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‘Whee Therapy!!’ Category

  1. Recluse.

    October 16, 2012 by DJ

    Here’s my dirty little secret.

    I’m vulnerable. Painfully, depressingly so.

    I hate even saying those words out loud, let alone typing them for the internet to see. Though, few are reading these words these days. My close friends and many of you I don’t know as well would argue with me. Sure, I’ve made it through a lot. I’ve got titanium plates to prove it. Here’s the thing, strong and weak are not the same thing as vulnerable and unsure.

    I walked across the Chicago river yesterday, sun streaming through the bright fall sky and wept. I couldn’t even stop. I didn’t even try.

    I’m honestly loving the work I’m doing with my psychologist. I am. But I’m examining things I never even knew existed and re-evaluating things I was sure were one thing and now I’m sure of NOTHING. He’s right and observes (correctly) that my sarcasm and wit doesn’t equate with what I’m feeling.

    I’m so terrified of being invisible, of never mattering to anyone and I thought I’d learned so much from Nice Boy only to feel like I achieved nothing. And it all hurts. It drains my spirit and I find I have little energy for more than one task at a time. I’m never sure of the right action and I’m so sick of feeling like I always take the wrong one that I’m driven to embrace inaction.

    I’m starting to think J.D. Salinger was onto something other than literature.

     

    Category Coal Mining for Emotions, Whee Therapy!! | Tags: | 1 Comment

  2. I have a complex.

    September 9, 2012 by DJ

    Obviously I am aware that you all know this. It’s pretty plain to see. I probably have several in fact. But there’s one that been poking at me a lot lately.

    I have a Julia Child complex.

    Stick with me here.

    I don’t want to be famous, and I don’t particularly want to cook for a living or make television or really do any of the things she did. But I’m stumbling lately. And I’m floundering to find something I love and something I’m good at.

    And let’s be honest, I’m a little odd like her. She was quirky and a little outside of the norm and goddamn if Paul Child didn’t love her. I want someone to find all of my weird shit extraordinary.

    I feel like it’s not too much to ask and yet everything to ask. It’s part of the reason I’m in therapy twice a week. I’m searching on multiple fronts and I’m not yet ok with that.

    At any rate, there it is. I want to be Julia Child. I said it.

    Category Coal Mining for Emotions, Whee Therapy!! | Tags: | No Comments

  3. I could see for miles, miles, miles

    September 15, 2011 by DJ

    On the eve of my long awaited solo vacation I got a little misty.  Yes, I realize I frequently get misty and if you didn’t know by now that I’m a huge sap, well, ya’ll better ask somebody.

    All week long people have been asking me if I’m excited.  I am, truly.  But there’s been something holding me back from sheer glee and I haven’t exactly figured out what it is.  Sure, I’m a little nervous about visiting places where my barely passable French might be used; but like I said, it’s more than just that.

    This trip has meant something since the start.  I knew I wanted to take a trip outside the U.S. and I wanted to go by myself.  I hadn’t been able to really pin down why until today.  I found myself watching the “Holocene” video again (as I’ve done eleventy billion other times) and crying (like I’ve done eleventy billion other times).

    There is a sense of peace in this video.  Freedom and exploration are written on that kid’s face.  Like you could just go to where he is and breathe.  Breathe in and out and just KNOW who you are.

    BON IVER “Holocene” from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

    I realized today this trip is the culmination of a journey I’ve been on for years now.  A journey that has had heartbreak, nervous breakdowns, surgeries and countless other things.  I’ve been on a journey to redefine myself.  To stop beating myself up for not being who I thought at twenty who I was supposed to be.  To trust myself and find a new me.  To redefine the image and scope of my adult life.

    I’d been wanting this trip to be a representative of something I was unsure of.  I realized it today.  This trip is about MY Common Era.  This trip is a shift in the tectonic plates of my life; a demarcation of the behind and of the ahead.

    I look behind me to see fear, unhappiness, doubt and hurt.  I look ahead to see who I am, not just who I wanted to be.  I’ve never known how to combine the two.  I look forward to see someone I care for.  But it’s someone who I will never care more about than myself, and that’s good.  I see a life where genuine happiness is possible.  Where I can have all the things I need and know how to work to get what I want.

