2003-01-14 - 10:03 a.m.
::Oh my god. Oh, wait ... here it comes ... *breaths slowly* ... oh, god, wait ... just wait ... I want to enjoy this. Just go slow ...
I was raised by the movies. Let's get that out of the way right now. I am an only child and was alone for most of my formative years. Many behaviors stem from this fact, like talking to myself (someone once teased me about this, my reply was "well, who else am I going to talk to?" sad, but true). My expectations of how relationships go also come from this. Before, and through, puberty I was imprinting on Lion in Winter, My Favorite Year, The Big Chill, and On Golden Pond. Adding to that an assault by a classmate at age 9 and my parent's divorce at age 4 one will come to the realization that my expectations of relationships were extremely skewed. I expected that even the worst people can redeem themselves (especially with my help) but everyone will leave. I expected that everyone always knows what to say, how to say it, and what they mean by what they say ... except me so I must strive to know and to control. All of that same stuff about what to do. God! I never realized how much of my behavior is about control. And how much of that need for control is about my parent's divorce. Jesus christ.
:: AAahhhhh. Fabulous. Oh, oh ... oh god ... again?!
So, a friend of mine is getting married. This is a friend of mine who is day to my night. She doesn't make the mistakes that I make. She has succeeded where I have failed in almost every department. That is how this poor human being is set up in my mind and it actually gives me comfort to say it because this next part makes me extremely uncomfortable. She doesn't know what the hell she's doing either. She has been winging it just as much as I have. Now, for whatever random reasons, she has managed to accomplish the things I feel would give me value as a person (college, career, stable relationship with person who is not a shit {my, we really must work on THAT standard}). But they are just random reasons, phenomena. And as such, their entirety is unknowable. I *can't* know everything about what makes her life different from mine. I *can't* know how it worked for her and how it worked for me. I *can't* know everything about how it will work from here on out. I've *never* been able to know ... I've just been miserable because I've tried and failed at an impossible thing. And if I can't know it, then why do I care? HA ha! Why use energy to try to know ... more, *control* ... an unknowable thing? And the better thing is ... the greatest thing is ... 99% of the population is right here with me. Almost *nobody* has it figured out and nobody is in control. My life, and everything in it, is just as much of a phenomena as his and hers and theirs over there. I'm not alone! I'm not an only child! We are all here together, though a bit lost. Woo hoo!
Conclusion: I can be free of it. Free of my need to control and regulate and make approvable. Free of my need to subdue strong emotion. God, I can let it all the fuck go because no one out there has a the ruler ... it's just in here (taps breastbone). And that's not even the way things go. It's just my head and heart trying to protect itself from getting hurt again. Hahahahahahahaha.
: Oh... my ... That was good.
Yeah.
: Err ... Can I swear here? Was that sharing too much?
But, apparently, it'll take practice.
Take care,
M
