bt no. 1

so longer term readers of this blog know i'm a big bath-taker and often during a soak in the tub i will have some thought that either clarifies some issue with which i'd been dealing, explains why i've been feeling the way i've been feeling, or expresses some underlying truth or fact about my life. often i will share those "bathtub thoughts" here. starting with this entry, i've decided to capture them all in a numbered series with the title abbreviated as "bt"-s.

tonight's thought is pretty simple and is as follows, "it's probably not a good thing when what keeps you from killing yourself is the fear of what will happen to you in the afterlife if you take your own life rather than the belief that your life is worth living or that what is causing you pain will ever get better."

overlooked

sometimes i have these moments where the strong emotional response elicited from a particular event speaks more to a deeper pain that i am carrying than to the actual incident itself. i had such a moment today in, of all places, a starbucks.

it started out with the normal routine. i'd ordered a grande cafe mocha and a brownie. when i got to the end of the line, i was handed my brownie and waited patiently (at least at first) for my coffee order. i watched as the female barista moved with maximum efficiency preparing one order after another. as i watched her call out orders that were ready and observed the people retrieving them, i started to notice that not only had the people who were in line before me had had their orders fulfilled, but people not just immediately behind me but those who had just entered the store were also getting their beverage requests completed. i looked on for a few moments more and saw that nothing resembling what i ordered was being prepared and so approached the counter to ask if she had my order. she looked around and responded, "no i'm not seeing it," but politely asked what my order was and proceeded to immediately prepare it.

after she'd given me my drink, i remembered that the cashier had been involved with a fairly lively conversation with the person immediately in front of me in line. it was clear that the customer was a fellow employee stopping in to use his employee discount to get a drink, a snack, and some chat with his co-workers. it occurred to me then that after taking my order i had not seen the guy working the register had not picked up a cup and written my order on it and placed in the queue of orders placed for the barista to fulfill. i gathered that with his focus on his friend, i'd been overlooked in the shuffle.

there was something about this thought of having been forgotten in the light of other activity that hit me pretty hard. as my heart and mood sank deeper and deeper, i wondered what was happening to meet (not that i had been in all that great an emotional space walking into the starbucks in the first place). it didn't take long for me to realize that this particular event was touching on the same painful emotion that my current experience with my friend has been. simply put, whether you call it being overlooked, forgotten or discarded, it all sums up to this feeling that i am not a priority to anyone. there is no one for whom i am of a level of importance that i receive a desired degree of focused attention. i am always at most an after thought and in the case of my friend i am feeling that i am no longer much of a thought at all.

i've shared earlier in the week that i, at one time, had thought (and certainly hoped) there would be more to this particular relationship, but life seems to have other plans and now i must endure the painful process of letting go of that particular desire. i will say now as i did then that it is not easy and i imagine that whenever i think about this particular person now and well into the future there will be some level of pain in my heart that i was not enough (or too problematic) to maintain his interest.

it's interesting that even a simple slight in a starbucks can be a reminder of a circumstance that is rife with so much emotion, so much pain.

i have no idea how many times i've shared this song on this blog, and yet i can't think of another one, with my admittedly limited capacity for immediate recall, that captures the emotion of this entry better. so here's one more time.

tapes - alanis morissette

sooner than i thought

i heard this version of this song earlier this morning. i thought about the context in which i shared this song with a friend (and even reflected on it in this blog). the specifics of the context are different. the result is the same and as i predicted my friend's hands appear to have been wiped clean. as i listened and wept, i thought, "i guess a few years later came sooner than i thought."

hands clean (acoustic) - alanis morissette

a lifetime of messaging

and it continues to this day.

perfect - alanis morissette

Sometimes is never quite enough
If you're flawless then you'll win my love
Don't forget to win first place
Don't forget to keep that smile on your face

Be a good boy try a little harder
You've got to measure up make me prouder

How long before you screw it up
How many times do I have to tell you to hurry up
With everything I do for you
The least you can do is keep quiet

Be a good girl you've gotta try a little harder
That simply wasn't good enough to make us proud

I'll live for you, I'll make you what I never was
If you're the best then maybe so am I
Compared to him, compared to her
I'm doing this for your own damn good
You'll make up for what I blew
What's the problem, why are you crying?

