Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.
Everyone has the potential to be the hero or the villain in the story. And sometimes, even when we're trying to do what's right, others will see us as the villain, or when we're trying to ignore what we know is right we still end up the hero. Sometimes we don't feel we should be rewarded, or we feel as though we didn't do anything to deserve the praise we've received, but what it comes down to is that others will never see us the way we see ourselves.
I've spent years trying to figure out who I am. Years pushing people away, holding them at a safe distance - that which I felt was safer both for them and for myself. I was so afraid of the things I knew I could do that I never recognized the potential I had. Instead, I spent my time worrying over the wrongs I'd done. I've done many things in an attempt to serve penance for my sins, the wrongs I've committed, and in the end I'm coming to a peace. In the end, I'm realizing the only person left who needs to forgive me is me.
Until we forgive ourselves, we can never become the hero in our own stories. We must find the way to pay a penance only we can name before we'll ever find that peace we all long for. Things will never be perfect, nor will they be easy just because I've made my peace with my past. Considering my track record, I've got lots of rocky paths in my future - but it will all be worth it.
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
3.24.2009
dilɪŋ wɪɵ ɵʌ dɪskamfɛrt ʌv imoʃʌnʌl rispənsɪbɪlɪti.
Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.
So I'm taking a Linguistics class this semester. Trying to learn it and understand it. Very difficult. 'Nuff said.
The Title means "Dealing with the discomfort of emotional responsibility." And that's just what I'm attempting to do. Over the course of the past two years, I've taken on the task of allowing myself to care more about people and to allow them to care about me in return. Basically, I'm learning to care, to feel emotion, to not be so detached from reality. It sucks royal donkey balls. I'm not kidding. After so many years of not caring, letting myself care hurts. A lot. How do you people deal with this pain on a daily basis? Seriously, I don't get it. Caring is not easy, it gives me a whole new respect for people.
I've never really been able to fully connect with people. I've always remained at a distance, letting people within a certain proximity but not close enough to do harm. All that changed recently, when some people kind of forced their way into my life. Namely, it started with Bethany, Lewis, Jeff, and Ross. And then they forced their way into my heart as well. We started hanging out, having fun together, but I still tried to hold them off a bit. Then they started hugging me. I think they thought it was funny how I'd tense up and screech when they did it. They probably didn't know they were breeching my carefully constructed walls to keep people out. Eventually, it led to really good friendships and my decision to try this caring thing.
Little by little, more people found their way into my life and stuck it out. Ben(jamin), the male version of me. Jordan, who started out as a good friend, becoming my best friend quickly, and now my boyfriend. Meaghan, soon-to-be roommate and good friend. Jackie, a Linguistics study buddy, now a good friend. These people have come to mean so much to me. And I'm working on the caring thing. It's scary, terrifying at times. Jordan supports me more than anyone, always there for me as I face my past and try to maintain faith in the future. Faith in our relationship. Trusting another person to be so close to me, to know so much about me, and to not betray that trust. He scares me more than anyone. He also has managed to earn my complete trust. Maybe that's what scares me.
I don't know how to do this. I really don't know what I'm doing at all. Sometimes I think it would be better to detach than to remember. Remembering hurts. Flashbacks, nightmares, I barely sleep and I feel so worn down. I don't want to remember anymore. But once that door is opened, there's no closing it. The memories have been coming back for a week straight, years of repressed emotion and things I blocked out. A decade of everything I never let myself see or feel, tearing me apart. I feel so selfish, too. More and more, I feel like all I'm doing is thinking about me, remembering, crying. I feel like I'm breaking inside again, beyond what I've already been through. And I thought that I was hurting before.
Here I go again, ranting on and on about selfish things. Is this selfish? Facing all of this pain, remembering a childhood I never really had. My whole life have been lived in fear, cutting off to protect myself, self-injurious behaviors to make myself less attractive and maintaining unhealthy choices to keep myself overweight for the same reason. It's only the past year or so that I've been able to hold on to a more healthy weight, and many times, I feel the desire to hide myself again, to gain that weight back out of a protective instict, a fear that I'll draw unwanted attentions again. And sometimes, I can't decipher if what I'm feeling is my self-defense mechanisms again, trying to make me detach and run away, or if it's real feelings. So often, I try to cut off from Jordan, who has somehow managed to hold this unhuman amount of patience with me and my issues. I don't know how he does it. He listens to me and lets me freak out, he calms me down and won't let me run away. He chases after me when I do. And when I try to break off, he shows up immediately and talks me through it. He's been there during flashbacks, when I fall into the past and relive the things I've tried so hard to forget, and he walks me through them. More and more, I wonder what I did right to deserve someone like him.
