i turned 33 yesterday.

33:
*Jesus's age when he was crucified in 33 A.D., according to many, though not verified historically.
*According to Al-Ghazali the dwellers of Heaven will exist eternally in a state of being age 33.
*Jesus performed 33 miracles
*33 is not only a numerical representation of “the star of David”, but also the numerical equivalent of AMEN. 1+13+5+14=33

33 is the atomic number of arsenic.

The number 3 represents "Perfection" There are 3 dimensions that encompass everything on earth - length, width, and depth.
The highest title you can receive as a member of the "Free Masons" is rank 33.

I like 33. it’s a good number. it sounds much better than 32.

I want 33 to be a good year.

it started good... yesterday was good.

things are looking up. I hope. I think. the sky isn’t falling, or that’s what I’m telling myself anyways...

I don’t know that the numbers mean much, or anything at all. I don’t know what it all means. i’m just ready for life to get better now. okay? ok.

.
“I start to feel like I can’t maintain the facade any longer, that I may just start to show through. And I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe something about how stupid my whole life is. I don’t know. Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on?... I don’t know the answer, I know only that I can’t.”
~Elizabeth Wurtzel

I have so much to say. but I’m not going to. I’m not going to say even a fraction of it.

I was doing so well. was. past tense.

I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface.
~Stephen Sondheim

I think that anytime someone is intelligent and sensitive at the same time, they lean towards being a little neurotic.
I’m neurotic.

Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations.

I’m neurotic about my faults. Neurotic- not delusional. Neurotic, because my faults are very much real. more real than anything else about me, I suppose. more real, because I can’t deny them. so instead, I’ve obsessed over them. I’ve picked them- and myself- apart. instead of just doing something about them, I’ve torn myself up over them... which makes me a little mental.
lately, I’ve been trying to do something about it, trying to change. but change can’t come fast enough.

I know what my faults are. I’m painfully aware... and I’m also perceptive. so, to see them through the eyes and to feel them through the feelings of someone else, that’s hard to deal with, it double backs, magnifies, intensifies and shines the hard light even harder. until it’s painful. until it’s almost unbearable.

by imposing a rigid, transcendent construct on the flow of experience, the Ego artificially divorces consciousness from its own possibilities thereby undermining spontaneity.
~ Adrian Mirvish, from Sartre on the Ego, Friendship and Conflict

the ego is a false center. it’s a false center, because it’s malleable, it changes, if we let it.

every person sees something different in us, they define us in new ways we might never uncover on our own. maybe different people allow us to become more spontaneous, more directed or crushed, or vivacious or alive. some people make us grow, shine, they make us deeper or better. some might make us wilt or wither. and then some will just blow over us like dandelion wind.

I had an epiphany.

I had a moment where things just all of a sudden seemed to make sense, and click into place. I don’t feel like I have to figure anything out, or worry or be rigid.

the only thing I need and want to do right now is experience my life, be in it. and the best way to do that is to be in the company of other people with their new and different perspectives and insights. that’s where I am now.

I am trying to stop imposing rigid constructs on my flow of experience. I’m embracing spontaneity. going out. shaking off the past, saying yes. being open, calming down. having fun.

“It's the most breathtakingly ironic things about living: the fact that we are all...alone. Singular. And yet what we seek - what saves us - is our connection to others.”
Wally Lamb

last night I had a dream that I saved a drowning man.

A drowned man indicates someone who has sunk in material affairs and saving a life is an indirect saying of teaching someone some morals and belief.
To see others drowning, and you go to their relief, signifies that you will aid your friend to high places, and will bring deserved happiness to yourself.
If you rescue someone from drowning in your dream, this is a good dream omen and means that you will manage to refrain from being too possessive and 'asphyxiating' those around you

we were swimming and then in a moment, I felt his fingers lightly brush my toes as he was sinking. I dove under, he reached for me and I easily pulled him up to the surface.
we were swimming in warm, murky water. I was wearing pearls and I had pockets full of change and handkerchiefs.

I felt cool and detached.

I was thinking
how easy it was for him to have slipped away... what if I didn’t feel him...

that water was so smooth and easy for me. but not for him. he was struggling to keep his head above...

