100m Hurdles

I miss writing like I used to. When issues aren't buzzing around my head like a female mosquito in heat (the things you learn in biology!), the words leave me. I am the classic tormented artist, secure in my passion only when my other loves leave me cold and barren. Words warm me in these times.

So here they are.

I am emerging from two months of slumber just in time for winter, a seasonally dyslexic bear. Despite all my impassioned arguments and hardheaded opinions, I was numb this semester, resorting to weekend frivolities and intensive study sessions to feel once again. This has not stopped and will not for the time being, I know this, but I want to feel.

I have already lived this week and the next week and every week until winter break. I have everything planned. I know when I will study for my finals and write my term paper for RTF. I know what day I will go home for Thanksgiving, what day I will return, and exactly what I will do on my "vacation" days. But it's not a real vacation if you have already experienced it in your mind.

Sometimes I think I need to get away from it, but what is it? Not Austin. Not UT. Not friends. Maybe myself?

It's funny. I have two sides - one that is always surrounded my friends and dear ones, another that is always alone. The friend-filled side longs to be alone while the lonely one longs to for touch. This is the best I can explain it. I want those late night phone conversations that force me to open up to another solitary individual, or those long conversations that leave you feeling both exposed and understood. I can ask people all the time how they are, how class was, and what they're doing this weekend, but I can't ask how they really feel about...anything.

What prevents me from opening the floodgates of intimacy with others? There are plenty of people in my life who want to hear me but I cannot raise my voice loud enough to be heard. I speak at a different frequency than what most people can interpret.

I invited someone back into my life this week who I know desperately wants to understand me. He is a good person with all the right intentions, but his eagerness unnerves me. I feel like it's Christmas Eve and he wants to open all the presents before midnight and wait for Santa at the chimney. I can't say if there is a Santa for him or not, if I can bring myself to bestow that hidden part to him.

I can shut myself off like I did last time, but that means that I would be forgoing any chance of relieving this pressure from within. Or could I just set up the boundary with words?

Meanwhile his feelings are in the mix. I could end up using him. I can't force myself to love him, so I won't try.

I want to leave all the memories of the people I have loved who have hurt me, but I can't. I remember how perfect and special all those moments were, so why shouldn't I try to obtain that once more?

Ugh, I'm not making sense anymore and I'm jumping subjects like hurdles. But there is no finish line.