diary 1.00 (Patreon)

[this is fiction]

some weeks go by so bloated with rumination that the writing becomes impossible. the rumination, to do entirely with what I interpret as my social failures, presents itself as important ‘work’: if I keep thinking about this ‘problem’ (the problem being something uncomfortable that I did, felt, thought, or said, or social-me, the general concept of), I’ll finally figure out what about me made the failure happen, and with this knowledge I can become normal, and perfect in my normalcy. great plan! my shame makes me obsessed with myself and so isn’t just useless but repulsive. the repulsion breeds more shame. the greater the shame the less capable I become of seeing the world as it is, busy piloting around the massive parade balloon effigy of my ego that blocks out the sun and scares away the birds. 

something else: the better I get at observing my mind, the more I see writing as an act of cooperation with the consciousness instead of just an arrangement of it. the consciousness needs to be channeled and then surrendered to in self-seance. creativity is dreaming. submission is important. you go where the ghost goes. lately handwriting helps me towards that sort of arrangement (on the computer I switch away from documents to anything else…my attention span is shot). but even then – the shame makes everything so fucking rigid! oh, me. oh, my. I’m psyching myself out. I spend the morning dallying and then creep up to the desk so it doesn’t know I’m there. my writing frustrates me. my mind frustrates me. my mind knows I’m watching. it’s stiff with fear of my judgment. my new therapist is dutch. she is a specialist. she lives in my computer. she has me reading jung, jung’s disciples, books about ‘human virtuality’. what do you think the function of your shame is? she asks. I guess it’s a kind of hypervigilance, I say, like, protection. she says, does it feel like protection? well, no, nothing ever really does.

my therapist googles me. she says my sensitivity is my function. she asks me to email her my dreams. 

this is the second therapist with whom I’ve turned the narrative towards ‘loneliness’, my feeling that I ought to have more close relationships, my feeling that my inability to arrange perfect little bouquets of them points to a wrongness in my soul, and it’s because of this wrongness that I’ll miss out on important human revelations, and in my missing out will be unable to become a fully realized person, or a great writer. meanwhile, all conversations bore me, unless they’re about writing, or the internet, or someone is being very funny. and even in my boredom I’m socially ashamed. words line my throat. alcohol relaxes, but summons the persona, my honest, authentic persona, who’s rude, and unobservant, and indiscriminately flirtatious, who can’t tolerate the boredom, who sloshes around the pub table barking obnoxious and overly personal questions at strangers, chanting won’t somebody please for the love of god say what they mean, or at least something bizarre! she’s right, but there are ways to do it. sweaty in bed the next morning I feel contempt for the persona. when someone likes the persona, I think, what’s the matter with you.

my therapist wonders if I’ve tried watching my mind while I socialize, and I say, never, it would make speech impossible. I can’t even fathom it. I would sink to the bottom of the interaction like a stone.

naturally it’s easy to want to be alone. I stay home. I see no one for days. messages appear. I make little effort. I sit on a soft blanket in inverleith park. a white butterfly glitches past. I scrunch my toes. pockets of friends grow their relationships around me on the hill. I eavesdrop as they talk about celebrities, the past, absent friends that they don’t like. I roll blades of grass in my fingers. there is a pleasant texture. I read plath’s diaries. I read meditations. I write in a spiral notebook. I listen to a lecture on my phone and sleep in the sun. later I buy a ticket at the cinema and suck on little chocolates until the sugar makes the roof my mouth sandpapery. those are beautiful days. those days I feel in communion with a watchful and kindly collective consciousness who at once recognizes my sweet aloneness, my commitment to beauty, to a little outfit, to an attractive sitting position, and rewards me for my effort with their glances and smiles. sometimes I speak! sometimes a quick and successful interaction, one where one or both of us is charming, lights up my whole day. these encounters end in perfect time. I ruin nothing, and have nothing ruined for me. 

and then I go home thinking, that moment was nice, so am I lonely? later I’ll accept another invitation. at the function I’ll feel disappointed, or embarrassed. it’s the same show.

historically love has kept me from this eternal recurrence. when love is happening it’s all there is. and though friendship has seemed like a chore, an act of maintenance, love is a special possession, bright with cosmic importance; love is honest, and away from shame; love creates moments where I can express myself through sound and gesture, through acts of the body impossible to misinterpret; love meets me in bed, my most comfortable place. I bloom in love. the persona is shed. the hard edges are revealed to be an illusion! this is a great moment, when the lover discovers my real and total softness and is proud to have coaxed it out of me, which endears us further to each other. I perform well in love’s arena. and when I don't I’m very willing to apologize and be forgiven, unlike in friendship which never seems worth the embarrassment of reconciliation. one real witness is all I can stand.

I've been single for half a year. this is the first time in my adult life that this is the case. I’m learning how being single works. some days I feel deprived of my reason for being, an agent sans arena. I go unwitnessed. the mask is worn in company always. I share very little of the small events of my life, so what I don’t write down disappears into time’s stream. I seduce nothing. my affection falls out of me, unalchemized. my body stays unlit. boo.

before I moved I told myself I will not date for two years! I moved. that friday a psychology student tried unsuccessfully to hold my hand. five days after I watched a neuroscientist resolve to kiss me in the cab, then duck away with urgency, and I appreciated the gesture, its shyness, conducted like a timid and romantic child afraid to be caught at recess, then, driven home in the dark through the beams of yellow lamplight, I was washed in gladness to be alone again. 

no more dates. 

the past spills over with beautiful boys. they were everywhere, swarming like summer mayflies on erie. it was so easy for me to discover one and feel profound towards him, my world lousy with limerence, my desire flailing wildly around, looking to latch. it was fun and it was painful. and it was nice to have something to do, a reason to be very intense and stupid, a receptacle for the intensity and the stupidity. we’d lived no lives, hadn’t yet developed any strong convictions. I was willing to change in service of others. now I know what my life is and I’m stubborn to keep it. real integration seems impossible. in moments I worry I’ll never feel that young stupid intensity again and it makes me miserable. 

I hardly meet anyone new. this is a problem so many are having in love. also, I’m intimidating, and the culture is autistic, so no one ever approaches. but how else? the apps are embarrassing, and the events are embarrassing, and this nebulous ‘someone like me’ sits in their room, thinking the same thing, and so we’ll not meet and then die.

I think, I’d like to date a writer, and then the thought exhausts me. I think, I’d like to date someone ‘normal’, and then the thought depresses me. 

I go to a kink social in my new city. it’s in a pub basement, away from the normals. the air is heavy with mildew. someone wears cat ears. I drink very quickly. three strangers in black listen as I say I feel out of place at these things because I didn’t choose this, you know, and I’m really looking for someone else who feels like they didn’t choose this, and the strangers set their mouths. 

my shame and I take the bus home. we tangle our little hands. we face forward. we’re sorry.

whatever. I badly want to make peace with the writing. I hate when we don’t get along. 

revelations appear like an acquaintance in a dream who wants me to touch them. I grip the acquaintance and the gripping is what wakes me. almost–

[hello! a quick p.s.: updates will be returning to their usual frequency...i travelled at the end of may which damaged the timeline but i'm now back on schedule. (i went to athens! more on that later) typing up my may reading list now. all my love]