on being

i often feel silenced when i attempt to recount recent events, thoughts, etc. in this space. i'm not sure why. there is always the desire to be able to write and in my head as my life happens i am always writing, thinking, speaking. in my head.

sometimes this medium feels useless to me. it feels like an indulgence that i should not have to go through just so i understand myself better. yet here i am, words on the surface of myself, brimming, overflowing, and though this still feels unnatural i am compelled to keep going.

there were days years ago that i didn't feel like this. those were days i was not afraid to speak up, to bear too much beneath the sleeve, to let words empower me. i haven't yet figured out why my relationship with my own words has changed. but anyway - while they are here - i will try to pin them down.

we started the firestarter sessions last friday. but i have to do a review with mine because i felt detached from the process. and i had quite a hard time going through it. why is it so difficult to think about myself and talk about myself in the now? is it because i am not happy?

i felt detached also because k had sprung the question about 'making'. why do i like making? why do i feel the need to make, like i made the worksheets for all of us by typing it out myself? why am i slow and why can't i be fast? these questions unsettled me and i felt like this part of myself was not meant to be.

k led us into a brief process of activating our chakras. the ones in me weren't slow, but they weren't fast, either. this seems to say a lot about my disposition towards life. perhaps it shows uncertainty. some kind of fear. a lack of confidence. at some point, i had the most vivid vision of a black and white ball, like a football, headed straight for my face. it was spinning in its flight, on the downward part of its projectile. perhaps that's the kind of spinning my chakras needed to be. could it have been energy being thrown at me from somewhere else?

as i felt a warm glow of heat in my hands and held the energy there, i felt gratitude. gratitude for the familiarity of it. God always meets me where i am. the energy felt like clay between my hands.

immediately after the process i felt light, but going through the firestarter worksheets and the rest of the night i felt like something in me had been shaken up. it threw at me a big wave of exhaustion and i conked out before 10pm as soon as i hit my bed. i woke up maybe an hour after and decided a shower was not happening that night.

the next morning i was greeted by a not so peaceful presence of my mother, but she bore good news about there being mail for me. i tried not to get my hopes up - maybe it was insurance, or something. and i was very happy to find out that it was what i had hoped it would be. mail from b in brighton.

i don't think i know how to hope for myself at the moment. i am that afraid of being utterly disappointed.

the rest of the day was an uncomfortable sifting of myself with k - and i am hoping that this is one of the last times it happens like this. because things cannot go on with me always lagging behind, k always being a kind of coach. we deserve better.

at night i became very angry because she had said, i think you should consider not living here. i can't remember exactly what was said because i think my brain is blocking it out. but it made me angry. even though she laughs and tells me that i'm like a mouse when i'm angry. something shifted that night and i didn't want to react to the laughter, the making light of the situation. i wanted to pay attention to the anger i felt and i wanted to be able to express it properly. for me, i had. for k, i was a mouse. i guess that's okay. maybe you need to work on how you express yourself, she concluded.

i accept that. in some ways i think art is a wall that allows me to not be fully accountable for what i express, allowing some sort of abstraction, metaphor, expanded meaning, readership or projection - to define myself to others. keeping what i express ambiguous enough to allow its recipient to take it into his own hands. i need to rediscover how to say what i mean.

be what i mean.

the night was difficult because i couldn't make a decision about my attendance at a party that wasn't really exactly close to my heart. and at 25 i would have thought i got heart matters and priorities down to a tee. because i've worked on it all my life.

somewhere along the way the past year or so i have begun to think that maybe i need to not be so sure-cut about my life and have tried being more open about new experiences even though they leave me drained, unfulfilled, and uninspired afterward. perhaps this is the quarter life crisis they talk about. and right now, i'm reminding myself that i have already navigated through this crisis. and it's easy. to say no. to give myself space. to allow myself to stand on the ground that i have tended to and cultivated.


to be continued