"I am the girl you know, I lie and lie and lie...." --"Miss World", Hole
Hole came on my iPod this morning. Listening to it takes me right back to the summer of 1996. I was thin, eating as little as possible, and angsty as all hell. I get that way when I don't eat, you know. Also when I'm trying to figure out who I am and chafing under the self-imposed restraints of my life.
Sort of like now, I guess. (Except for the not eating part, YO.) Except when I look at pictures of myself from back then (JESUS CHRIST, seventeen years ago), there was something blank behind my eyes. Things I didn't understand and wouldn't for a while. I tried on different personalities like my ubiquitous Doors t-shirts. Ctrl-Alt-Delete, reboot as the person I think you want me to be. The person I think I should be.
Today I know who I am. I just don't know where I want to be. Where I need to be. Where God calls me to be. And I don't do well in situations where I don't have a clearly defined path. A checklist to mark off. I feel this yearning under my skin of "work towards a goal... work towards a goal". And I am ignoring all my instincts and saying no. No, thanks. I'm just going to sit here for a while and drink my coffee and listen in the stillness for a voice that I know will eventually come. My intuition, or God, or whatever you want to call it. There will be a path. No need in forging one. No need in rushing down one that might lead me astray. Been there, done that, got the damn t-shirt.
But in the meantime, damn, I'm on edge. Even writing doesn't calm me down. It feels restrictive, limiting, to only use the words that I have at my disposal. They don't fit. I've been quiet here, quieter than normal. I think I used to write about things like books I was reading and TV shows I was watching and my inexplicable fondness for Ms. Spears-Alexander-Federline-Spears. But I do enough small talk in my life right now; I don't want to make it here. I can't promise I'll get back to that stuff. If you're not cool with that, I get it. At many places in my life, I wouldn't have been cool with it either.
But in the meantime, damn, I'm on edge. Even writing doesn't calm me down. It feels restrictive, limiting, to only use the words that I have at my disposal. They don't fit. I've been quiet here, quieter than normal. I think I used to write about things like books I was reading and TV shows I was watching and my inexplicable fondness for Ms. Spears-Alexander-Federline-Spears. But I do enough small talk in my life right now; I don't want to make it here. I can't promise I'll get back to that stuff. If you're not cool with that, I get it. At many places in my life, I wouldn't have been cool with it either.
Why am I making excuses for what I want to say? Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Before I even realized it, I had hopped into the place of what I thought you wanted me to be. See how insidious that is? How easy it is for me to go there?
I'm done making apologies for where I am today. I'm hibernating. It feels wrong. And that means it's probably right.
Where are you today, my favorite people?
Where are you today, my favorite people?
I don't have anything insightful to say in response. Just want you to know that I'm reading. Remembering the you I knew, and I know there was something there, something essentially you. I'd like to think you didn't have to try with me because I didn't feel like I had to try with you. But that was a million years ago.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about feeling disoriented. Displaced. I won't compare what I've gone through to what you've gone through, but I've been in a similar fix. Probably still am. After I lost the baby, I didn't know what to do with myself, so I picked some new(ish) things and threw myself into them. It's helping, this time.