The Lost Joy of What's Next?

I'm a mover... generally a love 'em and leave 'em type gal, of sorts at least. I stay just long enough to make great memories and have the time of my life and then I move on quick before it sours. Not saying that it ever has, I haven't stayed long enough to know. I realize it sounds callous and cruel but it's really not. Most of my personality demands this type of action. I am rude, moody, crude and basically mad not to mention easily distracted, all traits that make a relationship difficult. Traits that test and, sometimes, break the bonds that people strive to keep. I'm not bitter nor upset nor do I believe that my loves and relationships are cheapened by my inabilities to emotionally function. Additionally, I've discovered that moving on, as I so often do, separates the wheat from the chaff... affinity wise. Those that stick, are those that belong. And I will forever adore them and they will forever be apart of me. I will never be able to leave them, even when I do.

Do not misunderstand... I do not move to weed out my friendships or even to test their bonds. I move because I'm antsy for the next new place, next new feel. It may be crazier, more dysfunctional, rougher, more beautiful than the last or it may not. The adventure of moving to the next is what drives me, not the need to sever ties I believe lacking... my ties are not lacking. I choose those that surround me with the utmost care, which blesses me and them alike. I have genuinely loved everywhere I've lived and every close friend I've made. I miss them and always will.

I write this because I am once again at the step before my next adventure and it just doesn't feel right. I don't feel the need or drive to move and for the first time the thought of the next almost brings me to tears. I never cry at my goodbyes, not really. It is frustrating and confusing. For the first time I don't think I should be moving on. I feel odd and this reaction to my beloved life of moving on is disconcerting. I'm not sure what to do next. I am floundering. My next adventure feels forced and therefore I am lost. And beyond all this the question beating my mind the loudest is 'What am I supposed to do if I stop moving?' And all I know is that, for the first time, I don't want to go.


The physical:
London, my final night
The desired:
The solace of certainty
The feeling in the forefront:
Life changing confusion
The smothering sense:
Tactile - the chill of a hollow room
In absence of misplaced action:
Peaceful sleep
If I were listening closely:
Winter Song by Caesars

I used to be great...

I feel like I so 'I used to...' far too often. As if the only value I have has slowly disappeared. I used to be something. I used to be someone. As if I only live in the past. Every 'used to' I drop is true but why does it leave such a terrible taste in my mouth. A dirty feel, like my history is only worthy if it wasn't actually a history. I feel inadequate daily and I wonder if I seem that way to those who hear me say the 'used to'?

Am I worth less now that my conversation is smattered with those abilities that I used to have? Shouldn't I feel more worth because of them? Those abilities have obviously made me a better person than I would have been without them. So why can't I feel them as the achievements they used to be. Why do I feel like I'm just living in a past that doesn't want me anymore?

Old FB Posts... 25 things about me...

From: Saturday, January 31, 2009
To: FB

1. I am deeply, constantly and uncontrollably sarcastic. I can’t help it. I am also the perpetrator of deadpan sarcasm, which makes the consistency of my sarcastic replies even worse. I think most people find me funny, I know my father thinks this makes me an asshole. P.S. I am actually never serious when I do this, no, seriously, I’m not.

2. I love words. They are beautiful. I love how they look, how they sound different depending on the person, even if its said wrongly. They don’t even have to be words I understand. I love words.... except for "Maths"... are you kidding me?!? That abbreviation is already plural, you silly twats!

3. I read A LOT, pretty much all the time. It really doesn’t matter what it is. Most of the time it is escapist romance or something ridiculously comical but I will read anything. Also books make me feel better. Just sitting in a good library makes me giddy and don’t even get me started on bookstores, they are joyously dangerous places.

4. I am a very very moody person (it maybe the hair). Those moods also have the ability to change quite swiftly. I think it is necessary to now mention my love of meds and their fabulous abilities....

