(no subject)
Well it's long past due for some sort of update. I have, of course, been back in school since the beginning of the semester in january. I couldn't stand being school-less for more than a semester. I'm actually doing really well . . .in the one clas I'm taking. But that's better than nothing, and it will get me back in full time next semester. After that, I still plan on transfering to SUNY Canton, just in time for Brittany to graduate from SLU and go far away. it figures. Oh well.
I've been pretty miserable for the last year or so. Just a bunch of seemingly small things that crept up on me somewhere back in september, when I finally realized how horribly sick I was of feeling like shit. And with that firmly in my mind, I promptly began to slide even more quickly down into the muddy sewer of despair. Sometimes the thought of getting out of bed and going through the daily motions of living was utterly terrifying. I felt like all the joy had been sucked from my life, there was nothing to look forward to. Nothing that I usually enjoyed doing held any interest for me. I have no idea why it was so bad.
Then just a few weeks ago, I woke up on a particularly sunny day that actually happened to be warm-ish. I sat on my porch and read for awhile. as I sat there, I quickly lost interest in the book and just sat with my eyes closed, feeling how warm the sun was on my shirt. I felt like shit as usual, and wished that I could fully enjoy such a nice day in the way that I would have in the past. I just sat there, wishing i could feel good. After a while, I don't remember a specific train of thought, but it was along the lines of, if I want to feel good, i should feel good. I should just stop those awful feelings and start feeling good. After all, I couldn't point to any one huge reason for such misery, only a clutch of smaller ones that I really should just let go of. It sounds pretty stupid even to me, but I felt like my emotions shouldn't have any sort of control over me, that it should be the other way around. They were MY emotions, dammit!!
So for a little while on the porch, it worked. maybe it was just the thought of fighting back, but I felt a bit better. Not like I used to, but better than I had been feeling. The sun probably helped alot too. I never really thought I could fix myself BY myself, I was pretty much resigned to antidepresants, I even had a counselor appointment set up. But the concept of just letting go of pain, or going past pain stuck with me, like a simple but ingenious little mechanism will stick in your head.
After a few days of ruminating on such thoughts, I had a series of minor epiphanies. I was thinking about my emotions and how I might just push them back or distract myself from them, but that got me thinking about shit and made me consequently feel like shit. It was in the midst of this shit that I asked myself, what are thoughts, anyway? are thoughts what make a person, a person?
I've always been a closet spiritualist, a mindset that I can trace back to my parents' divorce and how as a six year old I managed to convince myself that everything was okay. Therefore, feeling the way I felt, the idea of a person defined purely by thought just didn't sit well with me. What about the soul? what about the essence of the person itself?
that was the linch pin. It all started to solidify. I am convinced that thought alone cannot define a person, just as the words on a piece of paper cannot define that paper. The words were thoughts, the soul was the paper. I figured that, if thoughts alone are giving me such grief, and causing negative feelings, since I adamantly believe that each person is more than thoughts, why can't I just move past them? So I tried. I tried as hard as I could to stop thinking and just BE a person. And oddly enough, it worked. It took some effort, but I realized that Nothing can stick to me. nothing can touch my being, my definition, my REAL self. things could cause bad thoughts and thus bad feelings, but no thoughts can define me, or anyone else, and so they just slide off.
In the space of five days I was a new person. It took conscious commitment, but once it became a habit it felt like the most natural thing on earth. I have not been upset since. I haven't felt hurt or offended since. I've never felt anything like this before, and I know that my attempts to explain what I went through that caused it are paltry and almost worthless, but I feel like I have to say it. It's to good to keep to myself, and I don't really have anyone to talk to that would understand. So I guess this post was less an update and more a catharsis, but I'm going to post it anyway.
Anyway, I feel good now. I still have bad feelings, but they don't affect me. It's like I'm feeling another person's emotions, they just slide away without touching my center. you know, the opposite of a tootsie pop.
My cousin Ryan has been living with me and my mom since january, he's from norfolk and wanted to go to JCC, so we let him stay. I like him, he's pretty nice and smart enough not to get on my nerves. he's a magician with computers. I feel like a four-year-old with a pushbutton book next to him. But I've never been a techie anyway, at least not with computers. good thing to, because I don't think Ryan has willingly exercized in several years, and it shows. he's a plump. I don't mind plumps, just lazy plumps.
other than that, Aaron and I have been drawing with charcoals lately, I made a picture of one of those wheelchair symbol guys like the ones on bathroom doors, except he's got a ficus growing from his head. I love it, and so does Aaron's mom, who is the type that feels like anyone given preferential treatment is trying to personally show her up.
so yeah, that's about it in a nutshell. Call if you want to chat. 315-286-8421
oh, I've begun posting select photos on webshots.com. this is the link, if you want to look, download, etc:
http://community.webshots.com/user/Bing2you
Feel free to request specific photos of you or whoever that I have taken, and I'll stick them up there. Love you all, hope I see some of you soon enough.