I put myself into a counseling program of sorts through the Women's Center on campus. Hopefully it will help me. Okay, I can admit it. It is helping me. The fact that my nightmares and flashbacks are increasing means I've brought those things back to the surface, which means I'm starting to deal with them. I know it will be difficult for awhile. It's gotten progressively worse over the past week and a half, since I experienced one flashback with Jordan there that he talked me through, got me talking during. I hope this works. I hope I can get through it, wake up from this living nightmare and maybe have a semi-normal life.
And now that I've ranted for awhile, I'll stop. Perhaps the next entry won't be so down.
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
So I'm taking a Linguistics class this semester. Trying to learn it and understand it. Very difficult. 'Nuff said.
The Title means "Dealing with the discomfort of emotional responsibility." And that's just what I'm attempting to do. Over the course of the past two years, I've taken on the task of allowing myself to care more about people and to allow them to care about me in return. Basically, I'm learning to care, to feel emotion, to not be so detached from reality. It sucks royal donkey balls. I'm not kidding. After so many years of not caring, letting myself care hurts. A lot. How do you people deal with this pain on a daily basis? Seriously, I don't get it. Caring is not easy, it gives me a whole new respect for people.
I've never really been able to fully connect with people. I've always remained at a distance, letting people within a certain proximity but not close enough to do harm. All that changed recently, when some people kind of forced their way into my life. Namely, it started with Bethany, Lewis, Jeff, and Ross. And then they forced their way into my heart as well. We started hanging out, having fun together, but I still tried to hold them off a bit. Then they started hugging me. I think they thought it was funny how I'd tense up and screech when they did it. They probably didn't know they were breeching my carefully constructed walls to keep people out. Eventually, it led to really good friendships and my decision to try this caring thing.
Little by little, more people found their way into my life and stuck it out. Ben(jamin), the male version of me. Jordan, who started out as a good friend, becoming my best friend quickly, and now my boyfriend. Meaghan, soon-to-be roommate and good friend. Jackie, a Linguistics study buddy, now a good friend. These people have come to mean so much to me. And I'm working on the caring thing. It's scary, terrifying at times. Jordan supports me more than anyone, always there for me as I face my past and try to maintain faith in the future. Faith in our relationship. Trusting another person to be so close to me, to know so much about me, and to not betray that trust. He scares me more than anyone. He also has managed to earn my complete trust. Maybe that's what scares me.
I don't know how to do this. I really don't know what I'm doing at all. Sometimes I think it would be better to detach than to remember. Remembering hurts. Flashbacks, nightmares, I barely sleep and I feel so worn down. I don't want to remember anymore. But once that door is opened, there's no closing it. The memories have been coming back for a week straight, years of repressed emotion and things I blocked out. A decade of everything I never let myself see or feel, tearing me apart. I feel so selfish, too. More and more, I feel like all I'm doing is thinking about me, remembering, crying. I feel like I'm breaking inside again, beyond what I've already been through. And I thought that I was hurting before.
Here I go again, ranting on and on about selfish things. Is this selfish? Facing all of this pain, remembering a childhood I never really had. My whole life have been lived in fear, cutting off to protect myself, self-injurious behaviors to make myself less attractive and maintaining unhealthy choices to keep myself overweight for the same reason. It's only the past year or so that I've been able to hold on to a more healthy weight, and many times, I feel the desire to hide myself again, to gain that weight back out of a protective instict, a fear that I'll draw unwanted attentions again. And sometimes, I can't decipher if what I'm feeling is my self-defense mechanisms again, trying to make me detach and run away, or if it's real feelings. So often, I try to cut off from Jordan, who has somehow managed to hold this unhuman amount of patience with me and my issues. I don't know how he does it. He listens to me and lets me freak out, he calms me down and won't let me run away. He chases after me when I do. And when I try to break off, he shows up immediately and talks me through it. He's been there during flashbacks, when I fall into the past and relive the things I've tried so hard to forget, and he walks me through them. More and more, I wonder what I did right to deserve someone like him.
I put myself into a counseling program of sorts through the Women's Center on campus. Hopefully it will help me. Okay, I can admit it. It is helping me. The fact that my nightmares and flashbacks are increasing means I've brought those things back to the surface, which means I'm starting to deal with them. I know it will be difficult for awhile. It's gotten progressively worse over the past week and a half, since I experienced one flashback with Jordan there that he talked me through, got me talking during. I hope this works. I hope I can get through it, wake up from this living nightmare and maybe have a semi-normal life.
