Life Changing Individuals

In memory of Thao.
11 years of painful growth - but what a blessing.
...I feel like this is a good song for my first baby too.

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am
I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I’d let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you'd just woke up
And you said “this is the first day of my life
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you
But now I don’t care I could go anywhere with you
And I’d probably be happy”

So if you want to be with me
With these things there’s no telling
We just have to wait and see
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time is different
I mean I really think you like me

- Brights Eyes, "First Day of My Life"

Receptor Antagonist

What is the shape of my attachment?

In its simplest definition, it is an emotional bond between human individuals.

I can easily give in to fear around what I feel as my attachment.
Anxiety of separation.
Fear of abandonment.
The person's availability to give me affirmations about myself.
***new as of 06/02/2010*** The person's availability to open themselves as deeply as I've open to them, or opening as a result of my earnest behaviour.

I develop attachment when I care deeply about another individual and how they perceive and receive me. I have a fear concerning my attachment creating inauthentic relationships, as well as its harmful effects on me when I don't receive the attention I desire. Because I have so much fear about developing attachment, I withdraw myself from individuals who are willing to commit to developing intimacy and fostering a connection with me. In order to not be contained by my fear, I am in search of rooting out the nature of my attachment, and my proactive behaviour to prevent it.

In partnerships, I am the aggressor. I like the sense of being in control; I actively bring myself into a relationship, and I actively end it when my above fears around attachment are provoked. This is not always the case, and I am hurting - and healing from the relationships where I have lost this "sense" of control. In many friendships and lovers, I become detached, reserved, and even seized up by the fear of attachment, and instead focus too much of my attention to on myself, losing opportunities for connectivity and thriving adult relationships. The moment that I feel a longing for attachment, I corner myself in my heart, and lose the intimacy with my friend or partner. I don't want them to react adversely to my attachment to our connection.

Recently, I've been told that I'm approaching attachment in the most difficult way. That I've been resisting it. If I have attachment out of seeking validation, my friend told me, then let it fill me up. Accept the urge to drink and fill the void in which I desire from my friend or partner. And as I receive this, give in to my attachment, and give in to receiving and loving this other individual. Eventually, I will have the substance (of validation) to realize my own confidence and self-love while cultivating my relationship with the other individual who I otherwise would have pushed away. That is, if I am completely aware - and accept - that this is my attachment.

When he told me this, a distinct memory stayed with me. After a difficult break-up, I would find the impulse to take long drives in the night to move the energy of my sadness. The deeper impulse would ensue: I would drive by the home of my ex. It was not out of the want of knowing if he was home, or that I'd hope to run into him. It was a driving need to have an awareness of his presence, and though in my gut, I thought about how wrong and insane and "attached" it was, I allowed myself to do it, night after night for months. After some time, the desire sloughed off, as well as the sadness for his absence. I filled up the vacuum with a harmless (but gas-consuming) attachment.

I'm realizing more that with every connection and developing relationship that I would have attachment, especially if I care for the other person, and grow with them. I just need to understand that there's an acceptance for this, as well as an awareness of the separation of truthful love and self-validation. If I can fully let go of the shame (immense back story for this), then I can walk into intimate space without fear.

Lady Marn and Lady Bree

The freeway road winding down the peninsula glistened under the alarmingly full moon hanging in juxtaposition with the rendering of the heavy rain clouds massive mountains cupping the immensity of this azure universe I listened to Antony and his Johnsons and I truly feel like Bird Gehrl my adult namesake I can fly the beauty of this deep relating echoes to my very core and suddenly we are as transparent as the rainbow that reigned over the bridge this morning and we laughed in this instant played in that moment felt each other’s breaths I told her she was gorgeous and it was true tonight and true right now I felt for her and it was truer in her because it was so true in me I took a hold of my wheel and screamed I love my life hoping to the very bottom of my heart that this world knows that I - am - happy.

Journaling Journeying

Part of my learning is through talking.

Got lots to tell you.

sgnoleb

I am so mean when I'm irritable.

