New world

Its different. Its all so different than before. There has never been anything like this. He tells me its ok to fear. That the fear itself will not keep us apart. He tells me to not worry about telling him. In fact he insists upon it. This is a strange new world I've become apart of. In this world I am justified, I am right, and I am treasured. There has never been a world like this. Its a world so of our making that I am completely comfortable in my own skin. I feel like I could never be comfortable anywhere else. Its like this place is filled with that cool refreshing breeze that you enjoy on a warm summers day, on the breeze will never make you too cool and the sun will never make you too warm. It is perfection. All because we have created it, and we will nurture it until not only can we talk about the worry and the fear, but until they both disappear in the vast blissfulness that becomes our new way of being.

I dream

I dream. I dream of a day with no sadness. I dream of a day where the smile on my face comes not from a momentary, fleeting pleasure but rather from a deep seeded knowledge of the love I have for others and that they have for me. This is my dream. This is my hope. This will become my life.

Dance Dance

Occasionally in my life I will come across holes, or feels or emptiness. Lately there has been the one hole that keeps appearing. It was at one point filled with my love and obsession with swing dancing. This of course is not to say that I don't love it anymore, but its different. Sometimes I find it very hard to accept the changes in my life.

In university I used to dance every week. In fourth year, I was the president of the club and I danced every Monday, had meetings on Tuesday, performance practice on Wednesday, and maybe also on Thursday, and was out-of-town at a weekend workshop for classes or at least for the dances two or three weekends a month.

Now, I dance sometimes. The fact that I have made it out-of-town twice this year so far excites me, but an event just passed, and I missed it. This is the second year in a row that I didn't compete at CSC (Canadian Swing Championships). Now while I hate to be in the spot light and become immensely self-conscious and nervous before performing, every time CSC passes, I miss how much fun I used to have dancing.

If you were to suggest that I go just start dancing more, its a little more complicated than that. There are two main reasons why this is hard.

The first, and I really do not mean to sound at all snobbish, is that the dancing in Kingston is not at a level which, for the most part, I really enjoy. You see every three or four years there is a wave of dancers who are dedicated enough to go and learn more and challenge themselves to become better. I was a part of the last wave, and the next wave hasn't hit yet. (Plus its hard when all the young twenty somethings don't understand whats its like outside of university yet).

So, second, if I was to dance more I would be drawn outside of Kingston. But, while I work a minimum wage job, that is composed of shift work and booking of a weekend costs me around a hundred dollars. And workshops cost travel and classes (90+), and dances (20+); it really does not seem feasible to go often.

Alas this leaves an empty spot that is only sometimes filled when I reminisce about past adventures or when I convince others to try the dance I love.

Sigh.

Whatever matters to me, matters in this world

So for awhile now I've been seeing this picture in a variety of places, and all I could think was "I'm in that photo, I wish I could see where". So i have spent some time examining the feet, trying to remember where I was standing, and even trying to find everyone else I knew was in the photo. I believe there are 13 of us.

But then today while looking for blank Cds, I find this one Cd labeled SpringStaff '07 pictures and I thought I'd check it out. Why not right? Memories are fun. While perusing I discover this next photo which is taken probably thirty seconds after the first one just from the other side of the platform.

Finally I know where I am in the photo, though sadly neither picture shows that Sara is in the middle.

Pretend

She gazed down at herself. No way, she thought, no way could anyone ever see me as strong?. Do they never see me bite my lip in worry? or how, like at this moment, my toes are pointed together because I'm so unsure of myself?

Gazing around the room she mentally checked off the times when these people had come so close to seeing her break down. Would she be seen as an impostor then? Because that is how she felt when hanging around them. She must never let them see her cry.
She was so torn, torn between confusion that these individuals couldn't see the real her, her pain that made her tear up oh so often, and pride that she has successfully convinced them that she was such a strong person that nothing affected her.
Then for a brief moment she relaxed, and smiled a little smile. The kind that you give when you have a little secret joy inside of your heart. For her it was the joy that her efforts had paid off, and that she had not blown her cover in front of them. It lasted for only small time, a smidgen of a second, before she remembered how much it costs her to not be herself, to play pretend all the time, and then her toes turned inwards towards themselves once again.

