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astralmorganite · 8 years ago

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3.22.2017 - Death

There’s this feeling that comes with the death of someone in your life. It is a feeling that is so pervasive, that it doesn’t necessarily matter how close the formerly living was to you; you will always feel intimacy with your own mortality when death has touched another’s soul. I was close to Kyle in high school, in the same way that you might be close to a coworker. We hung out at school because of our obligation to be in the same class every B-Day morning, but we were friends because we had some things in common. But just as quitting a job means you become distant from people you previously saw every day, graduation meant we became little more than acquaintances after all was said and done. Aside from a brief re-establishing of our friendship in 2014, Kyle and I didn’t have the kind of friendship that would lead one to mourn like his close circle is currently mourning. We had the kind of friendship that has lead me to fear my own mortality upon the news of his untimely demise. We had the kind of friendship where I have felt sad since I discovered the news three days ago, but I have cried more for myself than for him.

I don’t think Kyle needs me to cry for him. I know a few others who have, and should, cry harder and louder for his soul, not considering the familial presence he had. I think my crying would be selfish if I tried to present it as anything but a fear of my own mortality; to address it as purely for the loss of a friend would be falsely inflating the kind of connection Kyle and I had. It would be disrespectful for those who were truly close to him for me to pretend that my tears are for him; who am I to say that my mourning is more valid than someone who deeply connected with him, when I had but a passing glance at who Kyle was? It wouldn’t be fair to those in true mourning for me to claim that I cry for the distant friendship he and I shared at a passing glance in life. But I am free to mourn for those who mourn him. I am free to mourn the reality of death and mortality. I am free to discuss how death has affected me, in terms of his death specifically, and the greater world surrounding death.

I’ve been lucky in that death has always been at arm’s reach in my life. I’ve never lost anyone so close to me that it’s had a major effect on me, nor have I lost any family members to age. All four of my grandparents are still alive, my dad has survived countless medical emergencies, and none of my closest friends have been afflicted with a life-threatening illness or condition. Death has always been just slightly outside of my comfort zone; I think the first death that really shook me was the death of my first crush, someone I knew as a child, who had died of a heroin overdose in jail. But by the time that had happened, I was already nineteen and hadn’t been involved in his life for eight years. I think it was about 2015 when my early teen crush, Zappa, died mysteriously too. But again, we hadn’t spoken for years. These two were the closest death has ever come to interrupting my life; it’s almost as though death is playing chess with my sensibilities. He has struck me with warnings; as if all these small deaths are leading to one big, overwhelming, death.

This is paranoid thinking. Obviously death isn’t some sentient being who is teasing a future tragedy by picking off small but nostalgically meaningful people in my life. That thought in of itself is kind of offensive to the people who have mourned and still mourn for those men. Kyle, Kenny, Zappa... These were real people with real and complex lives outside of being a plot device within my personal reality. On one hand, I have this complex relationship with those memories with these people because of their passing, but on the other hand, I need to respect them. Death isn’t about yourself; it’s about the person who died. It’s about their story and their lives.

I’m less afraid about my own death than I am the death of someone close to me. In the event of my own death, there’s really nothing I can do at that point, is there? And I can’t confront my own mortality until I’m either at the slow decline towards it, or until it’s happening so fast that death comes for me before I have a chance to even think about it. But the biggest fear of mine comes from having to go through losing someone within my inner circle. I’ve never lost anyone particularly close to me. I have no relative schema (aside from the aforementioned deaths of past friends) that gives me any coping mechanisms or skills for handling a death so close to my heart. Sometimes I have paranoid thoughts that Parker will just not come home one day, or that I’ll kiss him good morning to find his lips cold. I know these thoughts are paranoid; I know they are a product of my anxiety and that they are highly improbable and mostly irrational. But it’s that twinge of desperation as I close the door to say goodbye to Parker as he leaves for work that scares me. It’s that feeling of knowing that this could be our last moment together, should the real-life RNG send death his way. For this paranoid reason, I always remember the last things he’s said to me before we’ve parted ways for the day. Today he said “I love you too” before he drove away from dropping me off at work. This one, and it’s counterparts “I love you” and “be safe”, are the most common departing phrases he says to me. I suppose in a way, my memorization of his phrases is my tiny way of coping with the threat of random death. At least if he died suddenly and unexpectedly, I can remember the last moment he said that he loves me.

Yesterday, I went through my facebook messenger to see what was the last thing I ever said to Kyle. We had a conversation about creepypastas, and abandoned amusement parks. I’ve always had this interest in the abandoned and derelict, and as such wanted to be an urban explorer. I was showing him some of my favorite locations to peruse through online. The last park I showed him was called Action Park, an amusement park that, near the end of its existence, was known for being incredibly dangerous. Action Park had only six deaths in its history, but injuries were so commonplace that Gen-Xers of the area often made jokes about how you weren’t truly a local unless you’d been injured at Action Park before. Kyle and I appreciated the humor behind the park’s shady business practices regarding their lack of insurance, especially since they had so many more injuries than other parks, parks that were much better insured.

It’s amazing to me that they could feel so blase about death in that way. I’m glad Action Park doesn’t exist anymore.

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astralmorganite · 8 years ago

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3.14.2017 - Left: A Poem

I lift your gentle head from the bassinet

Your dry and cracked roots have grown over the edges

You are desperate to reach the ground

But you have not been watered in twenty-two years

The garden has overgrown around you

Feast and famine in the same home

Your roots weakly grab for my arms

I feed your starving body with life-giving water

The gardener thanks me for removing you

The gardener says to me,

Thank you for taking care of him

And then the gardener destroys the bassinet

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astralmorganite · 8 years ago

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3.14.2017 - Timing

Today marks 135 days until the wedding, which is such an odd feeling. It doesn’t quite feel real yet, if I’m speaking honestly. I don’t know that it will feel real until after it’s already done. But it is what it is. I feel like I contribute to Parker and I’s future marriage more in my every day life than I do thinking about wedding planning, but I think that’s just because I’m getting a little burnt out on being engaged. The actual planning itself has gone fairly smoothly lately, don’t get me wrong, I just kinda wish we were within the last month of this. That’ll be when the fun stuff happens, like bridal showers and bachelor/bachelorette parties and rehearsal dinners. By that time, I’m hoping things will be easier. Right now it’s a lot of financial stress that won’t be resolved until after I finish the school semester at the end of April. This summer is so close I can practically taste it.

