A place to dwell…

‘Best not to dwell’ I frequently say, but I do, I do, I do. Lover of self-indulgent nostalgia and the bittersweet guilty pleasure of overthinking. 25, she/her “Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.” — David Foster Wallace

[bestnottodwell]

Brain Dump - consumption and personality

I have an awkward amount of time and nothing left to do on my laptop in terms of personal admin, which was left me with an open space for the anxious voices to surface. They tell me that I need to be doing something productive. That I'm running out of time to enjoy all the things that there are on this earth to enjoy, and so anything I try to enjoy feels like the wrong choice and a waste of precious time. And then I watch as the days and the months pass by and I've enjoyed nothing. 

This isn't to say that I am never enjoying anything. I enjoy my time. But I read and watch and listen to less than I'd like to, because of the paralysis of indecision and existentialism. 

I feel a panic rising in me when I think too much about where my personality starts and algorithmically spoon-fed trend consumption ends. How much of this is real? How much of this is me? Who am I and what do I like when I cut off my access to the powerful suggestions of my social media feeds? 

Anyway, none of this actually matters. These are tiny, privileged, first world problems. I should be thankful for the abundance of art at my fingertips. 

But I've been thinking a lot of personality. What is mine like? How is it created? Is it innate or manufactured by environment? Is it consciously decided or unconsciously discovered? All of the above? If I enjoy something because I like the feeling of being connected to others' who enjoy it too, do I actually enjoy it? Can both be true? 

So many questions that don't really have answers, and leave me no time to even enjoy a good book or watch a movie. 

[bestnottodwell]

Change - a stream of consciousness brain dump, mid-work day:

Everything is changing at once. The past 5 days have brought me so much to process. Progress on a promotion. My best friend and roommate of two years is looking for a new apartment in a city two hours away. A new Director at work. I feel like the world stopped spinning and everything froze in place except for me, and I'm being hurled by my own inertia with no way to stop. There is so much sadness and fear and excitement and sorrow and hope swirling around in me right now, and for every bucket of emotions I pour out, three more get poured in.

I can at least say that I'm grateful that this change is coming in the form of news first, giving me some time to digest before what feels like an entirely new life takes shape. But the anticipation looms over me and it's a very uneasy feeling to know that everything around you will be different very soon. Like we're on the episode before the season finale, and characters are leaving and locations are changing, but there's still some time before the end, and you try to focus on that instead of how much you're going to miss it all when the next season premieres.

It's also very unsettling how much of this I unknowingly saw coming in retrospect. I've been making adjustments in my life to my routine, my ways of thinking, my coping mechanisms, and I found myself thinking not two weeks ago that it all feels like it's reaching the point of feeling settled, which likely means change is coming. I got choked up at the idea of one day removing the fruit stickers on the fridge in our home, because it wouldn't be ours forever, and found it ridiculous that I was thinking about something that seemed so far in the future. A check-in meeting about the new job was a line on my to do list for months, and finally scheduling it, finally closing that loop, felt like relief before I knew it was a catalyst for this cascade.

It's a very strange feeling, having had that clarity of expectation, and to have been right. Much of the personal growth I've been undertaking in recent months has been around self-trust, so the entire situation is revealing to me that I have a level of discernment I didn't know possible. It has also shown me that intuition is fickle, and the cognizance gained in the moment seems irrelevant until it very much isn't. And I'm getting lots and lots of practice sitting with big emotions, because the world hasn't actually stopped spinning, life continues, time marches on, and the feelings stay within me. I grip them tight, lest I drop them and gain an anchor that keeps me frozen in place while life's inertia leaves me behind.

[bestnottodwell]

Balance

The weed brings me down but the coffee makes me anxious, and avoidance doesn’t help, and neither do the hours spent ruminating, and the dishes are piling up, but let me clean out the junk drawers.  I’m told I can be a bit too much  yet I’m paralyzed into inaction by fear, and I’ll write about “finding the balance” in my journal, for the 18th time,  and maybe find some middle ground  between actively destroying everything  and being a complicit bystander.  Walk the tightrope, where on one side I’ll fall into the fire fuelled by productivity   and burn like a Yule log. On the other side,  I’ll fall into my bed and never get up. Kissed by the flames of hell,  or held in depression’s tight grasp. Kissed or held. Kissed and held. Kissed and held. Honey, I’m starving,  and easily persuaded, but the equal pull from each side  gives me perfect balance, and keeps me in purgatory. 

