deproinkle

[morgue_n]

I'm elbow deep into grading final exams right now, so I really shouldn't be writing here, but I'm going bananas and I can't really focus. It's hard to focus. I want a complete lack of obligations for a minute. Just awhile. I feel as if I've forgotten who I am. 

I was invited out. Not really. kind of. I have a regular spot I go to on Sundays. It's my secret little hookah cafe. Well, it used to be a secret place, but recently I shared it with some coworkers/neighbors, who shared it with their friends, and now it's become something of a set-piece in our lives-- like the Seinfeld diner, or the Friends cafe. 

tonight when I started doing the ritual to go out and gathered my socks from the dresser, I sort of fell onto the furniture, leaning on it with my elbows, hanging all my weight from my shoulders like the golden gate bridge. I sat there for a second, wrenching my brow and clenching my skull, wondering where this void inside myself is coming from.

I'm lonely, ya'll. 

It's not from lack of friends. I've got plenty, and very good ones. They keep me afloat, too. When I catch myself murmuring transgressive thoughts about myself, my gender, and my well-being under my breath, one of the methods I use to ground myself is to acknowledge that some excellent people like me. They like me a lot. I value their taste and opinions, and they value me. They value the things I say. They laugh at the stories I tell. They enjoy my company. They can't all be wrong, I say to myself.  

And it isn't that I don't like or respect women. Most of my friends are women, these days. Beautiful and intelligent, all of them. They expected me out tonight, and if I told them that I was struggling as bad as I am right now, I imagine they'd stop what they were doing and leap to my rescue, to my apartment, to shout kind things at me until I believed them. 

I suppose a lot of the problem is that I don't trust women. Not in a romantic way, I mean. I don't trust that any could love me, let alone like me. I do not love struggle with loving myself. My track record isn't stellar. I acknowledge my part in that. I don't think my exes do, and therein lies the problem. 

I'm working on this deproinkle (what I call depression in an effort to put a ridiculous wig on something that deeply bothers me), of course. immediate term, I did my laundry today. I woke up early. I shaved. I showered. I graded some of my papers. I read a book. I texted my therapist for the first time in months. I did things with my day instead of what I wanted to do, which was lay on my couch and watch the voidspiral turn, turn, turn.  

Long term, I'm moving. I know that I cannot wholly blame my setting for the way I feel, and that even in a Mediterranean clime, I would still suffer from the weird fugue state that my brain juice makes me suffer through, but I definitely think that moving to a place without an oppressive smog would be a skip in the right direction. A place where the local government doesn't actively crack down on art and music. A place where people are a little friendlier. Easier to talk to. Where I'm not so isolated. 

short-term, I need to eat healthier and go to the gym. I have bloomed a potbelly this winter. I disgust myself when I think about my corporeal form. I rely on food to get a sense of fulfillment, and I look at kebabs with this silly spirituality. i should probably stop that. 

I'm thankful that I have this place to take a mental inventory when I need it. There's a lot that is good about my life right now. it's easy to get distracted, and to fall into the cyclical thinking that blinds me to the boons I possess. Writing has always been an emergency button for me. If you're reading this, thank you for your patience. 



 

Comments

[wraithmoon]

Its absolutely okay to take a step back, take a proverbial deep breath, and then start again. Writing can clear the mind sometimes, in that way. There's no need to get on yourself for that.

I'm sorry to hear that you're struggling. But it sounds like you know what you're doing to get yourself out of your deproinkle and keep yourself on track. You got this, dude. I believe in ya :)

[partlyopenbook]

What's that tired old phrase? Something about being lonely in a crowded room.

It might be a bit of a downer, too, that your favorite hideout is no longer just yours. Maybe you thought of it as some extension of yourself, a hideout in my brain that you can go to by going to that place.

It's hard to battle against food and form. I used to exercise a lot, but got sick and couldn't anymore; then I found out that losing weight is really only 20% of the fight. Eighty percent is diet itself. But I lost a lot of weight, then I gained all of it back (plus some extra) and no one has understood that struggle, either, from being one shape and then another, and the short span of time in which it happened. It can really mess with the head.

Once you start packing up and really get underway with the move, you'll have something else to focus on. It could be that the bridge you speak of is just what you have to cross right now... the nowhere land between what you accomplished (getting a new job), and the future action that will get you to your new job.

For the nonce, it's always best to turn to what you love... like writing or just words in general. Laying out the pirouettes of one's brain into prose can be beneficial. And plus you get comments from those of us who read it.