1998 - Struggling to Overcome

I think I'd better get used to writing the New Year '98.
...saw Laurel today.  It was nice, peaceful, and went basically the way I wanted.  We went for a walk together through Riverside Park -- the temperature was warm enough that I believe we were out there for more than an hour before returning to my room.  I am already thinking:  I have to stop OVERTHINKING and start doing! 
I enjoyed seeing her... it was nice to cuddle adn cook her dinner and take care of her and teach her how to serve spaghetti. 
...Transportation was awry.  I hope she made it home safely.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Thought fragments are a good way to write :) 
I still think of Celeste every day.  I am reading the book(s) she gave me, perhaps to establish closure... perhaps because I want to see if they represent her - she obviously wanted me in her world when she gave them to me...  Is that why I'm taking drawing?  Aikido - will I return?
Friendship is wonderful!
Jeremiah, Nick, Jeff, Stephanie S. -> saw today.
Got work tomorrow.  I like getting used to it....

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Why do I feel this weak?
It can't be just physical, can it?
There's something wrong then.
I can't be strong all the time.  Is it my psyche - it must be.
Morbid am I.  No energy have I.
I haven't the will

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

running from you = running from myself
confused about what I had become

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

I should likely start this journal with the one problem that has been on my mind for about (if not over) a year now : Celeste.  It is uncertain whether or not I'll only be writing of my problems in this journal; perhaps I hope I won't have enough problems to fill a journal... I am certain other aspects of my life will make their way into this ... all in due time.
I am certain that I will soon write a letter to Celeste; I've been brooding about it for over a year now... and my over-rationalization of these thoughts can be solved by, if nothing else, clearing away my guilt and attempting to free myself of this over-rationalized Hell I have imprisoned myself in due to some actions which I am really rather disturbed about. 
Sabatoging relationships is not something I'd like to think myself good at; and yet, I seem to have some affinity for it.  Am I to blame, primarliy, or are the situations which I place myself in (and the situations I create for myself) the true culprits?  Whatever the case, I destroyed my relationship with a person whom I still hold to be the most brilliant and one of the most interesting I've ever known.  As a result, I consider myself traumatized by my cognitions relating to Celeste, if not merely the anxiety I feel when in her presence. 
 ... a lot more I've considered goes here. :)
I guess what I'd like out of my letter with her is to provide her an understanding of why I acted the way I did, and my problems since then; I am hoping this may free me of my guilt; I also hope that the end result may be that we become friends (although I realize this is probably highly unlikely), though I believe any freedom from this prison I have created for myself would benefit me greatly.
...
I have learned much this year - I believe a large amount of it must have come as a result of the situation with Celeste.  [and perhaps I should call it "the ghost of Celeste."] I'd like to hold on to a bit of my boyish idealism in the old addage, "Things happen for a reason."

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

I wonder if it's about time that I performed an assessment of myself. I think it is, and I think now is a perfect time to do so.  In the past year I have learned more about interpersonal relationships than I think I could have ever possibly learned. I reached out beyond my limitations, testing what I considered to be the fundamental limits of love, of friendship, and of peace of mind. Most of this was accidental, and some of it was as a result of my misfortune in sabatoging my own relationships. Nonetheless, I have discovered myself on a path and feel ready to talk about where along this path I stand.  Along this path I have seen a number of questions. What is love? Why is life valuable? What is friendship? Who am I? What tendencies do I have? Where am I going? I can say with complete certainty that I do not know any of the answers; and yet I can say I have come a long way, seen a great many trees, rabbits, and other woodland creatures, and have experienced so much that I am beginning to provide answers to myself to these questions. I am thankful that I have been able to continue walking -- there were a number of obstacles, and still are, and yet here I am, able to see my past path, speak of it, and wonder where I am going.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

The lights are off, the room is rather dark - I need to write regardless.  Seems like that emptiness has returned.  Still wondering if its my diet - as if nutrition could be the sole cause of this horrid depression.  I feel empty - morose, but too indifferent to be bitter.  I'm unsure why exactly... again guessing its combinatorilly related to my sense of value, self-worth, and lack of a true, endearing, close female companion.  - how I seem to long for this daily.
Maybe its just this climate - this damn summer heat creeps up... surrounding.  Still thoughts of Celeste - continuing to read the book she gave me... "The Bone People"
better watch out lest I turn into a skeleton.
Need to write that letter to Laurel... for continuity's sake...again not sure if I care moreso than I am indifferent. 
Have a vague feeling of sadness... but on the whole, I possess an emptiness, if such a thing can be possessed. "Kena toe"
Days are passing oftentimes meaningless - I've stopped finding the happiness in each new sunrise.  Plans are the only thing keeping me from a trance-like state.  Shit do I need to do something to help my concept of self-value.  I should find work where my skills can be genuinely appreciated and where I'm not wasting the talent I (still) may have.

