It's Been Cloudy

It's starting again.  It's not as bad as the first time.  But the behaviors are coming back.  It's starting again.

My dad once told me that he noticed I was prone to wild and deranged “highs”. These "highs" consisted of me going up to people I am happy to be around and telling them I love them, or hugging them from behind, and squealing at random intervals to let some adrenaline out, loudly exclaiming how grateful I am to be alive, "life is worth living!", etc.  He said these could be dangerous.  I was so frustrated to hear him say this.  I melodramatically asked why he insisted on being so discouraging and negative.  He said that when you get to a high that high, the only place to come down is to a low low.  The key is to—he placed his hands flat near his chest— “stay balanced, right here.”  I rolled my eyes at this, lecturing him on how life was boring like that.

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I write when something’s wrong, I’ve noticed.

I like reading uplifting things, things with a lot of hope, so it’s upsetting to know that I take up a negative space with my words.

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On September 24 at 11:05 pm, I fling the covers off of me and stumble out of bed.  I pace around my pitch-black room, holding my right arm out, my left hand thumping on my chest in a desperate attempt to steady my own heart rate. “It’s okay, you’re safe!” I try to vocalize the flurry of thoughts inside my head. “Everything’s okay, you’re fine, this isn’t dangerous.” I thump my chest after every word.

I start swinging my arms at my sides and I have a sudden urge to throw up.

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I wake up and sunlight is beaming through the folds of my curtains. I stretch and roll to the other side of my bed. I nap. I wake up and reach towards my desk, fish some dried figs out of a plastic bag. I chew on them and make note of the pile of stems I’ve accumulated. It’s dark outside. I take a nap. I wake up and the sunlight is beaming through the folds of my curtains. I stretch and roll to the other side of my bed. My bare feet slap the wooden floors as I scurry to the kitchen to refill my water bottle. I get in bed and read the same five tweets at the top of my timeline over and over until my eyes don't want to stay open anymore.

I don’t feel compelled to write when everything feels right: I don’t want to break down and analyze my life when things are smooth. No, I write when things are Large and Taking Up Unwanted Space in my Life. We are afraid of that which we don’t understand, and I cope by distracting myself with taking apart every stressor in my life, writing about it and lamenting its presence.

On this 12:42 am mid-October morning, I know two things: there is a sense of urgency and fear coursing through my body, keeping me awake; and the secret to happiness lies within the act of sharing love.

I’m sitting cross-legged in front of a long, full-length mirror. My skin is pink and dewy, my curls are in a bun, I’m wearing an old large white t-shirt, and my bare legs are folded underneath me. I decide I feel lovable. I place my pointer finger at the tip of my aquiline nose and press upwards, trying to straighten my family’s shared trait into a more traditional version of beauty. It’s a bad habit I still do, despite having accepted my nose’s shape a long time ago.

I look at my face, and I look at my shoulders, and I look at my stomach, and I look at my thighs, and my hands. I’m trying to become more familiar with them, hoping that memorizing my features will make it easier to excitedly love my reflection.

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I find comfort in habits I developed in my teens.  Instantly-gratifying, non-confrontational habits.

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One of my magic tricks is being reached-out to when I need it the most. Whenever I am in deep mental trouble, or whenever I am fondly thinking of someone, I am always messaged by them, as if they knew I was thinking of them, as if they knew I needed to be spoken to.

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I was born greatly optimistic but highly impressionable.

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Someone a couple of desks over asks their friend, "What's it like to be in love with you?" I take out a piece of paper in such a hurry so that I won't forget to write the question down, that I don't hear their answer. I write it in lead. What's it like to be in love with you? I wiggle the pencil around my fingers for a few seconds. Then I write "Unpredictable, and a little testy." I underline it.

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I watch myself cry in the mirror. I laugh a little at how absurd this is.

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NOV 5, 2017, 8:21 AM: I exit my room and I bounce down my home’s staircase. A giddy little laugh escapes me. I don’t know why— just 10 hours prior, I was slowly walking up to my dad, asking him to hug me, trying to explain that I wasn’t sure what was wrong, without crying.

