I believe I've come to a re-, re-, re-understanding of productive writing levels during high-stress times and emotionally-taxing life events. And while I've understood it like this before, I always thought it'd be different as my life got harder.
I've done some amazing things in a year, and I still don't believe how much I actually finished. Simultaneously, it was one of the strangest and most dangerous years my private life has ever experienced. Sometimes, I had to force myself to hit deadlines when my personal relationships were the absolute worst they've ever been -- like when a guy I was seeing came over at 9am as I was rounding hour 30 of straight writing, after I'd left his house earlier because he freebased in front of me. He was halfway through a solo mushroom trip and had tried to drive to Lafayette because he was having a mental breakdown. I had no choice but to talk him through it, delirious and angry and worried, knowing I had hours left before I finished my already-overdue articles. I still managed to finish everything that day.
On the other hand, I'm sitting here at my desk right now, blogging about how strong I am when shit hits the fan, and how focused I've become and how batshit last year was and all of the above horse shit, when I've got a list over there with one task checked off, on fucking Sunday. Why? Because this Sunday is an angel food cake compared to the one above, and the contrast was so stark, I had to write it down.
The only thing I can focus on right now is who's in my bed, curled up with a tiny kitten, living the dream. That is the only thing wrong with my life right now, and my productivity has been destroyed.
So basically, even though I've overcome what feels like a lifetime's worth of stress and missed hundreds of hours of sleep in the past year and it's made me feel like I could hit a deadline during the apocalypse, it hasn't changed the fact that I'm lazy and whimsical when I'm happy.
It is way harder to get shit done every time my heart turns into softened butter.
22 January 2012
18 January 2012
I felt you long after
There will be no regrets when the worms come,
and they will surely come.
I don't think about that event much, as it's nothing nice to think about, but it might be the singular event that affected me the most. The deepest cut I ever had.
This evening, I watched a look come over Tommy's face that made everything make sense -- I remembered the first time I understood something profound enough to cause a look like that.
Eight years ago, Nick pulled a razor on me as I tried to close the door to my car, to drive away from him forever. He held the blade closer to me than himself while he said he was going to kill himself that night. His eyes were red with everything that composes desperation -- rage, sadness, pain, abandon -- and though he was breathing heavy like a wild animal, I knew that his heart didn't want to hurt me.
I'd sat in the background of his life for two years before that, watching his family rip holes in his being; holes that no stitch is strong enough to fix. Holes I would never have, because by random happenstance, I wasn't born into such a hell.
I heard his mother tell his young sister that she'd never be smart enough to be a doctor, over a frozen, microwave-fried dinner and listened to his father yell at the Wheel of Fortune contestants on the tiny TV at the end of the table. I stayed quiet with Nick and averted my eyes when he did, with the constant awareness that my presence was the sole thread tying the peace together. I kissed his face after his dad gave it a mean upper cut, and his eyes were the brightest blue I've ever seen, even when they were swollen shut.
I had front-row seats to his creation story. I saw him begin to associate pain with relief, and even then, I knew no one else would ever understand that part of him as well as I would. I cried with him every night when he begged me not to leave, because I knew why he wanted me to stay.
And I cried again in my parents' kitchen every night, peeling back the aluminum foil on the home-cooked meal my mom left out for me.
Every day for two years, I left my lot in life to feel his with him. I can't say I was ever in love with him, and I knew that I wasn't at the time. Looking back on it, I'm sure he knew it too. Love is a luxury not afforded to those who grow up in such an environment -- his quality of life had never, ever been anything approaching what mine had been. He had never known security, had never felt safe, had never been taken care of. He had never been shown love.
And though I was too young to know how to write these things down, I understood them. I understood what staying with him meant, and I knew why I was doing it. I knew why he didn't want me to hang out with my friends, why he insisted that I come over every day, why he desperately suggested I take a year off before college.
