I slept over in Josephine’s room last night! I think today is to be characterized primarily by Josephine. Not in any joyous, pervasive way, but yes, we are slowly getting closer and closer. We’re taking it slowly, well, maybe not so slowly since we met two weeks ago.
I don’t love her yet. I can still do without her. Part of me is even waiting for her to suddenly call it off. I don’t think there is anything about me that anyone can truly love, so I must either be a rebound, or a passing distraction. I just have to keep that in mind.
I don’t know if we’re going out yet. We may be. We haven’t kissed on the lips yet, so probably not, but we have the groundwork for something. I think I can grow to love her. But then in the same way I don’t think anyone can find something in me to truly love, I have doubts about whether I can find something in someone else that would make me truly love her.
There are things about Josephine that make me smile and make me feel close to her. There are things about her that endear her to me, there is something there that invokes a ferocious concern and care for her, but whether there is something there that I will fall in love with, that remains to be seen. If things were to stop right now, though, I think I would miss her laugh the most.
Showing posts with label self-esteem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-esteem. Show all posts
Monday, June 16, 1997
Sunday, March 31, 1996
1347 La Loma, Berkeley
March 1996
Diem had been getting my postcards. I wasn't sure whether she had or not. I don't know how many had to be forwarded to her since I don't know when she moved from Oberlin to Cleveland. She didn't feel that it was important to tell me I suppose.
For the past year she hasn't been saying anything in her very brief and sketchy letters, which never gave details and never told what she felt. And when she did mention her feelings, they felt glossed over as if to make everything seem fine.
So I wrote to her and told her our friendship was over. I told her where my life was and where I was in my life. I told her that I thought she had a lot of issues and hoped that she was dealing with them. I told her that I found life sad and people disappointing. I told her I loved her and called it quits because I wanted to end the friendship before it deteriorated into nothingness, with nothing good to remember.
I cited how I felt Shiho and I had become pen-pals in 1991 and how I wanted to break off all communications. Shiho meant so much to me that becoming pen-pals was too degrading to the meaning she had to me. But we didn't cut communications because Shiho didn't want to and we ultimately lost everything. Including the friendship and whatever meaning we had to our few memories. I didn't want that to happen with Diem.
I never found out what it was like between Diem and Amina after we broke up.
Ana Claire was just as easy. She called and got a cold response from me, and when she asked if I didn't want to talk to her, I told her not particularly. But that wasn't sad, and Ana Claire wasn't a disappointment. She was everything I thought she was and hoped she’d be, and in the end, that's all she was.
Feelings don't matter anymore. Neither does trust.
***********************************
Diem out, Ana Claire out, Luyen out. Luyen visited for five days because she's thinking of transferring to a college in the area. It did not go well. On her second night here, we got into a big discussion about “us” and “our” communication, and that discussion should never have happened. The assumptions, the gall, it was offensive and presumptuous. For someone who I hadn't seen for however long, she certainly took liberties about the things she felt she could say.
I can't even go into it, it was so appalling. I don't care about whatever she thought was a problem. It didn't deserve any discussion at all. If she has a problem with me, she can get the hell out, we're not that close anymore. What, is she living in a time warp? No one is going to have a problem with me and stay in my life anymore. I don't care about anyone's complaints about me. I am who I am and I'm not going to subject myself to criticism regarding who I am anymore. If anyone has a complaint, I'm the last person to whom they'd want to bring it.
It's almost laughable. I'm getting rid of people right and left, and she comes waltzing in accusing me of whatever and complaining about what is between us. Accusations? Get out. Complaints? Get out.
***********************************
I hate all this. I hate my life and I hate myself. I hate people and dealing with them. I hate walking down the street and seeing them. I try my best to keep my line of sight above everyone's heads so I don't have to look at people. I haven't done anything with my life and I have absolutely nothing to show for it except a lot of material possessions.
I don't care about anything. No more deep or in-depth discussions about anything with anyone. I'm just not interested. Politics, race, religion, injustice, inequality, civil rights, international relations; it's all talk and the world goes on the way it goes, and I can't even pay attention to my own needs. I'm not even listening to myself.
It's not better to burn out than fade away. I kind of like fading, slowly disappearing from peoples' lives, then remove any significance or presence I may have to them, then remove myself physically from their reality.
