Once upon a time, I was an avid blogger. I’ve been on LiveJournal since 2002, and when I was first introduced to LJ, I couldn’t stop the kind of self-indulgence that compels us to put random thoughts and personal details about ourselves out there for the world to read. I’m not sure exactly when I lost interest in updating my LJ or why; God knows I have enough random thoughts to keep at least myself entertained for anywhere between ten minutes to an hour while I pound away at the keyboard. I think that as I get older, my thoughts and ideas become more of a jumbled mess. I am afraid that once I try to organize them in the form of a blog post, I’ll read through it and wonder who the hell wrote it. One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year was to get back to blogging. So far this year, I’ve updated my LJ once. One of my other resolutions was to work hard on getting my website up and running. So this morning, I decided to hell with it, I am going to blog today. Since this blog is linked to my website, I can convince myself that I’ve tackled two resolutions at once. If it turns out that my thoughts are more than a little skewed, then maybe my thoughts are more than a little skewed. “Most passport photos are good likenesses, and it is time we faced it.” And that’s the way of it.
I fancy myself a writer. Actually, if I could make a living off being a recluse (The Brown Recluse is my superhero alter ego), I’d be fine with that. I’ve lost interest in much of the world that exists outside whatever four walls I call home at the time. Inside those walls is a world I’ve constructed inside my own head. Being alone (or a loner, which makes me seem a little less pathetic) does that to you. I was an only child and had great friends growing up, but when I was home, it was just me and Mom, no siblings to egg into fights or blame when things got broken. The result of this was an overactive imagination; imaginary friends, elaborate reenactments of favorite movie fight scenes in which Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake would team up with G.I. Joe and Optimus Prime to fight The Evil Purple Pie Man and Skeletor, and tape-recorded scenarios, during which I would try on different voices so that I could play the patient, the doctor and the frightened mother. That I am such a huge movie and book fanatic isn’t at all a surprise. I suppose there are many ways in which these childhood dramas could have manifested, but there were (okay, are) some serious self-esteem issues that kept me from any medium that would require my solo presence on a stage or in front of a camera. So writing out these ideas was the best way for me to keep one foot in my imagination.
In high school, I wrote a lot. It was mainly poetry, which makes me cringe now. At thirty-five I couldn’t write a poem if you tied me to a bed and put a wooden block between my ankles and threatened me with a sledgehammer. I enjoy reading it from time to time, and poets have my utmost admiration and respect, but it just isn’t my medium. But I digress. One of my poems was published in my high school anthology during my junior year. It was a suicide letter, and at the time I thought I’d written my masterpiece. I had no desire to commit suicide, but I was secretly getting into psychology and crime during those years, and I was fascinated by the idea that someone who had The Perfect Life could wake up one day and look around at the world outside her four walls, feel a hate and helplessness unlike any love or gratitude she’d ever felt, and be so consumed by it she felt the only way to end the pain was to take her own life. Looking back, the execution of such a huge idea was juvenile (hey, I was a juvenile); the poem was too structured, every line rhymed, but the idea behind it stayed with me. Looking back, I realize the girl in my poem, who at the time I thought was a fictional character, would in twenty years become me, but with one massive and obvious exception: I have no desire to die a physical death. Actually, I have no desire to die any death, but I can’t help but wonder if figuratively quitting the world, as the girl in my poem did literally, has killed me spiritually and emotionally.
I don’t mean to tear myself apart. By now, it is habit. I am well aware of the good things I have going for me and I don’t mean to take them for granted. That I have a lot going for me does not change the fact that I am crippled in a way most can’t see. Connecting with people is now very painful for me. I do not put myself in any social situations at all, since the thought of being in a crowd of people literally makes me sick to my stomach. The irony is not lost that my career has me surrounded by people, lots of them, all the time, and I somehow manage to engage them. That is one outlet, I guess. And I wasn’t always like this. I was a social butterfly twenty years ago, and somewhere along the way I found The Road Not Taken and took it and now can’t find my way back. It was a slow process. My social circle got smaller and smaller over the years until it is what it is now; I can count on five fingers the number of people I can count as friends and can count on, and my visits with them are rare. These are friendships. Do NOT get me started on romance. Give me a choice: I’m to either fly from here to San Francisco in a helicopter, then get in a Mini Cooper filled with clowns and drive over the Golden Gate Bridge (my biggest phobias: heights, clowns, bridges, small cars), or allow myself the devastating vulnerability and dependence that is falling in love, and I will take the clowns, the car, the helicopter, the bridge. Hey, I rode to the top of the Rockerfeller Center in New York City last year. Some fears can be faced, one step at a time. I do not want to fall in love.
