Fear # 32

I've always been very dependent on relationships. People are important to me. My friendships act as the thermostat that regulates everything else in my world. This fact about me has often made me question my strength and my morality. Is my reliance....No, my NEED for others a weakness and a sin? Deep down I believe that the answer to that question is "no". I think we were all created to need relationship. Nobody is meant to be alone. If we were, then why would we all crave the company and the nuturing of people that love us?

It was during a conversation I had today that I was able to vocalize something that has been sitting in the back of my throat for a while. I haven't stopped relying on my friends. On a daily basis I talk to at least one person who loves me. It's a necessity I allow myself to indulge. But most of the people I talk to are not here with me. As it would be with most people, this occassionally leads me to the ever-so-familiar valley of loneliness that all of us have traveled through. But more than that....the sensation that's stronger is that I feel unknown.

It's amazing how much of what we see in ourselves is actually just a reflection of who we are in the eyes of others. The reflection that I have (subconsciously) grown so accustomed to seeing over the years has become very cloudy here. In fact, I can barely make it out at all anymore. There are people here that love me; but I just don't think I'm SEEN the way I used to be. (The people I spend eight hours a day with, for example, have no clue who I am. Sometimes people decide to see us a certain way, and there's nothing we can do to change that.)

As crazy as it sounds, I'm afraid that I'm disappearing. If no one really sees you....really KNOWS you....can that actually happen? I'm losing my ability to see myself; I'm forgetting what the reflection used to look like. The solution is one of two things: either I need new glasses or a cleaner mirror.

I guess it's better than having gas...

I cry a lot now.

It's not because I'm sad or depressed. It's not necessarily because I'm really happy, either.

The thing is; somehow my emotional wires have crossed. Whatever it is inside me that triggers my tear ducts has malfunctioned. Instead of reacting to the "normal" emotions that tears accompany, the damn thing reacts to just about every emotion I have. It's like whatever "it" is has given up on its job of sorting through the feelings in my head. "To hell wid it. She so fucked up she don't know whetha to scratch er' watch or wind er' ass. I can't keep up. Let er' cry ever day fer all I care." (Apparently, not only is the voice of my emotion tremendously insensitive, but from backwoods Arkansas.)

When I'm with someone I even remotely care about, and this fact crosses my mind when I'm with them...tears. When I get pissed off...tears. When a song on the radio reminds me of something I did or saw or said once upon a time...tears. When I think of something funny...tears. When love (or hate, for that matter) in any of its forms breezes through me momentarily...tears. When my cereal gets soggy...tears. And this is the worst one....when I talk to someone about something that's important to me...my body immediately coerces me cry. This is immesively inconvenient because I'm typically a very sincere person. I rarely talk about anything that isn't of some importance to me. As horrifying as this is to admit, I've had to tell colleagues in two different meetings lately that my "allergies were acting up" so that they wouldn't realize I was actually tearing up over what was being discussed. The excuse was perfectly believable both times, but I was secretly humiliated.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??

In one way, I feel intensely connected to the world right now, but in another way, I feel numb to much of it. I'm an island surrounded by electrically charged water....standing alone but constantly submerged by shockwaves. I think maybe the combination of the two extremes is the cause of this. Raw, unprotected emotion knows no other way to express itself than through tears....exhausted, disconnected emotion that doesn't have the strength to hold back or be creative resorts to tears by default.

It amazes me that some people go years without crying. How is that possible? Does that mean that they are so in the world that they can't feel it pressing against them, or has all the water around their islands evaporated?

Does it make anyone else sad that The Boy Who Could Fly is now the middle aged man who sells Advil?

Watch Out. It's a Bull Market out there. Or, so I've heard.

What day of the week will April 15th, 2019 fall on? What day did it fall on in 1942? If it's 5:00 p.m. in Lisbon, then what time is it in Vancouver? Does your business fall under a "1R" or a "2R" rating in the D&B system? What is the definition of "Greenmail"? How many miles is it from Nairobi and Bombay? If you need the answers to any of these questions, I'm your go-to gal.

I just purchased a $40 day planner, and the above is just a small sample of the wealth of knowledge it contains. Honestly, I haven't used a day planner in quite some time....which might explain my usual brain jumble of appointments and deadlines. Apparently all of the ones I owned in the past were cheap teaniebop versions because they never contained mini-encyclopedias like this one does. (but at least those had extra pages for my weekly updated list of boys that I liked) While this new possession should make me feel all new and shiny--empowered with fancy facts, I'm really just annoyed. Who needs crap like this in their planner? Anyone who does surely wouldn't be using a $40 leather binder to keep their lives straight. Their personal assistants would be doing it for them by way of high tech laser hieroglyphics Or is my professional life just extremely lame and trivial....or lamely trivial....or trivially lame?? No, the Mead Company is mocking me, my friends. It's mocking all of us for our ability to function without a toteable Wall Street dictionary. Now excuse me while I place a few prank calls to the Milwaukee Econo Lodge.