...yeah, no

"Then no matter who you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you'll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by.  You'll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, wether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse, you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name."  House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski

  I pulled up the chariot the other day while somewhat aimlessly rifling thru my deck. I was glad to see it, due to a recent minor setback. Provided I can stay out of my own way, everything will be fine.

The more concerning card that turned up was 10 of wands, which of course was fitting. At face value, the card represents heavy burdens brought about by overexertion.  Well, obviously.  Anyone could tell. I'm worried that my youthful glow will faze and fetter far more quickly than it should, and the fine variety of salves and serums will no longer be preventative, but reactionary. I'm 32. In ten years I still want to look 32.  At the rate I'm going, I may be closer to THIS.

(Microsoft, however, gave me a helluva compliment yesterday. Try it! http://how-old.net)

The burdens I carry in my head, and my core are hard and somedays I find myself a willing participant in my own consumption. But that's on me. Other days, the fraught is external. And I can grin and bear it, and I can fly under anyone's radar- or try my damnedest- but I'm a person people take notice of. I'm someone that is assumed is up to something.  Being quiet does no good. Being gregarious is worse. There is a balance somewhere, but it's goddamn delicate, and I have a tendency to forget myself. Float like a butterfly, plod thru the banality like a combine.

When the 10 card showed up, it stuck in my head a day or two.  Being overwrought with so much negativity that isn't mine has caused a part of my brain to switch off- and it was something I felt physically- in a pivotal moment, where the only thing I had left, for myself or for anyone, was a big, fat fucking NO.

And... thats fucking ok.

I... just can't keep eating shit. I just can't. Part of all of this is my withered ability to stand up for myself, coupled with trying to please everyone- and the cracks are starting to show.  But I don't want to become a creature, I want to step thru, and shed, and so...

NO.

...the hard reset

"i desire the things that will destroy me in the end..." -plath

there was a threshold recently, i nearly fell thru it like a plate glass window- missing it- missing all my own cues.  thank goodness for relentless shadows, and the nag of consciousness. i toyed with the edge of a precipice- i peered, and the chasm stared back into me, and for the first time remembered to be careful fighting those monsters, because i. looked. away.

***

last night i didn't sleep. i wrestled the sheets, the walls, my mind, my body. i wept. i laughed hysterically. if anyone had witnessed, i'm positive i would have looked insane.

i'm sure, at some point around 4 a.m., i was insane.

i don't know what it was.

all my fears and anxieties became tangible, and exorcised. and i remembered something i used to tell myself a long time ago, for different reasons- a short verse, almost a prayer, that had found its way back into my head- so, i said it out loud:

i just need to make it thru this day- and if not this day, this hour- and if not this hour, this minute, this second

it is as healing now, as it was before.  i won't forget again. and to keep that longing gaze to a bittersweet minimum.

***

[] [] [] reboot...

...and then it knocked at the door

"we think the same things at the same time

we just can't do anything about it..."  thom yorke, harrowdown hill

its like no exit in here somedays, except i'm stuck with cats.

when you don't usually stop moving- when you're constantly going from one job to the next + children + errands + living your life- having any amount of time off feels alien, almost insidious. there's a strange sort of paranoia (inertia?) that settles in, like kudzu, the creeping vine that strangles entire towns.  a more onerous ennui.

so that's today. i'm waiting for something. or thats what it feels like. nothings coming. somethings coming.

something is always coming.

***