Where did I go?

Upon returning to Michigan this summer, I had to have a surgery, which was pre-scheduled and all, to remove my gallbladder. It wasn't very painful, but I awoke after the fact terrified and I remember struggling with the sensation of not-knowing. Not understanding where I was. I think I may have hit someone; at the least, I remember thinking that I would do anything to get away from the pain in my side and the people touching me. The rest of that day is hazy. I was doped upon Vicadin and slept most of the day, hazily, happily, savoring the warmth of a freshly cleaned bed in my old bedroom.

After that day, though, I began to feel as out of place as I always do in the house I grew up in. There are pieces of me scattered throughout: a photograph of five year old me, bitter and mischeivious, a toy that I used to play with hidden under the couch for some reason, a box of old clothes, art lost on my father's desk, old homework, not to mention the buckets of nostalgia that fill my bedroom here. I know these people, these boys and men that I have been. I understand that they are what I have been, but I do not understand them. They are each foreign to me, like a skin that I have shed, something that I once loved but no longer need. Friends and enemies alike, I look into their eyes, but I do not relate.

Then, I began to have vivid dreams. First, I was dressed as Wolverine and holding a costume party, but I had real claws in my knuckles, and Apocalypse was really threatening to end the world. I was roommates with an old friend of mine, a beautiful, intelligent woman who I don't see very often now, and she told me to let go of my past and to make the people in my life now into people that I could love. My friends were at the party, and they were having fun, and I was happy. But my old friend's words and her sadness, they made me feel out of place. She disturbed me in this dream and for a moment, I considered giving in, and then I remembered that I am not the type of person to force things like that. I remembered that I had to stop Apocalypse and that my friend/roommate was probably under his sway. So we went into another room to start a new game while a thunderstorm brewed in the night outside.

The next night, I dreamt that I was running around a downtown European town, but I could not remember where. I was suddenly naked and realized quickly that this was a dream, so I tried to convince myself that I was not naked. (Someone recently commented that this probably had something to do with my recent surgery, and I think she was right.) But it did not work, so I convinced myself that there was a thrift store nearby, into which I wandered and found some random clothes. Then, a Russian character from a series of books turned movies walks in and tells me we have to hurry because the world is in danger. So he hands me a cowboy hat and goes to pay, while I try to figure out what he's talking about. At this point, I remember that we are saving the planet from destruction, so we rush to get into his car, only for us to arrive at my grade school reunion where I run into my friends SG and B, for soem strange reason, who save me from crowds of people I once knew but no longer care to know. Including several irritating teachers. We rushed out to B's car, where I almost got into the driver's seat. But I didn't, only to remember that I had Wolverine's claws. At which point, again, I remembered that I was dreaming, only to awaken.

Mostly, I just wanted to tell someone these dreams. But I also feel myself rushing through a series of identities lately, pouring over books and movies, trying to find someone that I can relate to. Someone that I can admire or look up to. I have never been able to find really strong role models, with a few exceptions. And lately, I don't know who I am trying to become, but I am terrified of becoming someone vapid, someone cruel, or someone soft. And I know that in a weird way, my mind is trying to remind me of a few things. That I am strong. That I am tough. That if I wanted to, I could get into the driver's seat, metaphorically, and take charge. But I keep deferring to others.

Top that metaphor off with the fact that my dad's health seems to be getting worse, and my parents want to buy me an electric or alternative car of some kind, and I guess it's time to get in the driver's seat, metaphorically and for real.



What happens when the rains come?

101: sorting through my thoughts again

Last night, while watching the new Wolverine film, I felt the weight of some incredible sadness. I don't know why.
Such a thing has happened a few other times in my life.

1. When I was in high school, I was watching a Halloween episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Xander, the comedic relief, friendly guy, felt invisible, and this feeling became manifest by a fear demon. His friends eventually reached out to him and all was well. I cried after watching this, and for an hour, I could not figure out why the fuck I would feel that touched by that particular plot. And then it hit me, I felt invisible in my own life. But no one was reaching out to me.
I wanted more than anything to be able to find comfort in friends or family, but I felt so distanced from them that I could not connect. And watching someone else go through the same thing, but with friends who were strong and aware enough to reach out, it hit me like a pound of bricks. Because I wanted more than anything to be living that character's life.

2. When I was in undergrad, I experimented with lucid dreaming during my worst year ever, when I lived with crazy roommate #1 in my sophomore year. I would constantly push my dreams so that I was living different people's lives, being Xander or Wolverine or anyone but me. It was a weird time and I was really disconnected from everyone around me because I became a bit possessed of trying to escape my life. I learned pretty quickly that lucid dreaming is fun, but no replacement for a social life. Still, I spent many an evening sad and mopey because I felt more connected to fictional characters than to my friend and family. I got over that, thank gods.

3. When I was watching a series of TV shows on end during my first year of graduate school, I had a bad night where I was both sick, really hot (because I was feverish in the summertime), depressed (from a year of feeling pretty much useless) and really mopey (because I did not have any friends in town). I ended up having a series of feverish dreams where I chased Veronica Mars and the kids from Roswell the tv show around several places, until finally I caught up to Veronica and we tried to solve some mystery. I woke up and watching some tv, then got real sad because again, I felt more connected to fiction than reality. I decided to leave the house, despite being sick and on vacation, and spent a few hours sitting by a field of grass reading a book of poetry about nature. That helped, but I had to avoid watching TV for a while, to keep myself from feeling that void where people should be.

4. I am sure there are other times I'm not remembering. But last night, I felt that same sadness, where I could understand the character in this film better than the people in my life, and I could not quite understand why. Why this character? Why this movie? Why did I feel this emptiness here and now?
And I realized it was because I wanted to be sitting there, with my sister Sara, because we grew up reading comics together, because we both liked Wolverine and knew the story and would be able to talk for hours about it. Because we would have gotten ice cream and lottery tickets and Vernor's gingerale. Because there are only a few people on this planet who understand me quite well, and I wanted very much to be with them, for this, to hear this story and understand that it was much more than what was on the screen.

In that moment, I kinda understood that all the other times had been the same. That it wasn't the story exactly, that it was me feeling through these characters, touching some vast emptiness between myself and those around me. I could taste the distance between myself and my sister, between myself and my friends sitting beside me. I could hear the sound of that silence, and I almost wanted it to swallow me whole. That's what I'd felt before. Not the lack of friends, but the emptiness of not-quite-reaching the other person(s). Not quite knowing one another well.

So afterwards, when they didn't like the film, it kinda hurt. But it was a hurt I understood and covered up, tried to avoid. And I remembered that a specific song had been in my head all week. "I've lost my way; that's what she said, 'back to the 101." I think I got so caught up with having friends and being social this semester, that I never connected dot to dot, never let myself be fully myself around these people. I worry that we're all strangers and that it's a dance I'll never know the steps to, never get quite right. I suppose everyone wonders that.

So I connect the dots: I lost my way, I got too caught up in having people around to think about who I was around them. Back to the 101, start to start over: be myself because this other person, the one so surface-y that a film can cut right through him, he is not who I want to be. Time to be myself because there's no one else.









I am not thinking of you.