I’m waiting for ignition, I’m looking for a spark

They say there is a novel inside everyone. I think there are hundreds of stories inside of me. They live under my skin; squirm and multiply in the dark recesses of my mind. I wish I could get them out of my head and onto paper in a manner that didn’t seem, afterwards, to be crap. I suppose my greatest enemy here is doubt. Self-doubt and a deep seated belief that I’m not really that good at much. Even with the evidence (hello acceptance to the Master’s Program I wanted at the school I wanted) staring me in the face.

I haven’t written anything in months.

Lie.

I’ve written a long letter, or two and not sent them.

I’ve thought a lot about what I should write.

I need to write about a few things, work out my inner workings first before I can pour this novel out onto paper, from formless shapes and feelings in my gut into real living scenes on the page. My life feels like a template, a storyboard or even a metaphor for something better. Maybe that’s wishful thinking?

I was sorting through my reams of crap this weekend. I have so much of it… but I found one of the last birthday cards that Dean sent to me. I haven’t been able to put it down and it’s sitting in my purse at this very moment. It seems kind of silly that I’m so attached to this piece of paper that I’ve not seen in a couple of years, but it’s become a kind of symbol. It was when he was strong enough to remember, to care. I know it was him because he was the only one who signed it. There was no one to prompt him to send me a card, he just remembered me and sent it to remind me that he loved me on my birthday. It’s things like this that make me wonder if I did enough. I torture myself that I could have done more to help him get back to his old self. I guess I feel like I failed him. I never seem to be where I am needed most.

I never seem to be able to think outside the box when I need to; to step outside of myself and see beyond the immediate. Why is that?

Why?

Listening to: I have the Touch - Peter Gabriel

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take the splinters out of your eyes

Power.

It took me a long time to grasp the notion that power comes from me. Let me rephrase. Other people only have power over me if I let them, and vice versa. Of course knowing this and using it are two totally different things.

It has also become equally apparent that I am susceptible to my low self esteem. I have an overwhelming, if not pathological need to be liked and have behaved in a manner one might call chameleonic to achieve this. The last ten years I’ve seen myself get better with this behaviour - as in I’m not as likely to do it, but there are times where I simply do not feel worth attention and I tend to isolate myself instead when I feel like that. So I create this circle of depression that I don’t quite know how to fix. However, they say that knowing is half the battle and I suppose that coming to terms with these facts - as tough as that is, is part of that.

I need to know where this lack originated. My mother’s experiences with uncovering key events in her childhood has made me curious about the things that happened in my past. I don’t recall a lot of my childhood and I don’t know if there are things I’m missing or if I have blocked them on purpose. Soul searching ensues.

Recently, all this came into play. I suppose I felt particularly vulnerable because I was stressing out, because J and I were falling into old patterns, because… it was so easy to rekindle old feelings that I let it go farther than it should have.

The road to hell, as they say.

listening to: Kosheen - Recovery
reading: Abundance - Sena Jeter Naslund

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there’s a space where you used to sit

Happy Birthday Dean-O. I miss you. We miss you.

Posted in journal | No Comments » | Tags: anatomy of pain, grief, just maybe, letters, small things

stepping on a carpet of glass…

A migraine is like sheet lightening accompanied by a monstrous thunder. An aurora borealis pulsing with my heartbeat on the edges of my vision. Usually this crystalline halo is all I have to worry about, the thunder of pain is distant; an echo somewhere in the recesses of my head. It is never the same. An ice lance pulsing behind my eyes, or an army of fireants tromping over my scalp, making each individual hair follicle a focal point of fire. Or perhaps the deep resonant throb of taiko drums at the base of my skull, or elephantine tap dancers in my forehead, right behind my eyes.

