Joy snapped at me. It didn't shatter my trust, but it sure kicked up dust. Poof! It was unexpected. It was enough to cut off communication for the evening; to distance, something I hadn't imagined doing from her until now. So it is possible. So we are ordinary.
It won't change anything. But if it did, I'm not sure I'd care. I can do without Joy and if we ended up not calling each other for several days, it wouldn't be difficult. Beyond the several days, I don't know. I don't know how long it would take until I realized I do care.
My defenses are full up and always have been. I haven't really been exposing myself to Joy. I haven't made myself vulnerable. She has information, but not me, not my heart. But, then...wouldn't losing her hurt like hell? I hate being in this position. I can't go through with this again. I can't go through with this again.
Monday, September 26, 1994
Sunday, September 25, 1994
247 19th Ave., #2, San Francisco
I've been thinking about how I've painted Vikki. I remembered what I thought of her in my last year at Oberlin - how she created her own hell to live in and made sure that she was victimized. If there was a pessimistic way of looking at a situation, if there was a reason to be filled with self-doubt over an issue, Vikki would find it. If she could posit herself as the victim, that is the perspective she would take. If there is a positive or optimistic take on any given situation, Vikki would overlook it. Vikki makes life miserable for herself and perpetuates her misery. She doesn't look for a way out or a solution because there simply is none. That's the starting and end point.
I told Joy that I would never be happy and that I would never want to be happy and how I would have no idea what I would do with myself if I ever attained "happiness". But then I recanted by saying that under certain different standards and perspectives, I already am happy. So maybe Vikki is happy the way she is, making herself miserable.
I once wrote to Luyen about her self-victimization. Was it a coincidence that in the same period in my life I claimed that both Luyen and Vikki were victims of what they had created themselves? It made me think about my hell and whether it is something I, too, have created. Probably.
Diem has gotten back in touch with me. She called Lisa in Boston and got Lisa's Oakland number. She called Lisa and found that I was still here and got my number. Hearing her voice brought a flood of memories, memories pouring over memories. I had held those memories behind a wall in denial.
It was wonderful but disturbing to hear from her. Amina is attached to memories of Diem. She represents a part of my life I had confidently put behind me. Talking with her made me feel exposed, discovered, violated. I also felt grateful. Relieved. Touched.
What I adamantly insist upon, though, is that whatever Diem and I build from here forward is built from what we are now and forward. None of it can rest or depend on what we were in the past. Of course, we are neither intimate nor proximate, and without the safety net of the common ground of our past, we might not have anything to build.
I told Joy that I would never be happy and that I would never want to be happy and how I would have no idea what I would do with myself if I ever attained "happiness". But then I recanted by saying that under certain different standards and perspectives, I already am happy. So maybe Vikki is happy the way she is, making herself miserable.
I once wrote to Luyen about her self-victimization. Was it a coincidence that in the same period in my life I claimed that both Luyen and Vikki were victims of what they had created themselves? It made me think about my hell and whether it is something I, too, have created. Probably.
Diem has gotten back in touch with me. She called Lisa in Boston and got Lisa's Oakland number. She called Lisa and found that I was still here and got my number. Hearing her voice brought a flood of memories, memories pouring over memories. I had held those memories behind a wall in denial.
It was wonderful but disturbing to hear from her. Amina is attached to memories of Diem. She represents a part of my life I had confidently put behind me. Talking with her made me feel exposed, discovered, violated. I also felt grateful. Relieved. Touched.
What I adamantly insist upon, though, is that whatever Diem and I build from here forward is built from what we are now and forward. None of it can rest or depend on what we were in the past. Of course, we are neither intimate nor proximate, and without the safety net of the common ground of our past, we might not have anything to build.
Thursday, September 08, 1994
247 19th Ave., #2, San Francisco
School started for Joy yesterday. We got together on Tuesday at Yerba Buena Gardens, just as we did on the Tuesday before I started classes several weeks ago.
It feels like I've known her for longer. Everything before her isn't important, drained of significance, drained of reality or relevance. Joy is real. This sounds uncomfortably familiar.
And still.
I haven't seen her for two days. I found that I don't particularly like talking to her on the phone. Calling her requires a prior check on how I feel. There's still this issue of trust which I don't think is getting resolved. I've told her so much about myself, but I don't know if it has been trust or if I've just been testing her to see how much she can take. Something is missing between us.
She still blisses me out, but I have my doubts. I love her fully, but only as long as she loves me back, not one day longer.
I'm not through dealing with my problems. They just won't go away. I would rather die than be in a relationship. I can see how that could be a problem.
Joy deserves much more than this. It's not that I don't want to give her my all, it's just that I don't have that much.
I'll try. I want to. It's a confidence and self-esteem issue which makes me feel like I won't succeed or can't, but I'll try.
It feels like I've known her for longer. Everything before her isn't important, drained of significance, drained of reality or relevance. Joy is real. This sounds uncomfortably familiar.
And still.
