Plenty of life happened while I neglected to post here. Lalita's husband moved out. I had issues with feelings I developed for someone I shouldn't have. I learned how dark and twisted I can become if I lose control of my emotions. I also learned, from painfully hard-earned experience, that communication is key in relationships. Like, I mean communication that dredges absolutely everything there is to know from the depths of yourself and your partner(s). So detailed and fully disclosed that the amount of information you learn about each other could make you puke.
It's all right--Lalita and I are still together and living in the same place. It's just that we've survived quite a few Category 7 storms this year, and many of them resulted from poor communication (as well as poor decisions) on my part. I thank her, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Cthulhu, and Joe Pesci every single day for how understanding and patient she has been with me thus far. She transcends the concept of saintliness. The English language hasn't yet come up with a word for how amazing she has been in this year and a half that I've been spilling the results of childhood trauma and decades' worth of suffering under Anglo-American, Christian, capitalist, Southern norms while trying to keep my shit together in Colorado. Seeing a psychologist has indeed helped, but I give Lalita much of the credit for the fact that we've stayed together through so much turbulence. And turbulence might be too sanitized a word for what we went through. Maybe I could try grueling.
Also, before I forget this and allow myself to appear as a victim--those norms and causes I listed serve to explain things, but aren't an excuse for my mistakes. And, as Lalita would argue, some of those things weren't really mistakes. She said last night that I'm way too hard on myself. And that is unfortunately very true. The challenge with this issue lies in ferreting out, accurately, what is and isn't my fault.
Nothing is perfekt
Certainly not me
Success to failure
Is just a matter of degrees
Working at perfekt
Got me down on my knees
Recently I raised the Titanic. I dug through the folder containing the .xml files my old Xanga website got compressed into after their servers went dark in 2013. Of course, I could double-click on them and read them in between html commands in a browser. But it just didn't feel the same. So I went back to what's left of Xanga and found that I could port it to a website that supported Wordpress-related sites. And, before long, I put the processes into the motion that lifted my old Xanga from its grave.
So here is the ship, raised from the depths, in all its reckless folly and arrogance:
blastfromthepast1977
So much for avoiding self-flagellation.
For a time, I considered picking up where I left off on my old Xanga. The last post dates back to 2012. I read a few entries from it to get a feel for that blog again. I used to be able to read it for an extended period of time before succumbing to revulsion at its cringiness. Now, I can't read very far past 2011. I shared this with Lalita and she said that I had just grown up. I will stick with this blog, because it makes sense for there to be a clean break between this blog and the old one.
One of the most formidable challenges to growing up at this point in my life is accepting the me who makes mistakes. And then, of course, the me who did so in the past. You'll probably remember the entry before the last one where I talked about gently taking the iteration of myself whose roots lie nearly thirteen years in the past off the wheel, but not killing him.
Sometimes I lapse into excoriating him. It's easy to blame and criticize someone you used to be, because that person can't exactly come back and deliver retribution or mount a defense. But the real problem is acceptance. Accepting that person's foolishness, errors, and bad choices led to who you are now. I distinctly remember an episode from Naruto Shippuuden where Naruto, in order to unlock the greatest powers of the kyuubi while still maintaining full control of himself, had to overcome his darker, wilder, more hateful, and childish part of himself. Instead of engaging in a bitter fight, he does this with love and forgiveness.
Lately, I've found this rather difficult. Growing up, I was raised by people who installed behavior-management mechanisms in me that could reproduce the effects of their punishment without their having to constantly stand over me and redirect me.
Speaking plainly--they made me into a person who beats himself up for nearly everything. Everything from spilling juice on the kitchen floor to forgetting a partner's boundaries in a relationship. I guess most people eventually get over things like those, but for me, they stick. Often years after the fact. And having parents who refused to let me forget or get over mistakes and bad choices made a long time ago didn't help either. I still learn from my mistakes, but I feel like it's a much more painful process than it should be.
