Self-sabotage. Stagnation.

Too often my happiness is tempered by melancholy. I found out today that I got into the Masters program of my choosing (I only applied to one school and one program...might have been overconfident but it worked out). For the last couple months my excuse for being stagnant has been that I am waiting to hear back whether I have been accepted, so I can get on with the rest of my life, so I can finish my Masters, get a stable job, put a down payment on my future home, my sanctuary. Now that push came to shove and I have my answer, I am simultaneously caught in a whirlwind and paralyzed.

I started dating someone less than a month ago. Someone who I could conceivably imagine a future with. Someone who might actually like me back, despite how intensely passionate, how bluntly inquisitive, how assertive yet insecure, how me I am. He makes me happy. I don't think I ever thought I would ever find someone who could understand me. I don't think I ever thought I deserved happiness. Maybe that's why I try so hard to support my clients, that maybe if I am good, like really good, I may be worthy. Like karma. I don't know what this means now. For me. For us. Long distance? Or is it better just to end something now before we get too attached?

But am I already too attached? It's back to the feeling I had going into Sechelt for my practicum. The feeling that I am always holding something back, because it (the experience, the connections with the people I will meet) does not last. It is a time-limited relationship. I never learned how to navigate that. Maybe that's why I have trouble with commitment.

I can see this going either way. Reverting back to the dismissive-avoidant attachment style, where I end things prematurely just so I am not the one to be hurt. It would be a regressive move, for someone who has tried so hard, particularly recently, to throw caution to the wind and attempt to live wholeheartedly.

I am not a bad person. I know this, with confidence. But do I deserve to be happy? What, and whose sins am I atoning for anyway?

I need to let things go. If things are truly meant to be, they would not be this hard, right?

If he ends things, would I fight for us?

Should I let him go?

Letter to a future lover

I know what I want, but I may have forgotten how to compromise along the way. Do you know what you want? Do you know if I am what you want?

Lifestyle is important, and I don't mean just music. Although it would be ideal if we listen to similar genres, rhythms, tunes, it's equally as challenging to find someone who has an opinion on music. Saying that you listen to "a bit of everything" is not an opinion. Only listening to Top 40, or what is the trend of the year, is not "an opinion". I'm not saying you need to know all the greatest bands that ever lived, but it would be nice if you knew who Nirvana was beyond "Smells like Teen Spirit".

When I say "lifestyle" I really meant "values". I'm not talking about good old family values, the white picket fence, the dog, the Betty Crocker, the 9 to 5. Maybe it's getting easier for women to find men who are not ashamed to identify as feminists without it turning into a "but men are oppressed too" argument; because we are not saying that your lives don't matter, you assholes, we are just saying that ours do too, and we are talking about ours right now because we are the ones disproportionately being date raped, sexually assaulted, trafficked, abused, murdered. I am also talking about mental health and addictions awareness, being trauma-informed, being culturally sensitive and aware, being respective, being a LGBTQ ally, recognizing that it is a privilege to live on unceded First Nations land. You don't even have to be passionate about or as knowledgeable these things as I am. Basically I just want you not to be an asshole, and I want you to educate yourself if you realize you are ignorant.

Social justice is important to me. It is not just my work, it has always been my life. You don't live through being called a "chink" in elementary school without being forcibly reminded that you are different, that you somehow don't belong. You don't grow up with a brother who has autism without learning a bit about people who are not "neurotypical", who may not understand the same social cues and norms that we do.

More than anything, I need someone who can understand me without wanting to change me. Someone who can sit with me in the dark rather than thinking they need to bring a light. Someone who I can be vulnerable with, and someone who can be vulnerable with me.

Letter to a former lover

I didn't think that it would hurt me that we are no longer talking. You asked me if I had felt anything, and I didn't, and yet I feel as though I have lost a friend, and that makes it somehow worse.

We had a lot in common. We had nothing in common.

You are optimistic, naive. Someone once told me that we all have this thing, called the "saving people" complex, but in my line of work it has been hammered into me that we are not here to "save" people, that the people we work with do not need to be "saved". Because who are we to say that we have all the answers? What is it about us that means we have our lives so together, that we can salvage the remnants of someone else's? There is no us, no them. We are all the same. We are all different.

And you wanted to save me.

It didn't make me hate you, that part of you that implied I needed saving, and that you, in all your pretentious white knight glory, you, think that you can bring all the light I need into the darkness that is my. life.

It didn't make me hate you, but over time I would have resented you.

Because who the hell do you think you are?

There is that moment, when being yourself becomes the mask, when being cloaked in yourself meant that you were powerful, invincible, because you are shouting to the world that you know who you are, that these parts of yourself that other people keep hidden, that other people are afraid of because they refuse to acknowledge that they can be just as selfish, as petty, as ugly as the next person.

I am not depressed because I am me. I am depressed because you are you. You know how they say "it's not you, it's me"?

It's not me, it's you.

Part 1: Doubt. To be sure.

Picture taken from Pinterest.

