pro·​cess·​ing

Something happened. And I got sad. I also felt hurt, or marginalized, or scared, or angry, or dejected. Not offended, but upset - you know the drill. Now I'm low. Sitting low like Bruce in the well, but without the calling for help part. Maybe the calling, but not for rescue. Calling out like a wee Viking lad in an opera, a widow sitting shiva. Because if I call for help, they may cut my languishing short, which may seem merciful to some but not always to me. It's not so much a need for attention as a need to be sad for a while (though I would be truly lying to you [a juicy little paradox there] if I said the attention was unwelcomed).

When I was young and felt upset (typically because my mom wasn't willing to drive me to my friend's house 45 minutes away for the afternoon [fair, mom] or because I was caught lying about practicing piano), I would sit on the stairs. And the thing was, I didn't let anyone pull me away from the staircase. I did want them to try, though. To come and say "Ry, come on, you're okay and we love you - it's so hard being 10!", but only so that I could rebuff their consolations. It was all very becoming. Today I am a 25 year old Russian doll encasing a smaller doll moping on a staircase. I'm only a bit of painted wood, gleaming in the lamplight and smiling a happier-than-Mona-Lisa but not-actually-happy smile. What do I do with this sad? Here's as far as I've worked it out:

I'm a verbal processor. And a word-processor processor. So I need to talk it out, babble on, then I need to battle for my life, Babylon. And also whip out my iCloud notes and jot down my thoughts, so I can figure out what the heck I feel about all my feelings that are swirling in my skull like bats in a cave. I talk, and I write, and then I share my writing with a friend, and they actively listen, sating my craving for affirmative recognition, then I rewrite. Then I talk to (sometimes at) my therapist, seeking active listening, a welcoming receptacle. Maybe this is part of why we love sex and therapy - someone opens themselves for your insertion, taking what you have to give and validating its legitimacy, often complimenting it and remarking at its normalcy, when up until that point you may have viewed it apprehensively or as a reprehensible 'other'. And as I follow this process map, a fear comes up, something I've realized is actually a huge pet peeve of mine: misrepresentation. I journal in a few ways - I do a monthly free-write, I journal on my phone daily, and I have a blog (I can link it in the comments). And the best part of having a written set of life documentation is that it's mostly editable. What scares me is this: often I'll walk away from a conversation, an important real-life conversation, feeling like I've messed up. Like I didn't say all I needed to say or didn't represent my thoughts in the right way (often involving not enough qualification of my generalizations). Or sometimes I walk away thinking "I was so prepared for that convo and wrote out all I needed to say, but I was so intent on saying my 'truths' that I wasn't hearing and encoding what they were saying to me." And I hate that. A lot a lot.

So now I'm low, after another conversation in which I shared more than I listened. And my 25 year old Russian doll shuffles and clinks over to the staircase and sits down, sighing out a mourning song. And tears come freely, because maybe if I had listened more I could have found more common ground. Maybe if I had said "Yeah you're absolutely right," instead of "That's fair, and I'm sorry you took it that way, but I really meant…", their heart would have felt more held. And yeah, I still do feel sad, and that matters. And maybe I'll either throw myself into another something, or maybe I'll keep sitting and thinking about this for a while. Until then I sit, beseeching both solitude and attention. Casting myself out so I can pine for invitation, until at last I swallow my ego and zoom out (those two words have saved my life), putting my flimsy conflict into perspective and marking complete the task of 'feeling my feels', as they say.

How many times does this play on loop? How many rotations does it make before the needle reaches the center and I run out of time? Was I playing Surfaces or Dodie? Pointing out the creamy, dreamy sunsets of high days or whimpering from room-temperature, prune-bestowing bathwater? Sorry for the collateral - thanks for the space.

fluf·​fing, 2

cannabis-catalyzed thoughts from april, '21:

Everything is interesting here, in this world behind and around our own, silver and bumpy, but motionally as smooth as silky peanut butter swaths. It’s the beginning of every moment that begins the next, a steeply piling reverbium of dominoes, and each one is invisible but beautiful. You just know. And upwards to where? To whence we came, they’d suppose, but maybe doomed to go, rather. All is light or dark, no in between, but if you concentrate hard enough you can rewind out of the cavern in the sky, the tunnel upwards. Rewind down to the flatlands of fauna, brushing you as your bare feet carefully, carefully avoid its more delicate parts.

hell no

Owen comes from a home for orphaned children, along with his two brothers. They had each been tasked by the home's administration to write letters to be sent out to prospective adoptive families. The children were told they could each pick one family but that no two of them could write to the same family - they therefore each selected a family, based on the descriptions in the binders, along with their own gut instincts (to which they had been encouraged to give great honor). The three had been living in an orphanage that was about to undergo a change in leadership. They'd been promised, in the incumbent administrator's mumbled and abashed tone, that the incoming director was a notoriously aggressive, abusive, and hateful man. The children put great care in their letters and sent them off with a kiss and a prayer. Of the three, Owen alone is adopted. Owen is heartbroken as he is shuttled into his new family's home, doing his best to maintain hope that his two brothers will also find a welcoming home soon. Upon arrival, he sees that a great many children have been adopted by the same family - children from around the world, both younger and older than himself. When Owen asked his new family, the Strettos, to also adopt his brothers, they acknowledge that they have plenty of room and resources available but that they are unwilling to extend the invitation of adoption to his remaining kin. In response to his incredulous expression, they point him towards a lone frame hanging in their grand, chandeliered entryway. As he approaches, he perceives it to be a diploma or award, but upon inspection he finds it to be a homemade document that reads, "Entry will only be permitted to applicants following the strict Stretto Template," under which was typed a paragraph remarkably similar to the letter he had sent in his personal application. He turns back to his new parents to see them already walking away, content with the explanation provided. Questions were prohibited, and enjoyment was expected. Time seemed to stand still, and communications to his siblings were barred. He met other adoptees in similar circumstances: coming from a larger family of equal need but being the sole recipients of the "warm embrace" of the Stretto's adoption. His mind rarely diverted from anxiety over his brothers' suffering. He incessantly inquired of his new guardians to reconsider, until they were ultimately forced to bring Owen to a white-walled medical facility. There they wiped his memory clean of all remnants of his prior home and family members. They held his hand as they guided him home, escorting his newly dazed, robotic self back to his forever home. Owen lived the rest of his life in contended silence, smiling easily with his adopted peers and partaking freely in the Strettos' limited hospitality. Only his parents knew the truth of his siblings' continued torment at the group home.