anxiety broke the disc in my back

i've been trying to write about the supposed emotional issues that relate to the healing of my back. i've been taking swings at the concept, but have realized it wholly.

i used to have a lot of anxiety, when i was younger. at some point i figured out how to block the anxiety, mute it's message of fear and worry. about what? what does that matter; anxiety is about fear and worry, regardless of anything else. there's just nothing worse than failing when you confront your anxieties. the last time that happened, i went into shock and felt the negative effects of the reverb. i think after a while, i decided there's no way i could ever let myself get burned that badly again.

i put it all away. decided what i needed to do, to believe, to be less of my anxiety. well, turning off my reception of an important aspect of my well-being, this anxiety that was controlling me. even after i thought i had mellowed out, i was simply ignoring the bills of how much i was spending for the facade, and my own belief in it. i really thought i had made improvements. maybe i have handled some anxiety front and center; it's possible.

but the end result was my anxiety built up to an unmanageable level, and it found its way out of me by busting a squishy disc in the lumbar region of my spine. yes, i was probably also abusing my back strength in general. i think bodily stresses find their way out where weakness already exists. 

... just had a brief daydream, even now at night: i was imagining c and i have a laugh as we figure out how to look each other in the eyes despite using a webcam. we talked on skype webcam the other day, and you look at your screen to see your co-conversationalist, not at your webcam which is several inches above the image on the screen. and what you're looking at is your co-conversationalist looking down, not up, at you in the eye. we're both looking at each other looking away... you're looking at someone who's looking away from you.

incredibly lonely, really. who's looking at you? you can say 'my co-conversationalist is looking at me' but if they were, you'd make eye contact. instead you see them looking down. it's like watching someone watch you. it's voyeurism, and it makes for awkward conversation in some circumstances. 

returning to the daydream, i was seeing c and i talking about this precise aspect of webcam chat, and him and i devising a game where one looks into their webcam while the other looks at the screen, then we get a rhythm going where we alternate our gazes from screen to cam so that it seems like we get to look each other in the eyes every other moment. it all ends with us laughing.

that's what i'm struggling with -- focus. i wanted to write about my anxiety and its connection to my healing and recovery. i talk about this anxiety that i've ignored -- but then i drift off to some little scene that contradicts exactly what i'm trying to focus on. i've been ignoring my anxiety, it's caused this injury, and healing my emotional health is part of healing my physical health. relationships give me plenty of anxiety and i keep reminding myself to let go of c, i'm really working on the anxiety i have about being abandoned... blah blah blah. 

point being, when i'm pro-actively trying to deal and heal, why do i go and have these little flights of fancy, making me forget everything i'm trying to learn. i'm really trying here.

this is hard. maybe that's the point.

* * *

as i was walking back from the park, the message was my anxiety as a package and that 'it's addressed and stamped -- send it off.' it's finished and is ready to go; release it.

i decline participation

i don't want to play this game anymore. 

this is the letter i need to write to c:

i have to step out now. we've been running circles for a while now, i feel dizzy. i change my perspective one hundred and eighty degrees every other moment. this is a pretty intricate dance, a very challenging duet, but i can't continue playing. 

i do not want to spend a life with you always holding the asian thing over my head, eternally ready to stab at a personal irritation whenever you feel i am abandoning you. and your constant defence makes me ready to run at short notice. it's a classic toxic relationship. no trust. 

i originally abandoned you, so do you think that is a legitimate reason to not give me a second chance, to not trust me? well, your lack of communication skills has resulted in your knowingly leading me on while withholding pertinent information that would affect my interest in you, affectionate or otherwise. i hurt you, so now you don't feel too bad if you lead me on and then hurt me when you brush off my advances. it's not the most honorable thing to do, but you're kind of hurt (or annoyed?) by how i handled things when we together, that while ago.

returning to my point: i think our only destiny is to go in circles, and that's what you do when you've got time to kill. i've killed a lot of time with you, and vice versa (i believe). but besides simply having grown tired from it, i think it's time for me to let go. release what you grasp now, in order to be able to grasp for something higher, better when it comes along. 

