Superfluous Baloney

It starts to bubble to the surface, not that it had all that far to go in the first place. Before I realize it's begun to spill over the top. It gushes out usually at those closest. I can't force it back in. The pot overflows and out it all spills. Will they allow me to help clean it up? Will the forgive me for the fragments strewn about?

Regret. Embarrassment. Sweep it under the rug?

It's just that the pot was so full before it was placed on the flame. There was no room for anymore. Why was it already so full? I'd rather not say. It makes no sense to allow this to spew about, but not disclose what started the mess in the first place. No, I suppose it doesn't.

But I can't bring myself to say. I'm afraid you'll trivialize it. Tell me it will be alright when you have no idea if it will or not. No sense worrying about it dear, won't change anything. Yes, well please enlighten me with exactly how you go about stopping the worrying that bounces around your head? Why are you so stubborn? So determined to always go it alone?

Now two pots begin to boil...

One side lies basking in the sun, sighing in comfort of the light. The other huddles in darkness surrounded by a dank, heavy fear. When facing the light everything feels just right. I'm here with you, your strong arms encircling me, making me feel as though nothing could go wrong. Feeling safe there I look up at you and smile. Not my normal smirk, but a vulnerably sweet smile that only you can bring out. I want to stay there forever.

But the darkness is tricky. It calls to me and like the wreckage of a car crash along the highway, I must look. I turn and the weight of the darkness surrounds me. It lies heavy on my shoulders, weighing me down. Your arms are long forgotten as the fear invades me. I'm not strong enough to fight it off so I give in. I shudder as the coldness seeps in. I see you out of the corner of my eye, but you look different now. The darkness makes you seem sinister. The look in your blue eyes that I used to see as a mischievous twinkle now seems to hint at something more malevolent.

You call out for me and I turn again to face you and the light. The warmth engulfs me and I feel your crooked smile make everything brighter. I'm reassured. I know that I'm vulnerable, but I don't mind. Nothing else seems to matter as your smile grows bigger and warms my skin. I wish I could stay here forever in the comfort. I feel exposed, but safe. Shy, but content.

But the darkness begins to call again and I slowly start to turn. As my face turns from the light to dark the anxiety and fear return. I put my arms protectively in front of my face, but it still seeps in and consumes me. The weight returns, the air is thick, heavy and dank. I fear it. I fear you. Paranoid thoughts invade my head. You'll use my insecurities against me. You search for my flaws and throw them in my face. With each panicked thought the dark whispers back, "Yeeeessss" in confirmation. You'll strip my defenses, break down my walls and leave me exposed. Then you'll walk away, leaving me stripped and empty. "Yeeeeesssss" the air echos back. I shrink into myself trying to block it out but there is no escaping the dark.

Is it real or am I only letting my insecurities get the best of me? It's hard to differentiate trapped in its midst. I shudder from the cold or maybe it's from the realization that I'll never be sure. I'll never be 100% confident when half of me stays consumed by the dark. If only I could stay with you in the light forever. If only I could keep myself facing you, focusing on you. But how when the dark continues to call?

It snuck up on me quickly and completely out of the blue. Like a ninja in the night, it had stalked me making it sure it stayed on only the fringes of my mind for the last several months. Although I sensed it, I refused to acknowledge it this time. I allowed practicality to take over and push intuition out. "There's nothing there," I would tell myself when the anxiety began to creep in. I continued to ignore it for quite awhile, determined that this time would be different. I told myself that if I projected confidence and boasted of confidence to others, I could convince myself I truly was confident for once. It worked on most, but not all. Some could sense the fear. They know of my past and have seen the damage that lies in it's wake after it attacks. For months now I have continued as if I hadn't a care in the world, as if my plans for the future were finally solidified and would not be altered by anything and as though I could not feel it following me like a hunter with its prey. I had made the choice and I would stand by it. But the dark shadow continued to pursue me, waiting quietly for the right moment to pounce.

I was used to it's methods and the way it would strike unexpectedly, thus I prepared accordingly. But this time...this time it took a different approach. It caught me off guard and left me defenseless. It took it's time and quietly slinked over. It slowly seeped in bit by bit like a fog engulfing the Moors. It approached so stealthy, so delicately cautious, I never saw it move. I never felt it creep in until it was too late.