I told myself that I never want to feel this way again, that I wouldn't let myself. Well, here I am feeling this way again and I resolutely do not want to continue, to wait until things change. But what am I doing about it? Waiting until I'm 34? I don't like people or dealing with them, I can't communicate with anyone and no one knows what I'm about or where I'm coming from or where I am. It's as if I don't exist.
***********************************
I'm living week by week. I'm only living if there is something direct in the next week to live for. It started in February when I put an ad in the Express looking for musicians. Pathetic as it is, I only got one response - a Japanese-Filipino American drummer who's an ex-con. That's what I get? Is someone trying to tell me something? If someone's trying to tell me something, the message isn't being wasted. It's not even pathetic, it's genuinely funny!
That ad ran for three weeks, three weeks to endure. Then Luyen visited and I had to be here for that, then Madoka visited and that was another week. Then I put an ad in the Guardian to run three weeks, another three weeks bought. After that, let's see what keeps me here for another week. That will be the middle of April. On April 15, there will be a photo exhibit at school and I'm going to enter some photos. I can wait for that, too.
Mid-April? Amina's birthday? It's funny finally having a concrete plan. How long has this been coming? More than ten years?
As far back as I learned of a thing called suicide, it has meant something to me, a calling, a destiny. I've been suicidal all my life and never has it been completely gone. This isn't a recurring impulse that comes and goes, it is something that has always been here constantly as far back as I can remember.
***********************************
I wonder to myself what I would do if Amina called. I'd have an easier time if she sounded cheerful than if she sounded tentative or careful. I think I could tell her of the two loves I have for her. The human one, which is only a memory, which removed a good half of my trust. And the one that is beyond human, the one that would make it easy to be friends with her and to feel love towards her in that form. I don't know if I would decide to not kill myself if she called. I think it would depend on the circumstances. I would like to think that I would go right ahead with it regardless; having closed that gaping emotional wound she helped inflict.
***********************************
I can't begin to express how frustrating it is being human, being alive. Alive? I don't even know what that means. A study appeared in today's paper that tea and fruits have something in them which encourages the production of some kind of blood cell which is beneficial in preventing strokes.
I don't think I understand that impulse to control what our bodies do by controlling what goes into them. I understand a healthy diet to feel good, but to consume something so that certain chemical reactions happen which affects that which in turn helps prevent something as attenuated as strokes? That's just way too high maintenance. That's not being alive. If it takes too much thought to be alive, it isn't being alive.
I hate having to eat. I hate having to shower. I hate dealing with whatever is wrong with my skin which gives me a rash nightly. I hate body functions. I hate anything I need to do. I hate being contained in this skin; these defined borders of my existence which in reality is leaking away. I hate things I enjoy. I hate living. Not because it's miserable being alive, I can see how it doesn't have to be, I just don't like it.
I hate humanity and what it has done to this planet, to its people and cultures. I hate its values and what it emphasizes as important.
***********************************
I made contact sheets of two rolls of film that I shot from the end of February into March, and was discouraged by the results. None of the images grabbed me. It was all crap. I wondered if I should give up photography for a while, but I didn't want to join the line of people I've met who "used to do" photography. I don't want to feel like it's something I'm dabbling in and giving it up because it isn't making me feel good.
I only started doing photography a few months ago, what am I expecting of myself? That's no way to learn and grow if it's truly a way I want to express myself. There's so much more to photography than coming up with good prints. This was so basic when I started and was humble enough to not presume I could come up with good prints at all. I just need to go with these shots, pick the images I can remember why I shot them, and print those as best as I can.
Diem had been getting my postcards. I wasn't sure whether she had or not. I don't know how many had to be forwarded to her since I don't know when she moved from Oberlin to Cleveland. She didn't feel that it was important to tell me I suppose.
For the past year she hasn't been saying anything in her very brief and sketchy letters, which never gave details and never told what she felt. And when she did mention her feelings, they felt glossed over as if to make everything seem fine.
So I wrote to her and told her our friendship was over. I told her where my life was and where I was in my life. I told her that I thought she had a lot of issues and hoped that she was dealing with them. I told her that I found life sad and people disappointing. I told her I loved her and called it quits because I wanted to end the friendship before it deteriorated into nothingness, with nothing good to remember.
I cited how I felt Shiho and I had become pen-pals in 1991 and how I wanted to break off all communications. Shiho meant so much to me that becoming pen-pals was too degrading to the meaning she had to me. But we didn't cut communications because Shiho didn't want to and we ultimately lost everything. Including the friendship and whatever meaning we had to our few memories. I didn't want that to happen with Diem.
