opener

it's strange how other people's words have an unintended effect on your life. sometimes they don't even know you are listening, and yet they move you across oceans.

i am somewhere right now i had no idea i would be two years ago, and had absolutely no intention of being. actually, i still have no intention of being here. i was supposed to be in germany by the middle of last year (right)? it's bizarre to have had such a strong desire to be elsewhere and find yourself utterly trapped, for reasons you suspect are partially of your own doing. at last, my only respite is in conquering that desire to live out my impulses -- but by conquering it, does it really disappear?

i've never believed it when people say, "if you're not happy here, then you won't be happy anywhere." i rarely believe in swallowing a big dose of suffering and resentment and calling it patience. maybe my illness this last year really hasn't changed me like that. i am tenfold grateful for my loving friends. i am tenfold grateful for the privileges that my circumstance brings. and i am ever ever so grateful (when i can get a slice of it) for peace of mind.

and now, it's been a few days over exactly a year i stepped out of california pacific, sickeningly delirious from adrenaline, opiates, and benzos that were those doctors' efforts to stabilize my own failing systems. and surely, that was what it was: failure. the word was in constant repetition as i spilled, clutching and fearing those things they put in my body. i had been invaded, and stupid me, i had let them do it.

two days ago, i am finally on a dosage of pred that feels the closest to normal i have been this last year. i feel like myself. an extremely tired version, but still myself. instead of the shrapnel mania i've known for months, i can get a better picture now of how i really feel. so how does it feel to be half way there? between death and achieving self-realization? a lot of mixed up information, pop religion, pop psychology, hopelessly behind, and overloaded senses with the same words, the same memories in constant repetition, with flashes of intense beauty. it's not the dull drone; it's the inability to scream.

so that's a story i will be writing and re-writing for a while. (cuz the journey inward is the same as the journey far far out :) ) you've been patient long enough, and i know i have little to lose.