Tuesday, March 07, 2006
writing to think
Suddenly, sleep eludes me. Not completely, but I lie in bed with eyelids finally drooped from reading, yet I am squinting them to force them shut. I feel irritated about the minutiae of my Monday to the point where I am forced, to talk to myself aloud, in gibberish, in tongues, in words to which I reply myself.I need to wake in another three hours or so. Tonight I took Tramadol again, which it turns out, on its own, it just puts me out of sorts, now that I try to sleep after taking it earlier in the night. Finally, out of my pathetic sleep, I roused myself awake to take half-a-tablet of the Lorazepam I still had left, which hopefully as it promises, reduces anxiety and aids sleep.
I have nothing to be anxious about really. I pray and God answers. I go and He provides. It is really as simple as that, has been always, and I have no fear that it will be otherwise.
But my emotions continue to churn, and this time it is of irritation. Sumire in Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, writes the same thing I once did, and still believe to be true: that we write to think about things, and if we stop writing, we have stopped thinking.
I do admit I have anger management problems. About eleven years ago, I contemplated studying abroad and actually made a step towards that, by applying for UWC - United World College. As part of admissions, I wrote an essay which in it, I expounded on the issue of anger. Back then, I had just met God, and I felt strangely calmer and less angry at people. Somehow I felt peace and was always eager to forgive more than I felt like hollering or being violent. I wrote this new found revelation in the essay, as it was the keynote on my heart in that phase of my life. (Of course, eventually I remained studying in Singapore, as all my ex-classmates will know, and on hindsight I was too immature even though sixteen years of age, too myopic and self-centred to have passed the admissions interview).
Today I feel the peace differently: my peace guides me to where I should go or stay, and it rarely stays in the same place. Perhaps that's why it is said, 'Seek peace and pursue it', in the Bible. If I compare that same peace I had towards people when I was sixteen, these days I feel a comfort of a similar magnitude, when I am with C. I almost never feel the urge to holler at him. And seeing him makes everything seem less monstrous and all okay, completely.
But I have completely misplaced that peace with people, when I talk to H, with him somehow every sentence exchanged is like a test on my anger management skills. Which of course I will most definitely fail every now and then, more often than not. I feel like I have a rope to manage, pulled taut, but very fragile, and every conversation exchanged is like a multiple collection of pressure point attacks on my rope, which I have to try to shield, or thereafter, repair the rope if the attacks were successful. Tension, and I have no idea how to let go of the rope.
How could I not be angry? Everything angers me. But the problem with H and I is that, we are so similar yet so different. Together we have the same mindset, the same attitudes and ideals, the same love for people and for God, and for us to build a business together has never been a mistake from the beginning, despite everything. There is so much everything. But we both expect more from each other, and thus the communication ideal is crushed, the intermittent failures are falls from greater heights, and we are both busy, not just one of us at any time, but both, everytime almost. And think trying to communicate extremely complicated art/ideas/business matters, with all those parameters too. Holler-bomb! It is nobody's fault, and not a problem that can be dealt with entirely, especially not in the immediate. I will have to just learn not to holler. H and I work better together for our staff and clients, yet it is hard to work for each other because of all those everythings and everythings as stated.
Even as I speak, my heart pounds like it always does when my emotions churn. I wish I could lower my heart rate. The soul has transcended the boundary into the body, and manifests in a pounding heart. Perhaps beta-blockers, or likely, perhaps I continue to write.
So it seems I like to help people, and talking to a girlfriend tonight helped me remind myself of that fact. There is no true altruism, H has said before. Perhaps I like to help people because I feel good if I prove to be helpful indeed. Maybe also, I like to solve problems, like a man does, and yes I can be quite a man if you need instead just a utter listening ear. Whichever way I see it, I might really do have a Martian quality about me in that: speaking top-down, giving solutions and fixing the machines in peoples' lives.
It hurts me when someone I care about is hurt, more so by me, it is twice the hurt because I carry my weakness and its iniquity with me. I want, so much, to change so that I can do things properly - no better way to have worded that, really.
Can I stop you from feeling your grief, or disappointment, or broken-heartedness? My days are living challenges for me to learn how to manage my emotions, to learn how to deal with issues in my life better. Everyday, I live to conquer challenges - to prevent the negative really, to prevent myself from getting depressed again, or stressed to the point of incapacitation, or irritated and angry to the point of extremely violent words. Suddenly, everyday is a prevention, I start out with zero, and everything that happens in my days takes away, so I have a net negative result at the end of the day, which I must learn how to deal with, or else I do not let the things that happen subtract from me at all.
I must learn how to love and protect H like I do for the people who I truly love. H is a memory, an undead friend, and I have not been adding to us what everyday things have been subtracting from us, to revive and pump life into our relationship. I have learn again to cry the tears H cries, and feel the losses he feels, and the hopes he has, just as I would for the close ones I have.
For every tear my loved ones shed, I imagine I was there shedding the same tear.
"I saw you in that toilet, crying so that no one will see.
With no one but rough toilet paper to wipe your tears
Even though you would have looked great that day
as you always do when teaching, I noticed
you are always a happy sight!
I know it was ashen inside
that house of pink shirt and white skirt
(just what I imagined).
I was far away with work with no in between time
Else I would have been there
Despite that -
you remained strong,
made plans to get up,
and I know will not be beaten for it.
I was there when you said you cried in that toilet
I really was, and I shed these tears for you now."
I write to think, I write to sleep. - elaine
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