I am not feeling well today. I got some blowback from my trip yesterday, and I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to be sad. I was trying to let go of all my feelings of anger at everything that’s gone down over the past few years…. just me and my journal and my camera. I went to all the places I thought would help, and it worked. I came home feeling like a million dollars, until someone told me it seemed stalker-y and truly baffling. I think that’s because I handle problems differently than most people. I want to go back to the scene of the crime and try to put my self-worth back together one picture and one blog entry at a time.
But today my self-worth is in the toilet, and I haven’t taken my lunch break until now. I just wanted to stay busy, muscle-memory floating me until I couldn’t avoid crying anymore. It’s as if perception is more important than reality, and people would rather believe their own realities than trying to understand mine.
The point is that I wanted to be alone.
I wanted to let go of things that truly trouble me, not create problems for anyone else. I am a writer and observer, and that’s what I was doing. Really feeling my feelings, digging deep into them so that they wouldn’t dog me anymore. There are times when I cannot breathe, the past eats me up inside. I needed to relieve the pressure as to keep my even-keel personality. Anxiety medication can only do so much, so I took it and went exploring.
I got to see things I’ve only seen in pictures, and thought they’re worth a thousand words, it was nothing compared to seeing everything for real. Sitting at Dana’s old school was a way to see how she incubated. It was sad and beautiful in one breath, and I chose to take pictures of beautiful things there. But the blowback was not from her, just another friend who deemed it “creepy AF.” Well, I think it’s “creepy AF” to try and dictate to someone how they should grieve, how they should act, how they should process.
I wish I could tell you why it was important, but I don’t exactly know. I didn’t take off with a specific mission in mind, just an idea that it would help me let go…. and as I was driving home, I really felt it.
She is not of me anymore. I do not see her as an extension of me, a missing limb with extraordinarily intense phantom pain.
There’s no need to go back in time anymore. I saw everything I needed to see in order to move forward. A huge wave of peace washed over me as I saw things for what they were.
But I cannot ignore the blowback, and I am blue and just want to crawl under my bed. I am not “creepy AF,” and I know this within myself…. but the person who said it got under my skin and my coping mechanisms in order to see myself for who I am and what I believe have been stepped on to an enormous degree.
I know myself, and what I know is that I need to put on some gangsta rap and get shit handled. But even that will only do so much, because sadness is threatening to undo me. I am caught between a rock and a hard place, and trying not to explode in anger or tears.
Tears would probably be more cathartic, because anger would only lead to those words getting more under my skin than less. I am trying harder these days to let anger roll off my back, because it doesn’t serve me well. When “cortisol and sin” threaten to come out of me, I pray without ceasing. I pray because I can’t help myself. I don’t pray because it changes God, I pray be cause it changes me (paraphrasing C.S. Lewis).
All I want is to walk humbly, and hope grace prevails. But that does not happen can cannot when perception means more than reality. It is a lesson I am learning slowly but surely. There’s nothing I can do to change anyone’s impression of me. I can only reach out to people who want the same things I do. Peace in the world and peace within ourselves, the ability to stumble and be forgiven for it.
I will not let this overtake me, ultimately, but I feel like complete and total shit right now. I can’t wait until it’s time to go home, so Eggsy and I can blast NWA (just saw Straight Outta Compton and so damn impressed) and I can try like hell to forget this day ever happened.
Stories That Are All True 