what i fear is that i've run these circles with you out of sheer competition, maybe even some vanity. i fear that seeing you again, i might realize why i physically resisted you when we were together; i wasn't attracted to you. all these years and thousands of miles between us has photoshopped the hell out of my perception of you.

that distance makes it grow, man, it does wonders for those affections.

seeing your teeth again on skype the other day (not to start talking trash, but to provide concrete examples)... well that's what has got me to thinking about an actual reunion -- can someone say potentially awkward? i know it's not the most graceful point to make, but i'm trying to face the truth here.

now, i know i was rather euphoric following the surgery, and maybe i'm just coming back down to dry land, but the joyful bubble has burst. not entirely, but seeing complex feelings for you met with avoidant apathy in my mind, that might have tipped me off. what this means -- sometimes i get hung up on things from the past, and the way you've dangle your aesthetic jones for asian women over my head any time you feel i've rejected you, i just hate that. and i think of all the reasons i don't like you. it's not pleasant, i think it makes my blood pressure rise sometimes, but it's real and it's necessary. that's how i feel.

if i just don't trust you enough that i feel i can forgive you for past hurts, well then what's the point? yes, i think there would be an enormous capacity for love in a relationship between you and i; but i think there's something messed up about how we know how to most thoroughly hurt each other. i'm really ready for my hard work in my life to pay off, and i need to weed the things out of my life that no longer suit me, to make space for thing things i do want. 

this is an emotional eviction.

hot chicks and douchebags

oh, i get it now. i was walking home from the park, thinking about my landlords compact-sized car, and how his rather petite family fits inside just fine. it's the kind of car that's a nightmare for lengthy and/or girthy people of scandinavian heritage. (just thinking about 'heritage' coming from 'inhered from [parent]' how i would explain that to an esl student: to inherit means to carry-on a trait of your parent/s, and your heritage is your personal legacy, your inheritance. i am now thinking of myself as some sort of brilliant lingual expert, which is nice, because i'd never think that of myself sober. it's nice to have this kind of guest experience while i'm stoned, it's a nice change of scenery.

again, thinking about the height of my relatives, i have one short (genetically related) aunt on my mom's side of the family, and two tall genetically related on my dad's side -- where i tripped up in my thinking was remembering whether one of my dad's three sisters was tall before she was confined to a wheelchair, and then a hospital bed, with ms. but i was under the age of five by the time she was no longer walking. then i got to thinking about her, saying hi to her spiritually while i feel that i can connect. she's there, saying she's watching me, and that she loves it. if my life were a tv show, she'd be a big fan. and she's not judging me. what i do remember of her was that she was about the gentlest person ever, always knew how to make everyone feel special in their own way.

if we choose the obstacles and lessons to learn in this incarnation, see did some amazing things with an insanely difficult lifetime. as i said, she was the sweetest, gentlest person, but not prude or judgmental. she liked a good joke, even a racy one. she would probably be considered the neighborhood sweetheart, i think. and unfortunately, she married the classic douchebag. the entity of drama surrounding my dad, his sister, and her husband from the very beginning to this day is enormous. [just had a thought that this is the novel i could write. if i could pull it off, it would be tremendously exposing of my family's private affairs, and things like that can cause problems. still an interesting plot, nonetheless.] in the end, i think my dad feels bad that he didn't protect his sister from the jerk.

that's a tremendous cause of emotional turbulence in my family's home. i think my dad just rolls it over in his mind, endlessly, always carrying the anger about it with him. these days. when i was a kid, i have no idea what his problem was. 

back to my aunt in the role of hot chick (or really nice chick) and the guy she married, douchebag. [There's a website about these things]. they had three kids, and once the youngest was maybe 10, she started feeling the effects of ms. rested more and used a cane, i think. went to the wheelchair, and they moved to a new house that was better suitable for her needs. once she ended up in a nursing home, around the time i was a teenager, i suppose it became apparent that her husband, my uncle, was cheating on her. he'd go on exotic trips with groups of 'friends' or specific women friends, whatnot to that accord. maybe he was cheating on her before she ever was put in the nursing home. there were a few urgent medical needs towards the end, and my dad's told me of her husband's attempts to stall seeking help as he was simply wanting it to end. her life, this eternally slow stretch to death. in some ways i can see what he was getting at, as in 'put an end to her suffering' as she was living a very poor quality of life at the end. but how can you not help the one you love -- i don't think it's unreasonable to be torn.

