Haunting Angles;Side long glances

Angles

 

You would not believe how much my life is controlled by Angles. [And yes, I am referring to Angles, opposed to Angels, despite the confusion caused by my uppercase use of “A”.]  Angels – side long glances of the reflection in a passing window or car mirror.  The well know Angels at home that seem to take pleasure in pointing out my every flaw, each misplaced hair, each skin imperfection.

 

Really, I don’t want to look but the Angels get the better of me. A quick glance as I make my way from the living room into the bedroom and back.  Not a real in depth analysis but just an odd Angel of myself, seen reflected back to me as I pass the partly closed bathroom door.  Is that who I am right now?  I must say the most jarring part about the Angels – partial images appearing everywhere around me – is that they return a ‘me’ that is at times drastically different than the ‘me’ I am in my head.  My conception – my perception – of my outward appearance is always off.  This, in truth, I feel I could reconcile myself with if it were not for the eyes.  What do you do when the eyes staring back at you, reflected in the bizarre upward Angle of a car mirror –or what have you- don’t seem familiar?  And even if they are familiar, do not seem to possess the inward passion, desire, bravado and confidence you have come to know as YOUR eyes, your SELF.

 

It’s funny how the Angles have the power to alter my day.  They say every mirror is different, each reflective surface slightly convex or concave, and therefore portraying a more or less agreeable version of that which it reflects.  I know this.  I know they can’t be trusted, but as I exit a mirror containing room I do so with my sense of self completely confirmed – bravado, confidence and charm ablaze – or I don’t.  If not, I exit dejected, lost and somewhat confused, occasionally depressed, trying to build my sense of self up from scratch.  In the meantime feeling an imposter in my own skin – no, that’s not right – an imposter in someone else’s skin.  It’s only an Angle; it’s not to be trusted, yet its confirmation or denial of me through its ability to align some ‘inner’ me with some ‘outer’ version is unbelievably alluring.

 

Can I wash my hands without looking up?  Can I exit my car without a quick glance in the rear view just to make sure my hair is not doing some sort of Alfalfa ‘thing’? Can I look through windows and never at them? 

They say near death experiences change you.  Make you less superficial and more to the point. I must say that I have had more than my fair share. However after abandoning such a lifestyle, my life seems to slowly be filling with such banal, minor trivialities.  Sometimes we may just need bigger fish to fry.

..just BAM and the smoke smells way to good.

The smell of cigarette smoke is doing me in.

My main question is: why now?  Why now am I feeling so vulnerable when faced with the urge to smoke.  The urge that for months has been completely absent and is now rearing it’s alluring inviting enticing ugly head?  Before all I had to do was remind myself how hard it was so stop, the health benefits – both immediate (ability to breath) and future (life itself),how unfair it was to keep smoking after my finance quit, how much I wanted to do this for my father.  Once I reminded myself of these things the desire to smoke would vanish instantaneously.  Now as I sit here I find myself wondering what all the fuss was about.  I miss it.

The funny thing is that I have always been really firm in my commitments to stop something.  Too firm at times perhaps.  It has gone so far as to take on a defining quality.  I AM that person who is strong willed, hard headed, and stubborn.  Who can set her mind to anything (self control wise) and just do it.  Once I concede that it’s time to give something up – well that’s it – done, finito, gone.  But therein lies the problem.

I have become so internally defined with my ability to limit and restrict that I can’t stop.  I have come to thrive on (or rather suffer from) my personal, epic battles of will power.

But now I am left asking: in constantly ’taking away’ from myself with goals of raising my own personal bar, what am I going to be left with?  Life is slowly but surely loosing the fun, the carefree, the enjoyable.  I actually once considered myself SPONTANEOUS.  Where have those days gone?  According to the records I am only 21 years old after all.

Can you understand how unsettling it is to have such urges to smoke?  If I were to give in to such an urge, where would the cycle lead me?  How would I define myself?  How would others’ view of me change?  If I started smoking again and told myself that if I quit once I could do it again – what would stop me from starting everything else I have stopped with the same justification.  What would stop me from winding up back in my car, family and friendless, with drugs as my sole desired companion.  Drugs and words anyway.  I have always believed a saying I once heard, something that has always stuck with me: The first time you try to quit, it’s easy. [ I take that to mean relatively so - in other words, don't throw away your one 'free-pass'.  Not that it is exactly 'easy' the first time, but I sure as hell don't want to know what the non-easy subsequent tries are like.]