And at the end, I understood why he held the razor closer to my skin than his, just as well as I knew he did not want to hurt me.
When I left him that day in the parking lot, my heart was broken, but not in the way hearts tend to break. It was the kind of break that happens when you've witnessed the creation of this monster in front of you, and you know that in a different life, you may just as well have ended up with a family like his. When I put myself in his shoes, as I'd done every day for what seemed like an eternity, I couldn't say I wouldn't have ended up a monster myself.
My heart was broken because he had shown me how big of a heart I had. How much I was capable of caring for him, and to what lengths I could stretch my own well-being to compensate for his lack of it, even when it was humanly impossible for me to end his circumstances.
And when I summoned every last crumb of selfish strength that day, as he pulled at his hair and screamed and threatened to kill himself, I commanded myself not to care what he did after I left. Even if it meant the end of his life. And I did it, flawlessly.
The face Tommy made tonight was the face I made after I shut the car door in Nick's face that day. The face I made when I realized how big my heart was, right after I'd taken a hammer to it; when I found out I was capable of turning my back on the things I'd seen, solely because I had my own lucky life to live; when I showed the world that, if it came down to my well-being or his, I would choose mine, knowing I would have to live with that decision.
I was 18 when that happened. Tommy is 28. It put a lot of things in perspective -- specifically, what that event did to me, and how I'm still feeling the effects of it. I blocked it out of my mind for years, without realizing it. As a result, for a long time after that, I would wake up in tears, screaming, with no clues as to why, except for a vague awareness of his absence in my memory. I'd cry uncontrollably, because I didn't know what I was feeling, or how to deal with it.
It was guilt, and I still feel it.
I know there's nothing I could have done to help him, but that's no longer the issue. Though being with him gave me a deep (and sometimes insatiable) need to understand how people become who they are, it came with the burden of seeing things that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
And for better or for worse, that's a big part of how I became who I am.
and they will surely come.
I don't think about that event much, as it's nothing nice to think about, but it might be the singular event that affected me the most. The deepest cut I ever had.
This evening, I watched a look come over Tommy's face that made everything make sense -- I remembered the first time I understood something profound enough to cause a look like that.
Eight years ago, Nick pulled a razor on me as I tried to close the door to my car, to drive away from him forever. He held the blade closer to me than himself while he said he was going to kill himself that night. His eyes were red with everything that composes desperation -- rage, sadness, pain, abandon -- and though he was breathing heavy like a wild animal, I knew that his heart didn't want to hurt me.
I'd sat in the background of his life for two years before that, watching his family rip holes in his being; holes that no stitch is strong enough to fix. Holes I would never have, because by random happenstance, I wasn't born into such a hell.
I heard his mother tell his young sister that she'd never be smart enough to be a doctor, over a frozen, microwave-fried dinner and listened to his father yell at the Wheel of Fortune contestants on the tiny TV at the end of the table. I stayed quiet with Nick and averted my eyes when he did, with the constant awareness that my presence was the sole thread tying the peace together. I kissed his face after his dad gave it a mean upper cut, and his eyes were the brightest blue I've ever seen, even when they were swollen shut.
I had front-row seats to his creation story. I saw him begin to associate pain with relief, and even then, I knew no one else would ever understand that part of him as well as I would. I cried with him every night when he begged me not to leave, because I knew why he wanted me to stay.
And I cried again in my parents' kitchen every night, peeling back the aluminum foil on the home-cooked meal my mom left out for me.
Every day for two years, I left my lot in life to feel his with him. I can't say I was ever in love with him, and I knew that I wasn't at the time. Looking back on it, I'm sure he knew it too. Love is a luxury not afforded to those who grow up in such an environment -- his quality of life had never, ever been anything approaching what mine had been. He had never known security, had never felt safe, had never been taken care of. He had never been shown love.
And though I was too young to know how to write these things down, I understood them. I understood what staying with him meant, and I knew why I was doing it. I knew why he didn't want me to hang out with my friends, why he insisted that I come over every day, why he desperately suggested I take a year off before college.
