Late Night Cycles and Consistency

Apparently I haven't posted anything for the year and we're into the 5th month!
I just want to take the time and talk and make some confessions.
For some reason, I'm afraid of having myself captured in any mode I can't control, whether it be pictures, writing or whatever, the possibility of my having little control over the method limits me.
I don't know why I'm hiding myself. I hate all this internal conflict.
I hate having to talk myself out of doing things that I want to do and I know that I rationalize that I do it for the greater good and that I do it because each time I limit my short term wants, I further my long term desires. However, tonight I'm having a hard time seeing the correlation. I want him. I rationally know it's a bad idea, there's no long term possibility of fruitfulness but the short term solution for the long term benefit hasn't exactly panned out. I want start my career. I know about the long hours and having no life but I don't feel like I have much of a life right now. I wish everything didn't come down to money but right now it sure feels like it does and I have none. Even sitting in a dark room is going to cost something and I have to eat. I hate relying on others because I DO feel like it makes me weaker, dependent, like I owe them something and like they think they have a pass to walk all over me and hurt me and I don't want to do it. I don't want to rely on anyone. I hate all the emotional bullshit. I'd like to go through life for some time and not be caught up in the emotional BS or feel like I'm failing myself everytime I make some rational decision and I hate feeling like being irrational is a bad thing when that might just be the best way for me to operate. I hate feeling like I have to please anyone. I hate feeling like I can't please myself. I want it all. I want to fall in love. And I mean really fall in love. I want some man to know that he doesn't want a life without me and I want to know that he's the best thing that ever happened to me. I want to get married. I want to grow old with a best friend and a partner who makes life that much easier, that much better. I want to have babies. Multiple and endlessly. I want my belly to swell with child and I want to work out like mad and get my current body back. I want to hold a little child in my arms and give it everything. And I want to do it over and over again. I want to help people. I want to spend my life having my own voice and sharing that voice at EVERY opportunity I get. I want to use it, and drawing and every single talent I have to fight for and help people. I want to matter. I don't want any emotional manipulation about how to go about doing all these things. I don't want to feel like going after the things I want compromise anyone else's wants. I want an overall feeling of contentment ALL the time and I don't want to spend all of my time thinking and not doing. I'm tired, I know. But I don't want to read about it or think about it, I want to be about it. It's 2:39am I know, and it's time to sleep. It's hormones, sure -and I'm thinking alot; yeah. It STILL doesn't change anything or make any of this less true. It is what IT IS.

To send or not send, live and let live

Hi Blog world,

Lots of analysis going on in the land of the dreamer, but really what I'm doing here at 3:38am is to get a few thoughts down on paper for anyone who is reading. First of all, I know that life is hard. Believe me, I get how difficult it is to grow up believing that your dreams are possible, and then age and realize that it's work to even continue believing in the same dreams -let alone continue to go after those dreams.

I think that you can though. I think that if each day is worth waking up to, if each day is to have a purpose, it is to get up and not only make your best life possible, but make the lives of others possible. So yeah, you might not quit that dreaded job today because you need to save up enough money to live on as you search for something better, but by getting out of bed and dreaming and living the day, you're that much closer to making all things in your life possible.

Now I'm not a preacher and I'm not a risk taker. This is the Analytical Dreamer because I probably spend way too much time thinking things through as though my thoughts can somehow determine the outcome of my actions if I just think a little more before acting. I've probably missed out on some of my life because I've imagined what happens next and assumed it to be the inevitable conclusion. However, life is meant to be lived. So if you need to take a minute to give yourself a pep-talk, take the minute but go out there and live! The future isn't guaranteed to you or anyone else so don't let your thoughts be the reason why you're sitting back watching other people live their lives.

My little secret right now is that I've been having the same person run through my mind over and over again and I've been completely conflicted about about my feelings for him. The problem is that I  have not rationally picked to feel this way about him! The only time I act these days is when my feelings line up with my rational thought. You see he is perfect as he is but he is not what I thought I wanted and I had already crafted out where he belongs in my life and he fit there so nicely that I had no desire to change it whatsoever. It isn't passage of time that's caused me to want him, so I'll blame it on suddenly spending too much with him. But I'm scared to act on my feelings for many reasons. One, because I don't want to lose him. Two, because it'll change things into something I have not rationally accepted. Three, I don't know how strong these feelings are or if it'll last. Four, I don't want to have to explain to anyone that matters to me why I suddenly have these feelings  for this specific person or why I think it's okay for me to act on them. I'm not even sure I think it's okay to act on them. I don't even know if he feels the same way I do. Granted he's attracted to me, but if I let myself get lost in attraction each time, I'd probably waste alot of time and have a lot more baggage. I don't want him to be baggage, I want him to remain a part of my life. I do understand that nothing I do or say can ever guarantee that he will remain a part of my life so the big chance I've taken is to write down my thoughts as they relate to him -in a message addressed to him.

