Whatever Is Underneath
I've accepted that I probably have best friends to whom I am not the best friend. Both in my acts and placement. I don't let a lot of people in, and the ones that gain entry don't always like what they see.
I want so badly to be the close relationships type.
My closest relationship is to the feeling of the city. Not this city. Just the height and density of a city. I have been going out running in the evenings, which is something I used to enjoy. It's strange to find things that you used to enjoy. Things you dropped when you lost control. So, I've picked up running, and I realized that the trail winds toward the lights downtown. Just like the trail in Austin. And I wonder if this is true of all cities. That everything you want gravitates toward the center. Not just the high-rises that store boring people in boring offices doing tech-y things I only think are boring because I don't understand them, but the density of all those buildings. Is the center of our universe so dull? Does life revolve around the mundane? The city is definitely it's own little universe. The thousand little lights from windows drown out the stars. A city will not accept competition from anything larger than itself. It is the center. The only center you need or know. The only sky at night is concrete. In the day it imitates the wider landscape in the great panes of glass, but the city insists it's all you need. I love the city because it can't love me back. It's just another one-sided relationship that reminds me I am small.
I'm getting shin-splints though, so I can't run as often as I have been. I never get that things should be gradual. Life is harder that way.
Along my walking/running I have discovered a few more things:
I do enjoy being outside much more than I tell myself I do. I am perfectly comfortable following a winding trail for three hours. I made abysmal time. I'd like to one day be doing a half-marathon on the weekends. For the pleasure of it. That should take 4-ish hours, but in 3 I only got 7+ miles. I think there's enough trail, and it doesn't really get boring because the cars and the people are different. The flowers are different. The air is different. Last night it was muggy, but the humidity wasn't a heavy weight to bear.
And second: I do not fuck with ducks.
I spent a lot of last week putting off going for a run because it was too rainy. I got sick of it one afternoon and went out anyway. There was a drizzle, but it wasn't bothersome. The water hit with the softness of a soap bubble. And it didn't follow the whole way of the trail. There were great parts of the trail underwater. In all the time I lived in Houston as a child I had never seen the risen water. I was in Austin when Harvey happened, so I didn't see any of the act of destruction, just the aftermath. The flooded trail was a polite insinuation of what wreckage could be caused. A soldato knocking over a vase saying, "Accidents happen." It was just as exhilarating.
There was a draw to the rushing water. I could wade into it like Virginia Woolf or fall in off a branch like Ophelia and the current would decide my fate. Could a bayou be as forgiving as a river? Does the width of the stream matter, I wonder. There's always the chance at the pleasure of the water you could be lifted before the undertow got hold of your head. I suppose that there is a gamble in almost any form of death, but the water seems the most spirited. Poison wouldn't abandon it's mission out of an overwhelming sense of guardianship. Water has it's duality that only fire can come close to...but even so, fire doesn't really give life, it just clears the way for it sometimes. So, taking the chance with water seems the best indication that something feels you deserve to live. Or indulges your current petulant inclination toward life, though you may think to throw it away at the moment.
So I stare a little too hard at the water as I move along. I'm very childish. To that end, I have silly new scars that no one has noticed. I don't know if that feels better or worse. Now that they've healed I think I've moved past the most embarrassing phase. I had a particularly bad couple of weeks and I think I got a little closer to testing those waters. None of the cuts were deep enough to require stitches, although I was concerned one of them was deep enough to become infected...it did not. And now I have cross-hatch marks like a 14-year-old girl that listens to way too much Sufjan Stevens, only half of which is true. I also lost my momentum in my novel at that point, which I think is what really hurt. This was probably an indication that I should have my medication adjusted, but I did not take the opportunity to really insist on an anti-anxiety additive. I got a few Ativan and resolved to let things slide. My mother was insisting that I diet and that her interest and monetary assistance was a waste of her time, so I thought perhaps developing anorexia would be a better fit for my desire to self-harm. And that's where I'm half in. It's okay here. Sometimes I eat more than once a day. It feels like a failure. Historically, my eating disorder had been binging- so the opposite is harder to wire to. I am losing weight though, so I think that might be a good motivator when I lose a bit more, and then my mother will take a breath to find something else to hate me for...so I'll have a moment to myself. I have to get out of here as soon as possible. I know the cuts were deeper. I know it was a trial. If I can't graduate in a year, the trials will only increase until we have something to put on the market.