Sometimes I think about the time frame of how Parker and I ended up here. If I’m being honest, I absolutely never wanted to get married in July, much less in 2017. I have a weird hesitation against certain number combinations, such as odd numbers in odd places, and with the year being 2017, I knew many date combinations I had previously been ok with, would suddenly change. When I was engaged once before, I wanted to get married on 3/30/13, because if I had to deal with the year ending in 13, then the rest of the date also needed to have 3′s in it. A similar logic has applied to our wedding date of 7/27/17. If I was going to have to get married in the year 2017, it needed to match up with the rest of the date. About this time last year, I was hoping we could get married before the end of 2016, as I felt 16 was a much better number to accompany the end of a wedding date, but ultimately that became impossible.

Parker and I spent a lot of time worrying about when we would get married. We got engaged on October 20th, 2016, but didn’t actually have a wedding date until February 2017. In six days, we will have been engaged five months, four of those months having been spent in free-floating limbo regarding when our wedding would actually happen. Even though we have a date now, that uncertainty has plagued my whole mind. It seems impossible; how can this be happening when we’ve spent every moment of our engagement fighting off roadblocks? How can we possibly guarantee that the roadblocks are truly gone from our path to marriage?

It’s been impossible to deal with. Even with our plans mostly set in stone, it feels like at any second, our dreams could be ripped away from us again. It happened time and time again for the first four months of this engagement, conditioning me to always be in fight or flight. It’s too late to turn off the anxiety, because it’s already here. It’s already programmed within me to assume that everything will fall apart and that something huge will ruin our wedding. It’s tearing me apart inside to think that something, ANYTHING, could randomly come along that we would have to deal with that will make our wedding dreams impossible. I’ve accepted that our wedding plans would require us to get married in a month and year that wasn’t my first choice. I’ve accepted that our wedding would have to be one of many that has happened or will happen on his side of the family. I’ve accepted that my family couldn’t help with the larger expenses. I have had to make myself accept a lot of things about this wedding.

I have a friend named Madi, who got married about six years ago. Her first wedding was a civil marriage performed outside of a friend’s home in the center of Washington State. Her wedding was beautiful, and she certainly looked beautiful, but a lot of the friends involved in her wedding planning then, later revealed themselves to be unstable, unhealthy, or just generally toxic. I don’t blame her for feeling that her wedding left a bad taste in her mouth. We were freshly out of high school by about a week or two, so it makes sense that the people in our lives then are not the same people who are around right now. But the problem lies in the fact that most of the people who provided effort then, have since shown their true colors. Then the year after, when Madi went through the LDS Sealing ritual, she attempted to make it like a second wedding, and had a mini-reception once the sealing was over. Unfortunately, this event was also marred by other people for her. Now, she’s reached such a point of discomfort with her past attempts at celebrating her and her husband’s relationship, that when their ten-year anniversary happens in 2021, she anticipates having a vow renewal that should encompass everything she wanted from her wedding in the first place.

I’ve thought about that. I think that a majority of the stress of wedding planning comes from my uncertainty, but in order to combat that, I have leaned to Madi’s mindset to help me get by. I keep thinking that if the wedding derails beyond reason, well, then at least I could have a vow renewal in five years, or so. It’s helped with the anxiety, but it hasn’t helped much in solidifying the reality of our impending marriage.

There have just been far too many disappointments to feel like this is really happening. There have been too many people who have interrupted our lives for me to feel like that won’t happen ever again. It feels like Parker and I are just generally unimportant in comparison to others within our extended circle. It has always felt like Parker and I have been independent to a fault; in the sense that we have disconnected ourselves from so many people that now we have been dropped down the ranks. Aside from our immediate circle of friends (namely, the bridal party), it seems as though our circles have treated us so independently, that our wedding seems to be a secondary thought. Upon announcing our wedding date, we received more complaints about the choice than we received congratulations. Its things like this that make me feel like we should have just skipped a wedding in the first place, just gotten the dress and a photographer and shot our wedding in the mountains. We could have just informed everyone later and not have bothered with half the things we’re bothering with now.

But I’ve always wanted a big wedding. I always pictured my wedding to be like a grand ball where I am the princess-becoming-queen, standing beside my strapping king. I envisioned some grand event where hundreds of people would ooh and ahh about the surrounding beauty; the flowers, the dress, the location, and most importantly, the couple. I envisioned a wedding similar to this line from a song I have listened to repeatedly since childhood:

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls With vassals and serfs at my side, And of all who assembled within those walls That I was the hope and the pride. I had riches all too great to count And a high ancestral name.

But I also dreamt which pleased me most That you loved me still the same,

The song is called Marble Halls by Enya. I remember listening to this song on my first walkman I got for Christmas in 1999 or 2000. I don’t quite remember the exact year I first heard the song. But I remember feeling this kind of serenity and elegance in regards to how she described the scene around her. Do I consider the wedding attendees to be vassals and serfs? Certainly not, but the concept of being surrounded by people who, even temporarily, were devoted to us, excited me. It always has. But the reality of the situation is becoming clear; Parker and I just aren’t as important. It’s evident in the fact that for most of my life I was physically and mentally abused. It’s evident in the fact that for most of Parker’s life, he was neglected and abandoned. It’s evident in the fact that people we’ve been distant with in the past have bothered to show us support through occasional messages of support, or through words of encouragement. Most of the people involved in our very innermost circle have expressed how our relationship deserves the highest of accolades; that our relationship brings them hope that love and relationships are not inevitably doomed. We’ve made a difference in the lives of the people closest to us, but on a wider level, it seems that people are more invested in themselves.

And I understand that. I’ve had friends whom I’ve ignored when they’ve gotten married. But overall it’s been because I didn’t think they were right for each other. Is that how people see us? When we stand at the altar, will people applaud for us because they truly understand and support the love we’ve built up for each other, or will they be there out of obligation?

But this uncertainty in how people see us is causing me to keep more of the anxiety on my shoulders. But then I keep thinking about doing this with nobody else around, and I feel stronger. I would rather be alone than have people feel they are obligated to support me. I would rather have genuine support despite obligation, than support out of obligation, but if I cannot have the first option, I would rather have no support at all. It’s interesting to me, because even as Madi and I have disconnected and reconnected at random intervals in our lives, she has put forth so much positivity towards Parker and I. She doesn’t even have a personal relationship with Parker, but she has still encouraged me. She helped me feel alright about not having extended support; her vow renewal is my inspiration for one I may do myself.

