He didn’t answer but reached over and put his hand at the root of my hair and ran his fingers out slowly to the tip ends like a comb. A little electric shock flared through me and I sat quite still. Ever since I was small I loved feeling somebody comb my hair. It made me go all sleepy and peaceful.
-Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Pg. 70
Monday, December 2, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
boo
Breaking a very long hiatus to spiel about a few things, or really just bleed on white with words. This past summer has been a veritable roller coaster, nay, this entire year.
I learned in spring that my most perfect person lives in Canada, something I had suspected for two years but could not confirm without a visit during break. I found that staying away from alcohol vastly improved my academic performance, which is not so surprising, but is an incredibly good thing to know about oneself. I earned straight As and taught elementary-schoolers about gardening and watched little blossoms turn into great big blooms.
Once summer started, I also had to say goodbye to my love, if only for two weeks, and I brought my belongings back home and continued the search that had started in winter for an internship in DC. It is a very stressful thing, looking for an internship in fields you aren't sure will be of interest, knowing you will not receive pay, all the while failing at several phone interviews. I know there is much to be learned in failure, but it does not make the actual fact any easier to understand or cope with.
I arrived in the capital of Canada on Canada Day, and my trip there was a mix of feelings. I learned, a lot, very much, about Canadian history, about life in Canada, about my beau. But I was also, still, met with the task of finding my internship, a day-in, day-out search that consumed me from July 1st-31st, dampening the joy I felt in being in a new place and leading to bouts of anxiety that, were I with anyone less understanding, caring, sweet, would have surely monopolized the state of my relationship. Once this was over, I calmed down a bit, but I still find myself in the throes of financial stress, the curious feeling of knowing I may not have enough money to live on soon, for a very long time. I scrimped and saved baby-sitting and barista money from the time I was fourteen, but I also spent it on exactly what I wanted to spend it on, traveling, so it is not so much lost as it is that I simply need to find a way to make some more money back. I left Canada on August 23rd and it still feels strange not to sleep in a bed with a beautiful boy breathing beside me.
This year feels not only strange and stilted in the sheer amount of time I spent looking for an internship, time wasted but not really, I suppose, because, after all, I do finally have one, but I find that I have drifted away from whatever sense of self I have maybe cultivated over the years, and I find that I have also drifted away from people I would like to have held closer. The few that I love, I am loyal to, but I do not do so well in the department of communication, perhaps. I miss very many people, one in particular. But I do not know how to reconnect, how to go from 60 mph to 0 to 60 back again. These are particularly lacking metaphors, I realize, but really, I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. I just know that I am in a state of missing, and I don't hold things tight enough so they fall out of my grasp. And there are so many good things, both that I have and that I have loved. I am rambling, as if in a journal, and just like a journal, I don't know where or how to end things. I just feel sad that I have lost important friendships, that friendship maintenance eludes me, that I fail to connect on a daily basis with more than one person. But maybe this is life. Maybe we are not meant to constantly communicate. Maybe one day I will catch up, without the worry of whether I have done wrong by first failing to keep in touch. Interpersonal relationships are difficult, and I feel isolated, even though I know I am not alone. I don't want to waste time, or life. I want my life to be more than screens and sadness. But I feel stagnant and stuck and don't know how to change that without graduation, without money, without a car. I want to jump in a car and drive and drive and drive. Feel my soul re-enter my chest through the window-framed view of the California landscape.
I know there are better things coming, but for the day, it is hard. It is hard but I will continue and make it. I will be happy someday, or at least have the quiet life and the sweet garden I crave, and the people and cats with whom to share it.
I learned in spring that my most perfect person lives in Canada, something I had suspected for two years but could not confirm without a visit during break. I found that staying away from alcohol vastly improved my academic performance, which is not so surprising, but is an incredibly good thing to know about oneself. I earned straight As and taught elementary-schoolers about gardening and watched little blossoms turn into great big blooms.
Once summer started, I also had to say goodbye to my love, if only for two weeks, and I brought my belongings back home and continued the search that had started in winter for an internship in DC. It is a very stressful thing, looking for an internship in fields you aren't sure will be of interest, knowing you will not receive pay, all the while failing at several phone interviews. I know there is much to be learned in failure, but it does not make the actual fact any easier to understand or cope with.
