More Changes

I haven't been able to calm down for two days. It's a restless sort of terrified feeling that is fueled by many different things. It's hard to even know where to begin, but I need to say something.

I spent a good deal of time thinking of a way to move by September, and my opportunity presented itself yesterday morning, when a sublet became available in my future city. The plan was to move on my own, start working, and wait it out until we could move to a larger place together. It wasn't a definite plan because, let's face it, nothing can be these days. But it was enough of a direction for me. I seized the opportunity. Once the guarantor paperwork is filled out and I pay the deposit next Friday, it's finalized. But I spent all day agonizing because it seems that we will be moving separately at first. I suppose it makes more sense to take it slow, and being in the same town will definitely make things easier, but it's still an impossible feeling to completely control. I want to jump back into things like before. I want everything to be right again so desperately. Except I want to do things better, which means that we can't just jump into things and expect everything to be okay. It's going to be slow at first. It's going to be a rebuilding of the trust that had been broken. It's going to be learning to love each other all over again and in new and different ways. And that is kind of exciting. But it's hard when you just want that comfortable life that you had before--the falling asleep together every night, the waking up with the one you love right beside you, the always being able to look forward to seeing his face at the end of the day. And the little things like watching TV together, reading side-by-side, talking about the future, cuddling, being cute in an almost disgusting way, having weekend adventures. I miss all of that as well.

I skipped over a lot of things, but you get the general idea. I'm moving. I'm moving to a brand new place, all on my own, and I've never done that before. At least in Annapolis, I knew my roommate. This time, I don't know the two people with whom I'll be sharing the apartment. I do have a private bathroom, and the place has amenities out the ass, but it's still terrifying. I know this is a step forward for me. But I'm so scared, and I feel like crying all the time lately. I am torn inside because I know what I want, and I can't have it, at least not yet, and I have to make this decision. I know it's the right thing to do to get ahead, and it's also the right thing to do to be able to work on our relationship, but it still feels overwhelming. I keep wondering if these feelings are normal. I'm excited, for sure. But today I've been a wreck. I couldn't sleep at all last night, and my nap earlier today didn't last nearly long enough. I want the pain in my stomach to finally go away. It started to feel like it would when I would be waiting for him. It's not like there is that much of a difference between my situation here and the one I will be moving to, with respect to the relationship. The distance will no longer be a factor. But not being able to see his face every night before bed, when he is right there in the same town--that's going to be brutal.

But ultimately, this move is about moving forward on more than one front. It may not be an ideal situation, but it is still a step in the right direction in terms of our relationship. But that's not the only important thing I'm taking care of by doing this. I'm taking the leap so I can find a job that has the potential for professional growth, which may take some time, but a humiliating/menial job in a city with people I know and closer to so many people I love is better than one in an area where I feel isolated almost all the time. Being able to control my own space, for the most part, will also be a huge relief. This is also an important step because I need to keep in the practice of taking care of my own affairs. I haven't been cooking as much here, which bothers me, because I'm usually so much better about what I put into my body, but I am trying not to be too critical of myself. It's a chance for me to start functioning in the real world again. It's terrifying. I'm afraid of failing, of course. I'm confident. I'm actually more confident than I have ever been about my own abilities. But I cannot shake the fear of the unknown and the anxiety that comes with knowing that there is still a chance that despite all my best efforts, I will fail again.

I feel like I need continual reassurance that I'm doing the right thing. I may be doing this on my own, but that doesn't mean I won't need some sort of support. I'm scared of being in a new place all on my own. I don't know who wouldn't be. I wish I weren't doing this alone. And I may not be for long. But that doesn't mean that I can't. So even when I have doubts, I have to trust that I am going to be okay, no matter what happens.

It's been over a month, and I've survived. I've overcome obstacles that used to seem insurmountable. Normally, when I don't sleep, I don't function well at all the next day. I started panicking when I knew I wasn't going to be able to fall asleep. I had been awake for nearly 24 hours and still had an 8-hour shift plus the journey home to endure. I fought with myself quite a bit. I dreaded going to work. I feared I would not last without having a meltdown. I feared that it would all just be too much. I didn't want to continue feeling like I did. I just wanted to run away by sleeping in. But I went. I somehow forced myself to deal with the situation. I had to tell myself I was doing this for a reason, no matter how miserable the job is or how shitty I feel. I have a goal, and I need the money to achieve that goal. I have a responsibility to see this through. And I did it. I worked the whole day without having any trouble, other than feeling ridiculously tired. The nap this afternoon,though short, did feel pretty amazing after that.

Also, it's been over a month, and I haven't had a meltdown. I haven't screamed. There's been a lot of crying and a lot of intense emotional pain that has caused physical pain. The anxiety is constant, unfortunately. Maybe it's more to do with the disconnect between where I want to be and where I am. I'm not sure.  But I'm coping. I'm learning to live with these feelings, which are pretty intense at times. I feel like that's an understatement. But you get the point. I've had so much shit happen to me emotionally over the past month and a half, and I haven't broken down. A few months ago, just being in the same room with other people would have sent me over the edge. Being late for an appointment would have completely destroyed my entire day, and I'd spend the whole rest of the night crying in bed, unable to move. I don't know how that person ever came to be. I knew the whole time that I wasn't myself. But I couldn't stop anything from happening.

Sometimes I still have some of those same feelings, but I'm in control this time. At some point, I will write in depth about how I felt during those months. I know there are a ton of posts from that time, but being able to analyze it from the other side might offer more insight into just how debilitating my condition had become. But I'm not up for that right now.

I guess I should finally get to what made me want to write in the first place. Walking over to my desk to take some medicine, I got hit with the realization of how different everything is right now. In my mind flashed images of our old bed, followed immediately by images of this one. Blue sheets versus red sheets. Alive versus eerily quiet. Even the lighting makes the place feel different. I just look at myself and all of my things and can't believe we aren't in the place where I felt like we belonged. It really was home. And for some reason, this doesn't have that feeling anymore. It's always going to be home. It's always going to be a loving, welcoming place. But it's a different kind of feeling. It's a home that I can still be a part of, but it's not the same as the home you have helped to create. And I really don't think my new apartment is going to totally feel like home either. I'm scared of that empty feeling following me, which has a lot more to do with being alone, but you never know what can happen. I will do my best to make the place my own. I had more to say but I got lost in thought and it disappeared.

I may consider anxiety medication again. But for now, I can handle this, as unpleasant as it feels most of the time. I struggle with this because part of me feels that I shouldn't have to feel like this all the time if there is a solution. But side effects are a real problem for me, as I have learned, and I just don't know if I am ready to take that risk again, especially because your typical anxiety meds don't do anything for me. Maybe the anxiety will resolve itself when my situation improves. It's wishful thinking more than anything, but hoping won't kill me.

I will be okay. I am doing the right thing. This is a step forward on all fronts. I won't give up.

On Sacrifice

I want to hold you and kiss you and make everything better. Knowing that I can't fix things for you or help in any significant way--other than to offer my unconditional love and support--makes me feel like a terrible partner. But this isn't about me. I know this is my blog, and I can talk about my feelings all I want. I can say that I feel inadequate, that I wish I could give every penny I had just to make things right for you, that it hurts me so much to see you hurting that it's causing me just as much physical pain as missing you does. Maybe even more. Even if it seems selfish of me to talk about my own feelings in this situation, I know that the feelings themselves are the most unselfish kind I have ever experienced. I'm thinking so much less about myself these days, but not in a bad way. I'm making sure to have enough to cover my needs and plan a little ahead, but for the most part, all I want to do is help, comfort, soothe, and heal. This is the nature of the person that you thought had vanished a long time ago. But now that I've gotten that out of the way, for real, this isn't about me.

I promise that one day soon you will not have to worry about these things ever again. You will be able to relax--to not have to think about it every minute of every day. There are so many more things I want to promise you, if you will let me. I struggle with saying certain things here because I don't know what's appropriate and what's not, so I'm being intentionally vague.

So maybe it's better if I stick with my own situation in such a public domain. But your situation is my situation too.

The words are getting stuck. They want to force themselves out, but I am afraid. I'm not entirely sure why, but I am.

I'm afraid and nervous. I'm confused. I'm hopeful. I'm kind of excited. I don't really know how to handle all of these feelings at the same time. I am trying to focus on the positives in my life and look to the future, but the negatives still need to be addressed before that future can be fully realized.

