Catharsis: in light of the future, the past revisited

This is going to be an EPIC entry. It just came pouring out and in typing it I was given really meaningful clarity on some things.

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I used to be in a bad way. I guess that was me struggling against total disillusionment. Things happened so fast in college, too fast for me to enjoy them. I was unhappy and self destructive. I did not know how to treat myself and how to embrace my body or sexuality. I did not know how to communicate and feel solidarity in friendships without feeling the need for them to understand my unhappiness, my tormenting recent past that I carried with me everywhere. 

That being said it was the most creative time of my life. My brain was open and I was constantly learning. I was constantly thinking and trying to apply words to my thoughts. I did not simply pick the easier words. I made up metaphors if nothing else. "I was floating today, in his presence. I was on a roller coaster with no seat. Every time he smiled we were lifted. The butterflies in my stomach were drunk and dizzy. I got caught in a ray of sunshine." This is how I talked in 2006. I know because I have proof.

Losing Jenna from my life was an ordeal. I had autonomy with her that could have been mostly fabricated on my part because I was so thirsty for it. I went up against life issues post graduation and gradually became more and more disillusioned. My creativity waned. Wes became my project. My career seemed unrewarding and pointless. I kept having the desire to better myself, the thought of going back to school but I never could commit because it was never something that I knew would pay off and I couldn't be let down again. I stopped trying. I started eating. I watched too much Netflix, poured my heart into Journey and Wes. 

Now, in the company of impassioned people, I realize how apathetic I've become. I think I released a lot of my youthful volatility in order to persevere. It's easier for some than others. I've never known myself. Ever. What constants I have in my life I have kept at arms length, unable to fully embrace them so as to avoid the pain when they are no longer there. 

I've made bad decisions in choices of people I would cling to like a barnacle, trying to convince myself they would not abandon me.

One good thing, I guess from all this, is I am completely able to recognize it and talk about it without being emotional, without it taking over. I guess that is something. 

I feel like I have taken hibernation from really growing.

Here is something I wrote in early '06:

poem dedicated to Ativan

Life. Love. The man up above. Who the hell knows?

My mom is gone, my dad is mad at being alive

My roommate is troubled and my puppy is sick

Everyday I think I’ll be inspired again in what used to be

And I sit here complacently

Is this what it feels like to be ‘normal’?

Am I finally on a conventional wavelength?

I am noting these things because they came from me. It's crazy, it's like getting to know a stranger but then that stranger is actually yourself and was there all along. Sometimes now, when I almost say something, I think, "this is what a stoner would say" and I leave it. For a long time, my friends still thought I smoked and abused pills. I wasn't though, that thought/stuff was just inside of me. There was no application for it's existence and eventually I shed it on my quest to become a grown up. 

This is the last, and most resonant poem of mine I found. Its really unbelievable I think. I can't believe that I wrote this.

Shattered

Is it over and done? 

I so badly wanted there to be a "one" 

I wanted it to be you

I wanted to hope

As it turned out, I guess this is God's joke

I'm not strong enough to be your guide, not when from you sometimes I must hide. 

Your love turned out to be a lie. And isn't it obvous the next rhyme ends in cry? 

I thought you'd embrace me and our experiences would be shared

But of course, back to normal me: Alone and Scared 

I sit in my closet hiding from no one, sit on my couch contemplating "done" 

I hide so much. I hide from the echo of betrayal and now it's come back around

I'm like lightning, alone in the night, surrounded by people full of fright

I choose to open up ever so intimately to people who don't know I overanalyze their sentimentality

Why does everything on earth die and wither away but i can't forget the words I've often heard you say? 

Is the only thing that lasts remembrance of the past? 

I know I'll find another relationship and some things will be the same, but I'll never again hope to seek a man to which I stake my claim

Gradually we lose that hope that burned inside

Sooner or later, our innocence gets taken with the tide

What's left when your strength is gone? 

Oh well, I guess everyone just moves on

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In this space a conclusion belongs.