Posts tagged with "confidence"

pana-vision

I chose to brave New Year’s alone this year. The tim­ing of my seda­tives worked out where the option of tak­ing one was avail­able, but I even­tu­al­ly decid­ed against it. Isolation was some­thing I need­ed to face head-on, when every­one else was cel­e­brat­ing with friends and loved ones. If I could make it through (rel­a­tive­ly) sober, I could sur­vive the great­est fear I’ve had since I was a child: aban­don­ment.

alfie

At the casu­al box­ing day gath­er­ing I had the plea­sure of meet­ing Alfie, Cristina’s dap­per res­cue mutt who deals with the same social anx­i­ety issues as I do. Maybe that’s why we got along so well.

Probably also the fact that we were both dosed up.

It did­n’t end up being any­thing spec­tac­u­lar. Just a night with a gen­er­ous three hour win­dow to catch up on Nolan’s lat­est work1 and some extra time to fin­ish a cam­paign in Halo’s Master Chief Collection2.

Normalcy end­ed up being a gift I did­n’t real­ize I need­ed. The approach of each hol­i­day sea­son has been a loom­ing spec­tre ever since I cut the pow­er cord off a stand­ing Ikea lamp and made a noose to hang myself from the ban­is­ter 10-ish years ago3, and the anniver­sary effect still hits me hard.

Being alone was a way to prove to myself that I’m not so help­less now, that I don’t have to be trapped in a past that still haunts me. I’ve come a long way since that fate­ful morn­ing, when I was inter­rupt­ed by two cops who would­n’t leave unless I agreed to let them dri­ve me to the hos­pi­tal. Developing a wider emo­tion­al vocab­u­lary, nur­tur­ing healthy rela­tion­ships instead of tox­ic ones, work­ing with a ther­a­pist every month, and con­sis­tent­ly step­ping out of my com­fort zone so I can learn and grow are all things that have giv­en me bet­ter tools and resources to sur­vive.

opening presents

A new set of match­ing paja­mas for the whole fam­i­ly each year is the kind of tra­di­tion I’ll nev­er get to have for myself, a fact that was much more painful for me to accept before I start­ed look­ing for ful­fill­ment in ways that don’t depend on oth­ers. Instead of feel­ing a tinge of sad­ness, I can now enjoy and appre­ci­ate expe­ri­ences like this.

Spending Christmas with Aaron and his fam­i­ly this year cer­tain­ly stayed any feel­ings of lone­li­ness.

When I told him how scared I was of being iso­lat­ed over the hol­i­days, he insist­ed I stay with them or risk dis­ap­point­ing the kids. It was a touch­ing threat, as well as a sign of how pro­tec­tive Aaron is of the peo­ple he cares about (and some­thing I would­n’t have noticed until Heather point­ed out).

A few years ago, I might have believed it was a ges­ture out of char­i­ty or pity. Now I’m con­fi­dent enough in my self-worth to know the invi­ta­tion was extend­ed because he gen­uine­ly enjoys my com­pa­ny and believes I’m a pos­i­tive influ­ence on his chil­dren (who have referred to me as “Uncle Jeff” ever since they could talk).

hand drawn Christmas cards

I col­lect my birth­day and Christmas cards, one of the few tan­gi­ble things I receive from the dwin­dling fam­i­ly I have left, and prob­a­bly a sign that there are lin­ger­ing inse­cu­ri­ties. Hand-drawn ones like these are par­tic­u­lar­ly spe­cial; I feel seen when some­one appre­ci­ates the meals I make them or my gam­ing abil­i­ties or sim­ply myself as a per­son.

To be loved by chil­dren and ani­mals — beings who are too inno­cent to have ulte­ri­or motives for express­ing such feel­ings — is some­thing I’ve come to cher­ish a great deal after a life­time of emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion.

Being around four kids and five adults left me so wired that I had to leave a night ear­li­er than planned so as to avoid burn­ing myself out, even if years of unbear­able lone­li­ness meant I des­per­ate­ly want­ed to stay. It was com­fort­ing enough to see me through one of the most dif­fi­cult nights I’ve annu­al­ly come to dread.

