We're at nearly ten months of living here, and in some ways, I am lonelier than ever before. The only upside is that I'm fairly accustomed to being lonely. If you can call drinking every night -- even though you don't even want to -- just to be numb to the passage of time -- being accustomed.
I tend towards black and white thinking, towards extremes and "always" and "nevers." I know that about myself. Yet I can't help but feel that moving to Austin has been as wonderful as it has been terrible. Its both the greatest and worst decision of my life. It has been the biggest adventure and yet such a challenge. Is this the reality? Or just my in-the-moment perception?
Speaking of uncertain realities... I've been clinging to this hope that I would be able to turn my life around, to tip the balance towards being happy, if it weren't for my medication. When I started meds back in 2014, I was doubtful -- they didn't help much in my turmoil filled teens. But I stuck with it, and I had an amazing doctor who worked with me, and after a long process found a balance that really seemed to work. They didn't make my life perfect, of course, but I felt I had a better footing. But after moving, my new doctor sent me back to square one. No, he sent me to about a negative five. I've spent the last three months of my life sleeping, roughly, 12-15 hours a day. Turns out the medication he prescribed has some intense (very well-known) side effects that he failed to mention. But I'm still on them, because no professional who actually knows how to prescribe meds will call me back. And if I don't take them, I just spend 12-15 hours a day crying instead. Maybe a slight exaggeration. But its not pretty.
Its an incredibly suffocating feeling, trying to choose between emotional stability and, you know, being conscious. I want to do things to improve my life. I'm just so goddamn tired.
Even if that weren't holding me back, I'm not sure I would be any better off. I know that I'm not happy with where I'm at in my life. The issue is, I don't know where I want to be in my life. I don't know what I want from my life. I've spent so long focused on taking one it step at a time, and now all the steps have been taken and I'm stumbling on even ground. What next? What do I want? Who do I want to be? Even if I knew what I wanted, would it be attainable? Why do I feel so incomplete?
People. I need people. If three years with Kent taught me anything, its that people are vital to my well-being. And here I am, 1300 miles from home, relatively people-less. Family-less. Loneliness. And I just don't know what to do about it. I feel overwhelmed by the intensity of the need. Powerless to fight it. Terrified to try. Who am I to put that need on others? Who am I to ask them to care about me, my life, my feelings? What do I bring to the table? Do I leave others better off, or do they leave me regretting time they wasted? Is my worthlessness real or imagined? If I can't answer it, why should I expect anyone else to?
love,
lisapink
she listened to her heart above all other voices
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Sunday, May 13, 2018
Friday, May 11, 2018
goddamn
I wish Utah didn't suck so goddamn much. The conservativeness and fucked up laws, the fucking snow and cold, gray winters, the impenetrable monoculture. I wish I could have Austin's vitality and zest and flavor and still have all the people who mean so much to me, who get me. It's a contradiction and a catch-22.
I feel so at home, and so alone.
I want to go dancing. I want to get so drunk and make friends with strangers at the bar. I want to be wild and free and stop thinking so goddamn much.
I need a job. Not so much financially, though it would definitely be helpful in the long run. But I need a method of deriving satisfaction that doesn't wholly rely on others. And maybe I'm not the most intelligent person, but goddamn can I get a job done right. And that feels good. I just need to find a place where my skills really have a chance to shine, for my worth to be valued appropriately. And I want to meet people and become friends with them based on my own merit.
I want to say more, to put into words these drifting melancholy feelings I have. But I'm too drunk. Not as drunk as I was the other night (I think I was also a little high) when I went in the closet thinking it was the bathroom and had to have Jesse rescue me from a bucket of towels (is it weird to be proud I didn't pee in the bucket?) but I'm a nice sleepy buzzed and really should sleep. Jesse has work in the morning 😂.
I think that's the first time I've ever used an emoji in this blog. Definitely my most common used emoji, so not surprising.
love,
lisapink
P.S. my thoughts are with Scott Hutchison tonight. His lyrics have frequented this blog, and I hope his fate is far different than the one I wished for while quoting him.
Monday, May 07, 2018
wonder
Austin is like, what if Mormonism never fucking existed in my life? '
But it did. It so fucking did.
God its 3 a.m. and Jesse's (hopefully) asleep and I am so fucking drunk. And happy.
I think I did good at socializing tonight. I made people laugh. I've told Jesse I have a "reactionary" humor, aka I can make people laugh by inserting jokes into the conversation (not necessarily being funny organically).
A long, long time ago I wrote a blog post about polyamory. And I inspired a certain person, whom now lives a polyamorous life that from the outside at least, I can only dream of. But do I dream of it? Am I more monogamous than I once fantasized? My Family. Its funny; that phrase has several different meanings to me now.
My "Little" Family: Jesse, myself, and Lincoln. Honestly, though we've been married almost six years, I can't imagine ourselves as a family without Lincoln. He is our baby. Without him, we are just two individuals committed to each other. But with him, we're a family. We love each other and take care of each other and understand each other.