I hate "ugly" feelings.

vibrating molecules

I am so close to evolution
don't believe me?
feel that container
the one securing my spirit
so that I don't spill
into the abyss of the world
where its luminous darkness
would willingly engulf Me

When I set foot to the path
to my electric Kool-aid Corolla
the air spoke to me
and I could feel Everything
like T and S said - in my bones
I was able to taste
and smell and hear and see
in the full spectrum of colour

So I was able to notice that your lips taste smell sound are red.

blow by blow

It's too late to try and be safe anymore, not to mention how unsatisfactory my life would be.

I'm desperately searching for peace.
I want the stability I see in others.

Growing up is deadly.

- Thrashed by the Wind

Radiation of the Good Kind

I'm surviving beautiful days
and I am thankful.

Today of All Days

Dear Diary,

I had the wildest juxtaposition of feelings ever. I left an amazing Vinyasa class in the Castro, and read a text message about someone's passing.

I am proud to say that I let myself feel all of it, sometimes one at a time, and sometimes altogether. So much emotion to feel - all around, to be impacted such as this. I felt the strain on my chest, as much as I felt the wind fester in my pores and refreshed my lungs.

-----

April 18, 3:16am

My parents deliberately trap me in corners and feed me large dosages of guilt. That guilt, in turns, shuts me down. This is where I lose a large part of myself.

Inner City Demolition

I'm trying to write this out. Just as I feel it, in this moment, this now.

I want to vomit. My head is spinning, and its polar edges are forward, back, lean way back, side to side, spin spin spin. And with the rotation of my perspective, I can't focus, not even the words on this screen; I'm focusing my eyes on the phone, the stain on this desk, the open/closed sign suction-cupped on the window, our bonsai tree sighing on the ground. I'm noticing that I can't even look at the customers in the eyes as I speak to them; my eyes are erratically looking which way - and there's no way in hell that any one person or thing are affecting me. My skin is prickled, the hairs are standing on end and I have goosebumps, though it's not cold that I feel, just shivers that periodically run up and down my back. My blood rushes, my fingertips quiver on the keyboard. My heart is thumping out of my chest and up to my throat, and I cannot breathe. I feel like I'm panicking in the sanctuary of my office, and it's taking all of my strength to sit upright.

When I walked in, I greeted the staff before racing to the washroom. Chi Ngan looked at me, and concerned, told me that my face was pale. I peered at my face in the mirror - I was drained of all color, my eyes were dilated; I looked stricken, although I wasn't aware that I was until that moment. I hate looking at the mirror when I'm emotional; I always look more devastated than I thought I felt, and that sends me down the path of the expression I see.

I'm in a place of heavy anxiety. I'm accumulating the strength to continue to sit here; I'm losing the strength to continue this much further. Being in a public space makes me want to scream and run, but I have responsibilities, I do, I do. The drive from Berkeley to San Jose this morning was a long trial. There were moments when I thought it was so easy to just veer my wheel a hard left, and all things would swiftly, forcefully end. My body trembled violently with the wheel, and I willed myself to stay in between the lines of the lane.

The thought of the drive back into the city tonight for the Meisner class is causing me stress. I don't know how I would be able to deem myself able to make that journey; I cannot ask another individual. I cannot fall apart here. Again, I'm feeling disgusting nausea thinking of this drive.

Oh, God, help me. I need the release from writing this. I am anxious about going home, because my parents are angry at me. I am anxious about staying here, because I'm afraid of being sick, or even worse, lashing out in plain sight. My bowels feel like they're retracting. That my insides suddenly carry lead, and my upper body is ripping away to float - I'm being split apart - this anxiety! I have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and nowhere to be safe.

A migraine quakes behind my eyes. Sometimes I black out, and though the darkness lasts for only a split second, the blindness stirs me, evoking this bubbling panic. It is hell to be here.

Rainy Tuesdays

The pavement universe was littered with earthworms and snails. I swear I crushed about fifty of them with my heels on the way home. I apologized to each as I did.

