Please let me rescue what can sound like a pretty vile message on this page, by adding the later conclusion, thus :
It could otherwise be that just by accepting their being in my life,
I am part of the way in giving back.
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Maybe, I'm just a real dumb
Palagi with having these following thoughts...
[ Pretext, is the larger page of writing that this is extracted from. I already know that some of this writing is just a passing phase]
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I began to write this while my family was facing a challenge that was really waking me up. I was worried that it was all going to be too late for me to draw on all I could. I couldn't concentrate just fully on what I had been, and it would have been just more of a waste just to sit idle instead. I paid attention to what would keep me settled while consolidating on a lot of what really gets the best out of me. I was wanting not to spoil that before I had the opportunity of putting it more into play as first intended. I needed, most of all, to be there sharing this time with my parents, as we did on a holiday alluded to in one way on the fuller page of pretext.
I was also with a faintly looming worry that I was soon going to be thrust into dealing with a lot of mental junk to work through requirements pertaining to my disability. This meant venturing again into a very politicised world. I've found that too much is just assumed for me, if I don't have something written down at least for myself to remember, and that has to be enough to keep me from getting caught up in what can confuse me until I don't even remember my name. I was trialling out a new speech synthesizer, and in finding more about how others have done with that, I ended up wading through morose crip-esteem-rallying shit out of a fairly morbid curiosity - the stuff that has hurt me so much before. I'm sure there still are heaps of people amongst it all, who would be a hell of a lot of fun to get to know.
"Love
the mighty drug we crave
the master and the slave
will take us to our grave"
- Slaves and masters, Kiss
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I wanted to get to the stage I once knew where history could just be rendered inert, and could be put aside where it no longer weighed me down and impinged on my efforts just to get on with life. There is a sense in which I can now relax more with a bit in writing to supplement what becomes an upbeat description of how life had begun to be for me again, and how I could share it. This very writing is in aide of the frustration it might evoke when it is read that, of course, I need to let things go.
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It was indeed the best and worst of times. It could have been a very emotionally harrowing time for me as it was, but moreso for two people who I felt once again were the closest as can be to me. I was kind of thinking that I needed that speech synth in order to help speak not for myself, but on yet another person's behalf - maybe for when they really needed me the most. They have done the same for me all my life. At the same time when I began to write this, in the background I was bracing myself to cope also with people who love me in their own way when my feelings were that we really don't need to know each other except for the sake of one individual who will always need us all. Now, later on, I have found that old skills I had, have really come into their own again, and I've been shocked a bit out of being such an emotional dishcloth. It couldn't have come sooner.
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"Standing on some dotted line
reacting to the hands of time
a circumstance that
...... I've been fed
leaving questions in my head
... When all else fails, I try
but mostly, I wonder why... "
- Bare, Anthrax
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(I apologize for what can sound like an overwrought use of song lyrics on this page. These represent a hangover from my youth, and come across as appropriate enough when I'm reading in a certain frame of mind. I hope others also have the patience)
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"Sucking life
through a straw
always more
...Shrug it off
it doesn't matter
it's just a thought
...Sweep it off
out the door
no one saw
Always sinking down
swallowing the key
filling up with doubt
coming up empty
Can you see?
...over
...over
Hey, can you breathe?"
- Breathe, Second Child
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Having written this piece down, I find myself in a bit of a funny position of having a love developing for that part of the family I'm writing about after all - in new terms, which may still require me to live quite differently to how they expect. I'm not sure how the relationships will take form in the future, but I will have to remain mindful and still act on probably all I initially intended to as written here, but then pretty much leaving doors open to them in ways that I yet may find that I can still be responsive.
It couldn't be allowed to become my main concern, but I had wanted to be sure to retain a consideration for people like the ones I'm mentioning from my family who appear to me as having very strict religious views. I've found these views have combined with what has also been instated rigidly as being an immense source of cultural pride for those in my family. We see a world through such different perspectives. I guess it's a bit wretched of me to say that other people I have known seem to have similar beliefs as them without assuming so much that they will always know best. If there was something we shared a passion for, that we both trusted that our love for was real in itself, with or without whatever else each other believed, things could be made different. Thus, I guess we'd find a way of not being mutually condemning. Their own belief system is why they put up with me, and knowing that can make me feel terrible. I have felt that we have zilch in common and I feel our mutual accommodations are just a hinderance no one would really want me to have in life. Explaining this does not make sense to them, but I would be comfortable if anyone reads this. I am open to how old situations can change when other situations do.
