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.
13 January 2012
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?
06 December 2011
Sometimes, there is nothing that can make me feel better.
The hours I'm in this state add up like overdue bills, accruing interest, compounding the principal, making the actual amount that much harder to clear. And while everyone has monetary debt these days, I can't find anyone with as much emotional strain and stimulation fatigue as I do, other than my boss. I know no one who does what I do, as hard as I do it. I can't dump it on anyone I'd normally go to with a problem, because I know they'll just tell me what I ought to do. I know what I ought to do, and I'm trying to do it the right way. I just don't know how much longer I can stand up with this weight on me, day-in and day-out. I don't know if I can do it right, and while it's not the first time I've questioned my abilities, it might be the first time I've ever had a real reason to.
Mom: How are you doing with work?
Me: Mom, why did I ever start writing? Why does this have to be so god damned important to me?
Mom: You have a gift for this.
Me: It was a choice, and I'm starting to regret it.
T: I'm kind of in the same boat as you.
Me: Are you?
T: Yeah, you know, thinking about my life, and what I want to do with it.
Me: ...I don't have time to think about my life.
The hours I'm in this state add up like overdue bills, accruing interest, compounding the principal, making the actual amount that much harder to clear. And while everyone has monetary debt these days, I can't find anyone with as much emotional strain and stimulation fatigue as I do, other than my boss. I know no one who does what I do, as hard as I do it. I can't dump it on anyone I'd normally go to with a problem, because I know they'll just tell me what I ought to do. I know what I ought to do, and I'm trying to do it the right way. I just don't know how much longer I can stand up with this weight on me, day-in and day-out. I don't know if I can do it right, and while it's not the first time I've questioned my abilities, it might be the first time I've ever had a real reason to.
Mom: How are you doing with work?
Me: Mom, why did I ever start writing? Why does this have to be so god damned important to me?
Mom: You have a gift for this.
Me: It was a choice, and I'm starting to regret it.
T: I'm kind of in the same boat as you.
Me: Are you?
T: Yeah, you know, thinking about my life, and what I want to do with it.
Me: ...I don't have time to think about my life.
19 November 2011
DIG
Funny that I end up working for a paper called Dig. I've had a thing about shovels and holes for as long as I can remember. I looked back at some old journals and noticed the theme laced throughout them all -- this fear of digging my own metaphysical grave.
While I hold a title that calls me a journalist, I'm still very much outside of that world. I haven't embraced the role so much as I've merely put on a different pair of shoes. Every new world I step into never has my full attention. I'm half-focused on remembering the details of the new one, so I can accurately describe it to the one I left behind. As far as I know, I've never not been this way.
I could take that one way, and say that it makes me more of a journalist than the journalists, as it's a journalist's job to treat each situation as if no one outside of them knows what it looks like.
But I could go the opposite way, and pin this behavior on a character flaw that I've been aware of for a long time -- the one where I can't ever completely leave a world I know for a new one.
I can't identify with anything. I can't call myself anything, be it writer, journalist, or otherwise, because the moment I do, it will become false somehow. And if I can't immediately see how it's become false, it's because I've stopped examining myself -- my actions, my ambitions, my emotions, my motives.
It's simultaneously a fear and a fact within myself; as scary and real to me as credit card debt or cancer. I've wondered why, for a long time.
I'm terrified of letting my life go unchecked, because if I let it go too far, I feel myself digging a hole. And it's not an emotional hole -- it's not depression, anger, or "the blues" -- it is a real, physical hole. Every day of my life, I'm horrified that I'm going to look up one day, while going about some mundane business, and realize that the hole is too deep for me to climb out of.
It's one thing to know I'm in a hole, but quite another to know I've somehow missed the part where I dug it.
Thus, every day of my life is spent making sure I'm not in too deep. I'm always looking for the shovel in my hands; always watching for the people with shovels in theirs. They're looking to bury me as much as I will inevitably bury myself. It's borderline paranoia.
My justification seems to lie in the people I've watched throughout the years -- there's a drought of self-reflection where I come from. The city issues shovels at birth, and when you leave, you keep it. Some of the things I saw there were enough to bury me. I'm not entirely sure that they didn't.
There are so many people in the world who don't let things get to them. They don't live in fear of what they might do to themselves, because they know where they're going and what they want. They've seen the things that I've seen and worse -- they've all watched people bury themselves, and are sure that they won't.
I'm wary of people that sure of anything. The only absolute is that we all end up in a hole by the time it's over.
I can't ever leave a world completely for another, because I make the mistake of caring about the people in both. I never wrote anyone off, and I still don't. I can't look away or "cut my losses," not because I pity them or because I'm sad for them or because I want to save the memory as a cautionary tale. I can't look away from someone who's visibly digging their own downward spiral, because whatever awful thing I'm watching is the truth.
You can tell yourself that it's their truth and that you don't have to deal with it, and that works for most people -- but if it's only their problem, you wouldn't have any losses to cut. Being affected is the default. I have been affected. It's not a weakness; it's time we start admitting that when things get under our skin, it's simply part of the human experience. Because I've seen people bury themselves, I know that I can, too.
Sometimes I try to simplify the purpose I've given myself. I can write, I can relate, I can speak, convey, invoke, whatever you want to call it. The simplest I've ever gotten is this: I can't ever leave a world completely for another, because I subconsciously refuse to believe that there are two. My purpose isn't to tell people that -- it's to make them understand that.
