Saturday, June 12, 2004
Insomnia
Hmm. This jet lag business never used to bother me, but methinks my age is finally catching up with me.
Dammit, it seems like yesterday that I was
fourteen.
(And having a strange precognitive moment : telling my mother a friend's daughter's ECAs before she had the chance to open her mouth, in the car. (and that incredulous look - HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT? that she flung my way)
minor moments through the years after. nothing quite as spectacular. usually just consisting of predicting the endings of movies (blah) and predicting the outcomes of relationships. More cognitive than precognitive.
Yesterday, another major moment - fishing the best bud's MUDD moniker out thin air. weird.)
Then fifteen. Meeting Paddington. Evolving, shedding. Throwing caution to the wind. Rebelling, at least a little. Learning how to grow.
Sixteen. Exams. Exams. Fear, exams. Lots and lots, and lots of tuition.
Seventeen. Heartbreak. Yet more rebellion. The art of the sword. Wandering the world - okay, just a small part of it, down under. And fully paid for by government too! woohoo!
Eighteen - Exams. Exams. No fear - too depressed. Exams.
Nineteen through twenty-one. Err. Blurry images of days blending ceaselessly into each other. Wasted Time. Thank you, National Indemnity.
Twenty-two : strange times. strange days. Foreign lands, foreign sounds. Adapting, evolving. Freezing butt and bollocks off. Buying overcoat, yay me. No more freezing, ever again. Rediscovering the art of the sword. Knocking up people twice my height - HA! Making the uni team... fencing.
flying.
meeting.
leaving, dying.
living.
floating, laughing.
flying.
dying again.
Twenty-three :
Steeling. Waiting. Biding.
Time passes.
Studying, but without heart.
Closing in. Anhedonia. Socialising no longer.
Losing Paddington - permanently.
Twenty-four through twenty six :
Drifting. Walking, on numbed legs. Lost.
Small comforts. Insignificant pleasures.
Lost.
Twenty-seven :
learning to breathe, again.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Healing, listening. Healing.
Twenty-eight :
... thinking.
seeking answers.
******
Distances
These words now, are pure rhetoric. They relate, at least right now, in my head, to nobody in particular. Regardless of who it sounds like I'm referring to (STOP OGLING, JEN JEN) and it does not (STOP OGLING, K!) relate to a specific individual from my past.
I've been around for a while now. Granted, I'm only (cough) twenty-eight. I think. I'm losing count now. bugger.
It's funny how as a young, idealistic whelp (read : naive) I sought to fight, tooth and nail after the "acute realisation" that someone else actually describes incredibly succinctly :
"This feeling is so tangible and so real it feels like something from deep inside you is coming alive... slowly stirring from its slumber... from the pits of your stomach..
That prickling point of awareness...
more latent then sexual arousal."
(eeerr. when was the last time I ever thought I'd be quoting the thoughts of a model, brain not included? heh)
something she omits - this prickling point of awareness - can actually repeat itself. over, and over, and over again with the one person. And for the ultra-dense male (apparently even New Age Guys can be blockheads. sigh.) sometimes it takes for a large number of moments to finally reach critical mass and penetrate his lead-lined cranium.
And so, suddenly distance becomes the enemy of youth. Mothers' kind - and wise - words are disdainfully hurled aside. What do YOU know about MY life??!
(Love transcends all!) Leave ME alone!
And then, day by day, it erodes. painfully.
Each day still sparkles as brilliantly, each wasted moment of youth still glitters as radiantly in memory as it fades into the past. But with the rapture comes mingled pain. Frustration. It's like picking up a lot of paper-cuts. Over, and over again. And then some more. Each individual soul-wound is insignificant, but over time, the spirit dulls.
And then it comes time to let go. When worlds collide, worlds, fall. Apart.
Time passes, and suddenly one day you've somehow gravitated to the other extreme of the scale.
Distance is the pleasant dream of youth.
Nothing is worth the pain of futility. Nothing...
