[gryphbeyerle]

there’s a man out there and we have some fondness for each other, but we are not together, and we are not pursuing each other. he decided no, and i said okay, and then we talked a little less every day. now we don’t talk really at all, and that’s alright. i’m not fighting it because it’s his wish, and it just hurts whenever we speak. every time he talks to me he says something new that i love!

the hardest part was understanding that i’m in love with him, that i fell in love with him right away. that he doesn’t feel the same, even though it seemed as though we were headed that way. maybe the hardest part was also understanding that i’ve never felt this way for anyone else— not a flaw to be found, no catch, no troubles, i just simply think he’s the one. and i will not be with him. maybe i’ll never see him again! oh ouch; it stings it stings it stings, and it will for a long time. but i accept that. truly— i can feel the ache and take a breath and sometimes even have a little cry, but i’m doing other things. seeing other people. trying to see beauty elsewhere. he doesn’t have to soak it all up.

it’s too bad, really, to fall in love this way. just too bad. another day goes by

[gryphbeyerle]

there’s so much push and pull in me— should i let go? should i embrace simplicity? does it mean i’m settling? god, i don’t know. settling sounds cruel. simplicity sounds demeaning.

what is it, who am i if i just lean into comfort? do i fight with myself because it’s wrong, or simply because i’m afraid of change? being comfortable would be new again. new, different… but not severe. i think that’s okay. what’s so bad about it? oh, well my restless internal monologue likes to remind me that i’m young and that youth is wasting away. but also, i could die tomorrow! so if i can have a taste of joy now, nothing crazy, just sweetness… why not?

[gryphbeyerle]

again rethinking everything, realizing i fell in love and cannot get away from it, how to progress when i’m so stuck? trapped and claustrophobic in the annals of my mind

[gryphbeyerle]

it does feel a bit as if i am giving up. that i am forcing myself to step away from the fantasy of a passionate romantic love. i say to myself this is growing up, and waiting for the likely-impossible will only hurt you, so go on and do something nice instead. enjoy something even if it doesn’t overwhelm you. that could be good enough, for now, or for always. but this stings a bit, salt in the wound of dreamy eyes. child at heart, never satisfied. reality will eternally feel like settling.

[gryphbeyerle]

i dance idly around the chair that wants to bind me and flirt delicately with the ropes, never quite ready for the tie

[gryphbeyerle]

i am unsurprised, really, at your consistency. that was who you always were, i just wasn’t privy to it. so why would you be any different now? and, truly, knowing that this is a mode for you eases the pain— now i know it was never done out of malice. it was simply compulsive. i hope it serves you going forward, and that you feel a little more free

[gryphbeyerle]

how I long to ask--

do you want very much of me? 

a little, a piece, a bit over none at all?

but I hold back knowing that what a songbird sings is of no significance to you, I think, I guess, but you like the music all the same. 

what do you hear when I play a record? just the pretty thing but never the words or the fine tune? I want to ask but you will think me too intense for saying such a thing.

this, of course, makes me hate. I hate you for not listening. or I hate you for listening while you sit statuesque. handsome, yes, but I mean different. I want to move you, push and shove you. don’t look so beautiful, placated with your whiskey in a lovely room. whether I throw my drink in your face or kiss you clean-on, your expression will not waver for me. I fall back into the chaise and want to die. 

[gryphbeyerle]

There is something huge to be said for wanting someone who sees the world similarly. Still, I am ardently doing my very best to entertain others who do not share my creative core, even those who have little to no creative zeal whatsoever, but I’ll admit I am disheartened. It’s sort of exhausting to try to connect myself with foreign things. But I think it is for the best-- make myself see a larger scope of humanity, viewpoints, personhood. Maybe finally come to terms with the truth that there can be beauty and even love in a less dreamy mind. Not everyone is a child inside and not everyone cries for the little wind. 

[gryphbeyerle]

I thought I was ready to dip a finger into the water, maybe even in up to my wrist, but before I knew what was happening he grabbed my hand and pulled me all the way in-- no part of me is left dry-- and I can’t tell if I'm drowning or if I’m dancing, waiting to come up for air, waiting to float easy on my back and finally get a look at the sky

[gryphbeyerle]

don’t like it, the way I feel-- it was so good when I thought I could have you, and it’s STILL so good even now, when I know I can’t! what torture! how could my own heart and mind make me such a fool? 

[gryphbeyerle]

I don’t want to become jaded, I want to fight it so hard, as hard as I possibly can. there’s innocence and I can feel myself losing sight of it with time, what a sickening thought. even more repulsive is watching myself become callous and having no skills, no wherewithal to keep that at bay, to stay focused and present. I can’t handle this, the hardening of myself. this is, I think, what aging is, this is why we have so much hate and resentment for our elders-- but we cannot excuse it. we cannot become it. what cruelty we allow ourselves. how to break the cycle of callousness? 

[gryphbeyerle]

I haven’t weighed myself in a few weeks because I was starting to obsess, and now that I'm back in the healthy range I figured it’d be best if I tried to back off the real neurotic behaviors. stopped tracking what I eat as well, and have been somewhat concerned that this would make me gain weight, but as I was laying in bed tonight I realized I could feel my ribs and hipbones pretty severely compared to a few weeks ago, and I felt my heart drop. I don’t know if this is what I want, or had wanted, or will want. I don’t look all that thin, I don’t think I do anyway. but I can feel my bones much more prominently. it’s hard to tell without knowing my weight whether or not I'm at a good spot.