Be a good boy push a little farther now
That wasn't fast enough to make us happy
We'll love you just the way you are if you're perfect

the disturbed sleep of a troubled mind

i woke up at 2:30 a.m. today. i couldn't go back to sleep, so i got opened up my laptop to see if i could occupy my mind until hopefully i fell back to sleep. a friend in another country happened to be online, and we chatted for awhile. during that time, my feelings about life and struggle and being unwell poured out of me. at a certain point, he encouraged me to try to sleep and so i did.

i drifted off, and in my mind, i found myself a teenager back in the house in which i spent the largest portion of my life thus far. my mother was telling me to do certain chores as she was preparing to leave for work. i went with her to the front door and as she walked out into a strangely still pitch dark morning, a man i did not know with a backpack marched up to the door as if it was his desired destination. when i asked him who he was and why he was there, he didn't respond. he just stopped on the porch, looked around confused, as if he had been told this was the address at which he should be, and then walked away in search of i don't know what. as he left, i looked around and there were scores of men and boys pouring through the neighborhood all with backpacks and sleeping bags and flashlights or lanterns.

i closed the door, but looked out the side window and saw a man with two small boys marching up to the house in the same purposeful manner the previous visitor had. i opened the door a crack and asked the man why he was there. he looked at me, smirked, and responded, "i don't know. i guess we're just looking for a place to sleep." he then proceeded to attempt to force his way into the house. as i began to feel the door give way and the crack i made widen, i awoke screaming for help.

eventually, i fell back asleep, and within moments, i was back on the campus where i went to university, walking with a person who had the feeling of being an old friend but not the distinction of being any particular person that i've ever known. as we walked past the various residence halls in engaged conversation, we turned a corner and saw a small bear standing on its hind legs. my friend thought it would be fun to yell at the bear. realizing that bears can be dangerous creatures, i grabbed my friend and suggested that we duck into the lobby of the nearest dormitory. just as we did so, the bear came scrambling around the corner in search of us. as it passed, i looked out through the glass doors and saw bears of all types (grizzlies, black, and even polar) ambling around the courtyard. i looked to one side and saw a huge brown bear attacking a man who seemed to have been attempting to capture it.

just as it looked like the bear was going to bite off the man's head, i turned and ran through the main floor of the building, yelling that someone should call for help. as i did so, various people appeared asking what was happening. all i could muster in reply was, "there are bears outside." the reaction was one of a look of horror but little more until i found a man who i assumed to be the residence director and he said he had called campus police and they were sending help.

i went back to the front windows to see what was happening, and as i did so, i saw a red phone on the wall. i knew it was an emergency phone to campus police and so picked it up to find out how soon help would arrive. at the moment the dispatcher came on the line, i looked out and saw tall, muscular men in black pants and black t-shirts rounding up the bears and putting them in cages. from the bright red and yellow striping on the cages, i surmised that the men were roustabouts and that the bears had likely escaped from the circus. as i looked closer, i saw the man that i thought was going to have his head ripped off in the jaws of that big bear, leading that same bear, now muzzled, away to a cage just beyond my sight.

the dispatcher interrupted my focused observation of the scene by asking the reason for my call, which reminded me i had the emergency phone's receiver in my hand. i stated that i had called about the bear situation but everything seemed to be well in hand. she asked for my name and other information, but seeing how i wasn't a student or really wanted to have any more to do with the call, i handed the phone to the first young woman that passed by and asked her to please finish up the conversation with the woman on the phone.

as i went into the lobby to find my friend, who i had not seen since we sought safe shelter, i ran into the residence hall director again. i said it looked like the men outside were handling the situation well and that i was surprised because on first appearance (referring to the initial head almost bitten off scene) i didn't think the guy would be quite this capable. he said that he thought the same, but that "pete" seemed really confident that he would be able to do the job. before i could ask who pete was, i woke up to my stereo alarm playing music from toad the wet sprocket's dulcinea album.

if i had to guess, i would say that the dreams were about my feeling relentlessly under attack by the thoughts and emotions i have been experiencing for so long and wishing someone, anyone would answer my call for help. that would be my guess, however, what i do know is that a disturbed sleep and a troubled mind make for some vivid and tellingly frightening dreams.

oh and here's the song that was playing.

windmills - toad the wet sprocket

letting go of what we hoped for

it's not an easy process to let go of the things we hoped would happen in our lives. whether they be related to long-term goals or experiences in the immediate present, having to give up on what you wanted to come to be is difficult indeed.

