Tonight I faced the one thing I fear the most. The thing I fear more than life, more than the grief that still hangs around and sneaks up on me, more than heights or eating popcorn shrimp that I thought was popcorn chicken...
Tonight I faced me, myself.
Alone.
It's been roughly a year since I've done that.
When I left DFW on the Amtrak this evening, en route to OKC, I knew it was going to be an experience, but I wasn't prepared for what ensued once I stepped onto the train. While I found an empty seat and tried to get comfortable, I realized it wasn't going to happen. I was too anxious about going on the trip without Adam or Ryan, so there was no way I was going to be able to relax. Then I wondered if I still had time to back out and get off the train. My anxieties were already stewing earlier in the day and once the train started moving, they heated up and boiled over into a full-fledged panic attack nightmare.
I started looking around, trying to make a quick decision:
Should I cry or get up and jump off the train? Like spidey-sense, I became hyper aware of everything around me. It felt violent, like I was forced to wake up from the longest period of sleep in the history of ZZzzzzs. The entire experience was shocking to my psyche and it cut sharp into me, leaving what felt like a gaping, deep Grand Canyon sized incision right in the center on the top of my head.
The sudden forced awake state and alertness caused the thoughts in my brain to spin around wildly and I starting questioning my life, the train ride, and their validity, combined.
Did my father really pass away last year? And did the murder really happen? Is my mother living in Oklahoma and I'm really living in Texas now? What about my brothers? They're still around, right? And Adam....and Ryan? Did I dream my entire life?. Who am I? Where am I?
In the past I would have refused the possibility of my life as a dream sequence. The theory as a viable answer to the things that I've seen and the things I've lived through is something I'd almost rather not imagine because even though I've lived through a good portion of fucked up situations, the experiences I've had
are belong to me and they're my only reality.
Even if I were to cast aside my true experiences and buy into the idea that my entire life was a series of dreams, never ending until now, I'd still be the person I am today. Because no matter what, the things I've dreamed or lived through are all I know. The lessons I've learned, the touches, the kisses, the goodbyes that I wasn't ready to say and even the hellos that I wasn't prepared to offer...
That was all I wrote for the past 27 years, figuratively and literally speaking.
To explore this possibility even further, imagining life as a dream is entertaining because it offers no definite beginning, middle, or end. Without definite starts and an unknown ending, life, the dream, becomes infinite. Perhaps the ability for life to be infinite is possible without the dream theory? Maybe that's what life is truly meant to be?
Living = Seeing = Dreaming = Believing...
At least for the time being.
This theory about life as a dream is a theory I learned of a few years ago. It was inspired from the teachings of a psychologist named Carl Jung. Jung theorized that our dreams were meant to help guide us in our realities, in our lives as we live them. Take that theory a step further and you have the birth of the
waking dream. A
waking dream is thought to be any and every unique, noteworthy, stand-out, devastating, and monumental event[s] we experience and later recall. This act of recalling is said to aid us in our spiritual growth because we are meant to learn a lesson within each of the
waking dreams we see and/or experience.
If the waking dreams theory is possible then let's go back to the start of this particular dream on the train and attempt to understand what it's trying to tell me.
My biggest fear is myself, solo.
This fear causes me great shame to admit, but I have to admit it openly and honestly because I made a vow to myself and to the world at the beginning of 2010, that I would be as open and honest as possible with my thoughts and feelings, especially as I expressed them within my writing.
Why is it that I fear myself?
This fear has been an on again/off again phobia I've dealt with during all of the 27 years of my life. It increased during the summer of 2009 and has grown at a rapid rate since then, nearly paralyzing my life, today. Examining the symbolism in the fear, it's constant coming and going, I'm forced to list all of the things in my life that share the on again/off again characteristic.
- Ex-boyfriends
- My father
- My patriarchal family, particularly my aunts
- Friends
- Fears
- Unsettled grief from the loss of loved ones
Listing the things in my life that share the trait of instability made me realize how drastic the instability in my life has been. But it's not totally bleak...
Fast-forward to the present and it's more than evident that instability is no longer a constant in my life. Life has calmed down since January 2010 when I moved to Texas. I have routines now, schedules I do my best to adhere to, and [somewhat] clear goals for my life. This is a first for me and it's a welcome change from the past.
So why do I fear myself? Fearing myself sometimes and not sometimes, is an action I've come to find comfort within since it's familiar. Though unstable, it's been a consistent, reliable variable I could count on at my best and worst moments in life. Just the same as I always knew that my dad would go on alcoholic binges and leave for days or weeks, then he'd always come back home at the end of his vicious cycle, and the way I knew that my ex-boyfriends and I would fight, break-up, then make-up:
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
...
