Small Steps Forward

me and my pen

being a writer, i am a pen-aholic. i am very selective about my writing implements and like to keep my favorites with me.

for awhile, i was buying those pilot pens and feeding them paper regularly, despite my predilection for bending the nib to some weird angle. then they started disappearing. one right after another. normally, i’m quite good about keeping track of my pens. i rarely leave one behind, even when i let others use them. but they started walking away with increasing regularity. until i was down to my last pen. and then, despite my best efforts to stay aware and focused, that one disappeared too.

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Thank you, anonymous craigslist poster!

See the original post (if it’s still there), or read below:

I will kick you in the nuts. For free. (53rd & 3rd)

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At my anger management class, I was told that:
- Volunteering makes you feel needed.
- Volunteering can lead to learning new skills.
- Volunteering can help you deal with some of your personal problems.
- Volunteering helps you meet new people and breaks down barriers of misunderstanding, mistrust and fear.
- Volunteering can create new contacts which may help your business or career.

So here is what I am going to do:

1. I will stand on this corner with a sign MWF 11:00am-12:30pm.
2. You give me a detailed explanation why you need this (because after all, I am performing this service this for free).
3. I kick you right in the nuts.

• Location: 53rd & 3rd
• it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
• it’s OK to distribute this charitable volunteerism opportunity for inclusion in 3rd party web sites that have been approved by craigslist

The more steps I take to manifesting my goals, the more I let go of people, places and things not in line with those goals. Actually, it’s less people, places and things than it is my attitudes and behaviors towards people, places and things that I’m letting go of.

Specifically, there is a woman at the shelter that I know from prior to either of us being in the shelter. I see where she could be playing a stronger game of life and I want to help her. Before, I would jump right in and start helping her. Now, though, I sit back and watch.

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for the longest time, i’ve had the most painful waking nightmare. i called it “the screaming.” seemingly out of the blue, this unbidden sensation would overtake me. i always felt concerned about describing it, because i always thought of it as crazy.

inner scream

there is the pain of cutting yourself, for example, and then the pain when you remember. there is no blade when you remember, yet you can feel it as if there were. the screaming was similar to that. but it wasn’t just, say, a pain in my shoulder, for example. i would feel as if every cell in my body was in incredible agony and screaming. it was a fleeting feeling, yet quite intense and strong. it would come without warning and quickly leave. and each time, the thought “she tried to kill me” would be left of the feeling.

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Something Happened.

Running Scared

There was a woman at the shelter I was staying in who was telling me about some really crazy shit some of the shelter staff had done to her. She had found a level of advocacy that I had not. Even with someone strong fighting on her side, however, she was hesitant to seek full justice now that she was aware of the level of repercussions the staff would seek for even minor slights.

I recognized the look of fear on her face. I had not even received the strong support she had and I had felt that same fear and uncertainty.

I think it was at that point I decided to get the hell out of there.

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i am an extreme people pleaser. and i am at a loss as to why the hell this would be. few people who know me would think i ever have a problem saying no. ever.

but something weird is happening. i am running into people at the places i go to get online. and with a stack of uncomplete (yes, uncomplete. incomplete is when you’re not overly concerned about getting things done; uncomplete is when you’re so anxiety-ridden that you’re drawing blood when you bite your nails) tasks and projects way overdue, i am not telling people to go fuck off.

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every sunday, i sit here and i fish. i put a worm on a hook, and i put the hook into the ocean of my thoughts and i wait for a nibble. and it comes. it comes.

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i’m ever so leery of advocates. “representatives” frighten me. it is my firm belief that something is lost in the translation when someone else is speaking for you.

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sometimes i think of the things that weren’t supposed to happen to me and i get upset all over again. i don’t want to, i don’t want to live there, but i do. i find myself rifling through those memories, reviewing those stories for the umpteenth time… it’s like traveling some well-worn road, the earth under my feet hard-packed from the many times i’ve traveled down it.

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i’ve been in a phenomenal career development program. these past few weeks i have been hard at work, defining my career goals and refining them, and the work has paid off. i find myself no longer desperately searching for any work i can get. now i have a plan for what i want to do and how i plan to do it. and it makes all the difference in the world.

and then i did something. i pinched someone. and they complained.

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every time i sit down to write, i find myself clearing first. the first few paragraphs that i write (sometimes more than a few paragraphs) are for clearing a way through the thought thicket, looking for signs of a path to follow, seeking footsteps in the brush, hunting tracks of a train of thought to follow or create.

i seek the word.

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