I had a phone interview this evening that went very well, and I have an interview next Friday for a position that's actually in my field. Both opportunities are in Morgantown. I've looked into short-term/month-to-month rentals starting as early as the first week of September because I won't hesitate to move should I be offered either of these positions. Part of me wants to make the move anyway and do what I have been doing here should I fail to obtain either one: get anything in the meantime and just start saving for a better life, continuing to look for more relevant employment. I'm leaning more and more towards that. I'm feeling the urgency. I'll have enough to make the move and to be comfortable for about a month, and that should be more than enough time to get some sort of job, even if it is as miserable as the one I have now. I feel like this pain in my stomach would lessen a great deal if I could take that step towards independence. It'll be scary doing it alone, but I know that I have to, at first. I need to be the one that can provide that security of a place to stay and food to eat. It's my turn, and I don't want to fail.

I'm crying because I still want to give you everything and cannot. Sacrificing is hard, but not being able to sacrifice when you desperately want to is even harder. A lot harder.

I still have a lot to say, but I need a break. Otherwise, this is going to get even more repetitive.

Over a Month Down

I've been writing a lot on paper lately. Some of the things I have going on in my head aren't at the point where they can be shared with the world, and I'm starting to realize that some of them are just for me, no matter how much I feel like I need to share them with others. It's been a challenge trying to hold everything in. I don't know if I would say that things have gotten easier to handle emotionally, but I keep feeling more positive every day. I have my moments, but those are the times that my skills are really being tested. I think I've done a pretty good job so far. I had a major crisis on Tuesday night, and I was able to solve that problem with a little bit of guidance. That would have completely ruined me this time last year. So much of this situation would have. So even though it's Friday night and my weekend plans have been erased already, I'm feeling okay. I had a long day at work, took a nap, figured out a little more about what's happening in my near future, and am handling the pressure of being here pretty well. I have a long weekend--a really long weekend--ahead of me to decompress from the workweek, and I should be ready to go again by Wednesday. (I also have an interview on Monday for a much better, less bullshitty job, so I'm looking forward to that as well.)

We talked longer than we have in about a week last night. I could feel the pain and the anger and the frustration, and all I wanted to do was be there to take it away, but part of me knows that I am responsible for so much of it. I know he is trying hard not to resent me, and it's one of my greatest fears that he'll never be able to get past that. But I have to let time do its work and continue to be open, receptive, and supportive. I cannot blame him for any of his feelings. The situation is complicated, and our relationship is only one part of a much larger and more complex clusterfuck, for lack of a better word. I've never felt this way before. I don't have much, and while I want to hoard what I have away so I can remove myself from this area as quickly as possible, I have a much stronger urge to use what I do have to help him. I've never been able to sacrifice like this before. Have I really been such a selfish person my entire life? And the strange part is that it makes me feel good, all things considered, to be able to give and expect nothing in return. I feel like he deserves it after all the times he has done the same for me. I know this is what I am supposed to be doing. When I go to work at this nightmarish job every day, I'm not thinking about what I can buy or what adventures I might be able to take. I'm thinking of how every little bit I make is going to help both of us into a better life. I only wish I could offer more than what I am able to right now.

That's why I decided to sell my suit. I never thought I would be willing to part with it. It was my first really outstanding creation, and it's been with me through a lot. I feel like it's an important part of me. I love being able to look at it and feel all of the experiences and memories again. But I've ultimately decided that this is more important to me than drag. There will always be other suits. And maybe this is a good way to symbolize that it's time to move forward. The suit does say "Time 4 Change", after all. And I think it is. Whatever money I do get will get me that much closer to the life I want to lead. Again, it's hard to believe that I am the person making these choices. (I've even considered selling my iPad since it is the most valuable thing I own, but I use it way too much for that to be practical.)

I've learned that being able to leave this place on my own and get a job in my future city is an extremely important part of this process. I may not be able to go through all of the steps on my own, but financing such a venture is a majority of the battle, and I already know that I am capable of that. I just have to do the work and wait for my efforts to be rewarded. Having this goal in mind has helped me refocus quite a bit because, honestly, there was a point yesterday where things were a lot more uncertain. I'm not saying that everything is completely clear, but being able to set my sights on something is important for my motivation and ability to sustain whatever it is that I am doing.

I'm learning that that's another one of those Asperger's things that I just have to work around. For as intelligent as I am, I've got pretty shitty executive functioning skills, at least when it comes to managing my own life. I don't know why I can help other people prioritize but have such a hard time doing the same thing for myself. I'm still working on ways to trick myself and get myself past the hurdles. Here are some of my major problems. It's not an exhaustive list, but it's a start:

1. I have a hard time prioritizing tasks. Everything seems equally important.
2. Numbering tasks in order of priority is sometimes helpful, but then I run into trouble if I just can't accomplish one. Then I don't seem to be able to move past it to the next one.
3. I have trouble starting on a new task when another one is in progress.
4. Even when I know exactly what I need to do, I sometimes still freeze. It's like being stuck on the edge of a swimming pool indefinitely. You know you need to jump and are going to do it but you just can't figure out why you won't.
5. If I can't see the concrete steps involved, it's significantly harder for me to get anything done.
6. Similarly, if I can't see a concrete goal at the end or concrete reassurances or reminders throughout a particularly long process--especially if it's something I don't want to be doing in the first place--I lose drive and focus.
7. Stress, feeling out of control, not having a finite endpoint--all of these things make accomplishing anything much more difficult. I can't get organized in my head enough to even begin sometimes.

I've been doing so much better with these things, but I know there is still room for improvement. The fact that I have been able to make myself go to this job that I hate more than any other job I have ever worked (a lot of that may have to do with the circumstance, but I also feel like they are asking a hell of a lot of me for eight bucks an hour) is a testament to my ability to make sacrifices and stay focused in order to get something that I really want. But I need to constantly look at apartments and jobs in the place I really do want to be. I feel like I recalculate everything on a daily basis. I have to give myself visual reminders all the time. That's why it helps when we talk or FaceTime. Seeing him is a reminder for me in a lot of ways. It reminds me of what I have to look forward to. It reminds me also of what happened in the past and how I need to put in my work to make sure it never happens again. It reminds me of the person I want to be and the future I want to have, not just for us, but really for myself. For some reason, just talking about nothing for an hour or so makes me feel like I've got this, no matter what life throws at me.

I don't want people to get the wrong impression. It's not that I am solely focused on relationship things. I'm also doing all that I can to get my educational, financial, and personal goals off the ground. But it helps me to think about everything as part of the same package. After all, the relationship goals wouldn't matter much without taking care of the other ones. So I'm working my ass off, doing my research, preparing for different situations that might arise, and all that fun stuff. I've just been a lot more vocal about my relationship, and I don't think anyone can blame me for that. It's the most fulfilling part of my life. And I feel like I am the last person that would have come to that conclusion. I always envisioned myself as that sort of career-focused person. I realize now that it's not a bad thing. I'm not in a very fulfilling career right now, but I think I have learned over the years that you are not entirely defined by what you do. Your job doesn't determine your worth as a person or the happiness you can derive from everyday life. I don't know if I would have learned these lessons had I taken the traditional route through life. I feel like this post is headed in a very different direction now.

I never would have learned the value of money had I not experienced what it is like to be exceptionally poor. I never would have learned anything about how the real world works--how people are sometimes trapped in roles they don't want. I never would have learned that there is a hell of a lot more to being successful and mobile than just hard work. I never would have seen the corruption, the disparities, the injustices that so many people who grew up in upper middle-class households never have to think about. Along the way, I have lost so many different kinds of privilege, and I'm proud to have learned all the lessons I have. I've learned never to judge people based on one aspect of their lives. What would people say about me knowing that I essentially pack boxes for a living? That I have been in and out of work for the past several years? Would people expect to meet someone with my education, my experience, or my intelligence walking by me as I'm covered in dirt dragging around a pallet full of lawn chairs? Do you know how differently people treat me when I walk around in a suit as compared to when I walk around at work? As much as I can appreciate all that I have learned, it's still incredibly depressing to go from being a researcher with a promising career ahead of him to unloading trucks for next-to-nothing. How many other people have ended up just like this? I know I am not the only one. But I also know that this is not the end for me, so as depressing as it may seem now, I'm just working my way through Right Now, getting ready for What Comes Next. If I could be there tomorrow, I wouldn't hesitate for an instant. But time doesn't work that way, does it?

Another interesting thing happened tonight. My best friend from Kindergarten/early elementary school found me on Facebook. She still lives in the area and wants to do something one of these days. I have so many feelings that I don't even know how to deal with them all. I'm overwhelmingly happy that she did find me and took the time to tell me that she still thinks about those times and how great they were. How she will always be grateful for those years we shared. And that really means a lot to me. I feel the same way. And sometimes I wish I could go back to those days, as I'm sure we all do, because the worst thing that could happen on most days was that you ran out of graham crackers or it got too dark to keep playing outside.

