For the first time in as long as I've known myself, I've begun to feel something approaching peace. It isn't apparent yet because I'm trying to settle around this strange, alien feeling before I debut it out in the world. My world. Filled with people who've only ever known me as a walking factory of nervous ticks and self-deprecating humour, prone to dramatic outbursts and intimate with illogic.
And I find that these unfamiliar stirrings of self-acceptance, apart from making me beam ridiculously at the most inopportune of times during the day, are putting several of my personal relationships into perspective.
For one, I expect my social currency will plummet drastically, and quite quickly at that, in the months to come. The departure of the Gyuri-shaped disaster that has always been around for an instant ego boost is taking a toll on a few, real pieces of work this lot - I wish cankles upon you.
I realised that just because one looks like a screw-up and talks like a screw-up, doesn't
necessarily mean one is a screw-up. Relatively, speaking. And holy mother of vice versa! Some people are so calm, collected and corkscrew crazy, you just want to reach in and emphatically and purposefully pet their inner, frightened animal before they tedbundy out of control. I'd rather be messy and disheveled of appearance than of heart and soul, I'm clear about this.
As for love, forever it has meant approval. Longing to be physically desired, longing to be acceptable to other people's sensibilities, falling in line wordlessly. I've been virtually Buddhist in previous relationships - no tantrums, no demands, accepting what I got and then walking away silently. "I can't force anyone to feel any less or more than they do" I'd say, ascending slowly heavenward.
And now I'm very, very pissed off.
I don't think I'll ever be successfully mean-spirited because... let me put it like this: If I had my own animal spirit, it would likely be a fluffy, pink marshmallow named Caligula - that's how menacing I am when I've rehearsed a hate speech. But I cannot passively absorb copious amounts of horseshit anymore, either. Love is love is love is love. Love moves your bowels and sometimes, as in one of the most soulful love stories I've ever read, constipates you too. Love makes you stupid, free and strong, delighted and hopeful and compassionate. It waits while you pore laboriously over an interminable list of pros and cons and then points and laughs at you with abandon. The best kind of defibrillator and you're still a goner. Love moves you. And if it does not, it isn't love.
Then there is that which sounds and feels like love to the touch. And this is very enjoyable too, but temporary, and based more on self-indulgent illusion than anything else. It's like stroking yourself to full romantic erection, only to suddenly be accosted by a thought like 'bed sores!'. No happy ending, just a rude awakening and mild nausea.
I try to recognise the difference now.
And I find that these unfamiliar stirrings of self-acceptance, apart from making me beam ridiculously at the most inopportune of times during the day, are putting several of my personal relationships into perspective.
For one, I expect my social currency will plummet drastically, and quite quickly at that, in the months to come. The departure of the Gyuri-shaped disaster that has always been around for an instant ego boost is taking a toll on a few, real pieces of work this lot - I wish cankles upon you.
I realised that just because one looks like a screw-up and talks like a screw-up, doesn't
necessarily mean one is a screw-up. Relatively, speaking. And holy mother of vice versa! Some people are so calm, collected and corkscrew crazy, you just want to reach in and emphatically and purposefully pet their inner, frightened animal before they tedbundy out of control. I'd rather be messy and disheveled of appearance than of heart and soul, I'm clear about this.
As for love, forever it has meant approval. Longing to be physically desired, longing to be acceptable to other people's sensibilities, falling in line wordlessly. I've been virtually Buddhist in previous relationships - no tantrums, no demands, accepting what I got and then walking away silently. "I can't force anyone to feel any less or more than they do" I'd say, ascending slowly heavenward.
And now I'm very, very pissed off.
I don't think I'll ever be successfully mean-spirited because... let me put it like this: If I had my own animal spirit, it would likely be a fluffy, pink marshmallow named Caligula - that's how menacing I am when I've rehearsed a hate speech. But I cannot passively absorb copious amounts of horseshit anymore, either. Love is love is love is love. Love moves your bowels and sometimes, as in one of the most soulful love stories I've ever read, constipates you too. Love makes you stupid, free and strong, delighted and hopeful and compassionate. It waits while you pore laboriously over an interminable list of pros and cons and then points and laughs at you with abandon. The best kind of defibrillator and you're still a goner. Love moves you. And if it does not, it isn't love.
Then there is that which sounds and feels like love to the touch. And this is very enjoyable too, but temporary, and based more on self-indulgent illusion than anything else. It's like stroking yourself to full romantic erection, only to suddenly be accosted by a thought like 'bed sores!'. No happy ending, just a rude awakening and mild nausea.
I try to recognise the difference now.
2 comments:
You're a great writer, did I ever mention? In some odd way, I feel I'm going through a similar phase myself (minus the Caligula), and it's nice to see it from someone else's perspective.
I also vote to make 'tedbundy' a legitimate verb.
I second that. (The writer thing as well as the tedbundy thing.)
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