but then again, when you're preaching 'end the suffering' and having semi-open marital affairs while your spouse is indeed on their deathbed, well that just doesn't look very good.

because it's not very good, it's very terrible. but i'm not him and i'm not living his situation, so there could be factors involved that i can't even image right now. i'm still pretty naive -- but the way this situation looks like from the outside is not good.

after my aunt passed away, there was a falling out between my grandma -- my dad's and his sister's mom -- and the daughter of my aunt (my grandma's granddaughter, and my cousin). That's caused some big rift between the husband and children of my aunt, and my aunt's own family (my dad and his mom). over the years my deceased aunt's now widower-husband had dated and ended up marrying again. although he didn't tell any of his deceased wife's family, my family, that he was doing so. he had always had a bad relationship with his mother-in-law, my grandma. he was clearly ready to cut ties with his wife's family following her passing. this has caused all kinds of grief with my dad, his mom, and two remaining sisters (although not to such a degree with the sisters).

and just for good measure, the widower-husband didn't just re-marry when his own three biological were grown and out of the house, he married a woman who had three teenage children -- they even all moved into the house my aunt and him raised their kids in.

this guy is now father to six people and he is a douchebag. 

and that is how the cautionary tale of 'the hot chick and the douchebag'  plays out, to show us all just how important it is to choose carefully when picking a lifemate. don't end up with the bad guy.

duet for guitars

i've recently been jonesing to learn how to play the guitar, as i have nothing to do while my back heals from surgery. i made a deal with a girl on fb to buy her guitar, but i wouldn't be surprise if she flakes.

that not being the point; the point being that my interest in guitar playing is a new addition to the table. i asked my playlist how i'm going to meet my guy, the answer was 'duet for guitars, no. 3' by m ward. the guitar will be part of how we meet. it's something we'll have in common; i want to learn, he can teach me.

mm, how cool, how indie. how the over-achiever snags on something, drops out of the 'everyday race' and meets her love, a simple minstrel if you're a ren-fest'er, which i am not. ah, mid-eval times, one of white people's most sentimental eras. 

i'll focus and see if i had any lives in european medieval times... yea, i can see myself as a man, older with white hair and a long white beard, but thin, not like santa. i see as though i'm looking through his vision -- in that life, i'm witting in a sturdy wooden chair, in some sort of tent or hut with just a doorway. i walk to the opening and i'm on the side of a quite steep hill, covered in a thin layer of mossy grass. the landscape rises dramatically like machu picchu but it's in northern europe. looks like modern day sweden, but mid-evally ago. i don't really know what i do in the life, everything looks gray and white, my skin, the landscape, my robe. no metal helmet with horns; i was no viking. i can see an impending black sky approaching from the distance... the darkness looks threatening, the result is perished mental health. it's just really depressing -- that's what i see when i try to place myself in medieval europe.

that's kind of interesting. depends if you wanna italicize kind of or interesting. that's kind of interesting. that's kind of interesting. means two opposite things. isn't language so fascinating...

you making me happier, now i am snappier

this is what i need in my life:

you, making me happier

now i am snappier

while i'm with you

i gotta be havin' you

cause i am happier

when i'm with you

someone to make me snappier! great song, glad to have just discovered it in my own little world.

i don't need nerdy white boys and their thing with chinese chicks

i just don't get it at all. i just can't possibly see what they see in each other. does it make me racist to wonder what white guys see in asians, as i personally don't find anything attractive about asians? i mean, i don't personally find anything attractive about nerdy white boys, either. sometimes they're nice to talk to, but i just cannot imagine one boning me. just cannot.

i brought a pen and notepad to the park, to start writing down my thoughts as i had them, as i tend to forget them by the time i get back inside and blog. out in the park, on the bench i smoked, thought, and wrote. but my pen ran out of ink, and the wind was making my fingers numb.

