Negative Feilding (Part II of Tuesday)

I wonder what would come of tracking negative feelings on a blog? I think we would learn just as much, and don't see why there must be a prejudice against naming the hard. Tonight as I wrote that other entry I realized it was disloyal to the truth, as I only wished to record the positive things because I was feeling, well, not-so-positive.

Not anything tragic, just the regular sadness of returning after a great trip and having the hardness of life pressed upon me too suddenly. Things shifted in my absence, as they always do, and their shifting makes me uneasy, returning to a more-cracked universe than I left.

So maybe I will record the negative, as well: The confused or off moments in life. I think by not recording such things we give them more power. After all, they are only moments like the rest:

Finding the day-timing wrong upon leaving Asheville. I should have left earlier. It was odd, to see how J came home after work and life went on, off. I can't explain it... but I had a feeling like I either had to stay the night or leave right then... no in-between. The day-hour was off.

The terrible woman in the gas station, who yelled at her adolescent charge (potentially mentally retarded?) for no reason. I wanted to yell at her, or at the least express my disapprovement, or call DSS because I felt certain this woman was abusing her child/charge... but I could not think how any of this would do any good, so I bought my Diet Coke and left, saddened and angry at the feelings of helplessness.

Receiving an email from an old friend, M, about some health problems she's having. Realizing she is suffering a lot (after this and the ending of a relationship) and I'm not there, not in her life the way I used to be. It's not that I was any great reparative force in her world; but at least I was there. I think: "I need to reconnect with her." And I also think it is an unrealistic promise I make to myself, knowing the way time and distance goes. I think maybe I should instead trust that we remain connected.

Sometimes change is sad, however unavoidable. I like to think back on our night-walks (me and M) through Montford in our early UNCA days, and how we dreamed of living there someday and then we did, and we walked by our houses and remarked on the amazement of it all. I like the think on that time, and yet a sadness washes over me as it is no longer that time. I suppose this is what they call bittersweet...one of the best (but sadly most over-used) words in the English language.

Sadness at Melissa's troubles at work. How happy she once was, how the good are punished, it seems. It pains me to see her so.

Moments of questioning friendships: Nothing in particular will happen. The person will just move differently, or a certain silence will enter the room like a ghost. Or there will be a clamor in the corner of my mind. Then comes the questioning of friendships: whether they are as mutually deep and wonderful as I believe them. It is the kind of undoing-thought that can drive one mad. Like whether the poem you wrote really means what you want it to mean, whether people see the same shades of blue as each other-- you will never know, so there is no point in letting it wreck you, the thought of our universes not actually overlapped. This is the feeling that comes from questioning friendships. And in that moment there is too much sadness that I sweep the thought away for its impracticality. No use in entertaining old ghosts. They can be dangerous, like dementors.

And then the deepest sadness of my day, the only one mostly real and related to my life: Returning home to find A changed, deflated somehow. I told her I felt someone had taken all the stuffing out of her. :( It was the only way to describe her presence today. I felt like she wasn't there, or I wasn't there, or I didn't matter to her... or she didn't matter to her, I to me. I am not sure, but I felt off-- we were like wrongly-stitched dolls. All conversations went askew. I felt regular-sad in response to her sadness, for this is indeed a hard month for her. But the worser feeling comes from watching the way it (this darkness, her sadness, whatever you name it) leaks its way into all aspects of our life, and again-- my helplessness at not knowing what to do. It also seems unfair that the darkness would spread so... how it makes the lonely lonlier. :( It feels out of hand sometimes, this dark force in our life. The sadness sometimes feels like the brooms in The Sorcorer's Apprentice, where Mickey Mouse has created one and it keeps multiplying, bringing in buckets and buckets of water to flood the house. The music plays in the background: dramatic and mounting, like the world is out of hand, dark things marching on their own broom-feet. Sometimes I follow metaphors too far: In this story, Mickey tries to destroy the broom with an axe but it just grows back as two. The Sorcorer comes in the end with a disdainful look, casts his reparative spell. Mickey looks ashamed and must go on doing the work by himself. Does my answer lie in this? Sometimes I think so.

Hmmmm... so I have learned something: Apparently I am dealing w/ themes of helplnessness (no surprise there). I must go to bed now, having been illuminated by this "negative fielding." And if I have depressed you dear readers/non-readers (I mostly write this blog for myself, I realize, as no one really is out there), feel free to read the positive feildings that follow so as to regain hope in the world. And know that in the end, Mickey comes through. :)