I need to start thinking about this now. I'm not one of those beautiful brunettes from Party of Five. I'm not Matthew LeBlanc. I'm not one of those people with gorgeous shades of mahogany framing their face. When I go grey will I fight it a few years with the bottle or the salon? I'm feeling despair at the fact that I. Have. No. Hair colour! Is it blonde? No, not really... Is it brown?! Certainly not! Is it see through??? Well, quite possibly you're just now getting somewhere... I don't have a hair colour! When the greys come in there's no diguising it! I'm screwed. Me and my washed out indecisive tint.
I understand that most people reading this will question the validity of my mourning the passing of time due to my youth, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to pause to acknowledge this here benchmark, see?
I haven't felt this way for some time. I suppose symptoms of age accumulate gradually over a number of years before presenting their irrefutable evidence. I remember certain moments; being old enough to ride the big kid rides at the CNE, my first armpit hair (yeah, I know, gross) my first period (grosser). But puberty aside, I haven't really noticed any specifics in my early twenties so far. Until recently. I feel cold more intensely, my teeth are falling to shit with some degenerative horribly acidic saliva thing that people usually get before early adulthood (so why do I have ten cavities at all times no matter what I do?!) caffiene affects me, I can't bounce around all night in uncomfortable shoes, my muscles hurt, I'm stooped. I know I'm not painting an accurate picture of a twenty two year old, and none of these things are acute (yet) but they are there. And these are the physiological idiosyncrasies I will carry with me through life more and more with each passing year.
A few weeks ago I remember feeling startled when I looked in the mirror and could recognize that my face had changed in shape and bone structure in the last five years. Those are the moments I dread, actually. The times when you can examine yourself and physically experience (and bear witness to) the fact that you're different and you can't help that you're on this train headed in one direction, and one direction only.
So I find that it is fitting that a few short weeks after I noticed a change in my face, this grey decided to sprout. And it isn't relevant whether or not I was greying before this evening when I first noticed it. The important thing is that I noticed it and it has me feeling considerably shaken. Being a nostalgia buff you've seen me run through an abridged account of adolescence leading up to this moment in time where I wonder what my time here is and what should I use it for? Maybe I could patent some 20/20 foresight for those of us who are tired of having such a preternatural picture of what was and no ability to percieve what will be. Yeah, I could try that. It would be a welcome alternative to my current solution, which was to stumble out of the elevator (that possesed the guitly mirror that started all this) with my pants half done up (don't ask) clutching this grey hair in my hand and holding it under such intense scrutiny I'm surprised I didn't blow it up with my mind. I shoved it in a cough syrup wrapper and stuffed it in my wallet. Like it's an umbilical cord or some other seminal thing of sentimental value. It isn't! It's just a stupid fucking piece of hair that I pulled out of my goddamn head and wrapped in plastic and held on to like a raving fucking weirdo lunatic! Fuck!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
On Preparation
What does it mean to be prepared? Not in any practical sense... I'm not referring to packing your lunch the night before or laying your clothes out for the next morning. I'm talking about the act of steeling yourself for a daunting task. The shower pep talk, the mirror affirmations, the rambling crazy talk while pacing a waiting room or lobby or what have you. Maybe there's a rabbits foot nearby you could squeeze for good luck? Perhaps some sort of personal totem that makes you feel powerful and safe.
I don't disapprove of any of these things, and, one could opine that I am personally reliant on habits and good luck charms and well... superstitious mojo.
However, while I was preparing for my NYC trip I started to get this feeling like I was wasting a lot of time preparing for events that were to happen regardless of whether or not I had prepared myself. It's interesting to me that we spend time thinking about, imagining and fortifying ourselves in anticipation of moments in our lifetimes. When it comes down to it, the moments that we fret and prepare for are happening all the time. My guess is that we are missing the moments we strive to prepare for by consuming our moments with preparation.
I don't disapprove of any of these things, and, one could opine that I am personally reliant on habits and good luck charms and well... superstitious mojo.