what i managed to write: 'after years of planning, over-planning... things not working out --> but not i just see what i can dream up, and want, and see what happens' as the pen runs out. i spent all those years making so many plans, so many revisions, additions, variations, expectations... all for what? the significant decisions i've made in the last few years have not necessarily been the biggest or hardest decisions. the ones i thought were big, difficult issues melted away without a verdict, and some of the simpler decisions i've made have had the greater impact than i once thought. 

now that i've stopped planning and have started listening, the message is telling me to dream up whatever makes me happy. just throw those ideas out there -- how am i tailoring my dreams, just for me? if i can dream it up and i like it, then i'll add that quality to the list. 

lately i've been writing up the list for my dream romance with my best friend, oh yea the guy who's a surgeon. if i can dream up what i'll love about him, and what he'll love about me -- what kind of life we could have together -- then dream it up for the sake of seeing what it is i want.

i don't know why this is such a hard issue for me in my life, clarifying what i want -- i think the way i was raised has caused me to carry a lot of guilt and insecurity. i don't have to carry those things for me anymore, it was an environmental burden that i knew i had to leave quite a while ago. i can consider it off my shoulders now.

yes no maybe, is all i need to hear from you

i've been told to write about my emotional issues as a way to heal my current back injury.

i sat on the bend, looking at the thinly clouded sky. i need him to be a great audience. he needs to know how to make me shine. he'll live for my performances. he's into the drama, at least somewhat. i need a man who knows how to be a great audience to my emotional needs. 

i love being popular, i love getting attention. i need that factor considered for my life mate. he can be funny, but not funnier than me, never waiting after my schpiels to one-up me in the end. we should be as funny as the other, and even funnier together. that's what i need to love about him.

my first collection writings could be 'my stoner life,' and the sequel could be called 'the life of a surgeon's wife.' how a middle class girl struggles with adapting to the semi-society life of running in the professional surgery circles. oh boo hoo, what a sob story.

oh right, but i need to write about my emotional needs, or was it issues? i don't think she called them issues, but something of the like. the image i see is like a large, felted collection of outer wear layers cracking open, lifting up and away from me. 'it's time to shed all those layers i'm still wearing, still carrying around.' maybe winter is over, it's like my endless layers of experiences finally shedding -- i can shed the build-up of the past -- i can shed the past. i can let go of it now. in order to move on, let go of the past so that i can grasp for the future.

not bad advice.

i'm shaping, sculpting my objective, making sure that i get what i want down to the last detail. i have to make known what it is i want, so that the forces that be can do what needs to be done -- whether that is to assist, or not.

i woke up from that surgery a happier person. whatever it was that was depressing me so long, finally crippling me physically, was removed. 

i was in the kitchen, waiting for my toast, thinking about my new instant-happiness. i thought up the little speech i'd make during my one month check up with the surgeon (and hopefully the resident that i'm planning to marry in my dreams -- this is how we're supposed to re-connect). i'd tell him how i just didn't realize how sad i was, now that i feel as happy as i am. it's like the surgery took away the black cloud that's been hanging over my head for... years now. 'i woke up from that surgery a happier person,' i'd tell them, showing the young resident doctor that i had indeed shed those layers of the past, i was ready for him. 

as i stood out in the park, continuing to dream up my dream of falling in love, i knew that i really need to let go of the past. the best part was realizing that letting go won't be that hard -- i don't care that much anymore. so london's in my past; i nearly had a close encounter with it, but i'm not heartbroken. even when tempted, i can successfully let go of the past.

that's a nice place to be within myself, able to let go of the past, approaching a fresh clearing for a new start. it feels like springtime, i'm approaching my time to proper. well, that's good news. 'the hard part is almost done.'

but when i was waiting for my toast in the kitchen, thinking about expressing my exuberant joy in my newfound happiness, i got paranoid and thought 'maybe they'll think i've gone manic... ugh that cannot be good,' so if i do mention it when i see the doc next, i'll keep it brief.

i've been told to write out my emotional issues, and i've started with ending -- how i finally 'got happy,' less within my control than i had thought previously. 