5. I love music. I never sit in a quiet room if I can help it. I always have a charged iPod, if not then I have a charged iPhone. Not that silence annoys or bores me, I actually find it quite beautiful in the right place (I grew up in the country) but there is always a song or a lyrical story that I haven’t heard yet. This upsets me.

6. I believe that people should be broken. So does my best friend, which is one of the reasons I love her but I mean it in a different way. The joy we live though does little to define us, even though happiness is a necessity to the formation of ourselves, the pain we live through makes us who we are and how we handle the world, in every aspect. I firmly believe that love cannot exist without hate and joy is meaningless without sorrow.

7. I live in a country I wasn’t born in. I believe that travel is the best learning tool, period. To know anything about life you have to live it in every way possible. Right now I’m living it English, tomorrow, who knows?

8. I am both deeply upset and joyously reassured by change.

9. I abhorrently hate both blueberries and fish.

10. I am terrified by snakes, seriously, to the point of immobility. Just thinking about them uber creeps me out and I’m not entirely sure that there aren’t any under me at this exact moment.

11. I dream of being a little housewife. I fully believe in women’s rights and that all people should be treated equals. In my mind they are and always have been but I think the most important thing about this is my ability to choose my own life. Women fought to give me that choice and I choose to be a subservient housewife. You wanna fight about it, huh?

12. I want kids; the more the merrier and preferably with little cute Scottish accents, just like their unbelievably hot (as of yet nonexistent) daddy.

13. I am a judger. Most of the time I don’t really mean it but if I looked like that in those pants or sounded that stupid, I would expect someone to say something. I demand that from my friends. However, you better be able to defend your position.

14. I love to laugh. I constantly surround myself with people who can make me laugh. A good laugh makes life worth it but then again so does a good cry.

15. I have a thing with numbers. Some are good numbers and some are bad. Like the number 15 good number; 17, however, is a dick. It is mostly odds I hate, unless it is the multiples of 5, they make sense.

16. I am an American. I’m also a Pennsylvanian. I’m quite proud of both those things.

17. I hate (serious) ignorance, in all its definitions (the country people know what I mean), from stupidity to soul deep meanness. I believe that all prejudice is deeply routed in ignorance and I hate it. I find its existence to be fundamentally vexing and pointless.

18. I am not PC in anyway, I am not, however, prejudice against anyone; even if I sound like it sometimes. Everyone has an undeniable right to live freely in anyway they choose; even that ignorant asshole beside me, having said that I am allowed to beat him when he takes action against how I choose to live.

19. I like pain. Not all pain obviously, I really doubt I would relish broken bones and knife wounds; I crave good pain and actually find it quite relaxing.

20. History is always beautiful, even when it’s ugly. I dislike new places and living somewhere that is story-less. I'm also a fan of tradition and heritage, I find them reassuring.

21. Occasionally, I have to reign in my judgment of people with weak minds, that mental lack of strength, it fundamentally annoys me.

22. I love the dark. I function well in shadow. I find it comforting and full of wonderful possibilities. It is new and clean to me.

23. I like to be cold. And I love winter. I am happier in the winter than in the summer. I physically feel better as well. It baffles people but those places with weeks of winter darkness sound like my version of heaven on earth.

24. My friends and family really are the most important thing in my life. I know everyone says this but I’m serious. There are people in this world that I would actually die without; which is petrifying but something I am eternally grateful for.

25. I grew up in the most beautiful place in the world, literally. When asked, ‘What is the most beautiful place you’ve ever been?’ I always say home. There is no contest in my mind.

Old FB Posts... Why I Dream

From: Sunday, May 31, 2009
To: My FB friends...

I am fully aware that I sleep all the time. I am quite fine with it, no one else seems to be but most of the time I just tell people to piss off. This is a half-piss-off-half-explanation note. I'm sure all of you dream. Actually I know for a fact that you all indeed do dream. Even if you say you don't that just means you can't remember/you should get that shit checked, medically, cause your sleep is poor quality. Not the point and I shall now return from tangent land.