Translation:
The fear of myself is merely an echo of the instability that has been my life story.
But as of now, that story is no longer mine. In fact, this is the ending of the old story and the start of an entirely new book, complete with new characters and fresh plots just waiting to be played out and told! With the excitement of this chance to start over,
why, why, why am I terrified of myself outside of the past chaos? I should be afraid of the chaos, not myself.
Trying to get the answer to this question is like having to drag someone out to face the front line of a firing squad. [Not that I would know first hand what it's like to drag someone to their death. I'm only making parallels to the two scenarios similarities for horrorcore's sake.]
There are several reasons I fear myself and this new life more than I fear the chaos I've already lived through. The biggest reason is because I dread any experience or person I don't know. Nothing seems more frightening to me than being forced to face or deal with yet another bullshit person or circumstance, especially without anything or anyone to turn to for help. Whether that help be in the form of offering me a bigger disaster to focus on besides the one at hand, or pseudo-support from anyone other than myself; these are the things I've come to depend upon.
Finally, the core of the fear is exposed; stripped down naked with every nasty flaw visible to on-lookers and to the imaginary firing squad, eagerly waiting to hear the signal.
Ready...
Aim...
There it is, assed out: I am addicted to pseudo-support systems and false hopes.
Now,
what-if, and this is an Olympic sized
what-if, but
what-if I didn't rely on pseudo-support or false hopes any longer? Pseudo-support systems and false hopes are a lot like life support when you think about it. All those tubes and needles and fluids; being hooked up to a machine that controls the beating of the heart...
Why? To live a life resigned to a twin sized gurney, loved ones stopping by the hospital for visits when it's convenient, to experience the heart wrenching goodbyes as loved ones leave and return to their lives in their queen-sized beds without tubes, needles and fluids being shoved into their bodies; their own hearts beating for them.
Either way death is inevitable and permanent life support becomes an unhealthy and unnatural means of survival that only prolongs the unavoidable event. Living on life support sounds way too familiar for comfort. Even with this knowledge, I'm still afraid to face this new life alone because I'm afraid I'm going to fail and if I fail--
Well I don't want to know what happens if I fail.
In the cheesiest of cheesy statements; Failure is not an option. I know it's not an option because I've purposefully tried to fail at life on several occasions. I mean I've tried
really hard to fail at life before and have been unsuccessful in my attempts, every time. I fail at failing, so that leaves me with no other choice. Besides, if I've made it this far, despite my fears, I'd hate to give up now. Now that I've seen a happy life is possible. Of course, I also know it's possible I could end up living a crappy life pt.deux.
I have to give up the pseudo-support and embark on this new chapter of my life, alone. Just me in my life, living and dealing with whatever and whomever comes along.
Ready...
Kind of ironic when it's put in those terms;
Just me in my life, living and dealing with whatever and whomever comes along.
Aim...
I guess no one is ever truly alone because life is constantly existing, whether we see it or not. Kind of like that legendary question:
If a tree falls down in the wilderness and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? It may not make a sound but it does cause a vibration which can set off a multitude of chain reactions. People and their lives are the same. Whether or not we know each other exists, we all do things that cause reactions we don't realize, or maybe we do realize them, though never in their absolute entirety. The reactions go on and on and overlap so that we lose their exact starts and their exact ends.
It's from this that I am certain of one thing: We are all connected and life is infinite.
I began to take solace on the train and in the certainty of the infinite. I relaxed as the train pulled into the station at OKC. I stretched my arms out in front of me and gathered my belongings. I pondered the idea of the waking dream. If it still stands as a possibility, then the things I've seen and lessons I learned in my dream, I plan to apply to my present life and to my future. My future from this moment is scary, but it's inevitable.
FIRE!
So the question resurfaces:
Where do I go from here?
It's too soon to predict or say at the moment. I know I'm not running from anything and I'm willing to learn how to deal with life alone, sans pseudo support systems.
Who knows what I'll do or where I'll go? Maybe I'll make breakfast and hang out in my PJs all day, watching daytime television? Maybe I'll shower and check out an art museum? Maybe I'll go back to sleep?
Or maybe I'll finish writing that memoir I've been working on for the past 27 years?
I
alone am uncertain about what's in store for the next chapter of my life.
That's okay because
I
even with the aid of others, am uncertain about what will happen from here.
All
I
am certain of is that the possibilities are
endless.
