Making meaning I've mentioned before that I often find myself functioning as a confessional with my friends. With you and with one other person, I take the role of the guilty Catholic. He never made me feel like I was burdening him and without realizing it I sort of buried/drowned/suffocated him within an inch of his life. I am an asshole. A charming kind of asshole that more often than not is forgiven--but nevertheless hole of an ass I certainly am. And I'm sorry I was haughty and condescending about being the listener. I'm sorry it took me being on the other end of that dynamic to really understand that desperate need to say anything and everything to someone you trust so you might finally be able to breathe. I'm sorry I broke that trust because I didn't listen openly but always with resentment because I felt I ought to be listened to in return. Like Kundera says-- just waiting for my turn to talk. I thought it was selfish of them, but there's nothing selfish about not wanting to be alone and not being able to hear or be there because you're coming apart at the seams from all the fears screaming inside you and getting louder because nobody's strong enough or interested enough to quiet them. I'm sorry I pretended to be strong enough and interested enough when I wasn't-- when I was just as scared and waiting for my turn. I don't speak up. I have this marvelous way of being absurdly public about everything except anything that counts. I'll switch in one more manageable, more justifiable concern to "confide" instead of the one that really makes me feel small, that really makes me stay up at night. I don't know why. I guess maybe because i want to connect without ever really being vulnerable. I just made this realization recently and telling this to someone who's been naked in front of me for a very long time is basically breaking them. It makes them feel like they've been part of this whole calculated game for my sick pleasure. It's annoying learning about your subconscious and trying to explain to people that just because I'm aware of it NOW doesn't mean it was a conscious decision before. But I guess it's easier to be angry about being used on purpose than to have no one to be angry at because you were used by accident. I saw that mid-way through this 'by the way you don't even know me' conversation with my friend--so I let him think I was a conniving psycho bitch. I hope one day something clicks in his head and he sees that I didn't mean it and I hope he forgives me. I recently read an old e-mail from an ex who was telling me that "I didn't mean it" doesn't cut it for a 20 something year old woman. And I've recently been asking myself and others how much of their actions and their life they can justify. The artists can't and choose not to justify anything. And why not? Looking for meaning and being lost and searching is always glamorized and looked at as being more alive than people who choose an explanation and try to live by it. If you choose an explanation or make a meaning you're looked at like an idiot, someone who doesn't have the will power to explore anymore, who submits to any old answer just because they're too afraid of asking any more questions. But teaching showed me that being able to explain is being able to do something amazing. It's not simplifying. It doesn't stop the questions, it makes the questions different. I don't want to justify everything and I don't have to justify everything--but I do want to justify more. I want to consciously take a risk by making a choice, lots of choices. I don't want to flow so much just because I can--I want to try swimming and see where that takes me. Being impulsive when all you've had was structure is brave--but being impulsive because it feels better than restraint is running away--and you can't learn when you're running. And to my confessional person: I love you. |