penmanship - Tumblr blog

[penmanship]

Long have I loathed change.

Change is good, said the ad on TV.

As a child I cried over it in fear.

No! I screamed, Change is bad!

You will change, I was told.

All things change.

Living is changing.

They were right.

Feelings change.

Change is working me.

I still despise its loss of control.

I still cling to placid, deadly familiarity.

Yet there is release in the past fading.

Yes, let feelings change.

Yes, give me growth.

Yes, set me free.

[penmanship]

Dream Nov 10 2021

I just woke screaming at 2am from a dream where I slipped on a rug and fell backward.

It took an incredibly intense, tense, frightening 30 seconds to stop screaming and realize that the sensation of falling had been induced by a dream, not actually falling. My body continued to tell me otherwise, though. My foot had even spasmed and jerked into the air. The vertigo and nerve tingling hasn't stopped. Gotta get my heart to stop racing.

I wonder if my neighbors heard. :0 Awkward.

[penmanship]

"Useful information, as always," he says in a sarcastic tone.

I'm still for a moment, stunned as I turn the words over again. Despite reviewing, the examination still reveals the sarcasm where he implies that no information I give is useful.

My body moves from its shocked state to burn hot for a brief moment, before I turn and leave the room. In silence, the heat leaves quickly, and I feel very cold. Cold and lonely. I theorize that the reason being told that my information is frequently useless is because I take pride in being able to help others with the information I have collected. I have few skills and many difficulties. So this dismissal, however albeit unintentional, hits close to my insecurities of being unable to communicate and feeling ever, ever throughout my life so useless.

I return to the room and tell him his words hurt me. In my head I repeat the question, "Why would you say that?" Yet I already know the answer. Logically, I know he said them because he is frustrated. This makes sense to me, because I had already known he had a day that frustrated him, and the topic we had been discussing compounded frustration.

He tells me that I too often state the obvious. That my comments are too often needless. That the information is too often already known. He tells me he didn't mean to hurt my feelings, that he was overexagerating, and that I take things too literally. He reasserts this by repeating the series of informational exchanges we had just gone through before he said it.

I leave again quietly, and retreat to the couch to consider the interaction.

He follows me out. I tell him I need some time to myself to think and write. He continues to explain himself.

I think about how often he repeats himself. How often he rehashes things he had already told me, and how often I am confused by the repetition which proves unhelpful to me. Perhaps it is the same. My attempts to pass on information he finds useless and his attempts to remind me of what had just been said.

I tell him I need some time to myself to think and write. He continues to reexplain himself. My panic grows as he continues to speak. I stare blankly, my heart racing faster and faster. His words blur into the background and my vision blurs from the building panic. I rise and leave the room. I know he will try to follow me no matter where I go. I know he will not give me time to process. I know he is the type who feels he must solve a dispute immediately. I remember how many times I've tried to explain that I need time to process things when I am hurt, and that I feel cornered and lash out if I am unable to get away to do so.

I head into the washroom and lock the door behind me. I slide to the floor in the dark. The panic begins to subside. My body begins to relax. I concentrate on my breathing to slow its rate and that of my heart.

He stops outside the door and demands I come out. He tells me I can go back to the couch. I wonder if he needs to use the washroom, so I ask him why he insists. He answers, "Because." I wait for him to finish his thought. The silence stretches on, ominous. Unsettled, I ask, "Is there an end to that sentence?" His voice sounds irritated when he replies, "Because it's weird."

While in my irritatation, I return to the couch and try to finish organizing my thoughts over the increasingly compounded situation. After another short time he returns again to apologize and ask if I still want to watch the movie he spent time setting up for us. My mouth opens to reply, and I hold in the urge to cry. Again I have trouble finding a way to explain in a way that he will understand and accept so that he will listen to me and recognize my need to process information.

I explain that my processing power is limited to individual strands of information at a time. That I need to process one before I can begin the next task. That when he brings me more words to process, my queue becomes tangled, my mind unstable, as I lose the ability to grasp or remember any of the topics discussed. I desperately try to write down what is being said as he says it in the hope that I can reread it later and resort my queue.