When I thanked him after­wards, he told me it would mean a great deal to every­one if I joined them each year, but no pres­sure. Having a place to go, but more impor­tant­ly, know­ing it’s because my pres­ence would be val­ued instead of an oblig­a­tion due to rela­tion, has giv­en me a feel­ing of accep­tance and belong­ing I thought would be for­ev­er beyond my reach, and a sense of hope I believed was eter­nal­ly lost.

  1. Oppenheimer was the first of his films that was­n’t my thing, but as with Scorsese, Malick, Anderson, Tarantino, and Villeneuve’s oeu­vres, I’ll always be pay­ing atten­tion. []
  2. I’ve nev­er owned a Microsoft con­sole, so while some mechan­ics and lev­el designs are extreme­ly dat­ed, I’m still enjoy­ing my delve into the his­to­ry of such a huge cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non as the Halo series. []
  3. Dates and mem­o­ries tend to be very hazy around that time, espe­cial­ly when I try not to think about it too much. []

France, Day 1: Paris

I find myself in Paris once again, this time for a video con­tract over the next 10 days. Karin approached me to work with her in cre­at­ing sev­er­al films around this beau­ti­ful city, and I have the plea­sure of being involved with this amaz­ing per­son­al project of hers.

view from Sacre Coeur

This is only the sec­ond time I’ve been at Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, and both times there’s been weed in the air. I even passed by a man try­ing to roll a joint while sit­ting on a park bench, his paper mad­ly flap­ping in the wind. There must be some­thing real­ly trip­py about the church.

I’m doing it bet­ter this time. More effi­cient, lighter lug­gage. Luckily, I’ve made this trip before and the expe­ri­ence is pay­ing off. Pushing my lim­its last vis­it has giv­en me the con­fi­dence to han­dle any­thing that may hap­pen. I can retrace my steps with­out a map, remem­ber­ing where I took what pho­tos on which walks.

Continue read­ing “France, Day 1: Paris”…

Wow.

A read­er sent me this let­ter (post­ed with her per­mis­sion, of course):

Almost a year after I had man­aged to leave the island behind, the room, the floor, the sheets, the rape — I acci­dent­ly end­ed up on your blog entry called “The begin­ning to the end” and it changed my world. It awoke feel­ings inside of me that I had for a years time tried to sup­press and scare off so that I nev­er again would open up to any­one, nev­er trust any­one and there­for nev­er end up in the same sit­u­a­tion again. At that time, all men were a poten­tial threath to me.

Reading and watch­ing that very blo­gen­try have had such a great impact on my life and will to become ‘myself’ again, to reclaim my body and to dare to move towards feel­ing and being ‘beau­ti­ful’ again. Your video grant­ed me the sen­sa­tion of how sin­cere, pure and giv­ing love and affec­tion tru­ly are when it’s shared and not forced. It made me remem­ber blocked out feel­ings and sit­u­a­tions and it made me start to long for some­thing that I had com­plete­ly shut out for over a year.

I have been want­i­ng to write you this email for quite some time, but I havent been sure of myself or if the “new” me (which is the old in fact) would sur­vive and I did­nt want to make this into a sun­shine sto­ry if it real­ly was­nt — but after many down­hills, tri­als and tribu­la­tions, the­r­a­phy and social inter­ac­tion, I am there, I am back and I am stand­ing strong again. Nothing will ever be the same, but at least I made the right choice, for me. I have always been lifelov­ing in over­load and even if I am only halfway there yet, it is still enough to keep me going.

I still watch that video every now and then, to remind myself that any­thing is pos­si­ble and that you can recieve “help” from the most unex­pect­ed sources. It used to make me cry, now it makes me smile instead, isnt that beau­ti­ful? I know per­fect­ly well that you nev­er meant to post that entry for me, but it helped me in one of the most dif­fi­cult times in my life and for that I will be for­ev­er grate­ful. Thank you.

Yours sin­cer­ly,
Emma

I’m at a loss for words.