My Foolish Heart

Fuckin' A, I have been dealing with a wealth of anger and self criticism, combined with embarrassment and shame. I hadn't exactly identified what was going on until I went to Prescott for a couple days and pretty much avoided social media. It was funny, because I had resolved to greatly reduce my social media time and be more introverted up there, but then I tried to use the hotel wi-fi and it didn't work, and I felt betrayed. Like, I wanted it to be MY CHOICE to avoid social media, not because I COULDN'T get online. We can be odd that way. 

As it was, I spent most of the time eating, sleeping, reading the extraordinary Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet (which I had heard of only because it was burned by idiot white people at Georgia Southern U), and feeling angry. I had some radioactive sentimentality around A, since Prescott was a "romantic weekend getaway" town for us when we were together. In fact, we had reservations for Valentine's 2017 before she dumped me to fuck my former college roommate. I was somewhat surprised by the various memories of our visits there. One in particular, when she was waiting to hear about her post-MBA job with the big corporation where she's now an executive, and they were delaying, and she was distraught on the way home, sobbing so hard with disappointment that we had to pull over. A day or two later they did call and offer her the job, but the whole thing cast a weird pall over Prescott. 

I had wild dreams, both of the nights I was there. Deeply numinous, symbolic, disturbing and feeling cathartic. In one dream, I was attempting to make amends to A over the phone, and she was moaning and moaning, having orgasm after orgasm, as if that was the appropriate response. It was super strange. There were many other very vivid dreams that I failed to write down. I consciously avoided lying in bed, scrolling on my phone, and I think that opened up a big space for my unconscious to show up. I think I'll avoid screen time for an hour or two before bed for a while. 

As I kept experiencing the anger, I was finally able to put my finger on the cause. I was cutting into myself, angry at my own gullibility and foolishness, as I was characterizing it. My enduring tendency to believe what people say to me rather than observe their behavior. My easily hopeful response when a kind word is spoken every several days or so as proof, in spite of days or months on end of being way down on people's lists. Of blaming myself for things that are not my fault. Of feeling ashamed and foolish for having a wild and open heart willing to take risks. 

It was important to me to make contact with this and realize how poisonous my own company was. I have since started easing out of a lot of that excoriation. But I still look back on parts of my life and wince and just feel like a goddamned idiot. Like, dude, the writing could not have been more clear on the wall. What incredible contortions I went to, to try to ignore it or minimize it. How blinded I can be by a promise, a statement, a sentence, as if it is a tiny floating scrap of wood to grab onto in the middle of a goddamned ocean of indifference. 

I look forward to releasing a lot of this feeling of being a fucking idiot. I want to learn from it. I want to be far more discerning, self protective and sharply realistic in the future. I don't want to be overly guarded or bitter or mistrusting, but I definitely want to take whatever fuckers say to me with a grain of salt, and watch the goddamned movie with the sound off. Lean harder into the actual behavior. BELIEVE what people show me. 

It has become brightly obvious to me that people really do show me who they are. All I have to do is believe them and stop buying the bullshit that they speak with their mouths. This has been such a self-destructive and toxic pattern in my life. Awful especially because of course human beings are capable of saying anything at all. As I've mentioned before, if one is also capable of *believing anything at all*, well, it's a recipe for a fuck of a lot of gullible fucking foolishness. He said, kindly, to himself. 

And another area where a lot of anger was coming up for me was around the strange endeavor of wishing it were true, or wondering whether or a bunch of experiences in my past were true and real, let alone the words, at so many junctures of my life. And then it hit me: judge by the fruits. Judge by the results. Of course it wasn't fucking true or real. Stop making excuses for people. Stop being Mr. Existential who rescues the appearances by strategies like "well, it was true at the time, but it isn't now," or whatever. That is just noise. Judge by the fruits. As harsh as it may seem, look at who is showing up for you. If they aren't showing up, then fuck whatever they said in the past. The truth is right here in my face. I simply have to accept it. One can't be important to people and be disposable at the same time. One can't be loved and not worth someone's time. One can try to tell oneself a thousand stories to make these things true. True love is measured in attention, time, interest, connection, appearance. Showing up. Asking. Wanting to know. Giving time and attention. True love has nothing to do with utterances. People can say any goddamned thing any time. 

But the truth is, people show me how important to them I am. It doesn't matter what they say. If people behave like I'm disposable and an afterthought, then that is simply what I am. All the words in the world, no matter how much I might want to hear them, mean jack shit. I *know* in my mind that love is a verb. I feel like I'm getting it in my guts.