Tears won't fucking stop

All I can do is cry and I don't know or want to look at why. There's something that got lost along the way and now that I've thought to search for it I can't find it. Images of that American Indian woman I once "remembered" being centuries ago spring to mind. I see her clawing at herself, wringing arms and pulling hair and neck. I still see the blood trickling down her brown skin, and why? Because she has just realized that the thing she was looking for can never be retrieved, forever lost. 

I can't stop crying. I have not been this stubbornly depressed in a long time. Often I can yank myself out of it in short time but the quicksand effect pulling back this time has greater force than times past. It worries me. I either want to hide away from everything and everyone or drive far, far away. Neither seems progress toward any end at all and I need to get a hold of myself.

Past

Leaving the past behind is difficult, especially when it is so inextricably woven to the present, and in fact shaped the "now" we know. There is no real escape from the past. Therefore, it is important to know to draw from the past without letting it draw from you.

Commit, goddammit

I crave solitude for the healing. I crave social action for the distraction for a different form of healing. A strengthening exercise to pump me up for the Things That Matter.

I am my own person. No one else's. I am responsible for me. I am the creator and artist of Chance. I want to set aside the weights and pursue a self-created destiny, eke out the life and future I know is for the highest good. But everyone can want like everyone can take a shit - it's biologically encoded for survival. Surviving is not reviving or living. Transcend "want" and transform it into "do". Commit. Goddammit, Chance, commit to yourself or you won't be able to commit to anything or anyone in full ever. 

Internal locus of control is a good thing

So you were upset

About me telling you that I wanted to jump into the technical communication course

And telling you the cost

And you said you felt kept out of the loop

But because I've been talking about it this whole time I didn't feel that way

Also I made the decision to "just do it"

As I was driving home

But realized that it was an IMPULSE

That I didn't research my options well enough beforehand

And that I tend to get impulses/urges to take action when I feel like other things are out of my control (i.e. money, some aspects of us, my future)

The impulse to take action is my way of regaining control over what I believe is controllable

It re-establishes identity I think is getting lost

or threatened

or security

safety whatever "good" thing is threatened

The end.

Last night

Every fiber in my being glowed fire-red and I felt like a hair-trigger bomb. I was going to drown in it. Once it faded, everything was depleted. Damaged goods, like I said. I am so rarely that angry and it almost made me throw up.

I kept feeling a strong presence in my room when I tried to sleep afterward last night. It has been a long time since I felt anything like that so I told it if it existed, I was not in the mood and to leave immediately. It did not work so I read erotica and worked on myself to give the remnant, shaky energy leftover from the inner fire a place to dissipate.

Today I look forward to being a stereotypical girl with Tomasita. We are going to do MAKE-UP fun for the wedding and our ex co-worker Alexis will be the artist. I hope I can still find that package of my contacts.

Damaged goods

I am almost positive I am too damaged to make it worth her while - or anybody's while. Damaged beyond repair.

She disagrees.

Ex Factor by Lauryn Hill

It could all be so simple
But you'd rather make it hard
Loving you is like a battle
And we both end up with scars
Tell me, who I have to be
To get some reciprocity
No one loves you more than me
And no one ever will

Is this just a silly game
That forces you to act this way
Forces you to scream my name
Then pretend that you can't stay
Tell me, who I have to be
To get some reciprocity
No one loves you more than me
And no one ever will

Hook:
No matter how I think we grow
You always seem to let me know
It ain't workin'
It ain't workin'
And when I try to walk away
You'd hurt yourself to make me stay
This is crazy
This is crazy

I keep letting you back in
How can I explain myself
As painful as this thing has been
I just can't be with no one else
See I know what we got to do
You let go and I'll let go too
'Cause no one's hurt me more than you
And no one ever will

Repeat Hook

Care for me, care for me
I know you care for me

There for me, there for me
Said you'd be there for me

Cry for me, cry for me
You said you'd die for me

Give to me, give to me
Why won't you live for me
(Repeat) 

Stranger's touch

She admits that it's been so long since she allowed me to touch her, it feels like a stranger's touch when I do. That description is the most perfect way to put it. I feel like I am touching a hesitant stranger whenever I attempt to be affectionate with her.

So, so sad. It is something we will need to work long and hard at. I have to pop the little voice in the back of my mind asking "is it even worth the effort anymore?" right in the mouth.

Zig-zag for brains is better than shit for brains

It has been so long since thoughts of creating art occur to me as seriously as they do tonight. I imagine painting a woman onto a wooden cabinet. In my mind's eye, she is trying to open herself, hand poised mid-air, reaching for the wooden doorknob sticking out of her chest. She may even be pausing to glance out at the viewer.

I imagine painting a woman on canvas. I glue a key to the canvas where I will paint her throat. She is made of sand like my hemorrhage entry below and the wind sprays aways loose pieces through her fingertips, behind broken mirror shards. 

I read up more on the technical communication certificate program at UCSD.

Sleep beckons but my brains zig zag around. Meanwhile, my body is fatigued from scrubbing the floor/walls, organizing books from an unhealthy position held while low to the floor to do so. Muscles are contracted into themselves and betray the desire to crawl in a hole and scrunch up tight in the dark. I want strong hands to soothe them back into supple cords, to gather the surrounding flesh and detangle all visceral knots. 

I broke a nail for the first time in ages while wearing neoprene coated cleaning gloves. It's irritating.  Emotions are depleted from intense highs earlier in the day and night before but at least my books are in order now.

