Brink

Yesterday I went to see some friends. Some years ago it was the guy I had met first and it was like-at-first-sight. After a few days his girlfriend came along and we talked a while and now she's my friend and he's collateral goodness. Don't know what it is about him. When he's near he gets me on the brink of tears within minutes. Do not know how he does it, but he touches something inside me. He feels like a relative to me. It's very seldom I meet people like that; maybe because I live in a sourpuss town. It was the shine of mischief and good humour in his eyes, there was an instant click of recognition and I knew it was the same for him. We circled each other, we joked and teased as if we'd been friends (or brother and sister) for years.
I was at their place for 7 hours yesterday and I tried my best to be myself as much as I could. Every time I meet someone it's practise time. I look at myself and what I say, why I say it and whether it's the most truthful I can be/say.
It's not as exhausting as it might come across; well, not at this point anyway. But I've been practising the art (and hobby) of observing for 18 years now and in the beginning it was a definite struggle. Days, even weeks would go by without me in observing mode, now it's second nature, or maybe even first. Every time I start to say something, observing myself gives me a choice of who I want to be, and what I say and do represents that. It's a very conscious process that takes me in the direction of a more truthful me.

Something else. Riding my bike back home today after some time in the sun, suddenly this thought came to me, or maybe it wasn't a thought. The literal thing itself is kind of a new-age cliche I'm guessing. If I wanted to come across as interesting I would say something entirely different, like I was abducted by aliens but they let me probe them, how about that?
The bike path ran alongside the freeway, cars coming in my direction, I cycled past a footpath in the grass, pretty green in trees et cetera and the wind thundered in my ears and suddenly that was debatable.
What if the wind wasn't blowing, causing that sound in my ears, but it was cos of my cycling and moving the air? If I didn't use the word 'wind', how else would I express that sensation? The air moving, being displaced and causing sound in my ears? No. That stuff I was cycling against or in, roaring in those things that are the entry points of sounds? No. That car coming at me, that was constructed, it was made up. The words I used to describe air, wind, ears, those were made up too. Words, language itself was made up. How would I see things, look at them, perceive them if I didn't have a name all ready for them in my mind? What was my mind? Just a word, just something I appointed a place in my 'being'. Everything I say or think is made of language, of words indicating things we made or agreed upon. Everything named, labelled. How about if I lost the labels, how would that change the way I looked at, well, EVERYTHING? And of course, at that point I was lost for words. Cos words are constructs, things agreed upon to describe other things, appearances, events, experiences. Stuff happens, and what that stuff is, well, that just remains to be seen. And those are words again and how can words, little structures we agreed upon, describe something, the word world around the word us.
And again, I don't know why, or maybe I just can't express it in words (heh), but this train of thought took only a minute or so, yet it brought me to the brink of tears. It brought me close to something, to some unnameable something and it took my breath away. I didn't pursue it, I left it like that. Maybe I'll get back to it when I'm in bed getting ready to sleep (that's when the deep thinking happens, the big insights come out to play).

Spiritually constipated

I wouldn't suggest this to anyone. It's too much work, takes too much time most of which you'll feel like crap anyway, no matter how hard you work at it. It might be better to remain as you are. Ignorance is bliss after all. I now get why that's true. You feel awful but not as awful as when you know you're in a certain state that can be 'fixed' and then go about fixing it. Or trying to. Stay at that nice and steady level of misery and don't bother yourself with change.
Just appreciate the little things in life and screw everything else. Who needs all that existential crap anyway.
I find that the moments I feel most calm and peaceful are the ones spent sitting, drinking coffee, looking at the garden where little birds hop and dance and the neighbour's cat looks at them in wonder. That's all.

The past several weeks have been about spiritual constipation, and I was sort of hoping it would resolve itself, but without the part where the butterfly gets squashed by the steam roller. You know, like the rape which unclogged my spiritual arteries last time and sent me on my merry way.
All I'm doing and have been doing is sitting, waiting, reading, doing nothing. Waiting, waiting for this part to be over. It's taking so long this time.
A week ago I thought I was being unclogged cos an ex called me out of the blue, even though I had told him I didn't want to keep in touch and didn't want him to contact me anymore. In his own endearing way, he completely ignored that fact, as if it spoke for itself that what I wanted didn't have to be considered At All. I tried to be polite and used the 'conversation' as an exercise, but he so completely ignored what I was telling him that I was mad as hell after I turned off the phone.
I now have his phone number, so if he calls again I'll see it's him and will be able to simply ignore the call.
I couldn't sleep until 5 am. I was enraged, frustrated, sad and I felt like a little girl and that's why I knew what was going on; it was the theme of my childhood/life: what I want doesn't matter, doesn't have to be taken into consideration. If I finally open my mouth and tell people what I want or what I would prefer, it's of no consequence. It doesn't matter. I don't matter.
He violated me. He kept on going, kept on talking. I don't like talking on the phone, it feels like an ambush, I can't prepare for it and get overwhelmed. I should have hung up the phone, which is what I'll do next time. It was very similar to the rape, although to others that might seem like an exaggeration. It felt like rape. Because someone who knows me and who knows what I want because I told them - several times - does something I explicitly told him not to.
I say no, he says go. That's rape.
My whole life has been about rape, in many shapes and sizes. That recognition wasn't enough to make me finally fall asleep, but it did shake things up, and for a day I thought that maybe that was what would end my spiritual constipation, but alas, it didn't.

So here I am, inert, waiting.

Reading serial killer fiction, recognizing what the writer says about pretending to be human, trying on facial expressions, trying to find appropriate things to say or do in certain situations: what would a regular human being do or say now? What would they feel? How would they react? As if every other person walking the earth has a manual and I don't, there's a secret everybody's in on, and I'm not. Weird to read all that. It's fiction, but it sure rings true to me.
I often think to myself: "What would I say or do now if I didn't try to exhibit the 'right' behaviour and reactions?" Then I try. It still feels unusual, different, strange. But real.

I'll keep practising. And waiting. And doing absolutely nothing but sleep, watch great TV series and eat, a lot. I'm getting fat too. No diets, no pressure, but please God let this period pass already, so I can go back to a reasonable way of eating, sort of.
Last night I vomited for the first time in quite a while and it's really not my thing. My kitchen's a mess again as well. Whine, moan, et cetera. Later***