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seasons
what is this? // book one // book two
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September 2, 2020
If I have struck my own brand of pseudo-spirituality, it is one which focuses increasingly on the micro rather than the macro. It's turning away from the big questions and looking instead for intention and thought in the most insignificant facets of life.
Knitting a hat, for example; holding it afterwards knowing each stitch was born by your hands, knowing you have shared in the act of creation. There's something quieting about it. And doing it not to be told you're good at it, but just for the sake of doing it. I so prefer working with my hands. I'm sure it is also due in part to the relief of a low-stakes activity, of finally doing something with no bearing on the future.
I use the word spirituality because it does, in a roundabout way, have the same ultimate effect, I think. Religions provide answers to questions about things bigger than us. Mine says don't look up, look down. Look down at what you can control, for now. Of course it's not an impenetrable defence, but it's a reprieve.
Does everybody feel like this? Like there are certain things that you can't think about without getting sucked out to sea by a riptide and thrashed around by the open ocean? When I'm caught in their grip I'm sure I'm going to drown and then when I get back to shore I almost miss the agony.
The reason I can't decide what to do next is that I don't truly want to do anything. Nothing excites me. Nothing appeals to me. I don't like anything and I'm not good at anything. Where am I supposed to put myself?
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August 30, 2020
On August 6th I found out I will be graduating with first class honours. I got a near-perfect score on my dissertation.
It's almost funny, looking back, how much anxiety gnawed at me for three years. The long "will I be able to do this" war vs. the "oh, okay" confirmation that I had done it. Truthfully, I didn't feel as much as I thought I would; the triumph was dulled.
At least, that's how I remember it. August has gotten away from me. I'm in a weird place, by which I mean I'm not really in any one place at all – it feels like my mind is all over the map. The only thing I'm really certain of is that I want to move out. With or without Bailey. I wish I could think about things I want to do without the afterthought of "but would that be good for my career?" I feel guilty for having money thrown at me and then I feel guilty for feeling guilty. Sometimes I think about the things I would do if I lived in a little house by myself in the woods and never saw anybody again. I would shave my head in a heartbeat if I knew nobody would see it – what else would I do if I wasn't being watched?
I want a foot in both worlds. I want to be adored and I want to be ignored. Occasionally I dream of going some place new to start over again but I know that my problem is me. I can go to any continent I like but I'll bring my baggage with me.
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August 4, 2020
How often I am gripped by the overwhelming compulsion to kill myself. I get an ounce of self awareness and it's like everything inside me scrunches up into a little ball, trying to make my soul so small that it doesn't exist at all. And how long has it been like this, intermittently – five years? Six? It's not something that anyone around me could recognize, not only because I would go to such great lengths to hide it but also because it's part of who I am now, inextricable.
And it's almost worse in the summer. At least in the winter I have come to expect its arrival and have learned to coax myself through it with the promise of a few months respite on the other side. But now, with the late afternoon sun illuminating the plants in the garden, with friends coming and going frequently, with as few responsibilities as ever – when is it going to be better than this? More peaceful? And still the black tide of self-hatred rises in me often, still I dream of escaping the supposed best moments of my life. Only now nothing excites me; I can no longer find joy in plotting when it feels like there's not way out.
How stunning to watch people moving in the world as if they're entitled to be here. When will I stop trying to repent? I wish I felt free to pursue whatever strikes me. Sometimes I wonder who I would be without these existential hangups and self-loathing. Better or worse?
What I long for right now, truly, is to play pretend like we did as children. Running through the forest pretending to be cats or pirates or Eomor + Teilluj. That was liberation for me.
It just feels like every way I turn I find another wall. I guess this is better than the months of feeling nothing at all?
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August 3, 2020
On emotion – let's take the body as a vessel, and emotion as a liquid which fills the bottle when felt and gets poured out when expressed. Some people can keep the lid on their bottle most of the time and only remove it in appropriate situations. Some people don't have a lid at all, spilling everything out all the time. I've never taken my lid off, and it's been so long now that I don't even know if I would even be able to.