If you can't remember your dreams I feel very sad for you. I get rare glimpses into your minds all the time and I am sure all of your dreams would be crazy, beautiful, horrid places filled with tragic and ridiculous people and stories. Knowing some of you they would often be tragic and ridiculous simultaneously. Moving on.

I can sleep for very long periods of time. I have never actually slept for a full day but I have made it 23 hours before. I am aware that is werid. I also get that it’s uber creepy that I feel better when I’ve slept through the day than if I’d slept through the night, but I do physically just feel better.

Now to part of the reason why… I have soap operas in my head. Soap opera may be a poor choice of words, they are a lot better acted than soap operas but considering that the longest running one started when I was roughly 10 years old, soap opera fits better than comedy-drama TV. It is actually pretty great. I have most of my favorite genres. One is in fact a comedy-drama but there is also a sci-if that occasional becomes horror, a romance, an action-adventure, and another one that always gets shady immediately after I wake up but I’m pretty sure it’s just your normal everyday dream world run-on. I’m usually in those (then again, technically speaking I am in all of them).

I rarely write about them. I've tried but the last time I did, I sadly didn’t have the talent to do them any justice and then that opera dream went on an abnormally long dream hiatus. It was scary and even though I know I am completely irrational I’m afraid if I ever do get it right they will go away completely.

I do have normal dreams too, the ones I tell people about, that are what dreams are. I rarely tell anyone about the opera dreams. I’ll sum some for you but I really suck at summaries just ask anyone who has asked me what a movie’s about.

-----

Noko lives in the sci-if one. She does the craziest shit, or perhaps I should say she has to do the craziest shit because of everything that has happened to her. She has yet to get completely through the bugger-boo issue. Bugger-boos are these really evil night creatures, sort of like nasty fairies that kidnap people. We have yet to figure out exactly what they do with the people but there is a lot of evidence to support that they are killing them in order to use their flesh as sustenance. Bugger-boos hate the light, any light, so to not draw attention to your house you have to turn out all your lights at night. It sounds like the opposite of what you want to do but you really don’t want to piss those little fuckers off. However, Noko and her family didn’t really take the town warnings as seriously as they should have when they moved in so they are now the official targets of the bugger-boo’s, well, most likely not official, I doubt the bugger-boos have meetings about this sort of thing.

Noko has a lot of family, rather unusual for the sci-if genre. They usually have loner-ish type heroines. She is pretty, very dark, predominately Native American but no particular tribe, mainly because I can’t do Native American tribes by sight. She not too recently met Gunner in this bugger-boo town. He is fairly hot and the jury is still out but he maybe a were or perhaps a shifter. He also has multiple brothers who are very easy on the eyes.

-----

Lily has issues. We are talking all types of fucked up. She was a model, at a very early age. She is still in her early 20’s but she had to quit modeling because of this weird medical disorder that her extremely tacky/intensely annoying mother passed to her. Her latest medical issue is that she lost her front teeth. Which, much to my annoyance she has yet to fix. Thank god she usually has her mouth closed. Her loan shark/bookie enforcer dude has been slowly falling in love with her for years now. He just bought her this really beautiful watch with this engraving on it to help her “keep time” with her payments. Like loan shark enforcers actually do that shit. Lily is brain numbingly naïve but not stupid she is trying to pay her tuition and support her habit of thieving ex-boyfriends. Fortunately, the enforcer, who in her head is always just called the enforcer, is rather hot for an extremely large black man and, being an enforcer, he likes to beat people into missing persons. Lily oddly, has yet to notice that the last thieving ex-boyfriend has gone completely missing. She does know the one before that has yet to turn up, the lovely police officers who came to visit her have yet to call with any new developments in the case.

Lily’s college advisor is a complete nutter. She is this weird Julie Andrews type character who enjoys tripping over everything, including the latest totally cracked out outfit she is wearing. She is more of a crazy grandmother figure than anything else. She is fairly awesome.

