I can't seem to get the wrinkles out of my forehead. This is the thought that occurs to me. The concern that simultaneously throws my eyes open and tries to close them in the hopes of returning my eyebrows to their home position. I notice i'm scrunching my brow actually i think the word is 'furrowing' even when i'm trying to relax it. like now. It's almost ten thirty but the only lights are the screen of my laptop and the cable box's digital time keeper. So maybe i can attribute my scrunch/furrow to the contrast. I felt it before though. Even with my eyes closed. It's suddenly this subconscious concern of mine--my pillow case increasing my crow's feet. There's a name for them! The wrinkles in the corners of your eyes. Maybe I need to eat more omega 3's or something. My dad has pretty greasy skin on his face and not much in the way of wrinkles. except for his forehead. he has crevasses, approximately three of them, running like the horizontal plane that designates the first and second quadrants from the third and fourth. His hairline running like one of those y= something-or-other. i don't remember what it was. it had to be partially positive though because it was north of that horizontal plane. I don't think i'll ever get that knowledge back, but it won't help me with my wrinkles anyway, so I'm not sure it matters. Describing it objectively on my father's face helps me think of it without applying emotion to it. The depressing judgmental emotion that comes into my consciousness when he's having a tantrum about the pizza not being cooked properly. Oy. It's depressing though too, because it shows his age. His age shows my age. His age shows his ... what's the word...unmet expectations. His displeasure that he chooses over acknowledging what needs acknowledging. Hm. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Speaking of focusing on displeasure because she's not acknowledging something she should be.
I'm worried about myself. I came home from picking up chinese food so frustrated with myself, my surroundings, my parents, my sister, my situation, my way of being, my way of coping, my face literally contorted. Stupid wrinkles standing out. Especially the skin between my brows. Like a mini mountain range. Just a little one. Highly concentrated though. Housing all of the emotion in physical form, that indicated I was feeling overwhelmed by that laundry list of displeasing items.
I've decided that I need to start writing these things down. I need to be candid somewhere. I don't want to see a therapist right now, and I keep telling my patients, pleading with them actually, to talk in group so that they don't explode somewhere inconvenient. Meanwhile, I get watery-eyed and my mother sees and worries and then i feel guilty and then i'm so frustrated with myself that i don't hug her back when she hugs me, and then i feel guilty for not hugging her back because i would imagine she needs a hug back. Oh so complex. These emotions. And how fast they come. One right after the other and sometimes often overlapping. Like waves.
I was laying here listening to the 'sweet dreams' playlist on 8tracks and a fleetwood mac song came on and I realized I was complaining in my head about all the noise i was heairng in the other room while elsewhere in my brain I was vaguely aware of the lyrics to the fleetwood mac song, talking about being afraid of changing because I've built my life around you. And I noticed my complaining brain pushing the song lyrics and my awareness of them away, because they were hitting home. And I wondered whether i've disliked that song forever because it was speaking the truth about me. 'I'm getting older too' after all. And I am afraid of changing. Because I did build my life around you. And. If i did that then what am I left with when the 'you' part is gone? I'm left with the pieces of what I was trying to become before I started actively building my life around you. It's like that feeling of waking up and realizing that your parents are much older than you'd like them to be, and they're quite wrinkled. And you know you'll be that way too. You finally see your own face that you apparently have been ignoring for what it really is. The face of an almost 28 year old that is developing some depressingly impressive frown lines. Blemishes. Yellowing teeth. Eye lashes lashing in different directions, harnessed only mostly by blackish goo that's been mostly swiped off the mascara brush. Mostly.
Before the fleetwood mac song was clarified for me, i was watching a movie called Ruby Sparks, about a young male author who starts dreaming about a girl and then starts writing about her and then suddenly she appears. At one point in the movie, she starts becoming distant from him and so he writes into the story that she felt miserable without him and so suddenly she is calling and wanting to stay and clinging to his arm all the time, and hugging his arm while he's driving, and she's looking out the back windshield and they're eating cereal from the same bowl, and she won't leave his side and doesn't want him to leave hers and it's much too much cling for him. And he isn't happy with that. And I related. Sort of the opposite though. I was like that at times, though not as desperate but feeling desperate but not wanting to communicate my desperation through anything but action, and he doubted my affection. He said he wasn't happy. He acted cold. He did things (unintentionally, i think) that pushed me away so i did not want to cling to his arm anymore. And then he took my lack of clinging personally, and said he was unhappy. And said he wanted a break. So I gave him a break. And he didn't like that either. Breaks are lonely, especially when you live 50 or so minutes away. And you're tired of being the one to make the drive just because he has a more demanding lifestyle. I did that though. I changed for him. I went against what I wanted for myself in college. Apparently I was tenacious in college. Nate said so. I believe him. He seems like a good judge of character. My sister said so too but she didn't use the word 'tenacious', and neither did Scott but I think he'd agree with Nate. They don't use vocab words like that but I don't even use that word, and especially not when describing myself. But I must've been quite the son of a gun in college. Because Nate thought I was tenacious. I think he might have said I seemed brave too. Brave. Not the word I'd use. I wouldn't use tenacious either and not just because it's a dollar bill kind of a word. Also because I do shy away from a challenge. I must have found a piece of my tenacity though because I'm going through with this whole home buying process. But I didn't tell frank that's what the seminar was about this morning. And the idea of buying a real bed is one I look forward to. Who but a displaced person would fantasize about having a bed of one's own? A real bed. I didn't tell him I was looking to get a real bed either. If I was sadistic I would tell him and I would relish in passing it along. But I'm not like that. The idea of telling him turns my stomach. See what I mean? I'm not even tenacious enough to price mattresses for crying out loud.
April shared today that she's moving in with her boyfriend at the beginning of June. I mustered my best game face for that one. She deserves genuine happiness and contentment. Calm and closure. And the sadness, hopelessness, helplessness overcomes me. Did I spend money today? You bet your ass i did.
I decided to roll back over and turn on my laptop because my eyes didn't feel tired. It occurred to me that my sweet apple pie rooibos tea might not have been decaf...probably should have thought that one through a bit better. Who knows? Maybe if I had decaf I would not have rolled over and vented my brain out my fingertips until I felt properly drained.
I need to look fresh tomorrow. As fresh as I possibly can. Maybe I can nap on the way up to the auto show so I can look dewy eyed as if a really cute boy who flirts with me at the gym was going to be there and was going to see me. And then I will work to become completely immersed in the experience because that's when magic happens. When I forget where I am and all I know is what I'm doing. Because when I come back home I will again be immersed in the reality of the situation. I am getting older, I am trying to restart myself at 28, my parents are getting old enough for me to have rational, realistic concerns. I am no longer pretty by default I have to try at it. And I am terrified of the next steps. Terrified. I'm doing new things and I'm afraid of doing new things because I had myself convinced i'd be safely tucked in the crook of his arm for the rest of my life. I owe it to myself to do these things. I won't know I can't do them unless I try and fail. And I've been practicing, thanks to my chosen occupation, to view failure as flexibly as I need to. So. I don't think I'll fail. Only by doing nothing will I fail. That'll be the rule. Like a gauge, where zero means standing still. I can crab walk to my next destination, just as long as I strike out, that's all that matters.
Vroom vroom.
