Everyone has their own boundaries

Everyone has their own boundaries for their own reasons and everyone's boundaries deserve to be respected. But unfortunately, with some people, it's easier said than done to enforce one's own boundaries, especially if other people keep trying to force their way of doing things on top of yours.

With some people, it doesn't seem to matter how much you try to express your own boundaries. They repeatedly ignore them, act like something's wrong with you for having them, and continually seem to let their way of doing things takes precedence, even in your own space.

Despite that, everyone is still allowed to have their own boundaries, even if certain people seem unable to respect those. We should not have to feel badly about or guilty for having our own boundaries, even though sometimes when they're disrespected, it can be hard not to wonder, is their something wrong with ME?

It's especially hard when other people seem to try to give you the impression that your thoughts and feelings are exaggerating things. Even if THEY see it that way, you're still allowed to have your own thoughts and feelings - and your own thoughts and feelings are still valid even if others seem to quickly write them off or throw them away or turn a blind eye.

Sometimes if I take the time to express myself about my boundaries and the other person(s) disagree(s), I am then just ignored...I guess until I....just pretend to agree with something I don't agree with? Just be quiet? Make myself act like something is no big deal to me and doesn't really bother me even if it is and does? Apologize for expressing myself? Apologize for having a different point of view, my own thoughts, my own feelings? Apologize for being me and feel like there's something wrong with me and I'm a bad person? Feel embarrassed about being me? Apologize for not respecting something that I didn't want done to begin with and wasn't even offered a choice about? Apologize for not automatically appreciating something that someone does inside my own space without my consent? Feel like I don't deserve to have my own space or to make my own choices?

If I'm ignored by others, I'll still express myself to myself (and those few who might listen). I'll still clarify my own thoughts and feelings for myself. Especially if I feel like my own thoughts and feelings barely exist or don't mean much to others.

Sometimes I feel like if I object to someone else's crossing of my boundaries, and then they act like I'm the one making a big deal out of nothing, even though they're the one who crossed the boundaries, then what?  I guess I'm just expected to silently accept what someone else chooses to do, because... well... I don't know why... I guess because they think they automatically deserve to be more in control than me?

Really the only things I care about being in control of are myself and my own space. I don't want or need to be in control of anyone or anything else. Just myself and my own space. So if someone else acts like it's no big deal if they take control of either of those two things (myself or my space), then I feel like they don't respect me and don't care about my feelings.

Essentially, everyone has their own boundaries (as well as their own thoughts, feelings, ideas, and behaviors) and it's not up to anyone else to tell me what mine should or shouldn't be or to feel free to take control of me or my own space.

If I feel like my own space is not my own, then part of me feels like maybe I should just run away and crawl into a cave and hide their by myself until a bear or a lion tear me apart or eat me or until I get invaded by giant parasites and turn into a parasitic twin with the parasites in control.

That last paragraph might be a slight exaggeration, but the rest is not, at least not in my mind. I don't want to hurt people's feelings, but I don't want them to hurt mine either.

So in summary and to reiterate (and I'll reiterate as much as I want to and anyway, I'm doing it on my own personal blog, not inside someone else's space)...individuals have their own personal choices and personal boundaries for their own personal reasons and it is not up to someone else to decide what those should or shouldn't be or to carelessly disrespect them.

Disrespectful people can roll their eyes, but I'll still express myself how I choose to express myself. Of course, I say the wrong things sometimes, but at least I keep trying. I won't ignore my own thoughts and allow them to feel discredited.

genuine feelings/conflicted feelings/conflicted forms of expression/death...

I have mixed feelings about poetry open mics, because on one hand I do want to share parts of my creative self, but on the other hand, I often feel uncomfortable publicly sharing my poetry unless a literary magazine or press specifically chose to accept it for publication. Sometimes publicly sharing it in front of a crowd feels a bit too close for comfort to forcing myself upon other people. Granted that doesn't necessarily make sense, because most of the people who attend poetry readings are other poetry people who chose to attend for a poetic reason, but I sometimes (possibly incorrectly) sense them looking away from me or rolling their eyes. I can visualize a specific guy looking away last time I read one of my poems in public, but that doesn't mean I know WHY he chose to look away.