NOV 5, 2017, 9:15 AM: I take out a pencil and on my windowpane I write: I JUST REALIZED I’M A VERY ANGRY PERSON.  I wonder whether it's unhelpful to make this observation without a clear solution in mind, but I'm feeling self-deprecative today and I let it stay.

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When I tore my meniscus after a longboarding accident, I limped all the way home.  I limped through my front door, and I limped up my staircase.

My parents heard me, and from the kitchen, they asked what’s up and I said nothing much! and my sister said she got hurt! and my mother said what?! and I said no, haha, I just stubbed my toe with my board! and glared at my sister.  I bit my bottom lip and continued to hobble up the stairs.

I inspected my wounds in the bathroom: the palms of my hand were scraped raw, and the back of my thighs burned. My right knee was pulsing with pain— not a pain I recognized. It felt like the second half of my leg was hanging on by a thread. My knees were fine, since I had been wearing knee pads. I tried to get a closer look at my feet: my white shoe had gotten caught in one of my wheels as I fell off the board, and I saw that my shoelace had been ripped off cleanly.  One to cruelly make light of other people's physical pain, I tried to swallow my own and forced my legs to walk like they had just an hour before.

The next morning, my knee was swollen to twice its size.  I couldn't move the bottom half of my body without pressing my face into my own shoulder and breathing heavily.  I spent the next three days with my right leg propped up, sitting on the living room sofa.

On the second day, at five in the morning, I was rigidly sitting up, looking at infomercials on television, when my dad walked in.  He put a hand to my forehead and asked me whether my fever was any better.  I said yes and he looked at me for a really long time.  I said "What?" and he frowned and looked away and said, "I just feel so sad."  I laughed in surprise and said "Why?" and he said, "'Cause you didn't tell us you were hurt.  And I know that if we hadn't checked on you, you would have never told us."

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I’m hunched over the computer in the library, my eyes feel very hot, and I can’t stop lolling my head from one side to the other. Just an hour ago I was seated next to a girl in my Marriage and Family Psychology class, where I asked her, “Are you ever so tired and so anxious that you feel like breaking out into screeching laughter?” She says no and I leave it alone. It's an hour later, and I still feel that bleary deliriousness that’s been hanging around my head all day. I laugh as I imagine how funny it’d be if I walked up the hill towards the parking garage where my car is sitting, and just straight-up fainted on the way up there. I suddenly feel like bursting out into laughter, and I look around and notice other people typing at their computers, as well.  I feel pleasantly unnoticed.  My smile fades, and I continue working.

“You laugh like a little girl, and inside you think like a martyr.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Bulletin N° 1

I’m taking a poetry course this semester, a class I’ve never taken before because I (respectfully) have never considered poetry. I like reading poetry, but it’s something I separate myself from, with the knowledge that I don’t practice writing it, and I am almost fully certain it will never take over my life.

With that considered, I have to turn in my first major poem six days from today for a grade. Yesterday, I had to turn in a rough draft of a poem, where my focus should have been on imagery (showing-not-telling), and telling a narrative about my origins (vague instructions are my professor’s specialty). Writing with both a prompt and a deadline in mind is not one of my strengths (as keeping a diary—a strength—requires none of these things), so I had a lot of trouble.

The decision-making process on how to write my poem came down to one question: “What answers the prompt in the most aesthetically pleasing way?” The answer to that question was, a bath. Baths are a recurring image in my life, and I am constantly having transcendent experiences while I’m bathing. So I free-wrote about what I think a bath looks like when I’m sad, what it looks like when I’m angry, and what it looks like when I’m happy.

In retrospect, I realize that my poem (which is now in the hands of my professor) did not clarify anything about my origins, nor did it flow in a melodic way.  It wasn’t strategically poetic. It had no clear end or beginning. Although I was proud of some lines I wrote, I was not proud of what I turned in. As a result, I’ve been cringing to myself every couple of minutes.