I have wanted to retain this empathy regardless, and in all fairness whilst knowing I will eventually disengage from this part of the family completely if things remain as I have always seen them so far - and without myself becoming very enraged in the process. They have always done their best for me. Exploding out of any impatience would just be proving that I've no idea of what I myself need in the face of family I did not grow up with, who expect (even more righteously than I think they consciously realise so far) that they or their kids can speak on my behalf and help me throughout my life. As I've said above though, there's still a chance that I am misjudging what has to be in the future, from the situation I am in at the time of writing. My reconsiderations when writing this came about because it does seem to me that the younger ones would understand my situation to all their own unique degrees, but in light of an unswerving faith and cultural idealism remaining in different forms still so strong and pervasive, I'm scared of being just a destructive influence. The worry of this, whether it is a possibility or not, is enough to really dampen the ways I'd rather be. I'd love it if any such going of separate ways won't be so overt as it sounds, and it'd just be accepted in time if it has to be. I'd like to think I'd still be forging that distance without animosity, but with respect for our differences.
Sharing a bit of DNA in common, as I think of the matter in my more facetious moments, shouldn't really necessarily compel us to be together at all. Reducing things down to that is a bit ridiculous. However, I wouldn't expect the kids to hang around me and I don't want to live in a world where good intent is so tied to tradition and duty.
"See
I'm no more no less
than the angel you'd have me be"
- No more no less, Collective Soul
"...And there it goes
my innocence
while gathering up
up a compliment"
- Compliment, Collective Soul
It is not trite, but is a reflection of some lost and understandably confused reactions towards me when I say that have I never wanted to cause hurt in the ways that I might have. Nor do I want to lose such passion I have for life by making myself numb in order to get through it all when I still have to be in contact with this part of my family currently. Nonetheless, I would always wish every happiness for them in a life that is deeply satisfying for themselves, and I reflect on what a giving and trusting group of individuals I have known. Now older, I know how to go about things without blocking my emotions off. I believe that being around politicised groups pressing relentlessly for the independence of their members once had an additive effect, leading to my world caving-in before, and zapping much of my strength I had needed to be as sensitive as I've wanted to try and be.
I would still suit the simplistic picture put forward by many to their political advantage, and who would wonder why I let myself waste away. Was I just lazy, a bludger, and wanting pity? How could I have been so dumb to have kept staying in the same situations? If I have been held back, the issue for me has all been what my actions say about my ability to care. Take that quality away from me, and I am nothing. The issue has hardly ever been about proving that I can do a lot else. I'm sure that the delays in my life must have some thinking that I've been totally thick, gutless and incompetent. That is the complete opposite to what I believe I started out with. It would not have answered what I was so devastatingly lost in, to just keep achieving in whatever would be called success to the outside eye. More than that in my life began having effects I could no longer sweep aside.
More recently, I started to realise that the influence of words that have been spoken has caused me to wonder if I will be capable of convincing anyone at all in the future that I love them. Indeed, I wonder if I've already been driven in my life a lot by such a concern. It is banal and difficult to bring this into the light, when matters are just seen as matters of independence or culture and are hence deemed not worthy of any further elucidation in order to sort out, and then articulate better. I've even doubted if I'm capable of love, and have ended up in situations where such a doubt was only ever reinforced.
The relative succinctness has only just come, and I think my longer explanations do indeed have massive potential to only frustrate. There is detail unnecessarily given here on this page too, but I am so glad of having found some shorter phrasing that I know I've recorded in this way, and which I may be able to end up using in person to express myself without tearing myself up inside trying to find the words if these ever are to be needed.