I never found out what it was like between Diem and Amina after we broke up.
Ana Claire was just as easy. She called and got a cold response from me, and when she asked if I didn't want to talk to her, I told her not particularly. But that wasn't sad, and Ana Claire wasn't a disappointment. She was everything I thought she was and hoped she’d be, and in the end, that's all she was.
Feelings don't matter anymore. Neither does trust.
***********************************
Diem out, Ana Claire out, Luyen out. Luyen visited for five days because she's thinking of transferring to a college in the area. It did not go well. On her second night here, we got into a big discussion about “us” and “our” communication, and that discussion should never have happened. The assumptions, the gall, it was offensive and presumptuous. For someone who I hadn't seen for however long, she certainly took liberties about the things she felt she could say.
I can't even go into it, it was so appalling. I don't care about whatever she thought was a problem. It didn't deserve any discussion at all. If she has a problem with me, she can get the hell out, we're not that close anymore. What, is she living in a time warp? No one is going to have a problem with me and stay in my life anymore. I don't care about anyone's complaints about me. I am who I am and I'm not going to subject myself to criticism regarding who I am anymore. If anyone has a complaint, I'm the last person to whom they'd want to bring it.
It's almost laughable. I'm getting rid of people right and left, and she comes waltzing in accusing me of whatever and complaining about what is between us. Accusations? Get out. Complaints? Get out.
***********************************
I hate all this. I hate my life and I hate myself. I hate people and dealing with them. I hate walking down the street and seeing them. I try my best to keep my line of sight above everyone's heads so I don't have to look at people. I haven't done anything with my life and I have absolutely nothing to show for it except a lot of material possessions.
I don't care about anything. No more deep or in-depth discussions about anything with anyone. I'm just not interested. Politics, race, religion, injustice, inequality, civil rights, international relations; it's all talk and the world goes on the way it goes, and I can't even pay attention to my own needs. I'm not even listening to myself.
It's not better to burn out than fade away. I kind of like fading, slowly disappearing from peoples' lives, then remove any significance or presence I may have to them, then remove myself physically from their reality.
I told myself that I never want to feel this way again, that I wouldn't let myself. Well, here I am feeling this way again and I resolutely do not want to continue, to wait until things change. But what am I doing about it? Waiting until I'm 34? I don't like people or dealing with them, I can't communicate with anyone and no one knows what I'm about or where I'm coming from or where I am. It's as if I don't exist.
***********************************
I'm living week by week. I'm only living if there is something direct in the next week to live for. It started in February when I put an ad in the Express looking for musicians. Pathetic as it is, I only got one response - a Japanese-Filipino American drummer who's an ex-con. That's what I get? Is someone trying to tell me something? If someone's trying to tell me something, the message isn't being wasted. It's not even pathetic, it's genuinely funny!
That ad ran for three weeks, three weeks to endure. Then Luyen visited and I had to be here for that, then Madoka visited and that was another week. Then I put an ad in the Guardian to run three weeks, another three weeks bought. After that, let's see what keeps me here for another week. That will be the middle of April. On April 15, there will be a photo exhibit at school and I'm going to enter some photos. I can wait for that, too.
Mid-April? Amina's birthday? It's funny finally having a concrete plan. How long has this been coming? More than ten years?
As far back as I learned of a thing called suicide, it has meant something to me, a calling, a destiny. I've been suicidal all my life and never has it been completely gone. This isn't a recurring impulse that comes and goes, it is something that has always been here constantly as far back as I can remember.
***********************************
I wonder to myself what I would do if Amina called. I'd have an easier time if she sounded cheerful than if she sounded tentative or careful. I think I could tell her of the two loves I have for her. The human one, which is only a memory, which removed a good half of my trust. And the one that is beyond human, the one that would make it easy to be friends with her and to feel love towards her in that form. I don't know if I would decide to not kill myself if she called. I think it would depend on the circumstances. I would like to think that I would go right ahead with it regardless; having closed that gaping emotional wound she helped inflict.
***********************************
I can't begin to express how frustrating it is being human, being alive. Alive? I don't even know what that means. A study appeared in today's paper that tea and fruits have something in them which encourages the production of some kind of blood cell which is beneficial in preventing strokes.