The closest I might ever come is by demanding my own honesty, by digging up things inside of me and forming paragraphs of my faults, how I came to them, and what I think about them. Even if it never leaves my head, it's worth it.
While I hold a title that calls me a journalist, I'm still very much outside of that world. I haven't embraced the role so much as I've merely put on a different pair of shoes. Every new world I step into never has my full attention. I'm half-focused on remembering the details of the new one, so I can accurately describe it to the one I left behind. As far as I know, I've never not been this way.
I could take that one way, and say that it makes me more of a journalist than the journalists, as it's a journalist's job to treat each situation as if no one outside of them knows what it looks like.
But I could go the opposite way, and pin this behavior on a character flaw that I've been aware of for a long time -- the one where I can't ever completely leave a world I know for a new one.
I can't identify with anything. I can't call myself anything, be it writer, journalist, or otherwise, because the moment I do, it will become false somehow. And if I can't immediately see how it's become false, it's because I've stopped examining myself -- my actions, my ambitions, my emotions, my motives.
It's simultaneously a fear and a fact within myself; as scary and real to me as credit card debt or cancer. I've wondered why, for a long time.
I'm terrified of letting my life go unchecked, because if I let it go too far, I feel myself digging a hole. And it's not an emotional hole -- it's not depression, anger, or "the blues" -- it is a real, physical hole. Every day of my life, I'm horrified that I'm going to look up one day, while going about some mundane business, and realize that the hole is too deep for me to climb out of.
It's one thing to know I'm in a hole, but quite another to know I've somehow missed the part where I dug it.
Thus, every day of my life is spent making sure I'm not in too deep. I'm always looking for the shovel in my hands; always watching for the people with shovels in theirs. They're looking to bury me as much as I will inevitably bury myself. It's borderline paranoia.
My justification seems to lie in the people I've watched throughout the years -- there's a drought of self-reflection where I come from. The city issues shovels at birth, and when you leave, you keep it. Some of the things I saw there were enough to bury me. I'm not entirely sure that they didn't.
There are so many people in the world who don't let things get to them. They don't live in fear of what they might do to themselves, because they know where they're going and what they want. They've seen the things that I've seen and worse -- they've all watched people bury themselves, and are sure that they won't.
I'm wary of people that sure of anything. The only absolute is that we all end up in a hole by the time it's over.
I can't ever leave a world completely for another, because I make the mistake of caring about the people in both. I never wrote anyone off, and I still don't. I can't look away or "cut my losses," not because I pity them or because I'm sad for them or because I want to save the memory as a cautionary tale. I can't look away from someone who's visibly digging their own downward spiral, because whatever awful thing I'm watching is the truth.
You can tell yourself that it's their truth and that you don't have to deal with it, and that works for most people -- but if it's only their problem, you wouldn't have any losses to cut. Being affected is the default. I have been affected. It's not a weakness; it's time we start admitting that when things get under our skin, it's simply part of the human experience. Because I've seen people bury themselves, I know that I can, too.
Sometimes I try to simplify the purpose I've given myself. I can write, I can relate, I can speak, convey, invoke, whatever you want to call it. The simplest I've ever gotten is this: I can't ever leave a world completely for another, because I subconsciously refuse to believe that there are two. My purpose isn't to tell people that -- it's to make them understand that.
The closest I might ever come is by demanding my own honesty, by digging up things inside of me and forming paragraphs of my faults, how I came to them, and what I think about them. Even if it never leaves my head, it's worth it.
29 October 2011
Stop Pulling
The Weather Vane Said to the Wind
I do not have a middle
like yours
I can't chase you like they can
and though they can't catch you either
they get to try
I create a picture for those of them
who care to remember that
measurable things aren't always
things they can change
I am stronger than you
most of the time
but when it matters
I can do nothing but point
to where you're going
unable to stop until
you get there
or until you
stop
pulling
I do not have a middle
like yours
I can't chase you like they can
and though they can't catch you either
they get to try
I create a picture for those of them
who care to remember that
measurable things aren't always
things they can change
I am stronger than you
most of the time
but when it matters
I can do nothing but point
to where you're going
unable to stop until
you get there
or until you
stop
pulling
15 October 2011
Can't
This is where it stops.
Not pulling the second all-nighter of the week shouldn't put me behind. Fuck this. I love what I do, but I need half a day off every once in awhile.
I rarely feel like a person anymore. I haven't slept in 48 hours, and I'm a third of the way done, haven't missed a day of work, or slept past an alarm this week. When I do my job right, there's no fucking reason I should have to throw my health to the dogs like this.
I am going to sleep until my body is ready to wake up. I don't give a fuck what I miss tomorrow, whatever it is isn't worth this sort of stress.
Goodnight.
Not pulling the second all-nighter of the week shouldn't put me behind. Fuck this. I love what I do, but I need half a day off every once in awhile.
I rarely feel like a person anymore. I haven't slept in 48 hours, and I'm a third of the way done, haven't missed a day of work, or slept past an alarm this week. When I do my job right, there's no fucking reason I should have to throw my health to the dogs like this.
I am going to sleep until my body is ready to wake up. I don't give a fuck what I miss tomorrow, whatever it is isn't worth this sort of stress.
Goodnight.
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