And now that I've ranted for awhile, I'll stop. Perhaps the next entry won't be so down.
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
3.05.2009
Working on it...
I'm working on continuing to post here. Actually, I want to start updating on the life of a fucked up person attempting to care. Currently, it sucks royal donkey balls. There are the good points, and I know it is supposed to get better and all, but this caring thing hurts. More soon(ish) I hope.
11.08.2008
How will you be?
Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.
Life teaches its hardest lessons through experiences alone - no amount of education or preparation will ever make us ready for some things. It's kind of funny how we spend so much of our lives in school, being told by other people who have spent their whole lives in school just how we should live our lives. We try to prepare ourselves for problems that won't matter, possibilities that may never occur, and eventualities that lurk beyond a horizon we never see. And in all of that, they never teach us how to truly appreciate what we've got because one day, it will be gone. They leave out how all that time spent preparing for an unknowable future will never help us figure out how to say goodbye or to let go. They will never show us how to create a memory to hold on to when life becomes rocky, instead encouraging that our time be spent studying and working while all those times we could spend with those we love just pass us by.
One day we'll look back on all of this, these times and these people. One day we'll remember these days as some of the best we had. How will you look back - with a smile for the things that happened and the memories made, or with regret for what you missed and all that was taken for granted?
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
Life teaches its hardest lessons through experiences alone - no amount of education or preparation will ever make us ready for some things. It's kind of funny how we spend so much of our lives in school, being told by other people who have spent their whole lives in school just how we should live our lives. We try to prepare ourselves for problems that won't matter, possibilities that may never occur, and eventualities that lurk beyond a horizon we never see. And in all of that, they never teach us how to truly appreciate what we've got because one day, it will be gone. They leave out how all that time spent preparing for an unknowable future will never help us figure out how to say goodbye or to let go. They will never show us how to create a memory to hold on to when life becomes rocky, instead encouraging that our time be spent studying and working while all those times we could spend with those we love just pass us by.
One day we'll look back on all of this, these times and these people. One day we'll remember these days as some of the best we had. How will you look back - with a smile for the things that happened and the memories made, or with regret for what you missed and all that was taken for granted?
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
Quotes
Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.
Yeah. I love quotes. Here are some of the greats right now:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
seidaku says: remember, there is no problem so large that it cannot be solved with fire
Benjamin says: except for a fire resistant problem
Benjamin says: which is why I heart magic
seidaku says: that just means you dont have ENOUGH fire
"Bisogna essere molto forti per amare la solitudine."
- Pier Paolo Pasolini -
“Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things - with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope.”
- Corazon Aquino -
"Give every man your ear, but few thy voice. Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment."
- Shakespeare -
“A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are."
- Unknown -
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
- Galileo Galilei -
“One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.”
- Vincent van Gogh -
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you did anything at all."
- Futurama -
“True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.”
- David Tyson Gentry -
"In a mad world only the mad are sane."
- Akira Kurosawa -
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke -
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
- Mark Twain -
"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."
- Friedrich Nietzsche -
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
- Douglas Adams -
“Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts unconditionally, to those who barely think about us in return.”
- T.H.White -
“The most painful goodbyes are the ones you don’t get to say.”
- Author Unknown -
"We set out to change the world... ended up just changing ourselves."
- Curt Wild -
“Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”
- Hamlet (III, ii, 212-14) -
"No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets."
- Thomas Moore -
"We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us."
- Kahlil Gibran -
"I wait with patience, patience which I assure you requires more force of character than does action."
- Ferdinand de Lesseps -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
Yeah. I love quotes. Here are some of the greats right now:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
seidaku says: remember, there is no problem so large that it cannot be solved with fire
Benjamin says: except for a fire resistant problem
Benjamin says: which is why I heart magic
seidaku says: that just means you dont have ENOUGH fire
"Bisogna essere molto forti per amare la solitudine."
- Pier Paolo Pasolini -
“Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things - with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope.”
- Corazon Aquino -
"Give every man your ear, but few thy voice. Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment."
- Shakespeare -
“A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are."
- Unknown -
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
- Galileo Galilei -
“One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.”
- Vincent van Gogh -
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you did anything at all."
- Futurama -
“True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.”
- David Tyson Gentry -
"In a mad world only the mad are sane."
- Akira Kurosawa -
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke -
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
- Mark Twain -
"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."
- Friedrich Nietzsche -
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
- Douglas Adams -
“Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts unconditionally, to those who barely think about us in return.”
- T.H.White -
“The most painful goodbyes are the ones you don’t get to say.”