i have to keep in mind that everything i feel is not a fact. the reasons you keep yourself depressed are not necessarily true. not all criticism are correct, neither are all compliments (think: back-handed compliments). i don't have to listen to what people say -- i listen because i want to make sure i can do whatever it is i need to do to win their favor. that's something v and i had in common, the low self-value issue, although i do think his intensity was a bit higher than mine. i may have my insecurities, but i'm overall more secure in myself than v has been in himself. 

we were just two insecure people, and that's about it. that's why it's easy to let that one go now.

looks like my emotional issues are starting to clear up...

love letter to mary jane

we could be a downtown couple; yea, i'd like that. living in this neighborhood, or downtown, either would be lovely. what a beautiful life, married to my best friend who's a neurosurgeon. i'm loving this fantasy world were i don't shame myself for dreaming that i'll find some fabulous man and have a fairy-tale ending (of my single life). sober i think about it, but judge myself; stoned, i think about it, feel happy, and acknowledge that my dreams just in themselves can make me happy. i'm happy to dream, whether it ever materializes or not. 

the joy is in the creation -- using what you've got in order to create is the best thing you can do, whatever that means in your life. you work a terrible job you hate your whole life, but you love making model trains for a hobby? if you enjoy what you create, that's all you need to achieve. not such a bad deal.

i'm enjoying creating these little dream scenarios where this is the 'romcom' of my life -- how i meet the one, the man i'll spend my life with. i spend the end of grad school stoned and writing -- meet the one when i've got a herniated disc, and during our first encounter he has to administer a rectal test of me. pure comedy gold. then in the month between surgery and a follow up visit with the surgeon and the handsome young-ish surgery resident doctor (or something) i smoke and dream up the best dream possible, only to have the young doctor step in and make my dreams come true. i'm loving even letting myself get this carried away.

i love smoking weed because it lets me enjoy what makes me happy, instead of telling me what should make me happy. we don't need as many reasons to be happy as we think.

i could become a canadiens fan

i'm enjoying quite the long-lasting daydream that the resident doctor in the er who examined me will come back into my life via the 4-6 week check-up. my legs will be waxed this time, and i'll be witty and funny, we'll flirt and i'll catch him hook, line & sinker when i leave the room telling him, 'well, you have my number...' and gliding off.

oh, to be so cool.

so i meet my soulmate in the er when i've herniated a disc in my back, and during the physical examination he had to stick his finger up my ass to make sure my bowels were still functioning. my legs are also very hairy. but we meet again, everything goes perfectly and we sail into the sunset, happy as can be.

don't think that's all; in the sequel we'll end up moving to montreal as he becomes a more and more successful surgeon. he's fluent in french from french-immersion school, and is as natural as a fish in water there. i'll adapt, i could write the canadian version of 'a year in the merde' recounting my experiences. wouldn't that be an elegant life -- the architectural glamour of europe, the hominess of canada, a happy and successful life. he dies when i'm 63, and i die at 84.

those 21 years could be my golden literary era. whether it's personal expressive achievement, notoriety, or simply remain using my voice to join with other storytellers and messengers, i can expect the end to be good. what a lovely life i've dreamt up here, falling in love with a doctor i spent less than 20 minutes of my life with. nevertheless, i think i could become a canadiens fan; i've always instinctively loved their retro-styled sweaters.

yea, you wouldn't wanna leg wrestle me

cause i'd win. i was at the park, sitting on the bench, thinking of the funniest things.

for instance, last week at the hospital the handsome resident doctor was administering my physical exam, checking the strength of my legs. after one compression, he said under his breath 'really strong legs.' it was kind of hot, or at least i was proud of myself. 