One thing that I’ve worried about in regards to posting this blog entry is that someone may feel they are being specifically referenced when I say I don’t have extended support. I worry that people may think I am referring to them, and that I am demanding MORE than they have already given. Obviously I don’t want people to read this and think “Oh, so I haven’t done enough for her already? Well screw her then!” I think the main point I seek to get across to those that feel they may fall under this category of people, is that if support is not genuine, then it is not support at all. The reaction of getting upset at me making a vague call-out is indicative of two things; one, that you understand that you have not provided genuine support, and two, that you feel as though your half-hearted attempts should be enough. Obviously, those with genuine support would already know they have provided genuine support, and would not feel they are specifically being addressed. Or in the least, they would feel comfortable asking me if I felt they have been genuine. So, I suppose one could say that, if you feel attacked by this entry, then it is likely I am talking about you. If you feel for me, then you’re probably one of the supportive ones.

And of course, its not as if I require support in the form of monetary reward or even physical labor. Madi (as aforementioned) has shown strong support despite living a thousand miles away, and certainly has not paid for any part of my wedding. But she still participates. She texts me on occasion and talks about wedding plans with me. That’s part of how I learned of her vow renewal plans, we carried on the conversation to talk about HER “wedding” plans and developed a rapport. Even if we didn’t keep talking about my wedding, we held up a conversation. We continued to develop our friendship, and that means so much to me. This wedding has served its purpose in that sense; I’ve become close to the people who have provided support. Even my mother has been incredibly supportive, even though her financial situation is far tighter than my own. She periodically sends me pictures of dresses she might want to wear to the wedding, she asks me how things are going, she keeps in contact. It means so much just to receive a text, especially from my mom, and it’s just as meaningful coming from distant friends with whom I haven’t spoken in a long time. It’s sweet, it’s thoughtful. It’s little efforts. It’s just as important as the bigger displays of support, such as Parker’s dad building us a set piece, and my grandmother buying a lot of the flowers that will make up our bouquets and boutonnieres.

Or perhaps I am blind to my privilege and I am truly not seeing how much effort people are putting in for me. I accept that this could be the true reality, and I accept that people may be able to get upset with me for how I feel. It could very much just be an irrational portion of my anxiety. Perhaps my perspective is skewed because my anxiety wants me to believe that people don’t truly care about Parker or I, and that this lack of support is just all in my head. In the least, I’ve used writing about it to ease the anxiety, so even if it is just in my mind, then readers who may feel personally attacked can say “well, clearly this is just her anxiety, so no reason to feel hard feelings.” I do have a well-documented anxiety disorder, and its hard to differentiate between legitimate concerns and imagined ones. I’m not trying to discredit myself, but rather just give everyone else the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. In any case, whether this problem is real or imagined, I would hope that it lifts soon.

I would rather not let my doubts win over me completely.

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astralmorganite · 8 years ago

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3.10.2017 - Vent

I want to take the time to vent about something that’s been on my mind a lot recently, so this entry may take a different tone than you might expect. I don’t generally have a need to vent, but lately I’ve noticed this tension rising within me, specific to the topic with which I want to vent. The topic I’ve been dealing with concerns public displays of affection, specifically how the internet and social media have developed their own kind of etiquette regarding PDA. It’s not been pleasant.

Let me be clear. I don’t think that all public displays of affection are wrong, or even bad. I just think that the advent of the internet requires that new etiquette be addressed for these specific situations. And I’ve been specifically irritated by random encounters with people online who seem to have no understanding of what constitutes good behavior in the world of online PDA.

Specifically, I hate that people with no lives outside of their relationship are enabled by the internet. I despise that society as a whole tends to give internet fame to people who are conventionally attractive, and doesn’t seem to care about the actuality of the world. It’s as though anyone who is above a certain level of conventional beauty automatically gets to be hailed as a queen even when the actual work of being in a relationship or having a family is ignored.

And I’m not trying to say that ALL conventionally attractive people are undeserving of praise and attention. I’m just saying that by ONLY praising attractive people, we’re denying them the ability to actually learn how to be a sensible human. We are enabling them to further fetishize the relationship aesthetic without actually allowing them to learn for themselves. It’s evident by the way so many people are making horrible mistakes nowadays. I know far too many people that have gotten engaged/married too quickly and either regret it, or had to go through hell to get past it. And we keep encouraging people, because the people who make these kinds of mistakes are the ones with low self esteem. Insecurity is a powerful motivator; but not always for good things. By feeding a person’s insecurity, through unwarranted attention, we’re further creating our own problems later on. These insecure people get married, have kids, and then don’t understand how to instill anything but further insecurity into their kids. My parents did it to me, their parents did it to them, and although I have no concrete evidence, I’m gonna guess that their parents did it to them too.

The only reason I’ve broken the cycle is because I didn’t want to live that way anymore. I understand why people don’t do it; overcoming insecurity is hard, and I am so glad I only have to deal with it on my bad days. But we can’t keep shouting “Relationship goals!!!” at people purely because we think they’re attractive. What truly has any couple posted to facebook or instagram that would prove that their relationship is the ultimate goal? Relationships don’t work like that. I mean, specifically to say “relationship goals” is subjective; Parker and I may be a goal for someone who understands how important communication is, but a person who values looks more than personality would certainly tag these insecure wrecks with that phrase. But the problem is that by being given a method with which we essentially rate each other on arbitrary, subjective scales of value, we suddenly are subjected to the judgments of others more intensely than before. And unfortunately, too many people value aesthetic more than they value actual humanity.

To be fair, personal aesthetic is fun to build, and it is not inherently bad for us to value aesthetics. Specifically, it is the combination of a society that values aesthetic more than humanity, and the hoards of attractive, insecure couples, that create problems. They tarnish the very name of hard-working couples who fight for their relationships.

For me, it’s hard. I’m not conventionally attractive, though I am attractive in my own way. But because my attractiveness does not reach a broad audience, my efforts to living a healthy, secure life are deemed not as important. My close friends recognize the things that deserve recognition, but I, as a figure in my community, am not very important. I always assume its because I just haven’t done anything worth recognizing, but then someone who has made terrible life decisions suddenly comes to the forefront of everyone’s lives. Then I start to wonder how people who do shitty things are allowed to be recognized before me or my fiance in such a way, before the reality hits me and I remember that it’s because, by the societal standard, I am not as attractive.