Where is that manically-depressed Brian of yesteryear - so full of joy, loving.. this shell if full of anything can but hold self-pity.

Discipline - Discipline - Discipline

Exeunt omnes!

Work in the morning - same routine.  Perhaps I need to leave on the 14th... spend some time w/ the family if this keeps up.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

This isn't about Celeste or about Laurel or about my parents or about any of the number of mistakes I've made in the past couple of years; It's about love...
And I'm beginning to realize the love should not initially be external.  Love from within is a 'magical' force able to help the soul make sense of so many things.  If I am able to do anything in my life, I pray most that I may be able to learn to love myself... to feel myself valuable.  And I think that if it takes a whole lifetime of community-service and karma building before I realize I'm a good person, then that's what it will take. 
Hmmm... why do I not think myself a good person?
 1. sabatoging my relationship with Celeste
 2. loss of relationship with Laurel
 3. parents, especially my mother

Oooh, now there's a thought - the night (I think I was 18 or 19) my mother began pushing me and verbally abusing me.  My step-father was present in the room (my room [ shouldn't I be safe there?]) but he wouldn't stop her.  I begged him, pleaded with him.  No help.
I didn't want to be abused; I wanted her to stop, to get away from me.  But she kept pushing.  Eventually that force within me said NO MORE, said I WILL NOT TAKE YOUR ABUSE... I REFUSE TO BE HURT IN THIS WAY... NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE, and I pushed back.  One push, and she went flying over my bed.  AAGH!!!!  My step-father tried to help her up... she was more in shock than anything.  howver I found out later she had a large black and blue welt from the fall.  She hasn't touched me since.  But I don't think I can ever forget how my step-father just stood there.  I pray I never stand still in the face of such abuse.  God help me.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

You know, I think I must have attention-deficit disorder, i.e., I want attention and never can seem to get enough of it.  And with each passing gain, it is not enough.  I wonder if this can make me good for entertainment.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Dear C.,
I wasn't able to apologize to you before.  I'd like to do that now.  - not to change things, but perhaps to acknowledge my feelings and have them heard.  I'm sorry Celeste.  I'm sorry if I hurt you - and I believe I did.  I'm sorry that I was unable to receive your love, to make a committment to you.  and I am especially sorry that I was unable to reciprocate the warmth you showed me in your actions (I'm sorry that I was not able to control my life.)

I used to tell myself that I didn't have any regrets - and for so long I believed that.  And then I found myself regretting how I behaved in our relationship and the events which transpired.  [ For a long while I've been trying to come to an understanding of myself - to grow past my tendencies, habits, etc., and to overcome the problems of my childhood. ] Only recently have I tried to forgive myself and to try to let go of the cage I have imprisoned myself in.

...

I won't expect a letter, and I won't even expect a positive response to this, but if you wanted to write...

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Approaching midnight here - or so my watch beckons, and I await my droopy eyes and contemplate another peaceful slumber yet before me.  But before I pass from this earthly plain into realms of dreamspeak...perhaps there is something I shall write if not to entertain myself some other night, but to aid my passage.

The people here amaze, astound, delight, and interest me.  Such beautiful dialog - crafted tongues of eloquence - I want to say validity, but that wasn't Margaret's word.  But she was right, and lucid, regardless.  Many of these here are so very giving, in so many ways selfless and give up their preciuos time.  I congratulate their efforts, and feel myself longing to see the world through their eyes... to give as they do.

I should probably remind myself - Susannah was amazing tonight - as empowered and energized as our mood was this evening, she was able to take it and apply it to an EarthCo setting.  I respect her greatly. 

- Saw Celeste today... felt myself gasping for air.  Felt my blood rush - Whoosh!  She was with another - and I felt relieved, but in some ways locked out... I learned so much from her, and I grew so much on account of her - I wish I knew if there was a way to communicate this to her, and especially if I should... and perhaps I could mend a rift in my soul with the girl whose picture I still carry in my wallet, and whose mere presence heightens my senses and elevates all levels of my perception.  Perhaps NO is what I should answer - and likely I should do nothing.  If she was part of my karass, then she has left.  Likely I should accept this. 

