unforeseen, unforsaken is a free weekly newsletter for the unexpected, the uninvited, and that which you cannot let go of.
Sometimes my life feels like a drop in the bucket. Sometimes believing I’m important to people or to any community feels like an uphill battle. Here, that didn’t matter, but oftentimes it blows me clear over.
Recently, I’ve started to contemplate how vastly different the angle I see myself from is from the multiple angles other people see me from. this simultaneously breaks my heart and offers me solace. people and cameras see me in a way I’ll never fully grasp. I’m self-conscious of my body on some days, and on other days, I’m as hot as they come. photos alter my perception of myself, too. I like this photo of myself, for example. when I’m smiling, elated or laughing a lot, my neck vein does this thing I struggle to accept as divine.
Along that same vein, I’m currently reading and cataloguing letters that span fifty years, between my employer and a woman he met in 1972, in a garden in Japan. they’ve been corresponding ever since. they are both still alive. while I recognize this sounds like fiction, I assure you, I have in my possession all these letters, and my job is to read through them, pull out quotes, etc. I’m writing a book, and this is my research.
Isn’t it wonderful that we are born ourselves, and not someone else?
I am fairly certain I read this in one of the letters. I may be misquoting, and I can’t go back through them right now, but this I remember. when I read it, I thought it was her way of quoting someone else, and it may very well be, but a quick web search doesn’t reveal anything but self-help articles citing anxiety and other ways to feel more comfortable with Who You Are. I also believe it means something coming from her, a woman who barely speaks English but learned so she could correspond with this man who lives across oceans. it was important enough to include in her rough written text, and it was important enough to me, a testament to her.
I knew I would struggle to write today, as the day began with blunt force, a nightmare, and proceeded on with what I can only call a spontaneous, anxious tantrum (which my partner helped me to contain and diffuse, luckily) in the grocery store, all before noon. however, I want to offer you this, a reminder, or something worth knowing, such as
the sun is coming out again soon and
close your eyes while the breeze blows and
you can do something no one else can and
right now a baby is being born and its mother is weeping.
As I wrote this/between writing this I watched the rain fall against the house beside us, the house with the window that connects perfectly between my living room and their bathroom. if we wanted to sit and watch, we could see their butts as they sat to pee, but we don’t even though sometimes I wish to. instead I avoid the… let’s call it vulnerable intimacy. I do not know their names.
At any rate, I sat and I watched the rain slash the cement side of their place and I thought of my plants. I wondered if this brief shower would be enough or if I should go water them again. When I come back to typing the sun comes out. It may not stay out for very long but it did, and it has, and it offered itself up for me. there is a metaphor in there somewhere. I saw it come out and I saw it warming the cement wall. the rain’s slashes have long since disappeared. my plants are sipping sun,
and I am not quite feeling better but something is shimmering there just beneath my skin, in the zone where my heart beats. in the little chest in my chest.
so I will continue sitting here to wait out the storm.
until then,
a
I also had a mental breakdown today (a common theme in my life the past few weeks). Once it was over I thought to myself (something I’ve heard in multiple podcasts many times but never stuck with me until today,) THERES ALWAYS GOING TO BE AN ANXIETY CAUSING EVENT IN LIFE. Which made me kind of snap out of my fit. Because the fits are really never gonna end because this is life. So I decided, I’m not going to let life keep bringing me down. I’m going to take control of my life and my emotions (the best I can) and stop crying all the time over anything that brings challenge to my life. My issues are so small. Life could be so much worse. Why do I always have a mental breakdown at the slightest inconvenience. Anyway, it felt good for today to get it together. I guess we’ll see how I handle life’s next obstacle. Thanks for writing and sharing your thoughts (: love you