Or, maybe I’m just whiny that I’m not internet famous yet. Who knows.

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astralmorganite · 8 years ago

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3.3.2017 - Vows

Often I find myself wondering what I might write about the next time I get a chance to blog. While out and about my daily life, I can typically narrate the introduction paragraph in my head, regarding a few different topics. But it always seems that once I am sitting here, with tumblr open and ready to go, my mind suddenly draws a blank. It’s as if I suddenly realize that I had nothing to discuss beyond the introductions to certain topics, so I drop the idea entirely and then spend my time blankly staring into my empty post until I think of something better. But then that supposedly better topic becomes devoid of interest for one reason or another, and it all starts again. Part of me thinks this is just another manifestation of my depression; the lack of interest and the ability to give up quickly is telling. But perhaps I still have a chance to save the integrity of this blog post.

It’s March now, which means we are inching ever so closely to the big wedding day. Lately I’ve had to remind Parker that he needs to work on writing his vows, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he’s not very good at remembering to do things. We may be hiring an ASL interpreter for our ceremony, which means our vows need to be done a little sooner than later so the interpreter can go through them. I think Parker thinks he may have more time than he does to work on them, but while I sit here and somewhat chastise him, I must painfully admit that I have not quite worked on mine either. That is to say, I haven’t worked on mine on paper. I have done a lot of thought about how I want to write my vows; the format by which I pledge myself to him. I’ve come up with a theme, and a general outline of how I think it will turn out, but I have yet to actually pen the words I want to say.

I’ve decided the theme of my vows is going to be about choice. I spent a lot of time evaluating what made our relationship different, especially considering that about this time last year we were preparing for Parker’s sister to get married. In her wedding, she and her now-husband talked a lot about how they considered each other god-given blessings; that through their religious convictions, they had become worthy of each other. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this ideology in the slightest. Whether or not God exists does not change how I behave in my day-to-day life, and I don’t consider most of the sins of Mormonism to actually be problematic at all, therefore rendering their “worthiness” tests to be rather insignificant to me. But I found the common belief between them touching, and the idea of being fated to someone has always felt romantic to me. However, I find it more and more difficult to believe in some kind of fate guiding my life. I remember as a teen, it was much easier for me to identify with supernatural beings, but now it just seems improbable and illogical. But I did come upon a personal revelation regarding what I DO find equally romantic, and logical. This was the notion of individual choice, the idea that out of millions of people, Parker chose me.

Okay, well, more realistically he chose me out of thousands of local users of the dating site we met on, but the point still stands. Every day is a choice; there is nothing forcing us to be there for each other but our own personal drive to be what the other person needs. Parker currently has no obligation to put my life above anyone else’s life, but he chooses to honor me. And the same applies from me to him; I don’t have to be there, but I choose to be there. I choose to make his day better, I choose him before all else. And to me, it is the greatest honor to be both his secret keeper, and the recipient of his affections.

I intend to expand upon this when I write my actual vows, but I like this concept. It reminds me of a moment in the TV show, Rick and Morty on Adult Swim, where Morty confronts his sister, Summer. In this scene, Summer is upset over her parents’ marriage, and the implication that her birth ruined them, so she attempts to run away. Morty approaches her with the comforts of logic, saying to her:

Morty: That, out there, that's my grave.

Summer: Wait, what?

Morty: On one of our adventures, Rick and I basically destroyed the whole world, so we bailed on that reality and we came to this one, because in this one, the world wasn't destroyed and in this one, we were dead. So we came here, a- a- and we buried ourselves and we took their place. And every morning, Summer, I eat breakfast twenty yards away from my own rotting corpse.

Summer: So you're not my brother?

Morty: I'm better than your brother. I'm a version of your brother you can trust when he says "Don't run." Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV.

This moment is so critical to me. Throughout my life, I’ve comforted myself through believing that I had a significant purpose, like I was cosmically significant in some way that just hadn’t manifested yet. In my early teens, it helped as a significant motivator to move past my suicidal thoughts; I have to stay alive, I have a purpose to fulfill! But I have learned the last few years how damaging that mindset was to me in the long run. I feel grateful that these ideologies got me through high school, but once I graduated, it felt as though it was time for my significance to burst through me. It never came. That moment of suddenly finding my place in the world never happened. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t trying; I attempted to follow Mormon rhetoric and strictly followed a Mormon lifestyle for a long time. But when no relief came, I soon realized that I was living for the church’s benefit, not my own. Of course they benefit from me proselytizing and paying tithing. But I was no longer benefiting myself. I soon found resources that proved the Mormon church was lying to me, and decided for myself that the church was provably false. I broke off an engagement that would have led me to the Mormon Temple, and never looked back.

And since then I’ve learned to find meaning in insignificance. It’s true that in the context of that scene, Morty has concrete proof that multiverses exist. He has seen how insignificant his life decisions have led him; every choice he could possibly make has already been made on infinite numbers of other dimensions. He’s even met and interacted with other versions of himself before! How can he deny that he is just one of literally millions of outcomes that could have happened to him? In his mind, because all outcomes exist regardless of the actual choices he makes, his purpose is irrelevant. The version of himself that chose to commit horrible atrocities is the same Morty who stands before his sister. The Morty who would tell his sister that it’s ok, she has a purpose in life, also is the same Morty who tells her it’s ok to not have a purpose in life. This is only further evidence that if the choices are irrelevant, then there is no fated purpose to a single person’s existence. Ergo, nobody exists on purpose. However, in reality, it’s much harder to prove that multiverses exist, and that choices are widely irrelevant, except for in a cosmic sense. Speaking much more largely, aside from destroying our own planet, there isn’t really anything humanity can do to destroy the entirety of our Universe. The life choices of one individual does not change how the universe works, and even further does not even change how the Earth itself works. Nature will always be here, regardless of whether or not we sustain ourselves. For after humanity dies off, the Earth will still be here. Only by the inevitable heat-death of the sun will the Earth finally rest, but even then there is no human on earth who can stop that.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah.