Thankfully my threshold is high, so it’s rarely that this cacaphony of light and pain overwhelms me. For those who deal with these more often than I do: May the fireants sting the tap dancing elephants to oblivion and the halo be washed away by rain.

listening to Recovery - Kosheen

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Whatever you do, don’t be afraid of the dark

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. Well, between all the crap at work and the crap at home there’s not much time for that… unless one makes time. I think that’s the frustrating thing - I’ve been waiting for a moment, a day, a space where I can just collect myself for the next project, but it doesn’t work like that. Mom told me once that shortly after I was born she asked her mother in law when she would be able to relax and the woman just looked at her, shook her head and said “it’s always like this”. The story really didn’t make that much sense to me until recently.

My time is not my own… and I think that’s part of the reason I’m looking so forward to going back to school. School is for me, not someone else. Right now I work for a company, but that work is not to expand myself, it’s not for me that I do it beyond the fact that I do it for the paycheck and I think most will agree that that’s the least important part of a job. If it’s not fulfilling as an activity then it’s just going to suck your time and your soul. I love to write, but after a long day at work my brain is essentially dead and anything I produce after then is essentially crap. My writing muscles have not seized, but my creative juices are a little dry since I’ve used all my mental energy in the day doing a good job. Everyone says “make time” and so I try on the weekends, but alloted time and my creative spark have little in common. I do better in this alloted time than I do after work, admittedly, but there is always something else to do: dishes, laundry, vacuuming, cooking, shopping, something. Even the games I play seem to be dominated by other people’s needs.

This is not to say that I don’t enjoy meeting other people’s needs. I love my family and work hard because of that to make things work. I just think that my exhaustion is catching up with me. It’s all the unknown amidst the mass of day in and day out crap. J’s arthritis is acting up to the point that I’m afraid for him - and he’s finally gone to the doctor. That’s how I know it’s bad.

Teenager is currently seeming to do quite well. She’s focussed on school, has a part time job and has just messily broken up with a boyfriend. (Honestly, I’m glad. The guy was a manipulative little…will not vent. Will not vent…)

I have caught up on my sleep now. Kind of. I was having bouts of either insomnia, or a series of vivid and exhausting dreams that would make it feel like I’d not slept at all. ‘Course, said dreams have been some excellent fodder for my tendency for fiction but I’ve yet to take many of them beyond the notes and scenes I’ve scribbled in my notebook. I’m working a bit on that today I think… after I finish with the kitchen… I can use the mindless repetition of dishes to work out a plotline.

I realise after reading some of my older entries that I seem to whine a lot. Not my intention, but it is hard to put on the brave, optimistic face twenty-four seven when I’m not really feeling it. Next weekend marks the long wait to see if I am accepted into UWO. Cross your fingers for me and/or pray to whichever gods dominate your existence and I will appreciate your positive energy. Cheers internets!

listening to: Night of the Hunter - 30 Seconds to Mars

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the irony is killing me

As if life weren’t complicated enough… It seems that every time I sit down, or turn around, or even think about doing something for myself for a change, the world hands me a pile of extra shit to deal with. It’s like “oh, you’re stressed? Well, I think you can handle THIS too!” and shovels all sorts of crap at me. Right now, suffice it to say that I’m finding life to be a bit overwhelming. I have a list and its longer than I will get into here but it can be borken into categories.

School: The list of all the little things I need to do is shorter now, there are only 2 things left and one is proving to be an extreme pain in the arse. Moving: the how, where, when and what of that is all up in the air and that makes me anxious. Not the least of which is how to get the cats over there with the minimum angst. Teenager and her particular curve ball at this moment (which is the source of my toxic irony). I have that image of Jack Bristow in Alias staring Vaughn down and saying “One thing you’re not, is wise,” before turning and stomping off to save his daughter. Then there is J and his health and my inordinate tendency to worry. And then there’s work.

Fuck… I need a holiday.