I'm incredibly impatient with my current situation, and that's really helping me work on my impulse control. The hardest part of impulse control for me is delaying gratification or enduring something undesirable to achieve a better outcome. So obviously you can see how this situation is a little torturous at times. But every day that I make it is another win for me. Every situation I endure--every time I stop myself from engaging in self-pity, bitching, obsessing, etc.--I get stronger. Everything I do and endure here has a purpose. If I didn't believe that, I probably wouldn't have even lasted this long.

So tonight, I'm a little sad and lost with what to do with myself, but I'm actually alright. I think I'll relax and watch some Family Guy. I will try not to think about tomorrow or the next day or the next month. I will just focus on what I can do right now to make myself a little happier than before.

Still not giving up.

THIS IS FICTION, AGAIN. NO TITLE YET

***NOTE***
This is a work of FICTION, though it is based on some events that happened in real life. I wanted to play with the scenario in a creative way. Some of these things happened. Some did not. Please do not make assumptions about which ones are which. Treat this ENTIRELY as a work of FICTION, and try to appreciate it as such. Thank you. Also, I get that it's corny and hastily written. That wasn't the point of the exercise. So back off. :P
***********

He sat with a fistful of shattered glass and broken promises, smoking the last of a pack of cigarettes he found a few hours before realizing he had no choice but to question his own sanity over the last several months and possibly years. He still considered himself a scientist, even though he hadn't seen the inside of a lab in about as long as he had ever worked in one. But he never mentioned this. When people asked him what he did for a living, he usually avoided eye contact and tried to delay responding with "nothing" for as long as he could. And every time he had to answer the question, another piece of him plummeted to the Earth, like a meteorite or confetti or that dead body in the movie Con-Air.

He wondered now whether that had anything to do with his current situation, but for all he knew, the broken glass he left behind could have been the work of a would-be burglar he had caught in the act, and the inevitable struggle would have rendered him a hero instead of the mental patient he learned to define himself as. If only he could remember how or why it started, he might be able to convince himself that his mind had a perfectly rational and reasonable explanation for choosing to abandon him on the most important night of his life. As he choked on the toxins making their way into his respiratory system, he glanced down at the white bracelet on his wrist. Some part of him believed that he would never be able to remove his ivory letter--not until he solved the mystery of what happened on the 5th of July.

The police told Benjamin that his husband found him lying in a pile of the collected remains of every glass surface in the apartment--from the TV to the coffee table to the vase that held the flame-colored roses meant to cheer him up on a particularly lousy summer afternoon. He didn't remember much of that conversation, or the one where his husband threw him out of the house for good without so much as a pair of shoes or a can of soup. Ben couldn't blame him. He cooperated as much as anyone could have with police officers with an apparent moral obligation to contribute to the degeneration of what little sanity or emotional stability he still had tucked away inside of him. He didn't know there were so many ways to call someone worthless in such a short amount of time. They must have a training on that at the academy, he thought. However, he refrained from making any comment at all because he, quite wisely, assumed that a mental institution was a far better place than prison for someone like him.

He survived his stay in the psych ward by writing letters to his husband--letters he could never send thanks to a hastily-filed restraining order that prevented him from making any contact whatsoever or calling 67 Hadley Street his home ever again. He wrote the letters mostly as a way to process his own feelings. The confinement drove him crazy, which sounds a little ironic considering the nature of the facility, but Ben wasn't the kind of man that liked to sit still. He was an avid runner, cyclist, weightlifter, and recreational athlete that had once had quite a promising future in athletics, until he decided to stop pretending to be a woman some years beforehand.

So he kept his pen moving when his body could not. He wrote until the cuts on his hands would start to bleed. And then he just kept writing, not seeing the use in clearing away the blood running down his fingers and pooling at the very point where pen met paper. Every word was still visible behind its rust-colored pond. The darkest ones seemed to be the most real.

You'd think that there would be more to Ben's story in the hospital, but in truth, he was tired of being on medication for problems he wasn't even sure were real anymore. He had begun to question his own reality in the weeks prior to the incident. He felt less and less like himself until his mind must have just let go completely. This was the best explanation he could come up with, and eventually, the doctors stopped trying to force the pills down his throat, and after some more time, they stopped coming to his room altogether. He was on his own, and he had realized that from the beginning. When he was no longer afraid of the withdrawal symptoms and could stop replaying his fantasy of blowing his brain matter into a Rorschach mural on the bathroom wall, he signed himself out of the hospital.

Two hours later, he stood 51 feet away from the very bottom step of house number 67, where he could still hear his 3-month-old puppy crying from behind the red brick walls. He knew he should have walked away at that point, but the thought of living without his dog--even on the streets of East Cleveland with winter approaching--was another razor-sharp shard of broken plasma TV resting ever so gently on his brainstem, having already pierced the skin, just waiting for the right moment, perhaps a twitch of panic, to make contact with the place that made him breathe. These were his thoughts, not mine, by the way. That's just the way he was. Everything was either dramatic or non-existent. No wonder.

At 33 feet, he saw his husband's car--or ex-husband's, maybe, since he wasn't really sure what the situation meant, though he probably should have been smart enough to figure that out, being a brilliant biologist and all. It was too late to run. He had already been seen, and fear of getting flattened by an F-350 with the redneck pride flag printed across its back window urged him to move even closer to the man who was more likely to have him arrested with each additional foot he advanced.

"You shouldn't be here."
"I live here..."
"Not anymore you don't."
"I just need some things."
"You can have your shoes. But you can't come inside."
"I...I can't leave. Please talk to me."
"I have nothing to say to you. Ever again."
"I just...Baby, please. I can't. Please talk to me. I can't do this."
"I don't care where you go. That's up to you. But you cannot stay here."

He didn't know what else to say. His mind was stuck in an infinite loop of can't-won't-scream-cry-panic. His knees forgot what they were designed to do, and he hit the ground hard, catching himself on more fractured glass than pavement, reopening wounds he thought were well on their way to healing. He lifted his hand to see that he had tiny pieces of mirror embedded in his palm, and at that moment more than any other, as his husband walked past him into the house without another syllable, he felt like eating his own reflection. One shard at a time.

He sat and allowed himself to bleed and cry until his body had had enough of these things, and around the same time, the screen-door skin of the house seemed to rupture, spewing out crimson bags of shoes, medicines, clothes, and the inevitable glitter-glass that covered everything on the property, inside and out.

Blood-red hands, blood-red bags, and blood-red eyes walked up the street, attached to a man whose body and mind should have stopped betraying him years before, if life were to be fair in any fucking way. (Again, his words. Not mine. Maybe he should've written this instead.) He didn't know what to do, where to go, or when he would ever find a place to call home again. But, for whatever reason, he walked. It might have been pure instinct at that point, his neocortex having shut down almost completely for the second time in an all-too-brief-yet-never-ending span of time. But had he not taken those first zombie-like shuffles away from his past, he would have never tripped over the chance to find his future.

Benjamin continued to bleed for a long time after that. I'm told that he and his husband are back together again and that they have a 3-year-old daughter named Annabelle. Ben's hands are permanently scarred, not only because of the initial disaster and the subsequent reinjury, but because, for a long time, Ben picked at his wounds until they bled just as fiercely as they did that very first night. He did this every day for quite some time, often without realizing it. And the day he stopped ripping away scab after scab was the day his husband finally called.

Tears fell to the pages of Ben's tattered journal as he listened to the song to which they danced on the night of their wedding, and before he hung up the phone--on what would be the anniversary of the death of their old life together--his husband didn't ask Ben to come home. He said that it was time for both of them to go home.

Sixty-seven minutes later, you could hear the makeup sex two blocks over. (What's another few dozen kids in therapy, right?) It was hot and sweaty and filled with all the best kinds of screaming and way too many different kinds of crying. And that's being discreet. I could have also told you about the biting and the scratching and the broken headboard and the various bodily fluids that ended up defying gravity in the end.

Marcus looked at the scars all over his partner's hands (and body), following the trail from one to the next with his lips, like he was sucking the venom out of a lethal snake bite.

"Your scars make you so much more beautiful," he said to Ben.

Ben smiled with tears forming in the corners of eyes that seemed to have aged a dozen years since the last time they shared a bed together. He spoke softly but with more conviction than he could ever remember: "So do yours. I'm just sorry that I had to be the one to give them to you."