I haven't seen her for two days. I found that I don't particularly like talking to her on the phone. Calling her requires a prior check on how I feel. There's still this issue of trust which I don't think is getting resolved. I've told her so much about myself, but I don't know if it has been trust or if I've just been testing her to see how much she can take. Something is missing between us.
She still blisses me out, but I have my doubts. I love her fully, but only as long as she loves me back, not one day longer.
I'm not through dealing with my problems. They just won't go away. I would rather die than be in a relationship. I can see how that could be a problem.
Joy deserves much more than this. It's not that I don't want to give her my all, it's just that I don't have that much.
I'll try. I want to. It's a confidence and self-esteem issue which makes me feel like I won't succeed or can't, but I'll try.
Monday, September 05, 1994
247 19th Ave., #2, San Francisco
I've been with Joy since Saturday. I came back for several hours on Saturday to do some drum parts and to listen to a drum part I did when I was back here for a few hours on Friday. I've finished all the drum parts for this collection of songs. I just have two more bass parts, several solos, and all the lyrics. Yikes! All the lyrics. There's a reason why I don't have any lyrics yet. I'm having trouble expressing myself that way.
Joy and I had a difficult night on Saturday. My brain was in overdrive and I couldn't express myself to her. It was an old familiar feeling of frustration and neglect, a breakdown of communication. I couldn't reach out and she wasn't reaching in. My mind raced from thought to thought to thought.
I still struggle with Amina. Whenever Joy talks about trust and betrayal, it's Amina on my mind, and it's holding back tears, and it's distance from myself and the world around me. If forgiveness were forthcoming, it would be coming with great difficulty. And it's not coming at all. I had so much invested in her. Images linger. The pain of losing with no feelings for what was lost.
I remember things about Amina that makes me wonder what I've forgotten. I remember how Amina defined and colored my reality. How everything in my life was tainted and affected by Amina, how she enhanced everything and became a part of everything I saw, felt, and experienced. That's why it's so hard to shake her out.
But that was Amina, not anyone else, not Joy. Perhaps I'm avoiding anything Amina was. Can I trust anyone like I trusted Amina ever again? I put the two images I have of Amina together, side by side, and I think, 'no, never again; no one'. I've been numbed cold about it.
Joy and I had a difficult night on Saturday. My brain was in overdrive and I couldn't express myself to her. It was an old familiar feeling of frustration and neglect, a breakdown of communication. I couldn't reach out and she wasn't reaching in. My mind raced from thought to thought to thought.
I still struggle with Amina. Whenever Joy talks about trust and betrayal, it's Amina on my mind, and it's holding back tears, and it's distance from myself and the world around me. If forgiveness were forthcoming, it would be coming with great difficulty. And it's not coming at all. I had so much invested in her. Images linger. The pain of losing with no feelings for what was lost.
I remember things about Amina that makes me wonder what I've forgotten. I remember how Amina defined and colored my reality. How everything in my life was tainted and affected by Amina, how she enhanced everything and became a part of everything I saw, felt, and experienced. That's why it's so hard to shake her out.
But that was Amina, not anyone else, not Joy. Perhaps I'm avoiding anything Amina was. Can I trust anyone like I trusted Amina ever again? I put the two images I have of Amina together, side by side, and I think, 'no, never again; no one'. I've been numbed cold about it.
Saturday, September 03, 1994
2211 Carleton St., #28, Berkeley
I get frightened. I recognize walls of inhibitions starting to crystallize. It doesn't seem serious, but it may lead to problems. If there is a loss of openness between us, there goes the basis of why this relationship is special, why it is working.
I can't be afraid to be myself. That, I think, has been a recurring struggle for me in trying to make a relationship work. I lose sight of myself. Being with another person takes on a characteristic of its own, I stop being me.
So many things eat at me from the inside. I appreciate how Joy makes me feel not alone. But if we focus on such seriousness too much, that will just wear us down. It's hard to balance between serious and heavy, and playful and goofy. We try to, and I think it's possible. She's flexible and she's empathic. She doesn't just get stuck on one thing.
She sits at the table. I observe her. She's unaware. She shows what's in her mind on her face. I can tell when she's thinking, when she notices something. If she finds something funny or ironic, she'll smile. Her thoughtfulness and consideration, it's obvious she's paying attention, it's obvious she's doing something, involved in something, engrossed in something; she's here and alive and living.
She flips through a pile of papers, looking for something, grimaces not quite able to find it. She spots something important. She writes it down. She sighs in frustration. She shakes her head. So thoughtful, so focused, so comfortable, so intent. There is a reason why she loves me. She wouldn't otherwise.
(excerpt from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson, pp. 170-171)
". . . But where was God now, with heaven full of astronoughts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup. As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed. That is why they are unfit for romantic love. There are exceptions and I hope they are happy.