[there's also something nice about a guy down on his knee, looking up at me. now i'm having amusing flashes of him proposing, as to say 'what if this is how you meet your soulmate? the first time he sees me, i have grossly hairy legs and he has to stick his gloved finger way up my ass and instruct me to squeeze as tight as i can.

i mean, that's hysterical. i'm whipping up quite a nice 'this is how i met my soulmate, my hysterical neurosurgeon husband' tale. oh what a dream that would be. i'm glad getting high at least lets me fantasize such things, before instinctively thinking 'oh, as if.']

i was out in the park, thinking my joke should have been 'yea, you wouldn't wanna leg wrestle me.' i sat out there and thought about him laughing -- he sees all kinds of people all day, so how am i going to leave a lasting impression? make him laugh -- one of the nurses said that he was a jokester, he's the funny guy. it's fun to have nothing else to do than think up ways to win the heart of someone you think is way out of your league. i've got it pretty good, if that's the most of my problems.

fewer cliche endings

i need to understand the irrelevance of making plans most of the time. we're all here working on what you could call spiritual lessons, coming to a better understanding of what it is i'm participating in this time around. there are lessons of all sizes, but you need to recognize what you're learning in accordance with what you're experiencing. i think i've done better this time, in terms of expectations...

i need to know what my feelings and expectations are, because they're sort of inversely proportional. the more feelings i have invested in a situation, the less i can expect the situation to reach my expectations. i suppose there's a correlation of the more feelings i have, the higher my expectations tend to be. that's pretty normal - we're all so easily disappointed in everything. we achieve so much, yet ignore it because we just want more and more. i should set smaller benchmarks in my expectations and appreciate what is diligently achieved. it's a slow climb, but it's still a climb. 

i've recently had a complete change in my plans, everything i had worked for, the reward i was encouraging myself with, abruptly stopped. i've absorbed the shock of the unexpected blow, and now feel as thought i'm hanging in slow motion, seeing in which direction i recoil towards. i know this change in plans is intentional by the means of the universe - i wasn't meant to go, no matter what my ego tried to do. my ego is trying to repeat a pattern, and my higher knowledge is restraining me from the back of my hoodie collar. 

so i didn't go back to london, didn't see c. would have made a fool of myself anyways, and why do that for a tenth time, really? you know what, i just need to let him go, let him escape to china again, let him and his chinese princess get back together. it was probably all just a diversion anyway. this is simply a boring phase of my life. the time that lay dormant for which will later be fertile. i'm not talking baby talk here, it's more a phrase from some tarot cards i use.

yea, that's not stereotypically hippiesh? or are hippies and the occult really that close? maybe i'm confusing hippies with gypsies. whatever.

so my spiritual higher self is achieving something in this test, showing a bit of wisdom and maturity in the face of this set-back. not the tantrum i had in front of v. i've done a decent job of protecting myself from becoming vulnerable in a scenario with expectations. although when i'm sober i hold out for that slightest of chances for the story to end happily. for the impossible to happen. 60% in denial. 100% vulnerable.

so it looks like c might reunite with his ideal, leaving me out on the stoop in the cold, the orphan in the rags, staring in the windows in victorian times, a chimney-sweep kind of kid. c would ultimately choose to not allow me back in this life. i'd be turned away and have to start at the roots, build once again. but this time i'm not so hurt because i finally know that an approaching future unknown is not necessarily a bad thing; there's no real reason to fear it. go with the flow and see where it takes you.

i used to have so much anxiety about where the flow would take me, my ability to cope, adjust and learn. different directions aren't necessarily the wrong way. for all i know, i've just avoided a disaster and certain death. this might be the best thing that's every happened to me, or the event that puts in motion a process with a great conclusion approaching.

i need to find someone who treats me as well as my mom does. someone who simple loves me and cares about what's best for me. maybe i've started the warpath to that person. this is the beginning of the romantic comedy movie of my life: how i meet the man i'll probably spend my life with. but life's way better than hollywood - much fewer cliche endings.

dear sleep, where you at? i can't find you yo

smoking weed is more of a study than a recreational hobby for pleasure. sometimes the paranoia gets old. i just want to open up and see what options are around me. connect to a higher energy and see if i'm progressing or idling - or worse, pulling yourself backward.

i came inside after smoking and thought of how much i missed voldemort's attention. i'm craving a really specific kind of interaction - but it's no where in sight and there's no need to go back to him. the further away i get, the less there is to grasp at. i don't need to do that to myself.

dear self confidence, hang in there, really hold on to the edge, and wait. play it cool, don't sweat it, and see what happens. it would be nice if i could just sleep the remaining time away, but the nerve in my leg is throbbing and my mind is spinning. i guess c will meet me upon arrival next week -- very briefly.

