I went to get a haircut. It was the middle of the day, and the warmth of the sun felt so unexpected against the winter I was living in. I guess I hadn’t been out of the house in a while. It was mild enough to drive with the windows down, and The Alchemy Index (Air/Earth) was on but I felt nothing. The coming of spring has always lightened my mood, but warmth wasn’t enough to reach inside me.

This numbness haunts me. It’s like my emotions have died, and I can’t tell if I like it or not. You know in Fight Club when the narrator says, “After fighting, everything else in your life got the volume turned down.”? This inner struggle has definitely put my life on mute. Sometimes I wonder if I’d jump out of the way if a car came barreling towards me, whether my reflexes for self-preservation are still working.

People have been supportive in very creative ways. Passing on music, notes, recommendations, personal experiences, and other acknowledgments of the pain. They walk around me as if on eggshells, unsure of what to do. I’d tell them if I knew myself. I feel guilty and undeserving of the attention, but touched at the same time.

I’ve been staying away from everyone because it’s getting harder to keep up the façade. I’m too tired to pretend like everything is fine. I don’t talk to anyone but John, who acts as if nothing happened because the whole situation makes him uncomfortable. I’m not working from home anymore, so I hide in my office at work. I wear the same clothes every day and no one seems to notice. I can’t remember the last time I shaved but I think it was over a week ago.

The hardest part is trying to accomplish things when I’m so uninspired. My calendar has filled out to the middle of April — projects I took on and plans I made when I needed a distraction — but now all I want is a nice chunk of free time for some hedonism.

I feel fragile and stable all at once. It’s not like I’m in a crisis, but nothing’s been resolved either.

For about three days last week I couldn’t stop writing. Now I don’t know what to say anymore.

While I’ve always been very appreciative of what we did have, sometimes I wonder about what we never had the chance to do.

Sure, I bared my soul. I surrendered. I gave her the songs I don’t share with just anyone. I told her how profoundly important, wonderful, and remarkable she was to me. I let her in like no one else before.

But there were parts of myself I never gave up.

It wasn’t because we hadn’t reached that level of trust. It was a way for me to protect myself. To feel as though she didn’t have all of me, so I wouldn’t be left as open and vulnerable when the end finally came.

I regret it now. Not because I think it would have changed anything¹, but because I wonder what it would have been like for someone to know me completely. To feel vulnerable and safe, all at once. Even knowing I’d be heartbroken eventually, it would have been worth it to share what I’ve always saved.

I’ve been keeping all my girlfriends at arms length to protect myself. I can’t go through life holding things back anymore, constantly worried someone’s going to hurt me. That’s always a risk, no matter how stable a relationship is.

I have to put myself out there. I have to make the first step, even if it means feeling uncomfortable, because the more you share, the more comfortable you become, the more you share, and so on.

I can only go forward now, as a wiser person, a stronger soul, a better lover.

I suppose I’m feeling nostalgic, or missing her, as is my wont when the seasons change.

1. Cause it wouldn’t have. [↑]

Modest Mouse used to be the best kept indie rock secret. Then they let Gravity Rides Everything be used in a Nissan commercial. Then they did Saturday Night Live. Then they did The O.C. (Really, Modest Mouse? REALLY?). Then they appeared on Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour, and now I wonder if they were just sellouts doing it for the money to begin with.

But before all that happened, or perhaps as it happened, they came out with Float On.

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This was the song of 2004. It defined the year for me. I was picking myself up off the floor after a torrid relationship, and settling down alone, finding my own little bit of peace.

That was six years ago, and I’m back there again. I had an odd moment of serenity as I left the staircase to the Tai Chi studio tonight, and walked into the frigid, calm air. Sort of like I had no hope, but that didn’t matter because I didn’t need hope; I had my hands, my senses, my wits, and my camera, and that was good enough.

I’m sure the fact that I’ve starting working from home four days out of the week has something to do with it. I can work on projects with my music loud, and my pjs on. I don’t get interrupted, so my productivity is great.

Okay, so I’ve been avoiding any movies or TV shows with dating or romance. I’m sticking strictly to Babylon 5 and The Sopranos. It’s been working, because I’ve been feeling better about myself and my current situation. Thinking: “Maybe I’m a nice secret right now”.

