Well hello, blog post. I told you I would turn to you as a friend when there are no physical friends to be found. So here I am. How much can I confide in you, I don’t know. My life has been a toggle between transparency and invisibility. I don’t know the right place to draw the line. Sharing yourself can feel icky, but living incognito can be dangerous, making it that much easier for someone to lock you in their basement without anyone noticing.
Although I have written a lot of blog posts, they are usually from my brain, the only part of the body that can be safely shared. I guess that is why we have art, to share those parts of ourselves which are taboo to put into plain words.
I am trying to start drinking alcohol. Maybe it will provide a space for me to connect with those parts of myself that have no home in daily life. You are not supposed to drink alone, however, so maybe I will drink with you. I am fairly intoxicated right now, and it is making me cry to realize how homeless my feelings have become. Life is playing a role to please others and maintain harmony. Survival depends upon it.
In my case, my role is easy. Nobody expects anything of me. My only task is to have no desires, no emotions, and be mildly happy all the time. To never want or need anything. To be okay with constant stillness & isolation, to never need fun or adventure beyond a monthly trip to Walmart. To never be chaotic or make unexpected noises. Basically, to be a librarian.
But I can’t take it anymore. The pressure is building up and I feel like a kernel of corn who can’t stop himself from blowing. I want to get on the bus and just go somewhere. But where? The only place I can think of is the library. And I hate libraries. All those thick boring books with their gray waves. It feels like being surrounded by stones. It is hard for me to stay conscious in a library for more than a few minutes.
I want to be surrounded by a different type of wave. Bright waves. Fun waves. Romantic waves. The waves of adventure and boldness. No more sleepy, snoozy, waves filling the air 24/7.
But my horoscope predicts this state of affairs (caused by Neptune-the planet of insane asylums- afflicting my domestic realm) will continue for another 10 months. So far it has lasted for 2 years. So what do I do? Continue to bang my head against the wall in a vain effort to change what can’t be changed? Yes. I think that is what I will do.
As I mentioned before, the circumstances causing me to go insane is living alone with my husband who works from home, but sleeps through the day while working at night. To make matters worse, when he isn’t working or sleeping, he likes to lie down by himself in a dark room to think. He says this is the most important part of his work, and I’m sure he is right, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am going insane. He is the sort of person who never really needs to have fun or let loose, and while I admire this about him, it doesn’t change the fact that I am going nuts.
He doesn’t understand though, how I can be impacted by his actions when we are separate people. If he chooses to spend all sunlit hours lying horizontal in the darkness, what does that have to do with me? How can it possibly impact my state of mind? To me, however, the impact is self-evident. Wouldn’t anyone notice a difference between living in a circus versus a cemetery? A sunny day versus a cloudy one? Doesn’t everyone need to be cheered by the vital presence of others every now and then?
And now I am breaking another taboo by mentioning James. You are allowed to talk about yourself, but you can’t talk about anyone else, which basically means you can’t really talk about yourself either. Relationship issues are private and must be worked out in secret between the two people, which basically means they can’t be worked out at all. There is always someone with less power in a relationship, isn’t there? And for them the privacy of marriage only turns it into a death trap.
Maybe it would be better if relationships were opened up for public scrutiny, at least to some extent. On the other hand, everyone needs a secret garden where their inner self can live away from prying eyes. And that is what the domestic realm is supposed to be. So I do value the gag order placed on discussing domestic problems even though I am breaking it.
But I shouldn’t do that. So instead I will do the right thing. Swallow deeply, smile bigly and turn to magic for the answers. The one friend who has been there for man since the beginning of time, his secrets taught to us through our best friends- the grains. The staffs of life.
