it's just a matter of time.*...
01/10/04|2:15 p.m.

Over the past few days, I've written nearly everywhere and everything possible excepting an entry in this journal. In the couple of days following my proclamation to Sarah - the one I've made a thousand times but never to her, never where it mattered so much, the one about not wanting to pursue writing as a career - I felt (a great deal of relief along with a sense that) all around me, the writing-stuff of my life - the scraps of notes of letters of phrases of sentences, the endless paper and the incredible-disappearing-inkpens - were clutter and unnecessary. This is not who I am, so why is it here? The answer, of course, is that it's here because it's something I do, and feeling newly liberated (once again) from the binds of, "Is this good enough for a college writing major? And graduate school? And publication? Is this play ready for production? Is this play good enough to bother preparing for production?" and so forth, I fell into a steady clicking of keys I very much enjoyed. The part-of-me-that-writes has even surfaced to entertain the rest of me while reading a mediocre book with lots of wonderful ideas but rather limited brilliance. The part-of-me-that-writes has the lovely ability to form opinions, raise questions, answer questions, select criticisms, and pose possible solutions, which the rest-of-me, wanting so much to be a person with opinions (to be that real) very much enjoys. It finally occurred to me this morning that, what had four entries ago been a fresh and free page to write upon, had already (but not necessarily with any permanence) developed into a prison of expectations. The first two entries, specifically, so outside of my chordchild voice, felt like freedom, like this journal could be whatever I wanted, like I didn't need to conform to a pattern - even one of my own making. If I wanted to abstract reality a little, what harm had I to fear in that? I forgot to look after literal reality; I always get swept up in the radiance of her cousin, myth. The entry chronicling my recent therapy appointment - so recognizable in chord's terms, so seemingly unchanged - bothered me significantly. I held out that the joy of freedom remains the ability to write honestly, and since the entry spoke honestly, and since I want to continue recording the information I find in my sessions, no problem existed. But the non-existent problem kept me away from writing (here) nonetheless. I forgot, temporarily, that the goal in establishing eventhewind was never to inflict significant cosmetic surgery onto my identity, simply to continue the evolution process already-in-progress... I like who I am, enough. I like the dimensions of who I am that suggest who I will be, even as they are now. I need to remember to write for myself, to keep this in perspective, and that - in order to stray from a norm - one must establish, which means one must write. I must write. Although, I'm certain nourish and Caged were happily surprised at the sudden bit of attention.

So where am I, by way of where did I go?

I saw the doctor on Monday, and communicated a great enough need that he felt it important to see me again later in the week, despite the fact that he's still in physical therapy, on crutches, and not even up to a full-time schedule until next week. I tried to keep my emotions balanced between feeling crazy beyond even my own ability to joke off, and revelling in the fact that the doctor's decision to see me three times before seeing my mom or brother once gives yet another proof that I'm his favorite. I like being a favorite much better than I like feeling crazy.

The plan was that he'd call me with a time for either Thursday or Friday, and by Wednesday I began expecting what I'd begun suspecting on Tuesday: that the good doctor once again had more compassion than he had schedule and would not be able to pull off a second appointment with me. Thursday, my mom called and talked with the receptionist, who confirmed this theory. Apparently, the doctor had penciled me in, forgetting he had a doctor's appointment during that time, and his schedule being otherwise full, he couldn't see me. I figured, Friday, Monday, what's the big difference, right? Despite some fairly-paralyzing depression, the creative spurt (and no doubt, the appointment I *did* have) managed to restore my joie de vie enough to survive a weekend. So, when I woke up Friday morning and my mom greeted me with, "What year is it?" - my first mental response went to the fantasy collection I've been reading where people have actually asked that question, not knowing the answer and so forth, but I suppose I wasn't too concerned, as I was yawning at the time, and managed to sign 2-0-0-4 with my free hand.

She smiled. "The doctor called," she said.

I responded with this surprised, amused, disbelieving look and a little laugh. I remembered 2003, and the end of it, so intently believing that the change of calendar would mean a change in the concentration of difficulty in my life as well. I'd mostly given up on that; although I still contend that this year will go better, I ended up on my case too much for how I wasn't as happy as I should be now that it's 2004, blah, blah, blah, and that's ningun ayuda...so. The New Year, and all the promises I'd made on its behalf, had managed to slip to the back of my mind. Even my best what-were-you-doing-at-midnight story thus far had slipped off the playlist of choice anecdotes. [Having just succeeded in creaming my mom's-unofficially-adopted-Philippina-daughter and my mom at two out of three games of Spongebob Uno...playing with two decks because I am actually enough of a dork to have two different Spongebob Uno decks...I'd donned what my mom calls an aviator cap - the type of soft, cottony hat that falls down over your ears and has drawstrings with which you can tie the earflaps up over the head - which I'm afraid also sports a Spongebob image, topped that with my silver tiara that has the purple embellishments (and being too small, as I bought it in a rush on my eighteenth birthday, always gives me a headache), and grabbed two of my fairy wands. (I looked into a career as a fairy princess long enough to gather more than one wand, mostly as gifts.) I went out into the living room singing my champion song and making everyone laugh, though Inge continued to trash-talk through her laughs. Looking at our clock, we still had a few minutes left to kill before midnight, but before they could pass, someone else's clock had reached the hour, and we could hear massive fireworks going on downtown. I ran out onto the deck and Mom and Inge followed; I craned my neck until it ached, whistling and screaming, cheering in the New Year with a level of enthusiasm I've never achieved over this holiday. Eventually, I began to direct the fireworks with my fairy wands (sometimes you just have to be a Harry-Potter-reading-band-geek to understand), managed to catch the rhythm with fair accuracy and had a rather enjoyable time. Especially relative to other what-I-was-doing-at-midnights. But I don't want to detail the other extreme right now. At midnight I was barefoot and bouncing on our little deck, throwing magic into the air. And that's really, really cool.]

