On journaling my thoughts rather than my life
There was a Chirstmas many many years ago, where I lived the childhood dream, snuck down several nights beforehand, after I was sure all my presents were in their places, and opened them all. I was incidious, and took great care to pick at the tape with my fingernails, slowly prying it up, with the greatest of caution, sometimes havung to stop at the slightest tear, paste the tape back down, and start fresh on another side, unfolding the paper just enough to peer inside, then follwoing all the creases to carefully rewrap each gift, even going to the legth of lining up where the tape had peeled off the ghost of the print on the wrapping paper, a flaw that in retrospect, my parents would have had to be insane to check for. After all, why would they go examining the gifts they laid under that tree? They trusted me, after all.
That Christmas was the worst of my youth. There wasn't any excitement in it. I already knew what each package contained, and instead of it being a holiday of good, bad, and sometimes confusing suprises, all I experienced was reopening paper, looking at opjects I had already seen, and then exclaiming delight at it. It was a boring, hollow sort of holiday, but in lookign back, it taught me two things.
The first thing, is that the facination for the holiday isn't in what I was receiving, but in the act of recieving something. After I had opened the gifts, I didn't spend the next three days thrilled and anticipating when I could drag all those objects up to my room. I had lost interest in them before I had even actually received them. It was similar to other Christmases, where the day after, I wasn't really all that interested in the majority of my gifts and had already returned to playing with the same things I played with before Christmas. I didn't want more things, I just enjoyed seeing what had been given to me. I tried to communicate this a few years back, when I asked people to make things -anything- for me, rather than buy me stuff. It endedup with everyone completely disregarding that and buying me stuff anyway. Now I tell people not to get me anything. I'd rather 1 person give me a poem written on the back of a feather, then a dozen people get me $200 dollars worth of random objects twice a year, in the hopes that I will maybe find it suited to my taste. I don't really want things. Christmas taught me that.
The other thing I learned is that misbehaving is also more fun than physical possesions. The sneaking, the careful peeling of the tape, the slow unwrapping, afraid that someone would be alerted by the sound, documenting everything in my head, not really caring that they are things that I would get. Just that they were things that I -knew- I knew what they were, and I was not supposed to. There was adrenaline that night, and afterwards, the smug reminder that I knew what I was not suppsoed to every time I saw that tree. I knew what each box with my name written on the tag contained. I knew more than my sister did, and more than my family thought I did. The only thing that spoiled it was Christmas morning, when I opened the package, and all my little secrets became common knowledge. Everyone knew what my presents were, and nobody minded that I knew, because it became what I was supposed to do. I think I had more fun 4 nights before Christmas than I ever had on Christmas day. I felt all that satisfaction of the suprise of receiving my gifts, but now with the added edge of feelign it when I was not supposed to. 4 days before Christmas was my best Christmas ever, and I got to spend it without a season themed dress or sweater on.
This feeling or receiving versus the thing being received has shown up a lot in my life. The easiest way to see it is in my start refusal to post Chirstmad wish lsits, or to tell people what I want for my birthday. I can't wait to one day get married, and see what my more distant relatives get me with no merciful wedding registry, but the strong need to go against my wishes and get me a gift. I hope I end up with 4 kitchen-aid mixers, a grandfather clock, a cordless drill, and a gift card to Wal-Mart that I can promptly pass on to some homeless guy. Whatever it ends up as, the assortment of them is sure to be my gift to myself. Another way it's been popping up, which is what I 've been thinging about, which caused me to psychoanalyze myself, which brought back the Christmas memories, which made a nice analogy for my intengible feelings, is that in a relationship, I seem incapable of expressing what I want. That is not to say that I want nothing. That's very very far from the truth. It's that I don't want to formulate the plan in my head and then saya ll the things I want, and then have them all executed, and see everythign go my way. I want to see them go their way. And then I want to add my own to it, and then I want it to go our way. I don't want to dictate things and then have them just go my way. I don't even want to make specific suggestions, because I don't want to controll the way things go, because the thing I like best is seeing how they go. And sometimes, I like watchign them go the way they're not supposed to.
