Echo

An awakening?
12-14-09 | 10:10

I am nearing the end of what has been a very trying year.
How do I feel about it is probably a question I ought to ask myself. This past year has been a lesson in pride and ego, and sloth since I'm going down the seven deadly sins route. Beneath all the arguments, the tears, and the loss of control, the fear for a loved ones health, those three words have been flowing.
It is what I do with my experience that shapes me, that actually counts and lately I have been doing nothing with it, I have been living the same headache inducing routine that feeds my ego and clams the voices in my mind. I haven't picked up a book or taken a walk. I've spent money on padding my ego instead, and while that is good in the short term, it does damage to my psyche in the long term.
Now I am sick. I know I got sick from the cesspool that is Brikram yoga, but now, in its 8th day, with three infections I am interpreting this as a sign to wake up a little and value my everyday life for what it is.
I have been feeling the desire to write for a couple of days now, I'm not about to say that illness has inspired anything great in my, I'm no Proust or Woolf.

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All Dressed Up
09-05-09 | 18:30

Sitting at home. PB is returning this evening from an overnight trip with his fellas to Margate. It was nice being alone for a night. I got to relish my alone time with a bubble bath, a face mask, a glass of wine; but I also got to miss him. One night away is plenty enough for moi.

I had an unfortunate lunch with my mother. She seems really sad and I�m not sure I�m equipped to handle her sadness right now. If only for the purely selfish reason that thinking about how she feels leads me to doubt my happiness. Last night I sat in my bubble bath without any book or magazine, I just sat and relaxed, and the first thought that came into my head was �gee, am I lucky� and I thought about some of the things I am grateful for. I was happy. I went to bed happy, and thinking of PB makes me happy. Thinking of Bubble makes me happy. But when I expand my thoughts, to my family, or my current station in life I get unhappy. I�m writing so simplistically because I don�t want to complicate the explanation of complicated emotions. The truth of the matter is this: I feel owned by my mother because of the financial hold she has on me, and PB as well. Not even to mention the fact that I am the youngest and I have not moved away from my hometown, so my folks will always be drawn to me. But the part that bothers me, the part that makes me most unhappy is that I am tied to my mother financially. If I wasn�t I could just up and leave. I could behave the way I please. It is this deference, this going with what she chooses that I driving me to unhappiness. I am not independent.

I am not completely alone. I was thinking about that yesterday � being completely alone. I�ve never been. And it might not be a good feeling, but I�m not writing about the feeling, I�m writing about the state. The state of aloneness. Where no one no where knows what you are doing and you don�t have to answer to anyone. With that comes great strength and responsibility, responsibility that I don�t deserve at this moment and strength that I don�t want. Because if I wanted it, wouldn�t I give up the trappings of my charmed life/? PB has told me in the past that it would be such a relief on myself to move into a small apartment, one that we could afford together, but I have always denied him that. I�ve grown accustomed to a certain way of life, and the reality that this lifestyle cannot last much longer, especially if I continue to stay with PB, is becoming more and more vivid to me.

I find such solace and comfort in my routine, in controlling my environment. I even find comfort in material objects, I know this is both a social and habitual comfort, but what are we without habits and culture? I feel like I�m just espousing catch-phrases from my anthropology class, but when I think about how much I value my material objects it often bothers me. It also bothers me how much I need my routine. I�ve always wished I was an easy, light person. A person who could go with the tide, but my routines hold me together and when I�m without them I�m apt to fall apart. In my darker moments I hate myself for that, I despise how difficult I am and I fear that one day PB will leave because of it. I fear that I will just wear him out, and he will leave just as his father did. I also fear of how dependent I�ve become of PB. Since moving in together ten months ago we have become superclose. Maybe I�ve even become lazy at times. Maybe that is why it is good for me to be alone for one night or so every few months. I remember being so capable, but is my memory really serving me correctly? Wasn�t I always dependent on someone, or something?

Am I longing for escape or control over my habits and beliefs?

