Telling Stories
In February 2015 I started writing my journal entries as if I were writing my life as a novel. This shift was delightful in many ways. It coaxed out more details from me. It caused me to tell the story, and not just vent my emotions. It resulted in entries that were a joy (and a tear-jerker) to look back on and read. It felt satisfying.
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For a time. I began to notice over time that I often spent so much time telling the story that I forgot what I used to use writing for. I used to write to feel. And so, I challenged myself to do that again.
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July 22nd 2016
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I hate myself.
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I hate how I just take, take, take from others. It's never enough. I'm still aching, empty and dead inside at the end.
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I'm a drama queen.
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I'm self-editing.
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I'm a hypocrite. No more authentic than anyone else. No such thing as being more authentic. Everyone is equally displaying their truth. Fuck reality. Fuck relativity. Fuck.
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I want to be hurt. Fuck your bread.
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I don't want to be fat.
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July 24th 2016, 10:51am
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Stop pretending. Stop pretending that you love me. It hurts. Because I want to touch you . . . touch you deep inside. But I'm not allowed. It isn't okay. And because that isn't okay, nothing is okay. I have to let go, move on, move outwards and inwards.
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I hurt inside. I miss myself. I feel alone. I am lonely for my own company, but seemingly unable to find it.
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Having two men really isn't any different than having one. I still have one me. And it is the constant me that I experience in my reality. It is my me reflected in them that I feel.
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It's just more intensified. The loneliness is worse when they're both distant. The closeness can be sweeter when they're both pampering. These two extremes aren't so bad, but the double-locks I put on my own behavior (self-inflicted) are weighty.
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July 26th 2016, 4:52pm
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I wish I had a more comfortable way to write at my computer. My spine is hunched. The text is blurry. The angle for my wrists is not ideal. It is fairly easy to absorb myself in things I don't want to do while so uncomfortable, but it is hard to let the flow overtake me, and write and feel and be genuine. I'm tired. This posture makes me feel even more tired. It makes me want to lay down.
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But when I lay down my thoughts just chase around and around each other. I hate feeling unproductive. I hate feeling like I'm just a leach. I just take, take, take. I need, need, need. I want to be giving, loving, appreciating and kind. And yet I just feel like I need more. Always more.
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I want my belly rubbed. I want my head massaged. I want my feet squeezed. I want to be stroked in ways that let me know that I'm beautiful. I want Hibiscus or Paladin to help me process. Why are they both so reluctant now? What have I done so wrong?
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I've hit a stumbling block emotionally. I don't care that it is summer - apparently. I come up with plans to work hard in the garden and bringing my dreams to life, and one of three things happens: a splitting headache, a foot pain or flies pelting my face. Clearly the universe and my subconscious are saying: No, not that. But for god's sake, why?
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Gardening is good for me. Gardening helps prove I'm worthy of Hibiscus's love and support. Gardening helps bring my dreams to fruition. Gardening involves breathing the fresh air.
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Gardening means I'm committed to being here.
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I'm scared of being committed to being here.
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8:46pm
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I ate a duck-egg yolk. What a really wanted was a grapefruit.
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I had some bites of sunflower-currant-seed-butter. What I really wanted was ginger juice accompanied by virtually anything, so long as ginger juice was involved.
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It felt nice having Paladin and Hibiscus lying on either side of me for the short time it lasted. I enjoyed listening to their voices singing "yellow submarine" together. They actually sound quite nice together. Like their voices were meant to fit together, like the way they both feel like they're meant to fit together with me.
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. . .
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"Your eyes are so beautiful," I said looking into Hibiscus's eyes with Paladin spooning me from behind. "Aren't his eyes beautiful?" I said to Paladin.
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Paladin propped himself up and looked over me at Hibiscus. "They look pretty much like your eyes."
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"Really?"
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"Yep," Paladin said. "I can hardly tell the difference."
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I smiled. It was hard to imagine that my own eyes were really as beautiful.
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"Then I must have beautiful eyes too," I said. "Although, Hibiscus thinks your eyes are prettier."
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Paladin laughed. Hibiscus grinned and nodded.
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"See, he is nodding!" I exclaim. Paladin chuckled.
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"I'm just too embarrassed to say so," Hibiscus muttered.
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. . .
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I told myself a story. In this story I was Hibiscus's whore. He bought me. I became his slave. He owns me. I owe my life to him. I play this story over and over in my mind. I can't seem to help it. At first, it served us. It allowed me to explain to myself why I had fallen in love with him. It explained to the skeptical parts of me why I would be with such a "schmuck" - or whatever derogatory term those parts of me invented at the time.
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Now I love him for him. I also resent him for him. And I don't need this story that informs me that I'm his subservient whore. Why does the story stick so well when he doesn't play into it?
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Or does he play into it? When he gives me the signal that my feelings are not valid, and when he makes it plain with his description that his worries are much more important than my own, and when he simply expects that I will have done so much more than I have actually done. I fed him this story. It is my fault if he believes it. Or maybe we matched each other so well because it was so natural for him to take the story I fed him and believe it and play into it.