I cringed this morning while I toasted some bread, I cringed as I took a shower, I cringed by the sink as I refilled my water bottle, I cringed every time I walked into my room. I felt shame all day. I imagined my professor reading my work and then wincing in embarrassment, thinking to himself, “Yikes! Someone turned this in!  Yikes! Yikes!”

I wish I could show you, reader, what it’s like when I say “Yikes!” in person. I can promise you it’s much more cruel, cutting, and evil than the way it’s transmitted in text.

I was in the middle of slapping my hand to my forehead and cringing again, when I asked myself, "Wait, how many poems have I even written in my life?"

If I count a poem I was asked to write in high school for a senior project, and haikus I wrote as a fifth grader, I've probably only written four poems in my entire life.  And... how silly would it be to expect me to be good at anything that I've only practiced four times in a twenty-one-year life span?

My poem sucks and my poetry will suck for because I've never written poetry before.  I want to be better, and I love reading poetry enough to keep practicing it despite how much I suck.  But I will suck.  And only through putting work in will I get better.  That, and setting my pride aside.

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The Venn Diagram of "Moments That Were Ruined By Me" and "Moments Where My Pride Showed Up" is a large circle.  I'd rather bail, or cancel, moments that have the potential to embarrass me.  As an expressed thought, this seems irrational; however, in my head, it sounds like the truth.

The objective truth is that I cannot do everything, and that I am not perfect, but my brain tries to convince me to strive for this anyway.

I don't know how to master that inner demon quite yet but, uh... watch this space for more pseudointellectual inner reflections.

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One of the greatest downfalls of existing with this particular brain I own is that I can't seem to tell stories in a concise manner.  I won't apologize for it, but know that my spirit appreciates it if your spirit isn't irritated.

"Last year I abstained. This year I devour."

Margaret Atwood

The wind is howling fervently in Southern California, today. Writing that sentence begs the question: does the rest of the country find it unbearable when Californians divide themselves as either Northerners or Southerners? I think I just really want everyone that exists outside of Californian culture to know that North California is very different from South California. One (me, specifically) may even argue that California is divided into three parts, North California, The Bay Area, and Southern California. I’ve been to San Francisco twice in my life (which gives me full authority to make this claim) so dammit if I just don’t think San Francisco is anything like Del Norte, California? There was a train of thought here, but we missed it.

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“Travel writer” is such a sexy term… if I didn’t have ardent agoraphobia and didn’t find planes to be so horrifying (the word “horrifying” here not used hyperbolically), I would be our world's next Rick Steves.  In 2011, I actually came across Rick Steves when I was in Paris?  Outside of Café Central on Rue Cler?  He was with his camera crew?  This doesn't add to my point, but I just like to name-drop.

Isn't the combination of words, "travel writer", so sexy?  Both those words separately already tickle your brain, so put together they're...  sexy.

I miss planes, though.  My family has the opportunity to take a family vacation this summer, and they asked me whether I'd be willing to try taking a four-hour flight.  I laughed and said hell no.  My mother, ever the Leo, hesitated before leaving.  She lingered by my door and looked at the ground for a bit.  She raised her gaze, looked into my eyes, and said, "Are you sure you can't even try?"

Am I sure I can't even try.  That was a good question.

Feeling ashamed, I googled variations of these words put together: agoraphobia, planes, claustrophobia, sedation, flight duration, etc.  I watched a clip of a so-called "Plane Whisperer", Ron Nielsen, who helps people overcome their fear of flying.  I cried whenever I saw people perform behaviors that I recognized, behaviors I do when I'm in a situation where I could potentially panic.  I also cried when I saw people cry happy tears.  By the end of the video, a man who has avoided planes for 35 years decides to drive back home, since he was terrified the entire time.

It makes me sad to imagine that that might be me.

