remember

scamming? for those of us born in the early 80's and subject to the grunge era in our adolescence, scamming was tight, scandalous, sexy, fun. Tantalizing. Illicit. Tacitly heterosexual-- I would never describe any of my early sexual explorations with other girls as scamming. Exploitive, particularly on the part of the boys, whose focus on scamming was more vehement, focused, insistent than the girls.

For us young ladies, it was this strange invasion; both welcome and reviled, exciting and disgusting; that hardened part of a boy rubbing up against a your leg, or even more fascinating, against that part of you suddenly softened by an unfamiliar heat. I have a comical and slightly frightening memory of being at Josh's house with my friend Melissa when I was 13. Melissa and Josh were "going out," and were sleeping together-- she was 13 and very physically developed, he was 17 and a traditionally immature teenage dude.

It was a summer day, bright and hot in the little Los Angeles suburb where I was raised. We had walked to Josh's from Melissa's, a good three mile trek. She disappeared into his bedroom after we drank beer on the front deck and smoked joints in the living room of Josh's and his little brother's house. Josh's room was furnished with a bunkbed and mismatched comforters. Imagine having sex in a bunkbed. It was probably more comfortable at 13 than it would be at 27.

His little brother was seedy and crass in that gross, desperate teenage way; a dirty little 'stache, messy jeans and hair, red rimmed stoner eyes. He was a boy to avoid, as evidenced by his name-- it was danny, or johnny, something -nny, a diminutive version of his given name, and he was a smaller, less attractive version of his brother Josh. That day he was set on getting at me- from the minute Melissa and I arrived he was working whatever he could to touch me, handle me, kiss me, fondle me.

Something we knew that we should be defending against while also inviting it; that was the only respectable way to go. If one went to far when scamming it could turn against you, your reputation wasn't exactly ruined in that 50's sense, but you were making yourself vulnerable to the pushy expectations of too many young, overzealous teenage boys. That's what Melissa had to fend off, and I was not going to open up that box.

what i think about

before i fall asleep, the things that keep me awake, the things that haunt me

- jp and the impact his presence and absence has made, the ensuing self hate, etc., including how shitty i feel about him now-- and how shitty that fact makes me feel. Fuck.
- the 600+ i owe psu
- my cc debt of 5000 and my school debt of 30,000. omg that seems HUGE sometimes...
- how i am nearly goddamned 27 and still a goddamned assistant
- that I am aging and falling and i am not taking care of my body-- i consistently overeat and damned if I am gonna get cuter, it's all downhill from here and it feels like i'm not doing enough about it...
- i never write anymore and it is fucking KILLING ME. I don't even have a place to write. I am tempted to become a goddamned junkie or methhead again so that I can find some sort of painfully motivated place-- I need SOMETHING, goddamnit, it seems that my emotional pain isn't fucking enough anymore
- my detachment from my brothers
- my lack of spiritual practice. that leaves me empty and wanting, reminds me of a time when I would meditate for calm and energy, meditate constantly-- it was a good period.

What the hell do I need? I am working on letting go of jp-- and his shit-- and allowing that connection to be in the past. Forever. Sadly, but completely, I hope.

I need to be ok with my debt, because it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

My body needs exercise and attention, and I can give it both things in plenty-- I will just institute a regimen and stick to it, and remember what to eat. And what not to eat. Eating for total health is my new goal-- and not overeating; allowing myself to get hungry and eating to sate that hunger, not to forget or anaesthetize.

I can have the will to write, and I MAKE THE DECISION NOW to do it daily. If it is just a page in my diary, so be it-- I can extend that to a million other places, particularly if I prioritize it.

Meditation is not that hard. Starting tomorrow, I will sit for 5 minutes in the morning and 5 in the eve. When I feel stressed or overtired, I will find a place to do some fire breathing during the day, as well.

Argh. I want to change my life, starting NOW. Here are some of my intentions-- easily accessible as reminders.

yeah

so

thanks, i suppose. um. i am learning a lesson here-- what have I done to other people? i wonder.

and

i'm not going to moon over you any longer-- I will continue to love you as a person, and I will not continue to wait for you to love me. I can't wait for you to love yourself.

