run into flowers

after talking with suzie about a particular story i'd written in college, i was reminded that i published a lot of my writing in my FreeOpenDiary--yes i had one--and that i'd downloaded the archive file after i stopped writing in it. so tonight i found the old file, which covers my life from january 2, 2003 to november 5, 2003. wow, besides being an inspired-yet-mediocre writer, i was going through a lot of shit in those days.

i can still place myself at my desk in room 911 in camp hall, still remember where everything was in that room, how good my stereo sounded when i need refuge from things, how hard the wooden desk chair was after so many hours at my desk, the kindred that i felt with peppy (my roommate and buddy) at the time. life felt really fresh then. i remember the feeling it created in my chest. always a bit scary, but not in the adventurous way that i feel fear now. like true fear, before i learned to fight it. a shearing, stainless steel feeling across my windpipe. not pain, more like tactile cold, but with motion to it... and a feeling in my forehead, a sharp awareness, to match. everything new came with a little adrenaline to it. usually some sort of doubt or regret too. sounds awful, right?

yes, in retrospect, i was pretty on edge for the first couple years of school. then i was depressed. then i was stressed, burned out, emotionally damaged and overworked. then i was a hardworking, successful fifth-year student. things definitely progressed in a certain direction, and after all of it i definitely have ended up much better than i used to be. yet somehow, i crave that feeling that i had my freshman year. i'm not sure why, because i know from reading back over those old journal entries that i was dealing with heavy shit all the time. that said, i guess i miss that because everything all the time was just so REAL. non-stop waves of real life and real emotions, the rawness of it all was captivating even though i may not have appreciated it as such.

it makes me wonder... have i lost a tolerance for this kind of emotion? have i lost the ability to generate those sorts of feelings in myself? they stemmed from certain things. namely the shift to college life from high school, the inevitable introduction to life as an adult, the excitement of making my own decisions on everything, and dealing with the then recent death of my best friend. classes were invigorating (for the most part). dating was new and intense. friendships bloomed in a way that i didn't know they could. hormones were out of control. sleep was an option that i handled in extremes, trading nights of almost none for days of morning-through-afternoon comatose. i get exhausted just thinking about how turbulent life was, but i can't help but crave it a little bit.

it's a stupid dichotomy because i've spent the last three or so years consciously seeking a sense of stability. and now, at a tender 23 years old, i have just about as much stability as i thought i'd ever need, with the exception of a steady, loving girlfriend to spend all my free time with... but i've got the steady, loving part for sure and i feel safe in knowing that the rest is only a matter of time. when i compare myself to the guys i lived with when i first moved to chicago, both over 30, single, working worthless jobs, alcohol their favorite recreation, recreational sex a close second, i can pause and smile proudly at what i've done with my life so far. yet i feel like i'll always crave the rawness of when things were harder. perhaps i love the feeling of emotional turbulence because it always yields an immense feeling of emotional catharsis, personal triumph, or victorious self-improvement in the face of the ultimate hurdle--my 'self'.

i think there is probably something in me that can still feel these uber-intense things, but likely my propensity for generating stuff of that caliber has been softened by emotional maturation, this as a result of growing and repairing myself after events of certain extremes. i sometimes tell people that i wish i could cry more often. i remember, as a child, feeling sadness at the end of a sorrowful, heroic, or charming film, and simply crying about it for a moment. it felt really good, really natural. not so much anymore. i'm reduced to events now, starting with the death of my dad, then my end-of-summer breakup with suzie, then the death of tony, then a particularly guilt-ridden breakup with leslie (inappropriately so, now that i think about it--this one feels wasted)... and i think that was the last one. this would have been in 2004. my theory is that after experiencing these extremes, my cry-reaction has been recalibrated so that equal or greater extremes must be experienced for me to cry again. it feels strange to realize this. but i'm pretty sure that's what the deal is.

so this begs the question... have i become more emotionally mature, or simply hardened? this question scares me a lot, to be honest. luckily, i know that i still feel intense things, as the genuine affection that i feel only for my mother, the strange semi-parental instincts that come with a younger brother, or the warm generalized happiness that comes when i step back and really appreciate my sense of family, or in a larger sense, the friends that i count as my family. there is also, of course, the recent *unencumbered* re-emergence of feelings for suzie, which are different than the intense ones i felt when i was 16, but still hearken back to that intensity with a more grounded sense of life. again--a sense of maturity, or a fear of emotional extremes? i can't really know this about myself, i think. either way, i know these few things are real, regardless of where they are diverted and rearranged within me.

today i was talking with suzie about some stuff she's going through, mostly frustration with this phase of her life. she's in an extended phase of college life, where she is successful but kind of ready for the next thing. this is stuff i empathize with by remembering my own phase and becoming a little frustrated along with her. specifically, i realized tonight that i really engage when she gets frustrated with her dad while living at home. now, i know i have some dad issues of my own, and i'll sometimes catch my subconscious mind attacking these things vicariously. it will feel like genuine anger or rebellion brewing up inside me, but towards a person that i'm not at all involved with other than by proxy. in this case, suzie told me about this thing where, as a small child, she took a coffee stirrer from a gas station coffee table while her dad was paying for gas. when her dad saw that she'd taken it, he told her that this was stealing and made her take the straw back in and apologize to the dude at the gas station. suzie likes this because it taught her never to steal anything. sure, that's reputable. but all the same, i got really pissed when she recounted this story to me! i became really defensive for her childhood self, angry that her dad would start some shit over a complimentary coffee straw. given, this is me taking the thing totally out of context. her dad may have been very kind about it, and in fact was probably right in showing her that she should ask or reconsider before grabbing and taking things, as it could have been a candy bar as easily as it was a straw. i don't know how it went down; i wasn't there.

all i know is that my temper totally flared up at this. it's a little bit of my protective/vindictive nature which rises in defense of those i love, but no doubt when i think about it, there's more to it than that. i must be bringing my own shit into it, which is a little troubling. this is for me to deal with, not poor suzie. she was just telling me this cute moral story from her childhood, and i had to go fuck it up by getting retroactively pissed at her dad. sounds a little off to me.

so maybe if i dig deeply enough, i've still got enough emotional turmoil left to get that old feeling back. maybe i just need to take the george bush approach... send in everything i've got, stir up a lot of battles, and do everything i can to tap into the tapped and untapped reserves of oil--i mean, emotions. untapped reserves of pent up emotion, which may or may not affect national gas prices.

this one was exhausting. it's the end of a long week, a good one though. i will press on, but first i will go to sleep.

peace.