll still have a chance to see it before clouds roll in.  Now, yes, you can do it.  Don't think about it, that's been your problem all along.  Don't analyze, don't predict, don't assume what you'll see, just turn your head and face the window.

Blink.  Again.  No, don't start crying, that won't help.  It won't help at all.  Blink again and focus on the light.  Don't say it, I lied.  It's not a window, it's just a day glow simulator lamp, but look at it anyway.  Admit it, the view is better than the ceiling.  Fine, you don't have to admit it to me, but at least acknowledge to yourself, if not to me, that it was worth the effort.

Shift your gaze further to the left, look at the nightstand.  You don't know what's on it so don't argue that there's no point.  Arguing is another problem, but we'll get to it later.  Look at the nightstand.  Focus on the glass of water.  No, of course it's not real glass, but it's real water.  Reach for it.

Stop laughing, it's not impossible.  Reach for it.  Lift your hand off the blanket and reach for it.  No, I'm not going to give you a break, we've barely started and I've been so very patient with you already.  Lift your hand and reach for the glass.

Why?  So you can knock it down to the floor, of course.  Imagine it.  Imagine your hand doing it.  Imagine the feel of your fingers against the plastic, the slight resistance you'll feel when you start pushing it off the surface.  Use the anger you feel at being fooled into thinking it's glass.  You're angry now that you know it's just warmish plastic instead of cool glass, aren't you?  Don't lie to me, I know you are; your nostrils are flaring.  Let that anger pulse toward your fingertips as you shove the glass that isn't away from you.  Imagine the sound it'll make bouncing off the linoleum tiles, maybe even cracking if you push it hard enough.

There now, that wasn't too hard, was it?  Don't answer that.  And now we wait...

The crash

The sound of the crash echoing off the concrete and boarded up windows could be heard for blocks.  The smoke wafting away from the debris of what used to be a hatchback sedan shrouded the scene of devastation as if waiting for a magician's sleight of hand to uncover something out of nothing.

Where there previously towered a half-demolished wall of a derelict convenience store, now stood a grotesque surrealistic sculpture - mangled remains of the hatchback in the protective embrace of the crumbling bricks and rebars.

"Whoa," someone exclaimed, as the echoes of the crash and the settling rubble gave way to the normal sounds of a street, "did you see that?"

"Hey, someone call 911!"

"Can we get closer?  Is it safe?"

"Do you think the driver...?"

"What the fuck happened?"

The commotion was reaching fever pitch, it'll be time to go soon.  Fingering the small black remote nestling in my pocket, I listened to the questions swirling around and answered each silently in my head...

Yep, saw that.  

Hardly any rush to call 911 now, but if you must...

You can get closer but that wall isn't looking too good.  And touching the car or any of the rubble is definitely a bad idea.

Yes, pretty sure Max is dead; although pulverized would be more accurate.

That's easy - the car sped up going down the street, lost its breaks and steering and was directed straight into the wall.  Splat.

Isn't it amazing what can be done with technology and a bit of determination these days?  And Max said I could never finish anything...

Loops

I don't like leaving things unresolved, be it internal conflicts, arguments, or even an unfinished conversation.  It's true, some conversations are best ended prematurely when you know that nothing good will come from continuing. It's the smarter thing to do and I think everyone has experienced living proof of that particular wisdom.  Except that even if you know it and do the "right" thing, the thoughts left unvoiced and feelings unacknowledged, can eat away at you, replaying endlessly in your mind.

One such loop is haunting me now and although I know I need to let it go, it has burrowed into my thoughts and is refusing to leave.  It wants resolution while I just want it to go away and so we are at an impasse.

I will readily admit, I can be thin-skinned.  Most of the time I have learned to mask it and pretend that things don't bother me nearly as much as they do.  Most of the time I can even convince myself that they don't.  Most of the time.  And then there are times when the combination of people, feelings, and reactions involved leaves me utterly vulnerable and trying to suppress it is like trying to put out a grease fire with water.  It's just not worth the effort, especially when the harder you try, the worse it gets.

Acknowledging it helps a little.  As does letting the loop play over and over again and re-experiencing the feelings, allowing the repetition to slowly dull the impact.  Eventually it always does and I get past it; sometimes in days, sometimes in hours.  But the one thing getting past it doesn't do is what I want the most - it doesn't help prevent the same injury next time.