Maggie Rogers (of viral internet fame) has been very good to my soul lately: her music has specific sounds throughout it that trigger memories of when I was a child, so I feel like I’ve heard her music before? In specific times when I was a little girl? This isn’t really important, I suppose, and I think pop culture plugs in blog entries sometimes fail because it dates a blog entry? But that’s my purpose here: I just really want to remember this specific thing that is helping heal me during this weird time.

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It's such a strange thing to start a sentence with, "Don't you think...?"

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This doesn’t add or subtract to the flow of this post, but for record-keeping purposes, I just walked outside, in the middle of writing this, to fetch my mail, and as I walked out, a USPS truck drove past, and our mailwoman leaned out and waved at me! My cheeks hurt from smiling so much! It’s such a lovely feeling, being remembered.

I get secondhand embarrassment when this plot point happens in television shows: someone is in situation where they don't want to be seen, like, they're trying to be incognito as they spy on someone?  And somebody that they know approaches them out of nowhere, and the incognito person look visibly annoyed, responding in a curt manner, and the person that just just arrived is oblivious to this?  How can they be oblivious to this?  If I detect even the slightest bit of negative intonation in someone's voice when speaking to them I am bail the fuck out of any conversation.

Caring perhaps too hard about what other people think about me and how they perceive me is a running theme in this blog, you may have noticed.

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Things that occurred since this space was last updated: Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. Carrie Fisher passed away.  Debbie Reynolds passed away.  I fell into a depressive state during the month of January.  I accidentally crashed into a parked car.  I had all four of my wisdom teeth taken out.  I started going to a new therapist.  I added four new potted plants to my room.  I haven't spoken to M. since my birthday.  I've read five books.  Calvin Harris released "Slide" featuring Frank Ocean and Migos.  La La Land was a thing that literally happened to me.  I saw half of the films nominated for Best Picture.  The 2017 Oscars were the best Oscars the world has ever seen.  

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The pictures in this post were taken in October 2016. I've realized I spend a lot of time at home and I feel a lot of shame in that realization, but when I confront that shame with the question: As opposed to what, I feel calmer.  Where else will I comfortably, realistically be if I'm not home?

This train of thought is... kind of trash... but putting off writing anything because "it's not good enough" is just an excuse.  Plus, it's always fun to read back anything you wrote a long time ago.  So keep that in mind, eh.

On Growing Up

Every day, I think about aging. At sporadic times: I'll be washing dishes, parking my car, getting ready for bed. I just turned twenty-one, but I feel like I've grown up in a bubble that has enabled me to be child-like.  I have a youthful face, and I'm hardly five feet tall.  I have a very high-pitched voice. I think these features have always protected me from the fear of getting older: if I look like a child, perhaps I'll always be one.  But recently, I've become a bit more afraid of being wasteful with my time.  A lot of the things I do lately are meant to actively fight any idea that I'm getting older... but I don't find myself enjoying them.  I've been feeling very afraid lately.

I'm Always Barefoot

With the approach of the dark months here in Southern California, I decided to take some precaution and bring more light into my room. Prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.), I can't take any chances, and since I'm not about to purchase a heat lamp, I figured I could create my own type of light therapy, and switch out my purple drapes for translucent white curtains. As a result, it got a little festive in my room.

Praying in the Street

Apart from the abrupt cold weather, a tell-tale sign of autumn arriving in San Diego is the fact that I can't hear cars at night anymore.  When the summer arrives, I open my windows, and they stay open for four months.  When it gets chilly, my windows are shut, and it becomes quieter.  The sound of autumn is complete silence.

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I walk into my creative writing course with sweaty palms and shaky knees, and I sort of slam my body down into an empty chair.  I pull out a post-it, and I'm trying to write down BOTH RIVER PHOENIX AND PATTI SMITH HAD LAZY LEFT EYES, but my vision isn't cooperating.  My body feels very hot.  I'm shivering.

I was almost visited by a panic attack while driving.

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On September twelfth, I open my socks drawer for the first time in five months.

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Before, I suggested that guarding your true emotions isn't a good idea, and being open about your intentions is the way to go.  But I'm going to rephrase:  guarding my emotions is a bad idea for me and being open about my intentions is something I need to do.

