Honesty and Food

I need to start being honest with myself.  or the first time.  Yea, that's right.  Because up 'till now I've been basically living like an actor.  An actor in my own life.  How pathetic. 

One of the main focuses of my current meta-musings have been my relationship with food.  Honestly, I  could eat everything at any one time.  When I don't feel like eating, I still know I do deep down, It's actually something else that overruns my desire not to eat and makes it into that.  I probably DO want to eat.  Eating isn't something stress naturally impacts.  I'm not naturally inclined to have disordered eating.  I'm making myself have disordered eating...unless that's what defines it in its essence? Perhaps people who become seriously entrenched in their disorders are lacking a certain amount of self-awareness? Maybe I'm too-aware to get hospitalised. 

I need to see food not as an event.  But merely as an enjoyable necessity for basic physical and mental functionality.  There is nothing within the food that I need to read into, over-indulge in or otherwise. Looking at it longingly, even when I don't see it that way is what perpetuates the struggle. I just need to see it and do what I want with it, whether that's ignore it or eat it. I won't think. I can't.

The Ocean Is Before Me and Its Smell Is Sweet

It happened.  It finally happened and I can tell you I was not expecting it to be this way in the slightest.  After delivering my apology to her ...letterbox....it was the biggest weight lifted off my shoulders.  Like I'd had a cement truck slowly pouring cement on me for 5 long years, getting heavier and heavier all the time but I always managed to build up just enough strength to keep my chest from caving in.  I had no idea just how much cement had gathered, however, until I finally backed the truck up and took a shower.   It was glorious.  Walking down the sidewalk from her house, it was just beginning to drizzle and the air smelled fresh and I couldn't help but liken it to my own internal Spring Cleaning.  If my emotional insides had a smell at that particular moment of soul freedom, it would be rain, wet sidewalk and sprouting greenery.

I sent her a Facebook message directly afterwards telling her that she had a "note" *cough* 7 page mini series *cough* waiting for her.  I never heard back,not for 10 days.  Pretending like I didn't go a little mad throughout that 10 days would be a lie because I started imagining situations in which she never actually received it.  My biggest most irrational fear was of her dad getting to it first, opening it up, reading it and deeming it too difficult for his daughter to handle and throwing it away without another word, safe from her ever finding it. Of course this never happened.  The other side to my nigh on insanity bout was that I held onto an altogether too optimistic future of possibilities regarding the letter's reception and subsequent reaction. Some part of me wanted to keep me mentally sounds, however, because I never let myself fully imagine what might happen.  Half formed and blurry thoughts would fleetingly pass through my mind, providing nothing but wordless fuel for the strange optimism I felt. I never let myself get too hopeful, though.  Give me a break; I'm not that reckless.

But today she finally replied.  After sending her a blunt, almost rude, "yea....so did you get it?" via Facebook once again, she replied with probably the most crushing response I, thank God, couldn't never have imagined on my own. 

It's good you can get that off your chest
And I hope you can move forward.
I don't hold any resentment towards you anymore.
I've been over that whole situation for years and haven't thought about it in ages. so I really am the Sad One out of the two of us. Nice to have that confirmed.
The person you remember doesn't exist anymore. I'd like to vomit, now, thanks.
I've changed a lot and moved on with my life   
And hopefully now you can too.
I just hope you realize I still won't ever be able to be friends with you. yep. definitely time to vomit. everywhere and perpetually.
But I do not wish you any harm and hope you can live a
Happy and full life.  why even say this? You may as well find the nearest sledge hammer and bash my ankles in with it for all the happiness I'll feel after this blow. Stop being nice.  It isn't what I want to hear.  I want you to hate me.  That, or you physically poking me in the eye balls for half an hour with Miley Cyrus wailing in the background.  Anything would be infinitely better than THIS. Anything but this.  Please.

But then he spoke to me. And I listened.  And I spoke back and he remained.  Listening.

It's a kind of closure I've never felt before.  Up until now, I have never been able to  truly have it, not really. I'm almost certain it has everything to do with the fact that it isn't in my control anymore.  Not even slightly.  Lauren is who I hurt, and as such she had every right to set the terms for our afterlives. If this is what she needs, then so be it.  I accept. I will fight no longer. I will dream no longer. I am done. I am at peace.

And I understood the meaning of bittersweet.