- Author Unknown -
"We set out to change the world... ended up just changing ourselves."
- Curt Wild -
“Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”
- Hamlet (III, ii, 212-14) -
"No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets."
- Thomas Moore -
"We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us."
- Kahlil Gibran -
"I wait with patience, patience which I assure you requires more force of character than does action."
- Ferdinand de Lesseps -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
11.03.2008
Autobiography
Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.
What's there to know about me? Every life is a series of stories, many beginnings and endings, meta-narratives within the overall plot. It doesn't really matter where or when I was born. My name isn't that important. I'm just a face, one among the billions on this insignificant planet we like to call "Earth," within the infinite amount of space out there that we could never fully understand. I am not a hero, nor am I a villain. My actions or lack thereof will never change the world. I am merely a random person stumbling about this life in an attempt to find meaning. Who I am now is the cumulative of all that I've ever been before, and I couldn't possibly tell you every little detail. That would be boring.
I am a writer, forever observing the world I live in and attempting to capture its reality in whatever story I am about to tell. I am a student, soaking in any knowledge I can, analyzing my experiences in life, and confronting the challenge of new information and ideas. I am a teacher, interacting with others and helping them learn as they in turn do the same for me. I am a wanderer, comfortably lost in the sea of faces that surround me and happy to just be unknown. I am a dancer, finding joy in my random twirls, preferably in the rain. I am a daughter, raised by my parents to be stubborn, independent, and proud. I am a sister, loyal to my sibling. I am a listener, always willing to be there for anyone who needs to just talk. Above all, though, I am a survivor. I will continue to fight with all that I have and survive every obstacle life presents me with, and I will never let my experiences influence me to stop caring. So many people in this world have sacrificed a great deal in order to give me a chance to succeed, to open doors for me that would have been locked otherwise. I owe it to them and to myself to be all that I can be, no infringement intended on the Army’s slogan.
But some things aren't meant for the world to see. Who I am, the person I really am inside, the person only a select few know, happens to be one of those things. If one earns my trust, they will earn the privilege of seeing that side of me I hide, the part of me beyond the mask. It is impossible for words to fully explain one’s personality, all the different aspects to a person’s life. We all hide behind what we think others want to see, speaking the words like parrots and holding tightly to our defensive front out of fear that others will harshly judge who we truly are. I, too, fall behind this screen, fearing the introduction of who I am to the world. This is the mask I wear, and this is my autobiography.
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
What's there to know about me? Every life is a series of stories, many beginnings and endings, meta-narratives within the overall plot. It doesn't really matter where or when I was born. My name isn't that important. I'm just a face, one among the billions on this insignificant planet we like to call "Earth," within the infinite amount of space out there that we could never fully understand. I am not a hero, nor am I a villain. My actions or lack thereof will never change the world. I am merely a random person stumbling about this life in an attempt to find meaning. Who I am now is the cumulative of all that I've ever been before, and I couldn't possibly tell you every little detail. That would be boring.
I am a writer, forever observing the world I live in and attempting to capture its reality in whatever story I am about to tell. I am a student, soaking in any knowledge I can, analyzing my experiences in life, and confronting the challenge of new information and ideas. I am a teacher, interacting with others and helping them learn as they in turn do the same for me. I am a wanderer, comfortably lost in the sea of faces that surround me and happy to just be unknown. I am a dancer, finding joy in my random twirls, preferably in the rain. I am a daughter, raised by my parents to be stubborn, independent, and proud. I am a sister, loyal to my sibling. I am a listener, always willing to be there for anyone who needs to just talk. Above all, though, I am a survivor. I will continue to fight with all that I have and survive every obstacle life presents me with, and I will never let my experiences influence me to stop caring. So many people in this world have sacrificed a great deal in order to give me a chance to succeed, to open doors for me that would have been locked otherwise. I owe it to them and to myself to be all that I can be, no infringement intended on the Army’s slogan.
But some things aren't meant for the world to see. Who I am, the person I really am inside, the person only a select few know, happens to be one of those things. If one earns my trust, they will earn the privilege of seeing that side of me I hide, the part of me beyond the mask. It is impossible for words to fully explain one’s personality, all the different aspects to a person’s life. We all hide behind what we think others want to see, speaking the words like parrots and holding tightly to our defensive front out of fear that others will harshly judge who we truly are. I, too, fall behind this screen, fearing the introduction of who I am to the world. This is the mask I wear, and this is my autobiography.
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
And so it begins...
Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.
Amber made me do it. Really, she did. So there.
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
Amber made me do it. Really, she did. So there.
Rant over.
Pax vobiscum,
- zKhristy -
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