[bestnottodwell]

Trust Me

I try to need you less  I try to only want what I can have I try to accept this reality where the closer I get, the further you are.  There must be something else that can fill my emptiness or at least fill the silences between awkwardly asking about each others’ days  and thinking of something else to say. Across the table, you’re miles away and I search for my friend behind the apathy but I’ll avoid looking at you too closely I know you hate when I cry  I can only walk so far  until I can no longer hear you say “keep going,” But if you want to keep me at arm’s length at least you want to keep me.

[bestnottodwell]

I search for the balance between practicality and poetry, head and heart, ground and sky.

I try to hold my head high where I keep my hopes, on a shelf, not a pedestal, just in my peripheral, not quite out of site, not out of mind.

I keep an eye to the ground, to my doubts and my fears and my tether to this earth. I wonder which ones are the shackles, which is the armour, and if it's reality or regret that finds me first.

Is it okay to lose myself in it all if I write it down to find it later? I'll leave a note on the wall, where the mirrors once were, removed by ignorance due to lack of use. Perceval becomes a threat when you rely on it to see yourself, when you're trapped in hell's waiting room with no exit but through the eyes of a lover.

Is that what I search for? Waiting is a game played from both sides Calling to me from adjacent rooms through locked doors.

"Come back", "Come here", "Don't go"

And I'm just getting back into my body after a nice stay in the clouds high above hope with no anchor, no limit. I left fragments of myself up there for good, and sometimes they return with the rain, and the sun makes me feel whole again, and the wind carries away what's discarded. But sometimes at night, alone in that room while the sun sleeps soundly, I lie wide awake and long to return to that false paradise.

[bestnottodwell]

First draft of a happy ending

I want all of him. I want dinner-making laughter and grocery stores on Sundays. I want tea before bed and coffee in the morning. I want dishes in the sink, sheets in the laundry, wastepaper bins filled with first drafts of happy endings. I want to be consumed by you, used by you, crumpled up and started over by you. I want to know someone lives here and I want the clutter on the shelves to tell their story. I want the bins off the curb and the mailbox emptied so the neighbours don’t wonder. I want the boards off the windows and the tarps off the furniture. I want this place returned to it’s former glory because everyone deserves the chance and to see it, to feel it, to eat sleep and breathe it. I want to devote myself to something I’m not sure exists even if I’ll only get the truth when I die; just as long as he’s at my bedside.

[bestnottodwell]

Who will dream of us?

I saw it in your not-quite-grown-out-yet hair  when you trimmed it anyway because you wanted to look your best. I saw it in your smirk before you turned away when I asked about your evening plans because you wanted to hide your excitement. I saw it in your blank stare at the ground when I said my grievances about it  because you know I’m too late. I saw it in your unkept room and takeout orders when I returned the next day because you missed him.  Because you love him.  I hate myself for not expecting this You told me it was nothing and I believed you, while I ignored the evidence right in front of me. I hate myself for not fixing this Letting my fears blind me, my impulsivity guide me, while I sabotaged the love right in front of me. I hate myself for not suppressing this Heat rising in my chest, hope glimmering in my eyes, chills spreading on my skin, dreams dancing through my mind. I hate myself for not savouring this The moments before these dots connected, while I thought I might win back the only one that matters But I’ve realized now, I misread between the lines I made up the yearnful looks and lingering touch I misjudged the damage I’d really caused I mistook our plan for a promise I operated under the pretense that getting back together was always the goal was always our path was always inevitable Because after all, how could we not end up together? Well how unfair of me, to assume you could want this to turn fallacy into fantasy Still guided by impulse and again blinded by fear but now, of letting go. Because now that I know you did long ago,  and once I do to,  Who will be there to root for us? Who will dream of us? Who, what, will be left of us?