Because our choices are irrelevant in the cosmic perspective, our cosmic purpose is non-existent as well. But just as Morty tells Summer not to run away from her life, we also cannot run. Just because there is no greater purpose for us, does not mean that we should spend our time in despair. It merely means that we must create our own purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere, but the place that you create for yourself.

I have created for myself a space within the world Parker and I have constructed around us. Meaning comes from the things we do together, all of the good and all of the bad. It’s meaningful for us to cook dinner together, to play video games and to discuss and critique media. It’s meaningful to us to work through our mental illnesses together; to triumph over the darknesses in our lives. We have made meaning between each other by building up our history together, by always putting each other first, by spending our time together.

It’s nice to have a place in the world, especially knowing it’s one he and I have created for ourselves.

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astralmorganite · 8 years ago

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2.24.17 - Streaming

(Just a note; this post has been slowly constructed in my drafts for about a week now. This may be why some of it feels jumbled. But I loved the writing too much to not share it.)

Sometimes you feel like writing, but the only thing that comes out of your mind are a series of jumbled thoughts, loosely tied together by a stream of consciousness that is too difficult to put down into words. I will make an attempt at a coherent narrative, but of course, there are no guarantees this entry will actually make any sense at all. Who knows where this stream may lead us! Perhaps we may call this an adventure of the mind?

To start, I suppose a rough introduction to the themes surrounding my thoughts today would be beneficial. Let’s throw some words out there, like love, and complexity. Love is complex. People are complex. Or in the least, people CAN be complex.

As a kid, my mom and dad inadvertently taught me that you must always strive to be the best. This is an idea I wouldn’t necessarily call inherently bad, but the way my parents did it really flipped my mind around. That statement, “Always strive to be the best”, doesn’t really qualify what “best” means, so for my parents, best meant “better than everyone else.” This is what I would call an inherently bad idea. Its predicated upon the concept that there is a standard across the board of judgement upon every human, and that it is possible to be objectively better than others. My personal problems from this way of thought form in two ways. First, because every human values different traits, there is no way for a society to collectively agree upon the values that make a person objectively “the best”. Second, the only way to really judge others to determine placement is through personal judgement, which is already flawed by the fact that, if a uniform and objective ranking system is impossible to create, then the only possible judgement is going to be based on subjectivity. To objectively be “the best” amongst all humans, one would have to appeal to literally all and any subjective judgments. For example, if I decided book smarts were much higher on the scale of human greatness, then to satiate my qualification, the “best human” would need to be book smart, as well as be the absolute best at having book smarts. However, say Parker considered street smarts preferable to book smarts. The same human, to meet a universal qualification, would need to be both street smart and book smart, thereby satisfying both of our requirements for “the best.” Needless to say, one person cannot satisfy the qualifications of billions, therefore there is no objective “best person”, only humans with billions of perspectives and internal rating systems that will never be universal.

For a long time, my internal rating system was based on complexity; it was based around how vivid and intricate a person’s personality was, and often I devalued humans whose openness made them unavailable for me to analyze in secret. A human who was too willing to share their personal complexity, regardless of how intricate that inner voice was, sat lower on my interests than, say, someone who would take more time to unfold. Perhaps this is also what drew me toward Parker, as his complexity was deeply hidden under years of caked-on darkness. But in any case, Parker seemed to be the exception to the rule. I’ve spent a lot of today analyzing relationships I’ve had, both platonic and romantic, for the purpose of understanding how my personal judgments have impacted the way my relationships have formed. I suppose if I were to give this stream of consciousness a “theme” so to speak, it would be this relationship between complexity, love, and judgment, and its implications across my life experiences.

Internally, it means that I have always striven for personal intricacy. I have always taken the route, whether by force or by choice, to look deeply into parts of myself. And let me reassure, I don’t intend to pass this off as bragging or as though my life is somehow better than anyone else. I simply mean to say that this idea of “becoming the best” has lead me, at more ignorant times of my life, to consider my personal complexity to be the trait I’ve tried to perfect, the trait I have built up the most in an attempt to be “the best”.

But what even is personal complexity? What does it mean to be an intricate person? For me, its about the combination of life experiences, wisdom, and relationships with vulnerability.

Life experiences are certainly a unique category because by default, they’re already heavily riddled with complexities in of themselves. But in this case, I am using life experiences and personal history as a general marker of complexity, not as a source. To me, this means that a person can have a complex history, but this does not necessarily equate to being a complex person. I think the way personal experiences influence complexity as a personality trait is through the value, whether negative or positive, each person gains from their life experiences. For instance, perhaps there is this imaginary person, we’ll call her Gina, who has several negative life experiences. Perhaps in her youth, Gina was beaten up by a classmate repeatedly through her childhood, and now in her adolescence she perpetuates the violence through others. This is a life experience, a sad personal life experience. But what makes a person complex, in my opinion, is the person’s relationship with that life experience. Does Gina realize she is perpetuating what happened to her? Or does she think her own violence is normal and does she have no true understanding of the nature of her life? It is one thing to perpetuate violence, and have an understanding of why that violence is caused so you can attempt to correct it, even if it is difficult or you slip up. It is another thing to perpetuate violence and never question its source, or to ignore the issue until it happens again. The complex version of Gina would be the version of her who establishes a relationship with her personal history, where she consistently attempts to understand her violent tendencies within the context of how violence was used against her. Even if she continued to perpetuate violence, the complexity of her character stems from her continued efforts to understand her history within the context of how it affected her. And this can happen in both positive or negative life experiences. For instance, perhaps Gina did not get physically assaulted, but rather she received a gold star for every good assignment she turned in, so in adolescence, a gold star has become a symbol of hope for her, and she recognizes it. It is a similar phenomenon to attribute meaning to life experiences in the positive, however may be easier for some than its negative counterpart.

My life experiences have left me with a myriad of understandings, both positive and negative. I’ve built up relationships with parts of my past in an effort to understand their daily effects on me; a process I have done for reasons more than just personal complexity. Fortunately, in coming to an understanding with my history, I have also been able to find healing from some of these parts. As it relates to my personal complexity, though, I would say my most complex relationship would be with weddings and wedding culture. This is especially so because I am currently in the process of planning my own wedding, and the triggers that inevitably come have some damning effects. But nevertheless, I have sought to remedy my triggers with logic and reason. Many years ago, I would work weddings as a caterer alongside my aunt. Weddings weren’t triggering then, because I was working them, and not experiencing them as a friend of someone in the wedding. But when the people in my graduating class began to quickly rush into marriages, I suddenly began to feel this overwhelming sense of urgency. It was somewhat unprecedented, in that I have had triggers before, but suddenly at the start of my post-high school career, weddings became this huge expectation. It wasn’t necessarily that I specifically was being pressured by anyone, but I felt societal pressure coming from the reality that all my friends were moving on. I would argue that the societal pressure made me feel as though I should marry quickly, and coupled with my insecurity and fear of abandonment, it influenced me to feel triggered at the thought of any one else close to me getting married.