Posted in journal | No Comments » | Tags: obsessobsessobsess, random stupidity, rant, step-parenthood, teenage angst, wicked stepmother, wtf

something wicked this way comes

Well. I think I said before that there was no manual for being a parent, let alone being a step-parent. That being said, I have a fair feeling that I am sitting in the classic role of “wicked” step-parent. I decided when I found out (out of the blue, I might add) that the Teenager was coming back, that I was going to continue as I had before and be the backup. I will back up J’s discipline and be the one he bounces ideas off of and the one to suggest things. But because I am decidedly NOT her parent, I can’t be the one to deliver all the discipline. I won’t let her talk down to me, or back to me, but in regards to her being grounded or otherwise punished for crap behaviour, that is something she will see J deliver and me enforce. I think this will limit her resentment on just one of us. I mean its not fair for her to spend all her energy rebelling against one of us rather than both. This way I become an extension of J and not the go-to for the easy way out. I am a sympathetic ear, but I’m not the scapegoat.

This whole thing about wanting to do self-paced school is a symptom of something else, I’m sure. The same thing that the attention seeking and tendencies towards shitty, drama-filled relationships are a symptom of as well. I have my opinions, but I will keep them to myself.

Regardless of our best efforts, I fear the Teenager is making some questionable choices.

Listening to: Grow up and Blow Away - Metric
Reading: Macbeth - William Shakespeare

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I must become a lion hearted girl

Ever have the feeling that you’re freefalling and the world is rushing up into your face? Or like the world has decided to hit you in the face with everything that it can find?

I’m surprised that more people are not overwhelmed by life. I think I feel that right now because there are so many things on my plate. Things to do, things I want to do, that when there seems to be a moment to breathe I just collapse into braindeath.

Ok, it may not be a lot as in my entire world hasn’t been demolished in an earthquake like those poor people in Haiti, but it is a lot in that there are things I have never done before. It’s unknown territory and that is scary because there’s really no map, and I have no idea what to expect.

At work, I’m working on hiring my replacement. I’m leaving for several reasons, not the least of which is that I am going back to school. Secondly, these past couple of years I’ve learned that the position I have there is not one that I am 100% comfortable in. Not that I mind running things, I mind not having the support network I’m supposed to have. I feel like I was thrown in headfirst and while I’m keeping things afloat, I will never make that place shine. I have asked on more than one occasion for help, for training etc and I have recieved the barest minimum of each. My boss talks about making an investment, but he’s not willing to spend the time to do so and I, in all honestly, am not the one he should be spending the time on. It’s not a career I would have chosen and there is a lot to be said about loving your work. One should not dread weekdays because it means going to work.

That is one reason why I’m heading back to school. I’ve taken a couple of years to think seriously about what I wanted to do and I keep coming back to the same thing. And so I have started the process. Transcripts will be sent next week and I will be sending the rest of the package shortly after that, now that I’ve heard back from all the little things I had to do before. I will have to wait for several months until I know whether I am accepted. This is more than a little nerve-wracking, considering that I’m giving up a decent job before I will even know if I have been accepted.

That’s not stressful at all.

In the meantime the house is once again graced with a teenager. Parenthood is one thing, but step parenthood is quite another. I can see on the one hand what it is she’s lacking in support, but at the same time she’s also lacking discipline and a sense of responsibility. (I didn’t really have one at her age either, but given her past life experience and the role model she has in her mother, I’m not sure that’s something she can readily develop without some serious tough lessons learnt on her part.) What I am finding it hard to do is to be tough with her. I can be firm and I can support J, but I can’t be the one to deliver edicts because that merely turns me into the ‘evil stepmother’ and she doesn’t listen to me anyway because I’m ‘not her mom’. I am attempting to do what my mother did with me, which is to give her enough rope to either work it out on her own or strangle herself with it.

Ugh..

And today, there is water on my kitchen floor. Landlord says it’s from the roof, only I don’t know how that could be, since I’m on the third floor. I can has a break now pls?

Listening to: Rabbit Hearted - Florence + The Machine
Reading: Brilliance of the Moon (Tales of the Otori, 3) - Lian Hearn
Today’s Project: cleaning the house, laundry, groceries (what day off?)
Feeling: overtired
Craving: nachoes

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