i don't even know what to say before my schpiel -- nah i need to listen to him. i can tell him later that i've always saved a spot in my heart for him, he had earned an automatic second chance upon improvement of the scenario. we could give it another go if we found a comfortable compromise. but i've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about whether c will or even would consider giving me a second chance. i spoke to an intuitive friend recently, and she said something to the effect that we could reconvene for friendship only, that he was very affected by what happened between us in china and maybe still resents me in some ways.

this is too much for right now -- i wish i were having better clairvoyant dreams these days...

making note of my discomfort

i sat outside, on the new bench in the park, this evening. i sat there and thought 'alright, let's pretend c is sitting here on the bench; pretend you've gone to london and he does in fact stay long enough to see you.' what is it i want to say? and does it really even matter if i ever say these things to him?

the more i thought about it, too many aspects of c, my relationship with him and his relationship with his chinese princess, sit uncomfortably with me. the bottom line is that i feel too uncomfortable with c to seriously consider him a potential partner. c and i have essentially kept each other on our respective back-burners while we've had other relationships in our own worlds; i've grown impatient to regain his attention while he is still dealing with his own problems. but now i'm thinking we don't have anything in common anymore. i've noticed my relationship has been me showing him my vulnerable aspects in hopes to entice him to do the same, but he doesn't. c doesn't get personal, at least not with me. so i show a bit more, hoping he'll feel confident to do the same. he doesn't.

now it's gone on so long i think i've exposed far too much of my very private business to him, to no avail of reciprocation. i wouldn't say i'm embarrassed, much more so annoyed. that's all the applause i get for such a production? that's the thanks i get?

but as i sat on that bench in the park, i thought 'i don't want to play this game anymore.' i don't want to play this way with c, i think we've both poisoned it enough in our own ways: me over-indulging c, c taking without giving in return. so it occurred to me, 'then stop playing.'

sounds like a good idea.

* * *

i woke this morning with the sweetest dream of p i've had in ages. i know i must be stoned right now if i'm easily able to fantasize up a little dream of p coming back to me, declaring his love and us spending our lives together cuddled up against the fresh night air. p lives for fresh air.

all of the integral parts

c is trying to leave london before i arrive. that's all the long story of it boils down to. i'm reaping what i've sowed. i left him so long ago, he's leaving me now. all i can do is let go - completely release whatever i'm grasping onto and have faith that whatever happens, i'll be ok. 

it was for my best that my past relationships didn't work out - is c really that different? that's what i wanted to check. maybe i don't need to check.

most of all, i need to be cognizant that i do what i need to do for myself while i'm in london. i'm going in with questions, and i need to come out with what i've determined as my answers. i'm still in the driver's seat. if c chooses to remove himself from the list of variable factors, i can't let that fact lessen the importance of all the other integral parts.

dirty barbecue / marital ice cream scoop / squirming away

i was in the park, leaning against the trunk of a large trees, it's long limbs bowing to the earth. smoking from a pipe. i watched as a pair of middle aged parents tried to get their less-than-3-year old to engage in a game of catch with them. the tossed the ball to him, which he completed ignored and did not even react to. the parents would tell him to turn around and direct him to pick up the ball, turn around, throw it back. they did this over and over, the kid completely disinterested. it was hilarious, as the parents would try to demonstrate by tossing it to each other, but they couldn't catch or throw properly themselves. one would toss the ball short of the other, so that they'd have to walk and bend over to get it. i mean, he was just doing the exact same thing they were -- sucking at playing catch. 

i laughed and laughed. i wonder if they heard me.

they must have smelled me anyhow. the very young child had basically turned its back in the parents and walked towards a sandbox and playground, vaguely in my direction. the mom walked with the tot, but as they went the dad said 'no, no, don't go over there... daddy doesn't like it over there...' the wife turns to look back at him, probably wondering why, and he said 'it's dirty over there, don't go over there, it's dirty...' and my stoned ass was positive he bobbed his head in my direction.

was he alluding to my presence as 'dirty?' that's quite funny if it is, but i live in a weed-friendly place. wow, was i really called dirty? it didn't occur at the time, but now i wonder if that was a censored slur, dirty hippy. did someone actually kind of call me a dirty hippy?

well, if that isn't hilarious, i don't know what is.

back to the story, the mom and tot walk over to the playground despite dad's warning against the nearby dirtiness. a handful of moments pass, i continue smoking, the dad still the furthest away takes a deep breath in and says 'smells like barbecue' he says, 'do you smell barbecue?'