The sweetness is brought on by what I'm starting to realize is my new Lauren.  A better one, if that's even possible.  The term "Lauren" is no longer a proper noun to me.  I am dead to her and that's what I needed. Lauren is now a common noun, a personal synonym of Love.  It took losing my first to realize just what it was I would be looking for in another, later on.  It isn't romantic, it isn't dramatic, it is merely the complete opening of my Self and soul to another, and in turn not being afraid, not even in the slightest.  The absence of fear is where love has found its roost.  Lauren needed to let me let go of her.  I needed her to rip off my water wings and pop them with pins before I could trust myself to not only float, but to swim.  

And so I dove.

Another Realization..I'm on a roll, apparently.

I need people in my life, that one's for sure.  And with that out of the way, I can now safely cross off Emotional Island Dweller from my list of future career aspirations. The trouble still remains of how to deal with them, though.  I feel so ungrateful for the one's I have when I have them because when I don't have them, I'm miserable, and when I do have them I seem to thrive off taking them for granted. I ditch people because I can, I hold off answering texts right away because it makes me feel like I'm taking control of my life when I pretend like I'm busy enough to have "things to do" before I can respond. So, as it seems, I know I need relationships to keep me sane, yet  can't seem to keep them functional because my chronic granted-taking leeches dysfunction into them. What in all hell am I supposed to? To top it all off, I've finally realized what it means  to want romantic company versus plain ol' regular friendship-company.  Normally I'd be bouncing off most hard surfaces at the onset of this understanding, but instead all it does is increase the potential for types of loneliness I can experience. There's no winning in getting to know yourself, just more real life to have to adjust to and cope with.

The End Maybe This Time for Real

I thought I had it so under control earlier today.  But that was before I remembered that night time is where real life happens and when real heartache kicks in.  Even though I'm completely fine - more than completely - I'm finding it harder and harder to stay in the mindset that had me wanting to break up with him in the first place! I think about it and I'm still convinced I made the right choice.  But since the time has come to settle down into the single life, I'm finding myself irrationally lonely. Better yet, Jarrett and Isaiah came over to say a quick hello and they told me they were headed to a movie later...with "a group." Took me a whole 8 seconds to deduce that "group" really means Lauren.  Yet another slap in the face of loneliness for you.  Can't I ever just 'be' the way I did when I was a kid and friendless purely because I hadn't met any yet?? I'm asking for paint supplies for my half birthday (medium story; I'll explain in a later post) in what was a slow creeping and suddenly all-at-once wave of motivation towards the art life again.  I was hoping that this was the first sign of what I've been trying to rekindle inside me for all these years.  Yet this evening has been killing me and whatever desire I had for anything else up until this point.  I thought breaking up with him was going to free up my mental space for all this new motivation but it hasn't.  I should have gone out tonight.  I need the distraction from my own thoughts that I'd normally rely on a best friend for but seeing as I haven't got one of those and I just dumped the closest equivalent a mere 6 hours ago, I'm rather at a loss.

Upon further thought, I'm lead to believe (by the not-so-gentle hand of my inner self, that is) that perhaps what I'm feeling is merely a crave for the social interaction I'm naturally inclined towards. For years I've learned and adapted to a life of social seclusion ever since the traumatic demise of the single most meaningful relationship I've ever had; Lauren. What if the loneliness isn't uniquely as a result of my break off with Kirk... What if it is really just that same old social butterfly I've held caged for so long finally trying to break free and this is how it communicates that need for freedom.

A Blerch Alternative is What I Need.

I read about "the Blurch" on The Oatmeal once upon a time. It's this guy's cartoon cumulative image of his innate and inner fat self. I have one too, only instead of helping me procrastinate and be lazy, mine keeps me eating long after I should have stopped. I need something to stop it, an inner self that can tell the blerch side to shut the hell up and close that mountain-consuming trap. She's the one who needs to take control, these days.

The Moment I've Been Waiting For

It finally happened! The event I've been waiting for since I first decided to hang out with Kirk and have a non-relationship with him. I needed some reason to break it off, some reason so impenetrable that it would mean for once and for all. And here it is, in the form of bodily fluid: the wanker spat on me. Literally. Which to me is the most repugnant, unredeeming quality I've ever encountered with any other human ever before. He grabbed all my things and threw them into my bag, losing my all-time favourite ring in the process. My glasses case is another victim of his tyranny.  I told him to find the ring and I assume he'll be keeping the glasses case safe somewhere. My plan is to wait until I get them back before delivering the blow. No one spits on me and gets away with it. He just killed any and all chances of me ever sticking around. He'd die if he knew I'd been playing around with the idea, too. The idiocy of some people is astounding.

Enter, Monster.

I didn't know how good I'd gotten at holding my feelings back. Not just from others, as is generally the case with emotionally sound folk. But I'm so far down the rabbit hole that I've somehow managed to keep myself from feeling shame.  I know it's what I'm supposed to be feeling and I can feel it threatening to break out from the wall I've built in front of its gateway, but that wall as it turns out, is 30 feet thick and made of lead, gold titanium alloy and some sequins just for pizaz. Because when I build something, it doesn't matter how destructive it is,  what matters is what I see on the surface...just like every other aspect of my life.  Shallow.  Vain. Despicable. I'm so fundamentally screwed up. In parts I didn't know were even there to be screwed with in the first place.  When I say "screwed up" I realize it suggests someone ELSE doing something to me. But that isn't the case.  There are aspects to my being I know my dad played a part in screwing up but this would be a stretch overkill to suggest he's the reason for every crappy thing I do, whether it stems from relationships or not.  I'm taking full responsibility for my horrid behaviour for once in my life.  Beauty is only skin deep.  Bur monstrosity runs like blood and it's all I've got my veins. The 'good' that people sometimes claim to see is actually just cleverly masqueraded  filth.  I'm a liar. To myself most of all.  What's scary is that I don't know where lies truth any longer.  To say the lines 'blurred' would be like saying the pyramids are 'kinda oldish'. No wonder I can't ever find my true self.  I lost that years ago. I thought I'd regained some Self to fill this shell with, but I know now that I haven't and never will. Love eludes me. I repress, oppress and do less for the sake of love than I've ever done for the sake of anything. Once love eludes you, once you elude it, there's finally no more hope.  Hope explodes into the aether the moment you abdicate from love, filling the hearts of those who still can and do it openly. Fully. Completely.  I've always wondered what fueled that breed of infinitely beautiful young women, the ones with subtle freckles, shiny, thick and healthy hair, perfectly shaped, perfectly white teeth.  Slim, hard bodies, these women not only radiate physical health and well being, but it's magnified by the radiance of their souls.  I have no such radiance. My beauty lies solely on the surface, nothing deeper than the thickest layer of flesh.

Relationships are the point.  Of what? If you have to ask it can't yet be explained.  Not being able to be in one...that's the rub.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\.  What makes me so sad, though, is the notion of "we do what we think is right in the moment" and how it applies to this situation. Why do I lie about things so easily? Well, fear, for one.  I'm a liar.  I'm fearful of others and what they can do to me.  Only I've forgotten that I can still do thing to others

What Do I do....

This is the worst! I want to do so many things but thinking about doing them turns me off from doing them.  I'm so confused. AH.

Lost?

     I've been under some delusion that my purpose can only be defined (the fact that it needs defining is problematic enough) in terms of academic pursuits.  But I'm really not academic. The closer I come to feeling like my Self again, the more aware I am to a general feeling of unfulfilledness within the academic bubble. But in what?  Why is it that I can't seem to find my ground here? I'm comfortable with the ways  things go but that's not the same thing as belonging, is it.  I've felt more comfortable in environments I've never been in. Airports,  restaurants, yoga studios, France. So I know it isn't because I'm unsure of  unfamiliar things around me.  It's something deeper.

Getting My Annotated Bibliography Back
     I was given an assignment.  To find 5 sources revolving around any and all forms of reception and expression in regards to particular poet. In my unfortunate case I was assigned Eugene Lee-Hamilton.  Never heard of him?  Yea, neither has 90% of the rest of the world either.  As such, his virtual presence is limited to casual name dropping, mix-ups with similarly named gardeners and janitors, cumulatively more famous than the poet could ever even hope to be. Despite this considerable elusiveness, I tried.  I tried.  I tried despite not caring anymore.  Which in its own way could be construed as more challenging because I'm fighting with not only myself and my utterly desolate plain of Motivation but with the logical side of myself, the side that is currently proving to me how useless it all is.  How important is it that I "suck it up" like 'all the other university students' indefinitely 'out there', floating as indistinguishable from the aether of my hypothetical imagination. 

      She didn't even grade it.  Didn't even validate it as "attempted" by giving it an F. Instead I 'get' to do it over again.  I suppose the world would like to see this as a situation in which I illustrate some degree of gratitude. 
I haven't quite made it that far.
My thoughts are simpler. I can't yet decide if I even want to do it over again or if it's easier to just accept a fail and move on.  I can move on.  I'm good at 'moving on'.  Aren't I?  I think too much.  Why is "easier" always 'bad'?  Why would it even exist if it was bad?  I suppose it's the metaphysical equivalent of fast food on the soul. I feel like I've been eating at a raw, vegan, fair-trade hippie joint up 'til now and it's about time I maow'd down on a greasy helping of MSG laden Chinese noodles and fried beef parts. Give me Freedom.

