hi there. i'm back because my (cooler, hotter, smarter) friends have started posting here and i personally think that's the most healthy and wise fucking shit i've heard in 10 years.
i was racking my brain the other day trying to figure out a way for me to find some space to process, but in a way that felt satisfying rather than just suffering on twitter, and i think the solution is returning to an older way of processing. which is my good ol' lj which i think is like 21 years old or something. disgusting.
there's this thing i always do with my final assignments and term papers. i was on top of this class the entire way through, and i've just really frittered away my time for the final paper. its now two days late (but its fine), and like. i don't think it has to do with me being lazy or avoidant. i really think its a result of me trying to buy more time to think. which is stupid because that kind of approach is the opposite of having a finished, grade-able paper. ... which is the point of a class. so i need to figure out a way to work through that.
my last post was this time 5 years ago. i've since graduated with 2 separate honours degrees, one in philosophy, one in psychology. i convocated with the arts medal, the president's medal, my college's award of merit, and an acceptance into a theoretical psychology graduate program.
i am currently drafting my first research proposal to submit to the federal tri-council funding agencies.
looking at my previous entry and thinking ......... wow. it has certainly been an interesting bit of time since then.
today i went to the info session to get into honours for my field of choice and then went and spoke to my academic advisor which was smart because getting super overwhelmed by the idea of the whole grad school thing was promptly stopped with realistic planning for all the shit before that. one step at a time. if i think too hard about the nation-wide 6% average acceptance rate for grad school, i start to dissipate into a gas and float away.
life is .... not what i expected. here are some details:
- after fighting disability (again) money stuff is okay - i managed to score scholarships because of my grades? which is insane? - i'm in my second year of my psych/philosophy double major - hit the dean's list my entire first year - started a research assistant position in a lab - i'm internal communications for the psych students association (and a very good pick for president next year) - secretary of the arts student executive council - i'm a TA for my favourite philosophy prof - recently completed sexual abuse first responder training - volunteering for the organization that helped me figure out what was wrong with me when i was 14 (the international society for the study of trauma and dissociation) - working with a therapist, a psychiatrist, a case worker, a disability advisor and a social worker to keep all my various shit in order
yup. shit's weird. but i'm doing well and working hard and it's nice doing stuff that i like and that i'm good at and that is challenging
my formative years were spent alone, staring at carefully curated images and converting abstract ideas into things for others to read.
my thoughts and silly turns of phrase were enough company for me and had the added benefit of never needing the kind of emotional maintenance actual friendships would require. just as you can recall spats with girlfriends over stolen boyfriends or favourite sartorial advances ripped off in grade school, there are slights against me in the friendships forged with letters. betrayals and dramas revolving around a certain sentence never-quite-perfect, and wary forgivenesses granted between paragraphs.
compromises that the next piece will be a better one. and a vague reassurance to the language that 'it's not you, it's me'.
there are lines of prose i am still not on speaking terms with.
anyone who has professed any kind of romantic interest in me has known my words first. not my voice or the colour of my hair, or the way i disturb atoms around me, it's always the words.
all those who fall in love with the syllables strung together end up leaving. stamped at the bottom of a contract that exists only in my minds eye are the reasons: too difficult to manage. cold. too selfish, too negative.
my words are tricks; enigmatic flowers that draw you to a doom.
"we live small lives on the periphery; we are marginalized and there's a great deal in which we choose not to participate. we wanted silence and we have that silence now. we arrived here speckled in sores and zits, our colons so tied in knots that we never thought we'd have a bowel movement again. our systems had stopped working, jammed with the odor of copy machines, wite-out, the smell of bond paper, and the endless stress of pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause. we had compulsions that made us confuse shopping with creativity, to take downers and assume that merely renting a video on saturday night was enough.
but now that we live here in the desert, things are much, much better."
here any number of people tell stories with no fear of judgement. true stories, worst fears, complete fabrications and ideal situations. walks through your waking mind with all things personified.
five people inhabit this virtual desert and we tell our stories to eachother to the best of our abilities, away from the eyes of people who would kill to see us this vulnerable. away from the influence of 'what-if-they're-watching', within the watchful eye of the 'private entry' icon.
you four are the most interesting, inspiring, amazing people i know. i've known you all for different ammounts of time. i've met two of you in real life, touched your skin, disturbed the same air particles you have. two of you are girls, two of you are boys. i met you all online. and you're so different from eachother that i'm amazed that such variety in a species exists.
when i die and you feel a pin-prick in the palm of your hand and you know intrinsicly that i'm being mixed with the sand and the scorching wind, you'll inherit everything i've absorbed in my time here. every observation i've ever made will nestle it's way inbetween the very nutrients your brain is made up of, and everything you see and hear will have a asterisks with what it meant to me that you can access at your leisure.
working