Posts tagged with "solitude"

The premature exit

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

I bare­ly stayed for two hours. It was­n’t the game (though it did prove to be as frus­trat­ing­ly ran­dom as I remem­ber it) or the peo­ple (who were quite nice and refresh­ing­ly intel­li­gent). When I told Jess, she said, “But it’s so ear­ly.” I just shrugged my shoul­ders. As an intro­vert, she under­stood.

Onegin: premature exit

 

Sometimes I won­der if I come off as an extreme­ly anti-social per­son. I tend to be the first one to leave par­ties, and some­times so ear­ly that the host will ask me if every­thing is alright. When it comes to being around peo­ple, I’m def­i­nite­ly a high-main­te­nance per­son. I’m much hap­pi­er in one-on-one sit­u­a­tions, and even more often I pre­fer being alone.

As much as I’ve grown and changed, I’ve always need­ed the world in small dos­es.

Hello Neighbour

Nighttime condo

The blinds are open so I can see out­side.

Secretly, I hope a face from one of the win­dows will appear and look out­side, some­one who’s think­ing the same thing, so that I may not be so alone. A way of com­fort­ing myself, when I’m by myself in this veneer of a house.

I’m not sure if it’s work­ing.

Drive To Nowhere

I put on my most com­fort­able hood­ie, grab a cam­era and a tri­pod. Pass by the mir­ror and see my eyes are swollen. A base­ball cap’ll hide my face.

I put on The Alchemy Index. First is Fire. An anthem of rage, and burn­ing, and fury in the night.

I had Firebreather by Thrice play­ing here.

The flames will rise and devour me.
Oh, to breathe in fire, and know I’m free.

Honda Civic Coupe at night

I find a qui­et, wind­ing road, alter­nat­ing between 60 and 30 max. About eight kilo­me­tres down, there’s a small fer­ry load­ing dock, with a place to park on the side of the road. I get out and take a pic­ture of the car. Other cars keep pass­ing by, their head­lights leav­ing streaks across my cam­era sen­sor.

The road slopes upwards around a bend, and I dri­ve off again to find out where it goes.

Quebec at night

There’s a look­out point on a cliff, sur­round­ed by a rail. Across the waves of the Ottawa riv­er is Quebec. People come and go. Three types of peo­ple.

The cou­ples here for a roman­tic view. They park, walk up to the rail­ing, and talk to each oth­er about noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar. The girl­friends get cold and short­ly want to leave.

The kids in their par­en­t’s cars, already high or drunk. They sit in the car with all the lights on, talk­ing through their music, obliv­i­ous to the seren­i­ty around them oth­er­wise.

The men here by them­selves, aban­doned and alone on a Friday night. They sit in their cars with the lights out, and come out to lean on the rail­ing every now and then. I’m one of them.

Ottawa Rockcliffe parkway at night

On my way back, I skip Water and put on Air. A song about a boy who could fly, about falling upwards and away.

I had A Song for Milly Michaelson by Thrice play­ing here.

So, here we go.
Hold on tight and don’t let go.
I won’t ever let you fall.
I love the night.
Flying o’er these city lights.
But I love you most of all.

I miss a turn, and find a smooth pave­ment road that winds through the for­est. My eyes are dry and tired. I put on the high beams and cruise con­trol, dis­cov­er­ing anoth­er way home.

Psychoanalytic Reflections 01

It’s a full sev­en days between ses­sions, and at this point, my pschol­o­gist is just start­ing to know me. In between, I can nev­er stop reflect­ing. I’ve always believed that I know myself well, but these ses­sions are prob­ing ideas and mem­o­ries I haven’t thought of in a while, and open­ing up com­plete­ly new areas of reflec­tion.

And while I could write for days about these thoughts and epipha­nies, I sim­ply don’t have the time, so I fig­ured I’d briefly touch on them in point form.

  • I need to respect my psy­chol­o­gist in order to accept help from him. i.e. If he was a Freudian and I was a Jungian, I would­n’t be able to agree with any of his meth­ods.
  • I get very anx­ious when I’m in his office. This is because I don’t like to admit to myself that some­thing’s wrong with me, but when I’m in there, it’s a very tan­gi­ble reminder that I have men­tal prob­lems.
  • I’m very con­flict­ed on sev­er­al issues.
    • I don’t want to lose my emo­tions because I need to suf­fer to cre­ate. Yet the emo­tions are bad enough that I don’t want to have them any­more (or have them in mod­er­a­tion at least).
    • I want to love and be in a rela­tion­ship, and at the same time I cling to being sin­gle because I’m scared of being hurt (in addi­tion to the fact that the free­dom is intox­i­cat­ing). I do this by push­ing oth­ers away from me or cut­ting them off.
      • This stems from two sig­nif­i­cant child­hood mem­o­ries, where I felt betrayed in friend­ship, as well as my rela­tion­ship with my par­ents.
    • I want to be set­tled and have some sta­bil­i­ty (in terms of sched­ule, rela­tion­ships, finances etc.), but the strug­gle to be set­tled is what makes me grow and be stronger.
    • Many of these issues can only be resolved from deci­sions I should make. (i.e. No one else can make the deci­sion for me)
    • Turning to Taoism, which is very para­dox­i­cal in itself, has only helped so much.
  • Without my cre­ativ­i­ty, or my desire to express myself, I’m noth­ing.
  • I don’t want to “blame” my par­ents for con­fi­dence prob­lems or per­fec­tion­ist ten­den­cies, but I’m slow­ly start­ing to find out that they’ve affect­ed me even more than I thought before.
  • As a hedo­nist, my great­est fear is los­ing my joie de vivre. If this hap­pened (and it has once), I would con­sid­er killing myself. This is because the joys of life bal­ance out all the bad and makes it worth liv­ing.
  • I’m depen­dent on oth­er peo­ple for hap­pi­ness. I don’t see my friends often enough for me to be sat­is­fied, and it’s a sim­ple fact of life. They all have sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers, and I’m the only one left sin­gle. I don’t blame them for not spend­ing enough time with me, but it makes me very sad.

The Awareness Of Freedom

Thumbnail: Lincoln Fields bus station

OC Transpo buses

Freedom.

Freedom from what has been a shroud, not a weight, on my mind for as long as I’ve known. Tonight con­firmed what was sus­pect­ed for weeks, when I stepped out into shad­ows and lights, and walked through a dry field against the dark­ness.

A rush. The feel­ing of hav­ing every­thing to gain and noth­ing to lose. That I can start liv­ing now.

Freedom in the soli­tude.