You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2008.
write me an ending
fitting for a princess
in rags
create me a happy ending
for a tale of too much sorrow
and too many sorries
give to me peace
give to me reverence
give to me life
Never, ever
is a distortion
Always, forever
is a distortion
Magnifying
is a distortion
Minimizing
is a distortion
Hording hurts
is a distortion
Denying gifts or pleasure
is a distortion
Reasoning with my emotions
is a distortion
I want to die
is a distortion
I want to live
is a distortion
all of it
all the thoughts I have
the heart that beats in my chest
the mind that races constantly
without mercy
is a distortion
This week, one of my former students was killed in what may have been a random act of violence. Except when is violence random? I go back and click one of the news websites over and over to see his face. To remember. I hate that two lives were extinguished, and four others may follow shortly if the suspects become convicted murderers and receive the death penalty.
More than anything, I want to rewind time and say to the shooter(s), don’t do what you’re about to do.
I don’t remember you, and I’m sorry
instead,
my head is filled with thoughts and memories
of people not worth remembering
not worth considering
I see his eyes, dark, and alive
and yours, dark, and dead
a dust cloud
filtered
in sunlight and darkness
you wanted to be unsettled, disturbed
and so you are
With words, I want to bring forth tangible evidence of the bile lurking inside, luring me to death, over and over again. I feel pain, and I like it. I feel pain, and it’s unbearable. Then, I feel nothing. And repeat.
The next step is a “mood stabilizer,” which seems like an awfully late game play. Perhaps this might have been helpful on the front end. They add stabilizers when you’ve become “hard to treat.” No joke. Treatment-resistant depression, it’s called, as if it’s a cockroach that endures just because it can. It feels like depression is stronger than me, and it’s winning. Everyone tells me depression doesn’t last forever, but in some rare cases, it does. If it saturates your life and personality long enough, it’s a permanent condition. A terminal condition.
youth is a deathtrap
we all fall into
Sinkng again. I can’t breathe, and I can’t cry. I can despair. I can curl up and die. I can bite my lips until they bleed. I can pull my greasy hair back. I can cocoon. I can make mistakes and freak out. I can take my one note and play it indefinitely.
Goddammit.
It’s sort of like a yard sale. I have a lot of this and that on my mind. Here’s a basic truth about me: rumination is a gift. I don’t know if it’s real or imagined, but I think it gets old, my talking about my breakup, my depression. So I blog to get it out and try to give the people around me a little peace.
I feel better, even if I’m not really. Even if it doesn’t last. Distractions are good things. My house, my blog, my this-and-that help me to not dwell so much.
Still. I worry about my future with men. Truly. In therapy, what has come about is that I think my relationships with men are doomed to fail. It is a belief, something that feels real and true and absolute. I don’t know how to combat it. Once I make a date to meet a man, it starts a countdown to the end of our relationship. I literally hear the clock ticking. A good friend of mine said, you’ve been put through the ringer, don’t be so hard on yourself. Another said, don’t make other men pay for what’s been done to you.
One theory is, in some ways, I chose my previous relationship because he was obviously flawed, so I didn’t have to wonder what was going to go wrong. That feels both true and not-completely-true. If one relationship, one that by all accounts was not good for me, if that one relationship can create so much sorrow, can spiral me this far down, how am I ever going to survive dating? Was it coincidence? That this dysfunctional relationship and breakup simply corresponded and exacerbated a depressive episode I would have had anyway? I want someone to tell me I’m not weak.
I’m so tired of ambivalence.
The camera
has tight angles
severe
the way I see the world
in black and white
or monotone gray
all or nothing
you or me
love, hate, indifference, regret
upset
the feeling of being a non-person, non-self, non-identity
walking through my life, a stranger
emptiness incarnate
Some blog titles demand punctuation.
Some would describe me as “manic.” Just because I have a weird energy and an unfocused look about me. Fine. Say it. I’m meeting the menz again. At least online. Go me, I say. Do what you do, as Mr. Whitier would say (B, you should get this reference to Chuck P’s Haunted). Who knows how I’ll feel about it in 10 minutes but for now, it feels good to be moving. It’s a relief to feel like I’m doing something to move on.
Two other things of note: 1) I hate conferences that are boring and have uncomfortable chairs. Not just uncomfortable because they are stiff, but because they are too tall for me. I’m trying to be a professional and all and then I’m having to swing my legs all the day long, looking so elementary school. 2) My knee hurts. Something else was supposed to go here but I can’t remember what it was. Probably because, as some would say, I’m “manic.” OH! I remember, my #2 note was that my right tonsil is nut-sack big and has not shrunk over the last few weeks, despite antibiotics and other medications. What to do, what to do.
I can’t do many things. Cook. Be on time. Regulate my moods. Reach the fire alarm to replace the battery should it need replacing. But I can:
- Replace a faulty phone jack wih my bare hands and a screwdriver
- Find a bargain on rugs at Lowe’s (also: light fixtures, sink fixtures)
- Swiffer with the best of them
- Feel content for a moment, feel satisfied with myself for a moment
- Buy a bargain BLING! ring at JCPenney’s
- Be cheered up by my parents and grandmother
- Text like I-don’t-know-whut
- Survive a conference dinner tonight.
I don’t know about turning points or transitions because my road is uneven (as my therapist says) and a good day today means nothing in 10 minutes or two days. But I’m happy to be able to appreciate what I can do.
Also, if you’re a Barack Obama supporter, take heart. My grandmother of all people is voting for him because “he makes more sense than that John McCain.”
Ramblings of a Medicated Lady: Words of Woe by Loria Taylor 
Your Sympathies: