He got rid of everything because he thought he was a minimalist, but really he just didn’t know how to face what he had.

My favourite story I never wrote is the one about Sally. Sally the old woman who wants to own everything. Who can’t feel the reality of something unless its hers, and even that’s not potent enough. Sally is a frustrated old lady who is quite unhappy, living in a house lined with full-to-the-brim shoeboxes.  Pictures and notes are peaking out everywhere and it’s just a mess because Sally needs to own her whole life in order to know it’s hers and that it really happened.

The time of my life when I didn’t write this story was May or June 2009. This story was not written about my experiences in the Czech and Europe in general, which is to say that it was, but I just didn’t write it. I couldn’t figure out a perspective or an ending, but I had everything else, all the important stuff. But without a perspective, well, what are you looking at anyway?

First I thought third person, and Sally kills her caregiver, but that was so easily figured out that it had to be scrapped immediately, although maybe this is still my favourite.

Then I thought, first person, in the head of the caregiver, who still gets killed at the end. Because, you see, I really want that caregiver dead.

But maybe there’s a lamp or a cat or something that’s been a witness all along. The problem with that is, what do lamps know about childhoods?  Sally’s childhood is very important, just like everyone’s, so the pertinent question is, do I expose hers or do I keep it a secret? Maybe talking about childhoods is too cliche and boring. The lamp probably knows that. Lamps know too much and you can never trust a narrator anyway, let alone a lamp narrator. And then a let me shed some light on this situation joke is just a little too tempting, and stuff like that ruins everything anyway. So no lamps. And cats are worse; don’t get me started on cats.

So anyway, for almost two years now I’ve kept Sally in my head and allowed her to get dusty in the rows of shoeboxes and files and lamps and cats in my head. Kept her there where she can’t get out and where she stays mine. And I kill off that damn caregiver at least once a month because she’s so pretty and nice to Sally, and well, Sally would like to put her in a shoebox too.

17 year old me
knew so much more than
23 year old me:
she knew “pain”
and she knew “love”
and she knew “feeling”
and she knew “knowing”
she was so good at knowing
that I am sometimes jealous,
for most of my I knows
are punctuated by don’ts
and I feel envy even though
everything she knew was nothing
(I now know)

Do you know, I don’t know one person who feels fulfilled? We all know this, but I don’t think we really know it. Nobody’s hiding out there with any secrets. There’s no fountain of youth or eternal happiness.

So, what can I do to feel fulfilled tomorrow? My plan is thus: go work out, tutor a lost little boy, start reading that book that will challenge my head, and say something nice.

Maybe the day after that I will write a little.

These days were long days and I
drilled the holes wrong once or twice
but always they were the right depth
to fasten me securely
and comfortably
not sticking anywhere or
creaking either
I creak my own creaks and I
don’t need any hinges to do it for me

I was more creative when I had lower lows, you know. I stayed up late for a reason. Because I was sad and crazy and forgetting my name and crying because I can’t make the folded clothes look right. Stayed up late because I was writing on my wall. Stayed up late because I was writing on myself. Stayed up late because I was painting. Fuck this balance. Fuck this even shit. I hate my excuses and I hate my loss of creativity.

Being happy is boring.

I hate this xanga now. I should delete it like I did the others. I’m such a teenager with nothing to say.

Do you know I’ll never be a writer? Do you know I’ll never do anything? I like feeling sorry for myself too much to make any real changes.

I keep saying I’ll see someone, but I won’t because then everyone will find out my secret that I’m fine, absolutely fine. Absolutely strong and intelligent and sorta cute and quirky and fine except for that attention whore thing.

When I come in from a walk alone, I mean the real kind, I get angry when people speak to me.  I try not to let them know, because it’s not their fault they didn’t hear me leave, not their fault they locked the door and made me knock out there in the snow with my ridiculous hat, so I try to answer their questions with as little annoyance as possible (and even fewer words). But when they talk to me I lose the silence that had calmed me and the thoughts that had warmed or chilled me, depending on the need. And I want to yell, be quiet! Can’t you see I’m thinking?! 

I can’t, though, so I don’t.

Before my thoughts were (understandably, unfortunately) interrupted, I was going to start my post like this:

I woke from a dream the other night. A few weeks ago, maybe. I woke and a story or a poem or some great thought entered my head.  I remember it was profound and beautiful, maybe a little sad. Something about an oak tree or the colour blue.  I didn’t want to get up and write it–my bed was much too warm–so I concentrated all of my efforts on remembering that thought until morning.  Come on big brain, you can do it, this one little thing!

Of course I knew I would never remember it.  We never do. Without jars, fireflies disappear into the sky.  And because I knew I wouldn’t remember it, I stopped trying to commit it to a sleepy memory.  Instead I realized that I should savour this thought without trying to capture it. Enjoy its company while I could. Why would I need to write it down except to prove I thought it?  Why would I need to prove I thought it unless I needed to prove that I think? I know I think. Do I really need you to know? (yes. Why else would I write THIS post?)

Anyway, I enjoyed the thought and didn’t try to catch it, and of course it was gone by morning.  The other wasn’t though.  The one about enjoying my thoughts and not always stress about getting them down (see above). That one stayed with me.

My winter walk was beautiful and I thought about stories and memories and philosophies. The stories were comfortably intertwined with the memories and the philosophies needed little company.  I was going to rush home to write them, but then I thought, no, let’s keep these free. I am in no mood to trap anything tonight. 

That’s why the words in this post are so tame. Domesticated. They were already mine.

Fucking birth control. Miss six of the little guys in any order and in three weeks you’re back to your normal non-controlled hormonal crazy. Maybe they’re placebos, maybe they’re sugar, but my crazy feels a lot less when they’re around, when I actually have a routine of taking them, 6:15 every morning with an alarm buzzing to the side bzzz bzzz bzzz control your body, woman.

THIS IS THE BLOG WHERE I AM SAD.

Been so sick of myself lately. Talk too much, as usual. Talk too big, too often, too loud. I will go be silent in the snow.