Oh! The Places I've Been

Stuck in a Lurch

When I was in ninth grade, I copied out the full text of Dr. Seuss' Oh! The Places You'll Go, and I've carried it in my wallet ever since. After the better part of five years, it's a little worse for wear, but I still have it with me. It's my favorite book, out of everything I've read (which isn't saying much: I have read quite a few Star Trek novels, which are not known for their quality), because it's about life, in a really concise, rhyming way. Ultimately, it has a hopeful message, but it doesn't pull punches, which I think is why I like it so much. 

For a long time, my favorite line from it was possibly the most depressing passage in the entire thing:

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you. All Alone! Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

I can't tell you how many notebook pages I covered with those lines in high school. The sentiment of it really resonated with me at the time, and to a certain extent still does, because I have always been aware of my issues with feeling my feelings, and because I didn't have anyone in my life who I was willing to really try to be close to, I spent a lot of time feeling really isolated and alone. It was comforting to me for someone (Dr. Seuss) to tell me that was okay; that maybe I wasn't as different from everyone else as it seemed. But that was just an excuse, in a way, to not deal with the things that were making me feel so isolated; the things that I'm just starting to deal with now. Because it was so much easier not to deal with my issues; to not get close to people, and just continue on by myself, like I always had.

I have this very clear memory of being about eleven or twelve years old and thinking that I was probably gay, but then deciding not to deal with it, not to figure out what that meant, and who I was at that time. And then I proceeded not to continue not dealing with it for several years, until I consciously could not allow myself to no longer deal with it, and I had to admit it to myself. I think that was the moment that I stopped dealing with my feelings, when I started suppressing everything and always being okay, even when I wasn't. Because in that moment, I made the conscious decision to not deal with something fairly important because it was easier not to, and once the precedent was set, it was so much more difficult to go back and unravel the mess that I had made than to continue to not deal with things. I took the easy way out, and it worked for a long time, because I had nothing else so big to deal with that I couldn't just pretend to be okay, and I got really good at pretending to be okay.

And now I'm finally starting to deal with my feelings, and going back and cleaning up some of the mess I made, to the extent that I can. But the only reason I'm doing so now is that I've finally had things happen that have made me realize that I can't go on not dealing with things. I want to be friends with [Львица], I am friends with her, but I don't want it to be weird, what with everything that's happened, which means that I have to work through all of my feelings for her and about what happened. I know that if I don't, if I just pretend like everything's fine, my usual modus operandi, I will lose her completely, because I won't be able to really be friends, I'll just pine for her and that's not good for anyone. I want to be able to look her in the eye and honestly tell her that I'm okay, with all of it, and with everything that happened. I want to be able to see her in that dress without it making me feel weird for the rest of the night, and then feel bad about feeling weird. I don't want the fact that we dated for a bit to define my relationship with her, because it is so much more than that to me. 

And so, attempt to deal with it I have, and am, even though I have no idea what I'm doing. It's difficult for me to reconcile the inherently irrational nature of emotions with the part of me that needs a rational explanation for everything. I've been trying to let myself to really experience my feelings, and not try to suppress them, and I've been trying to talk to people about it, and I have talked to [Totally A Cat] some, as well as [Keeper of All Knowledge] and [Fuckin' Magnets], which is a really big deal for me, given that I normally never talk about my feelings with anyone.

And it is helping, I think. The past couple of weeks have been better. I've been feeling more like myself, and the ratio of good days to bad days has greatly increased. I know that time heals all wounds and all that, but I'm trying to prevent the build up of scar tissue in this case. I am trying to be a mature, functioning adult about this, and behaving the same way as I did when I was twelve when presented with something that scares me and is difficult to deal with is not the way to accomplish that particular goal. I'm attempting to use this whole thing to grow as a person (like a plant), but that just complicates things because I'm only just realizing what a mess I've made for myself. I feel kind of lost, like I have no idea what I've gotten myself into, or how I'm going to sort it all out. Once again, Dr. Seuss says it much more articulately (and much more rhyme-y) than I can:

 You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?

I'm out of my depth with this whole dealing with my emotions thing, but I know, or at least I hope, that will change as I get more comfortable with it. In many ways I'm still twelve, because I haven't really emotionally matured since then, so I've got a lot of catching up to do, and I'm trying to cram it all into a couple of weeks and expecting it to work like that. I have so many awesome people in my life right now, and I feel like I owe it to them to get my shit sorted out and not wallow in my pain or pine after something that's not going to happen, so that is what I'm trying to do. It's just been more difficult than I anticipated. But I'm trying not to let that deter me.