"You never have to be sorry, Ben. I don't blame you for what happened. And it's like we said: We're both more beautiful for having these marks, whether they have formed on the body or the soul. I wouldn't trade these scars for anything." As he said these last words, he moved his hand right towards his partner's heart, just above the place where a new scar would one day form. And he knew he would love that one too.

"Do you really mean that? I mean, you know my mind wasn't in the right place when it happened, but that doesn't mean I am not responsible for so, so much pain in your life...And I can't promise that I won't cause you more pain."

Marcus paused for a long time after that. He breathed slowly, never breaking eye contact with the man whose stormy seas had made him such a well-conditioned sailor. "I never expected you not to cause me pain. That's kind of a given with marriage. But you were gone for a long time--long before your episode or whatever we want to call it now. I lost the man I married, for whatever reason, to a shell of a person that needed life support in a way that I just couldn't provide. It was killing me too, and saying goodbye felt like they pulled the plug on me instead. I felt like I said goodbye over and over again every single night when I had to crawl into this bed with nothing but an empty space next to me...It never stopped smelling like you."

"What made it stop?"
"What do you mean, Ben?"
"I mean, like, how did you know when you stopped having to say goodbye? How did you--"
"How did I know the man I married had finally come back to me?"
"Well...yeah."
"You found it again."
"Found what?"
"Your smile."

Admission

Today, I recognized that I have started to feel more than one emotion, which I know is one of those really healthy things. I'm still extraordinarily optimistic about where things are going with my mental health and my life, more generally. But at the same time, I am sad about having to be so far away from the person I love. I'm also really stressed out because the psych hospital stole my T, the Food Stamps office messed up AGAIN, my back has been getting worse again, I'm lonely as all hell, and I'm still looking for things with which to occupy most of my time.

I finally told him that I didn't think this was working the way we intended it to. We're both miserable as hell being away from one another. If the point was to learn whether or not we were able to focus more on improving ourselves as individuals by being apart from one another, I think we've learned that, rather than helping us, this is a major distraction and contributing factor to our respective levels of unhappiness. There are a host of reasons why I think we'd be better off working this out in the context of the relationship. One of the major ones I've been dwelling on the last few days is that I think now we both know what happens when we become codependent. We know what it feels like to lose ourselves completely. And we know what happens when we both aren't dealing with our problems effectively. In addition, I think we have more than gotten the point when it comes to appreciating what you have before it's gone. I still wonder how much longer we will have to put ourselves through this. I think I've gained the perspective I need to accomplish what I need to. I think I have regained it more than anything. I've come so far to the other side, in fact, that I think being here is going to set me back more than help me. I am happy that I am mostly resistant to people making sure every little need I have is met. But it's hard to keep that up without feeling guilty. It seems the only way parents know how to show love is by doing things for you or trying to take care of you. But that's just not what I need right now. I need to work on my life in more of a real-life situation. This seems more like a time-out from real life to me. And I really don't believe I need that anymore. I'm strong enough to just get on with it already. And I'm the kind of person who believes you never know until you try.

I was much more into this option of staying in Wilkes-Barre when I was afraid I wouldn't be able to survive on my own in Pittsburgh. I thought that this is what I needed. And maybe I did need it for a few days. But I've always been a fast learner. I've always been able to pick up my own pieces, sometimes a little more quickly than others, and I usually know when it's time for me to move forward. This time in particular, I've felt more capable than ever before. I feel like my mind came back to me. I've always known how to be this person. All those other times when my life turned into complete chaos have finally proven their worth. Every time it happens, it gets easier and easier to handle. I know more of what to do each time.

I don't exactly know how I snapped out of things so quickly. Was it largely the medication? Was it the situation that caused me to finally wake up from the fog I had been living in? Was it that time in the hospital spent doing nothing but thinking and writing and forcing myself to practice CBT like I never have before? Was it the culminating event of months worth of effort and practice and failure? Maybe it was a little bit of everything. I am grateful, regardless. I will never let myself believe I am broken again. I refuse to be a victim. I choose to live. And really live, not just float through life passively.

This disability stuff is about to come to an end. I still have a nine-month trial work period, which will be helpful in the beginning, but I would rather get a job in Pittsburgh, truthfully. I would rather do this in a scenario close to the one I desire. I am perfectly capable of doing it in these less-than-desirable circumstances, but why the hell would I want to if I know it could be done a different, less painful way?

I've come up with some alternative solutions in my head, some of which require more time here than others. As much as I know what I want, I am willing to do whatever it takes. If that means staying here indefinitely, I can handle it. It's going to suck if it has to be that way, but sometimes that's just the way things are. Most people know this without having to be told. For some reason, I always have to remind myself of the simplest things. My brain's a little weird. But I like it, most of the time.

For some reason, this thought came to my head just now: "I will never hide my body from you again." And I know it's true.

I'll probably have more to say soon, but I want to move on to something else for a little while. I don't want to get caught up in a loop. The fact that I am even able to say that and stop myself is pretty fucking awesome. Just saying.

Weekend Reflections

My head is buzzing, and I feel really distracted right now. I am attempting to focus on doing what I need to do, both long term and in the moment, but ever since the middle of the day yesterday, I've been having a lot of trouble. I keep thinking that this isn't the place for me to do what I need to do, and it seems like a lot of things are trying to convince me of that, even when I try to force myself to forge ahead and believe otherwise.

It is lonely here, and most of the friends I had are alcoholics. And the others...Well, let's just say that I have been trying to contact people since the first night I got back here. I'm definitely making an effort to be more social. It just hasn't been working out, which is actually a lot more discouraging than I thought it would be. I thought it would be easy to just focus 100% on myself and what I need to do to get to a place where I am completely comfortable, at least a good portion of the time. But it's actually much more difficult to remain focused when I feel this isolated.

As much as I love my family, they really aren't about the same lifestyle I am, and that's really hard. I have to go out of my way mentally just to make sure I don't give in. We just have different priorities, and that's completely okay. It's just not very helpful right now. I feel like I am at a point where I need a certain kind of support, and instead of being able to get what I need, I have to fight off the kinds of support I don't need.

I don't want it to be a chore to stay at a baseline level of independence and comfort. I just want that to be a fact of life. My brain is starting to feel more cluttered here every day, and perhaps that is because I haven't been able to talk to people as much as I did when things first happened. I feel much more disconnected from my support network.

I'm starting to see that the purpose of coming here is pretty limited in scope. I need to learn how to function independently, and though that has been pretty taxing due to outside influences, I've been doing a pretty good job at managing my own affairs. I need to save money so that I can put myself in a better position with regard to student loans. I am also realizing that I need to save money to leave when the time is right. I know for a fact that it will be incredibly difficult--if not impossible--for me to figure out any very long-term plans while I am here. As much as I fight it, the feeling of being stuck is hard to escape. It's not bringing me down or preventing me from doing anything, but it is a weight on my shoulders I with which I wish I did not have to contend.

I feel that the biggest detriment to my well-being at this point is my seemingly complete disconnection from my social support network. I will do the best I can to resist the negative thoughts, but I do fear that they will eventually become too much if I don't find a way to remedy the situation. I am definitely starting to have my doubts about the relative pros and cons of being in this place. However, this might be the only way for things to really improve between us. I don't know if we would both be strong enough to not see each other every day if I were closer. Part of me wonders what is so horrible about that, if we are both committed to working on ourselves. But I also realize that time is an important factor in all of this. I know more healing needs to take place, and we need time for the changes we have implemented to play themselves out.

I don't blame anyone for this, but I do feel angry about how unfair it is that I am the one losing contact with friends, losing my home, etc. It seems like things are pretty well stacked against me. I know I can take it, but it is so draining. I keep wondering how much longer I will have to be this strong. This is the third time I have had to come back here, and while I want to stress again how much I love my family and will never fully be able to repay them for all the support they have given me--even when I haven't always deserved it--I do lose a lot of myself being here. And that's another thing I am fighting. Again, I can take it. But it's hard. And it's exhausting. I guess maybe I just want SOMETHING to feel comfortable about this.

I'd give anything to be out with the people I care about tonight. It's been so long since I've been genuinely excited to do something without being terrified of being in a social setting. And now that I finally have those feelings back, I can't take action. It seems kind of cruel.

I started crying a lot earlier. I had to listen to the same two or three songs that have been helping me through this. I desperately want to talk to someone in person. As much as all of this hurts, I know why I am here. I know what I need to do. This is only a small part of my life. Everything will be okay. I won't give up. I will not let any of this bring me down. I have so many reasons to work for the things I want. I am learning what really being strong for yourself and the person you love means. I'm definitely not in an ideal situation, but I need to make the best of where I am and try to achieve my goals. If I can get closer to them here, than I know I can make it anywhere. I won't be broken this easily. This will all be worth it soon enough. Love is so much more powerful and motivating than I ever thought it could be, in all of its forms. I need to remind myself of this constantly.