I don't think I understand that impulse to control what our bodies do by controlling what goes into them. I understand a healthy diet to feel good, but to consume something so that certain chemical reactions happen which affects that which in turn helps prevent something as attenuated as strokes? That's just way too high maintenance. That's not being alive. If it takes too much thought to be alive, it isn't being alive.
I hate having to eat. I hate having to shower. I hate dealing with whatever is wrong with my skin which gives me a rash nightly. I hate body functions. I hate anything I need to do. I hate being contained in this skin; these defined borders of my existence which in reality is leaking away. I hate things I enjoy. I hate living. Not because it's miserable being alive, I can see how it doesn't have to be, I just don't like it.
I hate humanity and what it has done to this planet, to its people and cultures. I hate its values and what it emphasizes as important.
***********************************
I made contact sheets of two rolls of film that I shot from the end of February into March, and was discouraged by the results. None of the images grabbed me. It was all crap. I wondered if I should give up photography for a while, but I didn't want to join the line of people I've met who "used to do" photography. I don't want to feel like it's something I'm dabbling in and giving it up because it isn't making me feel good.
I only started doing photography a few months ago, what am I expecting of myself? That's no way to learn and grow if it's truly a way I want to express myself. There's so much more to photography than coming up with good prints. This was so basic when I started and was humble enough to not presume I could come up with good prints at all. I just need to go with these shots, pick the images I can remember why I shot them, and print those as best as I can.
Thursday, February 29, 1996
1347 La Loma, Berkeley
February 1996
I want to die this year. Forget everything I said about it being my life goal to simply not kill myself. It's not going to happen. I've made my decision and I'm going to carry it out this year. The projected date at this point is sometime in April. I don't like things around my neck, so I cut off all the collars on my shirts. I probably swung. Fear of heights, I probably jumped. The cutting, I slashed my wrists. I have no idea where the arachnophobia comes from. Maybe I just don't like spiders. I have nothing about water. I used to dehydrate easily, but I don't see how that fits in. I am Aquarius. Maybe this time I'll satisfy this allure towards water.
I stopped drinking at the beginning of the year. Occasionally I’ll have a shot of something, but the constant drinking is over. I went from more than a bottle a week for I don't know how many years to less than one in almost two months. Not a single person has noticed any difference. People who wondered if I was alcoholic, they can't tell the difference between when I've been drinking or when I'm sober. So what gave them the right to call me an alcoholic?
Cat's my closest friend now. I only trust her because she doesn't trust me. She doesn't show me her true self and she always has a front up - defenses. So we get along just fine. She doesn't know me, though. She makes too many wrong assumptions and she sees too much what she wants to see, rather than what I want to show. Is she expendable? I think so. It's only a matter of time, but I genuinely like her a lot and she's the only person I can deal with under any condition these days.
Nobuko and Vikki I no longer consider friends. Housemates. Good housemates, but not friends.
Ana Claire and I have stopped fucking and we don't see much of each other anymore. I guess I got sick of her, her condescension, her arrogance, her pomposity. We may still be friends, who knows? But she's definitely expendable. Less than expandable. Ejectable.
I don't think anyone is not expandable. People are screwed up; disappointments, disillusioning. I'm confounded by humans and the relationships they have. Isn't there anyone out there I can meet who is normal? Who's sane? Even Cat is a furious ball of issues. She thinks I'm up to my ears in issues, and I don't think she thinks that I deal with them.
I've actually been trying to be more forgiving, more understanding, more patient. More from a religious motivation than anything else. Patience and forbearance. Humility, egolessness. I've started with people around me. It's a constant practice to let things go. Frustration, antagonism, let it go. It feels good. It's the martyr in all we religious types, you know?
I will kill myself, but I won't do it angry or sad or with too many relationships and issues unresolved. I want to disappear and I don't want a body found.
Life is art, figuratively and literally. The difference is that we don't know the source material we use to create life. It's imagination. Not everyone has a canvas, or a camera, or a guitar, or pen and paper, but everyone has imagination. Not everyone knows what to do with it.
Affirmation:
I don't deserve to feel the air rushing down my throat and into my lungs, where blood cells deposit carbon dioxide, pick up oxygen, and deliver it around my body to wherever needs it most. I don't deserve to have richly crimson blood running through my veins thick in diligent sustenance of all I do. I don't deserve to have thoughts to think these things and see, hear, sense, touch, taste, smell the world from the confines of this small head and this small body. I don't deserve to be trapped like this.