However, while I was preparing for my NYC trip I started to get this feeling like I was wasting a lot of time preparing for events that were to happen regardless of whether or not I had prepared myself. It's interesting to me that we spend time thinking about, imagining and fortifying ourselves in anticipation of moments in our lifetimes. When it comes down to it, the moments that we fret and prepare for are happening all the time. My guess is that we are missing the moments we strive to prepare for by consuming our moments with preparation.
Monday, January 24, 2011
The Architect of Anxiety
I am the freaking Gaudi of anxiety.
In dealing with aching decades of anxiety, I have developed a marvelous repertoire of coping mechanisms; from small, obsessive habits (like repeating phrases endlessly as though they would avert the projected impending disaster) to forming intensely close, codependent bonds with one person at a time, pacifying my scared little ego's need for unconditional constant companionship.
I carried around a block of wood for a year, knocking on it every time I feel the need to. I had an order with which to dress myself, to eat gum, to have my back rubbed.
I had rituals where I would mill about my room busily preparing myself for a panic attack- I would get 2 1/2 liter bottles of water and line them up beside an industrial size bottle of extra extra strength tums, dentyne shiver gum, vicks cough drops, calvin and hobbes comics, pens, a book, k'nex toys and a bag to vomit in (which i only did twice in my life and never due to anxiety. I still have yet to throw up in a toilet this decade because it feels "too real". Knock on wood.) Finally, with all these things in place and just the way I wanted them, I could relax. Let go. Let it take over for a time, but only after I had established I was still the boss.
I half realized slowly over the years (though it has really just dawned on me now and this is why I'm writing it down) that in preparing myself to surrender to anxiety I actually made it so very much worse. People with anxiety shouldn't be architects. They shouldn't design these massive labrynths. Instead, what ends up happening is you build yourself a prison. By masking the symptoms of a panic attack all these years, I mainly succeeded in strengthening my compulsive need to control something, anything.
People with anxiety should not be architects building prisons. We should be MacGuyvers, cleverly espcaping hairy situations with a ballpoint pen and a stalk of broccoli and a dildo. Or whatever. We should be immersing ourselves in the experiences that define a life well and fully lived and should a problem arise, we should navigate through the rocky waves of the mind to stiller waters in a boat made of plastic wrap and apple cores. Or whatever.
Every day that lapses I am more ready to tear down these useless walls I built.
In dealing with aching decades of anxiety, I have developed a marvelous repertoire of coping mechanisms; from small, obsessive habits (like repeating phrases endlessly as though they would avert the projected impending disaster) to forming intensely close, codependent bonds with one person at a time, pacifying my scared little ego's need for unconditional constant companionship.
I carried around a block of wood for a year, knocking on it every time I feel the need to. I had an order with which to dress myself, to eat gum, to have my back rubbed.
I had rituals where I would mill about my room busily preparing myself for a panic attack- I would get 2 1/2 liter bottles of water and line them up beside an industrial size bottle of extra extra strength tums, dentyne shiver gum, vicks cough drops, calvin and hobbes comics, pens, a book, k'nex toys and a bag to vomit in (which i only did twice in my life and never due to anxiety. I still have yet to throw up in a toilet this decade because it feels "too real". Knock on wood.) Finally, with all these things in place and just the way I wanted them, I could relax. Let go. Let it take over for a time, but only after I had established I was still the boss.
I half realized slowly over the years (though it has really just dawned on me now and this is why I'm writing it down) that in preparing myself to surrender to anxiety I actually made it so very much worse. People with anxiety shouldn't be architects. They shouldn't design these massive labrynths. Instead, what ends up happening is you build yourself a prison. By masking the symptoms of a panic attack all these years, I mainly succeeded in strengthening my compulsive need to control something, anything.
People with anxiety should not be architects building prisons. We should be MacGuyvers, cleverly espcaping hairy situations with a ballpoint pen and a stalk of broccoli and a dildo. Or whatever. We should be immersing ourselves in the experiences that define a life well and fully lived and should a problem arise, we should navigate through the rocky waves of the mind to stiller waters in a boat made of plastic wrap and apple cores. Or whatever.
Every day that lapses I am more ready to tear down these useless walls I built.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Mid night fear
This is just for me. This feeling is completely and wholly mine.
