Life is Good and Appropriate Answers

"So, I hear Big Sur is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in California."

"Yeah, I've heard that too."

"Want to go when you get back?"

"Yeah!  I have a few weeks, we can start in San Diego and camp, making our way up!"

"Let's do it in September, then."

"We better buy a tent heater, then."

"Okay."

Haunted

I stumbled upon the realization while ghost hunting, wandering around abandoned hospitals--I feel haunted.  Not in that moment, but in my daily life.

I feel like so much of my most basic personality, the bits of me that make me feel most like myself, hinge on confidence.  The confidence that I am being myself as hard as a I can and that no matter what happens I will manage. 

I mean, I still feel like myself, but I also feel like I'm always watching myself too--always peeking around the next corner trying to see the blurry faces of strangers just before they're in my line of sight.  It's a weird feeling.  It's not the feeling of loneliness which is this weird gnawing grey thing, vague and insubstantial thing that could be easily distracted and mitigated.  This is something very specific, a noticeable lack.  Like there's this hole in the world and like a hole everything rushes to fill it, but it still drains away.  

I have always been very fortunate.  It's cliche to say this, but it's probably the most accurate word, but I've been blessed.  I've always managed somehow and I've managed to become kind.  I've met wonderful people and continue to go on wonderful adventures.  I have learned to appreciate kindness and the difficulty of being kind.  I have seen my goals and taken steps towards them--for me there are no more "what-ifs."  It hasn't been easy and I won't lie, there have been very dark moments.  But that's what they were--moments.  There was no disconnect with myself; the person I was awake was the person I was asleep.

But now, my dreams are so angry.  And I have differently dark moments.  They're dark the way lava is dark.  But also bright and violent and burning.

What do I do with this?  Is this something I can bring to a priest or witch or whatever?  I feel like I can't talk to my friends, how do you explain that you're being haunted by yourself?  I feel whole, I mean if I'm not myself, who else can I be?  But now it feels like there's someone else here with me too.  

Hit the floor

Today, I collapsed.

Like literally.  I stepped out of bed, stood up and fell to the floor.

And as I lay on the floor, the blackness of a migraine starting at the far corners of my eyes, I thought, "Today, just isn't happening."

Thoughts

This morning when I was walking to work, it was still a little dark.  And I saw the crescent moon glowing against the blue sky like an iridescent fish scale.

And I thought how wonderful it would be if giant galaxy fish were swimming through the sky and that planets were as effervescent as bubbles and what would happen to all the people after the film bursts?

To Do List 2015

 Plugging it in here, to make me accountable.

Gonna Make Friends With Some Rocks
Vazquez Rocks
Palm Springs

Gonna Make Friends With Some Trees
Tahoe
Muir Woods
Yosemite
Sequoia National Forest

Gonna Stay Friends With The Ocean, Pacific To Be Specific
Crystal Cove
Coronado
El Matador
Catalina
Sonoma Coast
Baker Beach
Carmel

Gonna Stay Friends With Some Friends
Seattle
Maui

I should probably start jotting things down here again.

Whoa, I wrote this in June 2014.

Panic attacks are bad business.  I definitely wouldn’t invest them.  What’s the opposite of invest?   Making friends with the competition?  Well, in this case, the competition definitely doesn’t want to be friends, but I’m still gonna try and fake it. 

Knowing that you’re just having a panic attack is supposed to help.  But for me, it is just a different type of bad.  Jumping from moment to moment of blind terror and crippling self-doubt, I think “Is this going to be the rest of life?”

It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even enjoy the good moments.  Each good moment is a potentially bad moment.  Each nice thing someone does for me is just a build up for some frenzied betrayal.  And that makes me feel guilty, which just fuels my anxiety even more.  It’s like I’m vomiting into my own mouth, swallowing it, then vomiting it up again.  Like a disgusting, self-contained baby bird, that can’t bring herself to jump out of the nest, because what she actually wants to do is hurtle to the ground.

I should be having an adventure right now, but all I see is failure and abandonment. 

It’s like Thorin and company invite Bilbo onto an adventure, except Bilbo just vomits out spiders and demands the company love him.