How strange: I can forgive my students for talking loudly and not listening to me during class. I can let go of the fact that Lalita sometimes doesn't clean up after herself in the apartment. I can even, with time, realize that my love for my exes exceeds any lingering resentment I might hold towards them for whatever they did in our past relationships--
But I find it almost impossible to treat myself with the same kindness. When I mess up with Lalita or say something stupid to a coworker or other friend, I always expect swift retribution. I tell myself that I deserve whatever punishment comes my way, 100%. And most of the time, especially since moving here, I find that that's just not the case. And then I realize that I'm in a new part of my life, living in a new place, having new experiences. The one that stands out the most is receiving understanding from Lalita and others. I'm not saying that my parents ultimately weren't understanding people, but I do have to say that they weren't exactly very good at helping me see that my mistakes don't define me.
Because, for much of my life, they did. I was told again and again that I was like some other problem child they knew from the community of deaf people we interacted with. I was told that I would never get anywhere and that I was "no good." An asshole. "All you do is fuck us." At twelve years old. Even fifteen. And it continued past age twenty-one and the time I moved back in when my gambit living in Woodstock failed.
Wax me
Mold me
Heat the pins and stab them in
You have turned me into this
Just wish that it was bulletproof
Even though I had apologized in detail for everything that I had done before that point. And since I had done so, I made it clear that they could no longer treat me the same way unless it was absolutely justified because of something I had done. From those days forward, I committed to helping them around the house, interpreting for them, providing them with company and news from the world, explanations for concepts they needed help understanding, and so on. I even got to a point where I could forgive them for the mistakes they had made as parents. They did the best they could with what they knew and the time they could spare. My dad worked two jobs for most of my life, often coming home at around 11:00 PM or midnight. I often went days without seeing him. My mom had evil, horrible, authoritarian, fundamentalist Christian adoptive parents who used her as their house slave until she ran away at seventeen. She wasn't given any good examples as to how to raise children properly. Of course, this brings to mind a poem I've shared with you before--"This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin.
So, ultimately, I find myself in a place where I can forgive the people who shaped me in this form, but I have to try very hard to forgive myself. The operations of an outdated, malfunctioning program whose purpose has long since died. We are all left to sort through the detritus our parents create.
Lalita is falling in love with someone again for the first time in a while. My initial reaction was one of frustration. Where's my new partner? When do I get to feel NRE (new relationship energy) with a new person? When will it be my turn? And so on. It's like banging my toe on something hard and made of metal. I curse loudly in pain and then realize that nothing's broken. Then I realize I have been silly. I remind myself that she worked extremely hard to get where she has. All the good she enjoys now lay on the other side of a mountain of grinding misery last year. And now she's on that other side. Like I said to her the other night, I guess I've got a little more to go before I can have that too.
But I am with her. She isn't going anywhere. And it could be a hell of a lot worse.
Probably the most difficult challenge I've faced this year is changing my mindset from one of I have to find someone else to I appreciate the people around me and the life I have made.
I have to stop living in desperation mode. For most of my life, because of the influence of media and comparing myself to others, I allowed my mind to get locked into a way of thinking that made me panic trying to find someone to be with before I die. And any of you reading this who know me well enough--this is exactly the thing that caused me to rush headlong into some of the very worst relationships of my life. Because I could not stand to be alone.
I'm a moth
Who just wants to share your light
I'm just an insect
Trying to get out of the night
I only stick with you
Because there are no others
I would take whoever came my way, even if I didn't like them that much or saw red flags early on. This persisted all the way until somewhat recently.
I met a girl from the week-long professional development thing I had to do to get into my current job. She had Keats written on the back of her neck, wore glasses, liked anime--do you see where this is going? If you've been around long enough, you saw this coming ten miles away.
A couple of weeks later, we met at a video game bar and there we found out that the other person was poly. It totally threw me for a loop. It isn't every day when you go to an otherwise boring and uneventful professional development training thing and randomly meet another polyamorous person. So, yet again, I allowed myself to slip into that pattern of thought--better stick with her because, hell, when will you get this lucky again?