I am lying in bed. I went to bed at 8 on a Tuesday with nothing pressing to wake up early for. This is a panic attack. Panic attacks differ greatly from anxiety attacks. I differentiate the two in one major way; anxiety attacks are triggered by a phobia or worry, panic attacks are not. Panic attacks are brought on by seemingly nothing. They attack the body with a succession of symptoms mimicking terror borne of nothingness.
Here I am. My face is hot, burning, flushed. My left side aches (it always does when I'm nervous) Under the blush I know I'm pale and I can feel my feet sweating. My breathing is shallow and erratic and my stomach is flip flop with each new thought introduced into the churning vat of sludge my brain calls fear. And it's driving the car. Too late to go out, too sick to get up, too early to sleep. I am prone waiting for the megavideo to time out and the silence to overwhelm me. Can't get up, mom's in the next room. Can't release the tension. help me help me help me help me. I move in slow precise increments. Can't fuck up, drop anything because that'll be the end.
Ever notice how whenever a part of you malfunctions there's always a moment where you realize how important that one thing is and how fucked your life would be if it didn't work all the time? A chest cold gives way to the revelatory perspective that if you had cystic fibrosis you would be 100% more miserable than that chest cold made you feel for 2 weeks and how glad you are that your lungs ordinarily work. Anxiety can be like that too only it's fleeting moments of calm that make you appreciate every single part of yourself because panic attacks feel like small, all encompassing rebellions. Nothing works. Your mouth, your throat, your skin, hell not even your ass. Your mind decides to save itself and skips town, chased away by the thing that has no name because it doesn't even really exist except in the cartoon fart skid mark cloud your mind leaves behind. Anxiety is like sanity's afterbirth.
help me help me help me.
I don't remember how to stop thinking about this. I don't think I ever learned another way. Our minds are our own and to a certain extent we teach ourselves and inform ourselves as to how to percieve what surrounds us. Did I just do a really shitty job? 10:00 on a fucking Tuesday, nothing at all to wake up for and I'm not going anywhere.
I am lying in bed. I went to bed at 8 on a Tuesday with nothing pressing to wake up early for. This is a panic attack. Panic attacks differ greatly from anxiety attacks. I differentiate the two in one major way; anxiety attacks are triggered by a phobia or worry, panic attacks are not. Panic attacks are brought on by seemingly nothing. They attack the body with a succession of symptoms mimicking terror borne of nothingness.
Here I am. My face is hot, burning, flushed. My left side aches (it always does when I'm nervous) Under the blush I know I'm pale and I can feel my feet sweating. My breathing is shallow and erratic and my stomach is flip flop with each new thought introduced into the churning vat of sludge my brain calls fear. And it's driving the car. Too late to go out, too sick to get up, too early to sleep. I am prone waiting for the megavideo to time out and the silence to overwhelm me. Can't get up, mom's in the next room. Can't release the tension. help me help me help me help me. I move in slow precise increments. Can't fuck up, drop anything because that'll be the end.
Ever notice how whenever a part of you malfunctions there's always a moment where you realize how important that one thing is and how fucked your life would be if it didn't work all the time? A chest cold gives way to the revelatory perspective that if you had cystic fibrosis you would be 100% more miserable than that chest cold made you feel for 2 weeks and how glad you are that your lungs ordinarily work. Anxiety can be like that too only it's fleeting moments of calm that make you appreciate every single part of yourself because panic attacks feel like small, all encompassing rebellions. Nothing works. Your mouth, your throat, your skin, hell not even your ass. Your mind decides to save itself and skips town, chased away by the thing that has no name because it doesn't even really exist except in the cartoon fart skid mark cloud your mind leaves behind. Anxiety is like sanity's afterbirth.
help me help me help me.
I don't remember how to stop thinking about this. I don't think I ever learned another way. Our minds are our own and to a certain extent we teach ourselves and inform ourselves as to how to percieve what surrounds us. Did I just do a really shitty job? 10:00 on a fucking Tuesday, nothing at all to wake up for and I'm not going anywhere.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Oh, incongruous
Do you ever feel cheated?
I do.