Be that as it may, what bothers me is others' assumption that because they've never seen me take the lid off, the bottle must be empty. Getting called autistic or sociopathic (and always by the friends who call themselves empaths or highly sensitive) – it's the self-centred belief that if they aren't privy to it, it must not exist. And I can't even defend myself properly, because that would require me to take the lid off or reveal way more information than they have any right to, so I lamely protest and do nothing to change their minds.
For what it's worth, I think it would be completely different if I were a man. I might get 'reserved' or 'stoic' rather than misguided attempts to pathologize it. It's the box of stereotypical femininity that I don't fit into. Not to say that I feel like a man in a woman's body or anything of the sort – rather that I feel I am better suited for the roles and expectations of men in our society. And that I envy the traditional definition of a good man versus a good woman.
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July 26, 2020
I don't think I've put this down here before, but I've long believed that modern celebrity culture (to some extent, celebrity "worship") stems from the simultaneous desire and relief of one-sided intimacy. The ability to know someone who doesn't know you exist – it's an outlet for "love" with no vulnerability. It's a relationship where you don't have to be or do anything, where you can come and go as you please and have no chance of rejection, but you still get the good parts of caring for someone else. At least, I think that's what it was for me.
Maybe it should've been obvious, then, why I find it so much easier to feel through the third-person lens of fiction than in my own life. It's a safe place; it's empathy without self awareness.
This isn't where I intended this to go, but I'm noticing now the possible significance of what I just wrote and what I wrote before – respite from myself. Months ago I wrote of the choice between love and freedom, how there is no relationship without restrictions. And maybe that is in actuality another manifestation of the deep-rooted self hatred. Maybe I have only found two ways to escape: solitude (escape from perception and thus from any state of being) and fiction (adopting another world/persona and thus escaping existence).
I've been happy here alone, not existing. The arrival of other people felt like intrusion, not relief. But I hadn't put this together until now, I think: it's not escaping perception by others, it's that when others aren't perceiving me I no longer need to perceive myself.
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July 23, 2020
Yesterday the inside of my upper arm was desperately itchy. Last night I dreamt that I got a large tattoo of Alice in Wonderland and regretted it almost immediately. When I woke up I was bleeding onto the sheets.
I am alone in my flat in London for the last time, packing. It's nice. I read, I knit, I watch movies. Loneliness comes only in the dark and is shrugged off easily by my preoccupation with other things. I move and sing as loudly as I like. I do what I want when I want with no need to care for what others may think of it. The difference between now and anything before is stark: this feels like freedom and that did not.
Maybe I am better off like this. Unseen. I was worried that the 25 days of solitude would send my already-fragile mind into a downward spiral, but it has in fact had the opposite effect. I'm happier than I've been in months. I feel almost (almost) centred.
Not in that I have answers to any of the things I can't stop thinking about, but rather in my approach to them. I feel more filled out, less easily shaken. And I am interested in things again. So there is respite from the onslaught of the existential matters, the futility and the love and the inevitable end. And the quarantine has given me respite from myself, because I only hate myself in relation to other people.
I realize this sounds dark, but there's no bite behind it. Just idle observation. I'm grounded.
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July 8, 2020
I don't know if you exist, but I think about you all the time.
The way you move and laugh and talk about the things you love. Making tea or pointing out something that caught your attention. Me, sitting in the passenger seat while you drive or laying draped over you in silence. Venturing to reveal a bit more of myself and hearing that yes you feel like that too. Recognizing pieces of myself in you that I can't find anywhere else. Being the first person you come to when you have a problem and the first person you come to when something makes you smile. The weight of your presence, my unshakeable awareness of you. Your wordless acceptance. Your warmth. I imagine that one day I will wake up and roll over in the pre-glasses blur to find you in perfect focus, a haven from the dawning world around us. And I will love you, and I will be loved, and I will carry that delicate sentiment in my palms for as long as I can rightfully hold onto it.
Maybe you're out there now, waiting for me. Maybe you'll take a million different forms. Maybe you never were and never will be, and I'm writing love letters to a person who doesn't exist.