ʃeɪm

This is something I found while cleaning my room.

"As a part of the wounds we receive growing up, we come to believe that some part of us, maybe every part, is marred. Shame enters in a makes its crippling home deep within our hearts."

Shame is what makes us look away, so we avoid eye contact with strangers and friends.
Shame is that feeling that haunts us, the sense that is someone really knew us, they would shake their heads in disgust and run away.
Shame makes us feel, no, believe, that we do not measure up.
Shame grips our hearts and pins them down, ever ready to point out our failures and judge our worth.
Shame keeps us pinned down and gasping, believing that we deserve to suffocate.

- If we were not deemed worthy of lovve as children, it is incredibly difficult to believe we are worth loving as adults. -

Shame says we are unworthy, broken and beyond repair.
Shame causes us to hide. We are afraid of being truly seen. We put up protective, defensive walls that warn others to keep their distance.

* Hide your heart * You are a disappointment * Worthless * No one cares * No one wants to care * You are alone * It must be me * Something is fundamentally wrong with me *

I live a life of selfprotection because I live through a broken heart.

No more.

Breathe in. Breathe deep. Calm down. Exhale. Look around. Did anyone see? No, no one is looking at me at all. Good.
I have to watch myself. Can't let anyone see the pain in side. Oh, this is a terrible prison I've created for myself. I long to leave but feel so stuck and helpless.
To step outside these walls would mean confronting the pain head-on. How can I even consider that possibility when even now the pain can cripple me and leave me breathless in a matter of moments? I desire to be past all of this. I just want to be out on the otherside. Why do I have to traverse the depths to get there? That's too scary to ever consider. So I guess that this is the way that things are going to be. And I suppose as long as no one notice's that I'm broken I'm doing fine.

Run, run, run away. I don't want to be near you. I don't want you to know who I am.

I desire to be free and unconstrained by all the thoughts and wishes. Nothing should depend on you. I am self-sufficient and capable. I am independent and confident.

I shall not weaken under the pressure. There will be no bowing to the feelings that attempt to pull me along.

I know I know better. I know who I am am and will not let you see through me until I appear to be nothing more than a figment of your imagination, or a distant memory of something past. Rather I will stand tall and remember my true self.

Do not try to dissuade me from the truth because that would only incur my wrath. The lies you speak cannot, and can never hold me again.

I am love, loved and lovable.

I think the problem or rather reason why I don't write very frequently is because I'm trying so hard to be smart. I want to come up with something witty to say or be able to perfectly articulate whatever sentiment it is that I'm feeling.
Well, I've given up. I am now just going to write whatever and try not to care how it comes out.
This may mean that sometimes my post my having nothing of interest for anyone other than myself but it is much better than not writing at all :P

Lately, I have been quite enjoying my job. The Sleepless Goat Café is a strange and sometimes wonderful place. I used to visit all the time with my friends frequently just getting a cup of tea and then sitting and chatting for hours on end which is something I still love to do. Now I am being trained to be one of their cooks and I love it. To me it feels like I'm creating something that someone else will enjoy. Plus, it sure smells good.

That is one of the few things that I have decided I want to do with my life. I'm not sure exactly what form it will be in (surely it won't tick to food forever) but creating is something that I find intriguing, and joyful, and frustrating, and challenging. There is so much variance to the forms which it can come in.
So now when people ask me what I want to do with my life I can answer them simply with one word: Create!

Happy?

