The chill of winters sleep

It feels like winter, but it’s not. The temp. on my computer desktop says 45 degrees. Lately I’ve been waking up feeling like a character in one of my stories. My head is numb with the chill of the room, yet my body is warm from my electric blanket.

I know it is a little ways off yet, but I’m not feeling too good about winter. I can remember, years ago, my first time dreading the coming of the season. It’s not just snow that falls, it’s something else. It’s like a world coming down, covering mine in a blanket of white, reminding me that life has to change. I have problems accepting the seasons as they come and go. Perhaps that is a subtle way of telling myself that I don’t respond well to change.

This entry will most likely stand alone with none following it for awhile. Just typing these words takes me back to a bad time.

So we won’t start this again.

I think…

…blogging is best used by people who have a lot of friends and an exciting life. It’s hard to keep up with this thing because there’s never anything to say. I have nothing new. No exciting stories to share. And no reason for putting things on here other than…well…I guess I don’t really have a reason. I wish I could type away; get lost in the activities of my day and then, in turn, get lost writing about them. I can’t even get myself to read one of the many books I want to, or sit down and spend quality time with homework that needs to be done. Anyway, I’m just not exciting enough to do this. All of the exciting things usually stay in my head, away from prying eyes. And the funny thing is, I’m not all that upset about it. I don’t crave a larger social circle or more friends; I just wish I had more opportunities. Where am I going with this? Well, I’m not sure I ever really had a place to go. I know I’ve stopped this blog once before, (or more than that, I forget) but I’ve finally found a good reason to now. So instead of feeling that I’m neglecting to post, and post to people I’m not even sure are still there, I’ll just say:

See you around.

Selfish words, dead goodbyes

How could he know this new dawn’s light
Would change his life forever?
Set sail to sea but pulled off course

Was he the one causing pain
With his careless dreaming?
Been afraid, always afraid
Of the things he’s feeling
He could just be gone
He would just sail on
He’ll just sail on

How can I be lost
If I’ve got nowhere to go?
Searched for seas of gold
How come it’s got so cold?
How can I be lost?
In remembrance I relive
How can I blame you
When it’s me I can’t forgive?

Friendly, yet inept…

It’s getting harder to make posts. This always happens, and always leads to a very empty couple of months as far as entries are concerned. My moods move in strange waves that can leave me feeling delighted or hopeful, or empty with no reason to do much more than breathe…and sometimes…

I’m getting increasingly nervous around people; possibly due to the school situation. Already it is expected of me to talk and join discussions, to give presentations. That word, “presentation”, is the most horrible word in the English language and one I have always hated hearing. The first day opf school is focused around that idea; whether or not this class requires a presentation. My ethics class does, and I’ve already decided to skip class every time I would have the chance to speak. It’s called avoidant personality, and I certainly have one.

Last night I let a complete stranger bust into my house after handing me a bottle of dish soap. He was a salesman, and I didn’t have the courage to tell him no. I didn’t know what to do. For most people on Earth, they would have no problem telling him that they weren’t interested and ending it there…I hope I learn from my mistake, if such a thing ever happens again.

To feel weak socially is probably one of the worst feelings ever. Considering you can’t go a day without being somewhat social, picking up a phone is a good one, you have to have thick skin to not feel like cowering in the corner everyday.

I think I know why I am always so tired: I am emotionally drained everyday of my life because I have to go places and be around people and am expected to talk to them. I thought about being a complete mute while at school. Just staring at people when they ask me things so I don’t worry about my delivery, or my posture, or my awkward movements. “What if I stutter? What if I laugh when I shouldn’t?”

I have answered questions with answers that have nothing to do with them just because I was nervous. Imagine being on the receiving end of that.

I need to learn how to read.

Sleeping pill at 10pm. Awoke at 12am. Laid awake until about two. And after those two hours decided to get up and do something other than lay and not sleep. Got a bite to eat, watched something silly on tv, something that wasn’t enough to excite my brain and further keep me from sleep, and then lay back down to bed. I continued lying for almost another hour, and then got up. It’s 4am now and I don’t believe I’ll be getting any sleep before school. I need to be up by 6. I don’t think that will be a problem.