Which, of course, is baldly incorrect. There are such things as poly meetups and the new group of friends with whom Lalita and I have gotten involved. But resisting years and years of programming and wrong thinking is a lot harder. I know these things in my brain, but my heart vehemently disagrees, and out of fear, races ahead. So about a week later, she and I met at her house and things escalated far more quickly than I had anticipated, and like I always had, I went along. After that, though, I got the distinct sense that I had outworn my welcome in her presence.
After she had finished with me, I was no longer interesting to her. I haven't heard from her since. Yes, she did take advantage of me, but I put myself in such a position to where it came too easily for her. I fell into the same old trap once more. My feelings outran my logical processes.
When I think about it, now might not be a bad time to return to listening to Rush, because the struggle between the heart and mind is, I would argue, the most prevalent lyrical theme of their entire body of work. Some I can think of right off the top of my head:
1. "Lock and Key." Hold Your Fire.
Behind the finer feelings
The civilized veneer
The heart of a lonely hunter
Guards a dangerous frontier
The balance can sometimes fail
Strong emotions can tip the scale
2. "Emotion Detector." Power Windows.
Sometimes our big splashes
Are just ripples in the pool
Feelings run high
3. "Cygnus X-1 Book Two: Hemispheres." Hemispheres. (Skip to 7:27 for Part V: The Sphere)
We can walk our road together
If our goals are all the same
We can run alone and free
If we pursue a different aim
Let the truth of love be lighted
Let the love of truth shine clear
Sensibility
Armed with sense and liberty
With the heart and mind united
In a single, perfect sphere
So there's wisdom all around me--in the Rush lyrics close to my heart, the experiences I've had until this point, and, most importantly, in the people who care about me. Which would bring me to the title of this entry.
"Open Your Heart," from the anime .hack//SIGN by Yuki Kajiura was the song for last year for me. Any time I listen to it and its reprise version, I instantly relive the experience of pulling out of my parents' driveway for the last time and driving off the ramp away from Ringgold to Colorado. "Open Your Heart" means taking risks with the knowledge that you can and will lose something or someone who means a great deal to you. It means accepting change and the suffering that accompanies it. When I listen to it, I can also feel time speeding up and my perspective on it zooming out, so much as to induce vertigo. It's an emotional and heart-wrenching song that teeters on the knife-edge between overwhelming feeling and checking out. Knowing that you could slip to one side or the other and challenging yourself to stay in between them.
This year, it has only grown in significance to me. I have worked harder than ever to improve my emotional regulation in my relationship with Lalita and in tough situations I encounter in everyday life, like some of those that very nearly ruined the life I've only just started to make here. I have also tried harder to open myself up to the possibility and reality of moving into a mindset no longer fraught with desperation. A mindset that has overcome the arbitrarily pressing hunger to find yet another girlfriend when I clearly don't need to. I'm learning to look up from the ground and to stop shuffling around. That isn't my life anymore.
Open your heart
To eternal dimension
Open your heart
For love and affection
Open your heart
Your every emotion
Open your heart
To tears and rejection
Some people, like Jane and other deeply conservative people I know from where I used to live, can live happily within the tightly confining boundaries of the safe world in which they've been socialized to grow up. Those people are done. They've willingly relinquished their potential. They can go no further, and the disquieting madness that underpins it is that they're okay with it. They don't mind and, furthermore, they want it. Anything outside of that scares them far too much. So, of course, therein lies the most important factor that led to my departure from them in just about every imaginable way.
In just the year and a half that has passed since I moved here, I have left those people so far behind that I feel like I've become a different species. They would never understand me, let alone even try. And that's just fine with me.
I'm a moth
Who just wants to share your light
I'm just an insect
Trying to get out of the night
I only stick with you
Because there are no others
I would take whoever came my way, even if I didn't like them that much or saw red flags early on. This persisted all the way until somewhat recently.
I met a girl from the week-long professional development thing I had to do to get into my current job. She had Keats written on the back of her neck, wore glasses, liked anime--do you see where this is going? If you've been around long enough, you saw this coming ten miles away.