I just can't get myself to send it. Writing it was such a big step for me, that I feel like I've already lived by stating my feelings in concrete form. It could be enough for me to know that. Plus, I don't want my note to be the boulder that sends him running for the hills. And if we somehow move past this and maintain things as they were, I don't want this to be evidence that someone can use against him or I to change things. I don't want any significant others to know about this. I don't even want him to have it to re-read or send to someone else to make sense of it. Quite frankly, as much as I get caught up in emotion, I'm really careful to make sure there's no evidence of that emotion to remind me or the person I cared for, that I ever felt that strongly about them. How about that for baggage?!

So now I have to decide, to send or not send?! I've considered waiting for time to pass and eventually just showing him the note on the stipulation that it is mine to destroy right after he reads it but I'm sure that'll seem crazy in itself. I could just read it right before I see him and hope to get the same message across in speaking with him. What I'm more inclined to do is to let it go, not send it or say it until I get an indication that it will be well received -if I say it at all. Oh, I'm sure that thought is coming from insecurity, but it's also coming from a traditional part of me that places value on all these rules. For example, if I say it first he may never think he had the same thoughts independent of me, or he may never appreciate me because he'll feel like he's always had me. Worse than all of that, is that I could actually believe that these examples could be real. The only real problem that matters with sending it is that I could actually lose him or lose the way we were with one another and in all truth, I don't know if that's a risk I'm willing to take. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter, especially since I've started with the little speech above -am I being a hypocrite?

In any case, as all things pass and all things come, it is officially Christmas eve and I want to wish you a very merry Christmas and may you have loved ones around you to appreciate your company and to make this holiday well worth committing to memory.


The Analytical Dreamer

End of JZ

Hello. It's been awhile. I'm now trying to do better. Lots have happened in my every day life since our last conversation but none of it matters in the big scheme of things here. This evening I got an email from my best friend with a link that took me on an exploration of the end of a relationship. On any other day, it would have made me sadder than it did. I've become so familiar with the end of things, especially relationships, that most times just thinking about it makes me depressed. So much so that I think I'm going to start a group of blog Posts specifically dedicated to the end of relationships just so I can make some effort at closure in the only way that makes sense to me. Feel free to tell me your 'The End' stories and we'll get something going. In line with these blog posts, and the email I received from my best friend, the first one will focus on the end of my most recent foray into the world of -for lack of a better name -'romance'. Here goes:

1. I told her I was amazed at how quickly you slipped past my defenses. You'd kiss me so gently, with a soft shiver running through you that I wanted to let you do anything and have anything. I made no expectations of you, and I believed it would be enough.

2. I called you that evening to find out when we were meeting. Somehow you'd forgotten our plans and was in a car with your friends. You didn't realize the plans were definite you said. I wanted to break up with you then, but I was always running, so I stayed. I told myself that in time, it would be different. They met you first, and you were used to them.

3. Two months in and you said you loved me. I was grateful I felt no need to laugh, disparage you or dismiss you.  I wondered whether you knew what the words meant. You wanted the words, and maybe even  the feeling but all that I could give you was silence, and a carefully mustered sentence on needing time to articulate the words. What I needed was time to find the feeling for you.

4. I don't know why I didn't play a song for us or daydream about you. I thought that in time even my heart would yearn for your nearness. That the affection would grow into an intensity, because you were wonderful.

5. I started calling us 'the real JZ'. Bad move when I had previously dubbed the other one 'AtoZ'. But you were 1950's and I was the renaissance. You liked everything I did not. We could have been yin and yang.

6. You brought up me opening up to you. If it was anyone else, I would have been running in the opposite direction but I sat there and listened to you. I wanted to believe it was because you were different, but it was because I was. I was watching my dreams morph into nightmares as they became my reality, and I couldn't stand the thought of this one being the same. Opening up to you was my rational reaction.

7. I pressed myself up against you, hoping to somehow create this intimacy and find a need for you when I lay back down. Instead of warmth, I felt lukewarm and I thought of someone who wasn't you and hoped that I would give you what I gave him. Then what you gave began to feel like nothing, and it took effort to focus on you, to feel like I wasn't settling.

8. I hated almost everything around you. I hated the conversations, and the thoughts and most of the people. I didn't fit and your people made sure that I knew it. In your life I understood what it meant to be lonely in a room full of people. We planned our lives together and I wondered how much of your life now would be included in that future. I didn't want anything that came out of me to be a part of your life. I pushed away that nagging thought that said if I hated your life, how could I love you?