I feel awake enough, obviously, to be in class, but I’m not sure if that feeling will last. I’m thinking of getting coffee before we head to Orrville, but it might make me feel worse and jittery. Plus, I need to stay away from all other liquids besides water; my medicine tells me to do so.

I have an intense feeling to start writing, but that great feeling is made not so great since my head is a blank sheet of paper that goes in and out of focus. I have this almost manic-like sensation that whatever I put to paper will be worth keeping but I just can’t do it. There are no words to write. How can I write if my head won’t give me any words!? Along those lines, as previously stated in my last entry, I am fearful of my own words. I think it is mainly a confidence issue, or perhaps entirely a confidence issue, since I feel almost sick when I look over my work. It’s true, I feel slightly disgusted when I read the poems and stories I’ve written; like they don’t match up to what should even exist in this world. Like I am a laughingstock to myself; my own one-man audience/critic. Maybe that sounds harsh, but that’s how I feel at times. I was just looking up writing phobias, to see if any actually exist or if it’s just me being strange, and didn’t really find much. Everything I looked at touched on procrastination more than anything; which I know is another problem I have. But to be afraid to look at the words you type; that’s odd. This post, for instance, will be edited 5-10 times because I have OCD-like issues when it comes to writing. I’ll save it, then publish it, then look at it on the actual webpage (the one you are looking at right now) and then find something to change. I’ll change it. It could be a tiny error that no one but me would ever notice, but it will need to be fixed. Then I’ll re-publish it online. 5-10 times, mind you. And after all that, I will never read these words again because I am terrified and afraid and shameful to look at them.

This isn’t healthy. It makes sense though; anything you love in life will always be the hardest to achieve and will always have the most obstacles to overcome.

The candles I lit earlier are beginning to die away; I didn’t want a bright light on keeping me up or drawing unwanted attention. So now I must decide if I will be able to lay down for an hour and a half before the alarm starts to sound. I’m also wondering if by actually getting to sleep now is worth it: will I actually be more tired if I sleep now than if I just stay up? If I reach a deep enough sleep in such a short amount of time I’ll probably feel worse and then need the coffee, and then that will result in me feeling really crappy and sleeping the entire evening after school, which will then result in me not being able to sleep tomorrow night.

 

…yeah…I don’t know…

I never know what to call these things. Or if I should add periods after the title.

I find myself lost in a sort of “out of focus world” every day. This happens if I try to think any harder than reality, or my brain it seems, permits. I try explaining it as being completely conscious that you are unable to consciously understand that you have no concentration. It’s sort of like a slow person being aware they are slow when they shouldn’t be but being unable to do anything to change it. (No offense to slow people, I just don’t think that the worse-case ones are able to differentiate between the way they function and the way everyone else does.) I would say that I am lost in a dream world but that doesn’t seem to explain it; it’s something else entirely. I think they call it Lithium.

I want to read and write. I want to get back into things that make me feel a sense of purpose, but this medication is definitely standing in the way of any progress I would otherwise make. I’ve tried working around the boundaries it has set, but it’s frustrating to read the first page of a book five times in succession and still have hardly any clue as to what the heck you’ve just read. (It has happened to me at least a dozen times in the last month) So when I write, which is beginning to seem like once every four thousand years, I can only focus enough to jot down simple ideas of intricate concepts that would otherwise prove fruitful.

Speaking of not being able to concentrate on more than the temperature of my room: school starts Monday. I am worried that it will turn out just like last semester: empty, shameful, frustrating, tense, terror-inducing, an exercise in torture. I am trying to point my sights toward the better things about this one. I’m hoping it is more laid back, more calm, more suited to my interests. I think I just expected too much last time; every thought I had about the way I imagined it turning out was completely false. So, learning from my mistakes, I might try to expect nothing. If I never fear for the worst, I’ll never know it when it comes. Thus, I will be oblivious to all terrible things that will inevitably happen. This makes sense to me. I’ve recently discovered that my worries and fears are never as bad as the actuality of those worries and fears truly happening. And 90% of the terrible things I imagine never come true; they stay locked in my head, forever driving me insane. So when I’m sitting in the classroom thinking that any minute I will be called on to recite something in Spanish, or something completely random that I know for a fact I don’t know, maybe I’ll try calming myself down.