A couple of weeks later, we met at a video game bar and there we found out that the other person was poly. It totally threw me for a loop. It isn't every day when you go to an otherwise boring and uneventful professional development training thing and randomly meet another polyamorous person. So, yet again, I allowed myself to slip into that pattern of thought--better stick with her because, hell, when will you get this lucky again?
Which, of course, is baldly incorrect. There are such things as poly meetups and the new group of friends with whom Lalita and I have gotten involved. But resisting years and years of programming and wrong thinking is a lot harder. I know these things in my brain, but my heart vehemently disagrees, and out of fear, races ahead. So about a week later, she and I met at her house and things escalated far more quickly than I had anticipated, and like I always had, I went along. After that, though, I got the distinct sense that I had outworn my welcome in her presence.
After she had finished with me, I was no longer interesting to her. I haven't heard from her since. Yes, she did take advantage of me, but I put myself in such a position to where it came too easily for her. I fell into the same old trap once more. My feelings outran my logical processes.
When I think about it, now might not be a bad time to return to listening to Rush, because the struggle between the heart and mind is, I would argue, the most prevalent lyrical theme of their entire body of work. Some I can think of right off the top of my head:
1. "Lock and Key." Hold Your Fire.
Behind the finer feelings
The civilized veneer
The heart of a lonely hunter
Guards a dangerous frontier
The balance can sometimes fail
Strong emotions can tip the scale
2. "Emotion Detector." Power Windows.
Sometimes our big splashes
Are just ripples in the pool
Feelings run high
3. "Cygnus X-1 Book Two: Hemispheres." Hemispheres. (Skip to 7:27 for Part V: The Sphere)
We can walk our road together
If our goals are all the same
We can run alone and free
If we pursue a different aim
Let the truth of love be lighted
Let the love of truth shine clear
Sensibility
Armed with sense and liberty
With the heart and mind united
In a single, perfect sphere
So there's wisdom all around me--in the Rush lyrics close to my heart, the experiences I've had until this point, and, most importantly, in the people who care about me. Which would bring me to the title of this entry.
"Open Your Heart," from the anime .hack//SIGN by Yuki Kajiura was the song for last year for me. Any time I listen to it and its reprise version, I instantly relive the experience of pulling out of my parents' driveway for the last time and driving off the ramp away from Ringgold to Colorado. "Open Your Heart" means taking risks with the knowledge that you can and will lose something or someone who means a great deal to you. It means accepting change and the suffering that accompanies it. When I listen to it, I can also feel time speeding up and my perspective on it zooming out, so much as to induce vertigo. It's an emotional and heart-wrenching song that teeters on the knife-edge between overwhelming feeling and checking out. Knowing that you could slip to one side or the other and challenging yourself to stay in between them.
This year, it has only grown in significance to me. I have worked harder than ever to improve my emotional regulation in my relationship with Lalita and in tough situations I encounter in everyday life, like some of those that very nearly ruined the life I've only just started to make here. I have also tried harder to open myself up to the possibility and reality of moving into a mindset no longer fraught with desperation. A mindset that has overcome the arbitrarily pressing hunger to find yet another girlfriend when I clearly don't need to. I'm learning to look up from the ground and to stop shuffling around. That isn't my life anymore.
Open your heart
To eternal dimension
Open your heart
For love and affection
Open your heart
Your every emotion
Open your heart
To tears and rejection
Some people, like Jane and other deeply conservative people I know from where I used to live, can live happily within the tightly confining boundaries of the safe world in which they've been socialized to grow up. Those people are done. They've willingly relinquished their potential. They can go no further, and the disquieting madness that underpins it is that they're okay with it. They don't mind and, furthermore, they want it. Anything outside of that scares them far too much. So, of course, therein lies the most important factor that led to my departure from them in just about every imaginable way.
In just the year and a half that has passed since I moved here, I have left those people so far behind that I feel like I've become a different species. They would never understand me, let alone even try. And that's just fine with me.