     Doing it all in order to secure my future, hey. Aren't we all as miserable as we are because we've forgotten the art of living in the moment? Is living in the moment too easy? Not worthy of consideration because there's no hypothetical future on which to derive some false sense of accomplishment over merely because you're doing something hard, potentially soul-sucking right now...in the moments we're ignoring?

Logic, in Karlynian:

    You don't pursue post secondary? You're lazy. Stupid for choosing ignorance. Must have low, if any, standards of excellence for yourself. What do you expect to DO with your life.  Nothing, because that's what not going to university will get you.

     Travel? That's an excuse to distract people from your inherent inability to think the way University Thrivers think.  You can't operate at the level they do naturally, even when you try.  Have you seen your papers, lately? Your test scores? Assignment marks?  You're not even in the same league. Go do something sub-par.  Like teaching.  Traveling. Both.  It's all you'll ever accomplish, if that's even the best verb for what you'll have done. 

    What defines value? Why am I so uncreative, so unassertive as to unconsciously absorb non-Karlyn-derived esteems of value, then assign them to my own method of being? It does me no good whatsoever. It blinds me from myself.

    I can analyze but that isn't what fulfills me. And what is academia if not a bunch of people stuck analyzing the intricate details of other details derived from other details?  Then they write about it in whatever style suits the details they want to further elaborate upon.  If the older, detail-obsessed kings and queens of the academic realm don't agree or think you detailed your details improperly, you don't get to share your details with other detail-obsessives who actually subscribe to the journals those kings and queens nest upon. I don't think I'm as proficient at it as the academic world requires.  Do my high's from teaching stem from this misunderstood notion of myself?  I'm lost all over again.  I don't know anymore how authentic my interest in teaching is, anymore.  I  think it was a desire born out of misconstrued notion of reality, one that dictates value and worth of any kind being born from my academic success.  I'm scared that the feelings elicited within myself when people understand my explanations are no longer Real. I'm scared I'm setting myself up for failure.  That I even think I know what 'failure' is. I'm lost.

Just Pretending

I'm just pretending I can do this.  I don't think I'm supposed to be here, or at least not as a student.  Perhaps a janitor or an invisible shadow would be better states of being for me while here within these scholarly walls.

     You're all English majors" she said.

     Well..I'm not.  But it sparks the notion I've always argued with myself over, the idea that people within a major have some magical power within themselves that is perfect for their major and allows them to rise to the specific challenges tied to that major.  Engineers have Math power, Englishy's have analytical power entwined with expressive grace.  I seem to fall short of the second half of all these powers. I can appreciate eloquence, yet can't seem to achieve it myself.  I can appreciate the intricacy of mathematics and how they become the window to the unimaginable, unthinkable, the ultimate grandeur of the universe, but I can't hold enough of its rules in my head at any one time to apply them liberally.  I'm so limited to my immediate environment...it's almost as if I have nothing to give without first being given something.  How useless is that.  I do nothing to contribute if I merely remodel what's already there. Why can't I be the kind that put something there first?

On My Way...To A Few Things

I originally deleted this post so that should Kirk stumble upon this blog, he wouldn't know the extent to my life and therefore have no additional reason to flip out on me.

Evidently I care no longer.

I messaged him. Tarek. It was a stumbling, rambling, indefinite bit of jabber but it got the job done: he's clearly very upset about my inability to love him back. As such I've found the motivation I needed to delete him from Facebook and even the messages between us. I wish it wasn't, but deleting someone on Facebook is the greatest way to ease into a life without them.

I'm surprisingly ok with this move, too. I keep dwelling on how upset he obviously is but nothing quite taps into my old, guilt-tripping Self as dwellage does. It's liberating and empowering to stop oneself and actually succeed in distracting that part of my self-deprecating brain. 

And I just dropped my phone into my tea. Ironic too, as I was about to attest to my increasing tea consumption and how British that makes me feel. I guess I have a lot still to learn about being British, as I can't imagine many of them take much time to steep their phones like I just did.

On a continuous note with regards to the theme prior to my phone tangent, I deleted Dexter and blocked his number. Kirk's too. I feel pitifully lonely and mildly sick, as both of them are currently ripping me apart via text message, but other than that, though...I'm sure there's a part of me deep, deep down that is doing alright. I did say "deep", right? K, just making sure. Naomi and my sister are so far my most effective painkillers. Let's hope my inevitable insanity stays subdued long enough to trick them into thinking I'm nice to be around. I don't quite know what I'd be like on my own. Perhaps I wouldn't be at all.