I won't give up.

Time Dilation

I smiled about us more than I cried today. Even so, it feels like I have been here for a month already, though it's really been four days. It's hard not to feel lonely here when pretty much all of my friends are back in Pittsburgh. I see pictures and posts every day that help me feel a little more connected to them in some ways, but in other ways, they make me feel even further away.

I applied to probably sixty or seventy more jobs today just in case the home healthcare agency doesn't call me back for a second interview next week. I'm not particularly concerned with what the job is at this point. I just need something to keep myself occupied and start bringing in money to get life crap sorted out.

I didn't do much else today except work out. I was thinking of going back to the gym for a leg workout tonight, but I think my back still needs a little TLC. It's frustrating to me, but I would rather not experience what I did a few months ago. If this doesn't get better by Monday, though, it's back to the doctor for me. I'm trying to avoid surgery at all costs.

It's still hard to be alone at night, when you want to be cuddled up close to the person you love. I think I might not make it very much longer without crying, but that's okay. The crying means I still care enough to be hurt. Fortunately, I still care enough to make the effort too.

I guess I really didn't have much to say after all. Some nights aren't that great for words.

It's still way too quiet here.

Moving Forward on this Holiday

I suppose the best time for me to try to write about this is when I am slightly intoxicated since I can't seem to get any words out when I am completely sober. Tonight has been interesting to say the least.

I went to the gym, as is the usual case for me on any given day, though I have had a few rough patches the last few weeks where I have failed to move from bed for several days at a time. Anyway, today was the fourth of July, which was fine when I was in the gym imagining the visual displays that corresponded with the multitude of sounds I heard throughout the evening while working out. But as the night wore on, I couldn't ignore the history the day and I had shared. Instead of waiting downtown with thousands of drunk and disorderly citizens, I opted not to catch my bus home and walk down to Cruze to see my fiance and my friends, hoping to have a long night of fun with them before turning in and trying to resume normal life. But he brought it up before I got the chance to. He wanted to go have fun without me, which normally is not a problem,  but today, in addition to being one of the worst personal days I experience as a general rule, is also a day where I had struggled to even get out of bed in the morning. I know I don't have very many friends. The last thing I want to hear is that you want to go out with all of our mutual friends to have fun while I sit at home and do nothing but contemplate my own misery. I would have been perfectly fine with going out separate ways to have fun tonight, but even that was a problem for some reason. Every decision I made seemed to be inadequate and childish to you. You say that you don't want to take care of me, and when I tell you that you don't have to, you refuse to listen to me and insist that what I am saying is crazy and out of line. I feel like I can never win. I feel like you think I am stupid. Or at least you treat me that way a lot of the time. If you treat me like I am incapable of making my own choices, how will I ever know which choices result in the best outcomes? I love you more than anything. I want you to know how much I really do love you and want you to experience all the pleasure you can in this world. But I also want you to know that I need to experience that too, and it isn't always convenient for me. Sometimes I feel connected to people, and sometimes I do not. Sometimes I understand the social implications of a situation, and sometimes I do not. But the point is that I try. And that there are real people involved in my trying. And I really do need help in figuring out what the fuck is going on. No matter how smart I am, no matter how clever or creative I am, no matter how charismatic I may seem to the untrained ear or eye, I am still at an extreme disadvantage. I am AUTISTIC. I do not understand many of the things that you take for granted about human relationships. And you may think I am stupid for this, but I assure you I am not. My brain is actually pretty amazing. I can read four times faster than the average person. I have an impeccable short term memory. I have a natural gift for writing, even though I am a terrible public speaker. I feel emotions far more intensely than most people do. My brain is constantly working overtime, trying to process every little detail about every little thing that crosses the path of my consciousness. It's fucking exhausting. I want to turn it off sometimes, but I just can't. I barely have time to breathe. But still I am viewed as selfish because tonight, it just so happened that I was able to be okay at the same time that my partner wanted to do something in public with friends, and he wanted nothing to do with me. I understand needing alone time. That is why I suggested going to a different after-hours bar than the one you had planned on, but still, you thought that was a bad idea for me. You screamed at me for that too. I have the ability to make my own decisions. I am not a child, and if I want to drunk by myself in an after-hours club, I have every right to do so without judgment from anyone else. If you get to do it, than I do too. It does not matter what medication I am on. What matters is the choice I myself have made. I am not a child, I repeat. I understand the consequences of my actions. If you want to go drink by yourself for a night, I should have the same right to do so.

I am not mad. I love you. I just wish you could actually see things from my perspective. I am not trying to deprive you of your alone time. I merely wanted you to see what that looks like to someone who is always alone and who very rarely gets to experience what it is like to be amongst a group of people who believe the same things and are in the same mindset to celebrate. You deserve your own time just as much as anyone. But I still deserve the chance to explain to you how that can sometimes conflict with my needs. Even so, this conflict is perfectly okay. That's bound to happen in relationships. What is not okay is trying to control another person because you think that his or her cognitive disability makes him or her incapable of making adult choices. As for me--and me alone--I will tell you firsthand if I can or can't make a decision. This is just how I am.

I only wanted to go out tonight because I wanted to be with friends and enjoy the holiday like others before me have enjoyed it. I wanted to create new memories of the fourth of July because for the past ten years, I have had to deal with nothing but pain and heartbreak. I wanted to move forward and for once enjoy the occasion. I thought waiting until my boyfriend and I were alone at the bar would be a good time, but he thought it would be a good time to tell me that he needed space from me. I don't blame him for this. Everyone deserves his or her own personal space, especially when one works in a bar. But I thought he would be more understanding of my needs in the same situation. I guess I never explained how I felt in the first place. That may have something to do with it.

The truth is that I do not get subtleties. I am frequently the last person to get a joke, I may not understand exactly when you want me to hold you or tell you everything is going to be okay. I often don't get subtle sarcasm, though I can dish it better than most. You may think that I am brilliant or incredibly creative, but there are things that I will never understand. Basic conversation is one of them. I don't know what to say to people. I don't know how to maintain relationships or be close with others. I just know how to exchange information factually and sometimes ironically, I have the same emotions as neurotypical people, but I feel them far more intensely. I'm always at a level 10. I know I am not making much sense right now, but I do hope that someone eventually learns that this thought process is unique. That I am not like others. And that that is okay. We all arrive at our respective destinations at the appropriate times. Please understand this as you go about your day.

I am autistic. I may not have common sense, but I can work with any functional MRI machine and tell you which parts of the brain are more or less active in a given scenario. I can also tell you thousands of bits of seemingly useless information, but none of that seems to matter because I am ultimately a writer. I can't speak for shit. I stutter and mumble and cry into corners when I have to make a vocal statement. But I can write. I can make you feel with a few keystrokes here or there. And this is how I plan to make my truer scientific presence felt. I have not given up on myself. I have not given up on the true medium of science. I haven't even given up on humanity. Please try to understand me as we move forward in our journey. There is so much more we need to learn. I am ready and willing to progress. Are you?

Connected

You are the most amazing person to have ever come into my life, and I never want to let you go. This time, I know for sure. But you were right, as you often are. It's one of the things I love about you the most. You are intelligent, and you are more like me than you ever realized before. I did think those things, briefly. I allowed them to play out in my head, over and over again, because I knew that resisting those thoughts and feelings would only make it more difficult for me to understand what I needed to do. I have learned to mostly allow myself to experience without analyzing--without passing judgment. That has been the most helpful skill in controlling my anxiety and meltdowns. But it is not always easy. There will always be days like today.

However, in allowing myself to experience that world in my mind, I came back to the same conclusion I had reached numerous times before. Of course I still felt things. But those feelings are for a person from a different time, and they come from a person from a different time. I have made the decision to love truly and completely the one person that is right for the me that exists in the here and now, not the past. 

I want to believe that I have grown into more of the kind of partner I want to be--that I have learned from my mistakes. 

I don't want this to end like all the others, and I know that it comes down to my actions in the end. I must choose to better myself. I must choose to fight all the time. I can't let myself fall into the same patterns as before. I'm learning how not to do that, and I am only succeeding part of the time. 

But you are patient. And I can hear everything I need to in the tone of your voice. And I don't get that with everyone. It's almost as if the actual words don't matter when I get that way.

