love

my brother Chaitanya posted this on his FB:

An adult may come to love another because of the other's characteristics; but it is the other person, and not the characteristics, that is loved. The love is not transferrable to someone else with the same characteristics, even to one who "scores" higher for these characteristics. And the love endures through changes of the characteristics that gave rise to it. One loves the particular person one actually encountered. Why love is historical, attaching to persons in this way and not to characteristics, is an interesting and puzzling question. - Robert Nozick

Which created a mild flurry of discussion. well, not flurry really, but i posted questions a few time.

i've been pondering the nature of love lately. what the hell is it? commitment? chemistry? where does it come from? why to one person and not another?

Nozick's quote both comforts and frightens me.

i have no answers. do you?

a rumbly in my tummy

so.
monday morning. it is 7:51 and i just finished writing a paper.

also just finished reading over the last month's blog posts, and am somewhat mortified at how they all basically say the same thing over and over and over again, and also somewhat mortified at how mentally unstable i sound. it made me laugh out loud.

i do feel like i am going a little bit crazy and do feel like my life is somewhat out of control and do feel at the end of my capacity for tasks. at the same time, i do feel like i am making some headway into figuring how who i am and how this life works and how i work within it. loneliness and exhaustion allows me to explore a certain side of myself which I don't often have the will or ability to acknowledge. a scary place but also really liberating, in a crazy way. it is liberating to see parts of myself which i need to acknowledge and accept. also frightening to feel like i am sort of close to cracking.

i started this blog years ago as a discipline for self-growth, a true journal of things which are going on in my heart and mind. i try to push myself to always post something which makes me uncomfortable to reveal to others; something frightening and vulnerable. At the same time, i have recognized within the last 2 years there are areas that i just can't write about which i am dieing to write about, because they involve people in my life or secrets that i hold from certain people (wow, that sounded dramatic, but it doesn't feel that way - really, there are some things in life that you just don't want your boss to know about you, y'know?) but now it seems so confusing as to what the point of this blog is if i censor myself so much.

i want to be honest and i want to be safe at the same time. also i want to respect other people and not air relationship problems to everybody. i posted once about my mom and regretted it - though it wasn't even a big deal.

so now i feel torn between this desire for self-expression (something i have really grown to value the last few years, strangely, and am sort of addicted to it and feel i need it on a daily basis) and this desire to be truly honest. these two do not work together at all.

so it seems under ever post now there is the stream of what I WANT to say and what i want to express, and what i hold back. or try to express in a really roundabout vague way which i know is maddening for people. and for myself.

all part of the journey.

thanks for all your emails, friends. comments on my post, either on the wall or in my inbox are welcome and allow me to really flush out and figure out my thoughts and feelings. i need more people in my life that i can interact with about these things which are so damned important to me. and chances are i can be more honest to you off this wall than on it. :-)

love and puppies,
b

brain puke

so. anyway.

this is what is rumbling around in my head today:

thanksgiving. christopher columbus - asshole. marxist feminism. Nellie McClung. CED Gathering (x 1000). the infestation of ladybugs in my bathroom. my desperate need to be in bed right now vs. my desperate need to be at work. platform for action. Rendezvous. my lack of interest in church lately. women's worlds. money money money. mexico. bell hooks. how can i smash the patriarchy today? fear. loneliness. exhaustion. turning 30. my sore foot. i really need to go dancing sometime. the chocolate cookie i am about to eat. my fear of never being good enough. my desire to be loved and accepted and cherished as i am right now. closely related, the thanksgiving meal i will go to today with my family. masks. terror at the idea of being unloved; my overwhelming embarrassment to admit this publicly. i should be stronger than that. my desire to be grounded combined with the feeling that i've lost myself somewhere these few months. or maybe i am growing into something new. either way i seem unrecognizable to myself. oscar romero.

incoherent. i blame the grapes

perhaps i am too self-indulgent.
perhaps i am more messed up than i think i am.
then again, perhaps i have simply had too much wine.






i just wrote and deleted this entire post. it was far too naked, far too honest, and i sounded far too crazy. too much bre for one sitting, i fear. too safe.
someday i hope to trust the world enough to actually post something like this.