Indulgence

Clarity

Lisa Marie Presley from S.O.B. (written by Lisa Marie Presley, Cliff Magness and Glen Ballard)
You said I won't forget and I don't remember
And you said that I was someone I'm not and I fell on my face
You said I wouldn't rot but worms are crawling on me
Well, I'm just a son of a bitch no matter what you say

I was reading some of my old e-mails the other day. I kept an account of a lot of them. Things I don't want to forget. It shocks me to think that I've been feeling, I don't know, I don't want to use the word but the closest that comes to mind is lonely. Well, that's not true. I have no reason to feel lonely. The word I want to use is a lack of intimacy. I've been able to get a lot of emotional and intellectual stimulation. Physical stimulation is rather easy to be found but it's not really very gratifying. What I've been feeling is a severe lack of intimacy which is why I've really been dying to go on a date for a while. I don't even want it to end towards a relationship. I'm not sure if I'm ready for one; I just want to have that moment of trying to connect with someone, the little flirtations, the give and take of compliments and little truths and the like. I just want the promise but not the realisation.

I find it funny to be reading my old e-mails and finding such amazing connection with people. I want to share some of it.

I wrote this to someone:
You move me. What can I say? But you move me. And Ithink you know me more than anybody else in thisworld. And you may not know the stories of my growingup, of my day-to-day like my family do. But you know me.

And in the reply letter, this was written to me:
i love hanging out with you. i can be myself. i can actually be myself. i can actually be who i am when i am alone... when i am with you. you dont know how surreal that is to me. nobody knows who i am.. i am a liar. i'm a sick person and i don't like it but what can i do, right? and there you are.. talking to me and making me feel so special. i feel so special. you set me free... i can release this side of me that's been hiding. now that it's lose... i'm one hell of a lighter and more enjoyable person to the others... the others who dont know the reality of me.. the ones who are being fooled. i can face them and know that it's okay. coz i know i have you to turn to.

I forgot, looking at the totality of the past, that I did love and I was loved back. It was a magickal moment, clandestine and private and intimate. There were moments I thought I wanted to hide away from the world and just be with this person. I forgot that I had felt it. If I wanted to, I could hold it in my hands. It was tangible.

I look around me and I don't seem to find anyone who could match the intensity, who could fan the flames and whose flames I could make brighter. My world, I must admit, is much smaller than it was then. But then, I was so open, so vulnerable but now, I feel, I'm just too safe.

And then, there's this part in another letter to the same person where, for one moment of clarity, I seem to have been able to put down all my anxiety that has been troubling me for a long time. I read it again and said to myself wow, that makes everything so clear to me.

In the end, I guess, all I am really looking for is redemption. That if anything good comes my way, I feel like I don't deserve it because I've been bad. But the truth is, when good things come our way, it isn't a reward for anything. It is just that it does.

24 years have I been alive and if it is anything that I learned, some of the most difficult things in the world to do are being grateful, being happy and believing in yourself.

And honestly, if I could learn to be grateful, if I could believe in myself; I would be very happy. I'd be very successful.

That's it, really. Many of my hang ups in the past was my inability to accept the blessings that have come. It's not an easy thing to do, I suppose, to just accept but if you learn it; if you manage to believe in yourself that you are worth all the rewards of your hard-work and that nothing stands in the way of what you earn; how much happier could you be?

I was 24 when I wrote this, my God! This was 2 years ago. These are things I am no longer plagued by but it was everything that was troubling me before. That fear was so real. Now, I do believe in myself and I am learning to be grateful and I'm using it and it is making me happy. That's amazing. It's like reading my journal but it's more insightful because I'm communicating with someone else and it has more clarity because I need to be understood by someone else. I can't take it for granted that they'd understand me immediately.

That's one of the magickal effects of intimacy, of connection -- the ability to make clear what is in your head because it is to be expressed. For it to be understood, you have to be able to cut straight to the core and be able to express it in the way that it can be moving, it can be inspiring. I miss that. Some strange way, my language, my way of speaking and of expressing myself is set to the tone I've grown accustommed because I'm surrounded constantly by people who know me so well. There is no need to make things clearer; they know my intentions from what I say and how I say it.

That's it! I see it now; I want to meet new people so that I have to struggle to be more precise. I want that again. To have to struggle to connect and to make things clear.

It's the trouble with the language, with any language, that it is not enough because, maybe, it does not fully define intention and feeling. It can only do the best it can and it is up to the receiver to fully grasp it with their own experiences. That's the magic of communication. That's why I love it so much...

An epiphany. This is going to be a good day.

posted by wanggo @ 5:02 PM