My family. I miss my family. Mostly this refers to my sister (whom we lived with for two-ish years and I became very close to) and her husband and children. I miss sitting on their couch. I miss making plans for summer. I miss their dog, Candy (and kind of Marley). I miss babysitting my nieces and nephews who were exasperating and endearing and whom I love so deeply. But other family. Yes, my parents (and adopted sister?), who I keep at an emotional distance yet cannot completely exorcise from my life. And my in-laws, who at varying degrees I wish I was closer to and yet feel frustrated by their lack of understanding. I FB unfriended my aunt-in-law (whom I actually adore), and then her son FB unfriended me. Family is so complicated.
I miss my brother, whom I feel in equal parts admiration of and love for. I also miss his wife, who is just fucking cool. It makes sense, 'cause I always thought he was cool, that he would marry someone amazing. I may not be "close" to them in a traditional sense, of how much time we have spent together and how similar our lives are. But I feel close to them in a sense of how far we have come from our religious upbringing into enjoying our lives in a "worldly" sense. Sometimes, the purest thing in the world is an intoxicated grin next to other in-the-moment smiles.
Tonight I sat on the stairs of our apartment complex, just a couple hours after seeing my first wild armadillo, smelling the fresh rain on the green belt and marveling at the big dipper. There may be fewer stars than Hyde Park, UT --- but the ones that show shine bright. There is no comparison in saying that my favorite thing living in Austin vs Utah is the trees. My first tattoo I ever got was of a tree for a reason. They are life to me. They are everything good and pure and real and ancient and sustaining about this world to me. And there are a thousand times more around me here than I ever saw in Utah. God !(if he/she existed), the trees brings me so much joy.
Sometimes I imagine [platonic] female friendships in which I can rub their back and play with their hair and it not be sexual at all. And then I imagine female friendships in which I also hold their tits in my hands. And I literally cannot figure out if I am craving intimate friendships or sexual relationships. Or is it somewhere between the two? How does one (sexually repressed, friendship-starved) female know?
I am glad I moved to Austin. It has been full of challenges. But it has also been full of amazing experiences. It just goes to prove, it is always better to try than to wonder.
love,
lisapink
But it did. It so fucking did.
God its 3 a.m. and Jesse's (hopefully) asleep and I am so fucking drunk. And happy.
I think I did good at socializing tonight. I made people laugh. I've told Jesse I have a "reactionary" humor, aka I can make people laugh by inserting jokes into the conversation (not necessarily being funny organically).
A long, long time ago I wrote a blog post about polyamory. And I inspired a certain person, whom now lives a polyamorous life that from the outside at least, I can only dream of. But do I dream of it? Am I more monogamous than I once fantasized? My Family. Its funny; that phrase has several different meanings to me now.
My "Little" Family: Jesse, myself, and Lincoln. Honestly, though we've been married almost six years, I can't imagine ourselves as a family without Lincoln. He is our baby. Without him, we are just two individuals committed to each other. But with him, we're a family. We love each other and take care of each other and understand each other.
My family. I miss my family. Mostly this refers to my sister (whom we lived with for two-ish years and I became very close to) and her husband and children. I miss sitting on their couch. I miss making plans for summer. I miss their dog, Candy (and kind of Marley). I miss babysitting my nieces and nephews who were exasperating and endearing and whom I love so deeply. But other family. Yes, my parents (and adopted sister?), who I keep at an emotional distance yet cannot completely exorcise from my life. And my in-laws, who at varying degrees I wish I was closer to and yet feel frustrated by their lack of understanding. I FB unfriended my aunt-in-law (whom I actually adore), and then her son FB unfriended me. Family is so complicated.
I miss my brother, whom I feel in equal parts admiration of and love for. I also miss his wife, who is just fucking cool. It makes sense, 'cause I always thought he was cool, that he would marry someone amazing. I may not be "close" to them in a traditional sense, of how much time we have spent together and how similar our lives are. But I feel close to them in a sense of how far we have come from our religious upbringing into enjoying our lives in a "worldly" sense. Sometimes, the purest thing in the world is an intoxicated grin next to other in-the-moment smiles.
Tonight I sat on the stairs of our apartment complex, just a couple hours after seeing my first wild armadillo, smelling the fresh rain on the green belt and marveling at the big dipper. There may be fewer stars than Hyde Park, UT --- but the ones that show shine bright. There is no comparison in saying that my favorite thing living in Austin vs Utah is the trees. My first tattoo I ever got was of a tree for a reason. They are life to me. They are everything good and pure and real and ancient and sustaining about this world to me. And there are a thousand times more around me here than I ever saw in Utah. God !(if he/she existed), the trees brings me so much joy.
Sometimes I imagine [platonic] female friendships in which I can rub their back and play with their hair and it not be sexual at all. And then I imagine female friendships in which I also hold their tits in my hands. And I literally cannot figure out if I am craving intimate friendships or sexual relationships. Or is it somewhere between the two? How does one (sexually repressed, friendship-starved) female know?
I am glad I moved to Austin. It has been full of challenges. But it has also been full of amazing experiences. It just goes to prove, it is always better to try than to wonder.
love,
lisapink
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