I hear him apologize. I wonder what that means, and whether it is toward the comment or his reaction to my attempts at leaving the conversation over and over again. He clarifies that he refers to his overexageration. He mentions how I get caught in negativity, and I remember how many times I have been told throughout my life that I am overreacting. Coldly, I analyze how often such situations are the results of culmination of panic over being unable to process things I find difficult.

He reminds me that I often say whatever is on my mind without considering whether it hurts others. He mentions that I have told him I give thought to all my words, and yet say hurtful things. He again apologizes for what he said, and again asks if I am coming, or if he should take me home. I try to find a response. Any response that will give me time to finish and meet my own needs. I tell him five minutes.

I feel bewildered.

[penmanship]

Again, but this time intimately. Slowly climbed atop, and gently held there. Why?

In her layered black tulle dress cut several sizes up from mine, its ruffles scraping skin.

Feelings of sweetness and sadness, while borrrowed rhinestones glittered.

[penmanship]

Tired Me: I'm hungry...

Concerningly Optimistic Singsong Voice Me: GREAT! Food's cooking! Ready to eat?

Tired Me: Is it the same thing we've h-

Concerningly Optimistic Singsong Voice Me: It's the same thing we've had 5 days in a row!

*loud explosion in microwave*

Concerningly Optimistic Singsong Voice Me: Aaaand we'll figure something else out!

[penmanship]

A note I wrote AUG 30 2019

I hate it when you have a sudden out of body experience and get jolted back into feeling inside your body, and you hear yourself thinking, "Is this my body?" and then you hear a different voice in your head answer, "Yes, this is currently my body."

...Currently? CURRENTLY? WHAT?

Excuse you, I was using this body first. Probably.

[penmanship]

It's my responsibility to speak for myself and communicate my feelings, but I'm too selfish and greedy to set healthy boundaries.

Petty Complaints and Self Pity

I don't want to go out to eat, especially at an expensive restaurant when my finances wither, but I don't say anything. I don't want to refold the laundry he tossed aside when I'm injured and frustrated by brusque treatment, but I don't say anything. I don't want to come over to his place when I'm busy and tired, but I don't say anything. I don't tell him no because I don't want him to get annoyed and stop being my lover, or, far worse, stop being my friend. I understand that if he is my friend then he will remain my friend even if I stop saying yes. It's just that I would rather, if it happens to be the case, keep pretending. I am currently unable to emotionally withstand loss of time with someone I am this close with. At the least, I do know that I speak my wishes to him, then he will immediately be respectful of anything I want or don't want, but he will also promptly lose interest in spending time with me. However, I know this is ending either way. It is fading into the one year mark of us being intimate. Fading like steam carried away by breeze, evaporating and losing heat. I want to stay warm, but I'm holding in so many tears that when they break I fear most of my feelings will evaporate, too.

[penmanship]

Feeling incredibly alone, in both the sense of isolation and the malaise of loneliness. I've lost the feeling of being in love, which had kept me going. Regardless of type, desire, or intention, being in love is a state that motivates me to live, care for myself, and accomplish my dreams. Without it I linger wraithlike in halls staring at walls, wondering why I am here or anywhere at all. There is currently nobody convenient to consider falling for and focusing my attention on. The people of interest in my vicinity are ineligible for various reasons of my own. There are a few I'd accept bestowing with my allegiance, but they live oversea or crosscountry. It would not be sensible to become besotted with someone who would rarely be able to alleviate other needs that plague me. Doing so also risks my foul moods, and I refuse to onset such chance. I am severely displeased that the only wise choice presently is to... cope with myself on my own. Alone.

[penmanship]

I have the anxietea~♡

[penmanship]

I... sketched today.

I feel fear, relief, wonder, longing, sadness, and the tiniest strain of hope that I attempt to smother even in its first moments. Those lingering phrases... these repeated feelings. I am haunted.

