Another poster on the same blog: "...my new goal is to kill boners wherever I go with my radioactive feminism. Ha. Who knew you could do that just by speaking out loud?"

This reminds me that not only is this a deeply-cherished personal goal that I should live up to more often, but also that on my list of things to think about for myself (among my relationships to others, my life, my art, my sexuality) is feminism.
posted by m 0 comments 15:04

A poster on a blog I frequent wrote the following with regard to dating weenies who want women to dumb themselves down in order not to threaten them (and to be "sexy"):

"But I’ve yet to have sex that’s good enough to trade my self-respect for. Sure, it’s always risky, but you gotta balance whether the risk is actually worth it."

What disturbed me so much about this was the realization that this is likely what my last relationship was largely based on. Trading the entirety of my self-respect for the best sex of my life, that is. What a scary thing to recognize.
posted by m 0 comments 14:47

Every Tuesday and every Saturday, I am lost in depression.

Is it that these days are bad for some intrinsic reason in my lifestyle right now, or have I noticed a pattern and then convinced myself it would happen? Is it self-fulfilling?

This past Saturday was the first one since my loss that I have not felt it. I got out of bed and didn't immediately want to lie down on the floor underneath the couch. I could get out of bed. I could get something done. I went out of the house and went on a walk without feeling like the weight of the earth was crushing me.

I suppose that experience made me think that I would no longer have to waste my Tuesdays and Saturdays convincing myself that living is a better idea than dying.

In case it's not obvious from my talking so far, today is a relapse.

I have not written about these days much over the years, because for me this feeling is beyond words. Not only can I not bring myself to get out of bed, much less write about it, it's emotionally numbing in a completely overwhelming way. When I can't feel anything, how can I describe what I feel?

But depression a sick heart. It's my heart feeling physically like it's dying of a wasting disease, with a painful sour taste. It's my heart pumping poison through my veins instead of blood because it is unhealthy. I am unhealthy. I feel it in every inch of my body, this sludge being pushed around by a dying organ.

And I am sick of this sludge.

Labels: me-gazing

posted by m 0 comments 11:27

How did it come to this?

In other words, how did this project come to be?

There was a short term catalyst: losing someone I wouldn't hesitate to characterize as the great love of my life.

This loss surprisingly generated a number of larger thoughts within me about myself, my relationships, and my life. I couldn't help, in grief, to wonder at how I'd become the person I am now. I felt insecure, at times worthless or hopeless. I felt empty of distinguishing characteristics. I felt loveless and unable to love. I felt a total and cripping loss of what were once my creativity, my senses of self and of self-worth, my confidence, and my self-esteem.

In other words, I had become what I could only call a ghost. I wasn't a shell. I was a shade of a human being.

At the risk of sounding too full of self-pity, I would like to recount the rest of my process of realization about where my life had led me. As I thought more about my situation, I couldn't help but go over the past seven or ten years in my head, trying to reach back to some kind of origin I felt should be there.

I think I wanted to find the core or the kernel of my identity.

What I came to identify as an overarching issue over these years was my readiness to change or adapt in reaction to boyfriends and other love interests. This may sound silly or obvious, but the extent of what I had been unconsciously doing was, to me, somewhat shocking.

I remember a time when I was more self-assured; when I was deeply creative and devoted to my own projects; when I did what I wanted without much thought of what others would think of me. I related to others on my own terms. My approach to dating and to becoming involved with other people was very much based on them liking me the way I already was: someone who wanted me to change the way I looked or acted would be someone beneath me.

The thing is, I never found myself in a situation where a change was demanded of me. But I realize now that over time, when I became involved with people I deeply admired, I desperately wanted these people to return my feelings. I wanted to be liked by someone I looked up to and respected and ultimately was the kind of person that I wished I was like, whether or not I realized that myself. In anticipation of anything strange about myself that could scare off others, I became self-conscious for the first time. I examined myself critically: my style, my behavior, my hair, my clothes, my hobbies, my social interface with other people. I watched what I did, what I said, what I thought.

I did this for so long, to such a great extent, and so unconsciously that it is hard for me to tell whose body I inhabit now. Who is this woman that I see in the mirror? What are these things that I do as though they're habit, when they don't feel natural to me at all? What are these ways of thinking that I have now, which don't seem as thought they'd come naturally to me as I remember myself? What about that girl I remember being? Who was she, how does she relate to this person I've become?

These are the realizations that led me to what I'm doing here.

Labels: analysis, me-gazing, origins

posted by m 0 comments 15:54

A phrase occurred to me nearly two months ago, in January, when I was undergoing an earth-shattering change. I thought to myself: I am the ghost of who I used to be.

I've been thinking about it since then, and it's led me to an idea for a project that I would like to pursue. I'd like to see if it gets me anywhere.

Dissection: I am a ghost. Who did I used to be?

The questions of who I was, and who I have become, are ones that have remained in my mind for ages. I have gone back to look at journal entries from years ago and these same issues have kept coming up. Each time I start dwelling on them, it seems as though it's weighing on me for the first time. Each time, I forget; and each time, I keep coming back to these fundamental questions of very personal, individual identity. Clearly they have not been resolved despite my periodic attempts.

I wonder if a part of this lack of resolution, lack of progress in looking within myself, is because of a fundamental lack of organization or strategy in my wondering toward (potential) answers. There has been no plan of attack and no definite path ahead of me. This realization, among other reasons, is drawing me toward some kind of semi-public and organized project that could let me pursue these questions to more satisfaction than I have in the past.

This is a project, then, that will involve gazing at myself - my inner and outer selves - and at my past, present, and future, in the hope of coming to better terms with who I am and what I want. I hope that it will let me pursue some more interesting and broader questions of existence along the way, because I don't think I can fill an entire series of writing with only myself. I'm easily distracted and I don't think these are issues that are limited to my identity alone.

Labels: analysis, confusion, me-gazing, origins

posted by m 0 comments 15:36