i'm in the midst of that process right now and frankly it feels as if its killing me. the thing is i wish it could be as easy as "letting go" like releasing your hold on the string of a helium balloon and watching it float away into the atmosphere high above (and to be honest, i think for some people it is). the reason i think the process is so difficult for me (and i'm sure for many people) is these hopes grow from a place deep in my soul, and the longer they are allowed to have life, the deeper and more strongly embedded they become. like the roots of a tree sinking deep into the earth.

i suspect this dynamic is the reason that throughout the development of relationships of any kind, if i sense any equivocation in commitment, i either implicitly or explicitly provide the other person the option to walk away. and i often contemplate doing the same thing. it's simple really. the longer it goes with my hopes flourishing, the deeper the roots, and the more painful the extrication process will be when what i feared most actually happens and i'm left alone, again.

this is what's happening now in a particular friendship as i've come to realize that our becoming close friends is not meant to be. the distance continues to grow and the engagement has pretty much disappeared. i've given up on the futile attempts that i'd been making to maintain the connection. it just has come to feel that it's not wanted or welcomed anymore. and i don't have the energy to fight against the inevitable.

i recognize that, particularly in my current broken emotional state, that what i may perceive to be happening may not be an accurate reflection of what is really transpiring, but as i've expressed a few times before on this blog, "it may not be true, but it feels like it's true." and the pain of uprooting that hope for this friendship is both excruciating and devastating.

it's funny how i can't quite ever get away from these types of  experiences, and try as i might to think otherwise, i can't help but return to the belief that these failures in relationship are all about what is wrong with me. as a result, here's another "repeat flyer" song.

lost in paradise - evanescence

that's my soul up there

king of pain - alines morissette

There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black hat caught in the high tree top
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain.
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign 
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain.

There's a little black spot on the sun today that's my soul up there
It's the same old thing as yesterday that's my soul up there
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top that's my soul up there
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop that's my soul up there
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain.
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign 
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain.

There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall that's my soul up there
There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall that's my soul up there
There's a blue whale beached by a springtide's ebb that's my soul up there
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web that's my soul up there
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain.
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign 
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain.

There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt;
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed 
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread.

There's a red fox torn by a huntmen's pack that's my soul up there
There's a black winged gull with a broken back that's my soul up there
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain.
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign 
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain.
King of pain
King of pain

swallowed by sadness

i had a thought earlier at work that caused a cascade of other thoughts and emotion that in sum would best be described as the sense that everything about my life is failing. it continues to amaze me how quickly and completely these feelings come over and overwhelm me. it's like being swallowed completely by sadness and when i'm in this space, it just feels there is no means for escape. my thoughts become entirely jumbled and i wonder how i will manage to survive the experience.

this is what i am going through at this very moment and i wonder what it will take for this phenomenon to stop happening. i'm not sure how much longer i can endure it.

good question

sometimes it feels like any day now.

fall down - toad the wet sprocket

She said "I'm fine, I'm okay" cover up your tremblin' hands
There's indecision when you know you ain't got nothin' left"

When the good times never stay
And the cheap thrills always seem to fade away
When will we fall?
When will we fall down?

 

Hey jump back, got to get out of here
Been too too long this time
Hey jump back, got to get out of here
When will, when will we fall down?

 

She hates her life, she hates her skin, she even hates her friends
Tries to hold on to all the reputations she can't mend

And there's some chance we could fail
But the last time someone's always there for bail
When will we fall?
When will we fall down?

 

Hey, jump back, got to get out of here
Been too too long this time
Hey jump back, got to get out of here
When will, When will we fall down?
When will we, when will we fall down?
When will we fall?

 

She said, "I'm fine, I'm okay" cover up your tremblin' hands
There's indecision when you know you ain't got nothin' left"

For the last time conscience calls
For a good friend, I was never there at all
When will we fall?
When will we fall down?

 

Hey, jump back, got to get out of here
Been too too long this time
Hey jump back, got to get out of here
When will, When will we fall down?
When will we, when will we fall down?
When will we fall?

 

hope lost

this song speaks to the thoughts i expressed last night. it expresses everything i want to believe and at one time hoped. listening to it today, i realized how much of the inspiration i used to get from this song has gone. now it just seems to be a sad reminder of a hope that has been lost.

soon - michael feinstein