Posts tagged with "emotion"

hello? is this thing on?

The world still turns, even when it’s in lock­down, and there’s been much to say.

If only writ­ing came as eas­i­ly as it used to. The bulk of my entries have been a com­pul­sion, a way to sort out thoughts and feel­ings when I had no one to talk to.

Then I start­ed dat­ing Heather — my first time cohab­i­tat­ing with a roman­tic part­ner — and sud­den­ly had an out­let that was both acces­si­ble and val­i­dat­ing1. It became eas­i­er to turn to her than find the words for a screen that nev­er spoke back.

My time in ther­a­py has also giv­en me bet­ter emo­tion­al mod­er­a­tion; a skill to deal with the dis­tress that comes from depres­sion and trau­ma. Instead of spi­ral­ing into pan­ic or rage, I’ve learned to embrace dif­fi­cult feel­ings and let them pass through me. Scary thoughts and painful mem­o­ries don’t con­trol me the way they used to. A healthy trade for the loss of inspi­ra­tion.

In that sense, I hold an evolv­ing style and sub­ject mat­ter to be pos­i­tive devel­op­ments. After all, I began this blog almost 20 years ago. If I was fill­ing the space with the same things as I was back then it would be an embar­rass­ing sign I had­n’t grown at all. I imag­ine I’ll always have more things to say as long as I con­tin­ue learn­ing, even if the impe­tus is lack­ing.

It makes me won­der why oth­ers stopped blog­ging (or why they start­ed in the first place). Checking my RSS feed is still a habit, but nowa­days I’m left invari­ably dis­ap­point­ed and feel­ing more dis­con­nect­ed than ever. Social media has become too shal­low for my tastes. Medium too imper­son­al. YouTube too obnox­ious and osten­ta­tious and increas­ing­ly com­mer­cial, with Twitch being even worse on all those counts.

And yet there’s relief to be found in the fact that no one knows I’m writ­ing any­more2. This space is no longer sacred when I feel oblig­ed to or inhib­it­ed by an audi­ence. Self-imposed exile became an impor­tant step towards reclaim­ing the sense of con­trol I’d lost. My sto­ry isn’t fin­ished, and per­haps enough time away has giv­en me the dis­tance I need to be com­fort­able shar­ing myself again.

  1. The fact that she’s usu­al­ly on the same intel­lec­tu­al lev­el (or high­er) is also an impor­tant fac­tor. []
  2. With a few notable excep­tions, I’m sure. []

keeping the rage tender

Fall has fall­en, and I was ready. I was wait­ing. I was trapped for months on end, when my body would­n’t coop­er­ate or anx­i­ety got the bet­ter of me. Even hear­ing Townes Van Zandt sing to me about snow in Raton was enough to make me miss win­ter again. I’d live vic­ar­i­ous­ly in any form of visu­al media I could find, just to remem­ber what it was like to feel the tin­gle of sun on my skin.

Now I can go out, but on my own terms and for the sake of it, not just ther­a­py or a doc­tor’s appoint­ment. It’s giv­en Heather and I a chance to date — to dress up for each oth­er, to trade secret glances about peo­ple who might be the oth­er’s type, to hold hands and show each oth­er off — instead of all the cop­ing we were left doing after falling into the rela­tion­ship so sud­den­ly.

portrait of Heather and Jeff

Rachel Weisz has noth­ing on dem brows.

Ever since she began her career, I found it dif­fi­cult to deal with how lit­tle we saw each oth­er. It felt like we were bare­ly con­nect­ing or hav­ing mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ences when we had such lim­it­ed time. Now that she has a bet­ter shift and a car­pool, we have an extra hour and a half togeth­er on week­days. Combined with Jesse com­mit­ting to hang­outs twice a month to play games or jam, it’s made a huge dif­fer­ence in the way I approach my goals and plan my time.

They’re small steps, but after so much regres­sion, I tend to be hap­py with any move­ment in the right direc­tion. Still, I won­der if I’ll ever find a bal­ance that won’t leave me fran­tic, one that’s con­ducive to get­ting my intro­vert needs met while let­ting me feel secure in my rela­tion­ships.

Continue read­ing “keep­ing the rage ten­der”…

backstory

It’s tak­en me a gen­er­ous dis­tance, as well as a healthy break from the pain, to real­ize I don’t under­stand what my mom thought of me. In my ear­li­est years, I believed she loved me, cause none of her demands were unrea­son­able. After all, chil­dren are often help­less and don’t even know what’s best for them­selves. Then I grew up, and devel­oped an iden­ti­ty of my own. That meant I had dis­tinc­tive needs sep­a­rate from hers, and she would deny every one of them unless they were in line with what she want­ed. It was impos­si­ble for me to believe there was any love at all when she was the cause of so much of my pain. I’ve since come to real­ize that rela­tion­ships are full of nuances, and that it’s pos­si­ble to love some­one whole­heart­ed­ly and be ter­ri­ble for them at the same time.

Continue read­ing “back­sto­ry”…

sailing through the changing ocean tides

It’s in these sto­ries, these moments, these con­nec­tions, these words, these images, these har­monies, these delight­ful chilly breezes that fore­tell the com­ing of win­ter where I find a part myself lost for so long.

child sucking her thumb

A gen­er­al sense of numb­ness filled my life, but I’m start­ing to feel again, some­thing I’ve been need­ing for a while now. It was as if I’d lost a sense of pur­pose, and I could­n’t fig­ure out how to fix that cause I could­n’t tell what was wrong.

Maybe the fact that I start­ed taper­ing off my dose of Cipralex (a few months ahead of sched­ule) is adding to the effect. It’s hard to tell with every­thing all mixed up, and so much hap­pen­ing at once.

I can’t imag­ine what things will be like in a few weeks, let alone a year. There’s nev­er been so much uncer­tain­ty in my life, but that does­n’t scare me any­more. There’s always a way out. Ironic that I had to lose every­thing to learn that.

coming up for air

I did­n’t know I need­ed a week­end like this to feel again. To dance in those lit­tle moments between brush­ing your teeth and get­ting into bed. To pass on the right and speed away to a cho­rus that grows loud­er with every shad­ow cast by every street lamp.

I can’t say it’s been due to any one thing. There’s just so much that seems to be hap­pen­ing late­ly. The days pass faster than ever, and I’m left won­der­ing where life will take me next, cause I’m always sur­prised by every new friend and unex­pect­ed expe­ri­ence.

Wild Boar pizza at Tennessy Willems

Wild boar piz­za at Tennessy Willems, one of the few wood-burn­ing pizze­rias in Ottawa. A com­bi­na­tion of boar sausage, caramelized apple, sage, roast­ed gar­lic, and sharp ched­dar. The sweet­ness of the apple and the savoury char­ac­ter of the sausage make for an inter­est­ing mélange, but the use of ched­dar is what real­ly gives this piz­za a unique taste.

When I’m drown­ing in emo­tion, it feels like I’m per­pet­u­al­ly com­ing out of the water, emp­ty­ing my stale lungs before tak­ing in as much air as I can again.

This is when every breath is beau­ti­ful. A rush of life com­ing at me.