I feel cheated when I think about how I made this ability out of blood sweat tears and countless hours of lessons and practice and repetition and thought and just.. work. I worked so hard for so long to be able to play music like how I do now. And hey, it's not that I'm better than anyone else out there. It just takes a lot to be "good enough" to do this for a living and not seem like an avril lavigne, strumming a g chord once per song while maybe lip syncing.
So I have this skill set and guess what? I am completely lacking the life skills needed to do it for a living!
I am so afraid of traveling.
I hate it. I hate it on principle, in practice, in anticipation. I hate the weeks leading up to it when I have trouble functioning with sweaty palms and eyes lidded with ruminating thoughts of fear and self doubt. I hate the night before when I'm packing and I can't seem to placate myself no matter what I put in my suitcase! I hate the morning of when I can't eat and there's nothing to do but let myself be pulled along. I hate being away and knowing the world is continuing in spite of me. I hate entering a new city and not knowing where anything is. I hate arriving at the place I'm staying and not feeling at home. I hate setting off my first morning somewhere foreign to find food or coffee that doesn't suck and failing miserably. I hate feeling trapped by having so much free time and not knowing what to do with it, only knowing i don't know what to do or where I am. I hate not being in control. I hate counting sleeps till I get home. I hate not knowing where the clean washrooms are and above all else, I hate the hours between 8 and 11pm when the city shuts down and it's too early to sleep.
This is the last time I hope to write such a list. I'm trying to rewire my mind so that I can do things like go on tour. It's hard because I'm stubborn. It's hard because in addition to fearing travel I also fervently dislike it. Fear and loathing (I know, I know) create a perfect storm of avoidance I don't know how to get around. How do I get around this?!
I do.
I feel cheated when I think about how I made this ability out of blood sweat tears and countless hours of lessons and practice and repetition and thought and just.. work. I worked so hard for so long to be able to play music like how I do now. And hey, it's not that I'm better than anyone else out there. It just takes a lot to be "good enough" to do this for a living and not seem like an avril lavigne, strumming a g chord once per song while maybe lip syncing.
So I have this skill set and guess what? I am completely lacking the life skills needed to do it for a living!
I am so afraid of traveling.
I hate it. I hate it on principle, in practice, in anticipation. I hate the weeks leading up to it when I have trouble functioning with sweaty palms and eyes lidded with ruminating thoughts of fear and self doubt. I hate the night before when I'm packing and I can't seem to placate myself no matter what I put in my suitcase! I hate the morning of when I can't eat and there's nothing to do but let myself be pulled along. I hate being away and knowing the world is continuing in spite of me. I hate entering a new city and not knowing where anything is. I hate arriving at the place I'm staying and not feeling at home. I hate setting off my first morning somewhere foreign to find food or coffee that doesn't suck and failing miserably. I hate feeling trapped by having so much free time and not knowing what to do with it, only knowing i don't know what to do or where I am. I hate not being in control. I hate counting sleeps till I get home. I hate not knowing where the clean washrooms are and above all else, I hate the hours between 8 and 11pm when the city shuts down and it's too early to sleep.
This is the last time I hope to write such a list. I'm trying to rewire my mind so that I can do things like go on tour. It's hard because I'm stubborn. It's hard because in addition to fearing travel I also fervently dislike it. Fear and loathing (I know, I know) create a perfect storm of avoidance I don't know how to get around. How do I get around this?!
Sunday, December 26, 2010
I really mean this.
Lets not use such strong language, shall we? We won't say words like "existential" or "crises". We will use other words that suggest a subtler feeling. Instead of "existential" we will say "funny" and we will consider replacing "crises" with "matter".
I'm having a funny matter. Do you know what a funny matter is? I'll explain.
A funny matter may consist of, but is not limited to, a special feeling of neurosis. The kind that swims in circles in a downward fashion until you reach a ridiculous low, sitting somewhere starting a hole in the back of a chair wondering if all cab drivers have esp and if your life's work is valid enough to be referred to as your "life's work" or should you be putting more time and effort in to your work and if you do that, does it really make a difference in the end and what is the end and does it justify the means and if cab drivers are indeed psychic than did you say anything dark or evil when you were sitting there or were you just humming your own song in your head like a whelp?