The unknownness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met. If you want to find out the circumference of an oil drop, you can use lycopodium powder. That's what I'll find. A tub of lycopodium powder, and I will sprinkle it on to my needs and find out how large they are. Then when I meet someone I can write up the experiment and show them what they have to take on. Except they might have a growth rate I can't measure, or they might mutate, or even disappear. One thing I am certain of; I do not want to be betrayed, but that's quite hard to say, casually, at the beginning of a relationship. It's not a word people use very often, which confuses me, because there are different kinds of infidelity, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, then being on somebody else's."
I can't be afraid to be myself. That, I think, has been a recurring struggle for me in trying to make a relationship work. I lose sight of myself. Being with another person takes on a characteristic of its own, I stop being me.
So many things eat at me from the inside. I appreciate how Joy makes me feel not alone. But if we focus on such seriousness too much, that will just wear us down. It's hard to balance between serious and heavy, and playful and goofy. We try to, and I think it's possible. She's flexible and she's empathic. She doesn't just get stuck on one thing.
She sits at the table. I observe her. She's unaware. She shows what's in her mind on her face. I can tell when she's thinking, when she notices something. If she finds something funny or ironic, she'll smile. Her thoughtfulness and consideration, it's obvious she's paying attention, it's obvious she's doing something, involved in something, engrossed in something; she's here and alive and living.
She flips through a pile of papers, looking for something, grimaces not quite able to find it. She spots something important. She writes it down. She sighs in frustration. She shakes her head. So thoughtful, so focused, so comfortable, so intent. There is a reason why she loves me. She wouldn't otherwise.
(excerpt from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson, pp. 170-171)
". . . But where was God now, with heaven full of astronoughts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup. As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed. That is why they are unfit for romantic love. There are exceptions and I hope they are happy.
The unknownness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met. If you want to find out the circumference of an oil drop, you can use lycopodium powder. That's what I'll find. A tub of lycopodium powder, and I will sprinkle it on to my needs and find out how large they are. Then when I meet someone I can write up the experiment and show them what they have to take on. Except they might have a growth rate I can't measure, or they might mutate, or even disappear. One thing I am certain of; I do not want to be betrayed, but that's quite hard to say, casually, at the beginning of a relationship. It's not a word people use very often, which confuses me, because there are different kinds of infidelity, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, then being on somebody else's."
Thursday, September 01, 1994
247 19th Ave., #2, San Francisco
The word is "blissed out". How much more can I love Joy? How much more happy can I be with Joy in my life? I am in amazement in how much I already love her and how much she already makes me happy.
She doesn't start working until next week, when the school year begins, so we've been able to see each other as often as we’ve wanted. Most of my life aside from law school has been set aside to be with her.
I've been BARTing to Berkeley after classes on Monday and Wednesdays and have been studying there and staying over. Haven't been seeing too much of my apartment.
There still is nothing I dislike about Joy, not an inkling of doubt. Trust, comfort, and love are all present. She creates the atmosphere for all of those.
The problem is when I get back home. Then doubts formed by my lack of self-esteem and confidence start to show. I prepare myself for the day when she'll want to move on without me. How will she do it? At least I know there will be a warning. At least I know she will explain in detail. At least I'll have the opportunity to make it easier for both of us by picking up a signal and leaving first.
I practiced it at her apartment - looking around and pretending it was the last time looking at it before leaving. I would just leave. I wouldn't try to hold on to the relationship. If she wanted it to end, I would walk. Then I'd return to the cutting. I haven't decided to stop drinking yet.
She hasn't solved anything about the cutting. I've stopped for her. I know it's only temporary. I told her that I wouldn't stop cutting for someone else; that if I stopped it had to be my decision and for myself only. So I haven't stopped the cutting, I haven't decided to stop. I'm refraining.
It's necessary. I can't be cutting while I'm in a relationship. That would exact too much of a toll. How would it make her feel? It's a no-brainer.
She doesn't start working until next week, when the school year begins, so we've been able to see each other as often as we’ve wanted. Most of my life aside from law school has been set aside to be with her.
I've been BARTing to Berkeley after classes on Monday and Wednesdays and have been studying there and staying over. Haven't been seeing too much of my apartment.
There still is nothing I dislike about Joy, not an inkling of doubt. Trust, comfort, and love are all present. She creates the atmosphere for all of those.
The problem is when I get back home. Then doubts formed by my lack of self-esteem and confidence start to show. I prepare myself for the day when she'll want to move on without me. How will she do it? At least I know there will be a warning. At least I know she will explain in detail. At least I'll have the opportunity to make it easier for both of us by picking up a signal and leaving first.
I practiced it at her apartment - looking around and pretending it was the last time looking at it before leaving. I would just leave. I wouldn't try to hold on to the relationship. If she wanted it to end, I would walk. Then I'd return to the cutting. I haven't decided to stop drinking yet.
She hasn't solved anything about the cutting. I've stopped for her. I know it's only temporary. I told her that I wouldn't stop cutting for someone else; that if I stopped it had to be my decision and for myself only. So I haven't stopped the cutting, I haven't decided to stop. I'm refraining.
It's necessary. I can't be cutting while I'm in a relationship. That would exact too much of a toll. How would it make her feel? It's a no-brainer.
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