[Miscellany]

I have this mantra that gets me through the tougher times of my day.  All times are tough, actually, but there are some moments where I am physically crippled with emotional pain so bad I can barely breathe.  Not everyone has the pleasure of knowing what that is like but if you do... I'm so unbelievably sorry.  I don't wish it upon anybody.   Anyway the mantra goes; ears, head, eyes, heart.  I touch those parts of my body while I recite it and I do that until I can breathe normally or until the noise in my head eases and I can function again.   It's a reminder of the things I do have in spite of having very little by way of worth when it comes to anyone else.

Ears; because all the beauty I have in the world comes from music.  I am humbled by my ability to hear.  I am grateful for that, which I think of as a gift  If I had to pick one thing - that would be the thing.  Hearing music is my thing.  It's the best thing I have.  It's a friend.  It's a companion.  It's everything.  It's often the absolute only thing.  I don't even have the words that could begin to express how amazing it is for me to hear music.  If music is just a casual acquaintance for you then you won't get this - you have other good things.  For me, music is the good thing.

Head; because of my ability to imagine the best world.  I have no doubt there are many people that can do what I do with a seed and turn it into a complete world inside my head but I'm exceptionally good at it.  I've met a few people who have to do that.  It's something that broken people have to do in order to survive. Sometimes you have to create your own world in order to survive the real world.  It's always a bit of a disappointment when you realise it's not real but I have lived so many almosts inside my imagination. It's awesome what I can create in there. I'm happy I can do that.  I don't even know what I would do without that ability.

Eyes; because I see truth.  I'm good at realising truths. And yes they hurt like hell.  My truths are messy, horrible, terrible truths but they are real.  Not that I necessarily always want to embrace real, but it's necessary for me not to kid myself.  There are no safety nets where I reside and so it's best to know exactly what the truth is at all times.  I see truths and that's important.  But also I recite eyes because I see beauty in things that are overlooked by other people.  This doesn't mean that others are kinder or nicer or afford me opportunities that I wouldn't otherwise have but seeing beauty in chaos is something I do because I think inherently I'm a pretty okay person.  I look beyond measures of beauty or talent.  I see something within.  I take the time to wonder about others.  I take the time to awe about the world.  I see lots of beauty around me.  It makes me a good person to have at your back.   It doesn't mean that others go out of their way to see beauty in me or the things I do but I do see those things.  It's not enough but it's a good thing to be.

Heart; because I have one.  Because I love.  I love with my whole heart.  I do that.  I do that to my detriment but despite the ongoing pain it brings it's better that being cold hearted.  Loving with your heart does not bring you love, though.  This I know to be a truth. But it's still an amazing thing to do.  Everyone deserves lovely things thought about them and everyone deserves love. If you are in my life, I've thought lovely things about you.  I think it makes a difference.  I really do.  I can feel my heart.  It reminds me I'm human.  This year I've discovered that there are people that can turn their heart off and be completely cold. I'm not one of those people.  I don't even want to be.  I want to be someone who loves.  It's something I can give and it's humane of me.  It kills me but it's what we are here to do, us humans.

Ears, Head, Eyes, Heart.
That's my mantra.
It doesn't bring me good things, but it reminds me that I can create my own little spark of something good in the chaos.

posted by M at 10:28 pm 6 comments

I'm doing it tough.  I'm doing it more than tough.  I'm barely breathing on the inside - though I keep taking those pesky breaths of real oxygen on the outside.  I don't see this as an achievement or an accomplishment. I see it as a cowardly act, to keep breathing in and out.  Cowardly, because it's easy.  I mean, of COURSE it's not easy at all. It's excruciating.  I mean that physically too.  Some days it physically hurts to keep breathing in and out.  I don't know why I keep doing it.  I am a useless apparatus.  A defective robot left on the conveyor belt.  The accidental and excess dot that people unknowingly add to the end of an ellipsis.  But easy, because it means changing nothing. How does one stop breathing anyway?  Do you just hold your breath?  I don't even know.  Easier not to think and just keep doing it.

I have an insurance policy.  49 of them. I counted.  It's there, just in case.  I think about it a lot.  I think about the trapdoor in the sun.  I think about how if things could be better they would be.  They just would be.  Even the changes I make and those have been significant haven't brought dividends at all.  I wonder how is it that I even got here.  Alice followed the rabbit but I don't remember following anything at all.  I just got here - this realisation, this excruciating, horrible, terrible space where everything about me is completely wrong.  It's not a new space.  It's the realisation of what was always there.

This is it.  Deal with it.  This is the best it will ever be.  You can only depend on yourself.  You are useless.  If you were something, you'd be it. You are nothing.

And I am. I know.

This is the playlist on repeat in my brain.  It's the playlist that even on shuffle makes complete sense.  It's proven and researched and even experts agree.  It's just true.

Of course on the outside. I get up. I smile.  I go to work. I crack jokes.  I cope, amazingly.  Horribly, with a sledgehammer to my heart and head and body every time I take a step but I'm sure it doesn't matter.  I cope, even when I say I don't.  I am ignored even when I tell my colleagues that I am not coping.

But I have an insurance policy.  49 of them.

posted by M at 11:09 pm 5 comments