----

That has been my lovely over share. Oddly detailed but I’m sure you get the feel. This is why I sleep. I swear to you that all of you are just as, if not more interesting than the running reel in my head but my head is a pretty awesome place as well. I get to be an intense Native American fighting random things with a, well, pretty much a Viking god and a seemingly past her prime medically and somewhat socially fucked up model. And these are just the two fresh in my mind.

So here comes the (non-harsh) piss off part of the note. You may think I’m lazy or perhaps even cardinally sloth but my head has better movies than On Demand and right now at least two of my opera dream characters are getting laid.

I'm not a writer...

I'm not a writer. That is made clear to me often. My failures have always been prominent before my eyes. I do not deny my abilities. I am perfectly capable for putting words on screen or paper but just because I form sentences doesn't mean I'm a writer.

I consider myself an artist. But I will openly and freely admit that I have no medium. I wish everyday that I had. I actively search for it. I make jewelry because I'm crafty. But I am well aware that I am just putting beads on wire.

I do not write this for affirmation or reassurance. And I will be perfectly okay with out reaction from you, in fact I would prefer it. I write it to write it because that is what I do. But I'm not a writer.

The Way You Love Me

I sometimes think about how I want to be loved. The only way I can see myself in love is madly. I don't want him to want to touch me, I want him to need to touch me. The contact, not oppressive or excessive, has to be instinctive. He leads me from the room, he touches my hair, he grazes my leg. I want him to feel antsy if I'm across the room. Not exactly an obsession but close enough. It's not that I don't want us to function independently, I do. In fact I demand it but when we are together, we are with each other.

I like it when men order for me. They may ask what I want before hand. It's just common courtesy. And I am well aware I have my own voice. I use it often, perhaps too often. But the idea of a man demanding my attention, ordering my food or allowing me to do things just makes me tingle. I want him to want me like that. Want to be with me so badly that the only way he can handle his emotions is to control the situation.

I also want to watch him lose it. Become so frustrated that he can't wait another second to crawl inside my skin. In a good way... in a 'I have to take you roughly against this wall because I can't think straight until I do' way. I want to be his calming effect in a way that's far from calming. I want it to be desperate. I want us to both be mad.

The physical:
An empty bedroom
The desired:
It seems like I want too much these days...
The feeling in the forefront:
Longing
The smothering sense:
Olfactory - the smell of home on my pillow
In absence of misplaced action:
My current action seems oddly fitting
If I were listening closely:
There is nothing...

"Without much regard to the moon or the stars..."

I feel winsome today. I can feel the Weepies and Vance caught in my head. Sad love songs on repeat. Thrusting the emotion in my face, amplified by my current loneliness. I find comfort in the awkwardness and imperfection of their tales. Not the upbeat sappiness of childhood fairytale but instead the more realistic love that I wish for myself. It makes me think about what my love used to be and what my next one will be like. I feel almost anxious for those little things that will reinvent my smile and because I hold no disillusions, I even imagine what mistakes I will make. I find I hold a craving for those awkward moments to come. And the pain I... we will have to endure. I wonder if this next emotional amalgamation will be the one that endures, that survives my madness and imaginably even his.

This ponder will inevitably bring about a sense of urgency. The usual rumination of when such a life connection will occur. Why is it that we always seem to be waiting? Waiting for a life to start or even just the next hour. Even in a world without the ticking clock we will still always anticipate the next sunrise.

But all thoughts are processes within themselves and my eagerness will not push me into action. The modern adage and infinitely repeated sisterly advice of "just let it happen" echoes in my head above the Mitchell and Dylan. And I find that the music is no longer the soundtrack that my heart pumps to but it is instead the soundtrack to help me better pass the time in the waiting room.