You give me... No. You gave these...

Now give me my heart. I want to be able to draw again. Where is my heart? What did I do with it? To it? Was it lost? Am I finding it?

[penmanship]

Again. I'd fallen asleep in the afternoon while playing Octopath on my Switch in bed. This time, in my dream, I was peacefully napping in the sunshine in her lap. I heard her voice say, "It's time to wake up," and I opened my eyes to see her face filtered through bright gold and red rays from the sunset. Then I woke for real, gasping for air from empty lungs. Gotta get her outa my head.

[penmanship]

I was with her in my dream again.

Winter hit Portland hard in an unexpected storm. Wet snow, hail, and freezing rain mingled until every step forward on the sidewalks was a treacherous risk. Jagged, thick icicles crashed around me and broke against the shifting ice under my feet as I tried to follow those running for shelter. I struggled and nearly lost my balance before someone caught my arm and led me into a dimlit nightclub. Others shivered just inside the door as well, and ice shook and melted from coats to form puddles in the dark. I went past a second set of doors to a dancefloor lit only by rotating spotlights and flashy LEDs. My focus went immediately, directly toward her. I hadn't known she was still in town. My breath caught and my shivering stopped in my surprise. I stood in the doorway watching her dance. Gorgeous. Colors rotated across her, lit her face and hair and clothes, and made the moment seem magical. She turned toward me, and I turned away and walked down a hallway. My heart was racing and I needed to calm down. Heat and cold flashed in turn through my chest and stomach. Anxiety. Thrill. Longing. Sorrow. Though I wasn't watching, it was like I sensed her presence when she approached me. She stopped a bit away. I stared at my shoes where ice still melted from my laces. I heard her talking to someone about safe shelters for transgender and other queer people to stay during the storm. Names and locations. Some place called Paramour was a block or two away, aparently, but almost full. Since the roads were impassable, she mentioned she was heading toward the river to wait out the frigid night in a place called Boho. As she walked past me I stepped forward and caught her sleeve. "Don't leave me," I begged. The look in her eyes hurt me. It wasn't something obvious, like concern or anger. It was just looking deep into my own eyes, searching, reading my soul. For what? Why? What did she want?

I woke from the dream with my heart aching anew. As always, it felt so real.

[penmanship]

I've survived 4,748 days.

I truly couldn't have imagined getting this far. I didn't believe it possible. Yet I chose to stay and get my revenge by having a life I can live. I will have my own choice. There is more to living than being alive. Since I've survived 13 years now, I'm determined to do more than survive. You see I'm here?

[penmanship]

 I find it kind of funny. I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had.

There is bearable consequence should I not again connect with another deeply, or even form a partnership of both love and sex.

I ought prepare myself for such an outcome, though I know some of the consequences will be borne of sadness, disappointment, loneliness, and a terrible desire to be wanted by someone I cherish and with who I choose intimacy.

Know me. Understand me. Want me. Don't leave me. These are such childish wishes. Echoes from the childhoods of we who have been abused and neglected.

[penmanship]

When you need someone there for you is when you either find confirmation of those who actually care or you discover how very lonely you are.

[penmanship]

I already did my crying.

Isn't it time to be numb again?

I feel the tension of suppressed sobs.

My chest is painfully constricted.

I need to stop caring so deeply.

Swallow shards of heartbreak.

Stop missing joys of the past.

Recognize the oncoming reality.

I have to get through this.

[penmanship]

Laugh out loud, because it turns out I'm unlovable.

I've been unwanted since the womb, and am used to that default, but knowing that my company has become an inconvenience not worth the trouble is still somehow painful.

I am worthy. I know this. I just don't know anyone who recognizes this. No one in my life wants the weight of my life, and that's understandable, but that also shows a lack of love. People say they care about me. I know they care on a surface level, but not when I am in need. I'm the only one who cares for my worth right now, and that's disheartening.

Love can fuck off.