I realized something, while brushing my teeth, and I mumbled it to Jason. But before that: I'm not one to overly gush with real emotion about 'big' events. I don't truly teem with excitement before going to Greece or Hawaii. I may mention it to others how I'm going, but mostly, I think it's more of a show of how I'm supposed to feel, for lack of better things to say. I suppose, it's better this imagined show, than my saying something inappropriate. But still.
Do not confuse this with my lack of excitement. I just do not outwardly teem. I stow it, accept it like all the other days, the other events or lack of events. I cannot afford to covet what is exciting. To lose anything is a deep fear.
What I mused was how as much as I may feel homesick, or think sometimes, of how I used to go _____ or do _____--these moments are fleeting, neither all the time or none of the time. I suppose this would be my missing home, what I was used to, what I loved.
But I know this: if I went back, it wouldn't be the same; I would not feel the same because by my leaving, I have shifted, as everything shifts imperceptibly as we live our lives--both the place and I have shifted independently of each other and that former place, that home, is not the same.
But the problem I recognize is this: I have not yet been here long enough for this place to be my home. How home is that strange feeling which is suddenly there in the middle of a year when you least expect it, when you realize that it has been supporting you all alone, even when you were homesick for a place that couldn't be anymore. How now cannot be my home, but I know that it will be, at some point.
So still, even after I move into the apartment, I'm still homeless. I move forward, take the steps to building, nesting, and eventually, when I've forgotten what the past felt like, I'll feel the hug of home right where I am. It makes me sad, to think how I adapt, how I do forget, because forgetting feels like letting go, and I have issues with loss. I'm a packrat of emotion, love, and comfort. It is problematic for me, and I recognize it.
I recognize other things. How I avoid what I fear. How I was scared to answer the phone this past month every time I saw that my mother was calling, for fear of bad news. And two days ago, a harmless remark while sweat-walking with Jason was made about how neither of us had ever been witness to a dead body, how we had never attended a funeral.
At 1:34 am that night, my mother called to let me know that my father's father has passed around 9:57 pm PST. In some ways, we knew this was coming (he had been hospitalized with a bleak outcome since his body, diagnosed with aplastic anemia, was not responding to medication, and he was too old for a marrow transplant. It was a matter of time, the doctor said.)
So the last time I saw him, he held my hand and told me he was proud and for me to do my best in New York. He was tired, and on suicide watch in the hospital, since he had tried to commit suicide. It is difficult for an active man to be bedridden and helpless for so long.
The funeral is this Saturday, my father's birthday. I keep silent and physically avoid things which disturb me. It's really selfish, and wastes time, I think. I recognize it, but it does not change. I despise my selfishness. It shames me.
It saddens me, too, to recognize that I do not really make efforts to maintain relationships. How I must be a liar, to continue what I have to force? I don't mean force in a negative way, but force as in, I am not naturally motivated to do efforts of love for those I care about.
I used to. I use to want to make things, and send things. I think that deep inside, I also recognize that perhaps I am too weak to acknowledge that these people are not my true friends, or people I want to cling to forever. That they do not motivate this of me.
I can't tell if that's just a terrible selfish cop-out, which I think it is. But at the same time, I know the feeling when it seizes me. How empty I feel now, here, in homeless-limbo, attempting to mask my selfish-whining with the sadness of my grandfather's passing.
I do disgust myself, but I'm being honest here.
I don't want to lie. I don't want to force the motivation, in hopes that it will be returned, or that my body will pick up that momentum naturally. I don't want my hand in it. I want recklessness, love, and passion.
I live for that, and I feel like it's been a while since I've been overcome.
Mostly, I feel numb or inhuman or guilty that I'm not really listening to anyone around me. I feel guilty because I don't really care. How does one cure this? I cannot force a feeling.
Then I feel guilty for lying. But am I? Everything is so muggy inside that I can't discern which is which.
I aim for simplicity all the time, and as soon as I reach one level, I find dishevel and return again, anew. Over and over.
I am tired; I want 50-50, I want what I give, but this is not about that. This is about everything. Or I guess, it always comes back to the same thing: I do not want to be lonely.
I struggle with this, and try to convince myself that I am happier when I am alone. And it is true, in a way. In a way true and not true.
So nothing is pure. I have to make an effort. Motivation does not come without will. I need to rise, and rise, even when I am afraid to answer the phone. Afraid to reach out with the effort that might or will return unanswered.
I must be brave and never give up. I used to say that I never give up. For as much pessimism that fills my thoughts, my actions are always optimistic. It balances out for me, makes the successes sweeter, the failures cushioned.
I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. I guess I meant to say this: I don't know what to say at the funeral, and mostly, I'm terrified of having to say what I don't know what to say in front of family at the funeral. Again, the selfishness.
What is also here: there is a void that I recognize which I do not know how to fill. It is not mine to fill. Like ghosts eating pie.
But I will not pedestalize it. It is not a lonely creature which I must carry with me. It is there, like the faded scar on my thigh, the healing bug bites, my birthmarks, or moles. It's my black hair, the lines on my leg which Evan says aren't stretch marks. It's all the innate and learned parts of my body which are there, which I do not feel any more than any other part.
I want to be good, I want to feel worthy.
