You and they are the most vital to me when they're taking care of me. The bookends of my life. Fear is a protective instinct. If I can imagine myself exposed to the worst, myself and the dragon in the bathroom as such, or in the hero's journey, the confrontation with the ultimate evil... you can tell me that Ebola is for the time being in Africa and we are not yet subject to the luxury of the decaying. We are intact. The family where the child looks pie-eyed at the idea of time and frailty. Half the time the child looks out the window seasick, car sick and imagines the scenario of being exposed to the ultimate elements. Until reassured. The child will spout grim ideas about themselves, that perhaps they don't feel or love. Until given an idea otherwise. That perhaps they are the spawn that sets their family in a maelstrom and can only create emotional typhoons to mimic feeling. Other than that is a font of need, validation, mistaking others for a teat. The Jewish family is built on the model of the endless sacrifice, and the endlessly ungrateful beneficiary. Since the giving, the sacrifice, the self deprivation is endless, the beneficiary has nothing to compare it to in their own lives other than to expect it....
I am saying this and SLC calls me. Sarah. Some odd metaphor that those uncomfortable kids, my tribe, or were once kids and now get married surreptitiously in a barn against all our hopes that they scale trees, become Nora Ephron, decorate Dubai with street art, our discomfort binds us. The reminder of the comfort that I had, having time to become something, is a check in. To see if I've become anything. Whether it is even possible based on those vague parameters. Maybe what we have in common are the itchy expectations and perennial disturbances of middle class youth, everything is fine within the middle class community, we have enough to eat, we have a roof over our heads, we hope we will become something big... we forcibly stand away from our peers and create mystery outside of adolescent group dynamics. Spend time endowing the escape or our explorations of past music, past books, with the vague danger of their parties. The moment we fly the coop becomes an erotic preoccupation. Perhaps the limitations of who we will be and whether we can buy a wheel of party cheese with that never sinks in because... The future becomes the fetish. The bounds outside the walls of suburban adolescent hierarchies. I think the imaginations of future SLC kids were dominated by that.
I can't listen to Next to Normal. I find it "triggering." The nagging sense that one ought to be happy with one's basic (food shelter) and secondary (love family) needs met. This guilt fuels middle class anxiety ("I should be happy but I am... discontented"). The stagnancy, of material contentment. But, still this woman suffers the alienation of a different emotional compass, crushing lows and annoying manias. Which psychiatry wants to control for the sake of her life, but has no idea how to normalize into something livable, rather than numb. I've had friends who told me that the numbing effect of experiencing a median of their high low emotions is not a way to live life. And this woman constantly threatens to dip down in suburban calm, stagnation, and meaninglessness. With material wealth, children, all the shallow meaning signifiers, a woman feels no right to be uncomfortable. Suffocated by the warmth of the house, the polyester blazers, the quiet of the street at night. The pathlessness of making it and still being mentally ill. She sings that "everything is perfect, nothing's real." Apparently in "the mountains," running free she could whip herself into a frenzy and be close to collapsing from the low point and convince herself that riding her emotions was "real." Rather than safety which is not worth its salt. I think that whatever struggles she experienced in the mountains were mainly emotional and just as unreal. Problems whipped up by brain chemistry rather than bein a menace to south central while drinkin your juice in tha hood.
I need more markers of warmth and security than the suburban schools, their white walls with one strip of blue ringing bell precisely at 7:30 am and the hazy future promise, the abundant possibility of leaving and the path set free. The well appointed floors of our houses, they are willing to shuttle us to soccer practice, to therapy, to occupy our mind, maybe the bright future is what makes the isolation of the nuclear family on its tucked away street, which makes sense for the children to play on a patch of land, while the constant state of parental sacrifice and childlike bringing up is in motion. What meaning does the isolation take on? The prosperity and mediocrity?