The physical:
My rest within the House
The desired:
A connection that defines
The feeling in the forefront:
Well-worn loneliness
The smothering sense:
Tactile - staggering absence of a tangible fate
In absence of misplaced action:
Contented slumber
If I were listening closely:
The Avett Brothers: The Ballad of Love and Hate

The Sacred Ebb and Flow

This morning, I awoke to the sound of the prayers. It was beautiful. It was comforting. The rhythmic singing in a world of words that I cannot understand. It should be slightly... disconcerting - perhaps, it should be bathed in confused frustrations. This is not the case. All I feel is an understated peace and I wonder why the world, the one from which I sprang anyway, would feel such defensiveness and unease when confronted with this one. Their obviously misguided fear feels forced this morning. Wouldn't anyone, with a mind even slightly ajar, feel the same way when the prayer song swirls over and around them at 530am? Would they not feel the beauty that I do? How do we return, in any instance, to the the stark beauty that exists in this world of false conceptions?

I find I cannot sleep through the prayer. It is not my god, not my language, not my world but it seems to pull me just the same.

The physical:
A sultry Dubai
The desired:
Currently unconcerned with such pursuits
The feeling in the forefront:
Peaceful contentment
The smothering sense:
Tactile - the warmth and humidity of the cradle of life
In absence of misplaced action:
Questing to fulfill my sleep quota
If I were listening closely:
Echos of the Islamic morning prayer

Heartbeat of the Walls

I am a hoarder. Not in the sense of the sickness. My compulsion does not drive me to never discard but more to surround myself in memory, even if they may not be exactly my own. I find they too easily slip away. I can't find them or see them as correctly or completely as I did before but the overwhelming clutter that surrounds me is calming. I can't forget my aunts face because I can see her reflection in the copper kettle on my floor. My grandmother's smell may be fading from my nostrils but I can still feel her warmth on the handmade quilt in the hope chest. I can't exactly remember the plot of the movie but the ticket stub still has Aunt Betty's finger print rubbed into the ink. I never went to Korea but the army coat with my family name emblazoned on the chest takes me safely somewhere, if not exactly to the green army medical tent that I know it's seen. These are the better ones, the ones that make sense but I promise the French lemonade bottle, the fake and obscenely bright rose hanging from the top of my bookshelf, and the paint covered jeans that no longer fit are just as meaningful. Perhaps my memory requires more than just the memory to function. Just like the world, my memory can't work without its own senses. It can't reminisce without touching cotton or wood; can't see without seeing. And perhaps as I age, its not that my memory fails me but that my senses fail my memory. Maybe my senses are the source of atrophy and not my mind. But more likely it is both and sometimes, on days like today, as I sit in the center of my room staring at the ageded memories that surround me in comfort, I wonder if these things will do the same for someone after me. Will someone sit in the center of a room, perhaps this one, with these memories pulsing from the walls and find the same comfort? Or am I crazy and in reality none of this 'stuff' has an actual purpose.

The physical:
A very windy Path Valley
The desired:
A future
The feeling in the forefront:
Unease
The smothering sense:
Tactile - grandma quilt bliss
In absence of misplaced action:
an ATV and a mountain path
If I were listening closely:
Iron & Wine: Faded From the Winter
My Thanks:
That no one is actually reading this blog.

Unsurity of Purpose

I am confused. I'm not exactly sure why I'm here or what I'm doing. I'm not all for this and have nothing as yet concrete in the sections of vision. I will flounder for the long haul, even when my focus will have moments of casual solidity. Of such things I can promise, your entertainment is a desired attainment. Of the rest we shall just have to wait and see, mind you not passively but with, perhaps, stumbling reprehensibility. And hopefully, now you are just as confused as I.

The physical:
An awakening London
The desired:
Unknown
The feeling in the forefront:
Restlessness
The smothering sense:
Tactile - cotton encased down
In absence of misplaced action:
I would be painting pictures on the back of my eyelids.
If I were listening closely:
Dispatch: The General