sometimes it seems the mind is like a stubborn old mule.
it is both funny and horrifying to me how recalcitrant my mind is. there are long periods of time in which it is so well behaved and responsive to direction that i think i’m making progress. maybe even can afford to relax a bit. but no, as soon as i do, next thing i know it’s off in some briar filled patch all whining and weeping and stuck and i just sigh and wonder will it ever really be any different?
i am far from undisciplined. but i think it may well be that the mind is always just slightly more reckless than we are disciplined. that does seem the way of it. i suppose your mileage may vary. most moments, i have very little in the way of ‘traffic’ happening. most moments, it’s a very comfortable nothingness. that isn’t to say i have no thoughts, but it’s kind of like watching motes on the wind… they come, they go, it’s no biggie.
but i find there are a set of thoughts that, no matter when or where they rise, are not at all like motes. they’re more like tarballs. sticky and stubborn and they seem to pull everything they touch into them until, next thing i know, i’m sitting here all snarled up.
in fact, most often, i get all stickied up and it’s like part of me just steps back and looks at me and laughs, ‘you’re doing this again? why? is it fun or something?’
no. assuredly. it is not fun. but i am stymied why i continue doing it.
you ever have something that just boggles you for how you can’t seem to stop yourself? i have only two things that bring this reaction. neither of them are pleasant. i don’t really avoid them. (obviously, i cannot.) but when they are here, they hurt so badly that i just about wish i would die so i wouldn’t have to feel them anymore.
i sit with them when i must, like a knot in life’s thread, and try to pull at them so maybe they’ll loosen and i can straighten things out. but i seem rather unable. maybe it’s the tears. i haven’t seen a knot yet that got easier when it was wet. have you?
thing is, the moments are ghosts. that is, they’re not even things in the here and now. they’re memories and old hurts that i can’t seem to turn loose. i don’t even know why. something about them is of that tarball, no matter how hard i try to fling it away, it’s still there, stuck and oozing and seeming pretty content to be so.
i really wish i could understand why this is. why i hold onto it. doesn’t make any sense at all. i try to be kind to myself and say it’s alright… that it’s ok to hold it. but how can it be ok to hurt or, even more horrifying, to want to?
this is kind of me talking to myself. if you haven’t figured it out yet. putting it here is my way of trying to pull at it a bit more. i guess i should have said that at the beginning. sorry.
things i know about this… it is to do with old history and abandonments. it is to do with feeling as if, at any moment, anyone, everyone, eventually will decide ‘it is too much’ or ‘not worth it’ or a dozen different variants of ‘trash, worthless, tainted’ and go away.
it isn’t about losing to death or circumstance. it is about being found these things. it is about constantly being reminded of lacking. as if there is nothing to be done for it. as if it is hopeless. completely.
it being me, of course.
i think the reason i hang onto things so long is that i never want someone to feel as if i am saying they are this. ever.
i think the reason i try so hard is because i know how it feels and i never want to be responsible for someone feeling that way.
but i am obviously not responsible for how others feel. and i obviously cannot do a damn thing about it when they feel or find any of these things ‘true’ in relation to me.
that is the part that hurts the worst. when you really want to be good to someone, when you’re really trying, and all they can see is ugly and horrible and worthlessness.
i guess it is hard to think you’re good for much, helpful, or worthwhile when this happens to you all the time. or, if not all the time, when it happens suddenly and without warning. i find i sit around and try to figure out ‘why’. why couldn’t they tell me, why couldn’t they work with me to figure it out, work it out? why was the only attractive choice to write it off and abandon?
ancient questions, of course. echoes of echoes. the ones who should have answered couldn’t. the ones since then likely wouldn’t be truly heard. maybe they know it. but that is the hardest and saddest thought of all.
you know that feeling you get when it just seems you’re doomed to be unable? that heavy chested, throbby feeling? like no matter how hard you lift, you’ll never really get it to as much as budge?
that’s the feeling. it comes on slow. almost like it’s announcing itself. like one of those old horror flicks where you can hear it, see it, but you can’t get away.
i don’t really try to get away anymore. mostly i just curl up and rock and try not to flinch too much. it doesn’t stay forever. and fighting it only makes it worse. so it’s here. i’m trying to learn how to comfort it. i don’t really know how. imagine an awkward pat from as far away as possible. gingerly, with revulsion. hoping it doesn’t bite.
it never bites, really. more like leeches. i don’t know what to do with it and no one else knows it better than i do. that’s the feeling of hopeless. dunno if i describe it well enough. i guess words don’t always work so well.