Scattered thoughts about our town.

Yesterday reminded me just how small and interconnected Chico is. This resulted in many ponderings. There are the ethical considerations of seeing clients in the wild and even mentioning it publicly in this blog. I'm also wondering what's more important to me at this time in my life, privacy or connection. My immediate family is a fairly closed system. There are clear differentiations between who is family and who isn't, and a lot of meaning attached to those labels. Other people are welcomed and respected, but they are still outsiders. Even logistical things reflect this. Having people "drop by" the house is a foreign concept. Photos of significant others don't go on the fridge or the walls. We don't speak openly about family problems. There are clear boundaries between us and the outside world.

Contrast this with the open system I now exist in here in Chico, where the boundaries between roles/people are fuzzy and negotiable. The nonprofits-- the queers-- the punk rockers-- the MFT/MSW programs-- all very, very "small" communities. MJ and Stacey were brainstorming women to set me up with last night and hit a dead end. I said I was on hiatus from looking because "in Chico, you know everyone, and it's always going to be the friend/ex of a friend/ex, and if it's not, you have to wonder about that person because otherwise, wouldn't someone you respect already be friends with them?"

And that is the double bind. I do love the sense of community that I feel here, but it can be oppressive. I enjoy walking in somewhere and seeing someone I know... unless it's an ex, or someone I had a falling out with, or a client. I like feeling like I know everyone, until I want to meet someone new.

I think my definitions of privacy and connection have changed quite a bit recently. My main focus now is balancing the two-- how to reaffirm and maintain my form while allowing it to be more flexible and permeable than ever before. Also, I realized while talking with Kevin on Tuesday that I've come to value that sense of community so highly that the prospect of losing it after graduation is fucking unsettling. I'm afraid to start over, and I want to share all of this with my brother when he moves here.

Hmm... being a therapist in a small town is challenging, and there are other issues, but overall, I feel at home in Chico right now. I am also on the verge of growing out of it and needing to broaden my horizons. Oh... the journey continues: allowing myself to "be where I am."

Today was so chaotic, so productive, so breathless, and mostly, just so fucking objectively beautiful, that I want to explode into a million pieces and be everywhere all at once: with myself, with my friends, with my family, with everyone I've ever known and loved. There is so much promise in the air; I can taste it.

Back the fuck off, shame spirals.

This situation is providing a lot of insight...

I can't decide whether to feel pathetic or strong. At the end of the day I'm leaning towards strong. Everyone's telling me variations on "You go, girl!", throwing out words like "brave" and "self-aware." They're not wrong. I am proud of myself for my honesty-- with myself and with Bo-- and how I allowed myself to inhabit the vulnerable place that it required.

The trouble I'm having now is that I want to express the full extent of my hurting. But I wasn't honest with my friends about how much I cared in the first place, so I don't know how to do that. I'm sure they all figured it out. Anyway, that and other things are holding me back from reaching out without my facade of detachment. I got misty-eyed in front of YJ but other than that, I've been utterly collected and rational for my public.

I don't want this. I don't want to keep viewing emotional expression as bad and weak. I want to own my vulnerability and find the strength in it. There is a lot of power in this place.

Today was confidence-building. I TA'ed in the morning and helped facilitate growth in my members. Art told me that I handled the conflict in the group last week "perfectly." I connected with a lot of friends that I haven't been able to talk to in awhile. Kevin and I met with our couple again in Family Practicum, and it was fucking amazing how much of a transformation has taken place over four sessions. I am trusting myself in many areas of my life, and that was heartening to remember.

So-- instead of adding this experience to the "I am always the weaker and more vulnerable person" pile, I will label it thusly: "I am strong enough to be vulnerable, and to trust that I know what's right."

Jumbled.

You know, this whole time I've been blaming myself for holding back. I've been sure that my instinct was to open up, that my anxiety and fear were getting in the way. Not so. I wanted to open up, but my intuition was telling me not to, that it wasn't safe. I realized this while I was giving Bo the case for not continuing, but YJ helped me internalize it. She actually went further, characterizing me as "more ready" as opposed to less, which seems to be true but is a jarring revelation.

I knew something wasn't right, but I automatically discounted it. Time and time again I'm seeing how trustworthy my instincts are. If only I could believe in them.

The tide's coming in

All I can think of are impressions and moments. MJ smoothing her eggplant-colored shirt with a worried look on her face in preparation for meeting Stacey's mom. Peluche curling up on my feet in my room, hiding from the sound of the vacuum. Bo getting ready for the day. Smiling and nodding while the LCs show me photos of in-jokes and exploits that I'm no longer a part of. Realizing I haven't heard my dad's voice in a few weeks. The way Sun Kil Moon's "Glenn Tipton" so accurately captures the dull ache of nostalgia. Summer air rushing over me on dusky bike rides. Drinking cheap wine on porches and in backyards. Dreams about cradling lady hips in my hands. Afternoons lulled into uneasy solitude.

