#plenty of drama (storms and landslides and etc)

[publicdomainbooksdevotee]

Finished Unbeaten Tracks in Japan and honestly, I can see why someone made it into a manga.

[mooneyedandglowing]

Okaay Weldon Kees lines with being the first thing to barrage my brain upon startling awake in the middle of night: "Have I ever told the truth to you? I did not ask for this. A new disease threads in."

I think I truly cannot just sit with myself to think or process or get over something unless I first feel as if I've already done something about whatever it is. Usually, doing something equates to isolating myself to the extent of worrying others + them asking if I'm having a crisis because I don't have a WhatsApp photo up +/or haven't responded to messages. I can't help myself much in that regard. My need to take some type of action - no matter how minor the action I choose - is too large. + I see often only two options: to speak + perhaps be too forceful with it or flee, slamming the figurative door on my way out, for at least as long as I need to know how I feel or what I believe + speak it in a measured fashion.

I need to feel as if I've come to a conclusion or a decision + done so swiftly, whenever anything has freaked me out, + then I need the time + space to scale back. I need to decide, + then I need to think. + then I need to decide something else or the same thing, but it is this other decision process. + the whole scheme of it all, I absolutely must give to myself or it stacks + stacks until it turns into a landslide of junk I have not internally dealt with. I also must express it somehow. I must write. I must write it + send it into this ether. I must storm all through my mind. I bounce back only when I give myself such freedoms. Otherwise, I become paranoid. I become more easily wounded by those around me. I become prickly. + I become quicker to anger. I build an island. I put up a flag. I bury mines all around me.

It is the middle of the night, + I had realized on waking why that poem kept coming to me so relentlessly. I myself had never been genuine with another (speaking to them; using them as a base for writing material, which always means exaggerating or twisting to some degree; being around them in person - hardly was I ever *truly* free, authentic, genuine), or at least any moment was too rare to add up to much. I myself can only recall the most simple + quiet moments when I, myself, was there along with them. + I used this other person's closed-ness as an excuse for my own. It bolstered me up quite well to position myself so as to never be known by them + feel not a single unit of guilt for any hypocrisy displayed when I get indignant over feeling cut off or misled or whatever it is at whatever time (which still isn't to name them as some immutable innocent being - I'm nuanced always).

I could say whatever about whatever. Who cares, right? What's it matter? They aren't really a part of my life + that's their choice (but in reality partly my own choice). + that is a terrible way to approach no matter what reason I might give it. Because the real reason has so many more facets to it. One facet is that I don't need anyone, + I have relied on this lack of need. I have taken pride in my ability to be fiercely alone + separate. Much of it is because I once had to be that way. I once had to learn, + not by my own choice, how capable I could be, how I could save myself, without anyone to help or even speak to. I knew that I could do it + be fine, + thus I can be quick to pull the trigger that casts me out + launches me far away.

Either way though, I need to not base what I do on what others do or do not do. Nothing works like that. It is something I really need to take a look at - something to stay aware of. It isn't often as exaggerated of an impact as it has been on several occasions with this specific person I speak about, but that is because others are usually not so closed-off/etc within our interactions + thus I do not have certain things triggered by them (which isn't to say I don't still hold back plenty of my parts within those connections either, but it is moreso that it isn't as noticed by them, by myself, by anyone). Sometimes it is not wholly bad to have those things triggered or noticed though, because I realized ... Of all things, that is what I am truly the most sorry for. Sorry to the other person, yes, but mostly to myself.

+ of course, I do not wish to be mistreated, disrespected, shut out, misled, etc - all of that stands as it will always stand - but I also do not want to be someone who hides in such a cunning way that others may not even register it for what it is: islanding. + I do not want to continue giving myself any excuse for covering my body with so much sand. To work against this impulse is a choice that will benefit me. Perhaps not in regard to this specific person, as I think our difficulty in relating will not be solved until they too are done with their defenses or at least willing to legitimately combat those defenses that in their own right also create specific dramas, but it will benefit me somehow. I know that much. I also know I must express myself. Always. I know this person may not like my doing so, but I know that if I feel unable to, everything begins to flame.

For now I am going to tuck myself cozily back into bed.

I am so thankful, so infinitely grateful. I am thankful I can learn. I am grateful that I have.