Jen just jen

full :: transparency
2021-03-01 19:26:28 (UTC)

I should probably get going ..

I should probably get going with the next third of my to do list. I got some of the harder tasks out of the way, (as far as my motivation goes) and now it's the braving the outside world. Actually, I do enjoy the distraction from my inner world most of the time. Except today I feel this nervousness about the prospective thought of joining a professional workforce in a 9-5 job that would garuntee me some type of security should I live up to it's expectations.

It just is triggering to think of myself in that position. It feels like there'd be nowhere to hide, I'd feel so exposed. It's embarrassing to say since I'd have my own desk, and I'd still be myself, I guess. I just feel like there are definitely parts of me that would not be acceptable in a professional atmosphere. I have some things I don't like to acknowledge- my own aversion to hard, or self-challanging work, or rather my refusal to reflect on the parts of me that are hurting enough to make any headway in finding rest or recharge. or whatever it may be.

I keep rambling, and it's a bad habit, but also, probably, a symptom of my refusal to slow down and do 'the work' of crying and feeling the senseless pain I always keep at bay. I don't know how to make sense of it. Of any of this.

I wake up in the morning and even being around another person brings me a low level anxiety. Will I be taking from them more than I give? Can I satisfy what is needed here. Or, really, can I just be alone and not have this burden of needing to supply a part of me I can't always seem to procure, even for myself?

It's really a whole lot of things that come flooding in when I really let myself think what I'm thinking. And I know that's the next step to self-awareness- letting the self-denial loose and actually learning to live with the emotions I've been suppressing/avoiding. and really it's becoming necessary since other people can see it. I don't like that part one bit. It's the part that makes me feel so vulnerable in my own skin.

I wish something could shift back to the way it was last spring, when I was living with some roommates that made me feel at ease with myself for once. Not that I still don't feel changed for the better since then, but I can feel it fading at times in the context of my relationship with nick. I worry that we need each other just for support more than we can provide each other the sort of life-giving, renewing fresh honesty that is needed in a relationship. I so often contradict myself about my relationship with nick. It always just seems the more I focus on the good or bad the more it becomes the truth.

Oh god, I just feel lost again. But I haven't forgotten last week, even as I try to bury the pain again. The burying is working. But last Monday I spent all day in bed crying an ungodly pain out of me, which reminded me of how I feel so unlovable, so unloved, or rather, why I prefer to be alone.

I'm speaking in riddles I feel. I feel like I'm evading the directness of confronting things.
But I also feel that these things don't require a directness but more of a consistency, or a home to come and rest to.
I have trouble finding that place where I can slow down and feel at ease. I suppose I feel it with nick, but also, I have these doubts that cloud out things too. I could use some time sewing.

God, why is this all about me all the time. I meant to write out my feelings here just to clear up some headspace so I can focus on things outside of myself for once. I'm starting to wonder if it's not all about learning to love myself better and more about finding the discipline to return to things outside of me religiously. Because that's the other thing I've been avoiding- the self-sacrifice of pledging myself to a power, or virtue, higher than putting myself at ease.

Clearly, the 'easing' myself into adulthood has led me down these roads that seem to take me further from the self-improvement I was trying to maintain. And I've certainly slipped in my capabilities of procuring self-discipline. I have lost sight of that vision I once had that coaxed me into pushing further than I was willing to.

I feel ashamed because I know nick hasn't lost sight of it. I'm living in this panic mode that prevents me from finding those things again. I don't know. I don't want to face why or how to get back, ever, really. I suppose. I do.
I just have this block, this wall up, because it's keeping me safe. I can't find the space to truly feel again.
that's what it feels like.

but even as I speak, these words I speak feel stale.
When I go out to get mail I can feel the sunlight on my skin even as I refuse to let it in and it's frustrating.
Does this all make sense?

//

I'm not great at focusing on myself, or the selflessness of setting myself straight. I guess there's a lot of me I've not been willing to give up. Such as the humility of knowing how I've been wrong, and how letting myself be given over to lighter things is right.