Sometimes you grow up in an environment where neither you nor the person taking care of you knows how to help your brain think normal human being things through.  It's a chain, you know?  The person taking care of your parents didn't take good care of their brain, so your parent's brain doesn't take good care of yours, etc.

I've noticed that my brain didn't expand on a lot of things that it needed to expand on as a child.  For example, I don't know how to ask for forgiveness.  I equate asking for forgiveness with shame.  My brain thinks that asking for forgiveness means that I lost, and not asking for forgiveness leaves a lot of room for interpretation (meaning, maybe at some point, the other person will think it was their fault all along).

Another example is, I assume that every action I make around another person has the potential to annoy them, and is actually annoying them at that very second.  I grew up not knowing how people felt about my actions.  Like, I'd do things that I thought were good!  Good things!  But the people taking care of me had bodies that didn't know how to work through their negative emotions, so they would explode a lot when I was around.  Since they didn't ask for forgiveness, I would assume it was my fault.

You begin to collect all these mixed signals, and you just don't know what people's actions mean.

"Hey, are you mad at me?"
"Jess, why in the world would you think I'm mad at you?"

And it's probably because they stomped up the stairs a little too hard, or slammed their bag on the table on accident, or maybe they're just quieter; whatever it is, I think it's because of me.

I don't want people to be confused about how I feel.  I don't want to be confused about how people feel about me.  I do reiterate that it is all about trial-and-error, though.  I hope that my transparency encourages people to be transparent with me.  I hope that I never make people feel guilty about how I feel, I hope that I'm not a person that is hard to be around: I just want to be honest, and I want people to be honest back.  I don't want to not know.  

"I have always found it odd that people who think passive aggressively ignoring a person is making a point to them. The only point it makes to anyone is your inability to articulate your point of view because deep down you know you can’t win. It’s better to assert yourself and tell the person you are moving on without them and why, rather than leave a lasting impression of cowardness on your part in a person’s mind by avoiding them."

Shannon Alder

I know what is happening when I begin to get a strange sense of tunnel vision while driving.  It has happened before, panicking while driving, but there's always been someone in the passenger seat with me.  This time, I'm alone, stuck in traffic going north, in the lane farthest to the left.

John Mayer's Continuum always calms me down: I know all the lyrics in that album, and singing out loud brings me down from my whirlwind of panic.  I jab my fingers at my stereo.  Every action that I take is making my heart beat faster.

The existentialist thoughts arrive in a chariot of fire.  They park right in front of my car.  I can't see ahead.  My vision is getting alarmingly blurry.  My brain is trying to figure out which tactics to use to avoid freaking out; at the same time, the existentialist thoughts that burrowed into my head are growing larger in size.  I look at my hands, gripping the steering wheel, and I ask myself whether I'm real.  Whether I'm driving a car.  Whether the planet is real, whether the people driving their cars is real.

John Mayer begins to croon from the speaker and I feel like a child, trying to mimic his singing style.  Instead of sounding bluesy, I find that I'm shouting the lyrics.  ME AND ALL MY FRIENDS!  WE'RE ALL MISUNDERSTOOD!  THEY SAY WE STAND FOR NOTHING, AND!  THERE'S NO WAY WE EVER COULD!

Rio Jude

✍ CURRENTLY WRITING FROM: ST. GEORGE, UTAH

One of my biggest insecurities is being useless in my relationships.  I want to be useful in every situation.  This isn't healthy, or right: this insecurity of mine leads me to be disingenuous in a lot of the things that I do.  In my head, I think I'm doing something kind to be kind; however, a large part of the "kind" things I do is to be loved more, or to keep being loved.

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During the month of August, I became unhealthily obsessed with River Phoenix.  Thinking about him makes my body jolt.  I feel like my connection to him is haunted: I don't feel calm when I think about River Phoenix.  I first acknowledged him when I was in high school, and had a crush on Joaquin Phoenix, and a google search revealed that he had a brother who was also famous, but was dead.  When I saw his birthday was August twenty-third, I felt a kinship with him, but I didn't think about him much after this, not even when I saw Stand by Me for the first time.