If I was chosen as a featured reader (rather than random open mic reader), I sometimes feel better about it - but overall, I still tend towards feeling edgy and/or somewhat awkward and/or rather uncomfortable.

However, I don't want to be invisible or unknown or unseen or unheard or un-involved in the poetry scene. But with that said, I'm no scenester. I don't want to attend reading after reading in order to be a big part of a particular scene, and not allow myself enough time to focus upon my personal creative process. I feel the need to focus quite a bit of my time and mental energy on creative processing and writing by myself.

But on the other hand, I do like to not only read other poets, but also listen to, meet, and sometimes interact with other poets. I don't want any poets to feel un-heard (unless they want their whole process to be private), but I tend to relate to poets who are into the actual creation of poetry more than poets who are into being a big part of the poetry scene. I'm not saying some people can't be significant parts of both to an extent. I think it's a balancing act that different people balance differently.

I personally alternate between focusing on my own poetry - and focusing on other people's poetry via my small indie print press (Blood Pudding Press) and my online blog style lit mag (Thirteen Myna Birds) - and sometimes reading my poetry/listening to other's poetry in person/in public.

But the primary mental/emotional part of it for me and my personal poetic/artistic expression is via the actual writing and the actual poetry.

Also, I often feel like with my own poetry and my press poetry and my slow reading, I don't have nearly enough time to focus on just reading for the sake of reading - whether online literary magazines or print chapbooks or books. I'm not kidding when I say that I literally have HUNDREDS of unread poetry chapbooks and books in my home, because I like to support small presses by acquiring books that seem appealing to me, but also my reading is WAY slower than it used to be (before my stroke) and my brain is different than it used to be, and I can't read/process anything quickly, so it's hard to combine my own writing with a print press with an online blog style mag with reading other stuff too. That change of my brain sometimes makes me feel sad.

But I'm happy to be a creative individual, primarily poetry focused, with occasional spurts of visual art. 

***

On another level of sadness, I sometimes feel like I am terrible when it comes to talking non-poetically about certain emotionally devastating issues, including death.

I don't just want to tell someone that I'm thinking of them or praying for them (even if that is true); I want to express more/deeper/more individualistically, but sometimes I don't know what to say or how to say it, unless I say it poetically/artistically in a way that's open to interpretation.

It's not that I'm unemotional or don't have real life feelings.

I think I'm good at expressing my feelings on a small scale personal level; but I'm not good at expressing my feelings on a larger scale level, in which lots of people are expressing themselves in rapid succession. I guess I'm not good at rapid succession?

I don't like to open presents fast, because I want good gifts to last as long as they can.

I don't like to express strong sadness fast, because I don't want it to come close to ebbing too soon.

I don't know if any of this makes logical sense.

I don't know what to do sometimes.

I don't know.

***

So sometimes when a poet I know suddenly dies, I don't know what to say right away.  I don't want to be silent about it, but I also don't want to be someone who hardly ever says anything about someone when they're alive, but suddenly seems to have a lot to say shortly after they pass away.

But I certainly don't want it to seem as if I'm ignoring someone after they pass away.

But I also have mild aphasia based memory issues that seem to further add on to my not knowing what to say.

I do know that poet Marthe Reed suddenly passed away and I feel sad and upset about it, but I do not know what to say in a larger scale way. I did not know her very well on a personal level, but I have been aware of her poetically for years. I think I initially became aware of her through the Dusie Kollektiv, which I was involved with for several years, which was a truly wonderful, unique, creative, incredibly poetic, individualistic, expressive experience. I've read several of Marthe Reed's chapbooks and they still exist within my home space. I am aware of her Black Radish Books. I've seen and briefly met her in person at a writing conference I attended. I don't remember what we might have said to each other, which upsets me. Online, I've heard her read with my poetic collaborator j/j hastain - Marthe Reed and j/j hastain were poetic collaborators too. I truly appreciate Marthe Reed's long term genuine poetic passion and ongoing poetry flow.  I feel sad that she's passed away too soon and I feel for those who knew her on a more in depth personal level. I am glad that her poetry will live on.

