recommend

i was at newbury comics earlier today picking up my weekly comic pulls, when i passed the cd rack and saw colbie caillat's newly released cd, all of you. now, heretofore, ms. caillat was an artist of whom i was aware but had never purchased any of her music. yesterday, i caught the tail end of the first release "brighter than the sun" on the radio (on larry flick's morning jolt on sirius/xm outq 108 to be precise), following which the host of the show stated he had heard the cd and thought that it was really good. so i thought, "what the heck, let me try it out" and added it to my stack of purchases.

now had i known it was going to be a cd filled with love songs and given my somewhat still wounded heart, i probably would have passed on it. i'm glad i didn't know because listening to it yielded in me the most surprising of reactions. i smiled (both on the outside and the inside). i can't think of a better reason to add my own high recommendation for picking up this album.

here's a link to the cd on amazon.com where you can sample the songs and maybe put in an order (so far my fave song is "what if"):

all of you

a little toad

just thought i'd put some mood music on (click on the title for the link):

all i want

whatever i fear

come down

naked

after another night of chemically induced sleep, i woke up feeling a little odd. now seeing as feeling odd is not an unusual occurrence for me, the goal became attempting to figure out why i felt this sort of odd this particular morning. i did my usual morning routine of lite exercise, shower, brushing teeth, shaving, getting dressed and through it all nothing emerged as an explanation. had i had a strange dream that i couldn't remember? was i feeling anxious about the impending trip out west? was maybe even 1 1/2 pills of ambien still too much? nothing seemed to register.

so into my car and off to work i  went. as i settled into my familiar route, my mind began to wander and think about events of the past evening and then "bam!" there it was. you see, during the course of an online conversation, i was first asked a question that in retrospect, though obliquely, i may have answered too honestly. Close on the heels of that conversation, i found myself confronted with another question about the reasons behind a recent embarrassing event (see entry "feeling foolish" below) that i tried to push off,  but in my attempts to do so, i only drew further attention to it. so i did the only logical thing someone would do in that situation. i ran. it was off to my nightstand pharmacy for that extra half pill and a drifting off to the oblivion that is sleep.

but as is obvious, sleep was only a temporary respite. so what exactly is the problem (if that's even the right way to describe this feeling)? i think that it has to do with the fact that, surprising as it is, even in relative anonymity i managed to find myself in the position of feeling naked and vulnerable (and for those who know the venue, well there's an irony for you in and of itself in that statement). it's not that i mind being vulnerable as a general rule, it's just that there is also a time and place for everything -- namely a moment and space when you know that you are safe.

i think that's a significant part of the general unease in my soul at present even beyond today. all of the entries here of late with longings for home, family, a lover are really about wanting a refuge while i'm awake. as recounted before, my family home is not a place where i am accepted for who i am. my home with my ex was really more of a minefield  than a refuge with random, often unexpected, moments of emotional attacks fueled by alcoholic binges. after three years i likely will be displaced from a location that is only just becoming familiar to somewhere that will be completely foreign to me. it feels like a lot to deal with sometimes. and safe is probably the last thing i do feel in what seems like an increasingly hostile world.

so, yes, feeling a bit odd this morning. is it too early for that next ambien?

stabilizing

so it appears that this is my 100th entry to this blog. i wish that i had something more momentous to report for such an occasion. all i've got for today is that i'm "down off the ledge" and for the most part in a stable mental frame of mind. i was commenting to a friend last night that it's been a long time since i've experienced the fits of emotional meltdown that have been coming with seeming regularity in this post-breakup period. it feels like i'm back to my pre-relationship single days of more than a decade ago, when i was constantly (or least it seemed that way) set spinning by some comment or action made by another person. it seems like managing relationships well has never been my forte, particularly when it comes to people that i either take into my confidence or that my heart sets a fancy to (which numbers quite a few since i seem to crush on guys fairly easily).

still,  i feel i should share at least a couple of helpful tactics i learned when i was up and peering over the edge of the latest ledge. first, celexa can be your friend. as i commented to the same friend last night, episodes like the latest one would take me out of social engagement commission for at least a week, maybe more. the fact that i can find my way back through the window is definitely in part due to that nice pink little pill. second, it's important to keep telling yourself that while the thoughts and emotions may be real, they don't necessarily reflect a true reality and that you need to hold on until you know more. this leads to the third and final lesson. rather than running away from the situation and burying your head under your covers (my almost always first, instinctual desire), it's important to seek clarity. go back in to the scenario that threw you, acknowledge that you're in a little bit of a crazy place and apologize for any harm it may have caused, and then do your best to learn in as objective a manner as possible what is really going on.

now the truth is you might learn that what you suspected and feared is indeed the case or you might find out that you were completely off base. likely, the discovery will be that some parts were correct and others were not, but invariably, i think you will be better off for the knowledge. i certainly was.

feeling foolish

i'm finding that, at least for me, painful memories are like soldiers engaging in guerrilla warfare. they sneak up on you when you least expect it, and they don't always fight fair. today's melee involved standing in my kitchen preparing to reheat a couple of slices of leftover pizza when, for no apparent reason at all, my mind started drifting to some unpleasant memories of my time with my ex. thoughts of various painful incidents started rapid firing through my brain, one after the other after the other. 

