#propoleno

Propoleno: Could be coming from anxiety

M: Well yeah, sure. That’s not unusual. But what do I have to be anxious about?

P: *flat stare*

M: *awareness of all I could potentially be feeling anxious about*

P: Your six month review at your very stressful job is coming up, you met a new guy, you have this ongoing debt you’re working on, your car is a beater, you keep engaging with –

M: Yeah, yeah. I guess what I meant is, what do I not have to be anxious about.

P: *pointed look*

Propoleno: When you do that you’re making it easier to do that and just hurting yourself. It’s not good for your brain to be there. It’s like saying “Hey, I don’t hurt at all!” and hitting yourself in the arm.

Propoleno: *hits self in arm*

Propoleno: Why the hell would you do that to yourself?

Moi: Yeah, I see what you’re saying. But the process helps.

Propoleno: Word

Conversational Pause

Propoleno: *rubs arm* Ow, I think I hit myself too hard.

Moi: *laughs* So, you’d do that to yourself to prove a point?

P: *statement about dudebros and fedoras and bad politics*

drunk Moi: but he's pretty

P: dude, have you seen the pictures of a young Joseph Stalin?

Moi: No?

P: *flirtatious gesture* Oh my, he's so pretty

Moi: *laughs*

P: No, really, go look it up

Moi: *does* Oh god, he's so pretty

P: Now think about the thousands he killed. Pretty don't coun't for shit

Propoleno: SC to GA to TN to OK to NM to AZ to CA.

M: In 11 days. I may scream.

P: Don't blow yr voice out, you gotta squee & stammer upon my arrival. =)

How the hell do I describe how this feels? Nothing compares, exactly. Like your favorite author has just published a new, amazing, life changing book & you have to wait until payday to get it. Like dreams coming true. Like the valves in my heart are too large for how little blood I have. Like joy and terror. 

Things change, keep changing. I think that, in part, people are looking forward to him being here because I will feel less alone, and therefore be less crazy. I think someone else thinks I will... back off is rude, but essentially correct. I think someone fears what sort of dedication change that will mean, because no one wants to be told they're special and then forgotten about. Relief and fear... what a mess I've made that people feel relieved when I am not near them.

Assumptions, but... only wrong as i get closer.

And what if? What if this choice, this long and absurd choice, takes away those tiny dreams I fear to feed? If it does, maybe those dreams are meant to be put back into the room. If such a joyful thing can break something, then maybe it is meant to be broken, like top-heavy glasses being inappropriate drunken ware.

The anticipation of change... I know what I anticipate, and I think I understand what others anticipate. That it will be difficult, but better. My home will be more full of love, struggle, joy, mess, the bits and bobs that are the beauty of humanity. I think that some anticipate me being better, which means leaving me behind. I wish that weren't so, but I canna change another's mind and do not want to try.

When I finally got to sleep last night, I had a number of nightmares. This is it's own kind of terrible, but one stood out. Associations are easy - workplace violence training I missed which had the image of a person pointing a gun at another person, watching Sneakers, hip/leg pain because the sick or I don't know what, bioshock, ideation.

A dear friend asked me this evening what I want my relationships to look like or be structured like, what I ideally would like them to be.  Some old friends, they ask you questions like they have a red phone with a direct line to your true heart; the answers never come back in words.  They’re in that place in your self-mind-heart that does not function in words.

  Image – a small room full of people laughing, laying languid, touching eachother gently while sharing intense glances and inside jokes.  There is motion, but not so much as to be manic or frantic.  Cyclical feelings of gratitude, happiness, and compersion roll about the room.  Comfort with playfulness, dim lighting and soft fabric.

  Image – self cradling something small and fiercely glowing with a bright, warm light, crystalline in pattern without being broken into colour wavelengths.  Self looking into this light with a feeling of unnamable joy.  Others are around self, arms wrapped around self and eachother, somewhere between stacking dolls and nautilus shell; each is looking into the same small fierce light, each shows the same feeling on their face. 

  Feeling – the feeling of giving and receiving a long, sorely needed, open heart hug.

I had a bit of a conversation with propoleno yesterday.  He very kindly let me call and eat into a little of his sleep to process some heavy things out loud.  We talked about coping mechanisms for some time, and here's the result.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.  I have coping mechanisms for my particular set of (not actually that bad all the time) symptoms which may not make sense even to those closest to me, but they are internally consistent.

When I do not use them, I am worse.  I have, in the past, promised not to use some of them, and that is just a terrible, awful thing for me.  I don't respond to that now.  I won't agree to mothball some of my toolbox because it makes other uncomfortable.

I have to live with me.  No one else does.