9. I began to dread holidays with you. Each time I would wait for you to ask me what I want and become frustrated when I had no answer. I listed random things just so I wouldn't have to brace myself to receive the proverbial toaster. There was not enough words our communication for me to tell you that I didn't care about the holidays, I just wanted you to notice me.

10. You had a weekly standing engagement with one group of friends -the same group that you had lunch with and made plans with on the weekends. You complained if a week went by and you didn't see the couple. It frustrated you that there were days were they wanted to be alone. But you lay next to me and thought that should be enough. There wasn't enough time on the weekend for there to be an us, where all the people in your life are not in the same room. It didn't matter to you that I spent the weekdays trying to make it matter, trying to make sure I mattered.

11. We had both been up since 7am working, but while you finished before 5pm and took a nap before playing video games on the computer, I continued working. It was now midnight and I was still up working. At 10pm, you had offered me your help and I rejected it. I asked you for help because I knew I would be up past 4am. You yelled at me about how you're always helping me. I asked but you could only remember one time that I needed you. I never needed you before and we were both okay with that. I was used to not asking for anything from anyone, but that was only because I am familiar with disappointment. I knew I would never need you again.

12. I didn't know I stopped caring until that moment where you were in the car and I was driving. You were yelling about what you wanted, and I couldn't even muster anger. I had already had this fight with you long before you began to speak. We'd had the same fight over the course of two years. You waited for a response, and I had none. You waited for me, but I was ready to move on.

13. You overheard me telling her that I hadn't been happy with you in a long time. You acted surprised and that told me it was the end more than anything else you could have said. I said I wanted a break because I didn't want to be the one to break-up when you were ignorant to it's coming, when all this time had passed. But it was over before I said the words. The break-up was a formality we engaged in days later. I was disappointed that all I felt was relief. It's funny now that I called us 'the real JZ', when I don't know how much of us was actually real.


-The Analytical Dreamer

Between Us

I bet you’re not even thinking about me.

And I’m sitting here wondering how we got here.

I know all the reasons why I love you, and all the reasons why we can’t be.

I just want it to be simpler than that. I want all that time to be what it was.

And whatever forms to be stronger.

I just can’t stand the thought of losing you. That’s why I’m sure I can’t be with you.

But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m sitting here wondering what you’re thinking,

Whether you’ve ever wanted me –or want me now.

And if at any point when you said you loved me, you meant for more than what we were.

How can you be my other self and I can’t reach you or touch you now?

You know everything there is to know about all I’ve ever done,

And you stayed.

For all that has passed, I’ve never felt like there was a distance between us until now.

I’ve never felt like I did not know you, what you wanted or needed.
Until now. 

Maybe this is what you need; for time to pass between us,

For the emotion and words I want to share with you to cease to exist

Maybe that’s what I should be wanting.

But all I want to do is tell you that I love you

And that in that moment, I would have been fine with just you and I

My body kept still because any move I made would put this distance between us.

I can keep silent still, because I miss you and I don’t want to lose you

For you I will let this time pass

And pretend that I felt nothing, that I never wanted you

Maybe we could go back to the way we always were.   

- Analytical Dreamer

Letters on the Road. By Pablo Neruda

Coming back from Andrey and Audrey's wedding tonight, I got caught up in what love means to me. And how fragile and strong hopes and dreams are.
This poem by Pablo Neruda, is one of the ways I define love.
Pablo Neruda is the pseudonym of a Chilean Communist writer that wrote in green ink because it symbolized hope. This is an English translation of his poem, but even as an image of his words, it's incredibly beautiful and I wanted to share it with you. Among his accomplishments is a Nobel Prize for Literature. You'd do the man greater justice by looking him up.
- Analytical Dreamer


Letters on the Road
Farewell, but you will be
with me, you will go within
a drop of blood circulating in my veins
or Outside, a kiss that burns my Face
or a belt of fire at my waist.
My sweet, accept
the great love that came out of my life
and that in you found no territory
like the explorer lost
in the isles of bread and honey.
I found you after
the storm,
the rain washed the air
and in the water
your sweet feet gleamed like fishes.

Adored one, I am off to my fighting.