You look into the silver grey eyes of your newborn baby girl as doubt gnaws at your heart. There is no question of who the baby’s father is; she is yours, you are the father. Why then, is there this doubt, this worry like an incessant headache of the mind, pounding, pounding, shaking the foundations of your soul? You smile mechanically at your wife who wraps you in her tender embrace. Waves of memory overtake you as you remember how you two had gotten together. It was not the happiest of beginnings, to be sure, and it continues to be scarcely mentioned for that reason.

You see, there were three of them---the classic love triangle.

You were brothers, not by blood but by choice. Both excelled at the same sports, preferred Coke over Pepsi, enjoyed listening to Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan while studying, and even saved all the orange skittles for last. It was not so much a surprise when you both fell in love with the same girl, and she with you. It was never clear who she had preferred out of the pair of you, and it is your greatest fear that, despite your ring on her finger, the matter is still unresolved.

It was a tragic accident in senior year that was the deciding factor; both of you were involved in a car accident on the way home from soccer practice. You were lucky and had your seat belt on, your friend, not so much. The screeching of tires was still echoing in your head as she threw her arms around you in the waiting area of ER and sobbed, glad that you were still alive.

“Adam, how is Adam?”

That was the first question she had asked and it haunts you to this very day.

“He…he didn’t make it. I’m so sorry.”

The words, unspoken, remained in your head.

There is just the two of us now.

She fell into your arms, weeping, her fingers occasionally feeling for your heartbeat, reassuring herself that at least you are still alive. Later, she would tell you that she loves you, that it has only ever been you, and not Adam. Adam, who is buried ten feet underground. You were so happy, so happy when she had said yes to your proposal. You thought you had won, that she has chosen you, but you can never and will never be sure.

Staring into your baby girl's eyes, the colour so much like your own. 

You wish you could be sure.


to be continued...

Foreign Blood (Masochist)

I cringed again as I dipped the silver-tipped needle into the vial of crimson liquid, pulling up the plunger to the syringe with meticulous care to get the precise amount. Closing my eyes, I grabbed the syringe and stabbed it into my arm, not caring where it sank as long as the blood made it into my veins with as little resistance as possible. There were so many pinpricks in my body now; pretty soon I would be covered in nothing but holes. My skin continues to heal, however, and every time I examine, there would be an empty patch just begging to be violated.

I waited with baited breath as the blood began to take its effect, the next part that I could never get used to. I gasped as a roiling sensation had me on all fours, my immune system struggling to comprehend this unexpected, nonsensical invasion by alien blood cells. What was perplexing was how despite the many times that I had done this, these planned invasions always caught my system by surprise, the pain never lessening with each time as sharp as the times before. I tried hard just to focus on breathing, hoping that this time it would finally kill me, but also fearing that it would.

I hated myself for being so weak, constantly making excuses for myself in my head, telling myself that I could not help doing what I do because I am unwell. As if psychological frailties could ever hold the key to all my answers! As the battle within me subsided, I was wrung out with exhaustion, heap of rags on the floor. Already I was thinking of the next hit.

You would think that fighting for your life continuously would make you appreciate living more, but all I want is for mine to end…and oblivion.

The Twisted Road

I look back and see the twisted road, the empty faces and the saturated smiles. The lost key in the locked car, the red ribbon trailing behind me on the floor, a way home I will never take. I've got empty pockets but there's still a way out for me. No light ahead only headlights behind me. A harsh glare and the Doppler washes away to the west, the path of a dying sun. As the sparrow's wings eclipse the moon, I wonder where my feet are taking me, each step an effort.

Geoff

It feels like the way it should feel, strapping on the helmet, slapping down the visor and pulling on the well worn leather gloves. They say road rash hurts a lot, and they never lied. I have fallen so many times on this bike and was almost killed once when I skidded on a pool of oil in the middle of the highway. Each time, he had been there to help me up, to guide me as I safely steer my scratched up bike back on the road. I love the feel of the wind breezing through the tips of my hair not under the helmet, the freedom of riding this road to the end at unhampered speeds. I feel light riding this bike, almost as if the wheels were not touching the ground. Almost as if we were borne on wings. It gets claustrophobic under the helmet sometimes and the visor decreases visibility as much as lab goggles sometimes do.

In Memory

Image from ~YaraKlaproos at deviantart. 

It was a scorching summer day.

She was sitting underneath the large oak tree in her favourite park located in the out fringes of town, a pretty picture of insouciance, twirling a freshly picked daisy between her thumb and forefinger like she had not a care in the world. Nature was ringed in a beautiful sunlit halo around her, but her eyes were unfocused, vacant and unseeing. She was remembering; voices carried to her by an unfelt wind.

Time can never mend the careless whispers of a good friend.

On Fortuitous Occurrences

He noticed her from across the street. It was not the first time he had seen her, with her flowing chestnut- brown hair and her acoustic guitar. He would watch her sometimes, watch her fingers stroke the strings lovingly, strumming both unfamiliar and nostalgic patterns. But that was not why he had been following her for months, or had it already been a year? When she sings...he sighed in remembrance. She was his muse, but he would never tell her this because he had never spoken to her. He lacked the courage. 

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