I do not resent the fact that I come second in your life. How could I? Of course she comes first, she’s your DAUGHTER. There is nothing in this life more important than our kids and I can’t understand anyone who puts other people before thier children. I would never make you choose. Ever. If anything I’d take the choice from you and you know it.
Do you dream?
Do you wake in the night with sweat on your brow, your heart thundering in your ears? Do you lay there, staring at the formless dark, daring it to take on shape as you struggle to recall the events that made your blood race through your veins and your breath catch in your throat? Of course you do. You have these nightmares just like the rest of us here in this dark province. You are just as much a shadow as the phantoms in your mind that clutch at your sanity in the wee hours of night.
You struggle out of bed, free yourself from the tangle of sweat-soaked sheets and stumble blindly to the bathroom, blink tears when you fumble the lights on. You brace yourself on the counter and will your breathing to ease, your heart to slow from its mad gallop so that you can focus, think about what it is you have seen. Your eyes adjust slowly, and by the time your vision is not impaired by the harsh yellow light you are breathing more like a normal man and not a prey animal. You peer at yourself in the mirror; the ordinariness of your surroundings, but you know, as surely as you know your own reflection, that there are things beyond all this ordinary that clamour to change reality. It is easier to face this fact in the light.
You take a deep breath and survey your figure; the lean lines of your naked torso in the yellow light; the stubble on your chin and the dark circles under your eyes that speak of your nocturnal odysseys into unknown spheres. You have so many questions and you know the answers do not lie in this bathroom. Nor in this suburb, nor in this city, but somewhere just as close. Close but other.
You’ve been dreaming in daylight now. You’ve seen some of the creatures from your nightmares on the streets, in the coffee shop where you get your latte in the morning. In the grocery store, the video store. They’ve been following you. Your dreaming mind is taking over your waking one. At least that’s what you’ve been telling yourself, but what if you’re wrong? What if that other place, that reality that exists in parallel with this one was breaking through? You shudder, brace youself again on the edge of the counter. You must be mad, it’s the only logical explanation.
There’s a knock at your door. Your flesh crawls with something akin to dread. You slip on your bathrobe and pad barefoot through the kitchen to the door. The clock on the microwave reads 3am. You peer through the blind on the door and see nothing. Part of you wants to back away from the door and crawl back into the warmth of your bed, but another is irritated that someone would dare knock at this time of night. Against your better judgement, you pull open the door.
“There had better be an emergency,” you growl.
“Oh, but there is,” says a voice and you blink, look down. Your visitor stands there, hidden in the shadows. She barely comes up to your chest and her features are drawn into an expression you can barely decipher as a grim frown. “Invite me in, there is little time,” she says. You hesitate, remembering something about vampires and thresholds. But you are bigger than she is and you are not dreaming.
“Come in,” you say and step aside. She enters, glances around and settles herself in one of your kitchen chairs. You do not sit, but stand where you are, allowing the door to click shut. “Who are you?” you ask, not caring that your voice sounds harsh even in your ears.
“I am a messenger,” she says evenly.
“Do you have a name?”
“I have many,” she replies and you clench your teeth.
“Why are you here then?” you ask, trying another tack.
“To give you a message.”
“Naturally, since you’re a messenger,” you snap. “What is it then?”
“The world as you know it is in grave danger,” she says. “and you are the only one who can stop it.” You pause and hear yourself laugh a little: a snort of laughter that sounds loud and harsh in the silence.
“You’re being melodramatic. I’m no hero and you’re a lunatic,” you say, tying your robe tighter, you gesture to the door. “Get out.”
“They said you would be rude and unconvinced,” she replies, but does not budge from the chair.
“Who are “they” and why me?”
“They are the Oracles. It has been foretold that a mortal will be the one to save the Twin Worlds from annihilation. They believe that you are that mortal.”
“Why?”
“You have been dreaming, have you not?” she asks and her voice is suddenly gentle. You feel yourself falling - not physically, but inside; all the pieces of your nightmares and waking dreams falling into a pattern. Your gasp is loud in the early morning silence. You find yourself on your knees and the tiny woman is smiling sadly at you.
“Yes,” she says. “You are indeed the one.”
listening to: Collide - Halo
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
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee [Attitus Finch, Chapter 11.]
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.
“Baldrick, believe me, eternity in the company of Beelzebub and all his hellish instruments of death will be a picnic compared to five minutes with me and this pencil if we can’t replace this dictionary.” ~Blackadder: Ink and Incapability
“Look…Reality is greater than the sum of its parts, also a damn sight holier. And the lives of such stuff as dreams are made of may be rounded with a sleep but they are not tied neatly with a red bow. Truth doesn’t run on time like a commuter train, though time may run on truth. And the Scenes Gone By and the Scenes to Come flow blending together in the sea-green deep while Now spreads in circles on the surface. So don’t sweat it. For focus simply move a few inches back or forward. And once more…look.” ~ Ken Kesey (Sometimes a Great Notion)
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
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
I’ve been reading a book called ‘Ahab’s Wife’ by Sena Jeter Naslund. I’ve been entranced by the language in the book and I can’t seem to put the thing down. Here’s a passage from p558 of my copy, and you’ll see what I mean about the language. The whole book is line one giant poem. I bought it on a whim, because I am a fan of Melville’s Moby Dick and I wanted to see what this woman had done with a character that is mentioned in maybe two lines of Moby. I am not disappointed.
There is a great journey yet to be taken. Let my mind be a ship that sails from starry point to starry point. In my brain, I feel those cold black spaces containing nothing. I approach a pinprick of light closer and closer till it is a conflagration of such magnitude that I am nothing. And yet with my mind I caliper it with contemplation.
Where is my place before this whirling ball of star mass, edgeless and expansive, without horizon? Where is my place, when I know that this is but one of ten billion? Here the categories crack. Beauty -that gilt frame - burns at its edges and falls to ash. Love? It’s no more than a blade of grass. Perhaps there is music here, for in all that swirling perhaps harmony fixes the giants in thier turning, marches them always outward in thier fiery parade.
That I can see thier glory, that is my place. That I have these moments to be alive - and surely they are alive in some other way. Perhaps it is only being that we share. But something is shared between me on the rooftop and them flung wideand myriad up there. What was the golden motto emroidered on the hem of my baby’s silk dress? We are kin to stars.
I reach my hands toward them, spread my fingers and see those diamonds in the black v’s between my fanning fingers. To think I could gather them into my hands, stuff them in my pockets, is folly. But I can reach. it is I myself, alive now, who reach into the night toward stars. Thier light is on my hands.
Thier light is in my hands. I gasp in the crisp air of earth and know that I am made of what makes stars! Those atoms burning bright - I lower my hands - why, they are here within me. I am as old as they and will continue as long as they, and after our demise, we will all be born again, eons from now. What atoms they have I cannot know. I cannot call thier names, but htey are not strangers to me. I know them in my being, and they know me.
Little scrap, little morsel, the stars sing to me, we are the same.
I’m sad I’m almost done!