I woke up and thought:

you’ll never be able to give me what I need.

“Faith... Must be enforced by reason...When faith becomes blind it dies.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi.

faith (fth)
n.
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

I think that love- mature, lasting, romantic love- requires sustained acts of faith. for love to begin and for love to last- it requires a deliberate confidence in the character of another person.

I think every experience we have carves us a little deeper. every hurt gives us new depths. and so, over time we require more to fill that depth. we move from needing a word, to a sentence to a paragraph...

from body to soul.

when we were young, all we needed was beauty.
Aesthetic enjoyment is an active reflective awareness which seeks to apprehend- through the material presented to us, some autonomous totality of experience in whose internally related completeness achieves the repose- of a perfect equilibrium.
That movement however- cannot afford any lasting satisfaction.

we need more. we grow to need deeper.

We move into the need to know people in the real context of their behavior in the world. we need to feel we can push the walls and they won’t fall in (it was easier and swifter when we were younger, we didn’t need to go so deep, we could afford to be reckless and shallow). now, it takes time, patience, trust, and open eyes. clarity. we need to see and have faith in the true content of another persons character (is that the soul?). We need to feel their moral consciousness and, we need to see it applied in their actions.

this faith should not be blind.

have you ever met a someone and known, for certain, wholly and in an instant, that you were going to be friends? you just know.
a knowing, a look, some words: and deep meets deep.
and it sticks there. and it finds it’s own level.

out of all the bad stuff and all the mundane stuff and all the other stuff... to meet in the deep, that’s a little miracle.
to know that you can talk to someone and they’ll really hear us and they’ll get us, somehow, someway.

it’s a miracle when people understand us. when someone looks at us and sees us. when someone laughs at our jokes, without having to explain anything, that is nothing short of miraculous.

Last night, on a whim, I decided to put up a dating profile. I wrote it, posted it and then went out to the movies. when I got home a few hours later, I had 28 messages in my inbox.
you know how that made me feel? anxious. anxious and uncomfortable.
which is generally how I feel when I get hit on.

I realize that I’ve getting checked out a fair bit lately (maybe it’s the new hair?) and I find myself wanting to crawl into myself. put my hood up, put on some big dark glasses, and hide.

I need to get over that, right?

it’s just so hard. it’s hard because you never know. you can’t read a person’s intentions on their face. and you can’t put all of your eggs in one basket, and you have to keep your options open. and people can be so strange and hurtful... and it’s a really vulnerable place to be in. and you never know if someone is going to be honest or honorable. you never know if someone is going to be a good person and I am naturally a really open person, but I have to develop this shield, or a tougher skin and all that... I don’t know.

I’d appreciate your thoughts on this.

I’m happy.
I’m the happiest I’ve been in probably 3 years.

I’m not going to question it, or pick it apart. I’m not going to wait for something bad to happen. I’m not going to count the steps, or delve into superstitions. I’m not going to look for the cracks. this ground is solid.
I’m happy.
that’s all that matters.

Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
~Arthur Somers Roche

I’m sitting at the airport lounge having a glass of wine. I’m trying to decide whether to take one tranquilizer for the flight, or two... yes, I’m going to drink and take a tranquilizer, don’t hassle me about it- the bottle just says it might make me dizzy. I want it to knock me out.
I’ll probably take two.

anxiety has been building all morning. I could see the planes taking off and landing from the large windows in her room at the hospital, which is by the airport. and every time I saw the plane taking off, my stomach started to crawl and my hands clenched and I told myself to breathe. and then the old lady in the bed next to her farts super loud. and it’s a little funny, but mostly it’s just sad and gross.

she’s been moved to a new floor. all the other people in her ward are elderly. strokes and broken hips. these people all leak in one way or another...

I have to go home, I have some things I need to do. it was sorted out. and then the doctor took the feeding tube out this morning.

he’s taking control. he says: of course she’d want the tube out! who wants a feeding tube!?. he says: we’re just going to give her a calorie rich diet... of course we don’t have the staff to monitor meals... she’ll just have to eat! he takes me into the hallway and talks to me, like I know nothing, like I’m a child and he says, she’ll JUST have to start eating NORMALLY, we can’t POSSIBLY watch her all the time you know. he tells me to stop “babying” her.