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(This first. Listen to the clarity of the lower octave notes that Regina adds in waves and waves at the end of the chorus; you can tell it’s a quality grand piano just from how those notes resonate — an upright would sound much muddier at the low end. This is the song that plays on day (408) and it’s fucking perfect. Also, title from the lyrics.¹)

It would appear that someone made a movie of my last relationship, and (500) Days of Summer is to #8 as Eternal Sunshine was to #4. The interesting part is that it was released early last year, during the relationship, and I wonder if it would have changed anything on my end, had I seen it then. And if she saw it now, would she understand things from my perspective? Or does she understand already? And if other people saw it, would they understand how one could unwittingly get their hopes up when things are so clear from the beginning?

I’m so glad Marc Webb, the director, treated the material with such grace. You can tell it was based on experience because the tender moments come from a real place (co-writer Scott Neustadter admitted Summer was based on a girl who “returned his kisses but not his ardor”). In an interview, Joseph Gordon-Levitt said, “I’ve had my heart broken before. Truly, truly broken. But when I look back at me in my heartbroken phase, it’s pretty hilarious, because it felt so much more extreme than it really was. One of the things I love about (500) Days of Summer is that it doesn’t make light of what we go through in romances [emphasis mine], but it is honest about it and shows it for what it is, which is often profoundly funny”, and I completely agree. I also appreciate the fact that they don’t villainize Summer because she never takes advantage of Tom², and at the same time, it doesn’t make the agonizing days he goes through any less significant or difficult. In a profound way, it brings justification to everything I was (or am) going through. I suppose I’m just waiting for the punchline.

Hah.

Watching it has left me feeling emotionally devastated lately, almost as if I’ve regressed, and lost months of progress. John says it’s because seeing it was like seeing her again, reliving the entire thing from day one, from when we had met in the office. Like a recovering alcoholic falling off the wagon and taking his first sip in 5 years. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the message, and as well as the recommendation to watch the movie from Darren.

Even though I’ve tried to completely forget and move on, I’ve come to learn it’s not that easy. It’s almost as if you have to accept the all the memories, both good and bad, as much as you accept your own qualities and flaws.

The days, months, years you spend with someone significant will inevitably change and shape you. To deny them is to deny yourself.

I found it fascinating to trace the plot developments to parts of my own story. The entries I’ve written over the last two years echo the sentiments so strikingly in dialogue, songs, and voice-overs.

This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen, of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he met “the one”.

From my entry The Penultimate Letter — “My whole life, I looked for someone like you. Someone who was capable of raising me to my potential, someone who was worthy of the love I have to offer. But even then, I never knew I was capable of a love that resonated so deeply in my person.”

Continue reading

1. Or is it? [↑]
2. Ironically, the gender roles are reversed, and it’s Tom’s date who’s the voice of reason here. [↑]

It’s been a particularly trying week. I’ve been feeling so jaded. Broken. Helpless. Undefined.

Both the cause and the consequence is that I’ve been sleeping terribly lately. Next week I’m going to try to have a more self-control and stay on a strict schedule. Bring some order into my life.

I tried to make an appointment with my therapist, since I have $300 mental health coverage with my work per calendar year (although this only amounts to two sessions). Unfortunately, I need a referral from my family doctor to claim the coverage, because referrals are only good for one year, and it’s been that long since I saw him.

I think of how judgmental my dad was when I told him I was seeing a psychologist. But then I realize that he’s probably the only person I feel like I can really talk to right now (my therapist, not my dad). I wish I could talk to my friends, but my thoughts are either too embarrassing to admit to them, or too complicated for them to understand.

I’ve been listening to some quiet, sombre stuff lately. Trying to acquire a taste for Leonard Cohen’s middle years, when he traded in his guitar for horns and violins, even some Depeche Mode. Depeche Fucking Mode. It hasn’t been helping.

I just don’t know what to do with myself lately. But I’m pretty sure I really need to cry right now.

It hasn’t stopped raining since I woke up this morning, and now it’s dark, with only the streetlamps and their reflections in the puddles for light. It’s cold outside.

This is a good thing.

I feel like the eponymous character in Onegin. Sitting on the balcony in the dead of winter, waiting for a letter. His servant, handing him a stemmed glass of vodka, asks him to come inside because it’s cold. “I like the cold” he replies, as he resigns himself to his fate.