I've been pretty miserable for the last year or so. Just a bunch of seemingly small things that crept up on me somewhere back in september, when I finally realized how horribly sick I was of feeling like shit. And with that firmly in my mind, I promptly began to slide even more quickly down into the muddy sewer of despair. Sometimes the thought of getting out of bed and going through the daily motions of living was utterly terrifying. I felt like all the joy had been sucked from my life, there was nothing to look forward to. Nothing that I usually enjoyed doing held any interest for me. I have no idea why it was so bad.
Then just a few weeks ago, I woke up on a particularly sunny day that actually happened to be warm-ish. I sat on my porch and read for awhile. as I sat there, I quickly lost interest in the book and just sat with my eyes closed, feeling how warm the sun was on my shirt. I felt like shit as usual, and wished that I could fully enjoy such a nice day in the way that I would have in the past. I just sat there, wishing i could feel good. After a while, I don't remember a specific train of thought, but it was along the lines of, if I want to feel good, i should feel good. I should just stop those awful feelings and start feeling good. After all, I couldn't point to any one huge reason for such misery, only a clutch of smaller ones that I really should just let go of. It sounds pretty stupid even to me, but I felt like my emotions shouldn't have any sort of control over me, that it should be the other way around. They were MY emotions, dammit!!
So for a little while on the porch, it worked. maybe it was just the thought of fighting back, but I felt a bit better. Not like I used to, but better than I had been feeling. The sun probably helped alot too. I never really thought I could fix myself BY myself, I was pretty much resigned to antidepresants, I even had a counselor appointment set up. But the concept of just letting go of pain, or going past pain stuck with me, like a simple but ingenious little mechanism will stick in your head.
After a few days of ruminating on such thoughts, I had a series of minor epiphanies. I was thinking about my emotions and how I might just push them back or distract myself from them, but that got me thinking about shit and made me consequently feel like shit. It was in the midst of this shit that I asked myself, what are thoughts, anyway? are thoughts what make a person, a person?
I've always been a closet spiritualist, a mindset that I can trace back to my parents' divorce and how as a six year old I managed to convince myself that everything was okay. Therefore, feeling the way I felt, the idea of a person defined purely by thought just didn't sit well with me. What about the soul? what about the essence of the person itself?
that was the linch pin. It all started to solidify. I am convinced that thought alone cannot define a person, just as the words on a piece of paper cannot define that paper. The words were thoughts, the soul was the paper. I figured that, if thoughts alone are giving me such grief, and causing negative feelings, since I adamantly believe that each person is more than thoughts, why can't I just move past them? So I tried. I tried as hard as I could to stop thinking and just BE a person. And oddly enough, it worked. It took some effort, but I realized that Nothing can stick to me. nothing can touch my being, my definition, my REAL self. things could cause bad thoughts and thus bad feelings, but no thoughts can define me, or anyone else, and so they just slide off.
In the space of five days I was a new person. It took conscious commitment, but once it became a habit it felt like the most natural thing on earth. I have not been upset since. I haven't felt hurt or offended since. I've never felt anything like this before, and I know that my attempts to explain what I went through that caused it are paltry and almost worthless, but I feel like I have to say it. It's to good to keep to myself, and I don't really have anyone to talk to that would understand. So I guess this post was less an update and more a catharsis, but I'm going to post it anyway.
Anyway, I feel good now. I still have bad feelings, but they don't affect me. It's like I'm feeling another person's emotions, they just slide away without touching my center. you know, the opposite of a tootsie pop.
My cousin Ryan has been living with me and my mom since january, he's from norfolk and wanted to go to JCC, so we let him stay. I like him, he's pretty nice and smart enough not to get on my nerves. he's a magician with computers. I feel like a four-year-old with a pushbutton book next to him. But I've never been a techie anyway, at least not with computers. good thing to, because I don't think Ryan has willingly exercized in several years, and it shows. he's a plump. I don't mind plumps, just lazy plumps.
other than that, Aaron and I have been drawing with charcoals lately, I made a picture of one of those wheelchair symbol guys like the ones on bathroom doors, except he's got a ficus growing from his head. I love it, and so does Aaron's mom, who is the type that feels like anyone given preferential treatment is trying to personally show her up.
so yeah, that's about it in a nutshell. Call if you want to chat. 315-286-8421
oh, I've begun posting select photos on webshots.com. this is the link, if you want to look, download, etc:
http://community.webshots.com/user/Bing2you
Feel free to request specific photos of you or whoever that I have taken, and I'll stick them up there. Love you all, hope I see some of you soon enough.