Do you ever wonder if you somehow accidentally manage to
make someone worse then they usually are – because they seem to act nice and
caring to most other people, but were often mean and uncaring to you? Do you ever wonder if it was somehow all your
fault because you were weak, overly needy, and not wonderful enough? (I do.)
Do you sometimes start to notice that someone you thought
was a good close friend sometimes responds to you but other times ignores you
and maybe it’s because they’re tired of your over the top little freak outs and
so would rather just role their eyes and focus elsewhere? (I do).
Do you ever feel overly hurt/upset because some of your
favorite people seem to be far more focused on other people/other stuff than
they are on you? What if your favorite person seems to be much more focused on
his family than he is on you? Would that
make you feel uncomfortable; like maybe you’re not good enough or significant
enough or special enough?
Do you ever feel sad, hurt, and worried that you will
NEVER EVER be someone’s favorite thing, EVER AGAIN?
Yes part of me also realizes that much of this insecurity
is borderline absurd and I should quit allowing myself to focus on it. If I’m feeling down, I should focus on poetry
(which I often do), because poetry might be the only thing that will ALWAYS
stay with me in a wonderful, creative way.
Yes part of me thinks I should focus more on feeling better/more
strongly/more powerfully about myself and liking myself more. But that’s hard for some people – and for
whatever reason, I am one of those people, who occasionally feels pretty good
about myself, but other times thinks/feels that I am not good enough and never
will be. Not good enough for WHAT though?
If I’m not good enough to keep a few close friends then I guess I should
just stick to poetry and myself – sometimes feeling very sad and lonely and
upset – but at least not having to screw up others with my feelings. Sometimes I feel as if my poetry is better
than the ‘real life’ me – and sometimes that weirdly hurts my feelings...
After all, I sometimes get really tired of/annoyed by other people acting/feeling negative too often, when I think they should focus on the positive - so why wouldn't other people get annoyed by that part of me?
ReplyDelete(Golly, hopefully my fun, festive, positive spells emerge often too - and I don't USUALLY come across as negative. Egads.)
Sometimes, we are just down & more worried. There's no point in pretending to feel better than we do. At least you're being honest about how you feel, which is a lot better than most peeps!
ReplyDeleteI hope you ARE feeling better soon, but I feel that way a lot, too. I think I'm more uncertain about things as I get older. I knew a lot more at 20 (or at least I THOUGHT I did).
XOXO. Sending you sincere hugs.
Thanks Kathy. X.O.
ReplyDelete(Back to the chaps now).
Juliet, we all go through this. Well, those of us who aren't robots. I know my extremes might be wilder than those of others (I'm bipolar) but I assume others at least have a range. I'm of two minds. There's the view that self-censoring our negative feelings/emotions is somehow "mature" and benefits us in the long run. We might feel them but not express them. Then there's the idea that by expressing them we might want to see if others feel the same way or if they can help us with different thoughts/feelings that might "correct" ours (if that's not too loaded a word--"correct"). I know what you mean about being "20." We probably just had thicker skin then. Less of a tragedy resume. I think you're great at what you do and I've never seen you say anything where I thought you intended to deliberately injure anyone. I know you've way more honest than most about what works for you in someone's creative writing and what doesn't. But I think it was always clear you were speaking of art and not people. I hope whatever kink it is in whatever relationship it is works itself out. And you're right, poetry will always be there for you. The Muses are a loyal girl gang. Unless you talk shit about them. Then they will "cut you." I think. ;-)
ReplyDeleteHaha. Thank you very much William. (Am I double wammy weirdo if a comment that makes me feel a little bit better also brings tears to my creepazoid eyes?)
ReplyDeleteP.S. How many blogs do you have for fuck's sake? And which ones should I click on?