As much as I may not want to do so, I must acknowledge that some hurts I'll never be immune to.

Comfortable in your skin

I remember a time when I was comfortable in my own skin.  Or perhaps "remember" is too precise of a term.  I've read enough about how memory works to understand that real memories are an illusion, so let's say that I can reconstruct the vision of what it felt like to be comfortable in my skin.

I could go back to when I was around eleven or twelve, a wiry kid with skinned knees and dirt under the fingernails.  I was always short and slight and even in sixth grade I could pass for a second grader which served me just fine when I was, yet again, running late for school and wanted to avoid being written up in the lateness ledger.  A second grader is often given a pass that a sixth grader isn't.

I was a relatively active kid, although perhaps no more so than my friends, but I was blessed with a small frame and an ability to eat little and rarely feel hungry.  I knew I looked good when I cleaned up, but the point was, I was comfortable with the way I was which meant that I rarely thought about how I looked.  It wasn't a worry, it wasn't an overwhelming concern, and I had yet to learn the debilitating pain of feeling that I don't measure up to the ideal.  Because the truth is, I did measure up.  I was cute and slim and I hadn't yet realized that being flat-chested would be a detriment in a couple of years.  Of course, I never got a chance to find out that it would be because in a span of a year I went from being somewhat underweight to being severely overweight.  My skin expanded to accommodate the new body I acquired courtesy of stress eating, but I never again felt comfortable in it.

Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered and I would have found ways of feeling uncomfortable even without doubling my weight; after all, most teenage girls profess to hate the way they look, or at least say that they do.  Had I remained slim, would I have bemoaned the lack of curves my friends were developing?  Would I have fervently wished to have a rounder bum or fuller arms?  Maybe I would have and maybe that body would have felt as inadequate and ill-fitting as the one I got.  I never got a chance to find out.

I have long ago stopped dwelling on the unhappiness that being overweight brought me and these days my struggles are mostly around not gaining weight rather than losing it.  I could be in better shape (who couldn't?), but I'm not overweight anymore and I fervently hope I never will be.

But I am also not comfortable in my skin and I am constantly looking for ways to change that.  I know that a lot of it is attitude, but good as I am at deceiving and soothing others, self-deception isn't something that I can stomach.  I'm not perfect and that's not ok.  Yes, maybe there's an element of self-mockery in that statement, but putting a hand on heart, it truly is what I feel.  If I don't look the way I want to look, if the image reflected in the mirror isn't what I want to see, then I can't accept it.

And lest you think me entirely superficial, it's not solely about weight.  Sure, I'd like a few fewer folds around the stomach and less sagging around the arms, but it's everything together - it's my untameable mane of hair, it's the patch of dry skin on my bottom lip that just won't heal, it's the short stubby fingers, it's the way my body just doesn't want to bend and twist the way I want it to.  I want things to look and work the way I think they should and they just won't cooperate.  Some things even I realize I won't be able to beat into submission, but it's often the ones that I could improve that give me the most grief.  I should be able to fix and adjust them and I just am not able to, which for me immediately translates to "you're just not trying hard enough".

Don't get me wrong, there are things I like about myself and I don't take them for granted, but they are expected and therefore aren't as valued.  It's the ones that aren't up to snuff that deserve the attention.  A bit like the child who gets good grades in school and is well-behaved and gets ignored in favor of a more troublesome sibling.  Not that I'd know anything about that, children in my family weren't allowed to be troublesome.

At any rate, I am keeping a wary eye on things that I have going for me, as if to warn them that they'd better keep going as they are or there'll be hell to pay.  As for the ones that aren't right, the ones that make me squirm in my skin, I see them as fractious mutineers, stubbornly refusing to fall in line and do as they're told.  That's not a good attitude to take with me as anyone who knows me will tell you.

Perhaps I'll never feel as comfortable in my skin as I did years ago, but I sure as hell won't make it easy for myself to settle into mediocrity.  Perfection may be unattainable, but it doesn't mean I should, or ever would, stop trying.

On role models... (or just one role model)

I don't recall ever having role models or seeing someone, real or on TV, and thinking that I want to be just like that person.  In short bursts or for specific traits, sure.  Who hasn't seen a willowy beauty or an amazing athlete on TV and thought, I want to be just like that person?  Beyond a passing thought, I don't think I've ever adopted one as a role model.  Until now...