Jessie and I had our first session today. I found it much easier to talk than I expected but only on the condition I let my eyes wander upward. It was as though staying visually fixed on Jessie or the therapist would freeze the words in my throat. I did not cry. Jessie was so scared of being that vulnerable. I felt bad about that and almost wanted to protect her but I tried to help coax it out of her instead.

We headed to the bookstore afterward to get the book the therapist recommended. I also bought an erotica book, Women on Top edited/compiled by Violet Blue. Upon Jessie's suggestion, we also got Kathy Griffin's auto-biography. I then sipped iced green tea and munched on my blueberry streusel muffin. Jessie got latte and some pumpkin muffin with cream cheese filling.

On a happier note, after Jessie took me to Olive Garden dinner and retired early for my birthday last night, Toma and Jen came with me to Sonic so I could get a lemonberry slush. Our carhop, Justin, was such a riot. He had our brand of twisted humor down pat so we got comfortable with his antics quickly. He gave me 17 of the 33 after-meal Sonic mints jammed in his pocket, wrote me birthday wishes and painted out infant footprints in the dust film coating my car. He also gave me two birthday balloons which Toma secured to the passenger side so they floated up and out of my moonroof. Unfortunately, the balloons snapped loose right before I reached the freeway on-ramp to get back home.

I think that this does it for this entry. Zig zag for brains is better than shit for brains. Hopefully it makes room for clearer thinking and a better connection to my heart.

Hemorrhage

I feel like pieces of me are on the loose. No matter how I try to hold together, parts expand further and further apart. I am this emotional sand being and the particles are sloughing off, chest first. Hands are frantic to salvage the grains and chunks, breaking off like rock chips from a wind-stressed cliff side, but steady little streams easily pour through the spaces between my fingers. I realize I am hemorrhaging and time is running out without an hourglass to neaten the end result.

Army of Me

My days blur, sort of cave together without a job to shape them from beneath. My silver lining is particularly shiny though, because I like that I am now the main shaper of my days. I fill them with events I want, not with the empty minutia of a deskjob. I am still job hunting but the interstitial freedom is beautiful in the meantime. Even my crazy, curly hair seems to swing and bounce freer that before.

I keep dreaming of road trips after visiting Trish and Shawn in Merced last week. It takes me around six hours to drive there and another six to return to San Diego. Three hundred ninety miles each way. Last week's visit was the first time I made the trip - or drove anywhere for longer than 1 hour for that matter - alone. I found such a deep peace in the solitude of that drive. I love driving so much and I crave that same peace again. I can see a glimmer of the appeal a big commercial truck driver's life might have.

Also, I miss them already. I wish there was a way to wipe the distance between us away.

I feel a bit calmer now that Jessie and I talked a bit more about us last night. This period in my life seems ruled by these long talks that are long overdue. We did both pretty comfortably weigh the final breaking up stone in our hands less like a hot potato and more like a curious consideration. That metaphorical stone was much smoother in texture than I expected although the weight was about as heavy as I anticipated.

Now, I am as prepared as I can be for either outcome. Without delving too deep, we agreed to give "us" until January 2010, seeing the therapist in the meantime. A lot of our conflict stems from the incompatibility of our perspectives. She is much more black/white thinking than I am and her expectations match. I am more prone to seeing a small request as a demand or ownership claim and I do NOT react well to that "owned" part.  So much more than this though. It's almost overwhelming.

I am cleaning out my room, my personal space. It seems time. I will be throwing away a lot of things and giving others to Goodwill or mayhaps Craigslisters. Sometimes, taking action on the physical level is enough to help clear the way mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I sure hope so because these are the things I can taste, touch, see, feel, hear and therefore control and manipulate with hands.

Strange ghost girl

I seemed bent on not sleeping last night. Too many thoughts racing inside so I channeled the jarring pace to other things.

I just left a message for the therapist one of my best friends used for her and her fiance when they hit a rough patch. The therapist specializes in same sex couples counseling too so that should satisfy Jessie's criteria as well.

A fear bubble is growing inside of me, right in my throat and heart, creeping to encapsulate my head and stomach.  In our 5 year 8 month relationship we have broken up a few times with a complete separation being around 1.5 - 2 years ago. Every break up attempt - both partial and complete - had been initiated by her until a few days ago.  I recanted my words only because she told me she would try counseling. I mean, what else have I got to lose, right?  Now she is treating me like a fragile package, afraid to shatter this teetering tower of us and I now feel like I am living someone else's life, watching from the inside. Shadow parts of me bob to the surface and the old version of Chance once presented to the outside is in hibernate mode. I am not sure she'll ever wake up or if I identify with her because it's hard to let go of the old me. Maybe all that's left of her is a ghost. Ghost girl who was an equal actor in this relationship and now this strange girl taking ghost girl's place has got to determine if she will be able to even pick up where the ghost left off.

I don't know what will become.

Watermelon Chapstick - written in high school

Watermelon tastes nice on

chapped lips, especially when

they’re yours. I’ll soften those sweet

petals with mine, tainted pink,

like fruit-candy on my tongue.

I’ll massage soft, braless flesh

with chipped polish tipped fingers

and warm palms cupped to send waves

pulsing tropic through us both.

Full of your candied kisses,

my feet cannot touch the floor.

Lashes dust your cheeks, and mine.

Watermelon lips on me,

like moths, damp with morning dew

pressed in to whisper words that

don’t actually exist.

I’m in your sea electric.

I will lick salt water from

the valley of nose and cheek,

stroke withering hair weary

of bleach, wisps kissing your face

beneath sun and trees that bare

your diagonal grace.

Heated, watermelon breath

fans over me from below;

a flushed cheek to silken thighs,

tangled in white sheets, writhing.

Please: don’t ever disappear