ReplyDeleteI think weirdo is "good" so cool. I think your art can be wonderfully weird without you yourself being weird. I don't think of you as "creepazoid" (but like the word!) You don't strike me as weird, but often your art does, but that's probably why I like it. "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness to its proportions." The first Francis Bacon. I'm probably misquoting since it's from memory. Great design on the recent publishings (above) btw--very dishy. For fuck's sake I "have" something like 80 or 90 blogs (no clue really-i'm guessing) but I really only blog at Joe Brainard's Pyjamas (the Sequel) in any regular way. Think of most of them as like chapbooks or some conceptual thing I felt like doing that week or year. I had fun doing my Halloweeniana blog but then stopped after Halloween came this year. You should click on whatever you feel like. I am terrible on following up on blog comments I make on blogs. Probably when people respond and I forget to go back and check to see if I should say something else they probably end up thinking I'm an even bigger asshat than I am (on bad days). Mostly I'm afraid of other people because I'm afraid of my own lack of control with language which is why I largely self-isolate. I am The Boy in the Blogger Bubble lol. But I'm generally happy. It's hard not to be happy if you're a cat person and have two cats. And chocolate besides. Now I sound like I'm eight years old. Oh well. lol. Keep up the great imaginative swoops into the crackly nights of language. I'm rereading Ponge right now and loving his WEIRDNESS to death. I mean how weird is it to write lines like these: "Should I now wish to examine a particular type of stone more closely, I would choose the pebble, both because of the perfection of its form and because I can pick it up and turn it about in my hand. Also the pebble is stone at the exact age when personality, individuality, in other word language, emerges." I love how he engages objects as being perversely alive and having personalities just like people. Probably I'll go try to rip off his great idea now. As I have done in the past. Or maybe I'll just eat a candy bar and think about his genius at being weird instead. either would be satisfying.
ReplyDeleteI actually have two fainting couches in my house (I warped one of them for the chapbook cover photo above); I got them at a thrift store! I don't remember how much I paid for them exactly, but I'm pretty sure it was under $500 for both of them, whereas if I look up a fainting couch online, ONE usually costs in the 1000s. Recently a fellow poet suggested to me that they made her think of hospital-like psychiatrist apparatus - and then I started thinking of psycho psychi poetry readings atop the fainting couches. You're awesomely interesting. You know what sounds better than chocolate to me? This wonderfully scrumptious Star Anise gourmet ice cream I partook of a couple years ago, but have not encountered it since.
ReplyDeleteJuliet said: Yes part of me thinks I should focus more on feeling better/more strongly/more powerfully about myself and liking myself more. But that’s hard for some people – and for whatever reason, I am one of those people, who occasionally feels pretty good about myself, but other times thinks/feels that I am not good enough and never will be.
ReplyDelete....
I actually find it really difficult to "focus on feeling X." That kinda reminds me of my dad who, when I encountered adolescent depression, said, literally, "snap out of it" or "just let it roll off." For myself, I find that actions inspire feelings. So I'm better at focusing on "doing X" than "feeling X." So what do you do that makes you like yourself more? I know that "poetry" is the top answer for both of us. I seriously go into some kind of happy trance when I read my own and others' work out loud. But just in case you need a diversion... what else do you like to do, no matter how minor, that makes your feel good about yourself? Just a thought. I've grappled with this same thing for many years. Like all of them. Ha.
{{{{BIG HUGS}}}} to you girl.
Too tired to get into much detail here, but I am so mixed feeling-y - about myself, about others, about all kinds of things.
ReplyDeleteI sure do like it when I have one of my high energy happy modes!
But yeah, I've also never really related to the snap out of it or 'go with the flow' type people. Some people sure mean well with a phrase like,'go with the flow' but yuck! I dislike that phrase. I mean what if going with the flow involves bumping into a poisonous eel and then sinking not swimming.
I'm better at planning in advance, working on things, and being productive. Especially creatively productive including poetry, AND... fun knee high socks, gourmet ice cream, gourmet cupcakes, art, expression, and sometimes music.
Hugs to you too!