...except something - or someone, extremely special. (Even cynics are allowed a touch of romanticism. So there.)
And the sheer... brilliant, bastard irony of it all, is - if you truly care about someone enough - you will not, not subject him/her to it. On deeper consideration - you wouldn't subject yourself to that, either.
And so you wonder, looking at yourself in the mirror (! where did all these forehead wrinkles come from, dammit!) whether the answers to questions are really that important after all.
Perhaps they are merely academic. Perhaps they're the screening tests, that really have no bearing on management. (ugh! a medical joke. heh heh.)
Perhaps they shouldn't even be wondered at.
**** and now, re-minisce reverts to the words from his past, which he knows K. was just waiting for him to do ****
I remember Her words, from once upon a long, long time ago. I do NOT harken back to the past because Her memory is still burning bright. OK?!? ALL OF YOU? It's simply because there was an unrecognised wisdom buried there, and I much prefer quoting her to my mum, in case mum ever figures out how to use the internet (ha. when hell freezes over) and realises that I'm me. Oh no. That sounded rather first-person. bugger it. Re-minisce must stop plagiarising other people. cough.
Her words - can't we just preserve the status quo? (please?)
I understand them now. It wasn't what I thought, when I was younger. It didn't have to do with doors closing :
It had to do with infinite possibilities. Days in the future. Continued laughter, indefinite, shared, pain-free moments.
It had to do with friendship.
These words I write are empty now, five years later.
But I am sorry. Not to "You" (K***n) today, since it's water under your bridge.
I am sorry, to me. And also to You of yesterday, long since passed into the mists of time.
But that's the way it goes. We always have the benefit of 20/20 vision, in hindsight. (cough. sans astigmatism.)
I chose poorly then. As I knew then, that I was doing. Perhaps that script could have been... discarded.
Ah well. Let this be a learning point. Smile, and carry on.
I hear my other life beginning to call me from afar. That slightly surreal life, when I actually make a difference to other people. Even though I (heh heh) love to claim, it's really, just, to cause people pain. :) Don't worry! This hurts you more than it hurts me!! Splat.
Dammit, it seems like yesterday that I was
fourteen.
(And having a strange precognitive moment : telling my mother a friend's daughter's ECAs before she had the chance to open her mouth, in the car. (and that incredulous look - HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT? that she flung my way)
minor moments through the years after. nothing quite as spectacular. usually just consisting of predicting the endings of movies (blah) and predicting the outcomes of relationships. More cognitive than precognitive.
Yesterday, another major moment - fishing the best bud's MUDD moniker out thin air. weird.)
Then fifteen. Meeting Paddington. Evolving, shedding. Throwing caution to the wind. Rebelling, at least a little. Learning how to grow.
Sixteen. Exams. Exams. Fear, exams. Lots and lots, and lots of tuition.
Seventeen. Heartbreak. Yet more rebellion. The art of the sword. Wandering the world - okay, just a small part of it, down under. And fully paid for by government too! woohoo!
Eighteen - Exams. Exams. No fear - too depressed. Exams.
Nineteen through twenty-one. Err. Blurry images of days blending ceaselessly into each other. Wasted Time. Thank you, National Indemnity.
Twenty-two : strange times. strange days. Foreign lands, foreign sounds. Adapting, evolving. Freezing butt and bollocks off. Buying overcoat, yay me. No more freezing, ever again. Rediscovering the art of the sword. Knocking up people twice my height - HA! Making the uni team... fencing.
flying.
meeting.
leaving, dying.
living.
floating, laughing.
flying.
dying again.
Twenty-three :
Steeling. Waiting. Biding.
Time passes.
Studying, but without heart.
Closing in. Anhedonia. Socialising no longer.
Losing Paddington - permanently.
Twenty-four through twenty six :
Drifting. Walking, on numbed legs. Lost.
Small comforts. Insignificant pleasures.
Lost.
Twenty-seven :
learning to breathe, again.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Healing, listening. Healing.
Twenty-eight :
... thinking.
seeking answers.