I am leading this refined and sifted life that I (non-religiously) imposed upon myself.  For me it has always been all or nothing.  Entirely ‘out there’ or entirely ’here’.  Entirely absent or entirely present.  For some reason there is no give and take in me – it’s entirely give or entirely take.

Why the sudden insecurities?  Nothing bad, nothing troubling, no real bout of depressive thoughts – just BAM and the smoke smells way to good.   

   

Enforced Happiness

Yesterday, if you had asked me for my opinion on the holiday (in a non-religious sense of course), my answer would have revealed my indifference.

Easter.  Yes, a time to be with family, but once the anticipatory ‘bunny’ fades into the distance of youth  – and prior to having any kids of ones own – what else is there?  This would have been my response last night.This morning, waking up to a sky not yet inundated with overpowering sunlight, I knew what I wanted to do.  Well, if not wanted, at least what I knew I should do if I did not wish to feel the pangs of regret.  So, up I got, stumbling into the bathroom to turn on the muchtobright light, to make myself at least halfway decent in a braving-the-public-at-seven-a.m.-on-a-Sunday-morning sort of way.

The grocery store.    Avenues of display items, the whole of the store devoid of the mass of people I generally encounter on my early evening supply runs.  The ‘holiday aisle’.  Why don’t these baskets come pre-made?  Okay, a basket, some chocolates, some stringy stuff for the bottom, random toys – all, in all, way too many decisions for my sleep-fogged mind.  A couple of donuts.  Some flowers. 

The return home.  Putting everything together.  It’s at this point that something in me changed.  Now, if asked, I would have to respond that Easter doesn’t seem too bad.  Sort of an enforced jump-start on the merry spring outlook. You know, the outlook you imagine everyone having as you scroll through blogs only to find little more than picture after picture of flowers. I have subconsciously been avoiding just such an outlook, holed up in my apartment with the air conditioner telling me that winter is still outside my door.  Maybe this spring is not too bad.  Today, it actually seems quite nice.  Plus, summer is my actual nemesis and spring is only colored in my outlook by proximity..

And the sunflowers I bought for C scream happiness… Today feels like a good day. 

Music; or, A Soundtrack of Thoughts

Music.

 I am not a die hard fan.  I used to be. I used to know all [ahem, okay, a lot of anyway] the ‘up and coming’ artists.  I used to be one of those people with an IPOD forever sticking out of their pocket and a white cord attached to an ear.  If you wanted to talk to me, you had to do so loud enough to make yourself heard over the background soundtrack that I refused to turn off. 

IPODS break.  Things get busy.  Charging units hide themselves around the house and in the bottom of a car’s center console.

 I haven’t had music keeping me company for quite some time.  In the car, yes, but with a sound system that is forever on the fritz – that’s iffy.

So I go about listening to the only thing I have left.  My thoughts.  They have stepped up to the plate, magnificently, to fill the void left by music.  They question, confuse, muddle, ponder.  They SEEM to have their own agency but the ultimate goal of such a plan (scheem..) is something I am utterly in the dark about.  I listen.  People still have to talk loud enough to get through the background soundtrack – there is just a lack of melody these days.

 Today I woke up feeling a bit ‘off’.  In the head that is.  Probably due to a series of consecutive late nights studying and writing for exams/papers etc.

Sitting at my computer, working from home mind you, I had the bright idea to minimise my tasks for the day and go in search of a long lost ITUNES application.  Found it. Picked a song at random. [Put it on repeat because this is just something I DO - always have, and yes it annoys everyone but me].

Now I am sitting here with a long forgotten friend.  It’s this somewhat glazed, far away look in my eyes.  It’s not sadness – far from it – just this distancing from myself.  Not really escaping my head – but looking at it without the ‘ZOOM’ turned all the way up.

So now I wonder if I will make the effort to find that pesky little device…

Shades of Ourselves; Unformed Friendships

Shades of ourselves. Shades of others.

