Adventures in Emotional Productivity

So.

I've spent quite some time between 2006 and now, developing a systems for myself to fall back on when things are starting to become intense emotionally. Those of you have been around for any length of time have seen the evolution of those systems into kind of a two-step guide to handling all emotionally volatile situations:

1. Remind yourself, "how something feels is not necessarily how it actually is"
2. Only respond to how it is; never respond to how it feels,

and it occurred to me today that this "checklist", while at a very surface level seems effective, may be not be the kind of "be all, end all" that I thought it might. I mean, you'd have to consider first of all that usually I start thinking about personal productivity during states of hypomania - those two or three months when you find me cranking out po-ems, and thinking about expanding my writing to other genres, and cleaning regularly, and all these other things that seem to be on this "path towards health". I was thinking the other day about the conversation Nash has with his doctor in A Beautiful Mind, where the doctor refutes Nash's claim that he apply his own mental strength to his illness, because his mind is where the problem is. Beyond that, I've come to this place where I'm ultimately dismissive of every emotion that I have, but that can't be valid either... because this illness that I only admit occasionally to having is about...severity and duration of emotion, not about the emotions themselves. And finally, I've gotten in this really bad habit of only expressing the emotion that I know I'm supposed to have, and not being honest about any of the other things going on with me...and repression leads to depression and bla bla bla...

I do not know what the solution here is. 

I keep wrestling with this idea of God's promise to provide peace and joy and what not to his children and then this notion that I'm somehow unable to feel that joy 70% of the time because of some chemical imbalance that needs to be corrected with pills. It just seems...antithetical to who and what God is. Except on this whole different level which I can also appreciate theologically it's not...because I don't expect for him to supernaturally cure the rest of the illnesses in the world or end hunger or all of that. Mm.

My baby sister asked me once why I'd been so willing to smoke or drink or whatever else in order to "feel better" but was so opposed to going the prescribed antidepressant route...and I just think it's dangerous to cross this threshold from taking something every now and again to feel better to taking something consistently to feel normal.

In short - I feel very much like an exposed nerve ending - feeling too much and not knowing how to deal with it.

Peace Be

Adventures in Consolidation

So.

A few questions have rolled in about the moving of the blog to a new address, which I understand and appreciate, and so I'd like to explain myself a bit. No...this is not one of the random and seemingly innocuous things I do right before self-destruction commences. On the contrary, this is one of the seemingly innocuous things I do that's actually about being healthy.

For one, the old address was long and cumbersome, right? This new one is short and funny, and more importantly - it's my name. I'm very much over having these...varied factions of my life that I feel some great need to keep separate from each other, and so I consolidated my space. Deleted these kind of old email addresses and google/yahoo accounts that I keep around for the sole purpose of being able to have these places that can't really be connected to me unless you're in..."the know", and am - in general - teaching myself the difference between privacy and secrecy. I mean, the former can be, at times, a personal/professional necessity...the latter is unhealthy.

Today, I'm very much in a...be all of who you are, even the contradictory parts....kinda mood.

Peace Be

Adventures in Bridesmaidery

so.

i've...more or less survived this pre-wedding weekend with one of my oldest friends and various bridesmaids out here in burlington. of course by survived - i mean we are currently nursing the bride-to-be's mega hangover. you all may be familiar with the more common symptoms of headache and mild nausea, but this girl runs the full gambit of possible hangover symptoms, and if it's anything like the last time we got wasted together - she'll be pretty out of it until much later on this evening.

the weekend was hard in an entirely different way than i expected it to be. i will admit to having a rough moment and a half on yesterday evening, but i rallied relatively quickly and well and ended up having a pretty decent time [sidenote: praise god for friends that respond quickly when you send out the "i'm spiraling" text message. i was, in some sense, overwhelemed by the response]

in other news - being broke is not fun. as conflicted as i am about the end of the summer approaching, i want the end of this particular month to hurry up and get here. so much to do, so few resources with which to get it done.

peace be

Adventures in Mysticism

so.

i've got someone new poking around in my brain, trying to help me make more sense of myself. she's got an actual couch in the office, which we know i'm not a huge fan of, but i tried not to judge her immediately - even though it was floral and kinda uncomfortable (and not uncomfortable in that psychosomatic way...but actually lumpy and unsupportive).

the whole experience of it felt sort of...inauthentic on several levels. to begin - the first session with someone knew is more "vitals" and "history" than anything else, and beyond that, there's an acute awareness on both sides of the conversation that i'd rather not be participating in the whole... "i'm crazy; talking about it will help" enterprise.

however.
she keeps hershey kisses instead of peppermints;
she's mildly hilarious;
and she shut up long enough for me to think.
so she gets another visit.

homework for visit number two - write a poem about God.
any thoughts on how to pull that off?

peace be

Adventures in Po-e-try

So.

For some odd and unknown reason..the weather has trickled its way into my work lately. And not in any clear or cohesive way...but in that lofty carrie rudzinski sort of way. Not that i think i write anything like her, but in this way that the reaction to her work is so completely visceral, you never really care whether or not you understand what she's talking about.

To sum up:
I'm writing weird poems.
None are finished.
I don't know what they're about.
Here's one for you to enjoy.

---

i am walking down the highway
into the eye of the storm
searching for a metaphor
in how the lightning flashes
when i realize
the sky don't change colors
the blue they will be in the morning
is the blue they are right now
if only it were light enough to see
and the strobing electric crack of thunder
is trying to show us the sameness of it all
and i wonder why i am afraid