I have accepted it's presence now, like the end of a book in which you had anticipated a tragic ending but still continued to hope you were wrong until the last page. I've embraced it like an old friend that I hadn't seen in awhile. I have allowed myself to experience the guilty relief it brings me, like an OCD patient after giving in to their rituals. Guilty because I know someone will be caught up in the wake but relief that comes from giving in and allowing it to take over. It wraps around me like a cozy blanket, fitting like a favorite pair of old jeans. The comfort it brings is short lived once I look behind me at the wreckage. The bits and pieces of hearts that had be trampled, smashed, squeezed, and ripped apart. My heart breaks too as each one reminds me of their hurt.

But it's too late now, there is no going back. When you accept it, you accept the fate it brings and the harsh consequences that follow. The moment I gave into it I made my choice. Tough conversations will have to be had, tears will be shed, and I'll become just another hated ex-something. I hang about for a few days, mulling over the damage my decision caused. The bits and pieces of wreckage blow away in the wind behind me as I walk away, yet again.


* picture from here

Once the symphony of thoughts begin they don't want to stop. What is it today? A waltz? No, too fast to be a waltz. A tango? No, not angry enough. A foxtrot? No, not happy enough. What ever it is it plays on and on in a circle of notes and noise. Surely the conductor will need sleep soon and the music will end. But the notes continue demanding attention, demanding an ear, demanding an answer. One continual rhythm that becomes a constant maddening noise. Sometimes it plays too soft, sometimes too loud, too fast, too slow, but rarely is it just right. Rarely do the notes collaborate to form a bit of harmony. Never the right volume, the right beat, the right notes. Always out of sync. Someday it will all come together and blend into a united harmony of sounds. The opening notes of a beautiful composition. The symphony will complete the song. The dance will end. The conductor will rest.

When I head home the whole world just turns a little grayer. The sky is not quite so vibrant a blue, the grass is no longer that alluring shade of green. Everything seems out of focus...fuzzy. My world feels off kilter. I wonder through my days without thought, allowing them to run together until one bleeds into the next. One indistinguishable blur, smeared together like finger paints on a gray canvas.

My little world that used to solely revolve around so little is broadened as I begin to orbit around a new center. The rest fades into the blur as it holds less and less importance against the growing warmth of the new sun. Everything is the same, yet feels devoid when the center is gone. There is an element missing that causes things to appear less vibrant, less interesting than before. Each time I go and my new center is taken away, the rest of my world seems irrelevant. As the days pass without the center I grow accustom to the gray. As the distance increases the dullness is a little easier to bear, but the vacancy never is filled.

I know the gray will eventually be banished, and Eden will return with the reappearance of my center. With it will come the vividness and warmth of colors, my days will once again be distinct with meaning. In the meantime I learn to trudge through the unfocused gray.

