Pandora

I have dark thoughts, this isn't news to anyone.

Some are very very dark.  Some would easily destroy in a moment everything around me if I let them take hold.  They're ones I don't like to even admit to, that scare me because I realise what they would do.  They exist in a firmly closed box that I bury so deep I usually forget the box itself even exists let alone its contents.

Once in a while the box creeps open.   A comment or a thought process in my own head takes a lateral step and makes a connection to some other line of thought.

I've learnt to recognise that incipient other thought; the opening of the box before the full idea comes out and announces itself.

If I'm lucky I can stop it there.  A half second while the thought process completes in which every other part of my brain is filled with urgency and alarm.  Panic.  Fear.  The need to do anything in the very brief window of time I can still save it.  Stop.  I cry out loud or in my head.   Stop stop stop.

If I'm lucky it aborts.   Pandora's box shuts again before anything gets out and after a breath I go back to who I was; broken but functional.

If I'm not lucky... White hot rage at everything I've ever encountered or could encounter; the utter idiocy of it all, the insignificance.  It can all burn.  It should all burn.  Every second I abide the world longer without destroying all I see is a failure of myself and my crystal clear understanding.  I pray I'm alone when the thought latches on.   I won't be less destructive, but my own life is easier to salvage when the dust settles.

One day maybe I can deal with these parts of me.  For now there are other bits which are less dangerous to tackle.  I continue to cry stop, and wonder what good it does.

Neutral ground

"..and if we should meet through some misunderstanding,
I'll be very sweet, very patient and forgiving;
Now get off my side of the state.

And if we should see one another in passing
Despite these techniques there is sometimes no avoiding
There must be some kind of mistake.

We'll raise high our white flags and bow heads and shake hands
Declaring the land, we're on un-American:
We'll call it even, we'll call it even.

I am the tower around which you orbited,
I am not proud, I am just taking orders,
I fall to the ground within hours of impact,
I hit back when hit and attack when attacked.

And I am an accident waiting to happen,
I'm laughing like mad as you strangle the captain,
My place may be taken but make no mistake,
From a little black box, I can say without shame

That you've lost, that you've lost
Do you know what you've lost?

So take whatever you'd like, I'll strike like the states on fire.
You won't sleep very tight, no hiding, no safe covers,
Make your bed and now lie just like you always do,
You can fake it for the papers but I'm on to you, I'm on to you..."

Willpower

This is gonna hurt...

People seem constantly amazed by my willpower, my ability to either commit, or to resist.  It's nothing like that.
My power to commit is based off knowing all the alternatives are unacceptable to me.  It's not willpower, it's my only viable course of action.
My power to resist is based off not putting myself in the circumstances in the first place.   I have zero willpower, so I simply avoid the situation so it's never tested.

I saw it coming.  I should have said no when those plans first changed.  I should have cut my loses then.   But I am a secret optimist.  I always live in hope the same course of action will have different effects.  That this time it will go the way I intend, not the way it inevitably does.

It was my last hockey game today.  I can't afford it anymore.   4 months ago I gave up the gym so I could afford hockey.  I loved the gym, but hockey was good for me, so mental health won over physical health and I put my money towards hockey.
Now I have to pay for therapy.  It's not much, but it means I have to give up something.   My only major recurrent expense from my disposable income each month is hockey.  It's a huge blow, I hate giving it up.   But I have to.  And hope the pay off for my mental health is worth it.

I wanted it to be a nice final night.  And it wasn't terrible.   There were friends.  We won.  But the friends were late.  I was going to go home with one after and talk to them about a load of important things we both have going on.   We didn't.   He told me he'd go home with me.  He told me he'd make sure I got home.  He didn't.

It's going to be a horrible few months with other changes I'm facing, but this is going to be the hardest.   I'm loyal to my friends to the point of a character flaw.  It takes a lot to push me away for longer than 5 minutes or make me give up.  But I can recognise when I have to avoid the situation in the first place, because I don't have willpower when my friends ask things.  So I have to stop myself being asked.

This is gonna hurt...

Bears

Bears watch over me I'm told.  Bears are on patrol in the South, protecting their charges.  Bears that like the winter.   Greater European Moosebears.

A jackal ranges far and wide for the charges I once gave it. 

But even bears don't watch as closely as we watch each other.  It's intimidating, so I'm told.  A near-palpable force that can be hard for others to break into.  A sixth sense constantly aware of each other, constantly keeping tabs and checking in.  Guarding.  Protecting.  An feat we can't manage for ourselves. 

He makes dinner and puts the rest in the fridge for the week.  He knows I'm not eating.  I put petrol in the car and keep my keys closeby in case.

Bears have been spotted nearby.  Out in the dark.  Marking their patrols.

Fruitcake

Once upon a time, a boy made me breakfast.   He made bacon.  Real crispy style bacon.   Scrambled eggs that ran and melted as you ate them.  And he made muffins.  English breakfast muffins.  He cooked them in the fat from the bacon till they were crispy.   I fell in love with that boy and he fell in love with me and for years whenever I missed him I would go out and buy eggs, bacon, and muffins and cook them.  The memory of that morning, of falling in love with him, helping to keep me going when he couldn't be there to hold me.

Years later, I met someone, and for breakfast one day he made eggs, bacon, and muffins with no knowledge of its meaning to me.  Placing the muffins on my plate he suddenly whisked them off again crying "no! wait!" and took them to the pan full of bacon grease, dropping them in, coating them on both sides and letting them sizzle, before placing them on my plate once more.  I tried not to cry.  I hid it with a huge grin.  Muffins have become an in joke with him and I still haven't explained to him completely why.

The boy I fell in love with... he's not mine anymore.  But when I'm sad, and alone, and I don't have someone to put their arms around me and hold me, I go to the store and I buy eggs, bacon, and muffins.  And I remind myself of a different morning when a boy cooked me breakfast.  Of becoming a friend instead of falling in love.  I try to remember that someone cares for me, even if it's no longer the boy I love.

That small still voice.

So its gonna be forever
Or its gonna go down in flame
You can tell me when it's over
If the high was worth the pain.

Today I've struggled to remember why I try so hard to be a certain kind of person. I'm trying to remember the small, quiet voice I heard Friday night that almost made my heart break.  But today it all seems a rather pointless gesture.

Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill?

Words from a good friend if mine:

"I know people who's islets of langerhans don't work. They need to take pills and injections every day just to perform as basic and human a task as eating.
I know people who's CD4 cells don't work. They have to take pills every day go perform as basic and human a task as getting over a cold.
I am a person who's brain doesn't work. I have to take pills every day to perform as basic and human a task as feeling love and feeling loved.

Sometimes I hate that I need that pill just to be human, but it's good to keep it in perspective."