'smells like barbecue, yea' says the mom, 'can you smell the barbecue? can you smell the barbecue?' the mom patronizes her poor toddler. well, for their sake, i hope they actually could smell barbecue, because of course i didn't. i was really hoping they weren't trying to get their kid to think the scent of weed smoke was barbecue so that 1.) the kid doesn't have to know what marijuana is and 2.) so that when their kid smells this scent again, mostly likely in mixed company, he won't be so ill-mannered to say 'smells like weed!' but will rather confuse or charm instead.

/

why do i have to get married and receive an ice cream scoop as a gift instead of scraping it out of the carton with a big regular spoon? why is a marital ice cream scoop the preferred? what's really so wrong about living like a vagabond?

/

have a growing fear that i do not necessarily have the feelings for c that i might have suggested i did, or at least not anymore. i just get stoned and think about what we don't have in common. i fear that he still thinks i have these feelings, so there's an impending awkwardness about my approaching arrival. what if he's not excited about my showing up, but he will regain his feelings for me - so that he's after me and i'm squirming away from him. again. that would be pretty awful. it's a good thing i'm not going there specifically to see him, i'm doing a bit of professional work and staying at his place. he may be there or he maybe be gone to china. what if i reeeeaaally don't want him, would that push him over some kind of edge? really hope not.

lua

what rocky road is to one, is heavenly hash to the other. rather amusing/yummy.

i asked my ipod to give me insight into my life right now. result was lua - listen here.

i know that it is freezing, but i think we have to walk

i keep waving at the taxis, they keep turning their lights off

but julie knows a party at some actor's west side loft

supplies are endless in the evening by the morning they'll be gone

when everything is lonely i can be my own best friend

i'll get a coffee and the paper, have my own conversations

with the sidewalk and the pigeons and my window reflection

the mask i polish in the evening by the morning looks like shit

and i know you have a heavy heart, i can feel it when we kiss

so many men strongs than me have thrown their backs out trying to lift it

but me i'm not a gamble, you can count on me to split

the love i sell you in the evening by the morning won't exist

you're looking skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black

just keep going to the bathroom, always say you'll be right back

well, it takes one to know one, kid, i think you've got it bad

but what's so easy in the evening by the morning's such a drag

i got a flask inside my pocket, we can share it on the train

and if you promise to stay conscious i will try and do the same

we might die from medication, but we sure killed all the pain

but what was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane

and i'm not sure what the trouble was that started all of this

the reasons all have run away, but the feeling never did

it's not something i would recommend, but it is one way to live

cause what is simple in the moonlight by the morning never is

it was so simple in the moonlight now it's so complicated

it was so simple in the moonlight, so simple in the moonlight

so simple in the moonlight...

away for good

i suppose i have to admit, i've been missing golden-era voldemort, a little. which is really a bad idea, because forgetting all those bad decisions i made would be a mistake. maybe having any sort of positive attitude about him is the first sign of healing and forgiving myself for the mistakes i made.

i guess i don't really care if i've forgiven him or not, because it's ourselves we have to answer to in the end. he doesn't need to ask me for forgiveness, he needs to forgive himself for the mistakes he made. but that's not what's on my mind right now.

i'm listening to a song with the rapper common singing back-up phrases like 'huh' and 'uuuh' and 'ah' and 'yea.' the bassline, the beat, the pace, the voice timbre all sounds like those few moments when voldemort was a person i enjoyed, before things got out of control. it reminds me of how i felt, those vibrations i felt. sometimes i wonder if that's the deepest i've ever connected with another person - if that was the one person who made me feel less alone in the world. but i would need to deny that, as to cover that vulnerability. 

i especially need to resist the urge to reconnect - to learn to put things away for good.