******
Distances
These words now, are pure rhetoric. They relate, at least right now, in my head, to nobody in particular. Regardless of who it sounds like I'm referring to (STOP OGLING, JEN JEN) and it does not (STOP OGLING, K!) relate to a specific individual from my past.
I've been around for a while now. Granted, I'm only (cough) twenty-eight. I think. I'm losing count now. bugger.
It's funny how as a young, idealistic whelp (read : naive) I sought to fight, tooth and nail after the "acute realisation" that someone else actually describes incredibly succinctly :
"This feeling is so tangible and so real it feels like something from deep inside you is coming alive... slowly stirring from its slumber... from the pits of your stomach..
That prickling point of awareness...
more latent then sexual arousal."
(eeerr. when was the last time I ever thought I'd be quoting the thoughts of a model, brain not included? heh)
something she omits - this prickling point of awareness - can actually repeat itself. over, and over, and over again with the one person. And for the ultra-dense male (apparently even New Age Guys can be blockheads. sigh.) sometimes it takes for a large number of moments to finally reach critical mass and penetrate his lead-lined cranium.
And so, suddenly distance becomes the enemy of youth. Mothers' kind - and wise - words are disdainfully hurled aside. What do YOU know about MY life??!
(Love transcends all!) Leave ME alone!
And then, day by day, it erodes. painfully.
Each day still sparkles as brilliantly, each wasted moment of youth still glitters as radiantly in memory as it fades into the past. But with the rapture comes mingled pain. Frustration. It's like picking up a lot of paper-cuts. Over, and over again. And then some more. Each individual soul-wound is insignificant, but over time, the spirit dulls.
And then it comes time to let go. When worlds collide, worlds, fall. Apart.
Time passes, and suddenly one day you've somehow gravitated to the other extreme of the scale.
Distance is the pleasant dream of youth.
Nothing is worth the pain of futility. Nothing...
...except something - or someone, extremely special. (Even cynics are allowed a touch of romanticism. So there.)
And the sheer... brilliant, bastard irony of it all, is - if you truly care about someone enough - you will not, not subject him/her to it. On deeper consideration - you wouldn't subject yourself to that, either.
And so you wonder, looking at yourself in the mirror (! where did all these forehead wrinkles come from, dammit!) whether the answers to questions are really that important after all.
Perhaps they are merely academic. Perhaps they're the screening tests, that really have no bearing on management. (ugh! a medical joke. heh heh.)
Perhaps they shouldn't even be wondered at.
**** and now, re-minisce reverts to the words from his past, which he knows K. was just waiting for him to do ****
I remember Her words, from once upon a long, long time ago. I do NOT harken back to the past because Her memory is still burning bright. OK?!? ALL OF YOU? It's simply because there was an unrecognised wisdom buried there, and I much prefer quoting her to my mum, in case mum ever figures out how to use the internet (ha. when hell freezes over) and realises that I'm me. Oh no. That sounded rather first-person. bugger it. Re-minisce must stop plagiarising other people. cough.
Her words - can't we just preserve the status quo? (please?)
I understand them now. It wasn't what I thought, when I was younger. It didn't have to do with doors closing :
It had to do with infinite possibilities. Days in the future. Continued laughter, indefinite, shared, pain-free moments.
It had to do with friendship.
These words I write are empty now, five years later.
But I am sorry. Not to "You" (K***n) today, since it's water under your bridge.
I am sorry, to me. And also to You of yesterday, long since passed into the mists of time.
But that's the way it goes. We always have the benefit of 20/20 vision, in hindsight. (cough. sans astigmatism.)
I chose poorly then. As I knew then, that I was doing. Perhaps that script could have been... discarded.
Ah well. Let this be a learning point. Smile, and carry on.
I hear my other life beginning to call me from afar. That slightly surreal life, when I actually make a difference to other people. Even though I (heh heh) love to claim, it's really, just, to cause people pain. :) Don't worry! This hurts you more than it hurts me!! Splat.
