I haven't written in here for so long that I now have too many things logjammed in my brain, jockeying for position to get out. Of course, almost anything I write that is relevant to my mad (as in hatter) behavior this last year will look like justifications, obfuscations, or masturbations, so I'm not sure what is actually going to get written. Also, it's all too fresh, and many of the actors in this little melodrama are still a little bit miffed (to say the least) already. I have to ask myself, how much salt do I want to be spreading around, anyway?
But write I will -- because this is how I make myself sort things out, put them in order, and hold them up to the light for inspection. It's part of how I discover what is true, and almost every time I write in here, I also discover something hidden in me.
There are a lot of questions that I have for myself, and I hope to eventually find answers that I can live with. Things like... why have I spent my life (from age 23 through 45) married and I don't even know why I was married? Why did my life seem to become meaningless when I turned 40? Why did it take 5 years for this realization to catch up with me, when I finally fell apart? Why did I try to do it all alone, instead of laying my load at the feet of my friends and companions? Are my experiences at Flipside and following revelations and integrations going to make any real difference in the long run? What can I do next to go on to a better evolution of being me? What the hell am I doing with my life anyway, and was it really so necessary to fuck up the lives of those around me in the process?
When I was in my 20s and 30s I always figured I'd be less busy with life, more settled, more able to figure out the deeper questions of existence, once I reached the (then distant) age of 40. While I was curious about life, the world, and my place in it back then, it seemed an intractable problem (though I expected it would fall over easily enough with a little thought and research, in time). I also figured I'd set myself the appointment to figure it out when I turned 40.
After all, how hard could it be? And how wise would I be by then anyway, decades into the future? Nothing to it!
(Yes, I hear all you old-timers laughing back there, and don't think I don't notice your eye-rolling either).
(And you whippersnappers? Yeah, you have it easy with your youthful enthusiasm, your sense that life is just for the enjoyment of life, and with simple goals and simple motives for living; I was there too, I remember it. Not EASY, mind you, and some of you have it quite hard indeed... but still straightforward for the most part; school, job, girlfriend, music, movies, parties, friends; the basic things that are almost pre-defined and hard-wired for us).
(As always, your mileage may vary).
Needless to say, it didn't work out quite as planned.
A surprising number of the people I've talked to have experienced anxiety attacks before -- stress, chemistry, poltergeists... all manner of things can trigger these. For me it was my life, my visible future; in the moments when I wasn't distracted by my distractions, I'd be freaking out about my mortality. I wasn't where I wanted to be in my life, and I didn't KNOW where I wanted to be in my life, but I knew this wasn't it... something was missing, and I spent some years casting about trying to figure out what that missing piece was, how to fill it, where to find it. I'm still not sure... but in the process I do know that I wore myself down so far, had stressed out enough, that I fell apart, and in falling apart, I quit everything.
Okay, not EVERYTHING; I still dance, I still have my dayjob, I still work on FX at SCARE, but essentially everything else.
So now I have even less than I had before, and in my free moments when I'm not being distracted by my distractions I'm no longer panicking but I'm alone and lonely, and I'm not entirely sure which is better and which is worse. But that was also kind of the point... I need to live my life on purpose, consciously, and I had been doing it on autopilot for too long. And I had found it impossible to change the autopilot machine, so I ended up breaking it instead.
These days I'm operating on the theory that nature abhors a vacuum; that closing one door opens another; and that by making space for myself, by stepping away and looking at my life and my connection with humanity and the world, that maybe I'll be able to find a path through the next years of my life that leads me in a good direction.
As part of my process, I went through some seriously dark places, as documented at least in part by my Flipside 2010 entry... and then, in therapy and in reflection, I discovered some amazing things about myself and my past, and the illusions I lived by that were based on faulty data. And yet today I don't feel all that significantly different; I feel the same drives that led me to where I am, the same wants, even some of the same insecurities.
Looking at myself today compared to the me ten years ago today, I'm very different. The most concrete and stark example is from the Haunt. I took, and last night dropped in on, an Improvisational Acting class being held for the guides -- and I did well, and I enjoyed it. Improv, for those of you unaware with the form, and unfamiliar with the Edwin of the past, is a thing that I would neither thrive in nor enjoy, nor even be remotely capable to doing, as the old me. I even sing, in public, unabashedly (and of course, not being able to remember any lyrics, as that's not how my brain works), as part of this class, and if you've heard me sing, well, I'm sorry... but this marks a huge shift in my extroversion.
My current operating theory (akin jumping off the cliff and hoping it's not rocks below) is something I'm trying to assemble after the fact, and was not part of any planning or guiding process. I didn't have a coherent big picture but was operating in a fight or flight response, doing what seemed necessary and hoping that it was either the right thing, or at least would lead to a place where I could figure out what the right thing is. An animal trying to survive.
And now that panic is gone, and the drive to run has faded, and I don't lay there at night haunted by my mortality any more. But I also have less drive, less enthusiasm for the mundane things, and more time to contemplate and be melancholy.
So that's where I am now. I still want some things, I've lost some things, I think I've gained some things... but I'm so definitely not "there" yet.
If what I've heard is true, I never will be "there"... I just hope that the journey I'm on is interesting, fulfilling, and one where I don't end up hurting my best friend in the world in order to continue forward.
There are several forces coming to a point for me right about now as well.
One is the Fall season; this is a season I love above all others, with Spring a close second. A season of snuggling, of nesting, of warm comfort while the world shifts around us and storms drive us wet and windblown into winter. And of seeing the couples around me, and of wondering.
Another is my son's visit, which follows a predictable cycle for me emotionally. When he's here, I'm always amazed by how awesome he is, and I take him around to show him off to my friends and to talk with him and rant with him and make things in the Lab or Haunt with him. And then, always, he has to go, and I'm struck with an inescapable sense of irrecoverable loss like a knife in my heart, of all the time I didn't have with him, of all the moments I missed of his growing up and growing into adulthood. A sense of somehow, maybe I've fucked up my life beyond repair, to have ended up missing all of those pieces of his life; but you know, I have this great son anyway, so that's something.
I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live a more normal life story, but I rarely wonder long ... it would bore the socks off me, and my own particular psychological bent pretty much renders the possibility impossible. For the most part I enjoy what I do, how I live, and where I'm going... but I'm not happy with "okay", and want to reach out for "spectacular". Or at least, less emotionally damaged... and I'm making progress.