(no subject)
So this might sound crazy, but I've just had a somewhat mystical experience, or at least transcendent. It will take a bit to explain, so bear with me.
Yesterday there was all kinds of stuff going on inside me, manifesting itself mostly as anger. I was fucking PISSED yesterday, at everything and everyone. My job, myself, the universe, the city, the subway, everyone on the subway. I felt trapped, which is not an uncommon feeling for me, but usually it is not that intense. I was like some kind of animal gnawing at the bars of its cage yesterday. I couldn't handle anything about my life, at all.
So I got through the day somehow, and made it home, and made some food, and took some Tylenol PM for the tooth pain and random aches and just to knock me out. And I started drifting in an out of sleep and stuff, and I was watching the episode of My So Called Life where Angela meets Rayanne's mom and gets her tarot read and then Rayanne ODs and Angela's mom comes to take her to the ER. And then, I got up to take my dishes in the kitchen. And on the floor was the BIGGEST FUCKING ARTHROPOD I HAVE EVER SEEN. I thought it was a centipede at first because it was too long (I thought) to be an American cockroach. It crawled a little, and the cat watched it but did nothing. I decided that must be a roach because it was too solid-looking to be a centipede, and then I thought that maybe it was two roaches but like, one had halfway eaten the other one and was dragging it along, but I could not bring myself to look close enough to be sure. At some point it flipped over on its back, so I think it was just one animal, whatever it was. At that point I couldn't deal with it anymore and left the room. I watched Detroit 1-8-7 and went to sleep for good. This morning, it was gone. So, either the cat got it or one of the roommates killed it or it left on its own.
But then, today. Today I got to work feeling more normal. And then I read a bunch of old Livejournal entries from 2004 (in between doing work of course, heh). And gradually I started feeling a lot more okay...and then suddenly I felt REALLY okay. Like that quiet, peaceful okay that is at your core, not just the temporary staving-off-the-misery okay. I feel, currently, a sense of peace and well being that I have not felt in some number of years. I can't really describe it in flowery or dramatic language, because it isn't flowery or dramatic. It is just there...like something was missing and suddenly got put back, and things make sense. And I went downstairs to look for a book and I wasn't angry at the customers for existing, and then this lady asked me a couple of questions and I answered her and she thanked me and touched my arm in this warm, familiar way, and I shit you not that I got tears in my eyes walking back upstairs. I feel like some kind of incredible housecleaning has happened in my head, and in my soul.
And for some reason my thoughts came back to the bug. I mentioned it to Nicole, that I was thinking it was maybe some kind of messenger, a mythological creature of some kind. (I was thinking for some reason of the mongoose in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, actually.) And Nicole pointed out how roaches eat garbage, feed off of our waste; they destroy refuse, in a sense. So the symbolism works perfectly. As terrified as I was of that thing, it meant no harm. It was there to clean shit away, to tell me things are going to be better. And in that case, I am glad I didn't kill it. I almost don't want to find out if one of the other roommates killed it, because that will screw with my symbolism a little, and I don't want to think of it as just a nasty ass roach :-).
Either way, I feel incredible right now. And it's NICE.
Yesterday there was all kinds of stuff going on inside me, manifesting itself mostly as anger. I was fucking PISSED yesterday, at everything and everyone. My job, myself, the universe, the city, the subway, everyone on the subway. I felt trapped, which is not an uncommon feeling for me, but usually it is not that intense. I was like some kind of animal gnawing at the bars of its cage yesterday. I couldn't handle anything about my life, at all.
So I got through the day somehow, and made it home, and made some food, and took some Tylenol PM for the tooth pain and random aches and just to knock me out. And I started drifting in an out of sleep and stuff, and I was watching the episode of My So Called Life where Angela meets Rayanne's mom and gets her tarot read and then Rayanne ODs and Angela's mom comes to take her to the ER. And then, I got up to take my dishes in the kitchen. And on the floor was the BIGGEST FUCKING ARTHROPOD I HAVE EVER SEEN. I thought it was a centipede at first because it was too long (I thought) to be an American cockroach. It crawled a little, and the cat watched it but did nothing. I decided that must be a roach because it was too solid-looking to be a centipede, and then I thought that maybe it was two roaches but like, one had halfway eaten the other one and was dragging it along, but I could not bring myself to look close enough to be sure. At some point it flipped over on its back, so I think it was just one animal, whatever it was. At that point I couldn't deal with it anymore and left the room. I watched Detroit 1-8-7 and went to sleep for good. This morning, it was gone. So, either the cat got it or one of the roommates killed it or it left on its own.
But then, today. Today I got to work feeling more normal. And then I read a bunch of old Livejournal entries from 2004 (in between doing work of course, heh). And gradually I started feeling a lot more okay...and then suddenly I felt REALLY okay. Like that quiet, peaceful okay that is at your core, not just the temporary staving-off-the-misery okay. I feel, currently, a sense of peace and well being that I have not felt in some number of years. I can't really describe it in flowery or dramatic language, because it isn't flowery or dramatic. It is just there...like something was missing and suddenly got put back, and things make sense. And I went downstairs to look for a book and I wasn't angry at the customers for existing, and then this lady asked me a couple of questions and I answered her and she thanked me and touched my arm in this warm, familiar way, and I shit you not that I got tears in my eyes walking back upstairs. I feel like some kind of incredible housecleaning has happened in my head, and in my soul.
And for some reason my thoughts came back to the bug. I mentioned it to Nicole, that I was thinking it was maybe some kind of messenger, a mythological creature of some kind. (I was thinking for some reason of the mongoose in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, actually.) And Nicole pointed out how roaches eat garbage, feed off of our waste; they destroy refuse, in a sense. So the symbolism works perfectly. As terrified as I was of that thing, it meant no harm. It was there to clean shit away, to tell me things are going to be better. And in that case, I am glad I didn't kill it. I almost don't want to find out if one of the other roommates killed it, because that will screw with my symbolism a little, and I don't want to think of it as just a nasty ass roach :-).
Either way, I feel incredible right now. And it's NICE.