I'm waiting for you to come upstairs, still feeling so connected to you after you read my cards tonight. I know this was difficult for you, and I am sorry I wasn't completely honest with you that night on the couch. I was (and still am) so afraid of losing the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. 

Three months

I really just want to be a better person.

He makes me want to do that. 

The person I have to fight the most is myself. I don't mean to be ignorant or selfish. Sometimes I just don't know. 

I can only hope that patience will serve both of us well. So far it has, and that makes me so happy. 

Progress

When you ask a straight girl on a date, and she says yes. More importantly, when you feel confident enough to ask a girl you've liked for months. This has been a great day.

Being Okay

I came home seven months ago against my will, without knowing anyone here other than my parents. I suppose you could count the people I used to know in high school, but I'm sure none of them really exist anymore either. I even got to know a few of them all over again. In so many ways, this part of my life is the low-budget sequel to my high school experience. I make just about the same amount of money, spend a lot of time wondering about the future all by myself, and I live in the same room. Best Buy is like a giant high school (many, many of them actually went to my actual high school) as well, complete with relationship drama, cliques, and house parties. And because of those house parties, I actually have friends I trust enough to randomly text or maybe even call (gasp) whenever I need something.

I find it interesting that I make friends with military guys so easily. I'm sure that says something about my personality, perhaps about my general lack of concern for holding my tongue when it would otherwise be appropriate. Also pretty sure the obsession with physical fitness has something to do with it. But it's not just that I can chat with them or find common ground. There really is some sort of deeper connection I can't quite figure out, like they would be the kind of friend that I try to be, because when it comes to putting your ass on the line for your fellow man, they've pretty much done that for a living.

I read something that made me angry the other day, but it made me happy as well. And regardless of which emotion I ended up feeling throughout the night, I cried. I wanted to be angry at her, but I was really angry with myself for being so hurt by something that has nothing to do with me. That might actually be why it hurts. I am not ashamed to admit that I am envious of your life. But I am not upset. I am happy, and I am thankful that you understand how unique your position is and how many lives you have the ability to affect from it. And I hope those lives are affected in positive ways, and instead of harboring this negative energy and having it seep out into the real world, I have no choice but to let it go. I'm on my way to being happy. And you are already happy. And we had nothing to do with each other's happiness. And I am learning to be okay with that. I'm learning not to be sad. It's hard to forget about the moments of the two of us that I can still see in full color--about how you were part of what changed the course of my entire life. But I understand that I do not have to, and the beauty of my life is that I don't have to play by the rule that says I need to be the jealous ex-boyfriend. I can just be an old friend. And maybe a new one, one of these days, if our paths ever cross again. Awkwardness is just going to be part of this whole experience, but we don't have to try to force it out of the way. Let the awkwardness come and go as it pleases, and it'll probably depart sooner rather than later.

I was so worried about never finding another soul that fit quite as nicely as yours, but then I did, in the most unexpected of places. And now I feel the same way about him. I can only assume that the same thing may very well happen again. But I am still young, and patience is a thing that is relegated to certain scattered aspects of my life. The pressure is on to settle down and start having babies, as every day I see new notifications about who is engaged, married, or pregnant. I see their wedding pictures. They're looking into each other's eyes like the world could be burning down around them and they wouldn't care. The power of the camera to capture the aura of two souls wrapped around each other--two spirits blending together and radiating love--is something I have always respected. Their pictures more than anything make me feel exactly what it is that I do not have in my life. And then the pain becomes very real.

I do wonder if I will ever feel such an intense love again. I wonder if I will ever be able to look into another person's eyes and truly believe that I'll be doing the exact same thing thirty or forty or fifty years down the road. I wonder if someone will ever see past the broken parts of me or maybe even love them just as much. I wonder if the person I may find will be able to take me at my worst, which is something that no one else has been able to do. And I wonder if it will be my fault if they can't.

I'm scared of losing things. I'm very scared about life right now because I may be at a point of no return, if such a thing exists. I'm still scared of making the wrong choice, even though I know that there isn't one. I may have made the wrong choice a few years ago when I decided to pass on medical school, but it was something that I had to do, and the only reason I would even argue that it could have been wrong is based on information I obtained after the fact. I was going to say something about having learned some very important things in the past two years, but that is actually just as meaningless. I am here now. It is so easy to forget that this is my present experience. That it matters too. That I need to make it matter by continuing to do things that matter. I may not be where I want to be, but I do have at least some ability to make this more like the place in my life I DO want to be.

Where am I? I am in my old bedroom, but it is not the same. I changed it shortly after moving back home. I repainted the walls, removed the old posters, eliminated boxes and boxes of useless junk and filed the rest of it away under "memories". It looks very modern, organized. Everything matches in here, as opposed to the chaotic assortment of patterns and colors I amassed between moving into this room for the first time and moving away for college. I still do not feel like there is enough of me in this room to make it more than a comfortably decorated room in which I am staying. I'm a guest in many ways. I'm trying to make this place feel like it belongs to me, but it does not. I am in my parent's house, not mine. Nothing can change this back to what it used to be. And I'm not just talking about the room.

My favorite holiday was his favorite holiday too. I watched him get excited about decorating the house and scaring away little children. It looked spectacular, and I remember getting off work and trudging through the cold and the light misty rain after getting off the bus just to make it back in time to see the last of the trick-or-treaters heading home. I remember playing with the puppy in the yard and watching her grow enough to be able to climb the stairs without being terrified. When I went back to get my things last month, she was even bigger and now more fearless. And when he hugged me goodbye, I didn't want to let go. I never want to let go, and that's my problem. I could keep going further and further back into the past, getting caught in memories of getting caught in moments with people who aren't just blips on the radar. I'm so scared that I have lost the ability to feel the extremes of felicity, perhaps because of my frequent mental excursions into the past.

It may not seem like I'm ready to deal with my life yet, but I feel that I am getting closer. And it all started by taking the risk of going over someone's house a few weeks ago. I get more confident each time, yet I am still fearful of making mistakes. I am probably going to be okay. I might even be more than okay, but right now, I've got a space heater, a brand new computer, fifteen pounds of muscle I didn't have 6 months ago, and football drinking buddies. I'd say that constitutes a little bit more than being okay.

Letting my thoughts drift

At the core, I am the same person I have always been. Whatever happens outside of me, physically, experientially, or whatever, is separate from the core energy I possess. What is so different now? I suppose it is that I can no longer pretend to be innocent. I am no longer another person's escape from the world. I am not new and exciting but a part of something established, known enough to be known by my faults.
I want to be caught in the rain again without having to care about what comes next, without exception or expectation.
Sometimes our perceptions change because we want things to fit into the present. Even if nothing changes, everything can change. Sometimes we need it to because we wouldn't be able to move forward if it didnt.

What do I need to do? Realize that it's okay to let yourself get wet. The innocence is probably still there, but I've had my guard up for way too long. I don't know what it feels like to just be open and honest, to let myself fall apart or be crazy when I need to, to feel like everyone will understand if I do. I wish I had someone to remind me.
I've come to realize that moving back to Pittsburgh would mean moving back to a place where I am surrounded by people trying to remind me of my incapabilities. I can not live in a place that sees me as helpless and hopeless. That is not the energy I need, and maybe I should have realized that sooner. But if I had, I wouldn't have known where I need to go next.

The song "Closing Time" just started playing in my head, and for some reason that reminded me of the big, black binder of CDs you brought from high school. And then of driving to Cleveland. Nostalgia is a very interesting phenomenon. Then again, so is my brain. Or anyone's.

I don't try to stop myself anymore, if there's anything I have learned
From the mindfulness literature, it's that trying to stop yourself from feeling something is unlikely to be effective. It is just extraordinarily difficult to maintain the belief that it is okay to feel everything that I do--that everything is the way it needs to be at this moment. Even the fear and the rage and the doubt.
This present moment. 530 in the morning. Typing this blog entry on my phone. It is summer. And I am thinking about how no one I meet will ever know what came before, not really.

You and I were the only ones that new my body as it was changing. There was one other, but he was too afraid to understand. And I think about how remarkable that experience must really have been. I hadn't really stopped to think about those things until recently. I was afraid of getting myself into a trap, worried about where my thoughts might take me. I'm not so worried about those things anymore, and I am learning that it is okay to remember.