He walks down the streets of Saint Petersburg, and his motif comes in on the piano, followed by strings. FADE TO BLACK.

A stoic face to the world. Can I say stoic? I like stoic.

These titles are getting harder and harder to write.

And I want to say that I’m melancholy, but I’m not. But I’m not giddy either. My emotions aren’t black and white. They’re a mixture of ups and down. I don’t know what to say when I don’t know what I’m feeling or what comes next.

I’m just waiting. Passive. Yielding.

I had been writing non-stop for weeks. I’m not sure if it was restlessness, or if I had too much to get off my chest, or what. Sometimes I wrote two or three entries at the same time, because my mind went off in so many different directions. It’s always been a habit to over-analyze things.

Then at some point, the world stopped making sense. My mind went blank, leaving me with nothing to say. It’s like my brain had given up on trying to figure it all out. I guess it’s better than thinking too much.

I feel so distant from everything now. A strange numbness, unlike anything I’ve felt before. The things that used to matter don’t seem important anymore. Or maybe I just stopped caring.

Every now and then, I get a surge of emotion, and I’m unsure of whether I should fight it or embrace it.

I’ve had the strangest day. Or week. Or month. Or something.

Not strange in an odd of way, but strange in a confusing way.

It’s like I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel. Maybe it’s the uncertainty of my life right now that’s doing it. The instability that makes me want to go home and hide in the comfort of my chaise, behind the warm glare of my Macbook Pro.

All day, I think of being at home and finishing my projects. Then I get home and procrastinate — not watching TV, or movies, or reading, or cleaning, but literally sitting around — because all I think about is talking to John.

It’s only after I’m off the phone with him that I feel like I can begin my evening and be productive. I can talk without thinking, without worrying that he may judge me, without feeling like I’m being patronized, without caring whether I’m repeating myself, without fear of offending him, without even having to make sense. Like a small session of therapy, where I need to figure things out for myself, but which can only be done after I’ve put it all out there to someone else. It helps me more than I can understand or explain. Unfortunately, he generally remains unavailable until later in the night, and by the time we’re done, it’s already passed the time I should be in bed.

Even this was only written after he called me on his way home from initiating new pledges at his old fraternity. And it’s already an hour later than when I planned to be asleep.

And when Death From Above¹ came on, all I wanted to do was dance.

1. Back when Iain and I first saw them in concert opening for Billy Talent, they didn’t have the gratuitous “1979″ suffix, as it was before the legal dispute. I refuse to acknowledge them as anything else. [↑]

Which is why we can never truly prepare ourselves. We may see it coming, we may understand why, but that never makes it any easier.

Every day is a chance to heal.

Lights down, sound up, for this one. Maybe some tea and a pastry if it’s not too late.

Stripped down, the beat alternates between triplet-three-one-two-three-one-two and one-two-three-one-two-three-one-two, fooling the listener into thinking it’s in some sort of complex time-signature. It’s actually based in common time, but with the triplets in there and the down-beat (marked by the open snare) falling on four and then three of the next bar, the song takes on a syncopated rhythm. This isn’t what makes the song good, though. It’s all Karen O and her voice.

I’ve been so moody lately. Up and down. Developments and denouements. Most likely a result of my overthinking and overplanning over everything. Still trying to take things one day at a time, without rushing head first, without falling head over heels.

I’ve begun seeing my psychologist on a session-by-session basis (instead of on a schedule — an indication of progress). In between, my Tai Chi classes have become my therapy. There’s something about class that centres me; the camaraderie, the movements, the breathing, the contact, the feeling that I’m improving a part of myself, bit by bit, even if it’s subconsciously. A time where I can totally focus, a place where I can forget everything else.

Afterwards, it’s a drive home in the dark with the windows down, and the rustling of wind in my hair.

The serenity carries forward. I’m recharged again. Then I’m strong enough to be myself. I’m strong enough to accept these feelings.

They don’t love you like I love you.

John figured out that I don’t forgive people because my memory is too good.

And it’s true. Not only do I remember experiences, but emotions. It’s like I can relive every moment I’ve been hurt down to the smallest detail¹. The pain remains strong and salient, years after the incidents have passed.