 We meet people and say things.  Try to get some point or another across while skipping over a thousand other equally important things.  No one will ever really know you but yourself.  We go through life trying to understand the people around us – impressions forming about those we meet – from the most limited of interactions.  It is like a figure giving off a hundred thousand shades of itself.  The figure is the mystery.  It will always be.  If I don’t ‘get’ me, who am I to ‘get’ you? 

 Sometimes I think that I don’t think/act/behave in a certain way that seems prevalent in those in life I encounter.  I don’t understand why people lie or deceive.  Oh, I understand the aggressive tendencies we have.  I understand OVER REACTING and being TACTLESS.  I understand saying something malicious as a defensive maneuver.  But why lie?  I watch so many around me fabricate these complicated entanglements for no clear-cut reason.  They seem to be stuck on dive and evade mode.  Is this a form of self preservation/protection.  Is the truth a place of vulnerability? 

I build my own type of walls.  I distance myself from others.  I have my intense lonely moments but always justify them with an inner desire to remain relatively solitary.  I think this ties into my sense of loyalty.  If I form an alliance, which for me constitutes anything more than a remote acquaintance, I give myself completely to it.  I will do anything for my family.  I am engaged and to be honest, (even as my sense of self rebels against my writing it…) I would do anything for him.  Maybe that’s why I don’t form true FRIENDSHIPS anymore.  In my youth I did.  And true to form, I would have done anything for them and expected the same in return.  Back then it didn’t dawn on me that we don’t all work in this all-or-nothing fashion.  I wound up hurt, used up and ditched.  They always lied too.  Time and time again until finally the point started to sink in. 

That was a long time ago.  I don’t have any steadfast reason for my lack of friendships these days.  I look to my parents (hell, anyone for that matter) and I see them surrounded by these beautiful, lasting friendships.  I understand that, at least in theory, I can form friendships without 1.becoming dependent on them and 2. investing too much in their worth.  In theory.  In the meanwhile I am sitting back from it all.  Searching for myself and what that means to me.  Learning to live honestly – especially with myself.  Trying to ‘get’ me (at least a little ;-) and perhaps at least a few of the shades I am casting.

 Listening to: several but at the moment: Goo Goo Dolls/”Black Balloon”.

Flash Mob versus Flash Individual

Doing my best the other day to waste as much time as possible, I was browsing through the school newspaper and came across an article on Flash Mobs.  Apparently I was a bit behind the eight-ball because I had never heard of such a thing. 

Flash Mob:  ”A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief period of time, then quickly disperse.” – courtesy of Wikipedia

[The example given by the article was a group of people, gathering outside of some retail environment or another, "holding bananas up to their ears and chatting as if they were on cell phones."]

Since reading the article I can not seem to get the idea out of my head.  Not only do I expect to see a “mob” around every corner, I WANT to see them there.  Why?  Perhaps I am just sick of the day to day conformity I feel surrounded by.  I ‘expect’ and ‘WANT’ to believe that everyone else around me is inwardly as fed up as I am.  Why does everyone go from one task to the next – from one day to the next, from weekend to weekend - without really noticing their life blurring by.  I do understand the whole ’society must abide rules, laws, and morals to avoid utter chaos’ thing.   Still, every time I drive on the freeway, jammed with cars, [and yes, maybe this is a Los Angeles thing...] I can’t stop imagining every vehicle using whatever off-roading capabilities they posses, driving up curbs, sidewalks, hillsides – making their own roads – and actually getting to where they have to go. It is the unending lines of break lights that do me in.  I can’t stand them.  I can’t stand everyone going about their day, caught up in whatever triviality they are currently obsessing over, standing there, obediently, ‘in line’ – metaphorically and literally.

I expect and want to see flash mobs wherever I go, and to be honest I don’t understand why we all seem unable to think outside the box which is our life.  The reason this bugs me – I am sure – is because in a large part it reflects the aspects of my own life I most abhor.  Some of the things I do – I DO – because society sets them in front of me and I mindlessly succumb (or at least I am unable to think of and enact an alternative).  This begs the question of why, if I so abhor the continutiy and mindless flow, do I not start my own, one-person-flash-mob?  Because that would be ‘crazy’, and because it would seem that it takes numbers to say anything sanely.

What place in line was I again?