LJ Idol - Week 1 (Open Topic)

[goldmourn]

Where were you?

I didn't realize I had typed that as my first sentence until I looked away from my laptop for a moment - turned back and saw that question looking right at me. Where was I?

Enough happened in the past few years that I started to forget things that happened more recently. It's that feeling of walking into a room and forgetting what you went there for except behind you there is a blood stain on the floor covered up by cardboard and you want to move it so that you can see but if you look at it you won't keep going and you leave the room and forget what you were going to do.

I was here the whole time.

Eventually you live long enough that you figure you may as well keep going. If you didn't follow through during the Plath years, there's no use giving up now. In the back of your mind you remember Woolf and the rocks in her pockets but you try not to mention it so that people won't catch on why you want to live near the lake. You promise yourself you'll leave the most beautiful letter. You don't feel like you can write one so you keep your stones in a crescent moon dish and wonder if anyone will notice that your pockets will have regular rocks mixed in with some crystals and isn't that the way it is really - some get more shine, more value placed on them, more love - they'll all fit the pocket in the end.

Where were you?

If you keep diaries and journals for most of your life (even sporadically) you can narrow down how few moments you actually get with some people in a lifetime - especially after they're dead. All those years are suctioned into a most finite experience - if even that - and it could put a certain slant of perspective on it all or be as the piece of trash caught up in a gust - noticed absence of some beautiful musical score. It's sometimes just like that. You might wonder what it was all for.

I was right here.

fight / flight / freeze / appease (fawn) / shutdown (dissociation) : all of these you know in some way from your earliest memories and throughout your life. Now you are the parent of your self. Will you learn how to help your inner child feel safe, heard and loved? Look into your own eyes and say: I love you. Can you do it? Can you feel it when you say it? You wrote twenty years ago that no one's coming to save you. Do you believe it now? Twenty years later, you better learn how to save yourself. You will, won't you? For her? If you can't do it for yourself, can you do it for her? It wasn't her fault. It wasn't yours. But today is on you. What are you doing to do?

Where were you?

You shut yourself away feeling too soft for the world. Soft as in tender to the touch, like the walk by brush of an arm against you with sidewalk pace that could send you to the ground. So you stayed up in the now netted cage balcony view apartment. As if that could save you from feeling it all. Your book nook has books on books on books - a personal library the younger self would have wept to see - and now your tarot decks are lined there too - all speaking to you - READ READ READ! Read the stories. Read the poems! Read the journals of your life! Surrounded by communication tools, you decline the invitations to see a movie or the opera, to go for a coffee or a walk. You decline the presence of other people while allowing strangers to access you online through video games. You're a streamer now. Energy pulls on you while you sit there in your nightgown, in the monitor glow. "Go outside and touch grass," some will say. You glance over at the city skyline through the window and your chest vibrates like the controller in your hand. Soon. But.

I’m still here.




This is a post for LJ Idol, Week 1.
Vote for me and others over here in the poll for Vote - Week 1.

Comments

[humanbeansradio]

Brutal.

Good to see you, thank you for sharing.

(LilMissMagic71 here, different name, :))

[gardeningatnight]

This was really beautiful and sad, but I appreciated the glimmers of hope in the "I'm still here" of it all.

[simplyn2deep]

The repeated question of “Where were you?” followed by variations of “I was here” gave this such a powerful rhythm, especially as the meaning shifts from simply surviving to recognizing that you’re still present and trying to care for yourself. I especially liked the final “I’m still here”, after everything that comes before it, those four words carry a lot of weight.

[adpazd]

This was so beautiful, so evocative. Thank you for sharing it.

I will admit, though, that

I was here the whole time.

gave me a small chuckle because it's the catchphrase for the host of a comedy game show that I watch. It took me out for a second, but that is totally a me thing!

[purplepetrichor]

…Gale Changer?

[adpazd]

Yep. Game Changer. (The season finale dropped last night and it was wild!)

[purplepetrichor]

This was beautiful. The repetition was great. At times, it was hard to read.

But I’m glad you’re still here.

[bsgsix]

Gods, this feels so - personal. Like you reached into my brain and said, "Oh, I know what to write about that will absolutely hold her attention." And I mean that in the most complimentary of ways: as a person who often feels Not Here, the repetition and reminder of "I'm still here" in all its iterations is so relevant. So, too, was this:

fight / flight / freeze / appease (fawn) / shutdown (dissociation) : all of these you know in some way from your earliest memories and throughout your life. Now you are the parent of your self. Will you learn how to help your inner child feel safe, heard and loved? Look into your own eyes and say: I love you. Can you do it?

Relatable. Painful. Difficult. Being what we never had usually is. But wow, did you say it well, and did I ever feel it.

This is an exceptional piece of writing. <3

(Also, your music selection here? Gorgeous. I love that soundtrack!)

[halfshellvenus]

There's such melancholy and ache in this (of course), but it's so beautifully written. And I liked the little contrasting moments of poignancy and surprise.

[adore]

I resonated so strongly with this. I've felt alienated from people and unfit for the world several times in my life, and sometimes I've thought "I want to die" and other times, more dangerously, "I want to kill myself" (and you wrote about the subtle difference so clearly here!). I'm a reader of both books and tarot, too, and need my solitude. I'd like to participate in the world more, of course, but if doing so confirms my fears and anxieties and makes me want to violently shut myself away even more, better not. Better be selective with the parts of humanity and the world that I give time and access too. And having a circle of online friends I can journal together with helps me stay connected, as I hope it does you.

[poppetawoppet]

That every day feeling of disassociation is so hard

[kandigurl]

If one must go, I suppose there are worse and less beautiful ways than a pocket full of crystals. But I’m glad you’re here and writing about it rather than at the bottom of that lake. <3

[penpusher]

THe tightly wrapped elements of this are part cocoon, part vise! It really is an uneasy balance between action and inaction, between thought and movement, and the choice is always so nebulous there's no way to know which is "right!" It makes the whole back and forth completely va

But yes, the whole concept of existing and existing online can be exhausting as they really are two different animals and if you aren't online, it's as though you don't exist for those that follow... Will they still be there when you return or have they moved on? It really could be a crisis of worth if one lets it be. Ultimately, though I feel existence is the point, or at least that's what I'm getting!

[banana_galaxy]

There were parts of this I could relate to, that felt like some past versions of myself. I'm not there anymore, but it still felt familiar to me.

[ofearthandstars]

There is something to be said for just hanging on, I think.

Twenty years later, you better learn how to save yourself. You will, won't you? For her? If you can't do it for yourself, can you do it for her? It wasn't her fault. It wasn't yours. But today is on you. What are you doing to do?

This reminded me of an exercise my therapist wanted me to do - to write to my younger self to forgive them for things they didn't handle well because they didn't have the skills to do it at the time. I've tried it a couple of times, it's a work in progress. We all are, really, just works in progress. I'm glad you're still here, still making progress, incrementally or otherwise.

♥

[muchtooarrogant]

I liked the call and response aspect you structured this around, "Where were you?" "I was here."

Dan

[lapis_lazuli615]

I've travelled more since I've lived in Australia than I did in my 50+ years living in the US. And I'm still cutting myself off from "IRL" 80% of my life.

But I never went through a Plath phase, so I guess I never was going to do it, so I never will. ;-)

[inchoatewords]

The Plath phase comment resonated a bit with my younger self.

I am glad that you are still here.