...like much of this year, or this photo collage.
I feel I've had nothing to say, which is somehow different from not having anything to write about. But if I don't jump back in at this very moment, the same way "adults" throw children into the deep end of the pool as a lazy, lousy, and traumatizing excuse for swimming lessons, I fear a part of me will die forever (#dramatic), kind of like how they told us in elementary school that if you continue to not get saved, god will eventually cease knocking at the door of your heart, at which point the option to get saved becomes permanently deleted, and you will instead be damned eternally to hell. Which, when they told us that part, seemed quite suss, because they would also tell us that you can still get saved up until the last second of your life, if you really mean it. Naturally, I took it to mean: "Be bad, and you'll still go to heaven if you can remember to call upon the lord for salvation before you die, if death doesn't first catch you by surprise." Thus far, I've chosen neither option, but it's always too early to say what'll really happen in the end.
Anyhow, everyday I tell myself I'll return to writing something oful, and today's as good a day as any for that statement to transition from lie to truth. Six months seems a suitable amount of time to take a break, to avoid, to try to forget, to fail to forget... anything. Six months of not wishing to add to the overwhelm of noise, the presumption being that said noise would be heard at all.
Both my art therapy supervisor and my therapist basically told me, within a span of two days, to stop being such an unwilling bitch and get back to writing. Not in those exact words, although I wouldn't have minded.
After all, I have referred to, and been referred to by clients as "bitch," both in the most endearing of ways, both equally well received. Hey Siri, add this to the list of things I probably shouldn't ever share with others. Speaking of which, one thing I kept wanting to write about but failing to, was the topic of my clients' eyebrows. In these past months, I've seen so many exemplary sets of bountiful, bushy, natural eyebrows taunting me via telehealth sessions, the kind I may have had, had I not grown up in the 90s. There are those misguided beauty regimens and fads of which you truly can never undo the effects: acrylic nails, repeatedly bleaching your entire head of luscious hair, plucking off 85%+ of your eyebrows for years on end, binding your feet, tramp stamps. And even if you find a way to repair it on the outside, the knowledge/shame of what you've done will always remain.
I digress, but that was to be expected (see title). My therapist suggested I begin my comeback by writing, "I suck at..." and coming up with as many different things as I can think of to finish that sentence. LOL. Litralé, lol. I actually thought this was brilliant, because it sorts out trying to hide whatever I may not want others to see about me. But, I can't think of a single thing, soo....
Just kiddin'. Really, where would I even begin? Well, I suck at writing short sentences. Oh, I just proved myself wrong. Truly, I don't know if it's avoidance or amnesia or narcissism that's making it difficult to think of things, but I think what I suck most at (and what likely encapsulates anything else I may suck at) is fully inhabiting the depth of my self-perceived dopeness, for fear of receiving the same kind of shit talking and judgment I uncontrollably heap onto (some. most? many) others. In my defense, there's so much corniness out there these days. I remember when jbow and I began our courtship, and he made some remark about how I know so many things. My response was that I simply keep my mouth shut regarding anything I'm not certain of. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when that principle inexplicably morphs into hypervigilance or self-sabotage in the form of hurling myself off of a skateboard in order to keep myself from the possibility of being hurled off of a skateboard--there is a subtle but substantial difference--then it's not such a good thing. I didn't actually do the latter last weekend, but I would have, had jbow and hoss not been holding my hands and keeping me from catapulting myself into certain and unnecessary death.
The non-point of all of this non-sense is my recognizing the return of fear--some may say aversion--not of death (thanks to just having finished reading "Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying" by Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush--highly recommend), but of my and others' physical pain, and of criticism. Two seemingly disparate things, the common personal denominator being my heretofore unwillingness to address them. And by "address them," I mean talk circles around the issue until I'm annoyed, uninspired, hunchbacked, and ready for sleep. The question of what I will do with these fears remains to be answered. Perhaps I will create unprecedented art or destroy the world. Maybe they're one and the same. First is to engage; I believe we can check that off the list.
At any rate, this is where this one ends, with no clear denouement or resolution, which is fitting, yet again, for this year and that photo collage. "Good enough is good enough," as the soon-to-be newest oful t-shirt says (the newest bumper sticker will read: "Free Candy"), and may the next time we meet be rife with happier returns and better wishes.