While time may heal wounds for most, it doesn’t for me. I’m generally fine with this, since I believe that it should be actions and apologies that breed forgiveness, not time.

It’s only hard when I want to forgive someone, but I can’t.

1. This works with the other extreme too; for me, being happy is just as vivid. [↑]

I’m exhausted today. I try not to acknowledge it, but my body keeps reminding me.

How is it doing this?

I just peeled a banana, and with the peel in my hand I threw the banana in the garbage.

My dad did the same thing once with an orange. “The old man’s going senile”, I thought to myself.

Hopefully, it’s not due to some degenerative brain disease, but the 12-hours I put in at work until midnight yesterday.

My new schedule involves going to therapy after work on Mondays. Today, I also have to go to my framer to sign my photos and mats afterwards. I was going to pick up a drop cloth and background stand at the photography store in between, but I think I’ll skip that.

We’re in the middle of a server swap at work, so I expect client computers to be bursting into flames today. I’m also organizing a pot luck for the company at the end of the week.

My mind feels like it’s going in eight different directions at once.

But as long as I feel, I know I’m alright.

biting keeps your words at bay
tending to the sores that stay
happiness is just a gash away
when i open a familiar scar
pain goes shooting like a star
comfort hasn’t failed to follow so far

and you might say it’s self-indulgent
and you might say it’s self-destructive
but, you see, it’s more productive
than if i were to be happy

—The Dresden Dolls, Bad Habit

I was jittery and nervous all day.

Several new developments have left me with a lack of resolution. People to meet, presents to give, pictures to take, responsibilities to fulfill. And as much as I try not to think about it, it’s in my nature to do so.

I still haven’t gotten passed this feeling. Still don’t know if I want to. Still don’t even know what it is. All I know is that it’s making me manic.

I can only write this at night. When I’m falling asleep and off my guard, sitting on my chaise, with the curtains drawn and the window open to the winter air.

Now I feel like writing, but I don’t even know what to say. Everything’s too jumbled for me to decide whether I’m happy or sad. Maybe it’s both, maybe it’s one because of the other. Life, at the moment, is so bittersweet.

Wonderfully bittersweet, that’s what it is.

Maybe it was the exhaustion making me hyperactive and all WOOOOOOOOOOO this morning. Maybe it was the weather on my side, trying to bury the city in 40cm of snow, telling me to forget everything else. On seeing myself in the mirror, I started to have one of those Strung Out, Matchbook moments while shaving. You know, the part that goes

I just comb my hair and wash my face
Keep straight ahead and keep my pace
Just think about nothing and my life’ll be alright
Well I got my friends, I got my pen
I got a million distractions to keep me warm
And all I know is that I’ll be alright, that I’ll be alright

And while it’s getting so busy that I can’t keep track of everything, it’s also nice to be distracted. I can keep these thoughts in the back of my head, and bring them out when I need them. Almost like I’m in total control of it all, while it continually verges on the peak of instability.

Maybe it’s the instability I thrive on, a way of feeling like my life isn’t stagnant. That way, I’m not in a rut, devoid of inspiration.

So yeah. I think it’s making me hyper.

This is one of the strangest times of my life. I remember feeling something similar to this over four years ago, but I haven’t had it since.

I’m fighting my old self again. Fighting against these feelings and past habits.

I wish I could define and explain it. Vincent Gallo has a song he titled “Glad To Be Unhappy”, filled his distinctly minimalistic piano and acoustic guitar sounds, so sparse you don’t know where the downbeat falls. But there are no lyrics, and I think I’m starting to understand why.

Everything is so simple when you’re set in your heart. But when you’re filled with such paradoxical, contradictory feelings, nothing makes any sense. The world is turned upside down.

I think a part of me wants to think about it. I want to keep this feeling, where every song sounds as good as the first time you heard it, and the leaden sky is urging you forward with every step you take. To be so inspired.

And while part of me knows that to fight against ones inner nature is foolish², another part of me knows how destructive it can be.

1. The original title of that post was actually just a 5×5 pixel square, meant to confuse the reader into not knowing what to think. Trolley tried to correct me once and told me the title was broken, and I had to let him know it was done on purpose. With my new headline images plugin, the graphic title doesn’t quite work so I had to change it. [↑]
2. To add another level to this, I’m fighting against fighting myself [↑]