To complicate matters, I must exasperate everybody to distraction by continually going over that it was my fault that I fell for a hero in the political arena; the arena that everyone had always thought would help me. Away from his advocacy work, I was moved whenever hearing him trying to convince himself that he would never end up like his father. I tried to believe this too, but in that period, it was really like pushing ever-accumulating shit uphill. There was ten years of patience where I had always been nothing but his afterthought he kept coming back to, just to be told further down the track that I had never, ever known what it means to care, nor did I know how it was to be treated terribly. Amidst much of what I saw as hurt and anger, I was told that I did not know how it feels to be treated as though I was nothing. Often I was then vehemently rejected everytime I reached out in ways that I had never done so with anyone before, no matter how much of me I kept trying to summon. We were both lost. Delays have been perpetually throwing more stuff up that I became convinced about not being able to handle, and I became exactly who I never wanted to be. This all just used to stall me more. My own skills of giving up where I had to, had not kicked in.
Other skills which used to serve me amazingly well, just didn't work in that situation. I gave up on these, and lost track of how I at least think that I once had these pretty well honed in. When people have tried to help me by insisting these work as though I've never tried, I probably get upset moreso for the memories, good and bad, and then there are all of what once were my future dreams that also flood back. I know I have to continue to give life a bloody good try with all the great things that have come my way. I still could use a lot of patience and understanding, even though I've since found a few more gears again, as I try to listen to what would help. I know that we're always dropping a few things we once valued in life, but never thought it had to be all at once. I learnt that there are situations which take more than will and effort to achieve some mastery over.
It is not hard to guess who I've had others suggest to me as an example to look up to at times when I think I've looked so vacant, lost and clueless of all that I could have been achieving. Inextricably alone, I had once so much wanted to refer to him with such an overwhelming love and pride. It became impossible for me to tell just what my brain and heart were doing.
"I try and find forgiveness in taking what we've never shared"
- Throwing it all away, Zakk Wylde
I don't like seeming so vacant when floundering for words, while those who can formally offer me help with my living requirements are left with the entirely wrong picture of what I may need. What I've had instead of what I've just occasionally dared to wish for, cannot be suggested by all the pages and pages I've thus written. These are pages which amount to an endless and repetititve struggle with what I claim to have been through. I've been left bewildered, but also with skills and experience not ascribed to me, and so I hardly expect to be given the opportunities that I think I have actually attained the mental and emotional aptitude for. That I will be ok, slips away from me and I find myself celebrating when that haze lifts. It is a joy that might appear so crude, simple and not worth how it seems to affect me so. Nevertheless, I still think of those whose help I already can rely on, and who I usually only regard with the relunctance I've tried to quell from within me.
I've written about this for years, mulling over things in places where I've never been sure of myself since. Mixed up amongst other questions, I have a recollection of going through earlier possibilities of what was getting to me in such a tormentous relationship I have been in. This included asking if I was I being just like my relatives were to me, and if I had only been getting a taste of how I was making them feel? I had never wanted to make anyone feel so obligated to stay around me. For all they ever have tried to do for me, I always ended up treating them with what I really think is disdain. I try to be of use, but ultimately, how I would really be able to lend support otherwise, would just be an attack on the very foundations of what keeps them going. As misunderstood and unsuccessful as I would be, I can't do that to anyone. I'd still be lavished with care and attention no matter how difficult I would become. That would just be unfair to us all, and I never want that to happen.
It has taken those years to again figure out how to go about living reasonably, although I must've put so many people off me by now for all the times I thought everything had been resolved. I acquired strength again by understanding that I couldn't do justice to all the hard work a lot of people have put into me so far by having to ignore what really inspires me about life. My heart had been celebrating this with a refreshed passion and reassuredness towards the future. My heart was also in my mouth at the thought of possibly losing one person, who understands that I mean absolutely no harm, before them being able to enjoy and deservedly breathe easy with what is yet to come. My life won't be in step with everything that matters to him either, if I haven't done my utmost for those who have indeed passed through our lives.
PS: With respect to the part of my family that I feel awkward over, it could otherwise be that just by accepting their being in my life, I am part of the way in giving back. They'll know me in the way they want to, and I realise I can give more when I just understand that for what it is.
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In the event that it could have suddenly become much more important for me to oversee and communicate stringent details rather than just this extraneous carry-on, my writing only comprises a miniscule fraction of honouring an individual who has been constantly beside me. Of course their own life includes so much more than just myself, and I only really hint at this with what I write elsewhere on this site [mostly in the adjacent column from the page of pretext, that this piece is extracted from. I already know that some of this writing is just a passing phase.].
Well worn and still dribbling occasionally : A shorter version of a page that may help bring those interested, up to speed (recommended only for those new to my websites...)
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