I am on an emotional dock, and this ship has set sail from joyful revelations to solemn fear. Last night, I achieved the meaning of play, and we embarked on the spectrum of true human experience, and I was glad to have been honest with myself and my partner. Sean, who looks, acts, feels like Jonathan - who gave me moments of panic when I felt Jonathan channel through him - and without ever having connected, not a single eye contact or word, we became genuine partners. But now I feel like I've taken risks. Waiting on a phone call that was lost in transit, waiting can sometimes be a mean activity. I entertain all these thoughts of what might be possible, and I don't know if it's fear or intuition that tells me I'm going to be broken. I can't be fearlessly vulnerable as I want to be - I'm not strong enough yet.

Inspirrre

My childhood dream was to be a glamourous Mother Theresa.

I think this dream can still be realized. Gucci sunglasses and all.

My Necktie is Asleep

The peripatetic pippi sat in the bar by herself, sipping whiskey, and scribbling on a napkin. She was writing a love letter to San Francisco, and she made sure to tell this glorious city that the pen has been drinking.

Peering 'Round Corners with Dental Mirrors

I feel like a child, because I desire as one.
But feeling intricately, isn't that the finest part of me?

Early Morning Yoga

I woke up to the sounds of my dad crying.

Sometimes the adventures of growing up are the continuous revelations concluding that pain thrives in every faction of human life, no matter how old you get or how successful you become. And how you meet each struggle creates you anew.

In my romance front (or lack of one), more disappointment ensues.
I feel like a business interaction, a convenient back rub, among other things.
I'm just convenient.
This Buster hurts.
I need to train to stop expecting.

Signs from the Astrological

Today's Daily Horoscope ---

His
Listen to your heart today -- tempered by your big brain, of course! Your deepest ideals are influencing your behavior in a major way, and that's a good thing, because someone who cares quite a bit is watching... (Gem)

Hers
Open up a little more and share more of your feelings today -- at least one person is ready to hear you out! It's one of those days when great things are possible with your love life... (Sag)

Lessons on Disappointment

I cried all of the way home.

A strong person would be able to take the criticism and acknowledge the change to be done. But Jarrett's anger pained me in a deep place where I hurt myself a lot. A place that my mom has touched, anxiety, my most critical heavy judgments - my destructive self-hate. I feel... infantile. I am a fetus in the world. A couple of days ago, I truly thought that I had the power to figure out life and death. Now - I'm useless and fearful and a great disappointment - I suppose to myself. My paranoia made me panic in the car; I thought of the minds who watch me eat shit periodically. I hate them. I hate to be made small, but I get placed down here a lot. I flail at the bottom of the food chain. Like bones thrashing against the rocks.

Yesterday I had an attack after an intimidating interview. I took measures to comfort myself, and those decisions do not make me proud.

I feel like I've fucked up with Bryan. Tonight he text, "don't be rash." That's poor assessment on his part - he doesn't know me well. I already feel myself retracting, but that's what started this cycle. A large part of me wants to find comfort in him, and show him my dark. But. I don't want to draw him into my self-pitying dark hole. All afternoon, I made a map of how I feel and what I expect (versus want) from him. Last night, my brain went Freudian and gave me a fear-driven dream of exactly what I don't want happening should I ever have the courage to deliver this map. This is the biggest step.

So no. I am not suicidal. Just miserably disappointed.

Creating This Role

Last night, I discovered another defense technique that I harbor. Although I pride myself in being open, expressive, and filled with energy that can be perceived as expansive and free, I am a terrible, terrible listener. And I don't mean that I don't listen - I do - I just take everything in and flounder in my head as my partner communicates to me. I don't paraphrase, I don't attempt to expand the conversation, comment, criticize, react because I'm so lost in my thoughts in relation to their message - I don't truly listen. And in some sense, I don't think I truly let others affect me either; I mute whatever emotional charge or impact that I may normally feel as a defense mechanism. I no longer let myself feel to a certain degree. In fact, I think I feel more towards something as trivial as a friend lamenting over the weather, and lesser towards a lover enjoying a moment or serious conversation that requires my involvement. I don't compliment or criticize friends and partners, because I feel my judgment will turn judgment towards me, and it's a trust that I reserve for very, very noncritical companions. Above else, I fear an attention towards me that is critical, especially negative. There is no way anyone can get close to me if I'm so closed that I can't even give my opinion of them. This revelation is as frightful as my fear of women.

