Dear Kenny,
I’ve been writing and reading and sleeping a lot. It’s actually 10 days max before term, you cannot imagine what it’s like. I have a fully-grown ready to come to Earth future human creature. Inside me. She rolls around and shakes and wriggles. And weighs a small ton. Turning around in bed is a major event, I need one of those trolley things…
It’s interesting and wonderful, the reactions some of my friends have after reading me. It’s also good for me, putting in writing some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about a lot these last years. Good and scary. Because seriously, I seem to have attracted people with strong addictive disorders, whatever they may be. And I know where that comes from, between my family history that has deeply-rooted glitches, and my fascination for art, madness, insanity, loss of control. I’ve also learned that holding on to people or letting people hold on to me, who are disturbed and fusion-minded, sort of encourages them to complacency, and provides me with easy protection tools to stay out of excess myself. And that’s not good, you know, when other people’s downfalls, or weaknesses, serve to reassure you of your own grasp on things. Like a scale of crap you can weigh yourself on: hmmm, let’s see, this week, I’m still way less disturbed than my friends out there, so I’m in control. I don’t like that, I don’t want to participate in that. I work hard at not letting others set any kind of example for me, whether good or counter. There’s a big difference, in my book, between example and inspiration.
The great thing is, while I’ve always been fascinated by crazy people with crazy dynamics, I’ve been able to gut-spot the untruth, the shady. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to disappoint or hurt me. Which has meant that most of my dynamics with people are screwed from the beginning, because most people are fucked up and I know it and either they figure that out and it makes them uncomfortable to not be able to pretend, or they don’t notice it and make me uncomfortable because they just revel in BS not knowing I can spot it, or they sort of become demanding because they’re not used to honesty. One of these gifts that’s almost a curse, you see, to be able to “feel” somewhere inside you that the person you’re facing is not totally together and honest, to see the cracks and the holes. So I’ve been learning to deal with that, and break off from the crap, and keep it at bay. I’m also lucky that I meet real raw people, honest, aware of their malfunctions, quirks. I try to probe for their strengths, give them energy, just by embracing them for all they’re worth.
I’ve also managed to cross paths with a human being whose motives, thoughts, depth I’ve never had to question. I never thought I’d find someone who I trust completely, whatever doubts and existentialist freakiness I go through. Never have to wonder what he’s holding back or what not. Wholesome person. I mean, as wholesome as humans get, with all the paradox and contradiction and freakiness a human holds… It makes so much sense I would feel some release, at last.
At this point, my hope is to inspire love and a sense of free-spirit and lightness and confidence. I missed that growing up. I think a lot of people miss out on that. I feel that I made up for it thanks to, well, a strong dislike for abusive power and authority in all their forms, probably developed by an early encounter with fear and injustice. Character-building experiences, they call them.
In any case, I still think Future Dad and I will try something different with this new person I’m building inside. Something like respect, love, a sense of individualization, self-confidence, trust, and the will to challenge the world. Or maybe we’ll just cross all of our fingers together, and hope for simple moments of bliss that will make the world a better place every day, somehow.
I’m a sucker for happy endings.
Be well, my friend,
M-N
August 8th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
“I’ve been able to gut-spot the untruth, the shady.”
Mano – this line really hit me this morning because I have only developed the ability to fully do this in the past year or two. I used to say that I was a bad judge of character but I think I just wasn’t concious of what it is that has sometime kept me away from certain people and drawn me to others, beyond the usual interlocking puzzle piece matching neuroses which often account for these things…
You know, like the times when you meet people with whom you should have a ton in common but you can’t be bothered? And the ones you’re drawn to in spite of all intellectualization?
As you speculate, sometimes this kind of gut instinct or bullshit radar comes from surviving adversity, as in your case. But for me I developed at a young age a kind of willful naivete, a kind of Pollyanna-ish focus on the positive that has sometime hidden a cynicism I didn’t care to own. I have reacted habitually this way – most recently after 9/11 when I persisted in living in my dream world of NYC being the closest to racial utopia that can be found, despite a zillion ugly indicators of the fault lines in race relations. (Am now having a delayed reaction to that and wondering if it would be such a huge loss not to live in NYC or even in the US – but I digress, that is a whole other rambling conversation…
What made me procrastinate work for 20 minutes to write to you was recognizing that experience you describe of conciously seeing (not just reacting from an unconcious recognition of inauthenticity or shadiness) people as they are – not as they would like to be seen, not as they see themselves even, but as they are. It’s a bit of a burden but mostly it’s utterly fascinating.
And if, like you, I can live with that and still maintain a state of alert pronoia, well, that would be an excellent accomplishment.
Rock on,
Alka
p.s. can I assume that if you are on IM that you have not gone into labor yet??!?