When I feel something coming, I don't always know what it is. It takes a little while to sort it out. This afternoon brought some clarity. I think I'm on the brink of falling open, of letting everything rush through me like it does sometimes. I feel myself exhausting, crumbling around the edges. The state I think I'm approaching can be likened to standing naked and immobile in the kind of harsh, dry wind that cuts right through your bones. It's like I experience everything all at once, with no filter. My senses become more acute. The emotions and moods of other people become unbearably present and I can't shut them out. It's overwhelming.

I have small moments of this frequently, and they're much more manageable. One really memorable one was on Bo's porch a few weeks ago on a windy night. I listened to the trees and wind chimes swaying and felt it swelling up-- felt myself dissolving into the air, becoming utterly connected and raw. I closed my eyes and let myself go. It was euphoric.

Sometimes I think that this is my natural state, and that I've overcompensated through the years in order to survive. (This is another way to characterize my anxiety, a more personal and spiritual way that feels healthier to me. I should think of it more often.) My mom is vulnerable in a similar way-- so open to the pain and joy of her world that it overwhelms her. And of course she struggles with anxiety as well. We all need filters to survive this life. This might not make sense to a lot of people, but I feel that my mom and I, and many others I've known, are connected with and open to our world in an unusually acute way. I get in this space when I'm so exhausted by trying to hold everything at arm's length that I can't hold anything there.

There's a happy medium, to be sure. But it occurred to me today that I don't need to think of this space as negative. It's scary, overwhelming, and exhausting-- but also beautiful and enlightening and real. I don't have to run from it, and I don't have to characterize my fear of it as anxiety disordered behavior. This is how I am. Simple as that.

Shut up, brain!

The 6th St. training got out early so I have a second to relax before I run off to collect Bo and Michele and my mac n cheese and head to the MFT potluck and the art show. Nobody's home and I feel all giddy, like a little kid in a secret hiding place. I want to fall asleep and not have to deal with anyone for awhile, but I know I'll regret it if I do. I'm blogging to stay awake.

So... I didn't sleep last night. I had a beer and one of those weird sedating/anti-anxiety antihistamines I'm supposed to take as needed, and I still didn't sleep. Also, I've been itchy all day and I'm paranoid that the hives are coming back. It's because my antibiotics are drying out my skin, but I'm anxious anyway, because if there's an opportunity to be anxious I always take it.

And on that note, the unease is creeping up on me again. I feel like I'm behind a screen at all times and can't quite connect with the world around me. This time I'm quite aware of why, just not what to do about it. In the short term, I mean. Since in an ideal world, in which I had the emotional energy to do the following things, I would: come out to my family, confront the anxiety in myself and in my family, find a new therapist, learn to consistently assert my needs, reach out to my friends about the things I have kept hidden, and stop running from emotional attachment. The theme in all this is me putting on a front for other people. Various fronts, really, because people want different things. I'm calm and together for my family. I'm straight and gender-normative for my extended family. I'm agreeable and sexually healthy, among other things, for my friends. Etc. Of course I feel like there's "something" getting in between me and the world; there's a million fucking things.

Maybe I should rename this thing "Anxiety Blog." It's probably been a bummer to read so far. I'm trying to process through all of this instead of burying it, though. In life as well as in this blog. I think I've taken some concrete steps towards better health lately... even writing this stuff publicly is something, y'know?

Went out last night for Jackey's birthday-- everybody was at Duffy's, and there was even decent music for a little while. We all danced together and got super goofy. Also, Brian, who drives the Ecocab, remembers where I live now. So convenient!

Ran into Josh and his mom earlier today while I was at Empire. It wasn't too awkward but it put me into a strange mood, thinking about the past and how quickly everything changes; how little stability there really is in life. Well, seeing them as well as thinking about the MFT potluck tomorrow evening, where I'll be hanging out with people that used to be my closest friends and are now practically acquaintences. So, there's at least three people who I thought would be semi-permanent parts of my life-- and I don't usually allow myself to acknowledge that-- who, well, you get the idea. (That was the first time I've believed that I've found stability and lost it, so bear with me. I know it's not an earth-shattering revelation.)

I've been grappling with this idea for about a year now (accepting, even embracing impermanence, I mean), but it's still fucking rough for me when I encounter something I want to hold onto and the reality of loss stares me in the face. I think that's another reason I am having trouble thinking about graduation. It's clearly one of two driving forces behind my commitment phobia. I know all of the logical reasons why impermanence is not a negative thing. Why it is healthy for me to be working towards embracing it. Blah blah blah. It's getting better. But if I had to identify my main interpersonal struggle at this time in my life, that would be it.

MJ's puppy just peeked through my doorway. Hi!

Going to Yuba City for Easter... so I have three days to come up with a safe explanation for my hair, as well as store up a bunch of energy to act appropriately feminine and heteronormative and well-adjusted. We'll see.

Off to go bake my mac and cheese for tomorrow night. Fucking starving.