I find this so strange because I am usually departing judgment on pieces of art, theatre, writing, and the like. When it comes to another human being, it is so easy for me to shut off. This might stem from my mother knot - Mom is hypercritical of me - from my weight, physical attributes, thoughts and words and ideas that I say, the way I express, the way that I walk, the time that I spend - literally everything. I find myself compensating for my mother's behaviour before; I'm wondering if I withhold judgment of other people because I fear her loneliness and lack of social attachments. That in my everlasting endeavor to win her favour, I have continued said endeavors in the world of other social circles - forever emoting excitable nervous energy to evoke feelings of mutual compatibility, when really it's a smoldering fear of judgment lying underneath.

Ugh, this is so disconcerting. I was raised defined by fear, and it's a lifetime's work to undo the child - to reach this fearlessness that I desire so much. One day, when I am surprised at momentarily falling into my head, I will naturally grapple onto my outgoing presence, and I will be beautiful. But until then, I will fear my fear, and write blogs to myself, and articulate poorly the ways that I am limited.

Energy Psychology

I am such a terrible disappointment.

Shits.

On Lovers, This One

He's something. He's turning into a curiosity in my brain, a speeder in the tunnel, a mystery in compartmentalized boxes.

I'm wary. He's wary that I'm wary. There were moments when he let his guard drop. He sat frustrated at a table during a game. Once I walked in after an early shower, and he was lying in bed, pensive in the sheets. At times I felt him stir, and I waited for him to fall asleep, and sometimes he didn't take long, sometimes he waited until I began to breathe heavy. Pretending to sleep. He pretended too; he was on the verge of sleep realms as close to the edge as I usually am. Sometimes he looked at me funny. When he didn't look at me funny, he practiced being with me, and gave me no looks at all. I liked that.

We've only crossed paths less than a handful of times. After each time, he has lingered longer with me. During those periods, I'm hopeful. But as time increases before either of us would make contact, I'd grow nervous, even fearful. This is when I mute my emotions.

I believed him when he said, "unattached." I believe that after an open-ended trip to South Asia, he'd be uninhibited and hoping to continue a state of commitment to no commitments. He hasn't said this. I thought it. He is older, a generation older, and he is quicker to let go the vestiges of mood, memories, or broken words - they hardly alter his momentary course of action. Sometimes I've been daunted by his experience, that perhaps our age difference would not lend me his affections, only lust. That he laughed at my child's words, and agreed only to appease my child's thoughts. I am intimidated by and I desire his fearlessness.

I think I've fallen into his cautious warning - my attachment. It's okay to want to know him, maybe. I want to know his childhood, his behavior, his relationships to people, his work, his pain. I want him to let me read him. I want to see his face outside the context of his bed, and in sunlight. Maybe that requires the intimacy of more than a lover, a partner, which I believe he is not seeking in me. But we have only crossed paths less than a handful of times, and I am eager for another fistful - quiet enthusiasm.

This conversation has occurred once, today, and in writing, to myself. A conversation induced by imposed thoughts, because he has invaded me in the literature of our relations.

Incapable of this, I feel. I am not built for just lovers.

But I enjoy this one. I like his sighs. I like that he explores me, even despite my protests. We've shared. I like moments when I know he's angry at himself, even if momentarily, and he quickly flings it aside and finds something better to feel, and we quickly forget and simply enjoy. I like his casual care for me, his attention, his trained weighted language. I like slowly learning about him. I like his process. I like that his work is the way he lives. I love his breath, his breathing.

And this is why I'm afraid.