I shall scratch the earth to make you a cave
and there your Captain
will wait for you with flowers in the bed.
Think no more, my sweet,
about the anguish
that went on between us
like a bolt of phosphorous
leaving us perhaps its burning.
Peace arrived too because I return
to my land to fight,
and as I have a whole heart
with the share of blood that you gave me
forever,

and as
I have
my hands filled with your naked being,
look at me,
look at me,
look at me across the sea, for I go radiant,
look at me across the night through which I sail,
and sea and night are those eyes of yours.
I have not left you when I go away.
Now I am going to tell you:
my land will be yours,
I am going to conquer it,
not just to give it to you,
but for everyone,
for all my people.
The thief will come out of his tower some day.
And the invader will be expelled.
All the fruits of life
will grow in my hands
accustomed once to powder.
And I shall know how to touch the new flowers gently
because you taught me tenderness.
My sweet, adored one,
you will come with me to fight face to face
because your kisses live in my heart
like red banners,
and if I fall, not only
will earth cover me
but also this great love that you brought me
and that lived circulating in my blood.
You will come with me,
at that hour I wait for you,
at that hour and at every hour,
at every hour I wait for you.
And when the sadness that I hate comes
to knock at your door,
tell her that I am waiting for you
and when loneliness wants you to change
the ring in which my name is written,
tell loneliness to talk with me,
that I had to go away
because I am a soldier,
and that there where I am,
under rain or under
fire,
my love, I wait for you.
I wait for you in the harshest desert
and next to the flowering lemon tree,
in every place where there is life,
where spring is being born,
my love, I wait for you.
When they tell you: " That man
does not love you," remember
that my feet are alone in that night, and they seek
the sweet and tiny feet that I adore.
Love, when they tell you
that I have forgotten you, and even when
it is I who say it,
when I say it to you,
do not believe me,
who could and how could anyone
cut you from my heart
and who would receive
my blood
when I went bleeding toward you?
But still I can not
forget my people.
I am going to fight in each street,
behind each stone.
Your love also helps me:
it is a closed flower
that constantly fills me with its aroma
and that opens suddenly
within me like a great star.

My love, it is night.

The black water, the sleeping
world surround me.
Soon dawn will come,
and meanwhile I write you
to tell you: " I love you."
To tell you " I love you," care for,
clean, lift up,
defend
our love, my darling.
I leave it with you as if I left
a handful of earth with seeds.
From our love lives will be born.
In our love they will drink water.
Perhaps a day will come
when a man and a woman, like
us,
will touch this love and it will still have the strength
to burn the hands that touch it.
Who were we? What does it matter?
They will touch this fire and the fire,
my sweet, will say your simple name
and mine, the name
that only you knew, because you alone
upon earth know
who I am, and because nobody knew me like one,
like just one hand of yours,
because nobody
knew how or when
my heart was burning:
only your great dark eyes knew,
your wide mouth,
your skin, your breasts,
your belly, your insides,
and your soul that I awoke
so that it would go on
singing until the end of life.

Love, I am waiting for you.
Farewell, love, I am waiting for you.
Love, love, I am waiting for you.

And so this letter ends
with no sadness:
my feet are firm upon the earth,
my hand writes this letter on the road,
and in the midst of life I shall be
always
beside the friend, facing the enemy,
with your name on my mouth
and a kiss that never
broke away from yours.

Dissent

Its not that I feel weighted down.
Its just that the sheer effort of trying
and seeing things fall through, just not being good enough

Is killing my spirit

I can't say that I know how much of my spirit is left
I would actually like to save it; if just so all the past efforts can be worth it.

I'm just tired.

I see no amount of rest to revive me
Most times its just to pretend that this isn't the case
That this very minute means something
That I have a purpose that is capable of succeeding in my hands
The truth is that I barely believe myself
And if I don't believe, then I can't make anyone else believe in me?
And if that's the case then maybe its time to really fall and see what that's like
I just don't know how everybody else does it
Maybe they have a fix.
Maybe that's what I need.
But honestly, I couldn't stand to look at myself if I couldn't live up to my own expectations
And that's the truth of it all.

The Analytical Dreamer

Construction

Its been sometime.
What part of ourselves do we keep hidden behind a smile?
If you could read every part of your life, your past and all your little nuances.
What part of that book would you rip out? Forget it ever existed.
Surely you wouldn't choose to forget the moments that make you who you are.
But there are moments where the sheer monster of yourself
IS so real and definate and bitter and beautiful
that it leaves you shocked, heart beating so fast or barely beating at all
wishing you could freeze time, take it back or protect yourself.
And you know that all you have to do is make it to another day
Flip the page -or better yet; rip it out
Then you could go on.
You could choose who you're going to be
- Nobody is perfect after all.
Tell yourself about all the things that will make you happy;
Go after them and keep moving
Because the only person you have to convince is yourself
And once you do that, well then you've got everybody fooled.

The Analytical Dreamer