ok so it's that time of night, or morning should i say... although i have always felt that this time exists deep within the night. i guess i've always felt drawn to the witching hour, as i call the 4 a.m. hour, due to its coexistence, its blurred boundaries, its ambiguity, its ambiance, and its haunting presence.
several years ago, i used to stay up til this hour and write, and write..... and look back at my musings days later to see the remnants of some plural inner poet.... some deep, dark place within myself only brought out by the chill of night before it turns into dusk.
i'm sitting in what i'd consider my last home here in this city.... surrounded by the mini-zoo that is the littles home... full of charming souls, who massage your head as you sleep, spoon you all through the night and daytime naps, and whom the most skiddish of them all comes out to greet you as you arrive home at four in the morning, after two nights of hard work on half a normal amount of energy due to this sickness i've managed to acquire... most likely from chelsea's essence on my pillow. however irrational it is to say, having a piece of her with me here physically is a positive spin on this full body congestion.
congestion.
so many ideas. i feel as if my head is always saturated. with ideas, with dreams, with understandings, small things i notice and mean so much to me; i get so excited and so wrapped up in the intricacies of everything. i feel as if i've lived a thousand times before, and probably have, but as if simultaneously, i experience everything with the incessant and unquenchable thirst of a child, drinking in life as if for the first time.
i've known for a little less than a year now that boundaries are an issue with me. i don't have them. i don't have a lot of practice putting them up. and although admittedly there is a huge part of me that is naive about the necessity of such things, due to a lack of experience, there is another part of me that screams and feels quashed by the notion of having to put up these barricades. why are they necessary? 'tis the season of giving, and everyone's all up in the buzz.... but here i am, spinning in circles, buzzing year round because this season never ends for me. i just want to love.... and live. and live... and love. and for it to be okay for me to be excited about every little thing... and to not always be brought to tears of tribulation when i think about things like boundaries.
and expectations.
and disappointment.
i realize this is another issue of mine that needs further examination. expectations. and their eventual lead to disappointment. somehow, my excitement mutates into some sort of expectation. i know that i need to learn to let go of the result and just be. i've actually had more than one person tell me that i'm the most present person that they know. although i feel that at times i work very hard to be in the present, this notion is absolutely precarious to me... that someone would think that i am the most present person that they know. i have inquired further into how these conclusions about me have been come to ... and it always comes back to my general excitement of life in the moment.
i don't know what the flaw is within me that somehow transmits this excessive excitement (which i feel is one of my best and most unique qualities) into this production of expectations (excitement about possible future events, conversations, happenings, etc.) that takes me out of the moment and puts my excitement and energy into this phantom event, and then i end up here... in the present moment.... feeling confused, uncertain, and let down...
ahhh... i just feel like this is making no sense. can anyone who is taking the time to read this... or anyone who has taken the time to attempt to understand me... understand what it is i'm trying to convey? is this something that can be viewed objectively as quite simple from an outsider? or is this incessant babble mind chatter that only makes sense within the context of my own head?
how did i get here?
i come to wonder where all of this shit comes from sometimes. is it innate? is it completely subjective? is it biological? nurture? does it stem from childhood...??
this last question seems interesting and pertinent to me today especially, because i am feeling especially disappointed in my father at the moment. (this is not such an uncommon occurrence, but somehow, my disappointment in my father always leads me to somehow feel a disappointment about myself)
hence the situation of today..... i was asked yesterday when the last time i spoke to my father was. i had said that i didn't remember exactly... maybe on his birthday... which was the end of october. and then. no. i corrected myself. i do believe it was on thanksgiving.
so i was thinking about my father today as i was walking back to my car from the saturday morning market and a lovely lunch with friends. i was thinking the same thing i do everytime i get the urge to call him..... that this is stupid, and that if i'm thinking 'i really should call my father' and 'i haven't spoken to dad in a long time' and i think out the whole conversation and how i usually try to throw in 'i love you' at the end of the conversation, even if it's not reciprocated or he doesn't allow enough time for a non-awkward and sudden goodbye.
so i called.
it was bad timing on my part... and then his return call was bad timing on his. finally, we had a little while to talk on my way to work.
it amazes me how little we have to say to each other at times. not that the words are not there, but the apparent shallowness of what is being said is so blatant to me at times.....
i know he tries to connect. in his own way, whatever that means. like asking me about how things are going with matt. i guess that was his emotional in for this particular conversation. but i can't help the one portion of the conversation that is sticking with me.
the fact that i told him i got into grad school.
and he had exactly two responses.
"good deal"
followed by a pause.
then a, "cool, cool".
apparently, i had an unbeknownst expectation about this particular conversation. perhaps, i wrongly expected him to say something like "congratulations". or "i'm so proud of you!". after all, it is grad school. its really no small feat. its actually something that he hasn't accomplished. something makes me think he'd be a little more responsive if it was an MBA. something else deeper thinks even that still wouldn't be good enough.
or that's how it is perceived by me.
and then i think a little about childhood.
about how my two immediate younger siblings would come home with B's and C's ... and how if I came home with even one mark less than an A, it wouldn't be good enough. not for me. i even remember some strange semantic justification on his part about how they "didn't have the potential" that i did (which is horrifying to even write right now)... and how he "expected more from" me....
its interesting the combination of what has come out.. two things i know that i obviously need to work on/heal... this whole expectations and let down crisis. and my relationship with my father. they have both kind of culminated into this blur of the witching hour.... two parallel relationships... blurring together for the purpose of establishing this rant.
i know that i need insight, and even more self awareness and reflection to figure out this letting go of the outcome.... expectations leading to disappointment. how does one practice such a thing? other than catching oneself and being mindful..? also, where is the boundary? how do i allow myself to really feel something, and then know the exact moment when i'm supposed to let it go? sure i can cope, or move onto something else, but how do i know when this too has passed until it has?!
and as far as the latter relationship goes.... i guess i'm really struggling with that boundary as well. how do you heal a relationship that is one-sided? or doesn't go deep enough to a space where healing takes place? and once you realize that this has become unhealthy and outdated, or that the other person is comfortable never talking about the past, or trying to heal the wrongs.... how do i accept it for what it is? and how do you let go? is it letting go of expectation? is it letting go of the concept of a deeper meaning? is it the eventual letting go of this particular relationship? one born of blood... but now so seemingly distant from all that else which could be called a relationship in this life.??
if any eyes should grace this, i am eternally grateful. for the moment, it is turning to five am, my phalange joints are going stiff, and i'd really like to get my eyes closed and into the dream realm before the sun starts to rise.... and my body has gone through enough REM cycles for pignon's gentle head massages to rouse me from my sleep.