the cumulative effect of this barrage was at first a puzzlement then a full blown feeling of shame. "how could i have been so wrong about something that i thought was going to be so right?" on top of that i wondered, "how could i have been so stupid to have broken up with him only to go back a second time?" i began to speculate on how others must have felt, watching me return to the scene of the devastation as it were, living out the very definition of insanity. this resulted in even more questioning about my judgement and my ability to trust even myself (perhaps especially myself) about what (and particularly who) is right for me. as is evidenced in this blog, i have some recent examples of not making the best choices. as you can imagine, i didn't leave my kitchen with a good feeling.

moments like that have a way of continuing to burrow themselves more deeply into my brain, causing what feels like more profound damage to my psyche, even as i remain blissfully unaware of what is happening at the conscious level. later in the evening, i found myself again questioning my life and the choices i was making, the trusts i thought i was establishing. was i again just making foolish mistake, after foolish mistake, believing one thing but in reality living another? it all became very overwhelming. i shut down, took a shower, then an ambien and attempted to go to sleep. 

but as is evidenced by the time of this entry, sleep will not provide me asylum tonight, and i am left to deal with further mental assaults. i am not sure how much more this weary mind can take. 

reviewing

so i was just reviewing the stats page associated with this blog, and it looks like i have some new first time readers of my blog (if this comment has caused anyone a slight panic, don't worry. i don't know who you are -- just what country from which you originate and there are some new ones that have popped up. so never fear, no one will ever associate you with any of the content herein. your reputation is intact, but just in case, wear dark sunglasses the next time you visit). this discovery caused me to take a look at the pages that had been viewed and re-read those entries. in turn, i feel like i need to comment on what i learned from such a review.

other than my appalling use (or lack thereof) of punctuation and my tendency to have overly complex verging on labyrinthian sentence structure (as well as my use (or perhaps overuse) of parenthetical commentary), i noticed one key point. i tend to blog more during times when i am struggling with life than not. now this fact makes sense in that it's likely that during the more difficult times, i'm more introspective. add to that the fact that i want to capture such moments for future reference as a reminder that i've experienced difficulty and come through to the other side and heavier periods of writing here is the natural result. still a bit of balance is called for i think, so i am going to do my best to blog as much during times when i am deliriously happy as i do when i am in the depths of despair.

now to those long time readers, i actually do have times when i am deliriously happy (and to those who actually know me in the "real world," i know that "deliriously" might be a slight exaggeration of my "up" moments, but i have to front for the other peeps or they might not come back). life after all does have sunshine (even though lately it feels like i'm in the midst of an extended eclipse) as well as rain, so i will try to capture both. i need to do that. or i could, in turn, just post a warning at the top of the blog advising readers to hide any sharp objects before reading. that's what i do when i sit down to write. 

identity

after a long-held resistance to participation in the various social media sites on the web (besides blogger that is), i've finally succumbed and have slowly added a facebook page, skype id, twitter site, and now a google+ page. the strange thing about all of this is that, for reasons i won't detail, each site is under a different user id. obviously, the chief reason for this approach is anonymity (though some of the sites are under my real name), but this weekend i started wondering if all of these web identities are more harmful than helpful. is each fractioning off of the whole of my identity breaking me into personas that are less than the total sum?

the precipitating event for these thoughts was the setup of my google+ account. i had been invited by a new friend to join in the beta testing group for this latest entry into the social networking arena, and based on the venue through which i know this individual and others he was inviting, i decided to use one of my various user ids as the profile id. unfortunately, what i didn't realize is that because it's google, when i set up my profile name, it also changed the name associated with any other google product, e.g., gmail. so now my gmail account with its related chat function, which had previously been under my real name, was now listed under a pseudonym, meaning that none of the people that communicated with me through that venue would be able to find me, or conversely, would suddenly have this strange user id that they did not recognize as part of their network. so i then spent, with my new friend's help, the next 30 minutes or so frantically trying to fix it (which i eventually did). but through the course of it all, my new friend learned my real identity.

now i should be clear. as i stated to him via chat, i have no problem with his knowing my real name. he seems like a really decent person, but we've met within a venue in which anonymity tends to be the rule rather than the exception (for good reason), and it frankly does feel odd for someone to know my real name but my not knowing his. at the same time, i was so exhausted by the whole ordeal that i frankly didn't care any more. it's not like i'm trafficking drugs for the mob.

but back to the identity question. what's additionally interesting is that rather than being less of me, the other identities likely allow me to be more fully me than my real self does with all the behavioral expectations shaped by societal norms that are placed on that identity. then there are identities that overlap. the one for this blog is a classic example. there are people that know who "clarus65" is in my actual day to day life. i try not to let this fact inhibit me in my writing because this blog is as much therapy as it is recorded history, and in either case, it would do me no good not to do my best to capture how i'm feeling or what i'm thinking as accurately and fully as possible. if people learn things about me that make them uncomfortable then that's just something we're going to have to work through later. still as is obvious from my shying away from certain details (even in this entry) a little self-censorship does take place.

during the clean-up process for google+, i commented to my new friend that i really needed to get my online life in order. in thinking more about it though maybe what i realized is that my "online life" is just a reflection of my offline life, or that maybe, it's really just life whether expressed on the web or in the flesh. to use a phrase that was oft repeated during the whole google+ incident, it's all very confusing.