Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Saturday, March 3, 2018
Thursday, March 1, 2018
adjectives
no one knows yet that this little space of mine exists. my own little rectangle of light. no one knows and this is such a comfort to me. i have my own corner to hide in. i have my own wall to press my face against and cry. i have my own place to hide.
maybe that's why the other blog didn't work. i couldn't get it off the ground. too many people were watching. too many people wanted to know all the details of what was going on in New York. too many people were watching, waiting for me to break, waiting for me to spill. it was the wrong time to be public. i needed a depth of anonymity as wide as the United States. i'd just bounced from one coast to the other and i wanted to wrap myself up tight in every inch of every single mile that lay in-between: a ribbon. a rope.
i've promised myself that i won't tell anyone about this blog for at least a month. maybe a few people will find it before then but i doubt very many. and so, if you've stumbled here, let us nod in agreement and wink. this little rectangle of light is my secret hiding place. i'm happy to share it with you if you need me to but let's not speak about it. let me tap the keys and lose myself to whatever text finds me because i feel like my real self for the first time since my mother died. or, a better way to say that might be- i feel like who i was before she died, before the utter collapse of nearly everything i'd known. it is possible that i am standing on the other side of disillusionment now. maybe a vast acreage of my heart has healed? i feel solid and stable again, able to ask hard questions without screaming again. goals and dreams careen. new ideas stretch and sigh inside my mind. i reach for books at least as eagerly as i reach for a drink. in fact, lately a drink is the last thing on my mind. i don't need that blanket anymore. i am whole enough again to withstand being alive. i have regenerated. i have become more than the sum of my losses. maybe that is what i need this space for- new ground, new definitions of Self.
---
on the phone, my sister called herself "broken" and i shuddered.
a few days later, i realized i shuddered because i had finally stopped calling myself "broken" yet, still, i saw my name embroidered below that awful descriptor. my sister's and my conversation became a mirror, then. and i have sat silently since looking into it. i have sat and taken note of the many ways in which i have judged her. and then i look again. i see the exact mistakes, the exact frailties, the exact insecurities and wishes for safety breathing inside of me. i kid myself that no one can see them. i am wrong. my sister can see them and that's why she tells me about hers. she has shown me greater generosity than i have shown her.
perhaps it is just this generosity that can be harnessed to set us each free from the incorrect adjectives we’ve used too long to describe ourselves.
maybe that's why the other blog didn't work. i couldn't get it off the ground. too many people were watching. too many people wanted to know all the details of what was going on in New York. too many people were watching, waiting for me to break, waiting for me to spill. it was the wrong time to be public. i needed a depth of anonymity as wide as the United States. i'd just bounced from one coast to the other and i wanted to wrap myself up tight in every inch of every single mile that lay in-between: a ribbon. a rope.
i've promised myself that i won't tell anyone about this blog for at least a month. maybe a few people will find it before then but i doubt very many. and so, if you've stumbled here, let us nod in agreement and wink. this little rectangle of light is my secret hiding place. i'm happy to share it with you if you need me to but let's not speak about it. let me tap the keys and lose myself to whatever text finds me because i feel like my real self for the first time since my mother died. or, a better way to say that might be- i feel like who i was before she died, before the utter collapse of nearly everything i'd known. it is possible that i am standing on the other side of disillusionment now. maybe a vast acreage of my heart has healed? i feel solid and stable again, able to ask hard questions without screaming again. goals and dreams careen. new ideas stretch and sigh inside my mind. i reach for books at least as eagerly as i reach for a drink. in fact, lately a drink is the last thing on my mind. i don't need that blanket anymore. i am whole enough again to withstand being alive. i have regenerated. i have become more than the sum of my losses. maybe that is what i need this space for- new ground, new definitions of Self.
---
on the phone, my sister called herself "broken" and i shuddered.
a few days later, i realized i shuddered because i had finally stopped calling myself "broken" yet, still, i saw my name embroidered below that awful descriptor. my sister's and my conversation became a mirror, then. and i have sat silently since looking into it. i have sat and taken note of the many ways in which i have judged her. and then i look again. i see the exact mistakes, the exact frailties, the exact insecurities and wishes for safety breathing inside of me. i kid myself that no one can see them. i am wrong. my sister can see them and that's why she tells me about hers. she has shown me greater generosity than i have shown her.
perhaps it is just this generosity that can be harnessed to set us each free from the incorrect adjectives we’ve used too long to describe ourselves.
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