Searching

Debated on a lot of different directions to go with this entry. A lot of different things come to mind. Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, there was a lot of gratitiude in my mind. I certainly realized how lucky I was, or am, to be where I am in my life, to have a loving partner with whom I'm connected, to have the pets that I have in my life, to have the friends that I have in my life, to have a roof over my head, to have a job that provides me with sustenance, even if the job itself is not what I want to be doing. I'm fortunate to have a purpose, a gift, a goal. So that was one of the ideas of where I wanted to go with this. Another thought was that...in therapy last night, we touched on the rejections that I went through in middle school that kept me from pursuing dating in high school. These rejections were likely related to the reaction that I experienced the other day. That was something that was difficult for me to access after covering so much in therapy last night. I think in the end perhaps what I want to cover...hmm...no, I'm still not sure. Maybe I should just start from the beginning and work through it? Gratitude is important to me...I've definitely been realizing that...uh...as bad as things have been through the last few months, I have been a lot better off than a lot of people. You know, I have a lot of problems, but I really want to get better. I feel that God is trying to reach me. God has put that desire in me. That's really important to me. You know, I'm really distracted this morning and I'm not sure what's going on. I think part of it might be exhaustion. I didn't get to go through my morning routine because we forgot that my partner had to be to school earlier today. I also had to go get some gas before heading to work, so that threw me off my regular pattern. I don't know. Something's going on. I feel very distracted and unable to concentrate. I'm not where I've been the last few days. The way I described it in therapy last night is that I've had this energy that's been flowing from the center of my body outward, knowing that the creativity that is inside of me is right and flowing from the heart of me. This morning I dont' feel that way; I feel blocked. I'm not really sure what's going on. Typically when something like this is going on, there's some anger. I suppose it could be the anger from last night that we were trying to access? I guess that makes sense. I could try that on for size. Oh...yeah. Oh yeah. As soon as I typed that, I started feeling some of that anger. The anger is at some of the girls who rejected me in middle school. And it wasn't just typical high school rejection, either. I think if I had been rejected in a typical manner I could have learned to handle it, but this was something else.To set the stage: I was attracted to some of these girls, but didn't plan to ask them out. Some of them, yes, I would have liked to ask out, but would have taken my time. Yet in each scenario I had a "friend" who decide to be cutesy or cruel and "ask them out" for me, to humiliate me. In each scenario, the girls recoiled or showed disgust or said something cruel in response. Okay, one wasn't even an asking-out scenario, no friend, she just threw me up against the wall and yelled at me that she hated me. I don't know what happened there. Nobody asked her out, nobody did anything like that. We were in a gym class together, I told a joke, and she did that to me.And I internalized a lot of that anger, figuring I deserved that treatment. The truth is, I didn't. I was dealing with a lot of shit at the time. I didn't even approach these girls, first of all. If they'd have even had taken half a second to think about what was going on there, they'd have realized there was a setup going on. Seeing the mortification on my face should have made it obvious that I was the butt of some cruel joke. Not only that, but who the hell are they to judge me? I don't really fucking get where people get off setting people up for a joke like that (the girls and me), or instead of saying "no thank you" to go further than that. What the fuck? I suppose that's middle school, but it doesn't erase my anger. I'm still carrying it around. And I know I didn't deserve it. It set me back, and that really pisses me off, because I know that if I'd really had a chance to get to know some people, I might have had a different life. Okay. I think that helped. I don't think that got to the bedrock of all of my anger; there's still some more that I need to deal with, but it did help to get me flowing and got some of that going. Yesterday my boss left for vacation again. She's out of town for the next few days and I'm charge again. Whoopy. In the meantime I'm supposed to deal with my coworker. I'm just going to do what I can do. I'm not going to take on more than I can. Screw it. And yeah, there's some anger there. I'm not going to deny that. But I got a lot of work done, worked some more on my new characters, and really feel like I'm getting down to the core of the main character, the female teenage character. A lot of her...well, I wouldn't say a LOT of her, but some of her main character traits reflect who I was as a teenager, updated for how teenagers are now. I feel really fortunate that my partner has a teenage sister so that I can sound some of this off of her. I've also been around a lot of teenage girls in the last few years, so I have an idea of what they're into, what they listen to, and what they do. That's been a tremendous help.Today I'm going to be focusing more on the narrator, who's not the main character, but is the catalyst for the issues between the two. I can see how the dynamics between the two will drive the story. Fascinating to me how these two have evolved so quickly. In therapy I spoke about how, once I had that moment on Tuesday, it was as if these images in my head that I used to have in my head when I was younger, these movies that played in my head (and have been stifled all these years) suddenly came back on like the lights had been turned on at a movie theater in my head. All I have to do is close my eyes and there they are again. I can see, for instance, this character Estevan looking out his window with his video camera, or sitting on the sidewalk outside his house photographing the sky. It takes nothing at all to see these images projected up on the screen. And there are a million other character and scenes in there waiting for me to find.Getting back to that whole moment of zen, we talked more about it last night. We talked some about the physical aspects of it - and I don't think I wrote about that here. We talked about how I felt as though a weight had been lifted off of me, as if I had been asleep and suddenly awakened. I think I've used that metaphor before, but man, it really felt that way. I've felt that way the last few days. I've been walking around with my head held higher, making more eye contact, projecting my voice more...just being PRESENT. I feel like a person more in possession of their capacities. My therapist said this is about taking that angry energy and turning it into a positive. I definitely feel like that's what I'm doing - moving in a good direction with it. So hey - how about that? Once I got the anger out, I managed to start identifying some great stuff and get somewhere with it. Awesome.Today I'm grateful for everything in my life, as I said. I'm grateful for being able to stop and recognize the beauty that I have. I just thank God for that.