Sometimes I feel like I don't communicate enough on a personal emotional level, in large part because I tend towards becoming overly emotional, to the extent that loss devastates me.

But then I worry that my reluctance to express feelings about death on a personal level aside from art/poetry might cause it to seem as if I am just ignoring death and I am not.

***

Sometimes when I try my best to express my true feelings in the moment, I end up ruining things.

But sometimes if I don't express myself, I feel too close to approaching stagnation. 

is my embarrassment a brain glitch?

One thing that bothers me about myself is that I too frequently feel embarrassed about things that aren't even worthy of embarrassment. Like it's not uncommon for me to wake up feeling embarrassed by something I posted on my own facebook page the night before - and so I figure there must be a valid reason I woke up feeling embarrassed about it - but then when I read it, more often than not, it was just me expressing my own thoughts/feelings about something. So am I embarrassed by my own genuine thoughts/feelings? Am I embarrassed about semi-publicly expressing myself? Am I worried what other people might think? Or what?

I think I have a conflicted brain, because the genuine part of me is drawn towards expressing myself genuinely, regardless of what other people do or don't think. I've been like that for years. I'm pretty open to honestly expressing how I feel about things, but then I also question the validity and depth of the way I feel about things, even though they're my own feelings, so why am I questioning their validity. It's not like I'm stating my feelings as hardcore facts or something.

So for this morning's example, I woke up feeling embarrassed more than three hours before my alarm was set. I felt embarrassed that I had posted links to several old songs by This Mortal Coil (even though I liked the songs and that's why I posted them) and I felt embarrassed about this long-ish personal commentary that I placed above one of the songs. I felt embarrassed that I backtracked to 20+ years ago and I felt embarrassed about the age I am now. None of this embarrassment really makes sense. The worst thing I did was over-share my own thoughts and it's not as if anyone is being forced to read them, so what's the big deal? I'm tired of my brain waking up feeling embarrassed by me being an expressive individual.

Maybe this is part of the reason why I'm a writer. It feels important for me to openly, creatively express myself, but I'd rather do it on paper (or on the screen) rather than expressing myself in person and feeling semi-randomly embarrassed the next day. But even though my predominant form of creative expression is poetry and I enjoy writing poems and having them selected for publication, I often feel edgy and awkward and borderline embarrassed about being part of a public poetry reading, because then I have to read my words in front of people in person, which sometimes feels too presumptuous or assumptive, even though it's not.

Back to waking up hours before I was supposed to and feeling embarrassed about what I had posted on my own facebook page, I also had a headache when I woke up, so I didn't have the energy to re-read what I had written, in order to determine if it was truly worthy of embarrassment. I didn't delete my posts; I just changed their "Shared" status to where only I could see them. Am I turning into someone who only likes talking to myself? Well...no, because if that was the case then why would I be writing this and why would I take the time to submit my poems instead of just piling them up in boxes in my house? I don't like hiding things. I like sharing. Even if I feel semi-randomly embarrassed by parts of what I share. Sigh.
***

I'm now adding one of my embarrassing feeling posts from yesterday because once I re-read it today, it really wasn't all that embarrassing - and even if it is, it's the way I sometimes feel anyway.

"Sometimes when your mind backtracks into your past, it feels weird thinking that your own interpretation of your past self might only exist in your own eyes and mind and not in anyone else's (except for their own interpretations, which might be significantly different from your own).

I'll bet I remember things about others that they don't remember about me - and I'll bet others remember things about me that I don't remember - maybe nobody remembers anything the same.

Significant others in my present that are still connected with their past in parts of present life, I wonder if they can imagine how it feels to mostly only be connected with your past significant others in dreams and your own minds (possibly convoluted) memories, because you don't have personal present contact with most of the individuals you used to be significantly involved with.