Sometimes I feel like forgetting, and just allowing humanity in again, is a way of having humility. Other times I remember that there are more self-possessed ways of being, and it brings me shame to know I haven't been trying for so long to even make progress toward that way of life.

It's hard, to be disciplined in the world stilted toward distractions. Everywhere I turn there seems to be a new way of coping with reality, billed, sometimes, as a way of getting through it. And it gets harder as I get older to see which is which- as the coping becomes a desperately desired distraction from the pain of living.

Nick seems to have a grasp on how important forgiveness is to continuing on with life. And while I've understood this before, it's lost on me as a practice I keep in my mind. I know this is a large part of my own descent. The frustration. the unkindness. It's too much of a feelings-based memory to describe accurately. I had so many things going for me- my thoughts were finally reaching their resolve regularly, and I felt in control. Until I didn't. And then what do you do? Hand over control? What does that even mean?

I do have a relationship with god, but I struggle to have a relationship with myself. Or vice versa. Like I said, there's a selflessness in setting oneself straight that is hard to commit to. I like to say to myself that when I put in time, writing, or reading, or just practicing habits, that I am accurately doing the work, but the work is a more specific thing. It's holding yourself accountable on the little things, in every moment you can manage, and finding a way to tie off the ends of the day into a new one peacefully. It takes bravery that I haven't had yet, and persistence that I've yet to see.

I mean, I've seen some, but you know, it's a lifetime. And it's not all peddling the same story. I mean, it can get frustrating to apply the same rules over and over again to your life, and you find yourself hiding behind new things again if you look closer. It's a constant commitment to sacrificing your own comfort, in a way, for the sake of improving your own humanity.

I have this dichotomy of thinking, when it gets down to it. And right now, I'm on the side of returning to the humility and forgiveness I need to better maintain my sanity. But I also do like the way of coping via forgetting, and allowing myself the freedom to let myself just be. Somehow I've felt myself improve in that state as well. I suppose if I were to take a larger view of things, there is a time for both.

Yet, I struggle to return to the 'selflessness of self-commitment' as it shows me again how many things I need to check my humility in.
I know, at the precipice of a professional career, that I struggle not to take the little things for granted. I'm used to being a person that is not in control, and I've relished in the luxury of being tended to as a person of small life experience. But I'm reaching the end of my time where it's acceptable to let yourself be a 'victim/recipient' of larger forces without equally returning with gratitude the consideration you've been given. It feels unnatural in some ways to assume a position of power in any capacity for me. Internally, I've still yet to figure out how to let a lot of my own thoughts reach their own ends, and I've a lot of unanswered questions about the way people work.

Secondly, I know my lack of gratitude shows up in the way I work as well. I like to think that I've already earned whatever I come to expect, rather than knowing that I need to consistently work for what I earn. I tend to get comfortable and forget that things require tending to. And then I find myself frustrated at the way things seem to expect more from me- be it over time, or in present workload.

I'm not sure where all this comes from exactly, except that my own maintenance, or rather, outlook on work is an incomplete thing. I mean, I grew up with my father's frame of mind, that was very pro-cheating the system if possible, and allowing oneself a break, finally. I don't understand why I have to deal with this and I often prefer to not acknowledge it, because I have put in work. I've put in a lot of work in my life.
I went through high school and I got the good grades and I've been through 3 years of college. and what do I have to show for all of it.

I guess there's a strong lack of true meaning in my work most of the time. I know that high school was really trying for me and that I used a lot of the overloading in academia to distract from, or normalize, how overloaded I felt in my personal life. I never got to unload all of that trauma fully, although when I take time to, it starts to feel okay, but I haven't fully grieved the way I'll never get that time back. I am who I am now, and I'm not proud because of it. I want to say that I am because it was hard and painful at times, but there are things I'd rather be that I didn't really give myself a choice in. And now here I am.

I love nick because somehow he seemed to understand this. His high school years were focused more on living than preparing for a future he was told to prepare for. And he is still so goddamn smart.




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