This all has me really missing getting drunk with Tica in the botanical gardens. Our original intent was to scout it around and take test photos and possibly do a cosplay meet up there.
This is what happens when I do laundry at 3AM.
It probably would be a really nice place for a meet up though.
That Christmas was the worst of my youth. There wasn't any excitement in it. I already knew what each package contained, and instead of it being a holiday of good, bad, and sometimes confusing suprises, all I experienced was reopening paper, looking at opjects I had already seen, and then exclaiming delight at it. It was a boring, hollow sort of holiday, but in lookign back, it taught me two things.
The first thing, is that the facination for the holiday isn't in what I was receiving, but in the act of recieving something. After I had opened the gifts, I didn't spend the next three days thrilled and anticipating when I could drag all those objects up to my room. I had lost interest in them before I had even actually received them. It was similar to other Christmases, where the day after, I wasn't really all that interested in the majority of my gifts and had already returned to playing with the same things I played with before Christmas. I didn't want more things, I just enjoyed seeing what had been given to me. I tried to communicate this a few years back, when I asked people to make things -anything- for me, rather than buy me stuff. It endedup with everyone completely disregarding that and buying me stuff anyway. Now I tell people not to get me anything. I'd rather 1 person give me a poem written on the back of a feather, then a dozen people get me $200 dollars worth of random objects twice a year, in the hopes that I will maybe find it suited to my taste. I don't really want things. Christmas taught me that.
The other thing I learned is that misbehaving is also more fun than physical possesions. The sneaking, the careful peeling of the tape, the slow unwrapping, afraid that someone would be alerted by the sound, documenting everything in my head, not really caring that they are things that I would get. Just that they were things that I -knew- I knew what they were, and I was not supposed to. There was adrenaline that night, and afterwards, the smug reminder that I knew what I was not suppsoed to every time I saw that tree. I knew what each box with my name written on the tag contained. I knew more than my sister did, and more than my family thought I did. The only thing that spoiled it was Christmas morning, when I opened the package, and all my little secrets became common knowledge. Everyone knew what my presents were, and nobody minded that I knew, because it became what I was supposed to do. I think I had more fun 4 nights before Christmas than I ever had on Christmas day. I felt all that satisfaction of the suprise of receiving my gifts, but now with the added edge of feelign it when I was not supposed to. 4 days before Christmas was my best Christmas ever, and I got to spend it without a season themed dress or sweater on.
This feeling or receiving versus the thing being received has shown up a lot in my life. The easiest way to see it is in my start refusal to post Chirstmad wish lsits, or to tell people what I want for my birthday. I can't wait to one day get married, and see what my more distant relatives get me with no merciful wedding registry, but the strong need to go against my wishes and get me a gift. I hope I end up with 4 kitchen-aid mixers, a grandfather clock, a cordless drill, and a gift card to Wal-Mart that I can promptly pass on to some homeless guy. Whatever it ends up as, the assortment of them is sure to be my gift to myself. Another way it's been popping up, which is what I 've been thinging about, which caused me to psychoanalyze myself, which brought back the Christmas memories, which made a nice analogy for my intengible feelings, is that in a relationship, I seem incapable of expressing what I want. That is not to say that I want nothing. That's very very far from the truth. It's that I don't want to formulate the plan in my head and then saya ll the things I want, and then have them all executed, and see everythign go my way. I want to see them go their way. And then I want to add my own to it, and then I want it to go our way. I don't want to dictate things and then have them just go my way. I don't even want to make specific suggestions, because I don't want to controll the way things go, because the thing I like best is seeing how they go. And sometimes, I like watchign them go the way they're not supposed to.
This all has me really missing getting drunk with Tica in the botanical gardens. Our original intent was to scout it around and take test photos and possibly do a cosplay meet up there.
This is what happens when I do laundry at 3AM.
It probably would be a really nice place for a meet up though.