Maybe this is just me being controlling... maybe I’m pissed off because I don’t like being put in my place... maybe I’m pissed off because I think that he may know lots of things, but when it comes to this- he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.

I can’t tell what this anxiety is from. it’s from all of it. from dreading the flights, from the past 2 weeks of constant vigilance and stress, from the events of last weekend. from the fact that I have to leave and I don’t know what’s going to happen.

but at least a handsome face will be waiting for me at the airport...
that helps.

Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.
~Jean Cocteau

the way a person treats other people exposes the index of their soul.

drugs, alcohol, lies or sex. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. anything, anyone to fill the empty spaces. a mark. a win. a few moments of comfort...

we’ve spent too much time trying to avoid ourselves.

I’m feeling something today. some itch I can’t seem to scratch. some discomfort somewhere.
i’m trying to disguise it, but I know what it is.
I’m feeling sad about how some people are so willing to use people to fill an empty space in themselves. I’m feeling sad that people will dishonor themselves and other people in so many ways, because they want, they want, they want...
I’m sad that they’ll scratch out anyway to justify it, to excuse it. they do things and tell themselves it’s okay somehow. they don’t think that it will change, twist or taint them. they’re so consumed with want that they can’t see that they’re chipping away at their soul, piece by piece, choice by choice. they won’t look at what they’re actually doing to another person. they can’t see anything that they don’t want to see.

it’s been a hard week.
it’s been a week.

thank god for the kindness of people.
from the bottom of my heart, thank god for the kindness of people.
i have had messages from people, from people I’ve never met, from people I know. kind messages of support. and I can’t say how much I appreciate it. every word gives me something, something to keep this up. something to try to save a life. one life: a daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend.
do I say ‘me’?... a life for me to save a life. yes, I take it that personally. we should, we all should. every person we encounter is a chance to make a change.
you’re helping, just by caring, you’re helping.

today we were told that the Toronto General eating disorders program won’t take her until she gains 20 pounds. She needs go gain weight to get help for her anorexia.
I mean, there are logistics, right? There are only 16 beds in all of Ontario and there are 70,000 people waiting... She can’t take a bed unless she proves that she really wants it.

I wanted to walk into the hallway and scream.

do cancer patients have to prove that they want treatment? do they have to cure some of their symptoms on their own, before they get chemo? do people with schizophrenia have to stop having hallucinations before they receive help? do only 16 people at a time in Ontario receive medical help for diabetes?
eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness.
and the doctors say: they have to prove that they want to get better
do battered women have to prove that they don’t want to be beaten anymore, in order to get help?

they don’t know that people can get better. they haven’t seen it. they don’t know that if you treat someone like a human being, they can get better. if you give them a chance, they can get better. if you let them get mad at you, if you stay through the hard times, if you just fucking care, they can get better.

they don’t get it.

yesterday I was talked out.
all I could hear in my mind was that Fever Ray song, over and over...
this will never end, cause I want more. more, give me more, give me more...

when I left the hospital I was so tired that I ached.
every cell in my body was tired.

the doctors and nurses at the hospital we are at are so good, amazing really. they’re kind and caring and they’re trying to understand. but, they don’t quite get it yet... most of them have not seen this before. they’ve never seen someone like her before. I asked, they haven’t yet had someone like this in their unit.

it’s strange. there are people in the other rooms, fighting to live. the families are there, crying, in shock. the priest has come in and out of the rooms.
and there we are...
she has 500 tubes running in and out of her, she’s barely hanging on- and she is quite literally yelling for a coffee with 17 sweeteners.
yep, I said 17. why 17? who knows...
and I have to warn the nurses that she’ll ask for boiling water cause she wants to burn herself. and I have to get her to rest her head on the pillow, cause she’s trying to burn calories by lifting her head up and down (cause it’s the only thing she can really move right now). and I have to ask the nurses for tape to cover the mirror in her room with paper so she can’t see herself. so she can’t revel in the the ghostly image.
I forget that of course they don’t know these things. I forget that this is strange to most people. I’ve spent so long with this, doing this.
I forget that not everyone understands these things.