(no subject)

[solitary_summer]

slightly drunk navel gazing




[13.3.2008 ETA from deadjournal:

:: takes a sip of red wine ::

(which should be read as a roundabout apology for the babbling & lack of coherency in this entry...)

.:@:..:@:..:@:.


it's strange how things can seem so clear one day and blurred not so much later. it's strange typing this in a state of mind so much less sure of myself and my thoughts already...

a few days ago this would have been a quite positive post, only i was too tired and too lazy then, and now things - feelings - are already much more ambiguous. holding on to the fringes... trying to recapture something that can only be felt, not consciously invoked....

disjointed fragments of thoughts instead of a coherent entry.

it was... like i suddenly woke up and found i could be a different person, someone not so limited, so constrained by her fears, someone who can talk to people rather than just withdraw and run away, who doesn't have to be afraid of contact all the time. like i woke up and discovered i did possess strength enough to live in another sense than merely existing.


... that maybe i had been defining myself by various people's expectations and my falling short of them for too long, that maybe i could be someone different, could explore myself, without (ersatz) father figures to please...

maybe i'll eventually turn back to archaeology, but i feel the need to reassess things, to think out of the box for a while. make sure of who i am. who i can be.

... that maybe i was finally, finally growing up, even if i'd never even realised i hadn't been; that all this self-analysing and navel gazing might actually bring some sort of result that'd allow me to move forward rather than just look back all the time.

some moments recently i kept thinking i might finally get the upper hand over the angst and lack of self worth. over the depression. be a person again that isn't entirely defined by the negative.

... that this journey made me who i am, that it ultimately may have been worth it, despite the pain. made me stronger, maybe.


(today, less sure of myself, i'm thinking maybe i'm readjusting the image to make failure tolerable to myself. another comfortable lie)


but what is
reality...


i can't (or think i should) embrace the irrational and emotional all the way, i'm still too much of an academic, but i keep thinking that i forced my mind to work along those abstract, rational lines for too long, emotionally distancing myself from what i did in order to remain objective, which seemed a desirable goal at the time. the relief at finding a system of thought that maybe would make human behaviour explicable. controllable. (oh my, i really *am* my father's daughter) but the emphasis on the imaginative in c.barker's novels (e.g.) calls to a part of me i'd maybe suppressed for too long. it had been there, only at some point i'd apparently judged it useless ior even harmful.

now it's not like i'm going to go all fanatic and join some insane cult tomorrow or even going to re-discover religion, but i think to some extent the need for rationalism was a kind of defence mechanism. letting me believe i had some control over life. keeping the chaos at bay.

i'm not going to give all that up, but i probably should let myself be more open to emotions... find a better balance between those two sides of myself.


then, talking to u. about her relationships, about m. and hers, it actually struck me that for all the negative side-effects of being alone for so long i'm actually glad i at least never made the mistake of hiding in a relationship and falling into a pattern of seeking the explanations and solutions for my problems in someone else, ending up blaming them for my failure, but either out of habit or for fear of loneliness being unable to do without them. not that i haven't got enough self-destructive patterns of behaviour of my own, but i'd like to think that solitude at least forced me to face myself... to get to know myself...


then again, at other times i'm not so sure at all. after all, what do i really know and how long did it take me to find out the few things i think i know now. kinda pathetic.]