You come to just in time to find yourself rolling pennies in your mothers apartment thinking about the logistics of depositing all these hundreds of rolls in the bank and you realize that the only reason you're even rolling these coins is to distract your mind from the way your family makes you feel at christmas time, all fond and vulnerable and annoyed like when your best friend tells a joke you made up at lunch and gets a huge laugh for it and as you roll and as you ruminate and fall deeper and deeper into a depression padded with food and darkness and forced smiles and small talk and subtle annoyances and temperature shifts and germaphobia you realize...
...we all feel this way once in awhile and it's ok.
I'm having a funny matter. Do you know what a funny matter is? I'll explain.
A funny matter may consist of, but is not limited to, a special feeling of neurosis. The kind that swims in circles in a downward fashion until you reach a ridiculous low, sitting somewhere starting a hole in the back of a chair wondering if all cab drivers have esp and if your life's work is valid enough to be referred to as your "life's work" or should you be putting more time and effort in to your work and if you do that, does it really make a difference in the end and what is the end and does it justify the means and if cab drivers are indeed psychic than did you say anything dark or evil when you were sitting there or were you just humming your own song in your head like a whelp?
You come to just in time to find yourself rolling pennies in your mothers apartment thinking about the logistics of depositing all these hundreds of rolls in the bank and you realize that the only reason you're even rolling these coins is to distract your mind from the way your family makes you feel at christmas time, all fond and vulnerable and annoyed like when your best friend tells a joke you made up at lunch and gets a huge laugh for it and as you roll and as you ruminate and fall deeper and deeper into a depression padded with food and darkness and forced smiles and small talk and subtle annoyances and temperature shifts and germaphobia you realize...
...we all feel this way once in awhile and it's ok.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
The Stall
Pissing in the ancient, 24 hour single stall of the women's washroom at the lakeview restaurant. 2am. Tired and mullish. I didn't lock the stall because the metal latch looked bent and i didn't figure on anyone bursting in. Voices loud outside the door. A young woman preocupied with fun opened the door to the restroom proper.
I fumbled with the lock absent mindedly with one hand while i rested my chin in the other hand, nearly done pissing.
"Fuck it", I thought when the lock wouldn't slide closed. I put my hand against the door to prevent her from barging in. I grabbed a fistful of toilet paper and began to wipe when i felt her shove against the door. It opened a crack. I pushed it closed. This goddamn woman pushed back even harder and caught a rewarding (and unfortunately prolonged) glimpse of my ass, mid wipe. She closed the door as I said, "what the fuck?!?!".
Humilitation was sinking me down the toilet with my own urine. "Well who doesn't lock the door??", she asked rhetorically, aiming to point out my own idiocy and how all of this was really my fault. Fair enough.
Once I was standing pants pulled up, I managed to lock the door no problem. I took an extra moment to allow my mortified shoulders to relax after stiffening with surprised embarassment. I didn't look at her when I left, but thought to myself, "Who the fuck shoves open a door in a washroom that has just been agressively pushed closed against them?!"
I fumbled with the lock absent mindedly with one hand while i rested my chin in the other hand, nearly done pissing.
"Fuck it", I thought when the lock wouldn't slide closed. I put my hand against the door to prevent her from barging in. I grabbed a fistful of toilet paper and began to wipe when i felt her shove against the door. It opened a crack. I pushed it closed. This goddamn woman pushed back even harder and caught a rewarding (and unfortunately prolonged) glimpse of my ass, mid wipe. She closed the door as I said, "what the fuck?!?!".
Humilitation was sinking me down the toilet with my own urine. "Well who doesn't lock the door??", she asked rhetorically, aiming to point out my own idiocy and how all of this was really my fault. Fair enough.
Once I was standing pants pulled up, I managed to lock the door no problem. I took an extra moment to allow my mortified shoulders to relax after stiffening with surprised embarassment. I didn't look at her when I left, but thought to myself, "Who the fuck shoves open a door in a washroom that has just been agressively pushed closed against them?!"
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