You are ambitious, creative, compassionate, interesting, intellectual, hilarious, challenging... which is why it is so hard to say goodbye. We are both these things, and we met in a beautiful space between us, a sacred and loving space where two spirits intertwined

i'm sorry you weren't ready for me, darling.

it makes me completely sad

that i have to truly say goodbye to you. I never expected you to drop off, to stop connecting completely-- and damn, my heart has more broken under the prospect of your turning away absolutely from our connection than it ever did to stop dating you.

I am struggling to internalize that it is not my fault that you are behaving this way. It is not me, my body, my face, my intelligence; being ignored by you, however, is one of the most painful things that has happened in my life... for a while. And it just continues to ache. And I just continue to blame myself and see an ugly person in the mirror

a person who didn't deserve you

and it makes me hate us

i can't handle

myself sometimes. i got hit in the eye. i don't want to talk to anyone. i want to lay in my bed and be nothing and nobody and pretend that nothing happened that was STUPID last night, like me processing way too much and sending stupid texts and being a fucking asshole.

I DRINK LIKE AN ASSHOLE

CANT HANDLE IT ANYMORE

hello

me. i've been all over, emotionally. lately. yeah. hi, everyone, i'm getting better. i'm coming back, and i never expected to be taken so, so far away...

hello, me.

my daddy always said

that we have the control over the way we feel about things and events in our lives; I have been feeling particularly out of control lately, and not in a positive way.

I am making the decision today to be happy about my job, to be content with my singularity and happy for the people I care about in my life. I want to interact with every person with acceptance, dignity and care. I believe in myself, and today will be an example of this.

and though i continue to notice your absence i am relieved to have decided that this thing is in your hands, as i will pursue my own liberation

plenty capable hands they are

my god

where am i going and what am i doing

you haunt me and i want it to stop i let tonight go and i am both dying and thanking myself

is this what life is? i feel like i am going to go numb, lose all feeling soon, and my body and mind are struggling to maintain sensation, so i am just stuck in feelings and hurt and anxiety and passion and excitement and selfloathing and

all of it

where can i go for help? It feels like i am lost and loose and i have not felt so untethered in years. Portland was my cradle, I was bundled there, and here...

Do i need help? or is everything fine? am i looking for that frantic pace that I felt in college and simply adjusting? is the absence of you- and you- and you- and you- finally beginning to take its toll?

two faces haunt me. neither passed, simply gone from my life in any substantial fashion. both leave deep wounds, one less expected than the other.

i thought that three months would be enough. Where I am now, however, if at all an indicator for almost 1/3 of the way there, I am nowhere near bandaged enough to stop bleeding all over the people around me. I don't even feel presentable at a bar, in a restaurant, i feel young and stupid and too sincere for my own damn good

you know what is

totally strange?

that i love spending time with you. that when i'm with you, i am content. a little discontent, because i want so much of you. the amount of you that i became accustomed to in that short period of time. the total of you that pulled me irresistably toward you, regardless of my intentions.

and now it is difficult to settle for any less. all i want is you. i want more than you can give. i want to give you more than i should


blend shift move change into two one

but damn

i am fucking scared that you
- are lying to me
- don't really care about me
- really, that you are lying to me.

please don't be doing those things. please. just fucking tell me. the problem here is, i suppose, that i really don't know you. i have no idea what you might do. ugh.

but damn

you really seem like an upstanding person. this is a challenge, because usually i trust people-- and you make me damn nervous and i want to fucking trust you. damn fucking nervous

i would

paint your portrait over everything mundane

you are settling in like sand on a river bottom
so accustomed to travel i am that your presence seems alien
i expect your apprehension
your doubt and fear and the running
not security and care
and honesty

where did you come from?
escaping from the woodwork the wallpaper of my life
you exclaim that you are here

blowing a ragged hole in my carefully tended facade

the ups and downs of

this are extreme. but i guess i asked for it.

sigh.

i used to

think that feelings like this needed to go away, leave, never to be felt again.

i realized today that this fear is meant to reveal something to me. i have been running from fear in relationships because i am deeply afraid of being vulnerable. so now i get to feel my fear, and get all sorts of triggered about prior feelings like this in other relationships, and work on all of it. what an opportunity, right? i'm actually feeling good about it.

yay for me. never could have figured that one out on my own. sigh.