There's a character on a Netflix series, House of Cards, that I'm completely, utterly, hopelessly obsessed with.  For those of you who know me, I think you can probably guess who the character is, for the rest, it's Claire Underwood.  And just to be clear, I'm not talking about the actress, Robin Wright, who plays Claire on the show, I'm talking about the character, Claire Underwood, as portrayed on the show.

I'm certain that I'm not the only one captivated with Claire, given the show's popularity, but for me this is very new.  J once asked me, when I pointed out a particularly pretty girl in a cafe to him, whether the girl is pretty in a way that I want to be her or I want to be with her.  My answer then, and every time he asked since, was I want to be with her.  I like women and I find them sexually attractive.  It's fairly rare for me to see a woman and think that I want to look like her.  Sure, I might admire what she's wearing or a particularly gorgeous shade of hair, but beyond that, I don't compare myself to anyone or try to imitate them.

Not so this time.  I can categorically say that I don't want to be with Claire.  I admire and look up to her character and this is a completely platonic appreciation.  I find her incredibly, heartstoppingly compelling even if I don't particularly like blondes.  I don't want to look like her, I want to be like her.  For the first time I realize the allure of a role model, of having someone you want to imitate.  I want to be my own version of her.

Over the weeks and months since first being introduced to the show, I've watched it over and over again, zeroing in on the character's voice, tone, gestures, the way she carries herself, her strengths and her weaknesses.  There are so many details about her that already resonate with me that I can see myself in what I'm watching.  I can see myself acting the same way in some situations and at least understanding, viscerally, why she acts the way she does when I may have chosen a different path.

I have been adopting a lot of the things that I like about the character, but being careful not to copy where things won't fit.  Going through my days, I sometimes find myself thinking, would Claire wear this? would Claire eat this? would Claire say or do this?  Somehow I'm certain that Claire wouldn't bite her nails and so I've quit cold turkey a month ago.

I've molded myself to other people's expectations or wishes before so this exercise in being a chameleon isn't entirely new, but what's new is the purpose.  I'm not doing this for anyone but myself.  I am not trying to live up to anyone else's idea of what they find pleasing.  This is for me and me alone.

Gone...

Gone...  The word rattled around her thoughts and rolled into a quiet corner, like a marble left forgotten under a couch after a spirited game.  Gone...  Could the answer really be as simple as that?  Maneuvering the heavy cart with its persistent lazy wheel around the other shoppers, she barely gives the word a thought.  Gone...  No, that's impossible, on to the next idea.

And yet, as she crosses the bustling parking lot, weighed down by the grocery bags, the thought wouldn't let go.  Gone...  She shakes her head, trying to focus on loading the car and planning the rest of the evening.  What is there to plan, though?  First dinner, which she'll make for everyone and will please no one, except maybe John who'll eat whatever is put in front of him; his thoughts on how quickly he can get the pretense of family time over with.  Homework supervision, which will rapidly degenerate into arguments and recriminations and tears, accompanied by slammed doors.  Who knew Algebra could be so fraught with emotions?  And then dishes, routine clean-up, laundry or dealing with whatever other household calamity that gets discovered as the nine o'clock news comes on and can't be put off until tomorrow.  And finally it's on up to bed.  And if she's really lucky, then as she pauses in the slow climb up the stairs, she'll hear the sound of John snoring.  Gone...

The groceries stowed, she settles into the driver seat and automatically reaches for the seat belt.  Marcie, the three year old family dog that everyone wanted and no one wanted to take care of, wags her tail happily.  Front seat is a rare treat and the canine enjoyment knows no bounds.  Gone...

She feels around her purse for the phone, wondering if she should call and let John know she's running behind, that dinner will be late.  Even as her fingers close around the cool plastic, she knows she won't call.  There'll be no thanks for the thoughtfulness of a warning, only a barely disguised barb about the lack of planning.  Marcie is eyeing the purse hopefully and she pulls out a dog treat, absently handing it to the dog.  She knows she shouldn't, but she pulls out another one and Marcie is practically whimpering with giddy delight.  How little it takes to make her happy and earn undying gratitude.  Gone...