I am not the story of my pain, nor of my past. Those things may be a part of that story, but I'm learning something new. I used to believe in the power of the story more than anything. Everyone has and is a story. And it would be great to learn all of them or at least try. But that isn't the most important thing. Your video clip reminded me of something. Human brings are energy. Kinetic and potential. Energy is a concept that only makes sense in the present.
I have stored up enough of this energy. I can feel it and I recognize my personal need to be in motion at this time in my life, and that need is most likely connected to the need to interact with different energies. The story is irrelevant. I don't need stories right now. I need energy. I need interaction and violent chemical explosions. If I am hydrogen, I need to find my oxygen. Insert nerdy joke about a threesome.

there is no other side on which to emerge. The hard part of life is not something you get through. Real life success stories don't stop at the happy ending. Good things can start happening, but that doesn't mean it won't be hard or that bad things will stop. Fairy tales are attractive because we want to believe that everything will be...euphoric when we get through whatever we are dealing with. The hardest thing I have had to learn is this concept that life will never be like that. I'll never be able to stand on the other side of my painful experiences and look on with objectivity. Because there is no other side. I wonder if this is true for everyone.

My thumbs hurt because this app only works when the phone is vertical. That seems like a major flaw to me.

Necessary Nonsense

My brain is my illusion. My body is yours. I am an action potential whose potential lies in potential actions in parallel systems. Mirror neurons, me and you. My every cell jumping along with you before I can tell myself no. You are all in control of everything within me. And I you. This tug of war between forces we cannot see. Horizontal gravity.
And the white hot fork in the eye that changed my life forever. Changed me forever. I lost the connections that made this all make sense. I fill the blind spots of my consciousness with facts and figures, books and games, endless things because you can’t fill can’t possibly fill a space that doesn’t exist.

Visceral. Say it again. Visceral. A word that slithers along. Entrails.

Yes. Just like that. Cauterize me. Make it white hot and blinding. Erase everything. The facts and figures toys and books and games and names I understood. I won’t feel a thing. The gate is closed.

Names

Shot in the soul by a pointed word
the arrows of your curvatures
each little letter alphabetical icicles melt me freeze me in place freeze me in time in a time when that word was meant for me and I
see my blood and yours all tangled up in liquid knots
and solid, coagulated, dead, dried, useless, old, dead nots.
My tears
and body just as wet as the day we met
The humidity of humanity.
The urge to breathe.
To fight the suffocation and just keep pushing keep pumping keep bleeding on the inside.
The effects of gaseous reason cannot be seen. Cannot be smelled, felt, tasted. Only the dead benefit from reason.

And it is rage. It is sadness. And they are the same.

Disconnected thoughts

Single isn't that bad if you try not to think about it. I feel like everyone at home is starting to forget about me or worse. Having a job will probably make things go a lot faster around here, but I still wish I could make more money. I'm back to seriously considering porn. I don't even want to go upstairs right now because I don't want anything to start. But I'm hungry and I need batteries. I am seriously having trouble remembering which things happened in dreams and which did not. I don't think that's a good thing. I could either be doing very well or very poorly very soon, so I hope that nothing bad happens to tip me back over the edge. I feel like I'm constantly holding my breath again. It sucks being out of Xanax.

Exhaling

Due to the nature of my job, I've been working towards understanding and really experiencing all that the practice of mindfulness-based stillness meditation has to offer. I'm at a stage where contemplation overtakes me, so it's a little difficult to reach the point of stillness right now. But instead of burying my thoughts and fears inside of me, I've accepted the challenge of experiencing them to their fullest, merely observing, being aware of them. I wouldn't have let myself think these thoughts before. I would have been too ashamed of them. I'm not a bad person for having these thoughts and concerns, and I know that no matter how difficult it might be, I'm going to have to face the issue. I know it's okay that I feel this way. Maybe there is something standing in the way, or maybe this is just how things were meant to be. I'll never know unless I talk about it. But I am prepared to do that now, or at least I'm working towards it. I believe that things will happen when they need to happen, to an extent. This is not something about which I can go into too much detail, but the reason for that has to do with the fact that I want to be the person to make the first move in this situation. I don't want someone else to take that away from me.

However, there are other things that I need to put down. And I'm not afraid to put them here. I think that fear has been a large part of my problem. I had a fear of articulating anything because doing so would have made it more real. The flaw in that argument is that feelings are always real, regardless of whether there are words attached to them. Letting myself experience these feelings has helped a great deal, and now I am ready to say some of the things that a lot of people probably assumed anyway. But the particulars are going to be a little different, as you'll soon see.

I feel the emotions most strongly at the base of my sternum, but there is a slight feeling of heaviness behind my eyes, as well as a tingling sensation starting from my shoulders, but that happens with almost any really intense emotion I feel. It's a heavy, sinking feeling all around, like the life is quite slowly being sucked out of you. Hopelessness and regret, maybe. Perhaps a little bit of anger. Grief. Everything is rolled into one, and I wish I could throw it all up and be done with it.

The above starts out one of the contemplation exercises I have been learning. I needed to locate the emotion first, then describe it and try to give it a name. There are a lot more questions in the exercise, but not all of them are relevant to this point. Basically, having gone through all of this, I can say what it is that had been bothering me and a little bit about why.

I saw that my ex-girlfriend was getting married, to someone she has known for a shorter period of time than we were together. I think I cried because reality finally caught up with me. I'm not saying that I had secretly hoped that she would come back to me or anything like that. It's more like I never allowed myself to think about a future for either one of us, at least in terms of relationships. When people leave our lives, we tend to think that no other life exists beyond that. We may know otherwise, but it doesn't feel real, experientially. I began to FEEL reality. That and reopening the line of communication sparked a few memories. I thought of all the good things and feelings I never thought I would have with anyone else. And that was very painful. Part of the pain also came from my belief that her partner and I are actually quite similar people, though he was obviously more mature and more in control of his own life than I was. I miss her, for sure, and the love I have for her will probably last forever, though it is not romantic love, and of that I can be sure. It is a protective, familial sort of love--the love of a friend with whom you have shared so much, a friend whose every vice and virtue is intimately known to you. In response to another of the questions in the exercise (What am I afraid of?), well, I was afraid of never being able to share in the joy of my friend's life anymore. I miss having those experiences. It is that connection that I miss more than anything. I remember how good it felt to hang out together and just be stupid, and then I also remember enjoying being smart together, and that's something I don't get much of anymore, sadly.

So, I'm not a creepy stalker ex-boyfriend. The announcement of her engagement just made me think about what love really means to me and all of that good stuff. I've always known that there are different types of love, but I never quite understood that love is different from relationship to relationship. It sounds dumb, but I always expected that you were supposed to feel the same way in each one. And I suppose that thought comes from having expectations that carry through from one relationship to the next, both good and bad.

But I do have needs in a relationship, even after letting go of expectations. And this is why I worry, and I know it's something I need to talk about. I don't think I'm finished pondering everything, but too much of that at once can really screw you up. Not like I know from personal experience or anything...

I don't what I am going to be when I grow up. But I know I can't just sit in one place waiting for something to happen. Since I started writing for Moodtraining in January, I've experienced something completely different--actually enjoying my job. Right now, I don't get paid for enough hours to sustain myself, but I can get lost in what I'm doing. I enjoy the research, and I enjoy writing about it. I like writing about science. I like writing about things that can potentially help people. Now I do feel like everything is coming together. I love science. I love health and fitness. I love writing. I'm never going to be 100 percent sure about a career path, probably because I love doing so many different things. But I at least need to get on with something. After being kicked out of Pittsburgh, I had to move back with my parents for a little while. I made the promise to myself that I would do a few things with my time here: (1) take the GRE, (2) get my name changed, (3) learn to drive, (4) and save enough money to go back to the city that has become my home.

About that whole not-Pittsburgh thing...I don't hate it here back in Larksville. Not at all. I actually really enjoy the time I'm getting to spend with my parents, and I know that I am going to miss it whenever I leave. Things seem much different now than when I was younger. They actually seem much different than just a few years ago. Some things are still the same, but we've all grown quite a bit. I feel loved and accepted. Things aren't perfect, but they are damn near close enough for me, and I know I have a lot more than many other people in my situation.
I suppose I'm just a little lonely. I miss everyone in Pittsburgh. I miss all the other people who have spread out to different places around the country and around the world. And I'm not the best at making new friends or even figuring out how to go about it. If I'm put in the right situations, it's easy. But getting into those situations or making them happen is what I just can't figure out. I desperately want to hang on to the connections that I have, but I've been sucking at that lately too. Part of that probably had to do with the severe depression. And things aren't perfect with that either, but they're getting better. I can't ask for much more.
I want to be able to reach out to new people and let them into my ridiculous life. But maybe I am still a bit afraid of getting hurt because I haven't always handled it well.
I don't know how long I'm going to be here. My original plan was just a few weeks, but those weeks have already passed. It looks more like it's going to be a few months, and that is if I get this wonderful job at Hollister. I wait for that call every day because it would be unlike anything I've ever seen before in terms of money. And I wouldn't have an issue with being out to the people I work with. I did have a job with Bed, Bath, and Beyond for about two days, but there was the situation of expired identification...so they fired me. I ended up getting a new ID that same day, but it was too late. That's when I ran over to the mall and applied to about 10 different stores. Hollister called me back the next day and interviewed me for the Manger-in-Training position. It was one of the best interviews I've ever done, and I was actually able to ask decent questions at the end. I'm seriously praying to get this call because it would pay twice as much as any other job I'd be able to find right now, and that isn't an exaggeration.