[bestnottodwell]

"Be where your feet are"

I remember this mantra in the back of my mind, providing sweet relief from the thought spiral of pulse-raising scenarios playing out in my mind, where you play the lead and someone who isn't me plays the love interest.

Be where your feet are. Don't make yourself upset over situations you've made up. Be where your feet are.

The thought is punctuated by a giggle in the next room.

Oh, right. You. Here. That's where I am; our home. You brought me back to it.

I realize that I don't know if this is what the rest of our life looks like, or even if this is what our tomorrow looks like, but it doesn't matter right now. What matters right now is being here, hearing you laugh.

A.S. 12/16/2024

[bestnottodwell]

I can get through my workday, do my job, exchange pleasantries with colleagues, distract myself writing emails instead of pages and pages of confessional, about you.

I can go for a drive, roll down the windows and head for the lake, turn up the music, and smile, when at just the right time, a song plays, about you.

I can lay in my bed, under the covers, where we used to lie, turn off the lights, hug my pillow tight, and dream, about you.

I can be right next to you, feel your magnetism and share your air, my pulse so loud, I could swear I'm hearing yours too, and pretend I'm not thinking, about you.

But I can't turn it off, the incessant noise, a grating shriek, the pit in my stomach too big for me to be in alone, tearful eyes and relentless thoughts, about you;

about my hasty decision, about you and him, "a means to an end", about being just friends,

your twisted truths, my wasted youth, your callous quips from those holy lips,

your poetry and prose, secrets only we know, our favourite songs and where it went wrong,

about our ill fate, about it being too late, and I think I'm sure, yet I yearn for more, of you.

A.S 11.29.2024

[bestnottodwell]

Do You Feel It Too?

Do you feel it too? The rush of warmth from the lightning bolts shooting through my skin? They splay across my whole body, though quickly extinguished by the ice cold chill of the guilt and shame of enjoying it that much. Do you hear it too? The pounding timpani that is my heartbeat? The absence of breath, so loud you can almost hear me begging for the chance to savour this feeling? To revel in it, get drunk on it, put a piece of it away for later, to pretend it’s real, but not dare ask for more. Do you see it too? The rush of blood to my cheeks? The weakening of my muscles as I fight against gravity? Its invisible strings pull me closer and closer until I’m so close to the edge, that the fall is almost enticing even when I know the pain awaiting at the bottom. Do you taste it too? The cigarettes we shared in the parking lot? That first kiss at your birthday party? A craving so strong, it can only be satisfied by my one drug of choice? The one I just can’t quit, though not for lack of trying. Am I alone in this, or do you feel it too?

A.S 11.10.2024

[bestnottodwell]

You are in everything…

In every meal I cook, each drink I pour

Every song, every poem

In laughter and in tears

Weekends that pass by like minutes

In coastline drives, windows down, our favourite songs

Unwashed dinner dishes

Paint stained clothes

A crowded bar of Saturday night regulars

Cold drinks in hands and your warm embrace

In tender midnights and morning sun pouring in

A beating heart and my breathing synced with yours

An unmade bed that still smells like you

Let me stay in it a little longer

You are in everything

You are everything

[bestnottodwell]

How abhorrently selfish it is to allow someone to care for you so deeply, when who you broke them so carelessly. I don’t deserve you and you don’t deserve me both statements alike but they tell truths so different A lifetime of holiness would not earn me your heaven and a lifetime of sin would not earn you my hell Why must you be punished and I rewarded? I’m meant to pay for what I’ve done but somehow you’re the one gone bankrupt.