I feel like crap. Again. and It sucks. It seems that I can't staying feeling happy, even when things are going great. Which they are not. or at least I don't see them that way.
I can generally always reason away why I feel how I do but it never changes the fact that that is the way I feel. So I start to want to not feel. I feel like crap so often that I think that throwing away the sparse good wouldn't be that bad. I just don't want to hurt. or if I'm going to hurt then I want to know why. Control my pain? That doesn't sound so bad, until you consider what people do to control their pain; they turn to others things that either make them feel better, feel more in control, or they cause themselves pain so they know when its coming. So maybe not the best idea ever. . . unfortunately its appealing to be able to control your own pain. To not care about whether your heart aches, about whether or not people always leave you, or treat you poorly.
Argh, but why do I feel so alone? I'm not. There are a great many people who care a lot about me. So why does my mind have to descend so quickly into these thoughts or despair and hopelessness. Life is not hopeless, quite the contrary, it is full of so many possibilities.
So why, oh why do I live my life like the lies are truth. My goodness even the guy at blockbuster can correct me for the wrong conclusion that I jump to.
I was supposed to drive the bus. Did I ? who knows? All I know now is that I seem to be hopping aboard ever run away train to see how far away I can get before I can catch up with myself. Where am I going?

Some days… oh some days. Why do I feel this way? I feel so alone, all by myself despite the loving people who surround me. How can I feel so isolated?
Why is it not possible for me to accept and believe people when they tell me that they care? I want to feel the love, believe that I am lovable, but it is so hard coming from a place where I was never told that I was loved. Even their actions, or maybe especially their actions made any other belief seem ridiculous. I need to defend myself, trust no one, and protect myself from all the harsh words. The harsh words that continue to resound in my head, which simply get louder when accompanied by the lack of action from those who were supposed to care most. They reinforce. Continually.
So now, even though things have changed - circumstances, the words people tell me – I still hear what they used to tell me, because I haven’t heard the new words, the love, long enough for them to actually sink in and become real enough to shape how I view myself.
Instead I just feel alone.

Spiralling

As she stood facing the mirror Sara contemplated the events that led here. She didn't quite understand how the briefest of encounters with him could send her spiralling down into the abyss that filled her conscious.
It all started simple enough, with friendship. He was the loudest person she'd ever met which scared her since she was so quiet, but he could quickly disarm her refined defensiveness. I suppose that was the issue. He could disarm her and get her to open up about the things she really didn't want anyone to know. The kind of things that make you afraid that people would never look at you the same after hearing them. But she told him anyways.
For awhile it was great, she continued to open up and let the friendship develop, but then how she felt about him changed. Try as she might she just couldn't go back to the way it was before, and worst of all he could see the difference. While at first he seemed to feel the same way, somewhere along the way that changed, leaving Sara feeling so alone, abandoned and without hope that anyone would ever feel the same way about her as she did him.
Not only that but she could not escape him. Their lives were to twisted together for her to make a clean break and separate herself. Nor did she want to because above all she valued that friendship. It had changed who she was, and without it she felt this terrible gaping hole.
And then, after weeks of mending things, just as she thought she was going to be fine, he gave her this look. This look which penetrated her very core and made her feel like he could see and understand everything about her and he didn't care.
She had to escape. This pain, this fear, this insecurity drove her to run as fast as she could to a safe place. Somewhere where she could be by herself, and collect herself. The Bathroom! But as she stood looking at herself in the mirror, all she could see was his face. All she could hear were his words.
Yet instead of collecting herself and dismissing the whole situation as an overreaction she just crumpled; fell to the floor and wept because all she could hear were the lies. The lies that she had believed ever since she was a child. The lies that she knew weren't true but were proven to be correct over and over again by situation just like this one. Broken and hopeless she sat there and cried.

I am a conformist. I don't really every stand up for what I believe in when it comes to something that might end up in an arguement. I don't like conflict. I don't even like explaining myself most of the time. I do not enjoy telling people how I feel, why I feel that way or even letting them see how I truly feel.

I have put myself into boxes, where I try to make myself fit. I have determined that those boxes are safe, and as long as I don't stray from them then I stand a far less chance of being hurt.

But if I stay in my little boxes (for my boxes are small and limiting) then it makes it really hard to reach out and truly get to know other people.