And at the end, I understood why he held the razor closer to my skin than his, just as well as I knew he did not want to hurt me.
When I left him that day in the parking lot, my heart was broken, but not in the way hearts tend to break. It was the kind of break that happens when you've witnessed the creation of this monster in front of you, and you know that in a different life, you may just as well have ended up with a family like his. When I put myself in his shoes, as I'd done every day for what seemed like an eternity, I couldn't say I wouldn't have ended up a monster myself.
My heart was broken because he had shown me how big of a heart I had. How much I was capable of caring for him, and to what lengths I could stretch my own well-being to compensate for his lack of it, even when it was humanly impossible for me to end his circumstances.
And when I summoned every last crumb of selfish strength that day, as he pulled at his hair and screamed and threatened to kill himself, I commanded myself not to care what he did after I left. Even if it meant the end of his life. And I did it, flawlessly.
The face Tommy made tonight was the face I made after I shut the car door in Nick's face that day. The face I made when I realized how big my heart was, right after I'd taken a hammer to it; when I found out I was capable of turning my back on the things I'd seen, solely because I had my own lucky life to live; when I showed the world that, if it came down to my well-being or his, I would choose mine, knowing I would have to live with that decision.
I was 18 when that happened. Tommy is 28. It put a lot of things in perspective -- specifically, what that event did to me, and how I'm still feeling the effects of it. I blocked it out of my mind for years, without realizing it. As a result, for a long time after that, I would wake up in tears, screaming, with no clues as to why, except for a vague awareness of his absence in my memory. I'd cry uncontrollably, because I didn't know what I was feeling, or how to deal with it.
It was guilt, and I still feel it.
I know there's nothing I could have done to help him, but that's no longer the issue. Though being with him gave me a deep (and sometimes insatiable) need to understand how people become who they are, it came with the burden of seeing things that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
And for better or for worse, that's a big part of how I became who I am.
13 January 2012
You Can Make a Plan...Until the Clock Speaks Up
Narrowly escaped a meltdown of editorial pressure today. That was nice. As much as it sucks to freak out, life is always a hundred times better when it's over. And when it was over today, there was no room for anything else but a deep appreciation for the people I've met in the past year, and the things they've taught me that they were largely unaware of. The best lessons are observed, and I have done a relative shit ton of observation this year. Unlike other years, there was very little judgment on my part...and in that respect, I think I've come a long way. Because of that, I've learned more than making mistakes could have ever taught me.
I've had several great ideas today...and they all involve writing and money. Hope I keep crankin'em out, and I hope at least one of them works.
Things are good. Shit, they're better than good. I'm on a slow hike to the top of my world, in my mind...slow and steady, and this will all work out. Likely not how I'm planning it, but this will all work out.
I've had several great ideas today...and they all involve writing and money. Hope I keep crankin'em out, and I hope at least one of them works.
Things are good. Shit, they're better than good. I'm on a slow hike to the top of my world, in my mind...slow and steady, and this will all work out. Likely not how I'm planning it, but this will all work out.
06 January 2012
North and South
When I press against him like a magnet, as if there's some molecular ground I've still not covered, he presses back like he's not convinced, either.
I want so badly to be closer, for a way to get closer than I am, because are we nothing but searching for a connection like this? People die in the middle of that search, as it appears to have no beginning or end, save for birth and death. But I've come to a standstill, because I think I've come as close as I'm going to get. There's this situation in front of me, holding me so tight that it's cracking the glass I'm made of, and all I want is closer, closer, closer; I do not care if it shatters because our pieces will be on the floor, pulverized to sand, indistinguishable from each other. If that were possible, neither of us would survive.
But this is it - this is the closest I will ever get to another human being. This is realizing that no matter how much I may need or want to, I will never be indistinguishable from another soul.