My thoughts are starting to blend together again, so I know that means I'm done for now. And sleeping before the sun comes up is always a good idea. :)

Love and Marriage

There's nothing like a three-mile, three in the morning walk to get the gears turning. The strange part is that the most striking revelation occurred to me just as I sat down to type about something else. But I suppose they are pretty related topics, now that I think about it.
In the past two days, I've congratulated two friends on their recent engagements, and in the past two years or so--thanks to the extreme level of creepability made possible by Facebook--I've watched people from my past grow up, tie the knot, and even have kids of their own. I have so many feelings that extend in different directions when I think about the idea of starting a family, including the events leading up to and following that decision.

So what was my revelation?

I have a deeply-rooted desire to be a provider. How to go about that was easy in my previous relationship because, even though we were both queer as all hell, we both had this nostalgic sort of fancy for inflicting our queerness on accepted institutions and traditions. It was easy to be a provider in that kind of framework because society already has this nice little blueprint for boys who date girls. Finding ways to express your love in ways that the other person (and those around you) can understand didn't seem that difficult.

But I'm in some new territory now. I love my boyfriend, and we've been together for what probably amounts to a few years in "gay time". In reality, it's been about 8 months. But when I start to think about the future, I get stuck. Who's proposing to whom? Who is taking care of whom? It seems sort of ridiculous that these are the things that get to me, but I'm big on needing an avenue through which I can express my love for another person. And being in that position is the best way that I know how. It's empowering and feels the most natural. What is killing me about my life right now is not that I am completely useless or worthless in general. I know I've said those things before, but I think it has more to do with my ability to be the type of person I want to be. I know the role that I desire, but I am so far removed from it that it is creating this ridiculous conflict in me. I'm dependent on other people for so much right now. And I can't stand it. I never could. Even when I was younger, I always preferred to take charge of my own affairs, etc.

I want to be able to just swing by and pick him up to take him somewhere special. I want to be the one to get down on my knee and make him cry when he sees what I have for him (what the hell do you get a guy for an engagement anyway?! stupid heteronormative protocol). I want to plan trips and go places. I want to be a solid foundation. And I might be simultaneously closer to and further from that state than ever before. I'm at a point whose equivalent is having a word on the tip of your tongue. I can taste it, but I fear that I might be hallucinating.

It's been on my mind. There are things I miss about being in a relationship with a girl, but it's not like I would trade my boyfriend in for anyone in the world right now. It's just that I miss how EASY it was. This is my tale of the loss of the privilege that comes with assumed heterosexuality. Or even of assumed behavior, for even in gay relationships we tend to cast each partner as more like this gender or more like that, trying to fit them into a heteronormative framework. My relationship is nothing like that. I miss the ease of expression, the ease of being carefree in public, the ease of understanding the expressions of love by the other person, etc. It was convenient, and no explanation was required.

But I would not sacrifice my love for the sake of convenience. It's just interesting. We're building our own framework--our own language of love that must necessarily go beyond diamond rings and flowers and little black dresses. It's hard. Sometimes the signals don't quite come across. Sometimes things are confusing, and it's hard to know how to feel when you can't find a way to get even the simplest emotion out of you. There are no rules, and we're making them up as we go along. Thank God it's like using pencil. There are actually very few things in life written in Sharpie, and even some rubbing alcohol can help in a few circumstances. (I guess it's also fucked-up analogy day.)

In thinking about all of this, I wonder how things would be if every couple decided to break out of this framework. You'd really have to get to know the other person to find out the best ways to express your love instead of, for example, just buying your girlfriend flowers because you know that girls like it because that's what guys are supposed to do, etc. If you weren't placed into a role from the minute someone asked you out, which would you choose? How would you go about finding that role for yourself and helping your partner find their own? It seems so freeing...and so idealistic. People like the established framework because it's easy. It's an easy way out of trying to make connections beyond the surface level. Just some food for thought that I'm probably going to revisit later, especially with the genderqueer group.

On a related note about privilege...I do indeed recognize the privilege of being able to marry my partner tomorrow if I wanted to. There is that little air of guilt about all of it, but it's not a guilt that makes me angry towards other people for making me feel that way. Recognizing privilege isn't about feeling guilty, as many of my white cis-male friends have commented in the past few months. It's about awareness. It's about stopping and thinking about the systems we have in place and about your place and actions within those systems. It's about taking the awareness you have and using your privilege in a way that helps those without that same privilege. You can be a voice for someone else. You can make other people with your same privilege understand and continue to spread knowledge and awareness. Shame, guilt, anger...This isn't part of it at all. Those things aren't intended, but they are common first responses to feeling threatened. In many cases, privilege is something you're born with. You shouldn't feel guilty about something you can't change. But now that you have this awareness of the powers afforded to you by your privilege, what are you going to do? That's the critical part of this whole movement. What are you going to do now that you can't ignore it? I think that's enough political ranting for now, but I appreciate any comments you might have.

This is completely off topic, but it just hit me as I started looking around my room at all the things that I have to pack away yet again. Each time I move, I have to decide if something from my past is important enough to be a part of my future, but that's a topic for another post entirely. In my ongoing apartment search, I've been looking for the perfect place. I desperately want to have a place that is at least semi-permanent. I want it to be just right. But I know that's probably not going to happen, and I know I will consider it another crushing failure to accomplish even the most minor of my life goals.

I'm suddenly reminded of how helpful Livejournal was with having current song and current mood options to go along with your posts. I think I might just start doing that again. I suppose my current song would have to be the one that played before I walked in the door: Just a Dream. Current mood: Melancholy.

Dylan out.

This Morning

I have opened my heart, and it feels like summer.

Weightless

Where would I go if I were to run away right now? I knew this would happen. I knew this feeling would start to take over when things became serious with another person. When I am with someone, I feel stronger. I feel more capable of doing things, more adventurous. The explorer in me comes out. The side of me that wants to see the world and leave a little piece of myself in various places along the way...well, that part has returned as well. I suppose that's not really running away. I wonder if I feel this way for a different reason, though. I wonder if I just want a chance to get a new job in a new place and start all over. I'm not good at leaving things behind, and moving away would probably be the only way for me to make that happen. And even that would take time. Anyway, as exciting and terrifying as it is to think about life outside of Pittsburgh--a life for me outside of Pittsburgh--I'm not ready for that. I could be, maybe. But for now, I think I have more work to do here.

Sometimes pictures make me cry when I know they shouldn't. Nostalgia can be dangerous. I'm not quite far enough away for it to be as simple as that, though. There are fibers here and there connecting me to my old life. And that sounds really stupid considering I'm talking about a year or two ago. But I can feel the fray in the fabric like a tear in my skin. And it's just not going to heal until it finally stops pulling open.
I do miss people. But I miss them as they were, not as they are. And as far as I can tell, there is no going back. Sometimes I just want to be done learning lessons about life.
I don't want this to be as good as it gets for me. I think that's one of my greatest fears.

This is not the kind of quiet that I wanted. It's a loud quiet where I can still hear everything in my head trying to get my attention at the same time. I'm losing it. I know what I need to do as the next step. But I have no way to make that happen. And I'm scared to let anyone know that I'm scared and that I don't think I can do it.

I spent most of my day sleeping. I woke up around two in the afternoon but lay in bed until almost four. And then when Jon left around 930, I fell asleep again. I woke up about an hour ago, wishing I could have just slept a few more hours to make it seem like I had planned to get up early. And now I have a morning full of worry ahead because I don't think I'm going to get everything done. I need to stop saying that I can take care of everything when it's pretty clear that I can't. What would happen if I just let the ball drop this one time? What would happen if I just stopped doing what I always do? That's an experiment for a later date.

I really need a better job.
I need to go back to school. And I hope I'm not just saying that because I feel safe there.
I need to be in control of my space again.

There's never not going to be something wrong with me. I'm not that upset about it anymore, though I still worry about driving people away.

"I want to feel weightless because that would be enough."