Maybe it's like that for a lot of people. I don't know. I mostly just know what it's like for me and what other people choose to share with me, from their interpretations."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjywQOuzeSY

something or other

I never really related to adults who seem to think/act as if age and life experience makes us more important and fills us with vastly meaningful knowledge to place upon others, whether others asked for that knowledge or not.

Maybe it's partly a parental thing (I don't know; because I'm not a parent - and I also know parents who don't act this way), but whatever it is, the people who seem to think that their own knowledge will really empower others often seem to start acting that way before they're even 30 years old.

As for me, sure I can share my own thoughts and feelings and ideas related to/derived from my own life experiences with others to an extent, but I'm not going to act like I'm some expert on anything, because ultimately, I'm just me. I've never felt like an expert who gains enough powerful knowledge to tell others what they should or shouldn't do for themselves - how they should feel, how they should act, who they should be. How about they just be themselves and don't be too stagnant?

I mean, if anyone asks me a question, I'll try my best to answer, but not from some angle that seems to imply that my way is the way everyone else should think or act or feel.

I don't think of my own life experience and knowledge as steadily increasing and rising up (or down), I feel like I'm mostly moving in the same slightly contorted semi-circle shapes, sometimes slightly rising, sometimes repetitively falling, but mostly just semi-circling, but trying not to be too stuck.

Even with my poems and art, I'll feel really excited when I initially write a new poem, but usually it doesn't take long after that before it doesn't feel new; it feels more like I'm repeating different variations on the same subject again and again. I hope I'm not too stagnant or stuck - but I think it's more of an always moving mentality, even if I'm repeatedly moving in similar directions.

I actually tend to love when people share their own genuine thoughts, feelings, experiences, and ideas in personal passionate expressive sort of waves.

But back to those who feel the need to share their own seemingly vast knowledge in an expert-like sort of manner, who the heck knows everything they need to know in life when they hit a certain age? NOBODY.  In fact, I don't think anybody knows everything EVER.

Maybe people who tend to limit their own lives in certain ways feel the need to limit other people's lives in similar ways too. 

But what do I know? That's just my own opinion on something or other.

Non-cliched expression

I seem to be in the midst of this phase lately in which I'm wondering what defines me and what is important to me and why.

I know poetry and art are very important and meaningful to me (and whether or not they're important and meaningful to others doesn't matter all that much to me) and I also know that even others who ARE into poetry and art are not all going to relate to mine (which is fine). 

For years, I thought that poetry and art AND communication were very important and meaningful to me, but lately I seem to be questioning the communication part of the matter more than usual.

I mean, on one hand, I like expressing myself and hearing others express themselves, BUT casual conversation tends to annoy me and lately, I seem to be having more annoyed streaks and feeling like I don't relate to all that many people and wondering what is the point of spending my time communicating with people I don't even relate to very much, when I could be spending that time reading, writing, thinking, and communicating more with myself.

I think communication with oneself is meaningful. Exploring one's own mind is relevant. I think too many people just stick with their minds basics and go with the flow and those are the type of people I'm tired of wasting my time communicating with. 

I'll gladly continue to communicate with other people who are driven to thinking, feeling, creating, and expressing, but those who are prone to rambling out cliches without even thinking about it? Maybe they should ramble their cliches in someone else's direction instead of mine.

*

About me and nonfiction writing (other than communication via emailing,  blogging, and "social networking" - realms in which I'm sometimes quite prolific and sometimes not),  I don't read much nonfiction at all (other than book reviews and nonfictional commentary by or about poets), in part because of serious memory issues and also because I have serious trouble organizing/arranging/revising longer work. Heck, even turning some of my poetry into a full-length manuscript is quite a lengthy undertaking, but...I guess that would be different with fiction or nonfiction, since it wouldn't involve deciding how to order the poems, and since the content would have some sort of more standard order, but...

