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06.24.03 - 2:08 a.m.
love affairs with myself admittedly, i've gone far too long without recording a d'land here. then again, i've fallen off the face of even my own written journal, which i carry around with me everywhere but don't seem to have the heart or rather am never really in the present moment with my feelings to crack these pages open, sit down a while and pour ink on blank surfaces until i find my feelings again. the forty days and nights of rain (at least that's how long it's felt!) have finally ceased here in upstate ny. tomorrow promises to be scorching hot all of a sudden. will my feelings rise up to the challenge of a sudden heat accordingly? i'm waiting. what am i feeling these days? detached, mostly. confused that i feel over events and people's lives that aren't my concern; confused that i can't rouse enough feelings for myself and my family - the beings in my life whom i'm supposed to feel most about. the month of may was dedicated to commencement ceremony, graduation, celebration, satiating myself with the feeling of being a FINISHED woman. for those out there who know the status that anxiety brings -- the paralysis that first prevents taking any step only to be followed by a thicker paralysis that prevents ever stopping, the paralysis that sees with one eye *how* the end to insanity road but with the other eye blinks, blurs, denies and defers stepping onto the sidewalk (that is, doing the necessary) to get off insanity row -- finishing has meant freedom. freedom from driving myself to perfect visions impossible to reach. freedom to start new visions. allowing myself to embark on new projects has meant most of all allowing myself to encounter the idealistic me who believes anything is still possible. [unfortunately, when saddled with realistic demands of deadlines, page limits, and my arch-enemy PROOFFREADING what i've written, i become bogged down by my own shortcomings, uncertainties, and an old old feeling that i can never work my way out of the mess i've made of my visions] so yes, may was freeing. then came june. first week of june, my ex-girlfriend left town, finally. and i felt an overwhelming freedom that scared me. the freeing relief i felt signaled to me how very much i'd come to let even the idea of her presence burden me. she lived only 10 minute walk away, and i hadn't seen her in *real* time, to speak and hang out for months... of course, i know it's me who kept myself bound up with the notion of "if only"s, then we'd get back together or at least try...if only the busy semester ended, if only i passed my candidacy exams,if only she finished her final papers, if only she'd stop restricting, if only i didn't fear how close she was to relapse and hospitalization, if only i'd stop using the sight of her and her cutting and burning and bruises, as excuses to purge to cut and hurt myself even better...a sick relationship, yes, but i'd hung onto the notion that IF ONLY there was TIME (i.e. summer) to slow down and push all the external demands aside and just face this relationship and who we were and who we'd become separately (and perhaps even become grown into independently, and because independently for the better)... but then came an 'if only' i couldn't quite get wrap my head around.:if only she weren't d.i.d.... and if only i understood how some of her alters could have loved me, and many others of them did not or could not (too young, what do 4 and 6 year-old 'littles' know about love)...or that some of her alters could make love, or rather fuck, any and everyone else...but being intimate again would me sent her retreating into places into herself i couldn't reach. the "if only"s i was forced (am still forced with facing)...is my "if onlys"... if only i were compassionate enough, or attractive (not beauty, but safe enough) to win over all her alters, to have all of her love all of me... then then...but that's far too complicated to sort out. what's the point of reviewing the past and trying to figure out which part of her was with me during coffee here, or a concert there, or walks on campus, or studying together... or what's worse, so much time spent last may, june, july me phoning her every day that she was at one medical center, or another e.d. center, and now the realization that i'm not sure who i was calling or talking to and was i doing it for her or me and why did i bother... and finally the "if only" i could let go, finally became i am so relieved to let go...and i did and i'm glad... promptly enough, week two of june came around and an increasingly close friend suggested her interest in something more...and from me, immediate resistance...and sadness...now "if only"s strangely defined by ways in which she is and is not like this ex. not fair to her... by the week's end, i realized that i didn't have to feel anything for someone who felt something for me...i can be flattered and walk away from starting a doomed relationship based on feeling obligated to reciprocate feelings i don't feel (but feel flattered and touched to recieve?) week three of june - younger 17yr sister doesn't graduate from high school - the younger sister that's almost 12 years my junior - who lives at home alone with my 59 and 60 year old parents...so much anger that she grew up in the same oppressive household - my response was to excell in school just to make occassions for my family to gather together and act like a family...even though i feel so little for them (feeling friendship that originates from feeling known so well...my family doesn't know me, not any more than the facts i feed them over weekly telephone calls)...but she hates school, hates sports, loves boys 5-10 years older than her...exactly the combination that drives my parents crazy with anger, worry, bewilderment...and that makes *her* life and what's to be done about *her behavior* the topic of every conversation...to it makes me feel sick with rage of being ignored yet again... but later in week three, younger sister confides in me that a year ago last june, she'd been raped in a park near our house...and when i asked her why she didn't tell me, she said she'd forgotten about it... cognitively, yes, i believe this. i've taken courses on rape; i used to sit on the board of the rape crisis center in this town; i've been raped. and yet, i couldn't feel anything about my sister's rape...shock that it happened at all, but belated shock because the news (and her hurt) were already a year old... her highschool, guidance counselor, my parents (who don't know) are working together to find a therapist for her, nominally to 'correct' the problem of her failing out of school....i talked to her on the phone this weekend, and she said she's over the feeling, that she's planned to move on. even that phrase, "i'm just going to move on", these words usually spoken from wiser older experienced lips sound so strange coming out of her mouth... but i've spoken these words too. and my date-rape happened 7 summers ago. and i did cry then, and therapied it out sortof, but present therapist says i need to face the issue again... why though? maybe she's right. at the moment, *i'm* feeling two crushes at the same time, one for a female grad student friend in my program, the other for a guy grad student on campus for a summer institute... and i hesitate making a step towards acting or resolving either desire... i want to take the summer off to have a love affair with myself, to just enjoy not being in a compromising demanding confusing and often one-sided relationship...but reality is, when left to my own devices...i feel nothing about myself these days...and can't even fathom feelings of letting someone into my life... why is it that about love for myself, with anothe person, i'm feeling nothing at all...?
MUSIC:
READING:
FEELING:
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