About a month ago my car started to sound...well, funny. It was idling kind of rough and struggling a bit to start. The problem only continued to worsen until I was finally forced to address it for fear of being left stranded some where dodgy. Being that I have only lived in this area for about two years or so and that I have never had car issues to speak of previously, I had no utter idea where to take the damn thing. So I inevitably did the safe thing and took it to the dealership. I should have said the safe and COSTLY thing. The rat bastards charged me $100 to perform a diagnostic test to identify the issue to start out with. When they had the results they phoned me to let me know how much the repairs would cost. The customer service whatever guy calls and tells me I need a new distributor cap, rotor, spark plugs and wires. He calls this a "tune up" and says it is going to cost me $380. I told him I wanted to think about it and I would give him a call back in 20 minutes. What I really wanted to do is to find someone that would tell me this guy had lost his marbles. I have a coworker who knows quite a bit about cars and her father is also a mechanic. I asked her what she thought. She shared my sentiments, the dealership apparently hands out crack for their employees to smoke religiously because that amount of money is ludicrous. She said that actually it is a very simple task to do and that really even I could do it. That's right ME. I could lift up the hood and look in there and change the broken business out and everything would be fine. I consider this for a moment and decide that of course I can do it. I can do anything because I am a competent, independent female of the 21st century and we can do anything. If I can vote, own property and have my own checking account, then I can change a distributor something or rather and some plug thingies dammit. Thus I bravely headed into an auto parts store this weekend and purchased everything on my list of necessary parts and tools. I have to admit I was very intimidated by just having to enter the store. However, I felt marginally better when I saw a female working the counter. I headed up to her and produced my list quite confidently. She pulled everything up on the computer and asked me something about platinum and some other metal and of course I said platinum. Platinum is pretty and I love it so much more than gold or silver and it's expensive. If it is the best for jewelery then it should be for spark plugs as well. She then went to the back and gathered everything up, laid it all out on the counter and rang me up. The total was $107. Now that's what I'm talkin' about! $380 my ass. I took my bag of goodies and headed home. Of course upon getting there I had to take a break to wait for the car to cool (it was definitely not because I am a huge procrastinator, especially about things that intimidate the shit out of me). I give it a good thirty minutes or three hours...something like that and head down determinedly to the vehicle with my pink and black screwdriver and socket set in hand. And of course my cell phone in case I need to talk to a male figure to provide moral and testosterone support. It takes me several minutes to get the hood up. I pulled the little lever thing, but then couldn't figure out exactly where the latch bit is to release it completely. Finally it is up and I am looking at the inside of the vehicle with complete fascination and utter confusion. Where the hell is the distributor cap? And more importantly what the hell does it look like? And where do the spark plugs even go? And what's this bit about wires? There are wires everywhere! How do I know which ones I am supposed to jack around with? The phone gets immediately placed to my ear and the boyfriend gets a call. (Oh yes, I suppose I should mention I have one of those now...a boyfriend that is. I'm a little behind on this blog stuff. And I am sure you are wondering why in the hell he isn't there helping me? Because, sadly, he lives 800 miles away. Only I would choose someone who happens to be a mechanical genius, but can't lend a hand due to being geographically challenged. Brilliant.) Ring, ring, ring, ring...wtf! Pick up already! Can't you see I'm having an automobile crisis here? I mean the instructions I downloaded off the internet tell you HOW to take off the distributor cap, but not where the hell it actually IS! He finally answers. He was apparently taking a nap during my traumatic event. Typical man...was sleeping instead of reading my mind. He finally answered and I began asking where everything was supposed to be and he begins firing questions back like, "Do you see the spark plugs?" to which I reply, "What the hell does a spark plug look like?"
"Do you see the wires?"
"I see billions of wires, did you have any particular sort in mind?"
"Have you pulled out the new distributor cap yet?"
"Oh. No."
I pull out the cap and the wires. He then asks,
"Are the wires finished or not?"
"Finished WHAT? Finished eating? Finished telling the box goodbye? What the hell does a finished wire mean?"
You can probably see how this was going...finally I become frustrated (I'm sure he was well beyond frustrated himself at this point) and tell him I am going to call a a male type person with a foreign vehicle to see what they can tell me. I dial almost every male in my address book and can get no one to answer. Hmmph. Bastards. Finally I begin pulling new parts out and then locating the old, dirty version in the engine. I find the distributor cap and follow an old wire to the end, yank a little and lo and behold there is a spark plug underneath. Then came the next challenge. How am I supposed to get to that little sucker to get it off and the new one on? Yes, I have my handy little socket set and even the deep socket set specifically designed for removing spark plugs, but still. That little thing is way down in there and things scratch my skin when I try to get to it. I call the boyfriend back and explain my newest dilemma. He asks if my socket set is metric or standard. I have no clue of course. And does it matter that much? I don't think the car cares. Then he tells me to look for an extension piece in my socket set. I find it and still cannot reach the damn spark plug. I decide to try a different wire and plug. Nope, that one is behind the engine and I can barely reach my hand down there let alone get a socket wrench to it. I get frustrated very quickly at that point and intelligently sum up the situation by proclaiming cars are stupid. I ended up amazingly irritated at my inability to handle this situation on my own. As someone who prides themselves on the fact that they have moved across the country all alone several times with no one to depend on, I was insanely frustrated by my ineptness. If some man can do it, why can't I? I don't take failure well as I rarely attempt anything I think I might fail at. (Yes, I realize the lameness of that philosophy, but that is a discussion for another time.) I have always prided myself on being able to handle my own shit and my inability to resolve this problem made me feel defeated in a way. I had to come to the conclusion that maybe I can't do it all on my own any more. It seemed much easier when I was younger and the extra effort it took to do everything the hardway didn't seem to require so much energy. I am coming to the realization in my 31 long years (heh) that I don't really, deep down inside, want to have to everything on my own anymore. I'm ready to have some people to lean on when life throws me a curve ball, or as in this situation, beaned by the pitcher. In fact, I find it quite annoying to have to decipher and navigate the world alone these days. I still get a bit anxious here and there about relying on others, but lately when it is a choice of stubbornly figuring it out on my own or sucking it up and asking for help, I am beginning to lean more often to the latter of the two.