The Fog

     I think the root of my confusion revolves around love.  My ability to do it.  My awakening to it.  I'm still squinting, however.  I can't quite see it but I know something's there.  Finally. Or do I even want to see it? Am I even capable?  Maybe all I'll ever see is just that, an imagined notion that will always stay imagined, never realized, yet always bright.  For the first time in my life I'm thinking, genuinely thinking of turning myself inwards.  Of focusing all my Self into the words I WRITE rather than the facial expressions I make or the words I articulate. To be honest I feel like I'm lying.  If I feel a certain way, why shouldn't my entire being exude it?  Well, something I'm just beginning to learn: the ultimate expression of one's self is in the keeping of certain truths hidden from public view.  Smiling on the outside yet feeling a storm on the in.  Not something I could ever relate to in literature until now. I finally get why they always bothered to do something like that.  To love someone is to keep them safely from you. But that seems wrong.  But so does constantly vomiting your life-'s problems on that person.  So what do I do?

     Three people love me.
      Tarek.  Dillon. Kirk.
     They each mean something different.  Not to me, but as Love.  They love differently.  Obviously. Isn't the uniqueness of everyone a concept we learn when we're in kindergarten? (Why is it that it takes so long for it to become entangled with other aspects of life? Do I learn things too slowly? I think I'm one of the last to figure this out.) But I don't know what to do with these Loves.  I don't know if I should reciprocate them.  And how? How do I return love? I've never loved anyone before and known it.  When I did love someone, I didn't know what it was. It's gone now, though.  Can I even trust myself to love someone? What if I screw it up in the beginning? Or the middle? Why do I talk like it's some sort of method I need to follow, anyway? Like one day I'll get the instruction manual beamed into my conscious mind via some blissfully happy couple sitting across from me on park bench in London?  Because that's really what I feel like: like it'll all come to me overnight, that I'll just suddenly know how to love, how to be loved.  Before I knew it was me, I used to blame my misunderstanding on the Other.  That THEY were the ones who didn't know what love is hence their apparent love for me.  Because "loving Karlyn" is a logical pitfal.  It's a negative imaginary number.  It simply doesn't occur in any realm, physical or meta.  How could it?  The love I imagined they were describing was a nigh-sentient force, one that ensnares both people, surprising them both but effecting them at the same time. 'Suddenly' you're "in love". Whatever that means.  Then you look deeply into each other's eyes and really know the person.  And all the parts that you don't, you seem to bypass in the Logic Wagon and instead take the shuddering, creaking overpass of Living in the Moment and then turn into the cave known as Trusting in the Unknown.  HA. Literally: like that's ever going to happen.

     Love isn't like this for me anymore.  The problem is it hasn't turned into anything different, though.  Not yet.  It's still incomprehensible to me, I just now know what it isn't.

At least I'm staying true to my natural method of Understanding Through Deduction of What Isn't.  That's....helpful. Again....HA.

And It Begins...Again.

Today marks the first day of the rest of the semester in terms of wardrobe choice: Sweats and runners.  Remind myself once more why I don't wear these hot pink clouds erryday?

The First That was Published Last

I've never really written without a purpose before.  Because all the writing I've ever thought I had to do was just that: something I had to do.  Whether for ambiguous grade schemes or to get personal horrors off my mind in the form of a journal entry, I've always had a faceless audience dwelling somewhere in my head.

Butwhat if I were to write merely for the hell of it  For the plaesure of getting thoughts out, to express myself the way I do in person.  I love talking.  It's one of my favourite tihngs.  Nothing gets me so high as a good, long, contemplative chat with anyone able to keep up.  Needless to say those people are few.  Not because there's a lack of intellectually compatible people out there, but because I can't imagine doing that to so many all the time. It's just plain mean.

This alreay is a really crappy post because I can still feel it.  It's like I have to make every word count, everything has to be Sherlock brilliant, worth the 7 milliseconds it took to type the words.  But it isn't like that when I speak.  This pressure simply doesn't exist in th realm of the Fleeting. For isn't that just what verbal speech is? Fleeting ideas only existing in the abstract, only as real as the cognitive extents of the listeners around me.  There's no pressure because it makes no sense to pressurize anything said.  You can easily manipulate the tide of verbal speech as there's little to no long term memory work taking place.  Unlike reading, which provides pictures of words that can't help but lodge themselves into a different part of the Receptive Cabin of the mind, a cubbard altogether separate than the counter top that receives aural words. Afterall, the spoken world isn't something we can quantify.  Counters needto be cleared because there's simply too much open space to see everything at once.  Cubbards on the other hand are deep, providing opportunity for stacking and layering without the visual clutter an open counter leaves.  In other words, it's easy to store.