Temper Tantrums

As children, we beg and whine
wail and cry
hold our breath, pout, stomp down the hallway
slam the door to our room

But when we grow up
We learn to be polite
we find other ways
we numb ourselves
Drink, drugs, food, sex, work.
We still throw the tantrums
But in slow motion
In the thousand little ways we flagellate ourselves
In the thousand little slights and hurts we hurl
at whoever is nearby

We are still children
aching, disappointed
stunned to find cruelty where we expected comfort
Returning to look for it
again and again.

What's my fucking problem?

Why the resistance? Why is it so hard for me to get myself to do what needs to be done? Am I not eating enough Powdermilk Biscuits? I get so tired of fighting with myself. Is my brain just shot through like swiss cheese from too many years of depression? Why can't I just be a good girl?

I don't know what to do with this feeling I'm having. It's an ache, a tingling in the pit of my stomach... I miss someone, I'm not even sure who, maybe someone I've not yet met. There's a candidate or two, but I can't yet say for sure. I'm not fooling around anymore, I'm playing for keeps, so it's not as simple as just picking up the phone to quell this longing. I'm just now getting used to being with myself, being content on my own, but the feeling of wanting something more creeps back in automatically and without warning.

Handles

We go through one incarnation after the other
trying to get it right this time
a new name, a new network, a new protocol
structures to save us from the yawning void
but all illusion
all provisional
what is there, in the end?
once the security blanket of streaming ones and zeroes goes dark?
Your face in the mirror
entropy
but hopefully, a few real connections along the way
before that last lone walk toward the vanishing point
beyond the horizon

Insomnia, a rarity for me

Got home from seeing a very violent but well-made movie:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0421238/

...and because of that and a couple other things, I'm not so into sleeping right now. Maybe I'll just stay up til C&J is posted, hah!

I hate that my bottomless need for attention and approval sometimes leads me to actions that are naively inconsiderate of others' feelings. I'm really sorry.

[change of subject] I have met a man who, in a very short time, has become interested in me in a very serious way. Sometimes you meet someone and you instantly feel like you've known them for years, and you can talk for hours about most anything, or not talk at all, and you just feel natural and at ease. That's the way it is with him. Trouble is, he doesn't fit my shallow vision of what I want in a man, physically, in certain ways. Jesus Christ, I should be flogged for that. Anyway... I was just sorta fresh into being ready to date again -- I never expected anything serious this soon. I want to get married, I really do, but at the moment I feel I'm not ready to commit to one person yet. I feel I have to look around a bit more. I also feel I have to spend some more quality time with myself before I become enmeshed with someone else again. I feel like I'm just now, finally, getting to know myself. I don't want to lose that. I lost myself in my last relationship, and that just doesn't work.

The Dance of Near and Far

The Dance of Near and Far

Flirting to draw near, joking to deflect
I still don’t quite know which way is up.
You know better than I do
when to cut the crap
and go with honesty
You go so far as to say out loud
that you wanted to take my hand
I change the subject
start nattering on about the American inability
to deal with grief
(I sure know how to kill a moment)
I feel paralyzed
Aching for intimacy
fighting the flight instinct
Still stuck in the groove in my brain
that I etched with his name

But it is in this moment that everything is reborn
Only now, only thus
You step lightly from my doorstep
my lips are dry
and I feel the solid ground
racing 66,500 miles per hour
beneath my feet.

Poem-shaped object

Yes, I still stand by that I'm officially out of mourning, but that doesn't mean that I won't still feel sad or angry sometimes. I don't want to be a pain in the ass about it, but denying its existence doesn't work. Writing sappy poetry does, though...

What's so great about you, spirit?
Why give me arms made for embracing
then tell me not to cling?
Why give me hands made for holding
then tell me to let go?
Why give me a heart made for love
then tell me to be happy alone?
They say you created me,
yet you ask me to be other than what I am
And I'm to believe in you with no proof?
Great Perversity
is more like it.

Felicity was robbed!

I watched "TransAmerica" tonight with my friend Rick. I really liked it. Great script, great acting. Now, I thought Reese Witherspoon was really good in "Walk the Line," but I think Felicity Huffman should have won the Oscar. What a performance!

We even watched the bonus commentary on the DVD. At one point the director was talking about how the story has ‘universality,’ as my high school English teacher would have said, because at some point, we all feel we don’t belong, at some point we all feel out of place in our own skin.

I once took a weekend seminar on communication, and at one point the leader discussed how we make decisions about ourselves in moments of stress or failure that impact everything in our lives for years after. He asked us to think of a time when something happened to us that made us say, “I’m not [blank] enough.” Not good enough, not smart enough, etc. What came up for me was something that happened when I was in 4th or 5th grade. My class was putting on a musical production of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. I really wanted the part of Becky. I sang for the audition, and I thought I was sooo good. I was already a budding musician – I had had piano lessons and everything. There was no way I wouldn’t get that part. Well, not only did I not get the part, but the part I did get was one of a chorus of old men. Old. Men. In that moment I said to myself, “I guess I’m not a real girl.” Or not enough of a girl.

From then on, I felt estranged from my femininity in one way or another. From sophomore year of high school until about 2 years ago, I would rarely wear pink, and I had an unspoken, almost subconscious negative judgment of women who did. It’s not that I wanted to be male instead, or that I wanted to be butch. It’s just that anytime I wore high heels or a lot of makeup or a fancy hairstyle, some small part of me just felt inadequate, alienated, fraudulent. Hitting my sexual peak at age 32 helped somewhat. Something about being horny makes one willing to play one’s gender role if that’s what it takes.

But I’m still sorting it out. Sometimes I crave attention directed at my girliness, and sometimes I resist and deflect it. I’m still looking to play the female lead somewhere, in something.

Suffering into Wisdom?

One of the ten basic Buddhist precepts goes like this: "I will transform suffering into wisdom. This is the practice of Not Being Angry. I will not harbor resentment, rage or revenge. I will roll all negative experience into my practice."

I am struggling with this right now.

The core of the precept is clear: I get why it's unhelpful to be angry and harbor resentment. But I don't understand how to transform suffering into wisdom. I don't want to carry baggage around with me -- I want to move forward in life. How does that square with rolling negative experience into my practice? Somehow I think there's more to it than just "learn from your mistakes."

For example, I don't want to repeat the mistakes I made in my past relationship. But I don't want to be cautious, suspicious and fearful either. I want to be joyful and open without being naive.