Got 1 hour of sleep last night and still going strong... though I pray I do not repeat those same mistakes on account of passion hormones (with an emphatic slash through passion).  She is not what I need in my life; I am not what she needs in hers - we are different, in so many ways, and what, besides an unhealthy, imbalanced, empty relationship could come from that?  I must leave her be and accept responsibility for my actions... and with a certain other someone as well...

If we do not learn from our past mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them.  No more mistakes then are to come?  Nay, they will advance, and I will be prepared for them. 

Some of the girls here must be so brilliant... and so passionate too... I wonder if there's a way/manner to evoke that passion-to bring it out into the world-from inside myself... ah but what energy that must require?

Good night pen and paper.  May I wake with only a handful of mosquito bites.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

I have been wondering about the following and thought I might write it down so I could both free myself of circular thought-discussions and make further progress towards understanding myself.  I find that I can and do get very disappointed with myself, and this disappointment presents me with a great pain.  I am not fully certain why I tend towards feeling as bad as I do when I am unable to accomplish the things I set out to do...
more l8r.
[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Last night w/ M. I realized something and made a profound discover about myself... Why is it I do the things I do... or, especially, why do I do so much of the things I do?  And I realized its all very much about self-worth (and how much I was valued before, and as a child).  I currently believe that the reason why I take on so much is because I would be in so much pain were I not to...
I seek the day/year when I can free and am freed of the Hell I put myself through in order to cover the pain of having to genuinely deal w/ the issue of self-worth... and worthlessness.  Is this not why I keep thinking I want to start over? ...or move to Australia?
..or do I make the rational(?) choice of continuing along my present path for the good of society?

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

It's 2am and I cannot sleep.  I have relinquisyhed power of my life to someone else,
to fate, and to a decision I made which I must regretfully stand by and watch until it concludes its course.
Dostoyevsky wrote of guilt and man trapped in a hell he has inevitably created for himself in his own mind by a course of action he has taken.  Right now, and for the next couple of days, I am living the life of that man.  And already, how I so long to free myself of this horrid, surreal course of events... but I will stand by as my actions determine my life, and defend them if I must, before I relinquish myself into the darkness of a new world.
This tortured frame may soon be condemned...

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

This entry I aptly subtitle Scabs, Plants, Doorknobs, and Rafts.
I wanted to start on an entirely new page, and not on the back of the page I found myself raging against my mental constructions and poor choice of actions - which may still end up haunting me (if I choose to) in the future.
Tonight I went to dinner with Chris (thank you Chris) and Margaret.  Wow - how much can a man learn/come to understand about himself in a matter of hours?  From communication, to the ways in which past experiences play on our prsent natures, to Celeste, to brilliance, to preconceived notions and assumptions of others, of love of wisdom, of new thought, of Nova's body understandings of disfunction, of threshholds, of a "right" / ultimate path... of compassion - of religion, of self-constitution, fo making choices, of intimacy between close friends, of freedom from the past... of caring, of  protection, of relationships, of personal strength, of legitimacy, of not being able to solve one's problems right away... of hope, and optimism? 
There is much about the raft metaphor...about being fluid and able to handle the waves of the universe... about not carrying things which you don't need into your present... like, for example, the voices of the past which reside in our heads... which perhaps serves as covers or scabs which almost protect us, or, in a way, keep in our true pain.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

We have both Monday and Tuesday off... triggering thoughts of Maria.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Learned from Carolyn on a park bench in Riverside this evening... raised some interesting questions about how we present ourselves in a new relationship and whether we choose to carry old emotional baggage into it.  We raised another interesting question about changing onesself to fit the relationship and the way one is presenting onesself as being.  ...also must we heal ourselves by bringing emotional baggage into the relationship, or can we be a new / different person for each new friend...

What about honesty / or presenting who we really are?  And whats this whole thing about platonic relationships?