I don't deserve love, with my rage potential, deft psychological tongue-lashing, sharp skill to hone in on anybody's emotional weaknesses. I don't deserve care, with my general disregard for the value of my own life, inability to support or preserve the things in other people which give my life meaning, inability to nurture, express, give a kind, sincere word to another living breathing human being, one that deserves to live.
I deserve to be on death row, to be put to death by all the people who have even mildly been hurt by me. I deserve lethal injection, gas chamber, electrocution, death by hanging, death by firing squad, death by phaser, death by stoning. I deserve my final meal (lasagna), my last rites, meeting with a pastorpriestspirtualguide...rabbi; guru, master, abbot, monk, nun,...the Pope. A fresh change of clothes. A fresh look on life.
I don't deserve to stand and balance. I deserve to have lots and lots of money. I don't deserve to love the fog, the rain, the sunshine, the mountaintops, the ocean views. I deserve to speak with angels. I don't deserve having to unclog the drain, to dry the carpet from the flooding. I deserve to slash rivers of salt in my sleeves. I don't deserve to sit here and bide my time and let the world go by. I deserve to just sit. I don't deserve tears. I do deserve milk and cookies.
Is my experience really unique? Is there really any difference between what I go through and what anyone else goes through? Or do I overreact to my experience in a way that other people don't? Do other people handle it and deal with it so much better than I do? Am I so dysfunctional and immature in not being able to handle it? Have I not grown at all?
I don't know, I don't have that objectivity. So the best I can do is explain my side and let whoever else cast their own judgments. Why do I need to explain my side and subject myself to judgments? Why not? Because I'm me.
No one can say that I don't try. No one can say that I run away from my fears and problems. I face them and confront them and I fight them if I have to; even if it's a losing battle. I don't create my fears to give myself an excuse to run from something. I balance factors. I assess situations. If I don't feel confident enough about something, I might not pursue it, but if it's something that means something, I won't run away from it.
People get hurt. People get betrayed by people they trust. Why is my experience with Amina and Shiho any different from anybody else's experience of betrayal? Why do I think I'm so special to be able to devalue myself to zero, justifying becoming nothing, just because I wasn't what I thought I was to someone else? Just because someone else wasn't what I thought she was?
Where did I learn to trust? It certainly wasn't from family. Amina was worse than family because I never trusted the 'rents. They could never betray me. Shiho was worse than Amina because at least there was a basis for Amina's betrayal. We had fights, things were going wrong and we weren't able to work things out. I was waiting for some future time to deal with them, but that time never came. It got too bad for her before then. Although I don't even know if our problems were the reason for the betrayal.
But Shiho, none of it was my fault, it was all about her going back to her jerk of an ex-boyfriend. We never fought, I showed her respect and understanding, even when she told me she was considering going back to her ex. I didn't pressure her, I gave her all the room in the world to decide what she felt and what she wanted to do. In return there was nothing, until finally I was wasting my time and knew she wanted to break up but didn't have the guts to do it. So I even did that for her. After that, there was nothing. I have no respect for her now. They belong together.
Is this all enough to value myself at zero? I wasn't even worth an explanation to either of them. No extended discussions, no further clarifications, no later check-in to see how I was doing. Just close the door, nothing ever existed. That is my worth to the people I loved most in my life. Things happened, it's my life, it's my problem, I lived my life and living has it's consequences. If I value my life at zero, so be it, and if I decide to kill my life because it has no value, let it be.
I want to die this year. Forget everything I said about it being my life goal to simply not kill myself. It's not going to happen. I've made my decision and I'm going to carry it out this year. The projected date at this point is sometime in April. I don't like things around my neck, so I cut off all the collars on my shirts. I probably swung. Fear of heights, I probably jumped. The cutting, I slashed my wrists. I have no idea where the arachnophobia comes from. Maybe I just don't like spiders. I have nothing about water. I used to dehydrate easily, but I don't see how that fits in. I am Aquarius. Maybe this time I'll satisfy this allure towards water.
I stopped drinking at the beginning of the year. Occasionally I’ll have a shot of something, but the constant drinking is over. I went from more than a bottle a week for I don't know how many years to less than one in almost two months. Not a single person has noticed any difference. People who wondered if I was alcoholic, they can't tell the difference between when I've been drinking or when I'm sober. So what gave them the right to call me an alcoholic?
