so many fears and so little room for them all...

The word  Pnigerophobia can apply to the fear of being smothered, but I cannot find an actual word that applies to the fear of smothering someone else (in this case, I am thinking of friendships and giving people their space) which has been very intense in me lately and not just with one person, but with almost everyone, especially people I really, really care about...

I was still awake in the middle of the night and so I picked up something light to read and was just so dismayed to see this passage in an otherwise very well-written and engaging romance novel:


Lauren's second biography had been of Peter Orlosky, the mega-nerd who had brought down the Microsoft empire with his single, non-proprietary operating system...Not only was he unmarried and childless, but Lauren was pretty damned sure he’d never even had sex. With another human being, that is. But ultimately that tidbit didn’t make it into his biography because she reckoned everyone could figure that out just by looking at or listening to Peter. She certainly didn’t need to tell them.--from the novel Madam President by Blayne Cooper and T. Novan


This kind of mean-spirited writing just floors me and is so out of place with the rest of the novel. The character thinking this is regarded as a well-respected biographer and so that alone is jarring as is that she only singles out this particular person to speculate on in such a manner. But it is her attitude about "nerds" and her assumption that you can tell whether someone is having sex based just by looking at them that is really, really disturbing (not to mention who even really thinks about this when they look at someone and what does it say about that person that she does?)

I know why this strikes such a painful chord within me. I consider myself a nerd and I know that people really do make half-assed assumptions about someone else just by what they see at first glance. Someone who is not physically 'attractive' (boy, do I dislike that word and how quick our society is to label whether someone is or is not) and not good with words (especially verbally and in social situations) is so often dismissed out of hand as not worthy of romance, love and friendship and that breaks my heart so, so much :(

And it just really rubs me the wrong way that virginity, especially in adult men, is seen as something to mock and link with being a nerd and/or a computer 'geek.'

  

Sometimes, love, especially one-way, is so not written in the stars...and you just have to wait for your heart to come back to earth :(

Talking to you (only in my head) I say,
I'm not asking for the moon...only to get over you
 or (at least) for the pain in my heart to go away.


 

I can't write poetry at all, but if I could I think maybe it would help...

This article is very interesting:

http://www.thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/how-can-poetry-heal-us

Here's a snippet from it:

Being conscious of your limits will shield you in your descent toward the emotional journeys Diane Ackerman describes above.  All this being said, poetry, when used for expression and therapeutic purposes, can open doors to healing that were previously barred.  Another piece from the Writers’ Craft Box is a feature on the Pongo Teen Writing Project.  Reaching out to children and young adults in juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and other organizations, founder Richard Gold and his team of Pongo volunteers use a carefully constructed model to encourage written expression that will target those areas which are most affecting the youths’ circumstances (early childhood trauma, such as abuse, rape, addiction, death and violence). In a post on the Pongo site blog, entitled “Poetry Saved My Life”, (a line excerpted from a fourteen year-old’s poem), Gold writes, “I've seen that life's worst experiences can exist as strangers in us, separate, like people we don't know and don't want to know. Yet these worst experiences remain our passionate life companions.  I've seen that our emotions after life's worst experiences can be sealed in a variety of containers, some buried, or in a black hole, some that explode unexpectedly, some that exist only in the public realm, some that exist only in private, some that exist in one part of ourselves and not in others.  But I've also seen that through poetry, people can open these containers, and move their contents, these painful emotions, into new frames that are more open and repurposed for a meaningful life.”

 

note to self...

Sometimes, just doing this feels like a major accomplishment...getting up in the morning and heading out the door to where you have to go. Sleep and dreams can make nighttime such a horrible thing to face and recurring nightmares, in particular, can be a real and very painful challenge.

Sad dreams, while not always nightmares, have their own way of infusing your real world with something equally upsetting upon waking. 

I wish so, so much that we had more say in what we dreamed and that we could stop the bad ones (and sometimes the good ones that can hurt in their own ways as well) from happening...

Related articles:

http://dreamstudies.org/2010/09/02/14-tips-for-getting-rid-of-nightmares/

http://dreamstudies.org/2009/09/15/depression-ssri-and-dreams/

I saw this on a clothing website and the words just really hit home with me because there are some people in your life who are still there even when they are not...and that can be a good thing or a bad, depending on the person and how you feel about him or her.

It's a quiet voice, but it is still there and it is saying, things are going to get better...maybe not today, maybe not even tomorrow, but eventually. And eventually isn't necessarily a bad word...it really is not.

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I love this picture of Karen Carpenter. It shows a less sad, more playful side to her. I couldn't sleep the other night and watched a PBS documentary on The Carpenters and it is poignant and then there is that voice, the one that is unforgettable and unlike any before or after.

A comment online (via datalounge) about her voice maybe says it best:

"While her voice is hauntingly beautiful, there is also a genuine warmth to it as well. The kind of voice that would comfort you in your darkest hour of need."

As does this one:

"We all don't have to "love" the same artist. That being said, I thought Karen had the most beautiful alto, melancholic, perfect pronunciation of words, effortless delivery and a dynamite lower register. Her strength really."

That is why, despite all the sadness surrounding her life and the tragedy of her death that can make it hard to put on the Carpenters music at times, listening to her can still be so very, very nice.

We read to know we are not alone--C.S. Lewis

Despite thinking to myself that I can be alright with my parents not accepting me being gay, I still have these periods of intense sadness where I feel isolated and even "sick" (a word my mom uses to describe gay people) about myself. And I have no close friends who are gay I can talk about things with and who will truly understand and not think I am different because I am a woman who wants to fall in love with a woman who could love me back and with whom I could grow old. 

I once had a friend tell me he was okay with me being gay as long as I did not talk about it...as if my saying the day gay marriage became a reality in Maryland, back in 2012, that I wanted to meet someone and fall in love was somehow 'filthy' or not the same as his wanting to meet a woman and get married, a right he has always had as a straight man and that he has never had to fight for or even think about.

So, I continue to seek out fiction that can speak to me, fiction that can really, really understand that not all of us have understanding and gay friendly family and friends here in 2015:

"Despite the gains that the LGBTQ movement has made across the planet, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and otherwise queer youth growing up feeling like they are damaged, evil, dirty, and—perhaps most traumatically—alone."--from the introduction to Heiresses Russ 2011

 

from "Ghost of a Horse Under a Chandelier": 

Zillah finds she can’t stand being in love. She gets angry. The infuriating uncertainty. The not knowing. She mutters that it’s not fair. If only she could know what Joy feels; if her thoughts were written in bubbles above her head, or spelled out in capital letters under every scene. Zillah has nothing, no proof of love. 

And as far as love itself goes, you can be gay or straight and feel like the character above...