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Why did Adhom die?
Why does this hurt?
What does death mean to me?
How will it affect me in the future.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

From Celeste I learned that it was necessary for me to have opinions and to think critically.  And my first opinion following my relationship w/ her was that I don't like who I am and I need to change.  I still feel it necessary to talk to her / communicate in some way. to say I'm sorry... and to say thank you./.. and then perhaps finally to say goodbye.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Talked to Eve today.
Got that offer - wondering how I feel... how I should feel...
So many things to do this week, and next week.. 
Problems w/ Michele,
The Celeste saga,
and again I find Laurel back in my life...
Ye gods, what's a divinity to do?
INFJ/INTJ - that's me, if I let it be.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

I now feel that I have a desire to hurt you as much as you hurt me.  Why?
I can accept what you're saying: I am your Imzadi.  Laurel, you are my Imzadi.  But in addition to being the first person who ever touched my soul, you taught me things which I have yet to understand.  For example, how could you say you love me and have done the things you have done to me?  I mean, if I am being blamed for not being there in your life this semester, well isn't it strange how I saw my spot filled? 
What happened with that anyway... we come off a, what I thought, wonderful summer and you waltz back into the arms of Tal.
And then you blame me for not being there in your life - that is not fair.

Love implies caring for another person.  How could you say you love me when your actions show me you could not have possibly cared?!?  What kind of person would treat another in the way you have treated me?  Laurel, it is over and I never want you back.  Goodbye!
I am angry at you now - I do not wish to spend my holidays with you, and, I hope I can free my mind enough not to think about you.  My soul has been hurt and my trust has been shaken but I will pick up the pieces. 

Laurel, why did it have to be / end this way?  It didn't but it did.  I thought that I had earned you or your loive by what I did (my actions) to prove to you I cared for you, wanted you, needed you, etc.  I survived my sophomore year when you destroyed a part of the child in me - when you took the glow from my eyes and replaced it with tears. 

I waited for you ; I was loyal and kind and understanding and good and you took this, classified me as Imzadi, went on with your life and thats it. 

Loving you was a double-edged sword - it was something of a kindness and compassion which I had never seen or experienced wrapped with an ignorant cruelty. 

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

It's amazing what can occur in half a month.  Career-wise, I have acuired a new job offer and find myself thinking of the future.  I recently "got over" the Flu, which was responsible for scattering my plans regarding finals week of this semester to the wind... had to have a number of exams pushed back and am even taking one incomplete...
The Flu is definitely not the common cold.  It hurts!  pains and aches throughout the body, constant fever, headache...

Cultivating a friendship takes time.  But you know what takes longer?  Cultivating a friend to live her life to reach happiness.  What great compassion, what patience is necessary so one does not stray from the path and get too intertwined w/ one's personal needs.
I'm concerned about changing the nature of a friendship to a therapy session.  How much is it ok to demand from one's friends?

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Lest one should dive into suffering for the sake of growth, therby promoting what is likely negative, self-destructive behavior, there are probably equally likely methods for inducing "moderate suffering" in order to achieve greater consciousness.
BTW: Happy holidays and Merry Christmas.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

I do find that I engage in activities (or fail to engage in activities) which could be looked at as self-destructive behavior.  Whether it be the Maria incident, the current lack of communication w/ a number of female friends (Carolyn, Raeghan), or times when I allow my laziness or addictions to grow and fester, these are all examples of behavior in which I damage myself, and prevent myself from reaching my goals.  A good question following such an observation is Why?

Perhaps there is a way to look at such behavior in a positive way, but it seems that the effects are negative, and that the deeper reason is also negative.  I wonder if, like my mother, I engage in such activity to promote an internal concept of self that is poor and different from what my good behavior would indicate internally.  If this is the case, the it is a problem, and one which demands a "solution" if I am to function well in the real world.  I wouldn't want to start a new job only to blow some opportunities and look meiocre, or worse, unstable.  Maybe looking after my behavior, and instilling a sense of supervision, can be goals for the upcoming new year.

[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]

Dear C., 
Granted it's been over a year and a half since we've said anything more than a 'hello' in passing; as such is the case, it will most likely seem that this letter either has no basis, or is a regenerative attempt at a relationship.  Neither is the case.
Although I do conceive the possibilities that I am writing this as a result of suppressed guilt or from a need to establish 'closure' [the latter of which I believe you accomplished for yourself by sending some photographs back to me last year], I'd like to think along a more positive track.  In fact, instead of choosing to concentrate on the dysfunction that I (or either of us), encountered as a result of our relationship and termination thereof, I'd much sooner embrace the chance to explain some of the ways in which I've healed and grown, having come through some very difficult years in my life. 
And yet I still feel the need to apologize to you, to say 'I'm sorry' as I regret I was unable to do so when I wanted because I did not understand the effects of my actions.  In addition, I have come to understand that my reactions were in no way conducive to making any mature progress in our relationship.
...
[ surgery commentary (0) ] ... [ perform brain surgery ]