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Nov. 11th, 2007 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizabethI've spent the morning hiding out in my room; I snuck out to grab Sebastian because otherwise I'd have been stuck with biographies of John F. Kennedy and Tennessee Williams, but my grandmother didn't see me, and I would be willing to bet that she thinks I'm still asleep.
What does it say about me that I'm willing to give up food and drink for almost four hours, when I know perfectly well that I didn't eat much yesterday and can't afford to fuck around with my body these days?
What is it about solitude that makes me so comfortable, that I find so fulfilling?
It can't be just the introvert thing. I wish it were, but I think it's more complex than that -- or maybe not more complex, just not that simple. Which sounds a little insane, but I can't help that.
I've been talking around this in therapy a lot, my need for solitude -- last week, I mentioned something about being a latchkey kid, which I was for years, and which I wanted to be for years before my mum relented, and how that gave me the chance to decompress after school, gave me a few hours alone between dealing with the punk kids at school and my family, how that was the safest place I could be (because we've been talking about how a lot of my issues stem from how unrooted I feel these days, living without a permanent address, without a place that's really mine), home alone, and Dr. L said something about how sad that was, that I felt safest alone.
That's not something I understand. How could it be otherwise? People are risks. People are dangerous. They're worth it, yes, but they're not safe, by definition. People hurt other people, intentionally and unintentionally, they're messy and deluded and impossible to get right all the time, and that's as it should be. That's where the exciting points in relationships come in -- the adrenaline of not knowing, the interesting free-falls of oh, you -- and I wouldn't give them up, but sometimes it's just overwhelming.
What's so sad about that? This may not be how other people understand the world, and I accept that and I sometimes wish I could see what they see, but this is how my world works. This is how my world has always worked.
Stepping out your front door in the morning can get you killed, everyone knows that. I have a world where interaction with other people is just as explicitly dangerous. But we go on stepping outdoors, we go on crossing streets against the light, we go on walking and chewing gum at the same time; I smile at people in coffee shops, I ask the jackass football player sitting in front of me to stop ripping his packages open in the middle of a lecture, I tell people I love them.
What is so sad about not being able to stand in the middle of a field with a bull's-eye painted on your chest all the time? Sometimes I can't. Sometimes I need to put a sweatshirt on and sit, cross-legged, between some blackberry bushes and fold back a cluster of leaves to reveal tiny, glossy fruit.
But I don't live there. It would be easy to do that, probably the easiest thing ever, because it would be so comfortable, so calming, to know that I wasn't running the risk of something slamming into me from a direction I hadn't even glanced in; but that's not what I want. If it were easy, anyone could do it.
I'm not interested in easy.
To do that would mean giving up so much, would be to abandon the glorious detritus that is other people, and I don't think I've ever considered that seriously. But I don't want to live in the midst of the squalor, either -- I want to be free to step back from it, and catch my breath, and then come back in. I'm perfectly willing to walk through what I consider a war zone every day, but I'm not willing to sit down in the midst of it and let my protective armor come off completely.
What does it say about me that I'm willing to give up food and drink for almost four hours, when I know perfectly well that I didn't eat much yesterday and can't afford to fuck around with my body these days?
What is it about solitude that makes me so comfortable, that I find so fulfilling?
It can't be just the introvert thing. I wish it were, but I think it's more complex than that -- or maybe not more complex, just not that simple. Which sounds a little insane, but I can't help that.
I've been talking around this in therapy a lot, my need for solitude -- last week, I mentioned something about being a latchkey kid, which I was for years, and which I wanted to be for years before my mum relented, and how that gave me the chance to decompress after school, gave me a few hours alone between dealing with the punk kids at school and my family, how that was the safest place I could be (because we've been talking about how a lot of my issues stem from how unrooted I feel these days, living without a permanent address, without a place that's really mine), home alone, and Dr. L said something about how sad that was, that I felt safest alone.
That's not something I understand. How could it be otherwise? People are risks. People are dangerous. They're worth it, yes, but they're not safe, by definition. People hurt other people, intentionally and unintentionally, they're messy and deluded and impossible to get right all the time, and that's as it should be. That's where the exciting points in relationships come in -- the adrenaline of not knowing, the interesting free-falls of oh, you -- and I wouldn't give them up, but sometimes it's just overwhelming.
What's so sad about that? This may not be how other people understand the world, and I accept that and I sometimes wish I could see what they see, but this is how my world works. This is how my world has always worked.
Stepping out your front door in the morning can get you killed, everyone knows that. I have a world where interaction with other people is just as explicitly dangerous. But we go on stepping outdoors, we go on crossing streets against the light, we go on walking and chewing gum at the same time; I smile at people in coffee shops, I ask the jackass football player sitting in front of me to stop ripping his packages open in the middle of a lecture, I tell people I love them.
What is so sad about not being able to stand in the middle of a field with a bull's-eye painted on your chest all the time? Sometimes I can't. Sometimes I need to put a sweatshirt on and sit, cross-legged, between some blackberry bushes and fold back a cluster of leaves to reveal tiny, glossy fruit.
But I don't live there. It would be easy to do that, probably the easiest thing ever, because it would be so comfortable, so calming, to know that I wasn't running the risk of something slamming into me from a direction I hadn't even glanced in; but that's not what I want. If it were easy, anyone could do it.
I'm not interested in easy.
To do that would mean giving up so much, would be to abandon the glorious detritus that is other people, and I don't think I've ever considered that seriously. But I don't want to live in the midst of the squalor, either -- I want to be free to step back from it, and catch my breath, and then come back in. I'm perfectly willing to walk through what I consider a war zone every day, but I'm not willing to sit down in the midst of it and let my protective armor come off completely.
Reposted from LJ, 20 March 2009
