midnight musings

I've known it for a month or so now.  I've fought it, denied it, repressed it, hated it, and ignored it.  But that's becoming harder and harder to do.

I can feel it within me, carving a place inside, making itself at home.  It makes me nauseous and tired, but I can't sleep.  It makes me angry, and it makes me ache.  Sometimes it feels like my entire insides are being consumed simultaneously, and I just want to crawl into a ball and give up on everything.

The denial comes back sometimes, and then I feel it rear up again, reminding me of its presence.  Sometimes it's down in my gut.  Sometimes it's in my chest, compressing my lungs and making it impossible to breathe.

I keep debating whether I should tell anyone, or if I should just see how it plays out.    It could just go away, after all.  Or so I've been deluding myself.  It could just fade into oblivion.  I could wake up one day and be all better.

I don't want it here.  I want it to just go away.  It'd be easier if I could just accept it, being content with the possible changes in my life, and move forward.  Move past it.  But I literally hate  it with every fiber of my being.  I'd do anything to just make it all go away and go back to how things were.  But I don't know how.

I don't want anything to change, but I'm terrified that if I tell you, it would.  I don't want you, or anyone, to treat me differently.  I hate the way this makes me feel.  If I could wish it away, I'd have done it back when I first found out.  I don't want anything to change.  I don't want the things I've talked about to become could-have-beens and impossibilities.  I don't want to have to abandon the things that make me me.  But I don't think it can just stay the same.  Not now.  Not anymore.  It kills me to say that.  But this is killing me anyway.

18.12.12  12:33 AM

Somehow, he's done it again.

I'm in kind of a bizarre headspace tonight, and I'm not entirely sure why.  Well, I have a couple ideas, but nothing I feel like writing about just yet.  My brain feels like it is simultaneously working on overdrive and not working at all.  I'm on the verge of crying, which means my temples are pounding, my throat feels constricted, and my eyes are unintentionally squinting.  You know exactly what I'm talking about if you've ever experienced it.  And I hope you haven't.  It's pretty miserable.

It all started when I was reading, and if you know anything about me at all, you know that there's only one author who pretty consistently inspires me to think and, consequently, write.  If you don't know who I'm talking about, shame on you.  His name is probably in the last 10 posts over a dozen times.   Anyway, he was describing how he had a girl in his life who he had probably loved in the past, and woud inevitably love in the future, and how they both still knew they would never be together.  And somehow, this got me thinking about my childhood home.

About six months ago, I was eyelid-deep in the hunt for a place to live in Milwaukee.  I was spending the better part of my days looking at listings, for weeks.  I started dreaming about browsing Craigslist and Hotpads, and would wake up disappointed that the perfect apartment I'd found was only in my head.  In all this research, I happened across a random website where you could look up property values.  For fun, I searched the house my parents used to live in - the one I refer to as my childhood home.  I found it, and saw that it was currently on the market.  The site was even kind enough to link to the listing, complete with a plethora of pictures of my house.  But it was not my house.  I was angered.

Sunday Morning Ruminations

You know, there are a lot of things that I don't understand in this world.  Racism, for one.  Sexism, homophobia, why our government can't get their shit together…all on the list.  There's one thing in particular, though, that is on my mind right now.  If you are doing something that makes you feel miserable - particularly, if it makes you feel bad about yourself - why do you continue to do it?

We've all been put in situations where we had to choose between the lesser of two evils, and we find a way to justify our decisions, to cope with the outcome.  But when you find yourself continually doing something that you feel bad about…something that you know is wrong and you are having problems coming to terms with it…stop doing it.  And for the love of God, if it involves lying to other people, that's just another reason to stop.  Lies beget lies, and add to confusion, frustration, distrust, and anger.  It's just a disaster waiting to blow up in your face.

I am writing from personal experience, indirectly.  The person who inspired this will know, but I'm not going to go into details out of respect for said person. I think/hope I can explain my own confusion without giving away any details…

A person has to be able to live with their decisions.  We can't escape them, most of the time, and God knows we remember the stupid shit we do better than we remember the positives in our lives.  So if we consciously decide to continue doing something stupid, or something we know is probably not right, we have to find a way to justify it.  And when we can't justify it, we develop a disconnect between our actions and how we feel about ourselves.  The action may make us feel good, or feel loved, or feel worthwhile, but internally we are tearing ourselves apart because we know that we aren't doing what is 'right'.

Now, I could go into a whole rant about who defines 'right' and 'wrong', and I would probably completely annihiliate most social norms in the process, but frankly it's not worth the time or energy.  Let's just assume that there is some sort of common ground as to what is 'right'.  For example, cheating on your taxes, cheating on your significant other, killing somone…all probably 'wrong'.  Being honest when you fuck up, trying to avoid harming other people, paying back your student loans, probably 'right'.  Ok, got that out of the way.

So.  When we do something contrary to what we believe is 'right', it generally leaves us feeling not so great about ourselves.  Sometimes we can justify the action if it only happens once.  But when it happens repeatedly, the disconnect between what is 'right' and what we want to do continues to grow, and spread, and it eventually manifests into a fabulously overwhelming self-loathing.  We hate what we are doing, but we don't/can't/won't stop doing it.

This is what I don't understand.  If I hate myself for doing something, I'm pretty likely to say "Hey, Amber, stop being a moron and you'll feel better".  I hate the overwhelming feeling of hating myself for something I've done.  It is only made worse when the action is continued, and situations only get worse when ignored or built upon over time.