Cat's my closest friend now. I only trust her because she doesn't trust me. She doesn't show me her true self and she always has a front up - defenses. So we get along just fine. She doesn't know me, though. She makes too many wrong assumptions and she sees too much what she wants to see, rather than what I want to show. Is she expendable? I think so. It's only a matter of time, but I genuinely like her a lot and she's the only person I can deal with under any condition these days.
Nobuko and Vikki I no longer consider friends. Housemates. Good housemates, but not friends.
Ana Claire and I have stopped fucking and we don't see much of each other anymore. I guess I got sick of her, her condescension, her arrogance, her pomposity. We may still be friends, who knows? But she's definitely expendable. Less than expandable. Ejectable.
I don't think anyone is not expandable. People are screwed up; disappointments, disillusioning. I'm confounded by humans and the relationships they have. Isn't there anyone out there I can meet who is normal? Who's sane? Even Cat is a furious ball of issues. She thinks I'm up to my ears in issues, and I don't think she thinks that I deal with them.
I've actually been trying to be more forgiving, more understanding, more patient. More from a religious motivation than anything else. Patience and forbearance. Humility, egolessness. I've started with people around me. It's a constant practice to let things go. Frustration, antagonism, let it go. It feels good. It's the martyr in all we religious types, you know?
I will kill myself, but I won't do it angry or sad or with too many relationships and issues unresolved. I want to disappear and I don't want a body found.
Life is art, figuratively and literally. The difference is that we don't know the source material we use to create life. It's imagination. Not everyone has a canvas, or a camera, or a guitar, or pen and paper, but everyone has imagination. Not everyone knows what to do with it.
Affirmation:
I don't deserve to feel the air rushing down my throat and into my lungs, where blood cells deposit carbon dioxide, pick up oxygen, and deliver it around my body to wherever needs it most. I don't deserve to have richly crimson blood running through my veins thick in diligent sustenance of all I do. I don't deserve to have thoughts to think these things and see, hear, sense, touch, taste, smell the world from the confines of this small head and this small body. I don't deserve to be trapped like this.
I don't deserve love, with my rage potential, deft psychological tongue-lashing, sharp skill to hone in on anybody's emotional weaknesses. I don't deserve care, with my general disregard for the value of my own life, inability to support or preserve the things in other people which give my life meaning, inability to nurture, express, give a kind, sincere word to another living breathing human being, one that deserves to live.
I deserve to be on death row, to be put to death by all the people who have even mildly been hurt by me. I deserve lethal injection, gas chamber, electrocution, death by hanging, death by firing squad, death by phaser, death by stoning. I deserve my final meal (lasagna), my last rites, meeting with a pastorpriestspirtualguide...rabbi; guru, master, abbot, monk, nun,...the Pope. A fresh change of clothes. A fresh look on life.
I don't deserve to stand and balance. I deserve to have lots and lots of money. I don't deserve to love the fog, the rain, the sunshine, the mountaintops, the ocean views. I deserve to speak with angels. I don't deserve having to unclog the drain, to dry the carpet from the flooding. I deserve to slash rivers of salt in my sleeves. I don't deserve to sit here and bide my time and let the world go by. I deserve to just sit. I don't deserve tears. I do deserve milk and cookies.
Is my experience really unique? Is there really any difference between what I go through and what anyone else goes through? Or do I overreact to my experience in a way that other people don't? Do other people handle it and deal with it so much better than I do? Am I so dysfunctional and immature in not being able to handle it? Have I not grown at all?
I don't know, I don't have that objectivity. So the best I can do is explain my side and let whoever else cast their own judgments. Why do I need to explain my side and subject myself to judgments? Why not? Because I'm me.
No one can say that I don't try. No one can say that I run away from my fears and problems. I face them and confront them and I fight them if I have to; even if it's a losing battle. I don't create my fears to give myself an excuse to run from something. I balance factors. I assess situations. If I don't feel confident enough about something, I might not pursue it, but if it's something that means something, I won't run away from it.
People get hurt. People get betrayed by people they trust. Why is my experience with Amina and Shiho any different from anybody else's experience of betrayal? Why do I think I'm so special to be able to devalue myself to zero, justifying becoming nothing, just because I wasn't what I thought I was to someone else? Just because someone else wasn't what I thought she was?