But for now I'll just hope that these images in my head will play out one day in some form or another, keep faith that what's meant to be will be. You are with me now, even as I am yet to know you, and I hope that you can feel me too. I am waiting, my love. I am waiting for you.
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July 6, 2020
I have to get out of here. I can't rely on other people's money anymore, can't stand to be dependent any longer. I don't know what I'm going to do, or how, but I've escaped before and I'll do it again. Different this time.
I keep building walls, feeling trapped, breaking out, and building walls again. How am I supposed to know what I want? What I like? I feel like I'm being pulled in a million different directions.
I don't want to see either of them right now. I worked so hard to keep their secrets that they think I don't know any of them. And now I discover that she's been telling people freely, that so many people have had this information thinking I was completely oblivious. Honestly, how stupid does she think I am? I just want to tell both of them to fuck off.
But in some ways, I have the upper hand here. For my whole life they seem to have vastly underestimated my willingness and ability to lie, whereas I spent my childhood well aware that I could never take their words at face value. They honestly seem to believe the persona I put on for them, have done and said things which lead me to believe they think we're close. I don't want them around. I need to get away. I hate myself and I wish I had never existed.
I don't know what I'm going to do. I need income, a place to stay. I need to learn how to drive. I've never been lonelier in my life but I can't bear to have anybody near me, let alone expose myself to them. Maybe I don't want anything. Maybe I don't like anything. What if I never will?
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July 3, 2020
I don't want to be known. I don't want to be understood. I can't bear the observation, the perception, the interpretation.
I will try not to sound pretentious when I say this (because it's not about the mind as a thing of value but rather of the mind as a refuge), but I see the 'self' – my thoughts, my feelings, the most tender centre of my soul – as a forest with its many different moving parts all pushing and pulling on each other. Letting someone in, then, is to invite a wildfire to spark, a catastrophic burning of all held sacred. It's not as simple as bringing someone in and pushing them out as I please – the wildfire can't burn out without fundamentally changing the ecosystem forever. I am a preserver; I can't afford to lose what can't grow back the same way. And it scares me.
On the one hand, I'm afraid that in a moment of spiteful recklessness I will burn away huge swaths of land, unbothered until much later when I am sitting alone among the remnants holding soot where trees once grew. But I am equally afraid that I will keep the walls up while I let someone close, thinking all the while that the woods are safe, only to look up after many years and realize that I had been burning away bit by bit, so slowly as to go unnoticed until nothing was left. To have one person in is to have a thousand people in; it'll all be gone regardless.
Maybe I can't be loved, then, or at least won't be. The idea of allowing somebody that close is so maddening, so repulsive. And yet even with all this as it is I cannot help but wonder: am I locking other people out or am I locking myself in?
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July 1, 2020
It's done. Jesus Christ. BSc (Hons) Biomedical Sciences. It's done.
What the fuck was that?
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June 28, 2020
Alright, look, maybe I'll take the UBC courses in January. Maybe not. This is the first time ever in my life where I have no idea what's coming next. It's kind of funny that after 3 years of endless, intense anxiety, my final battle here is apathy. Sorry future me :) It's just that everything is so much more interesting when you shouldn't be doing it, isn't it? I'm never more enthralled by anything than I am during exam season, as long as it's something not even remotely related to the stuff I'm being tested on.
Maybe it worked out like this for a reason, huh? I'm not saying it did, just exploring. But maybe I was bound to hate anything I studied in university. Maybe the relentless pressure of being graded would've driven me away from anything I chose, and maybe this is a force pushing me into the arms of something else. Maybe not. But maybe. I wish I knew what I want. I don't even know what I like.
This obsession with being good, with being worthy – it's not a bad thing. But I've built myself such a narrow definition of 'good' (again, only for myself. I don't hold other people to these standards.). I'm curious about how other people would define a good person. I'm worried that fulfilling my definition of 'good' would corrupt me into being not-good (see Jan. 30, 2020).