[bestnottodwell]

On every birthday candle, or eyelash upon my cheek, every glance at a clock that reads: 11:11 every dandelion, or strike of midnight on a new year, on the one shooting star I saw before it disappeared, I’ve made a wish. Throughout the years, the desires changed; Toys and games, A thinner frame, A moment of peace from the darkness in my brain. But I’ve wasted these wishes On moments of selfishness Calling out to an unseen omniscience If given the chance I would take them all back, and use each one to make up for what I lack; the ability to know what it would do to you, what I would put you through, my many more moments of selfishness. I would wish for better foresight of the consequences of my constant fights, my useless anxiety, assumed propriety, of something I never earned. I would wish for just one more try to get us right, because it’s on my mind every goddamn day and night, how much I ruined it all, and risked the fall of the greatest friendship I’ve ever known. The worst part about a wish is if you tell someone about it, it’ll never come true.

[bestnottodwell]

Desire

In the glass pools of your eyes rests my distorted reflection, viewed from contrasting perspectives; we’re looking at two different things. 

All the beautiful words you’re about to say, pity for my wretched thoughts, words I can no longer bear to hear from the mouth which I crave most.

So I shut you down, it’s a waste after all. I don’t believe them to be true. I’m still not convinced that you do either.

Remedy for your apathy Why couldn’t you say it when it mattered most? Why not when I was rotting from the inside out, screaming for the healing brought by your touch?

Words are lovely, but love is not words. So somehow I keep waiting for you to want me the way I want you.

Maybe desire will have to be enough Lord knows I do it enough for us both.

[bestnottodwell]

Locked Out

I love your mind,  it’s complexity and enigmatic allure, how it houses your thoughts, bursting with intelligence and talent and creativity. How it saw me, heard me, and remembered. 

But it wouldn’t let me in. It housed thoughts I never knew,  complexity beyond comprehension, but never for lack of trying. 

I love your body,  its warmth and softness, how it houses your heart, allows you to dance and sing and laugh and love. How it would hold me, and silence the whole world around us.

But it wouldn’t let me in.  It housed a heart you couldn’t fully give, and pushed me away to make space to dance and sing on your own. 

I love your soul,  its soft glow and gentle nature, how it shines and radiates beyond a dark exterior like beams of sunlight through storm clouds.

But it wouldn’t let me in.  It housed a spirit belonging elsewhere, it yearned for another person,  “in another life”. 

I'm locked out, and I've tried every key I have,  I still don’t quite know where the right one went.  Where did you put it? When did you lose it?  I’ve driven myself mad looking for it.

I’m starting to think I never had it at all. Should I just try a different door?

[bestnottodwell]

False Hope

I arrived in the night, starving and cold,  having travelled so long I almost lost my way.  I’d heard rumours of wondrous, yet exclusive delights; abundant feasts that feed, roaring fires that warm, filled cups and singing hearts. 

Much to my surprise I was invited in,  my hopefulness affirmed; the rumours were true!  Well, knowing such delights existed was grand, but attending to them myself would be glorious, and I was too distracted to notice the illusion.

Once inside, the scene appeared different;  the feast had been packaged up,  the fire reduced to embers,  cups emptied and hearts arrested. 

I begged and pleaded and bargained,  accepting scraps leftover from overstayed guests,  and told myself it was enough to feel full. 

As I withered away, I embedded my claws deep into the dream that lead me here,

but soon enough there was nothing left to hold onto.

[bestnottodwell]

An unedited draft about the inner child

I used to believe from a very young age, that I was very emotionally intelligent.

Constantly told I’m “mature for my age”, “wise beyond my years” Maybe I just had to grow up too fast; the classic eldest daughter dilemma.

I was so young when I behaved 25, Now I fear I’ve grown into a tall child.

I’m realizing now it’s all a cover up; an attempt to hide my fears my inadequacies my wounds my child-like need for approval.

I’ve grown stagnant instead of growing up.

It’s difficult to face something you’ve been hiding from yourself because if you hide something from others for too long, eventually you forget where you put it.

Until it comes crawling back, and once you feed the beast, you realize it’s no beast at all, it’s her; no, it’s you. A former you, pleading to not be left behind again.

So show her kindness where she knows disdain, show her softness where she knows anger, warmth where she knows ice cold abandonment. Be her solace, her home.

Be who you needed when you were her; because you are still her, and all the other versions of yourself.

A.S 02.27.2024