So now I have this complicated relationship with weddings. Specifically, I have problems accepting that others may and will get married before me. I haven’t quite uncovered why it is that I envy those who come first, but in my journey of bettering myself, I’m always evaluating these triggers. I have come to some potential theories, but also as I approach my own wedding, I find that the triggers are not as prominent. Perhaps to solve my triggers, I just need to go ahead and get married. If this is the case, it is a mighty good thing that’s already in the works.

But overall, this relates to my personal complexity because I have evaluated and analyzed my relationships with my trigger. I have developed this nuanced relationship regarding how societal pressures have had an effect on me. I now have a clearer understanding of myself and how that relates to my trigger, and it is not a relationship that can be replicated without my personal history. I could choose to just listen to the irrational thoughts that happen when I’m triggered, and fully believe that I am upset because other people don’t deserve to get married. Or, I can choose to explore these complicated life experiences that lead me to come to an understanding about my fear of abandonment, and choose to build up that complex history that gives me more depth of character.

Furthermore, the analysis of life experiences often leads to our second characteristic of a complex individual, this being the amount of wisdom a person has to offer. Personally, I find that wisdom does not equate to intelligence, but rather, wisdom is the measure of how much insight a person has into their own life, and to a degree the lives of others. This essentially means that a person with wisdom would be a person who is capable of introspection, and analysis of one’s own life. Although it is not required of my definition, I often find that people with higher amounts of wisdom are people who can, within a certain degree of accuracy, analyze others as well. Wisdom influences complexity in that it gives people the ability to have more nuanced views of behavior; a tool that a complex person would need to build their character and have better understanding of their own personality. For example, Gina might be a wise person because she can adequately identify some of the conflicting parts of her personality. She knows that her violent history is wrong, but understands that this was something she programmed into herself through her past trauma. Gina, as a wise person, could then be able to identify when others are perpetuating their pasts, by being able to identify that conflict within her personality, within herself. Gina, having built up understanding of her past, now builds up wisdom by understanding her future relationship with violence. I suppose one way to express this concept is that having a relationship with your history is to understand where you come from and that influence on your present, and to have wisdom is to understand where your personality will lead you in the future. Wisdom, therefore, adds to an individual’s character and complexity by giving them direction, and the capability to further build relationships with recurring themes within their lives. It gives complex people the ability to have an understanding of these themes, and gives them further connections to more intricate schools of thought.

I feel as though my understanding of my personality has come from the fact that as a child, I had absolutely no consistency or understanding of myself. It seemed as though everything was handed to me as a child; my understanding of the world was given to me by my parents and grandparents, my likes and dislikes were determined by things I already owned. I had very little control over who I was at that time, as I was rarely offered choice from the things that were brought into my world. I remember this being relatively consistent, until I was about twelve, when, in practically one day, I realized that I deserved to be whomever I wanted to be, and not what was given to me. From then forward, I devoted myself to personal understanding; starting small with things like developing my music tastes and eventually moving up to understanding the complexities of identity and identity politics in the greater world. I would say that my inner wisdom developed largely after I turned sixteen, and I moved to Utah. This changed my life, because now it was no longer about casually discovering myself alongside my friends, but it was establishing my personality despite being in a culture that was exactly opposite of what I already established. I had already begun to find my personal truths; I knew the Mormon church was objectively false (more on this in a later entry, perhaps), and that I identified as queer. But being thrown into a world where my views were suddenly in the minority, I had to learn where my personality fit into the grand scheme around me. I had to understand new mindsets while also retaining my personality. I would argue this time frame also helped me let go of pretentiousness, something I picked up in California growing up. But I had the capability to analyze the parts of my personality that would benefit me, and the ones that would not. This deeper understanding helps increase my ability to better function, although it also creates an interesting dichotomy between good and bad attributes within me. That dichotomy is what I believe gives a person complexity; being able to identify the good and the bad, and how those forces play into daily life. When a person does develop this understanding within themselves, they develop their personal complexity by adding to their list, so to speak, of attributes that they understand about themselves, and as that list grows, so does the complexity of their personality.

Which brings us to my last identifier, a relationship with vulnerability. My last two points had a lot to do with the ability to understand, and the desire to consistently search for understanding, but vulnerability is a beast of a different nature. If I had the time, I could probably write an entry entirely dedicated to vulnerability, but here I will only give a small introduction to my thoughts as they relate to personal intricacy. Vulnerability is a word I use here to describe openness; the ability to express deeper feelings, and the ability to accept those deep feelings within yourself. I would describe vulnerability in these two ways, the internal and external vulnerability, as two linked, but inevitably different phenomenons. Vulnerability manifests differently for different kinds of people, unfortunately, so it makes it a little more difficult to explain cleanly, but I would argue that it mainly rests upon a person’s security to decide what kind of vulnerability a person is experiencing. So while people may have external and internal vulnerability, it further breaks it down into high and low self esteem. I will identify these subsets as External-Low, External-High, Internal-Low, Internal-High. Although I won’t get into these categories in depth here, I promise a future entry will go over vulnerability in depth.

First and foremost, regarding vulnerability, is that the only way this does not contribute to personal complexity is to reject the idea of vulnerability entirely. Everyone experiences vulnerability at some point, but the truly complex person would have an understanding of it. Therefore, the only person for whom vulnerability does not give them a “leg up” so to speak, is the person who chooses to avoid understanding, who chooses to reject vulnerability. This is often why, personally, I have a hard time finding complex value in men absorbed in American Male culture. American Masculinity values are often geared towards dispelling all vulnerability, which creates people who deny, in the least, emotional complexity. But tangents aside, essentially this implies that embracing vulnerability at any of the four categories would improve personal intricacy, even if the low self-esteem category would, outside of this article, be looked down upon. That may be another entry in of itself.