And, to be honest, I've been thinking about self-preservation, too. I could probably handle death and despair when I'm numb, but I don't want to be numb. And I don't want see so much hurt in the world that my belief in goodness is swayed, that I fall into cynicism. I've seen the consequences and I don't want to repeat it.
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June 26, 2020
If I am many different people...
1. the child – sensitive, conflict-averse (to the point of extremes), people-pleaser. timid and private. apologetic. guilty, but not sure why.
2. the warrior – the protective cloak of the child, the idealized protector. silent stalker. feral, deadly. wholly unrestrained + absolutely powerful. free.
3. the existentialist – the moralist, by another name. profound faith in the goodness of the world. even more profound belief that it is my duty to, above all else, leave the world better than I found it. that I have a debt to repay. annoying, and incessantly talkative. takes itself too seriously.
4. the junkie – doesn't take anything seriously enough. lover of speed and adventure, lover of the vices of society's idols. desperate to inflict as much pain to the selves as possible, all in the name of a supposed good time. recklessness which has thus far remained well-tamed. can team up with the existentialist to chase pain under the guise of self improvement.
5. the numb – feels absolutely nothing at all. a shell, there-but-not-really. comes for months and then disappears to let life fill the void. at best, insensitive. at worst, downright cruel.
And...? 5 selves in 20 years and likely more to come. These ideals I've devoted myself to have become nothing but oppressive. But to run too far in the other direction would leave me even less satisfied. What if, and I'm afraid to ask this, I'm just a naturally discontent person? How do I detach from the inevitable festering resentment? There is no freedom from burdens without loneliness. There is no love without responsibility. I'm searching for something that doesn't exist.
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June 25, 2020
And here is my issue with the world as it stands. As long as we continue to live under systems that allow people to suffer in poverty until they die, I will be complicit in their deaths and their suffering. Because every dollar I choose to spend on things which are not strictly necessities is a dollar which could have done something for somebody else. There is no ethical consumption. This is not a zero sum game. Every pleasure I pay for is something taken from someone less fortunate than I. So you either figure out a way to fix it or you put the blinders on, and one of those is significantly easier than the other.
I think we have become too globalized. It's easy for people to care about their own community. It's harder to be continually buffetted with the pain of people around the world. If you felt as deeply as you should about every single cause, you'd just collapse under the weight of the world.
It's maddening to think that I cannot live my daily life as I have been without knowingly allowing others to suffer. That many people would be better off if some of the things I loved most in the world didn't exist.
People are good. I must believe in this above all else. People are fundamentally good. How do you stop them from twisting? How do we undo the way the developed world was built? We seem to be reaching a breaking point.
It gets easier and easier to see how cynicism is bred. But that desensitization, that hopelessness – that's exactly how we ended up where we are. I have to try and change what I cannot accept.
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June 23, 2020
Another problem: I have the coping mechanisms of a child. All I know how to do is escape and avoid. And it worked great back then. But just pretending to be someone else is harder now, less interesting.
When things were hard as a child I found refuge in books, and that changed to TV and movies as a teenager. There is still nothing I love more than being totally immersed in a story. But I incorporated elements of those stories into myself until I couldn't distinguish between the two. I couldn't handle a family vacation but I could handle being a ThunderClan apprentice on a journey. I couldn't speak my issues aloud but I could privately call myself a Twisted Sister like Meredith and Christina, sacrifice myself for the sake of saving lives. I could never face my problems as myself, but I could do it under the guise of a character. Pretending to be someone else not only let me escape reality, but also let me take on a skill set that I didn't consider myself to have. The voice in my head didn't believe in itself so I put a new one in that could.
That's harder to access now. I don't think it's gone completely, but it switches on less often now and I don't seem to slip into characters to the same extent anymore. The thing is, I miss it. I don't want to let that go. But I don't see it working like that anymore, and I don't know what to do to replace it. Typical coping mechanisms (exercise, meditation, etc) feel like putting band-aids on a bullet hole. I want my fantasy worlds back, where I could be virtuous and have meaning and finally live up to my narrative ideals.