My body is always very warm. Like feeling an unending fever but freezing at the same time. Maybe my blood pressure is constantly above normal.

So now I go to take a sleeping pill that usually makes me sleep between 10-15 hours, causing me to wake up at 2:30 or 4. Somewhere around there. I should have taken it earlier, but I couldn’t for reasons only understandable by me. So, I am going to set my clock for 10 am and hopefully wake up, instead of sleeping through it and missing my dose of medicine by four hours. It has happened before.

1,898. Hopefully they are all people that I know and not online strangers.

 

Something I am trying to come to terms with: I am afraid to read my own words.

With the truth in mind, let me write lies

So. School Monday. Same place, same things being felt. I’m not sure how to look at this semester differently because it is, essentially, going to be exactly the same. The difference lies in how I look at it and how I make myself feel about it. But that’s much harder than it appears.

I just finished watching Shaun of the Dead. I wish everyone spoke like British people. The only problem is how hard it is to understand them because they talk so fast and use words only associated with that section of the world. (For example: Upon finishing the movie I proceeded to watch it with the commentary. Or, to be correct, “commentry”. Five British actors, sitting around in a room with a microphone, making jokes at light-speed…makes for a very difficult time)

It would take awhile to get used to, I suppose. But we’d get to trade our normal, dull sounding words for quirky, funny sounding ones: Our dollar would sound something more like a sea creature (Quid) and when you see two people making out you can shout something like this at them: “Eh! Quit your bloody snogging!”

Yes, snog means kiss in Britain. I’m not sure who decided the verbal correctness of that, but they must have had a sense of humor.

I just bought a book that is very much like exercising, only on paper. It’s a writing book that gives you prompts for every day of the year so that, instead of working writing into your schedule, it is always a part of your schedule. Genius, I wouldn’t last two entries. So what they’ve devised for people like myself is an index of categories that fit your mindset at the time. They have sections for things to write about to get over writer’s block (which I’ve decided doesn’t exist, it’s simply being too lazy to think) and ones for character development, and setting, and so on. The moment I picked it up I knew it would be handy to own. And when I looked at the price I didn’t cringe and immediately thrust it back into the world of random, potential purchases for other strangers. I want to say that I’ll be making good use of it at school during my “waiting” hours, but I’ll have to feel that one out. I’ll get to that bridge when I cross it.

I hope I still have some readers. I’m afraid I’ve been away too long and people think I’ve abandoned this thing. 1,891 is the count. I’ll give it a few days and see if it rises. Or maybe it will lower and I’ll end up somewhere in the negatives, we shall see.

 

Cheers

Finding yourself is now only a misdemeanor

I still have my disagreements with my teacher’s statement, but I have discovered that just because an English teacher thinks something doesn’t mean it is true. It’s opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. I just got back from picking up my final paper from him; I had to since he hadn’t finished grading them until after classes were over. After the conversation I felt surprisingly better about the whole thing. He did, however, say exactly the same thing that made me angry the other day right when I walked in the door: “Clint! You’re very philosophical! Very deep! Perhaps too deep.” He then corrected himself by saying, “Well, you can never be too deep.” So I am uncertain as to whether he thinks it’s a good thing or a bad thing; maybe it just depends on the time of day, or the weather, I’m not sure. But something good that he told me was, “You are an excellent writer. Far, far advanced to what I am used to teaching at this level.” He said that not every teacher was like him, which caused a mini applause in me, and that my new teacher for English II is very… (He made a circle with his hands which, to me, meant that she was open-minded)

Earlier, before we did the final paper, he told us that hardly anyone gets close to the max score, which was 200. I was surprised to see that I got a 183.

While I was taking the class I hated it. I despised it and dreaded going in and sitting down. Most of my school related stress was due to that class. That is where I would always panic and sweat and feel like running for the door. It is probably the worst class I’ve ever taken but I think I learned the most in it. I learned very little subject matter, but what I learned about myself more than made up for it. I learned to trust my instincts instead of another’s, especially a professional’s. I am not saying that school has little to offer me, because that is astoundingly untrue, I am saying that what I’ve learned from this semester is more of an experience than textbook knowledge.