Where did I learn to trust? It certainly wasn't from family. Amina was worse than family because I never trusted the 'rents. They could never betray me. Shiho was worse than Amina because at least there was a basis for Amina's betrayal. We had fights, things were going wrong and we weren't able to work things out. I was waiting for some future time to deal with them, but that time never came. It got too bad for her before then. Although I don't even know if our problems were the reason for the betrayal.
But Shiho, none of it was my fault, it was all about her going back to her jerk of an ex-boyfriend. We never fought, I showed her respect and understanding, even when she told me she was considering going back to her ex. I didn't pressure her, I gave her all the room in the world to decide what she felt and what she wanted to do. In return there was nothing, until finally I was wasting my time and knew she wanted to break up but didn't have the guts to do it. So I even did that for her. After that, there was nothing. I have no respect for her now. They belong together.
Is this all enough to value myself at zero? I wasn't even worth an explanation to either of them. No extended discussions, no further clarifications, no later check-in to see how I was doing. Just close the door, nothing ever existed. That is my worth to the people I loved most in my life. Things happened, it's my life, it's my problem, I lived my life and living has it's consequences. If I value my life at zero, so be it, and if I decide to kill my life because it has no value, let it be.
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 22, 1994
247 19th Ave., #2, San Francisco
I had a love so solid and so definite and it dissolved into nothingness. Did the love and care even exist in the first place? Were they just appearances, a front for something I can't touch or realize. What about the illusion of Shiho that I hold so dear? Can't that love just as easily be discarded? Do I trust Shiho? Could I? How can I trust anything anymore. I don't. Not even my own existence. My existence is hardly a solid and definite thing anymore and it hardly has any significance or reliable substance.
What is so important about our existences? We float in, we float out. People go on vacations, they go home after the party, they leave the stage after the act. They move to other states, they move to other countries, they die. It all boils down to absence and the future access. But what's the big deal? People who die are like people who move away and you never hear from again. Why should my feelings toward Amina be any different if she were dead? Dead only means dead to this existence, it's only absence. People who are true friends will always find each other in different lifetimes.
If Amina and I never meet again, eventually I wouldn't be saddened by her absence. There would always be the possibility of running into her, regardless of how unlikely that is. But if she died, I would be saddened by her death, despite the realization that we probably never would have met each other anyway.
I don't trust in anything anymore because that's the way it should be. I don't feel or believe in the importance of my life because that is the way it should be. Care doesn't exist for me anymore. Care is just another word for awareness. I care about people, but I don't think my caring makes any difference at all to anybody. It's mine alone, all I can do is be aware of other people's situations and be concerned to that limited extent.
No one "cares" about me. No one can have an effect on me or the way I live my life, so no one can care about me. No one can care about me in a way I can believe or accept. I must accept myself for who I am. I can't deal with my problems because I never learned to deal with problems. I never witnessed problems effectively dealt with. I grew up in a family that covered up and ignored problems and always pretended that everything was rosy.
I have huge problems looming over me, inside me, eating and rotting me away, creating pressure around every cell from every direction and there is nothing I can do about it. I can't approach the problems, I can't face them, much less do anything about them, much less tell anyone about them.
Is it low self-image? I know I have an immense self-hatred and I know that these things are a result of my upbringing and intensify now due to the loss of a support group and other external factors that have worked to counterbalance my disadvantages. I know that my feelings about my inadequacies and failures and failings are merely perceptions. I know that from another point of view, I'm doing better than fine. That is not the way I feel, and knowing it doesn't do a thing to help cope with it.
What is so important about our existences? We float in, we float out. People go on vacations, they go home after the party, they leave the stage after the act. They move to other states, they move to other countries, they die. It all boils down to absence and the future access. But what's the big deal? People who die are like people who move away and you never hear from again. Why should my feelings toward Amina be any different if she were dead? Dead only means dead to this existence, it's only absence. People who are true friends will always find each other in different lifetimes.
If Amina and I never meet again, eventually I wouldn't be saddened by her absence. There would always be the possibility of running into her, regardless of how unlikely that is. But if she died, I would be saddened by her death, despite the realization that we probably never would have met each other anyway.
I don't trust in anything anymore because that's the way it should be. I don't feel or believe in the importance of my life because that is the way it should be. Care doesn't exist for me anymore. Care is just another word for awareness. I care about people, but I don't think my caring makes any difference at all to anybody. It's mine alone, all I can do is be aware of other people's situations and be concerned to that limited extent.