I don't want to conform to the patterns of this harsh unloving world, but it is so difficult to live counter-culturally in the western world. We all live separated from one another. We don't deal with our problems. We ignore them and others. This is why I live in boxes.

I don't want to. But I do want to.

So I am trying to change the boxes I live in. Some are easier than others to change. I believe that I may even be able to break down some of them. But there are others that I am afraid to change. I feel that I need to hide them in other boxes rather than decorate them or open them because that would draw to much attention.

The boxes that I hide are the ones that are helping me conform. They contain my pain. The pain of not being accepted for who I am. The pain that leads me to believe that the world must be right and if I follow all of their rules very very carefully then the pain will go away. But the world is lying to me. The more I keep that pain to myself, hidden amongst the boxes, the less likely I am to let others to see what is in the other boxes. Less likely to show people who I am and let them love me for me and take away my box of pain.

You know that silly Barney song, well I don't know if its actually Barney but: I hate you, you hate me, lets gang up and kill Barney.
Well, recently I've change the words as they go through my head:
I hate me, You hate me
Then I kinda get stuck.
I know it sounds emo right. All depressed and self-loathing. Can I help it if thats how I feel?

But Stuck. Thats a good way to describe how I feel. Mostly because I've essentially been feeling this way for te last two or three years (journals are so helpful when figuring out if your stuck in a rut).

Angry, thats another way to describe how I feel. Angry at evrything and everyone. Wanting to feel accepted and love.

Sad, thus depressed. Wishing that things were better. Wishing that I couldn't feel alone in a room full of people. Desperatly hoping to be loved. While not believing that its actually possible.

It should be possible to be loved right?

I hate the holidays, they are by far the loneliest time of the year. People spending tons of money on things that people will never use, and probably don't really appreciate. Spending time with family while trying to pretend like everything is alright and that they don't fight during the rest of the year. And that they're not going to fight this holiday season despite what happened last year. It s the time of year with the highest suicide rate. And its the time of year that I most wish to be loved.

I don't know how to deal with how I feel. I know I shoudl talk to people and let them know but, who should I talk to? Who would want to listen? Why should they care?
Bottling my feeling up inside me just makes me feel worse, but its what I've done for so long that it's hard to know how to stop.

I want to stop. I want to be open with those I trust. I want to share. I want to care. And most of all I want to FEEL loved.

Sometimes I hate myself, for being so silly and naive. This mostly comes at times when I am hurting. Right now I hurt, I feel like I was actually trying to connect and be real, and instead I was burned. oh well thats life right? My own defeatest attitude annoys me.

Flaws

Do you see the flaws and then ignore them or do you simply not see them at all?

I sometimes think about myself in comparison to my artwork. Over the years I have noticed that the things I used to like I can now see flaws in and thus I wait until I have developed enough to see flaws in what I like now.
This is completely how I see myself as well. I'm growing and developing all the time. So much so that I can never be sure if I like what I see now or if I have fixed the flaws that I know I used to have. Maybe I'm am just developing a whole new set of flaws that I will eventually discover and then try to fix.
Or will I eventually see the final me and be happy because I have finally worked out all the flaws.
I know that it is important to love myself and my work despite the fact that it needs work to be truly great, but can I love and still acknowledge the truth of the changes that still need to be made?

Intro

The Ingénue is a stock character in literature, film, and a role type in the theatre; generally a girl or a young woman who is endearingly innocent and wholesome.
Typically, the ingenue is beautiful, gentle, sweet, virginal, and often naïve, in mental or emotional danger, or even physical danger.

This definition is essentially the reason for my blog. It is a way for me to express my thoughts, fears, and quanderies when I feel naïve or in danger. Not real danger, but hey whatever.
Today just happens to be one of those days, one of those days that I am so close to driving myself insane with my what ifs and overanalyzations of every single aspect of my life. Or so it seems. But today is almost over so I bit you adieu until I figure out what I'm trying to say.