For now, I'm okay. Maybe a little too lax.
I wish I could get back into my novel. I think about it all the time. Little thoughts. Nothing to act on. I think I should read more.
I can't remember the last time I had sex. Not like- it was so long ago... I literally can't remember the act. Things have gone so wrong here. It's a terrible feeling to know that something happened because your body hurts. To have a stranger in your house. I have spent more time here wondering "why the fuck am I like this?" than ever before. I don't think it's the city. I think it's the history. At some point I kind of abandoned my connections here- and I have no reason to reestablish them, other than a want for human interaction. Although, I honestly don't have the time or capacity for human interaction. If I'm not working I'm putting off school work then rushing to complete said school work, and all the time I've been relatively destitute since coming here. I don't want that to be the last time I've had sex. I want some kind of intimacy that I'm fully engaged with. I don't currently think I have anything to offer that. I know on a deeper level that I am not completely uninteresting. At the very least I could give a small lecture on Hannibal (TV). On another level I have had a lot of jobs. I am very up on current events. I watch a lot of comedy. I am pretty close to having 4 degrees. I will definitely finish one this summer, one next summer- and I could reasonably finish the last two in a year and a half or so...probably sooner if I didn't want to pay off some of my debts for a while after graduating. I'm pretty marketable. Even if I'm not pretty. My friends say I am, but I imagine that's similar to other people's mothers saying they are...it's part obligation, part rose-tint. It's almost easier to believe my mother because everything I know from American television tells me that a mother should not say her child is too problematic to be loved. And, if she is not worth the love and respect of her peers or greater, she is not worth anything.
I guess that brings me back to being so far from everything I appear close to. The bridges only go half-way and my urge is rather to be swept away by whatever is underneath.
I want so badly to be the close relationships type.
My closest relationship is to the feeling of the city. Not this city. Just the height and density of a city. I have been going out running in the evenings, which is something I used to enjoy. It's strange to find things that you used to enjoy. Things you dropped when you lost control. So, I've picked up running, and I realized that the trail winds toward the lights downtown. Just like the trail in Austin. And I wonder if this is true of all cities. That everything you want gravitates toward the center. Not just the high-rises that store boring people in boring offices doing tech-y things I only think are boring because I don't understand them, but the density of all those buildings. Is the center of our universe so dull? Does life revolve around the mundane? The city is definitely it's own little universe. The thousand little lights from windows drown out the stars. A city will not accept competition from anything larger than itself. It is the center. The only center you need or know. The only sky at night is concrete. In the day it imitates the wider landscape in the great panes of glass, but the city insists it's all you need. I love the city because it can't love me back. It's just another one-sided relationship that reminds me I am small.
I'm getting shin-splints though, so I can't run as often as I have been. I never get that things should be gradual. Life is harder that way.
Along my walking/running I have discovered a few more things:
I do enjoy being outside much more than I tell myself I do. I am perfectly comfortable following a winding trail for three hours. I made abysmal time. I'd like to one day be doing a half-marathon on the weekends. For the pleasure of it. That should take 4-ish hours, but in 3 I only got 7+ miles. I think there's enough trail, and it doesn't really get boring because the cars and the people are different. The flowers are different. The air is different. Last night it was muggy, but the humidity wasn't a heavy weight to bear.
And second: I do not fuck with ducks.
I spent a lot of last week putting off going for a run because it was too rainy. I got sick of it one afternoon and went out anyway. There was a drizzle, but it wasn't bothersome. The water hit with the softness of a soap bubble. And it didn't follow the whole way of the trail. There were great parts of the trail underwater. In all the time I lived in Houston as a child I had never seen the risen water. I was in Austin when Harvey happened, so I didn't see any of the act of destruction, just the aftermath. The flooded trail was a polite insinuation of what wreckage could be caused. A soldato knocking over a vase saying, "Accidents happen." It was just as exhilarating.