    I plan to leave as much as I can of that old life in Europe.  Leave coils of my scarred & battle tested former self.  I’m pretty sure they won’t mind.

    I’m not saying everything will be perfect and rose colored from here on out.  In fact, I’m hoping it isn’t.  Because now I know how to handle it.  I had an old set of armor, all dinged & pockmarked because I’d been wearing it for so damn long.  I’ve a shiny new set now.  I choose now when to wear it.  And it’s far superior to that heavy, awful set.

    And so, off I go to find myself.  Though “finding” makes it sound as though I have been lost.

    Really, it’s losing my old self so that the found me can take its place.

    Category Coal Mining for Emotions, Whee Therapy!! | Tags: | 2 Comments

  4. Emoting my face off

    August 29, 2011 by DJ

    I’ve used this metaphor before (so sue me) but anxiety, to me, feels like an iron band wrapped around my lungs, squeezing the life out of me.

    Like I know I’m supposed to breathe, to help the attack pass, but I can’t.  And once it’s started the snowball effect of my thoughts are nearly impossible to stop.

    Without divulging too much here, Nice Boy has a certain activity he likes to do.  I do not like said activity.  I haven’t liked said activity, well, ever..but I certainly haven’t found any enjoyment in it since I was about 13.

    He knows this.  He’s known it since the day we met.  It’s just not my thing.  And trust me, I’m one of those girls who LOVES that he has his thing.  I don’t need to share everything with my significant other.  Please, go and enjoy yourself.  I’ll be at home, reading or doing SOMETHING ELSE while you’re out.  It’s fine.

    He asked last week if I wouldn’t like to do said activity.  Would I want to go to say a park or a path and spend a few HOURS doing this.  GOOD GOD FUCKING NO I DON’T.

    But I kept my mouth shut for the time being and consulted with The Moms and The Witz.  We all agreed that it’s ok that I don’t want to and maybe he was asking because he thought I’d been feeling left out.

    That’s not why he asked.

    Granted, he very sweetly said, “it’s something I love to do and I like spending time with you so I wanted to see if we couldn’t combine the two.”  And that’s great.  Really.

    But then the conversation morphed into something I didn’t expect and very long story short it got me to thinking, “Oh fuck.  What if this is a deal breaker??”

    What if I found a great man, who in the end I had to compromise and change for AGAIN?  What if in order to keep this relationship I had to stifle my own wants & needs AGAIN?  What if I lose him over something that he’s known all along?  What happens when he decides this is one thing that a potential mate/girlfriend/whatever HAS to have?

    In case you’re curious, that’s what the inside of my brain has been doing for ohhhh…4 hours now.  Plus about 3 hours from last night.

    The Moms tells me that she doesn’t think that’s the case.  And it may not be.  But for now, this is where I live.

    In a gray cavern, shivering in the dark, wondering how long it is until the end.

    Category Coal Mining for Emotions, Whee Therapy!! | Tags: | 5 Comments

  5. Ahhhhh…

    July 27, 2011 by DJ

    “That’s the best revenge of all: happiness. Nothing drives people crazier than seeing someone have a good fucking life.”

    -Chuck Palahniuk

    I finally feel like I’m back to myself after the past few weeks.  I wasn’t prepared for the tempest that was stirred up; wasn’t ready to have people crammed back into my life despite me wishing for the polar opposite.

    I’ve never been so thankful for my close friends, my mother and The Witz.  People able to put things into perspective and say to me, “No.  This is wrong.  You don’t need to feel this way.”

    I’ve realized how enjoyable things can be when they’re not rife with struggle and drama.  PEOPLE!!  Did you know that you don’t HAVE to be stressed out about things??  I wasn’t fully aware of this until last week really.

    Things will never be perfect; but goddamn they can be calm and enjoyable.  You can laugh and exhale and just fucking breathe.

    Category Cause you gotta have friends, Whee Therapy!! | Tags: | 4 Comments

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