I read what people said about River Phoenix after he died, and that's what made me feel even more attached to the idea of him.  An incredible article was written by Tad Friend for Esquire in 1994, which I definitely recommend.  It was published five months after River passed away.  The journalist narrates River's funeral, and plugs in a lot of flashbacks and commentary on Rio's life.  It's very honest: he doesn't erase what happened to him.  But!  Oh man, there's something so addicting about the testimonials people have on River Phoenix.

It's unsettling... but I want to have a similar effect on people.  I want to be timeless.

"Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow."

River Phoenix

That's the larger problem, too, and I recognize it: my gross need to be immortal.

I was lying on my bed as a tiny nine-year-old one day.  I was thinking about death as seriously as a nine-year-old can.  Earlier that week, I had expressed to my dad that I was afraid of dying.  My father, a no-nonsense, get-it-together-young-lady sort of man, said, "Sweetie, you don't have to be afraid, because when you die, you're going to go to heaven!"  I believed him immediately, and then I was not afraid of death.

I began to think about heaven instead.  The Bible says that in heaven, the streets will be paved with gold; my dad told me that in heaven, "you won't be sad, and you will never cry."  I began to think about this, when suddenly, I sat upright, and my body began to get very hot, and my breath quickened, because I began to think about eternity as a concept.  In my head, I saw images of me playing ping pong with Jesus and Abraham and Esther... forever.  My vision began to blur as I thought about how there would probably not be night time in heaven, would I even eat in heaven, where is the line drawn, where does human behavior end in heaven--

I don't like thinking about eternity and I don't like thinking about my death and I don't like thinking about my existence... but goshdarnit, I want to exist forever.

I read once that you die twice: your body’s physical death, and the last time anyone utters your name. I’d like to stretch these two events as far apart as I can. William Shakespeare has been dead for exactly 400 years, and everyone knows who he is. He can never die. The idea of him transcends chronology. I want my existence to have not been in vain: I want to be admired. I want my colossal ego to be laid to rest peacefully, with the knowledge that there was something honorable about me.

I'm re-reading the first part of this post, and I'm thinking about how it begins with, "One of my biggest insecurities is..."  And I'm thinking about how a lot of people are very afraid of being vulnerable.  Jack Kerouac wrote in his journals:  "Don’t tell them too much about your soul.  They’re waiting for just that."  And I'm wondering... what is so special about our souls that has to be kept private?

Who's waiting?

I've been cynical for an uncomfortably long time, so maybe I'm being extremely naïve on purpose, but are we all intentionally out to get people?  And even if those people are out there, aren't we smart enough to decide who to tell what?

Whenever I'm having bouts of panic in public, I tell my friend I trust.  They will pause with me until I feel better (which usually happens after I've communicated how I feel), and then the problem is gone: they are back to thinking about themselves (not a bad thing) so I don't have to be embarrassed, and I also don't feel panicked anymore.

When Sabrina asks me how I feel, I'll say "I feel sad" if it's true.  She'll ask me why.  I'll frown, raise an eyebrow, and say: "I have no idea!" After saying this out loud, I immediately feel like I don't have to act out my pain for her to notice it, and we won't have any miscommunication.  I also know that Sabrina doesn't like to dwell on any negativity, so me sharing that I feel sad won't affect her day.

This obviously requires trial-and-error.  I used to bare my soul to everyone who would listen, which was very damaging for me, because I'd feel incredibly hurt if people didn't react the way I wanted them to.  Also, you can be careful about what you share with whom, and how: perhaps don't one-up someone else's pain, and also, don't make others feel anxious about how you feel.   Don't make it their responsibility to make you feel better.

I'm wondering whether it's true that people are attracted to the ugliness in others.  The imperfections that you can relate to.  Can you feel like you can comfortably be you around someone who appears non-relatable?

"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."

Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan