self portrait
you know how
you tell stories
like they’re just
stories
and not really you
like the one where you
were gutted.
that’s just a story
you tell
about a man
you opened to
over and over
until he gutted you, saying
he was just like that, toxic.
just like that, but
still
he couldn’t
lose you.
so you tell a new story
you come back,
again and again
until you tell
your story
by gaslight.
I don’t expect to get profound life advice from How I Met Your Mother reruns, but life advice can come from anywhere I suppose.
Me. Totally On The Hook.
The Urban Dictionary has the following listed under “On The Hook”
A person who is “on the hook” will be overly infatuated with another person. The person who is the desired generally takes little notice (and often complete advantage) of the person who is on the hook.
Often times the person who is on the hook is a back-up.
Signs that you are on the hook:
1) giving foot rubs
2) making mixed tapes/cds/play lists
3) making chocolate cake
4) dropping everything at a moments notice to be with the other person.Ted: “Lisa came over last night and I gave her a foot rub as we watched a move.”
Marshall: “Are you guys dating now?”
Ted: “No, she is still with her boyfriend, she is just looking for the right time to break the news.”
Marshall: “Dude, you are so on the hook.”
Things That Suck Today
(things that suck big hairy sweaty balls, to be specific)
– thinking that those pesky periods have finally stopped and then – nope
– when you notice the nope in a yoga class in light colored yoga pants
– when you’re not quite over that recent inconvenient yoga pants fail and then … nope happens
– when you’re still stiff from that damn Bar class that you can’t do a damn thing without falling over in yoga class
– when you keep falling over in yoga class, and then notice the nope
– when there are no goddamn cookies in the house, and all you want is just a little bit of sugary goodness, is that too much to ask for?
– when there are no lemon tarts, no coffeecake, no scones in the house either
– when you end up eating gluten free cookies and sugar-free chocolate
– when you realize that what you are grumpy about is a beyond superficial first world problem, and still decide to stay grumpy
– when that guy honked at you, for no good reason, okay maybe the very slightest and unimportant reason, but really there was no need for honking. honestly
– when you go solo to a couples party of 90% young hot 30somethings
– when you weren’t planing on going solo, but the date you chose doesn’t show
– when you almost asked a good friend to be your date, but then decided to ‘go for it’ and ask the ‘great at no showing’ guy, when you should have bloody well known better than to even consider him
– when you’re having a great hair day and get stood up
– when you wore the cute short dress with the boots, and still got stood up
– when you even put on motherfucking eyeliner and lipstick, and still got stood up
– when every one at the super fun party was snuggly with their date and you get super tight with the dessert table and then almost aspirate on a cupcake
– when you sit there and seriously wonder why you even try and really seriously consider that future that involves cats, housecoats, and crazy hair
– when you say forget cats, I’m getting chickens to peck at anyone who tries to visit me, and then you say forget chickens, I’m getting Emus. I’m getting Emus with the worst possible attitudes and I’m keeping them in my front yard.
-when you get a Starbucks card and it has Year of the Monkey on it and you start crying in front of the kind gift giver, because your brother was a Monkey
– when you realize that this year of the Monkey would have been your brother’s year
– when you’re happily sitting as far away from other people as you can manage at church and they make the announcement to stand up and greet the people around and you realize that you didn’t get far enough away and you have to chat with people
– David Bowie is dead
– Alan Rickman is dead
– and just fuck all things about that, but especially idiots who say mean shit about mourning some celebrity you didn’t know
fuck those people
– when you can’t format bullet points and have to use “-”
Charles Bulowski
– when Bukowski sums it up best
It didn’t happen when I turned 50, but sometime after I turned 51 I stopped caring so desperately about what people thought of me, and I have to say that it is really fucking awesome (yes, I will use profanity when I want to – Sorry. NOT sorry, who am I kidding). I still have moments where I grab the “rock of really giving a fuck about what you think about me” I used to wear like a raincoat, and haul it around for a while, but I just can’t be bothered to carry that weight anymore, ya know? In one way the “swirling shit storm” of my life the last several months (years, really) has helped me let go of many things simply because they are too heavy to keep carrying.
There are things I will not apologize for anymore, and if you don’t like me because of it, I’m really, really super-fucking-okay with that.
You don’t like my politics? Great!
My life choices? Fucking Awesome!
My tattoos? More power to ya!
My sarcastic, sassy and profanity laced language? I will somehow manage to carry on without your fucking approval.
Can’t decide if I’m worth dating? Sayonara, Adios amigo, Caio bella, sich verabschieden, d’adieu, tchüss. (because I totally AM worth it, ‘Slaying Dragons For’ kind of worth it, and I can’t spend my time with someone who doesn’t think so).
There also things I will apologize for, because like most humans, I can be a self-centered asshole on a remarkably regular basis. Those things I try to be accountable for and apologize. Things like running about 5-15 late on a staggeringly regular basis. I do apologize for this, but I haven’t suffered enough negative consequences from this for me to alter my behaviour yet. That and forgetting your name, I have a smooth spot on my brain where people’s names are stored, it’s not you, it’s me. Really, really.
Then I read Mark Manson’s Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck and was forever changed. Well not quite, but damn.
The point is, most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many fucks in situations where fucks do not deserve to be given. We give a fuck about the rude gas station attendant who gave us too many nickels. We give a fuck when a show we liked was canceled on TV. We give a fuck when our coworkers don’t bother asking us about our awesome weekend. We give a fuck when it’s raining and we were supposed to go jogging in the morning.
Fucks given everywhere. Strewn about like seeds in mother-fucking spring time. And for what purpose? For what reason? Convenience? Easy comforts? A pat on the fucking back maybe?
This is the problem, my friend.
Because when we give too many fucks, when we choose to give a fuck about everything, then we feel as though we are perpetually entitled to feel comfortable and happy at all times, that’s when life fucks us.
And life will fuck you over, and over, and over, that’s just the way life is. It is also beautiful, tragic, sacred, messy and glorious . Our big mistake is to think the world, that life, that God owe us something. That we are supposed to be, #happy, #blessed, #blissful and need to share this with all our Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Wordpress followers all the fucking time. Seriously?
Here’s the thing, the world, life, the universe, God and everything else you want to call it, do not owe you one single solitary fucking thing, got that? Does Not Owe You. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Pas du tout. Nichts. We are not here to be entertained, to be taken care of, to have all our superficial and egocentric whims catered to. Life does not owe us. Life does not owe us a certain lifestyle, a six pack, an adoring partner, lots of money, an easy go of it, and when we caught up in the Super Sucky Vortex of Entitlement and we think that somehow we deserve these things, that we deserve all the stuff, all the fucking junk that we have been told over and over that we should have, when we get stuck in that vortex of really giving a fuck about the stupid shit, that is when we are most miserable.
Okay, so my title may be slightly misleading. I do give a fuck about somethings, not about what you think of me, or my life, my family or any of that, I give a fuck about what’s truly fuckworthy. In my 20’s I gave the most sincere fucks about the stupidest things. I tried, I tried so damn hard to be what I thought people wanted me to be. It made me fucking miserable. As I aged, and occasionally matured, I found I didn’t have the energy to give a fuck about anything that wasn’t worth it. The clarity about what is important, what is worth giving a fuck about is what has liberated me. I am not apathetic, I am simply not will to waste my time and my fucks on anything unimportant.
Which is what exactly? We are here to give back, to be of fucking service to our fellow humans, to those who hold no power over us, to animals, to plants, to our mother, the fucking earth. What we need to do is to take care of each other. Is that so hard? Because it sure seems like it’s really fucking hard for people. And this is where I actually do give a fuck. I give a fuck about that homeless guy that you pretend you don’t see. I give a fuck about the recycling you just tossed in the street, about the dog you left in a hot car, about the plastic floating in the ocean, about being kind to the person who seems to least deserve it, about feeding people who are hungry.
I give a fuck about a lot of things, just not what you may or may not think of me. Hasta la vista.
A repurposed necklace, the charm is mine, the cord was part of a gift from someone I loved (the original charm, it went the way of the love – gone)
I can’t find the right words to describe this. This feeling that comes when I least expect it. The feeling, as Rilke would say, of pushing through solid rock.
It’s possible I am pushing through solid rock
in flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone;
I am such a long way in I see no way through,and no space: everything is close to my face,
and everything close to my face is stone.I don’t have much knowledge yet in grief
so this massive darkness makes me small.
You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in:
then your great transforming will happen to me,
and my great grief cry will happen to you.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated by Robert Bly)
“Our greatest glory is in rising every time we fall.” Rising. I’m working on that, because I fall a lot. I fall all the time. And I rise, I do, but it’s exhausting
There’s a hollowed out feeling when I think of you, there’s sadness and anger too, but mostly I’m hollow. I can usually distract myself, with sleep, with TV, with work, with art, with words, with movement, with anything handy. The thought of actually sitting still with myself still overwhelms me, so I move, or I sleep. When that doesn’t work, when you bubble up unbidden, on those days, I run the same circles in my head, the same tig
ht circles that loop back on themselves and spin faster and faster. I tell myself I’ve been an idiot once again for loving people who leave, for banging my head and my heart against your rock wall, constructed to keep people like me out. I sometimes think a different version of me might have been enough, could have make it through your emotionally unavailable barracks, but that’s not true. Occasionally I feel like throwing a rock, a brick, or smashing a plate, perhaps that would at least get your attention. I won’t, but the thought remains attractive, if only for the moments I pick it up and hold it, pass its weight back and forth between my hands.
You huddle in, becomingthe deathless younger selfwho will survive your dreamsand vanish in surviving.– Self and Dream Self excerpt, by Les Murray
Ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offeringThere is a crack in everythingThat is how the light gets in.– Leonard Cohen
“Into the pit” – aptly named
I don’t think you’ve ever allowed yourself to be opened, to let someone break your heart, your shell is too hard, too thick, too well formed to allow that to happen. Or maybe you did, once, and then swore never again, and that is why you remain frozen, hard, hidden and clinging to that past trauma that you will never release. You turn your focus on yourself, withdrawing into your shell if anyone gets too close, only pretending to connect, to engage, to care. If that doesn’t work you manipulate, gaslight, play controlling games, run tests, that will always set you up as the winner. You don’t know how to live openly, you don’t know what it is to fall, and to rise again, only to withdraw and hide. There is no glory for you, only more hiding, more controlling, more walls.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall– Confucius
The truth is my struggles, my demons, all come from, and aim directly at the very things I am most insecure of, mainly not being lovable, being abandoned, and when they strike up the band and start to play my thoughts and emotions get sucked into that spinning wheel where no good ideas ever emerge. Don’t believe everything you think, don’t believe everything you think especially when you are tired, hurt, raw, emotional and generally broken up inside. Those are the times when throwing the rock, or smashing the plate seems like the best idea ever. Those are the times where you, as Pema Chödrön says, have to lean into the sharp points, the pain, and the discomfort, even when, especially when, this makes it hurt even more.
Which means this won’t last forever. I will emerge. I might even grow a little. Maybe not today, today is pretty awful. Today I am pushing through solid rock. Maybe another day this won’t be so heavy. At some point you do free yourself, and take your power back – flaws and all. Someday.
All images by Allie Brosh from Hyperbole and a Half, because she gets me, ya know? http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com
So many things. So many feels. ALL of the feels. That would be my life right now.
Mood Swings: MORE moods, MORE often, ALL the moods in ONE day, ALL the moods in ONE moment, Ten moods for the price of One!, BUY ONE and get 3 Bazillion FREE moods, ‘Happy Roller coaster moods’, ‘Sad Roller coaster moods’, ‘Happy/Sad/Mad Roller coaster moods’, ‘Roller coaster without a seatbelt moods’, ‘Roller coaster without a seatbelt and a broken rail moods’, ‘Completely overworked roller coaster metaphor because you couldn’t come up with anything else, so just sod off will ya’ kind of mood.
Tears: Sad tears, Happy tears, Mad tears, ‘Happy/Sad/Mad at the same time’ tears WITH boogers, ‘Stupid love song comes on the radio’ tears, ‘Drive by that restaurant you had that date in’ tears, ‘Friends being nice to you’ tears, ‘Nobody will ever love me’ tears, ‘Rejection’ tears, ‘Why I am watching this stupid fecking movie’ tears, ‘somebody ate the last slice of pesto pizza’ tears, ‘why didn’t I buy the stupid waterproof mascara’ tears, ‘we were suppose to do that together’ tears, ‘we were suppose to ride the roller coasters together, dammit’ tears.
Communication: Stupid texts, ‘Happy/Sad/Mad’ texts, ‘completely overworked roller coaster mood metaphor’ texts, ‘Foot-In-Mouth’ texts and emails and words coming out of my mouth (around my toes), cell phone glitches, computer glitches, music glitches, ‘omg, ALL the fecking spreadsheets’ glitches.
Appearance: Hair: Lord. In all the wrong places, in “honey, you should really get that waxed’ places, in the ‘feck it, I’m just going going to grow the hair on my legs and wear long pants because no one will ever looks at my legs again’ places. And Very poorly behaved hair in the proper places. Skin: ‘buying ALL the kinds of cream in the Beauty aisle’ skin, skin doing all the wrong things on all the wrong places.
Indignities: People having ‘banal conversations below your waist whilst your (unwaxed) legs dangling in the stirrups’ indignities, ‘little cough now dear’ indignities, ‘this will only hurt for a moment dear’ indignities (also not true), ‘the whole fecking reason for all the indignities evaporating in one phone conversation about too much drama’ indignity.
Food: Doughnuts for breakfast, cereal for dinner, ice cream for dinner, pizza every damn meal because I just feel like it, okay?! Cake, because Cake. Chocolate, dark chocolate, dark chocolate truffles with fancy expensive tastes added stuffed in my mouth three at time, dark chocolate with pizza and ice cream by the fist full while watching television that makes me cry, chocolate on the fecking tissues because apparently I can’t stuff chocolate in my mouth and cry at the same time without making a mess and wasting chocolate.
Allie’s images are brilliant, she manages to convey a wide range of emotions with a few lines and still manages a sense of humour. I’m working on the sense of humour part.
this one’s mine, computer generated
So yeah. It’s been a ride. An overused roller coster metaphoric kind of ride. It will pass. Retrograde will end, I’ll figure out the menopause thing. All of this will pass.
After much prompting I read He’s Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt on my vacation last week. I know, I know, I’m WAY behind the curve on this one. I also watched the movie, but the book is MUCH better, just in case you were about to say, I’ve seen the movie I don’t need to read the book. Read the book.
Wow. Greg where have you been all my life? I feel like my eyes have been pried open, not in that Clockwork Orange kind of way, but then again, it wasn’t too far off of that. Let’s just say I’ve had to give up many (cough! almost ALL) of my preconceived ideas about men, how they think, and what behaviours actually mean, and while ultimately this is good, and often humourous, it was also kind of painful.
Why should you feel honored for getting scraps of his time? Just because he’s busy doesn’t make him more valuable. “Busy” does not mean “better.”
Mostly I’m going to quote the book for this blog, because Greg really gets right to the point.
100% of guys polled said “a fear of intimacy” has never stopped them from getting into a relationship. One guy even remarked, “Fear of intimacy is an urban myth.” Another guy said, “That’s just what we say to girls when we’re just not that into them.”
“And above all, if the guy you’re dating doesn’t seem to be completely into you, or you feel the need to start “figuring him out,” please consider the glorious thought that he might just not be that into you. And then free yourself to go find the one that is.”
― Liz Tuccillo“But what I can do is paint you a picture of what you’ll never see when you’re with a guy who’s really into you: You’ll never see you staring maniacally at your phone, willing it to ring. You’ll never see you ruining an evening with friends because you’re calling for your messages every fifteen seconds. You’ll never see you hating yourself for calling him when you know you shouldn’t have. What you will see is you being treated so well that no phone antics will be necessary. You’ll be too busy being adored.”
“Meeting someone you like and dating him is supposed to make you feel better, not worse.”
and this one especially
“Don’t spend your time on and give your heart to any guy who makes you wonder about anything related to his feelings for you”
Okay Greg, I think I get it.
So this. I’m
riding my own personal crazy train right now. One of my own making, from the full steam ahead steam engine that burns red hot, fiery coal 24/7, through car after car full of personal baggage of all shapes, sizes, weights and colours, to the caboose that can only look back and wonder what, the fuck, was I thinking?
Aside: I did quit that job, and I LOVE the job I have now, the rest, it’s a work in progress.
This quote, and a few dear friends are currently what is holding me together. Also, quite a bit of chocolate, and singing to very loud music in the car, off key, every single time I drive. I’m not kidding, tonight is was Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off. This guy does it better. Yesterday it was Eurythmics, Smiths, and R.E.M. all day.
I used to think that when I turned 20 two major things would happen. 1. I’d be given the ‘adult handbook’, and 2. my skin would clear up. You know the handbook that ALL the grown ups had. The one that gave you the answers to life. No more teenage and young adult angst for me, I would finally have the ansewers, and then BOOM, I would figure life out and become a happy, well adjusted financially secure adult. Apparently there is no such book. You can imagine my disappointment at having to figure things out for myself, and don’t even talk to me about my skin. Honestly, how does anybody figure anything out? I am a hot mess with passable hair on a good day, and on a bad, I shove it into a pony tail.
My ego took a hit last week. It was not pretty. I wasn’t so pretty, except for my hair, I had a good hair week, so it wasn’t all bad. I was just mostly bad. I may have got a little crazy, or as I like to say, super sized extra crispy crazy with side of hysterical hot sauce. Yep, I’m a grown up, and I still cannot figure this stuff out. My brain has this section I call the the hamster wheel section where all my crazy ideas spin faster and faster. I’m not allowed to go there without a friend.
how do they know?
Fortunately, I have great friends. I spent tonight drinking pop, diet pop even… from a Wonder Woman glass, eating chocolates and watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding with a friend, and then confessed all my crazy thoughts and actions and, she still loves me and sent me home with cupcakes and a fortune cookie that said “Be willing to admit you may be wrong, you’re only human”. That’s love for ya.
there we loved
and laid our heads,
there, exquisitely you touched
and there I was unwound,
your lover, and
now our hands unclasp
and now I bid you leave.
and in my hand, one acorn
that you will never see.
and sometimes
when I would be doing other things,
I write words inside my head.
I write words for you as I inhale,
words for you as I exhale.
I write because of your warm hand, the way it felt on my shoulder
I write so I do not close my eyes, and lean back into that comfort
I write so I can leave without reassurances.
I write the words so they brush lightly across the page, touching sightly; I write til I can lean into their comfort.
till the rasping of my pen on this page calms me
till the blank space is filled with words
and within words, I can relax.
you, as I inhale
you, as I exhale
and if
I write for long enough, I will not want to
lean back and rest against your body,
place my head by your neck, close my eyes and breathe.
instead
I lean into words, into the rasping of pen on paper, into the large letters curving across my page
here, in these words, I rest and close my eyes.
Emma and Toad 