But there’s a Catch-22. I can be a little naive on a good day, but I’m not totally ignorant. I know that I cannot, and am not supposed to, exist as an island. It sounds backward, but I know it’s selfish to want little more than what I have. What I mean is I’m sure there’s something I’m supposed to be doing besides making sure the food you get isn’t burned or raw and the person who serves it to you is friendly. That’s important enough, but it relies on the compliance of someone else. Eventually, I am going to have to give up and offer me and only me in the fight instead of sitting on the sidelines, safe and warm. Where I am trapped is between knowing this and loving my handicap. The handicap is real, please understand that. I am genuinely terrified to put myself out there. I am one of those people you stay away from because you know instantly that I am probably going to whine about what’s wrong with this place but do nothing about it but die (very much like the girl in my suicide letter/poem). So I use that as an excuse to not even try. But get this: the excuse is a bandage. A cut will not heal unless it is exposed to air from time to time and allowed to scab, right? But I don’t want to look. I know that if I do, I’ll find a strong desire for love and acceptance, that old nagging feeling that sure, it would actually be nice to be wrong about all of this. That feeling starts the fear, the fear clears the path for the recluse, an the cycle starts all over again. I keep trying to fight it, but I’m losing because I know that I’m lying to myself and what I’m fighting is truth.
I think there comes a time (or ten or a thousand) in each of our lives when we throw up our hands and say to The Universe, “Okay, I give the fuck up. Have your dirty way with me.” I’ve had many of those moments, but I’m not sure I really meant them because as soon as I said the words, I would offer up suggestions on how to fix me, despite being reminded that I’ve been trying and falling on my face for too long. You know how it goes. You have that friend who is always asking for help and when you offer your services, she pretty much says, “nevermind.” After a while, you stop trying. That’s me against The Universe. So I had a moment not long ago when I was teetering between keeping up the fight (I should applaud my own effort. It is true that not accomplishing anything I want takes just as much work, if not more, than just doing it) and giving up. Again. Or pretending to. I’d purchased the latest CD by Flyleaf a while before this Final Moment, and had a copy in my car. Now, I have no idea if I was in my car when these lyrics hit me, or if I was at work or even listening to it at home. All I know is at some point, there they were. They are from the song “Again,” which is the band’s first single off the album. The lyrics say, Here you are down on your knees again/Trying to find air, to breathe again/And only surrender will help you know/I love you, please see and believe again. At home, at work, in the car, wherever I was, I stopped dead. Strangely, the first thing I thought was, How incredibly romantic, to love and trust so hard that you surrender to it. The song is about God, which from my perception makes it even more romantic, but that can be true for so many things. There is always all this talk about STAND UP AND FIGHT! and most of the bands I love speak of revolutions and riots and wars. It was a refreshing moment to hear someone sing about giving up, and I had to laugh when I thought, Isn’t one of my favorite complaints that I don’t stand up and fight as much as I’d like? Surely giving up is something I can do well.
I should have known better, since I’ve tried it before and failed. This time, though, I’m determined to let things be, instead of creating this delusion that I can control everything around me by hiding from it. It sucks. It truly sucks. ass. and right now I hate it. I want to rage and scream and tell The Universe to kiss my ass for whispering all these sweet nothings in my ear and making me believe that I can indeed reconnect with people and that my writing is a good place to start. The only thing you need, it says, is enough discipline to finish one project and enough belief in yourself to put it out there. I know that to be truth. This is the way it has to be for me. Writing is the only way I know to communicate. I am not witty or beautiful or quick to respond. I am not charming or flamboyant. What I have going for me is passion and an arsenal of words, and I am well-read. I have one of the most easily recognizable laughs in the history of laughs and I do it a lot and it’s really, really loud. I have an incredible imagination and can tell a lie inside which you can easily see a plain truth. Believe this: I can take your hand and walk down the street with you, point out certain buildings and tell you their histories. By the time we’ve made our way back home, you will know that I still love you and miss you. And you will know that you’re tearing my heart apart in ways I didn’t think imaginable, and I think I like it. You will know how relieved I am to have you as part of my life again. You will know that I am not the same girl you knew and that I’d like to ask you for forgiveness. You will know I wish I knew you better and I believe there is still time for it all.
I cannot change The Universe, but I can surrender to it. This is what I have to offer. This is how I fight. This is how I will connect. I am afraid. I would like you to come with me.