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June 20, 2020
It’s interesting to me how often I am referred to as confident. Insecurity manifests in different ways for different people, I guess. Bragging or insulting or incessantly asking for validation. But I think it’s interesting that I can think of several examples of different people implying I am confident in areas where I am anything but. There’s a couple of different parts to it. Let’s take makeup. I never wore makeup because I thought I was so ugly that if people thought I was trying to look better, it would just be pathetic. It’s not the embarrassment of them seeing me in makeup, it’s them seeing the intention behind it. I can’t stand the thought of people seeing my actions, my way of being, and then making their own interpretations of my thought processes. The mere idea of people thinking about what I’m thinking is too intrusive, too close. That’s part of it.
Then there’s the part that wants to reinforce the fact (because it is a fact to this part) that I am ugly. The part that thinks I should look disgusting, because that’s what I am.
And then the part that refuses to ask for any reassurance from others, because a) it’s again too revealing of thought, and b) I don’t have the right to put others in the uncomfortable position of having to comfort me. It wouldn’t be right to ask others, who are so much better than myself, to spend any of their time or energy on something as worthless as me.
From this side, it makes sense. I don’t have the right to be vain, to ask the worthy to comfort me. I am inherently Not Good Enough and it’s my responsibility to fade away.
There’s more to say on this. I’m tired.
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June 8, 2020
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m not happy where I am. I won’t say this definitively because things are a bit fuzzy, but I don’t think happiness was part of the original plan. I built my life to revolve around principles founded on self-hatred. At best, I anticipated relief if I became a doctor, freedom from guilt because my net output could finally be positive. At worst, I enjoyed the notion that I could punish myself the whole way there. I really, really hated myself (not to say that I don’t still sometimes). It was a question of crawling to a place I could finally deem myself worthy of existence. Not happiness, just grim satisfaction.
And I know what truly electrifies me – stories – but once again we open the question of purpose and meaning and worth. I don’t judge people who go into the arts or think them less valuable than anybody else, but the thought of doing so myself feels so self-indulgent, so wrong. I need to serve. That was the plan, from the start. I can’t let anybody see how much I love them but I can offer myself to them piece by piece until I am only bones. The giving to others is inextricably bound to the taking from myself.
If I could just say how I feel. I can’t. I can put it onto characters, though. That’s the only way I’ve ever felt anything – by proxy. Maybe this has been so hard because I’ve been living against my own grain, swimming upstream – wouldn’t it be nice to turn around, feel what it’s like to stop resisting the current?
If I let you down on these two exams, I’m sorry. I don’t know if it’s just disinterest or deliberate self-sabotage. I can’t bring myself to look at them.
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May 30, 2020
I think it is worth saying, too, that though giving up medicine – a pursuit which I have re-committed myself to every day for six years – should scare me, it just... doesn’t. If anything, the idea makes me feel like I can finally exhale. I’m not saying definitively that I am letting it go, but picturing it doesn’t make my gut drop like I thought it would. Like it used to.
It’s kind of peaceful, actually. Wiping away my plans for the next 5 - 10 years to reveal not my gaping chasm of inadequacy, but simply a clean slate. That’s all. There’s nothing to fear there. I wouldn’t be bound to anything; I could develop organically, rather than forcing myself into what’s required. I don’t even know what I would do instead. I don’t know what else I could do, because I’ve never really looked.
What I am trying to say is that instinctively, giving it up feels like freedom, like relief. And I think that’s worth listening to as I make these decisions. If I have spent my life in the pursuit of absolution... I need to stop here, to sit on the side of the road and really consider the direction I’m going to walk in. Consider with both head and heart, this time. I will invite ‘what I want’ to the negotiations.
So there we are. I’m trying to care more about the two exams I have left. I feel lighter, though. Maybe not happier, but lighter. Like I actually have been able to put some of this down. It’s good to know that’s possible. And, at this moment at least, I am sitting with growing certainty that happiness will come with time. Yes, I really do feel lighter.
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