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wWednesday, October 16, 2002 |
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email to a friend
okay, so rather than starting from scratch, i figured
i'd just post an email i sent to a friend today:
i actually have worked today. for the first time in a week.
i just was not able to focus until today, it's been quite trying.
today, i was very unsuccessful at getting out of bed.
i keep meaning to write more and more and more.
it's not that i fall asleep at night trying,
it's that i cram as much into every minute of the day
and never leave enough time for jill.
my roommate is going out of town next week
so i think i will get some good at home time with jill and jill alone.
we'll see though, i'll probably just invite a gaggle of people over
cuz i don't want to be alone.
good luck on the less coffee. i hear it's a tough one. i stay away from that tar.
i keep a notebook next to my bed, but i never use it.
people tell me they wake up every morning and write for an hour or so
in their journals. i ask, do you let anyone read it? and they say no.
then i question why they write. why do i write. why does anyone write.
to be read? or just to get the thoughts out of their head?
"The things you own, end up owning you." --yes. very true.
i am completely owned.
there's a film playing this film festival
(there are a lot of good ones, have you seen any?)
The Safety of Objects ~ i think that's what i'm obssessed with,
how lost i'd feel if i had nothing
but actually people tell me that's when they feel the most free.
"This ensemble drama, based on the similarly titled short story collection by
A.M. Holmes, follows a series of interconnected stories about the lives of four
suburban families struggling with boredom, disappointment, unhappy marriages, and a haunting trauma from the past."
cleansing process? what's that? i have a dirtifying process. a near-death process. a self-destructive process. i do not cleanse enough. i was looking at my room
today, and part of the reason i couldn't get out of bed was because what a mess i had made of my room. my one room. everything i own is in that one room.
and it doesn't fit. well actually everything else i own is in this storage space.
my friend & i are probably having a garage sale in a couple of weekends, we'll
see. with my father in the hospital, not getting paid was the least of my worries.
it's not money. we could be dead tomorrow. it's not things. they are just
that ~ "things" what is important? people. relationships. life. i don't know,
then why do i avoid people like the plague and only show them my surface.
what do i do to sweat. well, i don't know if i can discuss that here.
but on another note, i was thinking of joining a gym this winter, to avoid
the dark, cold nights. take some yoga classes there and aerobics, whatever.
i want to eat more fruits and vegetables. i don't want to grow old and feeble
and weak and helpless. it sucks.
life. well life is full of ups and downs. sometimes so down i can barely
pick myself up. there is a great peter tosh song.
hearing it, made me buy the album on venice beach. just like that.
vacation was quite enlightening for me. i had a lot of free time to myself
to walk and watch and think.
it's funny how people tell me i'm strong. i feel like the weakest person in the
world right now. and i know it's so apparent as to how i carry myself and the
look on my face. i can't even hide it it's so overpowering, this weakness and
loss of knowing what to do.
i don't know if i ever really will have a peace and calm. i'm afraid i might thrive
on excitement and danger. those are times i feel truly alive. and those are the
times when i know i can help someone else out. if i don't have someone or
something to worry about, i'm just waiting for something to happen next.
one good note, which made me cry today, a happy cry that i haven't done in
awhile. i hope you don't mind me sharing, but i think i told you a lot of the
stuff i was going through last year. well, i had a highly abnormal pap smear
last year and pre-cancerous cells and had to have the minor surgery. well i
went back in april for three-month check-up (i have to go every three months
until i get normal for one year, then annual again) well in april it wasn't normal
still, and i lost it for awhile. i thought we did this fucking surgery and for what.
nothing. that didn't fix the problem. i was a mess. knowing that i would have to
go back every three months just to watch the results come back not normal,
and it would be a cycle of continuous visits just waiting for the slightly abnormal
to become highly abnormal again, when we would have to do something about
it again. and on and on and on. july came and went, and i didn't go back in for
my three-month visit. so finally in september, i called and made an appointment for october. i was terrified. last tuesday when i went in. work what it was. dad
just checked in to a hospital. and then i had my own health issues to deal with
that i had finally decided to confront. tuesday, i was a mess. i was no help to
my mother. i was barely staying awake because i was so tense from the
worrying that comes from anticipation of doctor's visit. then we had emergency
surgery for my father, and tuesday would just never end. tuesday night i slept.
well, i really had no idea how much this was affecting my daily life, my own fear
of calling up and hearing "abnormal. see you in three months." so i called today. we had done a different pap smear, that broke down the cells more and would
avoid anything that might wrongly diagnose. so i'm shaking. and calling.
and one message: completely normal. i'm crying right now as i type this.
i know this little stupid battle is far from over. and i know mammograms are
soon and then i'll have one more thing to worry about. but for now, normal.
for now, i don't have to worry for another three months. for now, i can call my
parents and my sister and give them one bit of good news and one little hope
that things will be better. i know this shit comes back. look at my father. and
his father. and my mother. and my mother's mother. i'm doomed, man, it's so
deep in the family line, it's ridiculous. well it's quite scary actually. but for now,
i think i'll be able to sleep tonight.
my father. well it's much more serious than we could have ever thought.
the cancer is in his lungs and his heart and the fluid around it all. he moved
to a more live-in hospital for a week or so, they're watching his recovery and
they're going to start the chemo treatments and see if his lungs and heart
are strong enough to handle it, seeing what he's been through this past week.
if i am strong, you people must be the weakest human beings on earth.
no i haven't submitted a story to the chronicle. ever. i've never submitted
a story, a poem, nothing anywhere ever. actually, i'm a bigass wimp. i can't
stand rejection. can't stand it. perfectionism will get in your way in most
things in life. fear of failure makes me not try a goddamn thing ever.
that's fucking pathetic. oh yeah, i'm also supposed to be trying not to
be so hard on myself anymore. yeah...good luck with that, jill.
Right now, I'm reading nothing. why? because i can't finish a book.
can't sit still long enough to remember the chapter or half a chapter
i read the previous week. this is one thing that i really do want to do.
read more. my sister reads every night. practically a book a week, probably.
i'm actually not very familiar with anything political or current,
i don't watch the news, i missed the deadline to register to vote
last week. i freakin' am all talk and zero follow through.
wow, that really sucks.
happy? well i guess you have to be really sad at times to know how good it
feels to be really happy. strong? i feel as if i'm the weakest being on earth,
probably not even of this earth, subhuman at times, i have no idea what i'm
supposed to do, or what is right, or how hard i should work here, or if i should
look for another job, if i should spend every minute with my father, if i should
visit my nephews more, if i should give more time for myself, if i should go out
less and stay in more and eat healthier. i know what's right, in the big picture,
i guess we all do. and as gluttonous as it may sound, we really are only on
this planet for a limited time, and sometimes i seriously feel we should never
deprive ourselves of anything. for when will you get the chance again. or what
if you get hit by a bus tomorrow. that may sound selfish, sure, but i don't know
what it all means in the end. i usually do what feels right, and it feels like i
should be doing it. but right now, i don't know anything. i have no idea what
i'm supposed to do, or how i can help, or if i'm supposed to sit back and just
ride this crazy roller coaster of life wherever it takes me, and stop questioning
so much, and stop fearing so much.
i have this overwhelming sense of whatever i do doesn't matter,
hence an overwhelming sense of "i don't care"
reminds me of really rosie
damn pierre, didn't care about a thing, until...
posted by
reform school jill at 6:08 PM
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