venture

If I study art, am I selfish?

If I postpone getting a job because I want to make art, am I selfish?

If I relentlessly pursue him despite the fact that he ________ and __________, am I selfish?

I accelerate only to break.

(Gotta be cool now, power shift here we go.)

If I write with whiskey, am I selfish? Am I stupid?

I abandoned acting because I believed I was no good; I still mourn what was. I buried my future under a pile of shoulds.

You should write, Meghan. You should.

You should be meek. You should give. You should never keep for yourself. You may trip over what you've accumulated and fall on your face. Your face is full of lines that map your ancestors. Don't disappoint.

Am I selfish to take? What will break if I do everything in my power to remain without fracture?

The earth naturally shakes and so shall we.

scuba

I dwell on what could have been, what was missed, what never was.

He wants to take pictures of the Milky Way out in the desert. I decline. I want to sit home and deny myself of what I crave -- and I want to do it alone.

Is it company that I crave? I never would have thought. I miss being close with someone. I miss the trust that they will be readily available. Everyone seems so distant, myself especially.

There is an empty sea with so much underneath. The surface is just that -- the surface. I crave the caves, I crave what can only be reached by depth, by masks.

grasp

This explains everything!

another page

He stood in the doorway of a jewelry store that was neither open or closed because he said he likes the way it makes him feel. He said his voice sounds different in that small space. It did sound different, slightly. I looked at a ruby ring shaped like a snake in the window. I hissed to hear my own vocal cords play tricks on me. I felt the same and remained stagnant in the doorway, taking up space.

Precision and pleasure will continue to build a life I might one day claim.

What might one day mean something is presently formless; without form, the sky opens up and what I call "me" finally rests beneath a sea of stars.

reliable, dammit!

In order to recover, I need to become even more boring than I already am. I need to follow a fairly strict schedule (with eating and waking/sleeping). I can't put myself in situations that will likely trigger me... Which means no hipster indie concerts/events, no bar hopping, and definitely no mall shopping (no problem there). Get ready to go with me to the library and read silently, friends! We can also grab tea and draw. Better yet, let's get outside.

I also need to be surrounded by reliable people. I use the word "reliable" because right now that's what I need more than even compassionate people. A mini-breakthrough that I recently had in therapy helped me to see that reliability is something vital to me, something that went missing often in my past. I myself need to be more reliable, too. I "flake out" and cancel plans and make up excuses and disappear. It's my "thing." Thanks to my eating disorder, I have become a perfect hermit. Is food involved? I most likely won't go. Do I feel "fat" today? I most likely won't leave the house. Will this interrupt my exercise schedule? No thank you. So when I finally DO feel like doing things and interacting with the human race, but then someone either cancels on me or forgets our plans, it puts me right back into hermit mode. I realize that's a lot of responsibility on various shoulders (various shoulders?), but... Oh well.

So I need to eat regularly. Like, at 8am, 12pm, and 6pm. And I want to be asleep by 11pm. And I can't really be drinking caffeine or alcohol anymore. If you are also up for eating at 8am, 12pm, and/or 6pm, let me know. But let me know at least a day in advance! And when we are eating whatever it is that we are eating, please do not say that you are going to be "bad" and have the fries or that you "can't possibly finish the whole thing." Just eat your damn food and let me eat my damn food and let's have a damn pleasant experience, dammit! Whoa. I am so aggressive! Psych. I am super passive, but I'm learning to assert myself more. Kinda.

grief, dreams, and conjunctivitis

I will save myself a lot of grief realizing that he'll never change. He loves me in his own unique way and I know that. I really, really know that. I can't keep trying desperately to make him stop doing this and start doing that because it will wear both of us out. He will trigger me and I need to learn how to deflect. He will leave me feeling hungry and I need to learn how to nourish myself. He may not listen, but I will (to myself, to him). Letting go of a relationship I wish I had with him will help me to appreciate and accept the relationship that we do have.

I continue to have dreams about my exes. Dear subconscious, stop being cruel. The dreams make me miss them, but then I remember something Meg pointed out about missing people... Do you actually miss the person or do you miss who that person helped you to be? If it's the latter, then that gives me power. I have the power to feel and be a certain way on my own, without becoming codependent. Still, these dreams derail me. I wake up in a haze, wondering yet again: "If I had only done this one thing slightly different, would that person still be around? Would they have not left and would they love me? Would we be married and have a child and would I be a Mormon Mommy Blogger?" I really do wonder all of these things (and more) far too often. There's no point in wondering and regretting aside from torturing myself. I wish I could dream about ice cream cones instead.

Today an old man patted me on the bare back (thanks for the no-sleeves, tank top) without my consent and I was like, "Ah hell no!" But of course I remained silent. Don't touch people if you don't know them -- and you probably shouldn't touch them even if you do know them because, well, the bird flu or pink eye or something. Anyway, I'll end this post on that bizarre note. Take care, sweeties.

stranger

A woman just smiled at me, a stranger, and I wonder who's the stranger? The woman or me? Would any of my neuroses be alleviated if I viewed myself as the stranger? Abandoning the self, detaching, a vital removal. I wish to embrace this woman. I wish to cradle her head and bless her for being so familiar.

My cravings have taken a strange turn. I want seaweed and ice and lately I've been drawn to rattlesnake meat. I withdraw from all so I can live out these fantasies within my room. My window leads to a brick wall. I am not satisfied.

A man just smiled at me, a stranger, and I'd like to keep it that way. He is a stranger eating salad who smiled at me and I feel violated. The woman -- I will fiercely protect. The man -- I will protect myself. Myself -- maybe I'm the real threat.

There is not much we will complete today; There is much to delete, but the pull to be full is enough to derail. Stories left to tell will fall halfway through while we wander around the backyard looking for a patch of dandelions to drown in.

The woman left and returned with not a salad, but fried chicken and strawberries and she's eating both with a fork and I love her nameless self so much that my nose itches.