I can hear you saying "Amber, Amber, Amber, not everyone will start to hate themselves and feel miserable when they do things that aren't right.  You can't just assume that, just because you feel that way."  This, reader, is where you would be wrong.  The people who don't feel some level of guilt - that will grow into hatred - when they continually do something that goes against their fundamental moral principles, well, there's a term for them.  Sociopaths.

What I'm describing here isn't some hullabaloo I just made up so I could sound smart or moral.  It's basic psychological theory, derived from countless research and case studies, and only reaffirmed as time has passed.  When your outer/physical/momentary needs are not congruent with your internal/emotional/long-term needs (in this case, when your beliefs about how you should behave are being entirely thrown under the bus by your actions), you breed your own neuroses.  Ignoring this - or even worse, accepting it - is what causes self-loathing.  The only way to reestablish some personal peace is to find that congruency again.

So if you're doing something that makes you feel like a horrible human being, you should probably, ya know, stop.  The people who are willing to accept self-loathing are literally feeding into their own neuroses, developing their own psychopathologies.  Even if the action they are doing makes them feel slightly better, the hatred of the self will eventually win out.  And if you're doing something you know is 'wrong', and it makes you hate yourself, and you decide to continue doing it anyway because you don't mind the self-loathing…that's a whole  'nother topic I could go into.  Perhaps at a later date.

Maybe this makes more sense to me because I've studied the psychological theory behind it.  Maybe it's just because I'm weird and approach things differently from other people.  Maybe it's because I actively avoid making decisions nowadays that I know I will not be able to live with.  Who knows.  It just shows to me how much I really don't understand why some people do what they do.  Why is it ever a good idea to do something that you know - KNOW - is going to make you miserable?  Any momentary happiness will be overran by the lingering misery later on.  It's just not worth it.  Not to me at least.

9.12.12  10:25am

Songs that Induce Flashbacks

Please join me on a trip down my aural memory lane.....

A Thousand Miles - Vanessa Carlton

It was the spring of 2002, campus was starting to warm up, and the 8th graders were in the  middle of prepping for the best 8th grade play in the history of Thomas Jefferson School (possibly in the history of high school plays ever).  We had just completed our dress rehearsal and had piled into the art room in the dank basement of Main to do a final prop check when the radio came on.  Andy Matuschak started singing first, almost under his breath, but as he got into the song, he got louder, and we all joined in.  We were each in our own little world, worried about the first performance that was looming and avoiding the presence of Miss Fairbank like the plague, but we all realized at some point that we had reached a moment of perfect harmony.  It was beautiful.  And when the song ended, we didn't speak of it.  We just kept on with what needed to get done.  Remembering moments like this make me miss my class.

It Makes Me Ill - *N Sync

One of my roommates in 7th grade was a freshman named Min Hee Han, a transplant from South Korea who was new to the United States.  This was the only song she had in English on her computer, so we listened to it a lot…basically any time I needed a momentary repireve from K-Pop.  I still know every single word, and I gleefully sing along whenever I happen across it.

Canned Heat - Jamiroqui

This will forever be the Napoleon Dynamite song for me.  Probably for many people, really, but I don't just connect it to the movie.  I very clearly remember curling up in bed with my high school boyfriend, in his dorm, and watching this movie.  A few days before, I had tried to teach him to dance - really, it turned into a lesson on basic rhythm which he still failed - and I had continually told him that it wasn't about looking amazing, it was all about not giving a damn what others thought.  He didn't understand what I meant until he saw Napoleon shaking his ass in snow boots in front of the whole student body.  Watching the final dance in Napoleon Dynamite with him was hilarious, and endearing, and I will cherish it as a totally light and funny moment in our otherwise often tumultuous relationship.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life - Eric Idle

This is another one that is tied to my high school boyfriend.  The song itself doesn't mean a lot to me, but the circumstances around it will stick with me forever.  He had a single his senior year, and we had pushed the two bunk beds together into a king-size bed for, ya know, convenience, but we really only ever slept on one side of it.  Anyway, one day while he was playing soccer with his friends, my best friend at the time, her boyfriend, and I all decided to sit on the bed and watch Life of Brian.  I was on the side Blake slept on, and the other two were on the spare bed, as it were.  Blake came in from playing soccer and initially balked at us being there, until his best friend told him to man up, stop his bitching, and go climb in bed with his girlfriend.  So he did.  He climbed in bed and cuddled right behind me.  To be honest, I don't even remember the end of the movie, other than hearing the song, because he wrapped his arms around me and whispered in my ear "When are those two leaving?"

Innocent - Our Lady Peace

The first guy I was serious about in college was obsessed with this song.  It meant the world to him because he was dealing with some pretty serious family issues at the time, and because it meant so much to him, and I heard it incessantly for a while, I will forever flash back to those days when this song comes on.

Playground Love - Air

This song was featured in the movie The Virgin Suicides, a Sofia Coppola film about a family of teenage sisters and the boys who were obsessed with them.  It deals with love, lust, grief, and fear in very moving ways.  It is one of two movies ever that have affected me so deeply that it changed my mood for several days after I saw it.  This one caused me to think a lot.  The other genuinely brought back my depression.  I like this film more now because of it, and this song always takes me back to that first viewing.

I Say A Little Prayer For You - the Cast of My Best Friend's Wedding

This was one of only a couple DVDs we had in our dorm in 7th grade, and thus we watched it incessantly.  We were so obsessed, actually, that we made up a dance to the song…which I could probably still do.  Those totally carefree moments of dancing, singing, and falling into a heap on the floor in laughter are what I miss most about TJ.