Walking out to my car after talking with him, I felt like I could really make this happen; those little moments of confidence are extremely rare, so rare I could probably count them out for you. And it wasn’t just the compliments he gave me, which certainly helps, I assure you, but it was the feeling that I was capable of more than other people; that I have a purpose that no one else shares with me. Every day I witness the differences between myself and the rest of the world. Today though, I feel like I could use that unique feeling to reach a place no one else can. Like I can stand tall, my head high, because I am nothing like them. Not better, but different in a good way. And that is good enough for me.

I think that sometimes when you hit bottom, it makes the view above that much greater.

Soul-searching is now illegal in Ohio

Just went out with Larry to get some food. While we were eating he told me something that my English teacher talked to him about, involving me. It was short, I’m sure, but the words weigh heavy on my mind (there’s irony there; you’ll get it in a sec). My teacher told Larry:

“Clint’s too deep. He thinks about the wrong things.”

I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard that come from my English teacher; certainly more than I think is reasonable. I’ve also heard it from my brother, and a counselor. Is there something wrong with me? People are making me feel crazy; like I might wake up one morning strapped to a hospital bed with a doctor standing over me saying, “We’re going to get those thoughts out of there.” Why focus so much attention on me just because I think differently?

I’ve just come across a quote that disheartens me further because it is absolutely not true in my case:

“Make introspection your gift by creating a way to use it to your natural ability and advantage.”

So, I am taking English to use my gift of introspection to my advantage yet am getting nothing but negative response from people for doing so.

“Okay. Write this but don’t use any thought whatsoever. Make it easily understood by not writing how you want to. Make it readable to a two year old because nobody can understand what the heck you are talking about. Know your audience; they aren’t interested in thinking about things. They want immediate payoff. They don’t read for intellectual stimulation.”

That is my first semester in a nutshell. That and missing almost half the semester due to reasons which, if I wrote, would only sound like selfish, pitiful drivel and are better left in…my…head.

 

Last night I wrote a cheerful blog about how I finished a new book. Toward the end of writing it the program froze and I lost everything I wrote. So, here it is without much thought:

I read a book…

I finished a book…

I felt nice…

 

“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as he sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.” — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Given up the ghost

Although it isn’t possible to pin-point the cause, it is possible to narrow it down. But that narrowing only goes so far. It offers no hope for the cure, no reason for the pain. It tells no secrets to aid you in your struggle. This place is your head, and within it is the cause for your misery. Inside are the reasons you cannot sleep, the reason for knowing you should eat but forgetting to, the reason for sitting still and staring at nothing while trying to comprehend it. Inside that shell is the reason for hopelessness, the reason for no motivation. The emptiness, the frustration, the wanting to die. And inside that place are the words that you cannot express to others who have life so much better. If only they could feel this for one moment, that is all it would take for them to look and understand why you can never sleep at night and why you always get so let-down by the smallest things. Everything turns into a big deal. The idea of not existing becomes so tempting that you can almost feel it. It lays next to you in bed every night, whispering temptation into your ear, convincing you to walk away from the shambles. It’s there when you get out of bed after laying awake all night, it’s there when you shower and get dressed, when you comb your hair, when you are on your way to school, it sits right next to you in all of your classes, it keeps your attention so that the important things can’t. When you walk alone through the hallways filled with people it is holding your hand, each step it increases its grip. It grows and burrows deeper with each breath exhaled. It attacks your body and makes it useless, makes every task feel like running a marathon and keeping you from leaving your house. It steals your gaze so that you cannot keep your mind off it, reading is impossible. It accentuates every miserable aspect of your life, it rips apart good moments and replaces them with pointlessness and unarguable shame. The past is void, the future is bleak. It teaches you to feel nothing yet everything, it teaches you a new way to live and see the world, and it teaches you how to die.

 

And the only time you are allowed to dream is when you are trapped in a haze after a long, restless night of tears and contemplation.