Reluctantly she pushes her purse under the passenger seat and automatically checks the fuel level as the car hums to life.  Almost a full tank, no need to make any more stops tonight.  She turns on the radio, the familiar voices of NPR filling the car, and pulls out of the parking lot.  It's getting darker now, but she has driven these streets two, three, four times a day for, she doesn't want to think for how many years, and the car practically navigates itself.  She thinks to the hazy future when the car really will navigate itself as she watches her street come into view, the final left turn in the trough between two sloping hills, and then keeps on driving.

Gone.

Focus

I am tormented by a lack of focus.  Or perhaps a lack of grounding is a better way of putting it.  No matter what I start doing, I am incapable of keeping my attention on it.  Reading, browsing the internet, watching a show, cleaning, it doesn't matter how interesting or engaging the activity, I cannot focus and stay with it for the duration.

Even now, as I'm writing this, it's a constant struggle to keep my thoughts on the piece.  My eyes are wandering off the screen to the people around me, to the muted TV screen on the wall, to the bleak landscape I can glimpse through the half-shaded windows.  My ears are picking up the whispers of sounds that are filtering through the music in the headphones and my nose is distracted by the lunchtime smells of the cafe.  You might think that I'd have an easier time focusing at home where the distractions would be less pervasive, but it's no better at home with the laundry basket and crumbs on the kitchen floor offering a different form of escape.  There is Netflix and two warring cats, bent on gouging each other's eyes out in a quest for territorial dominance.  And let's not forget the bed and the allure of a mid-day nap.  At home the options for diffusion of focus are even more numerous than in a noisy cafe.

It's not entirely unusual for me to be pulled in many directions, but it's rarely this severe and downright disabling.  I know what I should be doing, what I need to focus on but for the life of me, I cannot force my attention to stay on task for longer than ten seconds at a time and even that seems like a stretch at the moment.

I can blame it on poor sleep or my complete lack of willpower or my horrendously sedentary lifestyle or the depressingly long winter, but the truth is it doesn't really matter what the cause is, I need to get through it and I have no idea how to do it.  Usually I'm able to compel myself to do what I know needs to be done, but the usual tricks aren't working or maybe I'm just not trying hard enough.

This entire post is only a few paragraphs long and it's already taken me almost an hour to write...  I can't even stay with this long enough to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.  Maybe there isn't one.

"What If"s

I was thinking today about the two kinds of what ifs.
There is the "What if I had done X instead of Y?" or its occasionally more popular sibling "What if I hadn't done X?".  These are the what ifs of the days past.  The chances not taken, the paths chosen and second-guessed, the choices made and regretted or simply wondered about.  That's the first kind of what if.

The other is the "What if X happens?" - the future potential for regrets, recriminations, joys, or endless wondering.

I rarely indulge in the former because it's pointless.  I wrote before about not having regrets and it's true.  But it's the second kind of what if, the what if that has yet to happen, that sneaks up on me and like a burdock burr will entangle my thoughts and refuse to let go.

I like clarity and structure.  I like knowing what's going to happen every minute of every day, in predetermined chunks and intervals.  I like the safety of planning and the comfort of things going as expected.  And more than anything, I like boundaries.  I need boundaries, even if only to serve as walls to push against.

The yet to happen what ifs go against the grain of everything I find manageable.  There is an endless variety of what ifs and from that endless variety stems an infinity of potential outcomes, each engendering a further glut of possibilities.  The unruliness of this limitless chaos sets my teeth on edge.  It makes me want to crawl under the covers and pretend that I'm in a small, dark cage.  There is immense freedom in firm constraints.

So what are the what ifs that are tormenting me now?  Some are big ones, like "what if I can't find a job?" or "what if someone I care about dies in a freak accident?".  Some are little ones, like "what if I trip and fall the next time I'm trudging through ice and snow?" or "what if my car breaks down when I'm in the middle of nowhere?".  Big or small, they all have one thing in common - there's not a damn thing I can do to prepare to face them.  They are like the night terrors, paralyzing when you're in the midst of one and easily pushed out of your mind when normality reasserts its claim on your mind.

For the moment, my strategy for dealing with them is avoidance - I don't let myself think about them, I don't speculate, I don't attempt to plan, I don't even acknowledge them.  For now, that's working and when it stops working, when the night terrors take over in spite of my best intentions, I will remind myself that when the morning comes and the what if happens, I will deal with it and have no regrets.