No one "cares" about me. No one can have an effect on me or the way I live my life, so no one can care about me. No one can care about me in a way I can believe or accept. I must accept myself for who I am. I can't deal with my problems because I never learned to deal with problems. I never witnessed problems effectively dealt with. I grew up in a family that covered up and ignored problems and always pretended that everything was rosy.
I have huge problems looming over me, inside me, eating and rotting me away, creating pressure around every cell from every direction and there is nothing I can do about it. I can't approach the problems, I can't face them, much less do anything about them, much less tell anyone about them.
Is it low self-image? I know I have an immense self-hatred and I know that these things are a result of my upbringing and intensify now due to the loss of a support group and other external factors that have worked to counterbalance my disadvantages. I know that my feelings about my inadequacies and failures and failings are merely perceptions. I know that from another point of view, I'm doing better than fine. That is not the way I feel, and knowing it doesn't do a thing to help cope with it.
Friday, November 23, 1990
82 S. Park St, Oberlin OH
But we didn’t break up over the Summer. We kept at it for whatever reason; fear of being alone, fear of losing something that we thought was so good, sex, not wanting to make all our efforts and sacrifices go in vain. Now it seems clear that all we’ve done since the Summer is postpone a break-up. We were resisting something that was definitely going down.
It’s the same pattern. It’s my fault, I know. I pull someone in as hard and as close as possible, but when it gets too close and expectations change, I bail. There’s nothing wrong with Sakuko. The faults I find are perfectly human, I make them into something huge and unacceptable. I don’t know why.
What am I learning from all this? Why am I so stupid? Couldn’t I have foreseen this? Why do I do what I do? We didn’t really connect, even in the beginning. It was just attraction, nothing special, a decision perhaps more of the mind than the heart. I never sensed that she was interested in my life or aware of my situations. Her attention was so much on superficial things, not substantive things.
I don’t want my life just to be ordinary, conforming to social molds. I don’t want to be in a relationship just to be in one. I don’t want to live life just to live it, I want to get something out of it, it has to have meaning and connection. I want to explore and enrich my life and that includes the people I’m close to.
What a myth! I’m my own myth. I grew up thinking that I’m special. My parents’ neglect didn’t bring me down in my eyes, it lifted me up. I’m a survivor. I compensated for my parents’ treatment and built my own pride and survived by maintaining a high self-esteem.
But I’m so ordinary, I can’t do anything well, I can’t make anything work. I’m nothing, a loser by my own assessment. The irony is that to survive, I perpetuated an illusion. To survive I needed something I can’t live with. I have to deconstruct myself.
It’s done. It couldn’t have been more painful. I have no idea where my life is going. I’m lost, comfortably numb, crazy. I think I want to be alone. Just for several years.
That’s it, the end, goodbye Sakuko.
It’s the same pattern. It’s my fault, I know. I pull someone in as hard and as close as possible, but when it gets too close and expectations change, I bail. There’s nothing wrong with Sakuko. The faults I find are perfectly human, I make them into something huge and unacceptable. I don’t know why.
What am I learning from all this? Why am I so stupid? Couldn’t I have foreseen this? Why do I do what I do? We didn’t really connect, even in the beginning. It was just attraction, nothing special, a decision perhaps more of the mind than the heart. I never sensed that she was interested in my life or aware of my situations. Her attention was so much on superficial things, not substantive things.
I don’t want my life just to be ordinary, conforming to social molds. I don’t want to be in a relationship just to be in one. I don’t want to live life just to live it, I want to get something out of it, it has to have meaning and connection. I want to explore and enrich my life and that includes the people I’m close to.
What a myth! I’m my own myth. I grew up thinking that I’m special. My parents’ neglect didn’t bring me down in my eyes, it lifted me up. I’m a survivor. I compensated for my parents’ treatment and built my own pride and survived by maintaining a high self-esteem.
But I’m so ordinary, I can’t do anything well, I can’t make anything work. I’m nothing, a loser by my own assessment. The irony is that to survive, I perpetuated an illusion. To survive I needed something I can’t live with. I have to deconstruct myself.
It’s done. It couldn’t have been more painful. I have no idea where my life is going. I’m lost, comfortably numb, crazy. I think I want to be alone. Just for several years.
That’s it, the end, goodbye Sakuko.
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