Tuesday, November 4, 2014

A Thing

I still reflexively hide, muffle, question, sit on and obsess over feelings of affection and especially attraction, because I am still in some ways the product of my pre-teen and teenage self. I felt a figure of ridicule, pity, and disgust. I reacted to attention from others by becoming completely blank, stoney-faced, by walking by, looking straight ahead and shutting down, being deaf and blind and immovable. I don't want to give the impression that I was, particularly, bullied or hard done by, I brought much of it on myself. I don't want to seem self obsessed. But I am self obsessed. And I endlessly analyse and judge and wonder and ruminate and worry and fear and flagellate. And that's what this post is about really. I nearly got caught up ruminating about whether or not it's a good idea to write this post about rumination, because distraction is important, and turning your attention outward is important, but also writing is important - to me - and finding your voice is important, if you want to make art, or write. I want to unravel this tangle of neuroses and psychological traps and step out of it like a pile of discarded clothing.

Anyway, I digress. So if I had a crush when I was young, I knew beyond any doubt that I would be ridiculed if anyone found out. So I kept it secret.

Now, almost unconsciously a switch is flipped, the decision that I cannot allow another person to suspect what my feelings are. The feelings seem unwieldy and melodramatic, ill-informed and undesirable, and so much of that is because they've been filed immediately under 'dark secret', and then take on those qualities which a secret possesses, whether inherently appropriate to begin with or not. I want to be light of heart, to be immediately genuine, but I deflect the normal healthy feeling back inside and it gets stuck and infected and becomes A Thing - polluted, overblown, and growing. And I don't want it to be A Thing - actually I am so jealous of people who can just have meaningless sex, or not meaningless - but a brief meeting, an exchange, in which everyone is upfront, and each person takes what they need and then that's it.

I desperately want intimacy from relationships, I want intimate friendships. That means honesty and trust and love. For me I think it also means the other person providing me with validation and a sense of self worth that it is not in fact anybody else's responsibility to provide.

I shouldn't need to impress or prove myself, prove that I have an inner life that is intelligent, nuanced, deeply emotional, perceptive, worthwhile, and have it proved to me. I am those things anyway. In trying to prove it I will inevitably arrive nowhere, with the conceit that without proof I am not worthwhile.

I put The Thing in place and it becomes a barrier, a smothering blanket on my genuine feelings and responses. I prevent myself from real experience and real interaction and self actuation, paralysed by fear and indecision. Obsessively, compulsively thinking, checking, reviewing my thoughts, feelings, actions postpones my own meaningful experience, and my behaviour ends up calculated, erratic, manipulative.

I want to be light of heart.