I am afraid of coldness and ingratitude. The Hyde. My Hyde that will do what? That I know will retire when needed. That won't man up. I'm afraid I was hurt maybe and didn't know it. But this doesn't compensate for selfishness. The brand of selfishness and egotism that stuck with the child who got what it wanted from the endlessness of care, the lack of reciprocation, and it stuck because it's true and not an excuse. The excess of love and the expression of love can hobble a person for a while. I dislike how easily I sever connections, but would need to bathe in the amniotic fluid of someone's promises of security preferably hers, and how I don't pay for what I get. I see what I am. I'm in this phase where I blame others. The twin forces of nostalgia and inability to do anything with the Hyde of psychopath and emotionless abuser bring Hyde back in. To live hemmed in by 9 to 5, unable to pursue large risks, hungry for precisely maternal affection from anyone when remotely displaced from the feeling of security and that everything's going to be ok. I suck out emotional empathy from others. Am not able to provide it. Because I am Joe Schmoe. Understandable. And have faith in vindication, my own vindication. The twin forces of coldness and child hurt apparently drive the fear and the ugliness. In this world that exacts the basic responsibility from me.
I am here in the downward portion of the rollercoaster. Where am I going is a daily question. A victimizing question that removes agency. As though it's not me that controls where I'm going. Options are limited, the future is limited and not nebulous. My great buddies are marrying in unassuming barns retiring to Rhinebeck rather than making butter sculptures of Nixon across the country. Rather than what? The awe inspiring senior or older brother trailblazing in Russia, who did we admire? When will I push toward some sort of fearful cheap coffee based prospect and bite back my pride for the sake of the illusory dharma? The dharma of counting pennies or maybe not ever breaking in any way. Or worse, being the one. Or not the one. No good. Not knowing how to even start driving. Should I be excited about the future? People are calling me ma'am and helping me with my bags. Will the desire to live a rich life and being generally lazy to learn all there is about a craft dampen any hope that I can be great... at something? Without reflexively thinking dream on bitch... or reflexively wanting to change the word great because of that aching hubris and that fear. And what is stopping... the nightly wandering into this or that expensive food establishment or ramparted street with definitely Cafe Habana hidden and Back Forty West facing me like an American dull wall. Will there be anything left over to say once the endless me and needling search dies down and the business must be attended... the cakes made, I watch the truffle dealer child move boxes and hide from competitors, rich fish eggs floating on the website alternated with dill crackers of gravlax. He is young, authentic, strangely specific, full of potential, a wunderkind with time to change. The kid takes to the cobbled streets and works the unglamorous 60 hours, or has the gauche rich family, or something the camera can't display by tagging him "truffle don." Teflon truffle don.
I am saying this and SLC calls me. Sarah. Some odd metaphor that those uncomfortable kids, my tribe, or were once kids and now get married surreptitiously in a barn against all our hopes that they scale trees, become Nora Ephron, decorate Dubai with street art, our discomfort binds us. The reminder of the comfort that I had, having time to become something, is a check in. To see if I've become anything. Whether it is even possible based on those vague parameters. Maybe what we have in common are the itchy expectations and perennial disturbances of middle class youth, everything is fine within the middle class community, we have enough to eat, we have a roof over our heads, we hope we will become something big... we forcibly stand away from our peers and create mystery outside of adolescent group dynamics. Spend time endowing the escape or our explorations of past music, past books, with the vague danger of their parties. The moment we fly the coop becomes an erotic preoccupation. Perhaps the limitations of who we will be and whether we can buy a wheel of party cheese with that never sinks in because... The future becomes the fetish. The bounds outside the walls of suburban adolescent hierarchies. I think the imaginations of future SLC kids were dominated by that.