Vulnerability in the external would be a person’s ability to express their deeper feelings. Earlier in this post, I mentioned that I used to look down upon complex people who were too eager to share the inner complexities of their personality. High external-low vulnerability manifests, in my experience, in these kinds of people. High external vulnerability would imply a general ability to express deep or more difficult emotions, where low self-image causes a person to continually seek for people with whom to share their vulnerability. I have consistently found myself unable to properly develop connections with people who are so open about themselves that they share their deepest vulnerabilities at the start, although I think this may be an aversion to low self image, and not vulnerable people.

Internally vulnerable people are the kinds of people who can look at their lives and experiences with a critical eye. By the word critical, of course, I intend it to be perceived not with negative connotations, but rather in the way one might watch a movie and critique what they watched. Internal vulnerability is manifested by the way that someone can look at their lives and establish connections, who can look at their emotions and understand them, even if it is difficult.

These two kinds of vulnerability indicate complexity in that all people have life experiences just by existing, but a truly complex person strives to have understanding of both of these attributes within them. Complex people are always growing, always changing. They’re always analyzing and reviewing different aspects of their emotional range and coming to bigger understandings about themselves and the world around them. In some senses, vulnerability is a result of personal intricacy rather than a cause of it, but in either case the point is to have both within yourself.

And perhaps my writing has given more away about myself than it has evaluated a topic. Perhaps I am ignorant of what complex people are truly like, and I merely base everyone on a scale of how closely they relate to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were the case. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of my MANY imaginary readers came to me and said “Hey Lisa, this isn’t what people are like; that’s just what YOU are like.” Given this statement, I would be forced to concede to them, because I’m not quite sure yet how to argue against epistemological solipsism, but damn it, I’ll try!

In any case, if this is just a summation of who I am as a person, I’m proud to be it.

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astralmorganite · 8 years ago

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2.20.17 - Remembering

I’m not even at work today but I decided I had the inspiration to write. If the inspiration comes, I suppose you might as well take advantage of it. It is fortunate in this regard; instead of a long, disorganized post about my daily life, you’re going to get an article with cohesive thought. Or at least, somewhat of a cohesive thought. I can’t ever guarantee that my mind will work cohesively. As far as my history goes, I’m not known for avoiding tangents.

But my history is kind of what I wanted to talk about in this post. As I get older, I notice myself having less and less in common with the versions of me that experienced my past. It feels almost as though I’m telling a story I’ve heard before; not one I’ve experienced for myself. Up until the last year or two, parts of my past were still relevant in my daily life. I interacted with people from those stories, I still had more direct contact with the effects of my past, and I certainly had fresher memories of the events in question. It is an odd sensation, to feel disconnected from the person you used to be. In a metaphysical sense, it feels like the vast number of possible timelines converged; as if me meeting Parker and our time together is an event that happens across all of my possible timelines, and now we’re all in sync until the next great division. In a realistic sense, it means that my life has moved on so far beyond these events, that I no longer associate them with who I am today. The realist may be more accurate but the metaphysicist in me likes to dream.

But even still, I am a nostalgic person. I am always saving little trinkets and papers and really anything that seems memorable to me. I have three gargantuan binders full of sheet protectors and old art pieces, on top of an old trunk full of books, photos, and things. I have always wanted to have a connection with the past, even when it is difficult. And recently that has manifested itself in the form of critical analysis of history with which I don’t really connect anymore.

And to clarify, I don’t mean to say that I have reignited some sort of unhealthy obsession over the details of past events. I certainly don’t see my past as some mystery that needs to be reexamined constantly. It’s worth noting that by being disconnected, it means I’ve found closure, thus severing that relationship. I just also find that having relationships with difficult parts of one’s past gives them a certain complexity. But just not even caring seems, well, cold. I simply wish to examine these situations under the new lens I have formed within me; if I have changed enough to feel this much removed from those pasts, then obviously I have a fresh perspective at which to observe my history.

Initially I wanted to write about each event in particular, then describe the modern opinion I derive from these experiences, but in order to protect the privacy of others I have opted to instead write about them very generally.

It would seem to me that perhaps one reason for the schism in my personalities then and now, could be that I now see my past as a mechanism for having built my personality. Now that I am an adult, I have an understanding of who I am. Those experiences were tools to gain that understanding, but now that the foundation has settled, it’s time for me to move to building up other things. Now it’s about understanding of my place in the world, it’s understanding of how the greater world works. And what a time to do so! The work of social justice needs more people to come to bigger understandings now that Trump is president.

But I digress. Cutting ties with my past has altered me in other ways, too. I am reminded of a time in my life that I allowed my tragedies to be my chains. I wore them like tragic trophies. It was as if I were always saying, “look, see how broken I am. Look how much I have survived.” Sure I was surviving, but I wasn’t thriving. It is as if I left behind the survivor and found the happiness I knew I could have. I picture it as if I am running out of the darkness at the end of the tunnel, and instead of passing through it, a different version of me comes out the other side. I am now this new thing, looking over my shoulder at the Lisa in the darkness and mouthing back “I’m so sorry“ as I keep running through the light.

This isn’t to say that my life doesn’t have darkness in it still. I still suffer from depression, though it is mostly confined to winter now. I have also developed an anxiety disorder, which I never had before 2015. But the strides I have taken in conquering things like my low self esteem, and managing my depression have given me hope. I have hope to the point that I have almost completely eliminated my suicide ideation. But this doesn’t mean I don’t still have my bad days. I just can’t remember the last time I truly felt tempted to self-harm. That is a huge step from who I used to be.

Sometimes I think about all the people I’ve lost along the way, and I find that I don’t regret any of them. It’s so much better to cut out toxicity than try to work within it. And oftentimes I find that those toxic people continue to create their own problems ad infinitum. I think that there are probably many people that found me in the past to be toxic. I honestly would agree with them; I was probably a toxic person in the past. But I have left them behind. I left that version of me behind and chose to make myself better. I don’t feel toxic anymore. I don’t feel rage or hatred anymore.

But of course, that doesn’t mean that those people aren’t toxic either. It doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be toxic to me now.

But I think I’ve just left behind the most toxic one.

Who would have thought it was myself?

