Blog the Sixteenth Act the Last

There's nothing quite like being in the ocean, zipped up in a constricting wetsuit, and spinning around and around in tight, frightened circles to help you realize this probably isn't going to be the summer you dreamed about.

Working through one long held fear (planes are sooo not my friends) and discovering another (sharks are sooo not my friends either), lead to many days and nights of fielding terrible anxiety and battling major panic attacks. And I must say, from experience, having a panic attack in the open water is not a very good idea.

I always thought I was a brave person. I remember being younger and heading off into unknown adventures. Bounding out the apartment door early on a weekend morning to discover new things. To go exploring, as I called it. Nothing quite like getting lost in the massive acreage of a country farm, but one does what one can in New York City.

In these last few months however, since the planes and the sharks, the flying and the swimming - I have concluded something about myself I think I'd rather not have known.

I'm scared. I am really very freakin' afraid!

I am much more scared in life, much more scared than I thought I'd ever be, since my Mother's death. I am much more frightened to do things outside my protective circle - but with good reason I had convinced myself. When it all lands on you to take care of - your life, your safety, your survival - at the gloriously young and completely unprepared age of 18 - you really don't want to fuck it up. If I make big mistakes, if I get it really wrong, I concluded, there isn't anyone else to fall back on, or anyplace else to fall back to. Your security, your support, your home, your Mother are gone - so you'd better make it work and make it work right.

I'm thinking maybe that would have scared the bejebus out of anyone.

It should come as no surprise then, that I don't do well with things that are out of my control. Oceans and planes, rollercoasters, boyfriends, the freaking World Series - all much too much out of my hands. Did you know I bit all my fingernails off while watching the movie Open Water because I couldn't deal with not knowing what was going to happen? Did you know that my job is in production scheduling? My world. My order.

The summer, I've realized, had other plans.

The challenge to participate in a triathlon and raise money for children living with AIDS -
The recurring daydream about being stuck in a cave -
The strange visions about what to do with my Mother's ashes -
The return to my home place -
The freaking out in the ocean -
The not freaking out in the plane (both ways! woo hoo!) -

So many seemingly unrelated things and all culminated in an utterly fantastic family road trip, a moment with wild dolphins, a spectacular open water swim in the Pacific, and one recently initiated and accepted challenge - the challenge to not be so afraid.

I don't think I could ever be a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of gal - the need to make sure I have security in life unabashedly comes first - it's too ingrained in me, that need to be secure. But I am thinking that perhaps the good spirits have paved the way for a future of adventure for me. And I get to use the last few months as proof to myself that being scared, but doing it anyway, can result in some pretty amazing things.

Fin.

-TL

Photo Post #1 - Favorite Halloween Photo

I don't know who this person is, but I love them. Photo snapped at the West Hollywood Halloween Carnivale in Los Angeles.





I posted this picture, and didn't think to leave any writings behind. But one commentor asked if the wings were itty bitty fairy wings - which would make anyone stop and ask... uhhhh what's up with that demon dude - itty bitty fairy wings?

But in fact those aren't itty bitty fairy wings at all - they are a set of tortured and broken wings.

The back of the costume looked as if the skin had melted like wax, dripping and bubbling down, and the wings appeared to have been savagely ripped off - and just stumps were left. I got the feeling that someone, or something, or some set of terrible, terrible circusmtances - took hold of his wings with sharp claws, with awful deadly talons. They gripped the feathers with a harsh and heartless cruetly, and then... tore them off. Could have been feather by feather, could have been all at once.

I love this costume, this creature, because sometimes, lots of times, I feel like it looks. Sometimes I feel that savagely ravaged on the inside, torn apart, torn asunder, and still asked to walk along displaying what I have, the tattered remains of what I am left with. It was a very brutal looking costume from the back, and a scary one from the front (which is what ya'll can see). But to me it was beautiful. A tortured misery still walking amongst us. Ahhh yes... definitely a tortured misery.

-TL

Blog the Sixteenth Act II

I was wrong.

Back in July I wrote to you all about a recurring day dream I had been having.

In a nutshell, the daydream went as such: TL in the corridor of a dark cave, trying to break free of thick and sticky cobwebs that grabbed at her face and hands and wouldn't give her freedom.

It seemed particularly obvious that this daydream was about trying to break free, trying to get out, trying to leave behind all the bad stuff.
But it wasn't.

This daydream was about not letting myself runaway from the past. What this daydream was trying to tell me, was that it was time for me to face all the crap (or at least some of the crap - baby steps ya know) I had left behind, or more honestly, that I had run away from - eleven years ago.

It was time to face one of the biggest storms in my life.

It was time to face all that, and the cobwebs wouldn't let me go until that job was done. I wouldn't be allowed to runaway anymore and blame something else. I would be forced to stay, to turn around and look at what was at the original place, to look backward with my new eyes. To turn around and look at that scary place. Look at that place where I had come from.

It was no use anymore... denying. My insides were telling me. It's not that you're afraid to fly or that you have "issues" with your family. It's not that you don't have a place to stay, or not enough money this time around. It's not that you just don't have enough vacation time or couldn't possibly take another day off because you're just so busy. It's not any of that that makes you not want to go back to the city.

It's not any of that that makes you say you hate the city with such venom, with such gut fire. Say you hate to fly. Say you hate taking the time or you don't want to deal with your family. Lie, lie, lie...

What it is is that your heart was broken in that place. What it is is that your life was ended in that place. Your Mother died in that town. She was eaten by The City.

For eleven years, my home, the place I had grown up in, the place I had had everything in, was this big, black, bleak hole that had taken my Mother's life. It stole the innocent look of my childhood envisioned future. It had taken everything. And I just... I just didn't want to go back there.

I made up a lot of excuses, gave myself a fear of flying complex (validated by one bad flight I had 14 years ago), missed out on seeing my family, my best friend's kids, my godchildren growing up - all because I could hardly bear to spend any amount of time in the place I should call home. But home is not supposed to eat Moms. Home is not supposed to have all these bad memories...

I live 3,000 miles away from New York because of this. This was as far as I could get without swimming, and as much as I could afford with $350 in my pocket and five bags of hope on the train. Please, I kept thinking while I was on my way across the vast lands of this country, please let it better in this new place.

-TL

A Blip

I thought I'd wait till October 22nd to post again - and make it an even two months since I wrote last, but I just couldn't wait any longer. So here I am!

Welcome back to me!

I'll so have to catch you all up :)

-TL