I can't listen to Next to Normal. I find it "triggering." The nagging sense that one ought to be happy with one's basic (food shelter) and secondary (love family) needs met. This guilt fuels middle class anxiety ("I should be happy but I am... discontented"). The stagnancy, of material contentment. But, still this woman suffers the alienation of a different emotional compass, crushing lows and annoying manias. Which psychiatry wants to control for the sake of her life, but has no idea how to normalize into something livable, rather than numb. I've had friends who told me that the numbing effect of experiencing a median of their high low emotions is not a way to live life. And this woman constantly threatens to dip down in suburban calm, stagnation, and meaninglessness. With material wealth, children, all the shallow meaning signifiers, a woman feels no right to be uncomfortable. Suffocated by the warmth of the house, the polyester blazers, the quiet of the street at night. The pathlessness of making it and still being mentally ill. She sings that "everything is perfect, nothing's real." Apparently in "the mountains," running free she could whip herself into a frenzy and be close to collapsing from the low point and convince herself that riding her emotions was "real." Rather than safety which is not worth its salt. I think that whatever struggles she experienced in the mountains were mainly emotional and just as unreal. Problems whipped up by brain chemistry rather than bein a menace to south central while drinkin your juice in tha hood.
I need more markers of warmth and security than the suburban schools, their white walls with one strip of blue ringing bell precisely at 7:30 am and the hazy future promise, the abundant possibility of leaving and the path set free. The well appointed floors of our houses, they are willing to shuttle us to soccer practice, to therapy, to occupy our mind, maybe the bright future is what makes the isolation of the nuclear family on its tucked away street, which makes sense for the children to play on a patch of land, while the constant state of parental sacrifice and childlike bringing up is in motion. What meaning does the isolation take on? The prosperity and mediocrity?
I am afraid of coldness and ingratitude. The Hyde. My Hyde that will do what? That I know will retire when needed. That won't man up. I'm afraid I was hurt maybe and didn't know it. But this doesn't compensate for selfishness. The brand of selfishness and egotism that stuck with the child who got what it wanted from the endlessness of care, the lack of reciprocation, and it stuck because it's true and not an excuse. The excess of love and the expression of love can hobble a person for a while. I dislike how easily I sever connections, but would need to bathe in the amniotic fluid of someone's promises of security preferably hers, and how I don't pay for what I get. I see what I am. I'm in this phase where I blame others. The twin forces of nostalgia and inability to do anything with the Hyde of psychopath and emotionless abuser bring Hyde back in. To live hemmed in by 9 to 5, unable to pursue large risks, hungry for precisely maternal affection from anyone when remotely displaced from the feeling of security and that everything's going to be ok. I suck out emotional empathy from others. Am not able to provide it. Because I am Joe Schmoe. Understandable. And have faith in vindication, my own vindication. The twin forces of coldness and child hurt apparently drive the fear and the ugliness. In this world that exacts the basic responsibility from me.
I am here in the downward portion of the rollercoaster. Where am I going is a daily question. A victimizing question that removes agency. As though it's not me that controls where I'm going. Options are limited, the future is limited and not nebulous. My great buddies are marrying in unassuming barns retiring to Rhinebeck rather than making butter sculptures of Nixon across the country. Rather than what? The awe inspiring senior or older brother trailblazing in Russia, who did we admire? When will I push toward some sort of fearful cheap coffee based prospect and bite back my pride for the sake of the illusory dharma? The dharma of counting pennies or maybe not ever breaking in any way. Or worse, being the one. Or not the one. No good. Not knowing how to even start driving. Should I be excited about the future? People are calling me ma'am and helping me with my bags. Will the desire to live a rich life and being generally lazy to learn all there is about a craft dampen any hope that I can be great... at something? Without reflexively thinking dream on bitch... or reflexively wanting to change the word great because of that aching hubris and that fear. And what is stopping... the nightly wandering into this or that expensive food establishment or ramparted street with definitely Cafe Habana hidden and Back Forty West facing me like an American dull wall. Will there be anything left over to say once the endless me and needling search dies down and the business must be attended... the cakes made, I watch the truffle dealer child move boxes and hide from competitors, rich fish eggs floating on the website alternated with dill crackers of gravlax. He is young, authentic, strangely specific, full of potential, a wunderkind with time to change. The kid takes to the cobbled streets and works the unglamorous 60 hours, or has the gauche rich family, or something the camera can't display by tagging him "truffle don." Teflon truffle don.
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