Well obviously I'm doing it to my own disfavor. I'm clinging tightly to what I expect from others. I let go of some specific expectations from Toby, but it kind of seems part and parcel; now it doesn't make any sense to hold onto the other things. Especially when he makes no significant effort to stay in touch with me. It's a deliberate effort to push me out of his life.

I'll be brief but I want to put something here that has affected my spirit in a meaningful way:



I am a sponge for other people's energy. I desperately hope that I don't announce that to others in earnest and have it misconstrued as an excuse, because I genuinely have to struggle with the negative energy of others, and I am beaming after interacting with positive people. I am agitated after time with critical, standoffish, belligerent, judgemental, contentious, needy, selfish, inconsiderate people.

I'm especially agitated tonight. I ought to go to bed, because there's nothing that brooding over a lousy disappointment will fix. Sleep repairs most of my grumpiness, so it seems only logical to go to bed.

The next week and a half really need to be a step up from this, socially. In other respects, today was a find day; truly grand, in fact. I made a major leap forward in my field, as far as I'm concerned. My understanding seems clearer, my goals more specific and attainable, my path more defined. I have skills and I have experience and I know various things going on in my field. I could hold a conversation with someone whom I admire greatly, and I learned a huge amount from him today. I didn't bumble around with inarticulate, rambling sentences or self-aggrandize or tactlessly pursue conversation I oughtn't.

Where I'd like to work on things, truly, is how to separate myself from the self-conscious notion that everyone else has it figured out, but that I'm still some socially-stunted freak.

I don't want to pine away for someone to love and desire me. I've been hurting to be special for a long damned time. I just want to let it go.

In the nature of Virture

After toying with the idea of writing another blog for the past month at least, because I promised (to myself) that I'd update more frequently and stay upfront and honest (with myself), I went ahead and let it slip for weeks. Studying and exercising have consumed my time during daylight hours, while social events, dancing and insomnia enjoy my attention after dark.

Why can't I sleep? Because I have to make peace with the present each day, and some days it's not so easy to convince myself that I'm okay with it. With loving someone where a permanent barrier has always been and may always exist. With dashing my expectations and redirecting my goals. It's a totally different kind of heartbreak. The answer seems totally obvious, but I am terrified to do it. I convince myself to hold space until there can be no further justification.

I can't sleep because I'm angry. I can't sleep because I'm uncertain. Because I'm inspired. Guilty. Insomnia takes a different form and claims a different warrant every night, but the result is the same. Hours in the dark, wrestling my pillow and kicking aside a cooler niche into my sheets. Reliving years of forgotten moments. Echoing conversations, insecurities, fears.

I'm not fighting with geography anymore. After turning my direction back to Phoenix three weeks ago, when everything I set out to do came to an undeniable stall, I took it as a message loud and clear that God wants me here and this is where I need to grow. The initial twinge of defeat dissolved into peace, acceptance, and disconnected recuperation. I was welcomed into arms of friends. Suddenly, it became clear that the social world I imagined lived opposite the globe from me was enthusiastically distributed around the desert, anticipating my visits. The perceived failure of climbing back into a nest I'd outgrown was misconceived, as it turns out this is a generation phenomenon and not an embarrassing secret.

Learning, thinking, finding balance. Such quiet activities, so internal, so subtle. So vital. I've devoted this time to these things. It's working. I'm being dedicated and focused, and it's working.

I remember that my options are open, that the winds will change, that one must embrace change. I accept that at this present moment, any dramatic movement will tear my heart out like the entrails of a panicked, stinging honeybee, and so I will not make any dramatic movement.

There are lessons everywhere, to be learned from every life, transient and sessile. Staying sensitive to this is a forever task.