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astralmorganite · 8 years ago

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2.14.17 - Valentine

I remember the day we met face to face. You had a sullen expression, one you would wear less as time went on, but on that day I saw the darkness you placed in front of yourself. I witnessed as the facade you wore took me to coffee, listening to me ramble about whatever was going on in my life at that time. I don’t even remember what I talked about now, but I do remember you listened. You cared. That was the first crack in the facade. It was the first crack that would eventually shatter the whole cage around you.

I remember when you first kissed me. I had been laying in your arms, comfortably watching your static expression instead of the movie playing on the projector. You looked down at me and I sensed your fear. I had no context for this kind of reaction from you, but you began stroking my arms, slowly pushing me to you. I let my lips align with yours before you leaned in and kissed. The gentle sensation of your soft lips imprinted upon me a memory; you were so sweet and delicate, as if I were a porcelain treasure for whom you took care.

I remember when I started to understand what happened to you. The fear behind your eyes started to make sense. The darkness that you hid behind took on a reality that I could understand. You invited me into your world, into your personal hell that had caked itself around your heart and soul for nearly a decade. Dragging through the sludge, together we began to understand this darkness, and through understanding, we slowly began to conquer it. The fear in your eyes was replaced with hope, though the depression still reigned. The second crack in the darkness branched out from the first. The extension of your trust to me over time chiseled out of the initial breaking point. The darkness was starting to disappear.

I remember when my friends opposed you. I knew your heart had been buried under darkness for so long, but I also knew that below the weight of it all, it still kept beating. They couldn’t see that. They couldn’t see you. They could not peer into your being so deep down that they could hear the heartbeats; not like I could. And I did. Every day I would come to you, and every day I would try to help you chip away at the petrified darkness. It felt as though every day I was working to save your life, but the world around me felt you should be left to die. I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t let it happen. Every broken piece of darkness meant the heartbeats would grow louder, and I wanted to see the soul underneath. I knew there had to be something underneath.

I remember when your vulnerability began to show. It had been a year to the day that we began this adventure together, and the next step in our goals needed to be realized. You began what you expected to be a hardship, but found yourself slowly appreciating the time. No longer did your depression have a source for constant mourning; your mind became occupied with responsibility. It felt so quick, the way you began to take on a new form. It felt like all at once, our work finally started to pay off. Your soul, your golden heart I knew was underneath the crust, started shining through the darkness. The flecks of warm light coming from within you grew stronger, until they were no longer flecks, but pure beams of light. It was beautiful, because you have always been beautiful, but to see that beauty in its rawest form brought me to tears. It still does, because that light has always shone through you since that day I first suspected its existence.

I remember when we outgrew our childhood homes. We had become different people than who we were when we first met. But the changes we made over time bonded us. We went to events, we revived an old social circle, we supported and uplifted each other. And when these changes culminated in a life that we couldn’t live from our homes, we found a place of our own. More than the physical location of our apartment, the feeling of home, of safety and security, began to grow between us. No longer was our relationship dependent upon the throes of initial attraction and the daily maintenance of a blossoming relationship, for we had bloomed. It was then I knew that I could love you for my whole life. It was only when we had found home in each other’s hearts that our love could be solidified. It was only when I had accepted you fully into my world, that I knew I could make our love last.

But then I remember the hardship. Breaking down your darkness helped us understand how to break down mine as well. With you I felt safe, with you I felt like I could always have a home and a family. But one day, that safety shattered into a million pieces. We survived, but the armed home invasion on June 23rd, 2016 nearly destroyed every piece of security within me. I remember having flashbacks for days, envisioning the face of our bloodied roommate after the assailants took off. I remember counting my breaths to combat the shock and the rapid pulse of my adrenaline-fueled heart. But most importantly, I remember the words you quietly signed to me, “It will be ok.” I remember thanking the heavens that we could communicate without sound, that our hands could speak just as much as our lips. I remember being afraid of the sounds of violence coming from outside our bedroom, but the sight of your hands carefully spelling out silent comforts kept me safe. I remember staying with your parents for the next week after, crying and wondering if this would ever happen again, all while holding your hands tightly in mine.

I remember when we decided to go ring shopping. The feeling of safety had returned to us in slow waves, and the offering of an heirloom diamond from my mother prompted us to maneuver our way closer to our goal. You were hesitant, where I felt confident in our journey. But you’ve always been a little hesitant towards big things. Needless to say, this was a big step. And fully realizing it in the form of making such a large purchase certainly would have made any sensible person tremble at least a bit. But I have not always been sensible, have I?

I remember when the ring was finished being sized. I remember going with you to bring it home, and then subsequently spending the next few days secretly pulling it out of the box to stare at it. I don’t know if you knew that I was doing that, but I’m fairly certain you probably expected it from me. If you didn’t notice, then it is more than likely not a surprise to hear me say this now.

I remember when your surprise proposal fell through, how disappointed you were to not have the chance to give me the proposal we thought we wanted. I felt so excited at the idea we would be getting engaged that day, then instantly conflicted that it wouldn’t be happening anymore. I remember telling myself that it would be ok, that the surprise wasn’t necessary. In the end, I was right; the surprise wasn’t needed. After that long day of being out of the house, we went home. The next day I had planned on going to a dress shop, and you wanted me to have my ring with me. Without a word, you gently slid the ring onto my finger, tears welling up in your eyes. I was silent too, my heartbeat became the loudest rhythm in the room. There was a pause as the weight of the ring registered in my brain, and the full scope of what was happening registered in my brain. Regardless of whether or not I took off the ring from this point forward, we were engaged. We only needed to prove it to the world. And about a week later, we did. We took pictures, we showed off. But nothing could compare to that rhythmic thumping of my heart as you held my hand and declared me to be yours.

And now we’re here, having spent the last five months working, planning, discovering. I feel like in this time since we’ve been engaged, I’ve discovered more happiness within us than I ever had before meeting you. The amount of growth we’ve been through for the last two-and-three-quarter years is so much more gargantuan than the seedlings from which we came. It’s incredible to see you so confident, to see the golden soul I saw underneath your depression years ago. I sacrificed a world I knew to travel into the unknown, and it has paid off infinite times over. You are my hero, my life, my soul. You have given me more than I could ever have asked for in life, and because of this, I will pay you back infinitely in love and support. For as long as the universe allows, I will devote myself to you.

A marriage licence may inform the government that I am yours, but every day I sign my name in blood and sweat and tears, written over the same contract we’ve had since April 27th, 2014.

seven.twenty-seven.seventeen

three years and three months to the day.

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