WALK THE PLANK

i mean, i enjoy dating and all, but I only enjoy it under certain conditions. i.e., when I am in control; when i feel more relaxed; when i can get lots and lots of support; when it is goddamned convenient. I hate/love dating. All in one breath and moment.

jeanette winterson, _written on the body_: FALL IN LOVE is like WALK THE PLANK. i want to avoid this feeling at all costs. i am deathly afraid of the pain, the rejection, the consequences, for all of my rhetoric about hurt being an unavoidable and necessary part of life. My brain believes my rhetoric, don't get me wrong, but my body still wants to run far far away, too far to be touched or affected

afflicted

what i am saying, folks, is that i am scared shitless right now.

fuck

sometimes i truly hate myself. i set myself up for these falls and i hate it that i regress into patterns I truly dislike and feelings I avoid and man...

i can't help but think. and the thinking is difficult. there is no sign or reason-- only thought.

relax into myself. do what you love. live your strong life. do not run from hurt.

ok now

whoa. i'm not sure I anticipated the feelings that I am experiencing.



i really did, i loved him as well as I could. and i miss him more than words can express right now. for my graduation at the beach j showed himself in a way he hadn't before and i was blessed with his honest smile radiating from his eyes through his skin like he really meant it and we joked about our engagement photos

one like this we were to use on the announcement

and we talked ridiculousness: where our girls would go to school, what instruments they might play, if we should go to Guam to raise them, how i might fare there, what I would have to prepare for, how we would keep getting support for our emotional selves there... so much more. how he would start teaching if i got pregnant then and i contemplated trying so that we could just settle in to being together and start a life and maybe he would step up if i carried his child

in my dream there were two girls; one with lighter hair, the taller one, and one with darker standing and waving to j and i as we walked away they stood in front of palm trees hair blowing in the wind

i assumed they were ours and i miss the idea of them too

i absolutely

tried to write the other day and my post was somehow lost in the ether of the internet

i am feeling lost as well, so perhaps it is appropriate that my forlorn prose lose its footing. regardless. my life is not so bad. i have a home, some money, people around me who seem to value aspects of me. yet i feel unrooted, my stays have come loose, i think of my previous home and simple things like lighting and snow and loud housemates downstairs and meditating and loving and feeling safe and cared for and never alone, and if alone marginally temporarily so

and now i seem to be both seeking it and running from it. here i am. people come towards me, want things from me again, yet it is not close and fulfilling, it is empty and false as i am less clear

i feel humiliated, scared, tokenised, fetishized, animated smiling accomodating flesh to stay another person's fear fill needs left unmet through no concious fault of their own

i want t, l, r, s, n, even k, d.m., my mom. i want my community. i want cherry. i want safety, sobriety, i want my jonny, i miss his hands and face and our fights and making up and loving each other and dreaming of family and the islands and our little girls

something seems to have wilted inside a bit

it is time

for bed, yet here i am.

i am so concerned that I will disappoint myself in the task ahead. feeling a little down about it, i suppose- right now, it seems that everything is so vibrant and alive around me. Spring rises from the ground and blooms in the air, the sunshine turning whiter in the sky and through my windows streaming, illuminating things i hadn't really seen since summer turned its back

the arms of a new lover wrapping vinelike around my body, holding me together, my lungs screaming for boundaries right now

i've been breathing all too hard, looking for oxygen that's been here all the while i've been turning blue

i am willing

to give, and allow for others to do exactly what they need to do, and not take it personally. i get a little afraid that I won't get anything I need in return, that I will somehow continue unacknowledged, but in the end- whose endorsement am I looking for? the other woman's? When really i just need the my girl to see me, not anyone else she's dating.