Journey through Faerieland

I think it's important that I appreciate each day as it happens. I spend so much time ruminating on the past and trying to anticipate the future, it ruins things for me. It doesn't make me happier, because even when I remember something happy, I know it's not happening now. Getting excited about the future is fun, but when things don't turn out as planned it can be devastating. I used to be the type easily amused, so it shouldn't be this difficult to focus on the present and enjoying the present. I worry so much about doing the right thing and all the things that can go wrong with the decisions I'm making. I have to go back to trusting myself like I used to and just impact the things in life that I can.

I wish I weren't so sensitive and obsessive. Those things bring me down so much from my natural happiness. When I'm not drowning in despair, I am unusual happy and excited about life. I'm not bipolar but I was misdiagnosed as such multiple times. I have some not so pleasant interpersonal stuff lingering, but there are great things too! The sun is out more and flowers are in bloom. I get along really well with my mother and have many friends, even if I don't get to see most of them too often. I'm reading the most enthralling books with characters I can actually relate to. I have forgiveness and I can give forgiveness. When I'm happy, I want everyone to be happy! There is no reason for me to waste these feelings, let them die in exchange for torment. I am going to write an uplifting poem today, most definitely.

I'm listening to the Coors' song "Breathless" on repeat, and that only helps my euphoric state:

"And if there's no tomorrow
And all we have is here and now
I'm happy just to have you
You're all the love I need somehow

It's like a dream
Although I'm not asleep
I never want to wake up
Don't lose it
Don't leave it"

How can someone feeling this not be happy? My cats keep me company when I'm alone, and I'm never truly alone, despite what I sometimes feel. This song encapsulates this moment for me. I also believe the lead singer (Andrea Corr?) is the same height as me ♥

Lately I've been listening to the musician Poe a lot. She has an album, Haunted, that ties into her brother's book, House of Leaves. I really loved that book (and the footnotes/interweaving reflective stories). The album Haunted also ties into her feelings about her father's death (there are clippings of her father's lectures played in the background sometimes during the songs). I also relate to that aspect, since I have mixed feelings and thoughts around my own father's death, over 7 years ago. I've been reading over her lyrics at times, and play Poe's music in the background while I do other things more actively. The general feel of the album fits my mood a lot lately.

The book House of Leaves, and to an extent the album Haunted remind me of Alice in Wonderland. Falling into the house in House of Leaves is like falling down the rabbit hole, passing through a liminal state into an entirely new world and manner of existence. Reality transforms, and the "normal" people making their way to this other world don't know how to interpret this other realm in which they become trapped. This reminds me of how people from time to time fall into mental states unusual for themselves, sometimes without even being aware of it at first, and usually unaware of what exactly is happening and why. We fall into strange places mentally or physically and our reality is turned upside down. We don't know what anything means anymore or what our goals are. Our relationships are shaken, both to other human beings/creatures and to the basic architecture of the physical "objective" world. Our minds can be our own worlds and people around us might not realize we've fallen into another world. We don't know how to leave that strange world. In ways, House of Leaves reminds me of a hollow and emptied adult Wonderland. Things just don't "measure up" literally.

I still feel I'm in that strange otherworld, through dissociation, overload, PTSD, or some other factor. Do I wish I could rewind time and stop myself from falling down that passageway to another place? Or do I just wish to find my way out and carry all that I've gathered (good and bad) with me? I always change my mind on that. I know I don't want to take everything back, but I also can't treat reality as my own personal fantasy. Things happened as they did because everyone was living out their own self in this shared reality. Sometimes that will be to my personal disadvantage.

Lately I've really liked listening to Poe's song Wild and relate to it ("I go wild that it doesn't make sense"). I like all the songs on the album, though (two other favorites being Spanish Doll and Amazed).

I've been needing a lot of sleep lately and it was difficult to get up today. I felt nauseated, too, so I ended up taking one of my pills:-P Lunch went well. Next weekend I might show him (the one I went to lunch with) American Psycho as he didn't realize before that it was satirical. The craziness of that movie tends to lift my spirits for some reason... I suppose because when something is that extreme, my problems seem frivolous in comparison!

I've slowly felt calmer and more content over the past week. I feel like some things really do make sense, and I feel a little less lost. I want to do more housecleaning tomorrow. I also have to make it to tutoring tomorrow. There is no question.

I feel rather grateful for the people in my life right now and the things that I have. I hope my feelings stay this way. I might also get to start learning how to scrapbook this week:D Yay! And I'm reading Anansi Boys. No writer puts me in such a happy and enchanted mood as Neil Gaiman. It was hard to read him when I was not able to talk to my friend who introduced me to the world of Neil Gaiman, but now it all makes me happy again. I keep a picture from our visit to House on the Rock (a place in Gaiman's American Gods) in my room. That was a fun trip; I hope to go back there sometime (with a digital camera!)

So far today I've felt happy and hopeful. I feel relaxed and actually not on the verge of death! Maybe part of that is because I feel a bit more at peace with some aspects of my life. I have so many wonderful things in my life, but when something triggers me, I feel emotionally destitute, completely abandoned. I can be patient, I have things to focus on for now. I don't want to waste more time on petty cruelties. My life will unfold like other people's lives do. I just have to make the best of every opportunity.

I hope my Year of Mourning has ended, but I don't want to sabotage myself by saying that:P For at least this moment in time, I feel as myself again.

And I didn't take Klonopin or anything.