Busted ass tired.

Friday, November 26, 2010
10:24pm

In my bedroom at home now, sitting in this very old rocking chair that was Little Mam-maw's great grandma's. That's eight generations, including me. Sometimes I think I can feel the spirits of the women who sat in this chair before me, and when I rock, it's as if they all rush to embrace me. Maybe I'm making it up, but it's a nice delusion to have.

I sat with Mam-maw for three hours tonight. Apparently Pap-paw didn't tell her he'd asked me to sit with her. Damnit, Pap-paw! So when she asked, I didn't know what to say besides "yes." I assured I wanted to be there, and if I hadn't been down there at that moment I would have been down earlier in the day. She kept insisting I could leave. And honestly, the overwhelming weight of these papers I have to write was bearing down on me pretty hard. But I had agreed when asked, and I wasn't going to let her think I didn't want to be with her.

I am packing up to leave right now. I'm going to head over in the morning, as early as possible, because it is evident that I'm just not going to be able to accomplish much here.

I did read a good bit at Baristas this afternoon. I ran into Bill Flewelling... he was one of the guys I met through the poetry circle up there. I've known him I guess since I was fifteen. He wrote two poems about me in the course of the time I spent listening to classical music reading about Foucauldian philosophy. (I feel like this stuff is really personally important to me right now, so I don't mind reading it.) When I went to get another latte, I spoke to him, and he handed me the poems to read. I couldn't make out his handwriting, so he read it to me. They were both really nice. He does that for about every woman that walks through the doors of Baristas. I have one or two taped to my attic door here in this bedroom actually, that he wrote for me when I was still in high school. I think it's so sweet that he can take a non-momentous little smile in passing and let people know these things are noticed. It's not pertinent just to the subject of the poem, obviously, but all people. How many times have you felt like a wave or a smile went wasted? It was interesting, because as I smiled at him today, I thought, well, he doesn't recognize me anymore, what was the point of that?

And I needed it today. As most people who are quite close to me already know, I haven't been in a great place this semester. It's been one personal drama after the other. I really don't know how I'm still swimming. Illnesses, near deaths, trying to be there for friends, constantly being in a state of adjustment, starting grad school and my position as a TA, pretty much forsaking my 7-year stint in fitness minus one Zumba class per week... it's been, really rough. And I can always deal with busyness and stress, but when you throw all this personal bullshit on top of it, well... I'm seeing a counselor right now. And I don't mind for people to know that. My brain is incredibly tangled up with everything that's happened, and I just need a little help even knowing what I'm thinking about because... I don't know sometimes. I'm losing things constantly. I cry more days than I don't. I'm always on the verge on an anxiety attack, and really, this semester is the first time I've had a true anxiety attack since high school. While I generally do experience a lot of anxiety daily, I can usually talk myself down from high states of panic, but that's just where I've been this semester. And I'm not too freaked out, just trying to get through these last two weeks in one piece.

I've been debating back and forth whether or not I should go ahead and work at Barnes and Noble over the holiday or not. Some of my old journal and blog entries I've read... yeah, I do that sometimes when I have really lost touch with myself... reveal to me just how overextended I permit myself to sometimes be. I read one where I think I was at three different jobs in a single day... I taught fitness, worked at one of the coffee shops, and went to conduct an interview for the paper. I'm inherently a million things at once, but I don't think I need to always be acting on them all at one time, and I'm wondering if I'm going to actually be able to say "enough" at the end of this semester and not put another iron in the fire. The thing is... what else will I do? I get a little nervous about depression when I'm not doing something, or ten things, and that will be a month without any real appointment to do anything. But I just feel like, maybe just this once... I need to let the motion stop. Frequently people ask why I always wanted to do so much at once, and well... there are lots of reasons for it, but one of the big ones is a centrifugal force idea, that if I just keep it all up and spinning real, real fast, it won't fall down and crash on top of me. But I think a month should be sufficient time to recover from any crashes. And I can do my reading and stuff. Play piano. Relax... see how I'm listing what I can do in my free time? Free time really makes me nervous. I'm hoping that I just say 'enough' though. I don't think... since the summer of my junior year of high school, that I've ever had a month to catch up with myself. I think, perhaps, that it's vital.

I have a friend on my mind right now, too. And this friend and I have always been incredibly close, but it's also always been rather flammable. I don't know what to make of that, as when I think of "friendship," I generally think of people rolling along amicably with no real huge glitches. And I don't know why I continue? I suppose it's because once when I was drunk she shared her poems with me, or because she needed me and let me be there, or any number of things that have been unlike other friendships. But at some point, you have to ask yourself, is this healthy? No other friendship has made me more miserable more frequently. Also, no other friendship has made me feel as good as this one does when it's going well. I feel, sometimes, like it's just totally psychotic. Idk, I just don't know what to do about it. Perhaps there's nothing I can do. But maybe I need to assign it less importance in my life. Because I have a lot going on right now, too, and I need to hear something other than how I'm not strong enough, how I'm awkward, how I'm confused. Let me say this loud and clear: I know who and what I am. All I need from you is love and support, not persuasion, not doubt, not randomly peacing out of my life with no clarification or closure. There's been no friend in my life I've gone out on the line for more, and while I did it for you and don't expect a lot in return, just a little more than "whatever" would be helpful.

Friendship has been a shaky subject for me really, all my life. Always I've been more at home with people 15-20 years older than I am. And while that's fine in some ways, in other ways it's awful. I straight up don't understand why my peers think certain things are important, why they are interested in certain things, how they have the energy or enthusiasm to be out until two in the morning. And that's bad, because it means rarely do I have a meaningful friendship with someone I'm around on a regular basis. I clique easily with people who are my seniors. I understand what the hell they are talking about. They aren't so frantic, their spirits don't overwhelm me. But they don't usually ask me to come do much with them, because, you know... that's awkward. Idk, I generally feel lonely anymore minus John. I don't open up to many, and there are various reasons for that. Reactions people have shown me in the past to things I've tried to say, people coming and going so rapidly, people having a general discomfort with opening up or being opened up to. It wears me out. I feel like the whole reason I care to study literature and a foreign language is my love for people, and I was honest during orientation when we had to share in small groups what our biggest challenge is for school. Everyone essentially answered time management, but I've got that down. I've been juggling a thousand things since before I could drive. What's hard for me is getting depressed like that, not seeing any purpose, and pushing through those months of feeling like this. I'm studying because I want to get at, just a little tiny bit closer, what's essentially human. And when humans are this separate and isolating, cold... I don't really care to learn anymore. I just want to lie down and let the grass grow up around me. Fuck it, don't care... But I know I cycle through like this, and probably in a couple months I won't feel quite this way and I don't want to sabotage that day two months from now where I may be sitting wondering, Casie, why didn't you just pull it out of the damn ditch? Really... just an ounce more effort and you wouldn't be kicking yourself in the ass right now. So I'm gonna get behind this train and shove it up the hill. I'm not in a good place to do it, but there's not another alternative. And sometimes loneliness can push me through school work, because I get so sad that I find comfort and comradeship in the voices of the authors I'm reading. It's like, oh yes, that makes sense. I wish you were here instead of just the hand behind the pen, and we could sit and talk. So anyway, I'll make it, but I'm not gonna lie. I'm busted ass tired.