It is all happenstance; all accidental, circumstantial. We were not "two people in the right place at the right time," and this was not, in any way, "meant to be." We were just two kids, in a place, at a time. I simultaneously hate and love how that almost makes it more incredible that this story continues to exist, at both the beginning and the end at all times, and it is sweet, tragic, fucked up, beautiful, frozen, romantic, ignited, eternal, and finite, all at once.
It does not care who I am with or what other obligations I may have. It destroys everything when it resurrects itself to write another chapter, violently and unpredictably, with no regard for something as trite as time or other people. It happens in seconds and decades, hours and lifetimes, and when he's there, all of those might as well be the same thing. It does not stay even long enough to take it for granted, but it never completely dies - I have killed it with every weapon known to man, and cried over what I swore was its corpse many times over, and though it's had many funerals, I can't recall one burial.
It does not know separation or divorce, marriage or commitment, because those things are choices, and the concept of a choice in this matter seems laughable at best - I simultaneously envy and pity those who have those sorts of choices. I wouldn't wish this on anyone in a million years, but if I could go back to the day we met - a day I don't even remember - I wouldn't do a damn thing differently.
We'll likely never end up like most people do; there is no happy ending for us, because we're dodging the monster at the end of the book - that whole mess that people get into where you look at someone one day and realize they're part of the furniture - and this cannot end like that, even though he'll leave or I'll leave and it'll hurt, again and again. It is not peaceful or satisfying, but my God it is everything else, and as far as I know, I do not have a way out of it.
This is the closest we can get, but I'll keep pressing...after all, what choice does one have, in matters of magnets and monsters and two people who fit together better than most atoms do?
I want so badly to be closer, for a way to get closer than I am, because are we nothing but searching for a connection like this? People die in the middle of that search, as it appears to have no beginning or end, save for birth and death. But I've come to a standstill, because I think I've come as close as I'm going to get. There's this situation in front of me, holding me so tight that it's cracking the glass I'm made of, and all I want is closer, closer, closer; I do not care if it shatters because our pieces will be on the floor, pulverized to sand, indistinguishable from each other. If that were possible, neither of us would survive.
But this is it - this is the closest I will ever get to another human being. This is realizing that no matter how much I may need or want to, I will never be indistinguishable from another soul.
It is all happenstance; all accidental, circumstantial. We were not "two people in the right place at the right time," and this was not, in any way, "meant to be." We were just two kids, in a place, at a time. I simultaneously hate and love how that almost makes it more incredible that this story continues to exist, at both the beginning and the end at all times, and it is sweet, tragic, fucked up, beautiful, frozen, romantic, ignited, eternal, and finite, all at once.
It does not care who I am with or what other obligations I may have. It destroys everything when it resurrects itself to write another chapter, violently and unpredictably, with no regard for something as trite as time or other people. It happens in seconds and decades, hours and lifetimes, and when he's there, all of those might as well be the same thing. It does not stay even long enough to take it for granted, but it never completely dies - I have killed it with every weapon known to man, and cried over what I swore was its corpse many times over, and though it's had many funerals, I can't recall one burial.
It does not know separation or divorce, marriage or commitment, because those things are choices, and the concept of a choice in this matter seems laughable at best - I simultaneously envy and pity those who have those sorts of choices. I wouldn't wish this on anyone in a million years, but if I could go back to the day we met - a day I don't even remember - I wouldn't do a damn thing differently.
We'll likely never end up like most people do; there is no happy ending for us, because we're dodging the monster at the end of the book - that whole mess that people get into where you look at someone one day and realize they're part of the furniture - and this cannot end like that, even though he'll leave or I'll leave and it'll hurt, again and again. It is not peaceful or satisfying, but my God it is everything else, and as far as I know, I do not have a way out of it.
This is the closest we can get, but I'll keep pressing...after all, what choice does one have, in matters of magnets and monsters and two people who fit together better than most atoms do?
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