I arrived in the capital of Canada on Canada Day, and my trip there was a mix of feelings. I learned, a lot, very much, about Canadian history, about life in Canada, about my beau. But I was also, still, met with the task of finding my internship, a day-in, day-out search that consumed me from July 1st-31st, dampening the joy I felt in being in a new place and leading to bouts of anxiety that, were I with anyone less understanding, caring, sweet, would have surely monopolized the state of my relationship. Once this was over, I calmed down a bit, but I still find myself in the throes of financial stress, the curious feeling of knowing I may not have enough money to live on soon, for a very long time. I scrimped and saved baby-sitting and barista money from the time I was fourteen, but I also spent it on exactly what I wanted to spend it on, traveling, so it is not so much lost as it is that I simply need to find a way to make some more money back. I left Canada on August 23rd and it still feels strange not to sleep in a bed with a beautiful boy breathing beside me.
This year feels not only strange and stilted in the sheer amount of time I spent looking for an internship, time wasted but not really, I suppose, because, after all, I do finally have one, but I find that I have drifted away from whatever sense of self I have maybe cultivated over the years, and I find that I have also drifted away from people I would like to have held closer. The few that I love, I am loyal to, but I do not do so well in the department of communication, perhaps. I miss very many people, one in particular. But I do not know how to reconnect, how to go from 60 mph to 0 to 60 back again. These are particularly lacking metaphors, I realize, but really, I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. I just know that I am in a state of missing, and I don't hold things tight enough so they fall out of my grasp. And there are so many good things, both that I have and that I have loved. I am rambling, as if in a journal, and just like a journal, I don't know where or how to end things. I just feel sad that I have lost important friendships, that friendship maintenance eludes me, that I fail to connect on a daily basis with more than one person. But maybe this is life. Maybe we are not meant to constantly communicate. Maybe one day I will catch up, without the worry of whether I have done wrong by first failing to keep in touch. Interpersonal relationships are difficult, and I feel isolated, even though I know I am not alone. I don't want to waste time, or life. I want my life to be more than screens and sadness. But I feel stagnant and stuck and don't know how to change that without graduation, without money, without a car. I want to jump in a car and drive and drive and drive. Feel my soul re-enter my chest through the window-framed view of the California landscape.
I know there are better things coming, but for the day, it is hard. It is hard but I will continue and make it. I will be happy someday, or at least have the quiet life and the sweet garden I crave, and the people and cats with whom to share it.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
little bits of beauty
to get through these trying finals
i am writing and reading and writing and writing and drinking tea on top of tea on top of tea
coughing up a lung
failing to record by other means for too too long, so here:
talked to my momma for an hour and twenty minutes today, which was happy-making and calmness-inducing
took a nice hot shower and spent time just being
got a phone call during which sufjan's voice, not quite clear of the words, began coming through my phone speaker and into my heart along with the laughter of the masses, so it must have been funny
one of my greatest friends here got the kiss she's been waiting for and while she is now indifferent after obsessing for a week, it was a sweet story to hear on a night like tonight
received two refills of fizzy water from the boy with the grin and the eyes and that nasally voice
but learning to be content with lacking, i suppose
Saturday, December 1, 2012
there is more to it than this, i suppose
Things like I more or less revived this blog a little bit over a year ago because I was at one of the lowest points in my life and needed a diversion. Things like I am in a completely new and different place now, and it's hard to believe all of it was a year ago (more!), the time when I was maybe the saddest I have ever been. Things like not really believing in February and May and August. Things like not knowing how to detach myself from my body from my mind, my mindlessness in my body, my body's wants and wants and needs and never ever having. Things like getting drunk and calling four other people so as not to say his name, because if I say his name, people will know, people will know that there are feelings in the way I walk in every Tuesday night and ask for fizzy water and stay until closing so we can walk home together. Things like everyone knowing anyway, confirmed by chance encounters on the bus and questions to which the only response is blushing and nervously, sheepishly, shyly nodding, yes, it's true, I do, I do, but we are capital-eff Friends. Things like chopping pumpkins for roasting while giggling over the fact that you do like him, you do! But I will not analyze any of it, I won't. Things like curried lentils and greens from the garden and candy cane tea and so much of it, so full, so satisfied. Things like walking home at 2am, through mist, inebriated, wandering down the hills alone in the brightest dark I have ever known. Things like warm wool socks and dripping cold outside and warm heavy blankets covering warm heavy brains. My diversions have changed, my diversions are many, my diversions are this beautiful life, I suppose. Gratefulness. Yes. Gratefulness and sleepiness, the number one most felt, and who needs a diversion from that when there's coffee?
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