There was a draw to the rushing water. I could wade into it like Virginia Woolf or fall in off a branch like Ophelia and the current would decide my fate. Could a bayou be as forgiving as a river? Does the width of the stream matter, I wonder. There's always the chance at the pleasure of the water you could be lifted before the undertow got hold of your head. I suppose that there is a gamble in almost any form of death, but the water seems the most spirited. Poison wouldn't abandon it's mission out of an overwhelming sense of guardianship. Water has it's duality that only fire can come close to...but even so, fire doesn't really give life, it just clears the way for it sometimes. So, taking the chance with water seems the best indication that something feels you deserve to live. Or indulges your current petulant inclination toward life, though you may think to throw it away at the moment.
So I stare a little too hard at the water as I move along. I'm very childish. To that end, I have silly new scars that no one has noticed. I don't know if that feels better or worse. Now that they've healed I think I've moved past the most embarrassing phase. I had a particularly bad couple of weeks and I think I got a little closer to testing those waters. None of the cuts were deep enough to require stitches, although I was concerned one of them was deep enough to become infected...it did not. And now I have cross-hatch marks like a 14-year-old girl that listens to way too much Sufjan Stevens, only half of which is true. I also lost my momentum in my novel at that point, which I think is what really hurt. This was probably an indication that I should have my medication adjusted, but I did not take the opportunity to really insist on an anti-anxiety additive. I got a few Ativan and resolved to let things slide. My mother was insisting that I diet and that her interest and monetary assistance was a waste of her time, so I thought perhaps developing anorexia would be a better fit for my desire to self-harm. And that's where I'm half in. It's okay here. Sometimes I eat more than once a day. It feels like a failure. Historically, my eating disorder had been binging- so the opposite is harder to wire to. I am losing weight though, so I think that might be a good motivator when I lose a bit more, and then my mother will take a breath to find something else to hate me for...so I'll have a moment to myself. I have to get out of here as soon as possible. I know the cuts were deeper. I know it was a trial. If I can't graduate in a year, the trials will only increase until we have something to put on the market.
For now, I'm okay. Maybe a little too lax.
I wish I could get back into my novel. I think about it all the time. Little thoughts. Nothing to act on. I think I should read more.
I can't remember the last time I had sex. Not like- it was so long ago... I literally can't remember the act. Things have gone so wrong here. It's a terrible feeling to know that something happened because your body hurts. To have a stranger in your house. I have spent more time here wondering "why the fuck am I like this?" than ever before. I don't think it's the city. I think it's the history. At some point I kind of abandoned my connections here- and I have no reason to reestablish them, other than a want for human interaction. Although, I honestly don't have the time or capacity for human interaction. If I'm not working I'm putting off school work then rushing to complete said school work, and all the time I've been relatively destitute since coming here. I don't want that to be the last time I've had sex. I want some kind of intimacy that I'm fully engaged with. I don't currently think I have anything to offer that. I know on a deeper level that I am not completely uninteresting. At the very least I could give a small lecture on Hannibal (TV). On another level I have had a lot of jobs. I am very up on current events. I watch a lot of comedy. I am pretty close to having 4 degrees. I will definitely finish one this summer, one next summer- and I could reasonably finish the last two in a year and a half or so...probably sooner if I didn't want to pay off some of my debts for a while after graduating. I'm pretty marketable. Even if I'm not pretty. My friends say I am, but I imagine that's similar to other people's mothers saying they are...it's part obligation, part rose-tint. It's almost easier to believe my mother because everything I know from American television tells me that a mother should not say her child is too problematic to be loved. And, if she is not worth the love and respect of her peers or greater, she is not worth anything.
I guess that brings me back to being so far from everything I appear close to. The bridges only go half-way and my urge is rather to be swept away by whatever is underneath.
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