Then that brings me to the whole, how in the hell can my content be positioned in a standard order?  I'm not standard, I'm not logically ordered, and I'm pretty OCD with my own ordering and positioning.

It did cross my mind a few years ago, when a few people were suggesting to me that perhaps I should consider writing a nonfiction book about my carotid artery dissection/aneurysm/stroke/divorce etc... but I don't know how I'd arrange such a manuscript. I have a lot of files on my computer and on paper on that subject matter (personal notes, journal entries, notes to others, notes from others, video of me trying to read, etc...), but the thing is, the re-reading, revising, arranging, organizing process would have to be my full focus for a few years and do I really want to set aside all other writing (including poetry, which is very expressively important to me) and art and submitting and publishing in order to focus on assembling a nonfiction book about my stroke? 

Sometimes I wish my reading and writing and creative process was a little faster and more multi-task prone, but it's not. 

Half my computer is masses of unorganized notes of expression and communication that I saved for valid reasons, but there's so many that I'll never be able to organize them, unless organization is most of what I focus on in life - and who wants to focus on organizing the old and not creating any new?

Not long ago though (i.e. sometime last year), I did finally finish working a personal nonfiction story into a prose poem (I called it that, because I wasn't sure what to call it - it was poetic language in prose form) that got published and then nominated for a Best of the Net in nonfiction. It was based on something that had happened well over ten years ago, that I finally managed to work into a piece of creative writing that I actually liked (when I first started trying to work on it, it made me feel like puking and was WAY over the top, so I finally just had to set the content aside for years, until I could re-work it from a somewhat less emotional trauma puke-fest). I'm glad I finally finished that piece, but like I said, it was based on something that happened over ten years ago and it just ended up being a three page piece.

So who knows how long it might take me to even really dive into book length nonfiction based on the stroke/divorce stuff that happened five years ago.

And also, what is with the speed racing of time?!? AAAH!

Personal Style

For the record, I think there is a substantial difference between me finding my leg photos appealing and fun and perhaps a bit goofball semi-kink creative (and perhaps having a delicious little spurt of appeal for some others) - and trying to lure in potential sex partners. A male friend of mine asked me last night if I was trying to lure in men with the sock photos I sometimes post, and I’m not trying to lure in anyone as a sex hook up, for f. sake. Creative allure maybe; poetic hook up maybe; sex hook up – no.

If my socks appeal to/interest/ turn on some men and some women, then cool, I like that. I’m not going to lie. I can sometimes be a bit flirty and I sometimes quite like attention, but not because I’m some sort of fishing lure. Flirty attention is not my primary focus in life; more in depth expression is. BUT if some people get the wrong impression of me, that’s there impression. Everyone’s entitled to their own impressions and expressions, right?  

Sometimes others give me the impression that if I don’t want to give some men the wrong impression, then I should just stop acting/talking/dressing/posting the least bit sexy – but I don’t want to zone myself out of my own expressive mode, just so I don’t give other people the wrong impression. What’s the right impression anyway?  That differs from individual to individual, right?  I would like to continue being myself and expressing myself however I see fit at a given time.

Anyone who knows me well or interacts with me frequently will know that I’m not mainly into sock posting; I’m mainly into poetry. Poetry turns me on so much, primarily in a mentally stimulating way – but sometimes mind fuses with bodily based pleasures and I feel compelled to masturbate while working on my poetry (was that too much personal information to share?  Oh well; too late now; anyway I’ve shared it many times before). That doesn’t mean I want to have phone sex while working on my poetry though.  It means if I’m feeling creatively revved up enough to play with words AND take a body based pleasure stimulation break, than why not do it?

If someone is turned on by my sock photos (or just thinks they’re fun and creative), cool.  If someone is turned on by my poetry (or finds it is oddly interesting), even cooler. If someone is turned on by both and more, awesome.  If hardly anybody was turned on by anything about me, that would be a bit of a bummer, but my socks and mostly my poetry (and other people’s poetry and art too) would still turn ME on - and I will sure stick to that.