I'd have to lose probably 20 more pounds to be underweight, so I have room for error, or progress, I don’t know. I think I'd like to lose another 10, depending on where I really am numerically. looking at myself I definitely want to lose at least 10 more. I think that’s fine ultimately, there’s nothing bad about wanting more change. I'm just processing it all as best possible.

the real trouble, as I've been made to understand by family and friends, is that I am physically unable to eat before maybe 5 or 6pm. food repulses me during the day. I truly cannot fathom how people eat breakfast and lunch. I could have a few bites of yogurt in the morning after my run, and a coffee before, but other than that I really struggle. and that has nothing to do really with my lingering anorexic tendencies, it’s just kind of how I'm wired. I don’t know how to fix it. 

now that I've lost all that depressive college weight and changed all my habits, hobbies, and my mindset, I feel I've made serious progress, but I know the work is never truly done. from here I should try to change my eating habits to be more normal, I guess, and maybe try to finally quit smoking. but I'm a little stubborn, so I don’t want to. being petulant again. I'm exhausted already from all this change. I can’t even begin to list all the momentous changes in the last 6 months of my life. I hardly recognize myself or my way of life, and yet it feels so right. everything is very good, very healthy, just a few hiccups or snags. I don’t think I’m quite ready to make those next changes. 

the takeaway here is that I need to reassess a few things-- see where I'm at numerically with my weight and then adjust my behavior from there. who knows, maybe there’s been no numeric difference-- I can’t trust what I see in the mirror or really how I perceive myself, I know better than to think I can. things could be worse. I guess they could also be better, in time.

[gryphbeyerle]

lately I've been forcing myself to acknowledge what I truly look like, who I truly am, how I truly behave. that’s new since I've always been so good at avoidance. I always simply laugh to myself and say “I'm a narcissist, I know my flaws” and move on. it’s not at all so simple, and this feels like a big realization only because I've suppressed it for so long. 

the truth is starting to show itself as an intense self-hatred. I take one photo of myself without makeup, without angling, without editing, and I am devastated. I realize I am not at all who I thought I was. who I portrayed myself to be. I have written myself like a character, like fiction, just to endure my life. but I don’t have that kind of control.

the truth is I'm a fool, but what I have control over is still somehow more vast than I previously knew. if I fully accept and recognize the truth of myself, then I can also fully accept all that I am capable of outside of vanity, introspection, hatred. this is exhausting just to think about, but I might be ready. maybe

[gryphbeyerle]

I never allow myself to paint without a plan, without a pretty face to carefully construct, without an idea at the very least that makes some emotional sense. but today I sat down and just painted, no pencil beforehand, and I'll tell you honestly that I hated what I made. 

it ended up being a blank white sheet with leaves, eyes, skeleton-death, and little monsters. two monsters ended up looking like they were in love. I look at what I made, those two stupid wobbly fox-shaped, almost reptilian beasts and they’ve got such sweet serene expressions, their faces are turned toward one another, their eyes closed because they’re at peace, oh how I hate them. I hate my subconscious and everything it does. I do not want to create anymore. I do not want to create freely. 

this is why I write on here rather than in my real journal. my real journals state facts. this account will one day be deactivated or I'll get locked out of it and I will never see it again and I will never read another word of this subconscious stream of real impulsive true thoughts. they enrage me because they hurt to look at they hurt to know they sting. no more. not even with paint. enough

[gryphbeyerle]

the way I am always surprised when a man reaches for my hand--

I'm always the one doing the reaching, the scrambling, the wishing, the waiting, because there’s no quietude in my soul, there’s no semblance of rest, no peace, I'm always looking. 

but when he reaches for me I am both supercharged and wholly calmed. I look at him and his eyes are closed and he wants no part of me and I know I can never truly have him, keep him, but he’s here now, he’s right there and we are connected by touch, he connected us! and I'm looking at that beautiful face, I get to be there, I get to be right here looking at him. inches away. what a gift, my god, because nothing has ever been so magical, nothing has ever been so sublime. 

and then suddenly I'm somewhere else, and that moment is over, and he is nowhere to be found-- not by me-- and I want to be okay with that, in many ways I am, but still. still I go back to my foggy memory and think of the curve of his nose and how different he looks when his eyes are closed and I am the luckiest girl in the world to know him, to have known him, for a quick electric little piece of past.

[gryphbeyerle]

I sort of look at myself and see nothing but simultaneously it’s just too much, way too much to look at. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to associate with it. Whatever that is I don’t know it

[gryphbeyerle]

maybe i get too close to the train of thought still, too close to thinking about me nearly dying and why didn’t I? why live! there’s no reason, no answer. I have nothing to offer myself. when I’m feeling cynical ive just got no justification.

tough because I start to not care much at all about the effect my death wouldve had on other people, just get up in my head about it.

I get to thinking about my out of body experience. I was instantly and intensely embarrassed by my real physical form, but wholly at peace with whatever consciousness i embodied in the moment. the piece of me that broke away and was ready to sever itself from living altogether. now that I think about it, I come back to that memory like a drug.

i bet addicts can’t forget the feeling, and I think of that near-death departure like that. I love it and I hate it, the memory. what the fuck is keeping me here, really? I know where I cannot feel pain. It’s there