Anyway, my mom's point was that the doctor's appointment (meaning, the doctor's doctor appointment) was changed, and so he'd be able to see me after all, that day. Yesterday. I'll admit, it threw me a little; anxiety disorders don't draw out a girl's natural spontaneity, y'know? ... but even with the short notice and back-and-forth of change, I had to admit that having an appointment beats not having an appointment about 90 per cent of the time. And since Decemeber involved a serious decline in my outside ventures, the necessity of leaving the house meant good things for me. It also pulled me out of my depressed-funk (on a not entirely relevant note, my mom uses the word "funk" often, and the other day, we had a short, sympathetic discussion about how being in a funk was so much less cool than feeling funky, and what is up with that?) enough that I paid attention to good things like hygiene and putting on clothes that weren't the pajamas I'd been wearing for too many days. I got a little grumpy when I realized the shirt I wanted to wear, which really was clean, was the shirt I wore Monday, and obviously I could not wear the same thing I'd worn to see him just a few days earlier. I'm only adding this unbelievably boring detail because, much to my amusement and that of the irony gods, the doctor came into the waiting room wearing his clothes from Monday. I'm sure there are issues of comfort, clothes going over leg braces, the inability to shower when on crutches and so forth, but I still rolled my eyes at my own lingering junior-high fashion rules, and swam happily through the knowledge that I have a (very hygenic, I promise) geeky doctor with unkempt hair who doesn't have a problem wearing the same clothes twice in one week.

He told me it looked like I needed water, but he needed my help to get it, and I jumped up, eager to assist his serving me. Together we filled one of the green snowman mugs with cold water, and later, I started thinking how I completely missed the boat by not asking him if he wanted some. I could totally have carried a cup in for him as well, and I very much dislike realizing I had the opportunity to do something for someone and didn't think of it. I comforted myself (when I did finally realize it) with the knowledge that, one of the cool things about a psychiatrist is that it's the point for me to be caught up in myself, in my own thoughts and ideas, and what's happening and about to happen...and he's certainly not going to be upset that I didn't think to ask him if he wanted water. Every time I make reference to his healing process, he's quick to assure me it's going fine, and move the subject back to, you guessed it, me.

He's so good at this, in fact, that I didn't manage to ask about Tiny Tim. Damn his incomparable abilities at manipulating the track of conversation. Hee. No, he didn't really manipulate the conversation. He mostly just asked me about the past few days, and then I started telling him about the conversation with Sarah, which was a fairly easy topic, a rarity: expressing the need to differentiate from someone in my family and not having the expression of that need result in seriously injured feelings on the other side. Toward the end, he talked about how now that I'd made clear what I don't want (which is allowed to change, and allowed not to change), I can explore some other things, not as "I'm starting this track" or "beginning the climb on this ladder" - just to have some experiences and see what wisdom I can gain from them. I shrunk a little at that, and when he pressed gently (barely), I explained that I'm pretty much only leaving the house to see him at this point. We talked about how that happened, and once again, he seemed intent on making sure that I didn't jump into something that would overwhelm me (like I've done before; "this agoraphobia's dumb; I'm going to a rave!" ...ok, I've never been to a rave, but you understand the message) and that we understand where the fear is coming from before we work on modifying the behavior that comes from that fear.

...I like that. I do. It also scares the hell out of me because I'm afraid that if I'm not doing anything now, I'll never be doing anything, and I'm convinced that in order to be working on recovery, I have to do visible, active things. I started to cry a little at the thought of doing something, of doing anything, of meeting people. I talked about having reached a point where I couldn't take anymore in December and shutting myself in so that nothing else, no more bad things, would happen. I cried and talked about Jenna and how she hasn't written and I just want so badly for her to write. He talked about her having her own needs to shut herself in and stay safe, and I nodded, swallowed, wondered if I was wrong to try and have her in my life again. (I'm not. I just wonder. But I'm not wrong about that one; I can't believe I am.)

He told me that the tears are grief and fear and growth, suggested I follow my instincts, especially my "nesting" instinct (the one to curl up and stay inside, the one that's partly not-so-healthy, but not entirely abnormal considering the cold and the dark and the grayness...) at least until we'd discussed it further. I told him I could do that; we checked Monday's appointment time and "home" I came.

I saw a Joan of Arcadia episode good enough to make me admit I watch that show. I'd sidestepped television earlier in the week, as I only watch two other shows (most weeks)... one was a rerun and the other had a subplot about pro-anorexic propaganda. I felt weird about the episode I skipped, didn't like the fact that it was on, that it would do more harm than good, that I wasn't watching something so closely related to my life. Then out of left field, this JoA episode is about death and friendship and suicide and love, and it made me cry in an entirely safe way. They did a really beautiful job, and most people don't. Most shows really screw up that topic, and that's really screwed-up considering how hurt anyone who has reason to care about "that topic" already is. This one felt healing and made me want to go through the screen and hug them. I might possibly, maybe, be the slightest bit homesick. But then...I haven't called in a long while. And I haven't written the letter to Dave. My poster fell down, I haven't put it back up, and I need yogurt pretzels. Haven't eaten any in months. I smile when I think how much of what I do, I do because of who I learned it from...

I sang Joyful Girl today and felt it was my song...

Now, I am done with this entry, and you are off to caged to submit an entry because with so many people supporting it, the lack of entries is seriously mind-boggling to me. That is where you're going, isn't it? Oh, thanks so much...

until the next unpredictable entry, which may or may not resemble this one-
me

Latest
Older
Profile
Rings
Cast
Mail
Notes
Sign
Oodles
Chord
Nourish
Caged
Design
Diaryland