I could write about how far I�ve come. This frustration has been with my since I was a teenager and only within the past year or two have I been able to articulate it, albeit in a jumbled way. I could write that now I am aware of the routines that hold me back and of my need for control and what actions I take when I am feeling out of control, things that I didn�t know two, three years ago. And sometimes I do think in this positive light, I think back to how much I used to drink, how much I ate out of an emotional void and how much I hated myself for it, how much dope I sniffed, how much I really despised myself. But I am not yet ready to change some of my more �comforting routines,� I am not yet going to take actual steps to alleviate myself from ownership. Maybe because my priorities are still the same, but I am learning not to judge myself for this, for not being able to change right away. I really don�t want to end this entry on a hokey positive note, so I shall end with this.

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It's Only Time
08-31-09 | 18:00

It feels like Autumn is coming, but I know that feeling, that desire to return to work, to focus and the lovely wistfulness that I feel when I smell the crisp cool air is a bit premature. It has been an awfully busy, stressful and eventful year for me. Moving in together, entertaining a family for the holidays in our new apartment, being apart on new years, losing a job, fighting, sleepless nights, a flood, the discovery of an awful landlord, more fighting, tears, money woes, tight budget.

I don�t know where all this is taking me, and even though we have decided not to move, not to move back to where I am free to be wistful (the West Village) I am happy with our choice. Neither of us really wanted to move. We have such a wonderful space here and even though it often breaks, the landlord is a pity, and the neighborhood is dangerous it feels like home. Maybe because this is the place where we melted together more so than long walks at dawn after parties, or sleepovers on Bedford Street.

I guess it took looking at a lot of shitty apartments to realize that this one, despite its evident shittiness feels most like home.

I guess in life the luxury of a clear, obvious choice doesn�t come around too often.

I have to work on my self-importance; he has to work on his anger.

I also have to work on my paper, one that I have been putting off all summer. The mood is right to start.

Come Autumn my memories are as crisp as the cool air, as crisp as my favorite McIntosh apples. And my eagerness to appreciate life doubles.

What will happen come the holidays? There is a new baby coming, I will be an Aunt again, this time I will have a niece. My aunt wants nothing to do with my family, my brother is cold to us at his nicest, my cousin who I used to be such good friends with is no longer pleasant to spend time with. Will my folks go to see my brother leaving PB, Bubble and I alone for a romantic quiet Christmas? Will we go down to the south to visit PB�s mother and brother? Will we host Thanksgiving for a rag-tag bunch of people? Will we go to my Aunt�s and pretend to have a good time? How can I enjoy myself when my Aunt was so hurtful to my father?
How many Autumn�s have I had in New York?

2000, first year at school, eating apples with r from Balducci�s on a stoop on 9th Street, shopping at Bindel�s, attending classes, nachos from Around The Clock, I was an angel with black wings for Halloween, I was robbed on the block that was to be my first apartment in just a year and a half later.

2001, well that was awful. Smoking too many cigarettes, not attending classes, getting bread from Bleecker Street and eating bread and olive oil for dinner almost every night, going to bubble lounge with Andrea, buying way too many clothes and shoes, wearing my ultra high Gucci heels for Thanksgiving at my Aunt�s house.

2002, 3rd month in my first apartment, perfecting my dope addiction, relishing my time alone, I turned 21, dating a boy from Long Island, having an affair with an office coworker, for Halloween R and I walked around the West Village.

2003, I was with PB. For Halloween a party was thrown at my apartment, I don�t recall much of that Autumn actually � that winter I was heartbroken, but Autumn?

2004, living on Bedford Street with PB � what a mistake, we were too young.

As much as I loathe to admit it � from 2004 to 2007 is a blur. Why is it not fresh in my head?

Cooking dinner tonight, a little dinner, a little wine.

Things will take their shape, they always do � I just have to trust it.

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It's Only Time
08-31-09 | 18:09

It feels like Autumn is coming, but I know that feeling, that desire to return to work, to focus and the lovely wistfulness that I feel when I smell the crisp cool air is a bit premature. It has been an awfully busy, stressful and eventful year for me. Moving in together, entertaining a family for the holidays in our new apartment, being apart on new years, losing a job, fighting, sleepless nights, a flood, the discovery of an awful landlord, more fighting, tears, money woes, tight budget.