Eccentric Flower:199811/keeping ledgers keeping counsel

twenty-three eleven eleven

keeping ledgers, keeping counsel

Oh, heavens, there's so much I want to write about today! You can expect this to be a multiple-entry day. There is literally too much to write in one postcard, and I must put it all in at some point today, before it evaporates from my brain the way that information tends to do.

I discussed journals and diaries with a friend of mine this weekend. I had also asked the mighty Kymm about this, for other reasons, and I suppose the subject was on my mind. My friend keeps a diary. This, on the other hand, is a journal.

He writes what he had for dinner, what he did that day, how the sex was - the details of his daily life. I write about what I was thinking, what I was angry about, events that have caused my mind to reel, and in general whatever's filling my head.

I admit that, when it comes to reading other people's lives, I normally find the latter kind more interesting to read than the former. I'm not insulting him by saying that - he himself said that if anyone else ever read his diary voluntarily it'd have be for the sex parts.

The interesting thing is that we are both, fundamentally, keeping our ledgers as a memory aid. But we differ in what we want to remember. I am not personally very interested in what I was eating or where I went - but I do want to have notes about how my political views changed, what I was losing time worrying about that year, who I was fighting with .... On the other hand, I suppose knowing where you were and what you were doing also reflects that - for example, if he didn't eat mashed potatoes twenty years ago and adores them now.

I lost ten years of my life. I went through a mental Dark Ages - the causes were complex and only partially my fault - and had to start over. I am sometimes very unhappy about that, that I am having experiences at thirty which most of my peers had at twenty. One of the things I noticed this morning - and what is inspiring this meta-rant - is that I am vain. Ten years ago I was not.

I don't mean "vain" in a derogatory sense, like "narcissistic." Shorthand. What I mean is that I now notice and take some pains about my public appearance. Actually, I usually don't take the pains; I just notice. The "I can't believe I'm going out looking like this" phenomenon is a fairly new one to me, and there are some ironies here.

I didn't start caring about having other humans look at my appearance favorably until I was already basically committed into a happy relationship and out of the market. In my late teens, when most people start getting interested in dating, and preening in front of the mirror, I was oblivious to the whole thing. Now I'm noticing my appearance but what's the point?

I'm starting to worry about presenting a good appearance just as my body is beginning to show the first signs of aging. Great. Ten years ago I might have looked sexy had I put some effort into it.

I know, I know, this all strikes you as shallow. I'm sorry. And to the love of my life, who is probably reading this, I don't mean this to demean our relationship in any way - as I say, I'm quite happy with you, and in general I am quite happy with my life. However, I grow steadily less happy with me as years go by.

I can't count the number of people I knew in high school and my abortive attempts at college who thought I was cute and were probably attracted to me. I was oblivious. I don't generally pound myself over the head with missed opportunities, especially when the story has a happy ending, so do forgive me ten seconds of wailing and gnashing, and then we'll proceed.

OK. Deep breath.

Last week was a weird week, with my brain caught in a loop of speculation about flowers and funerals and other people's psychoses. I know two people who I am very worried about right now. Not because I think they're self-destructing, but because they think they are, and I can't agree and there is no good way to tell them I think they're wrong. This is one of the things that touched off the rant on giving advice, below.

So for the moment I'm keeping my mouth shut, trying not to make what is already a tense situation worse. One of them is an old friend and normally I feel perfectly free to have loud shouting matches with her, since we're both hotheads ... but right now I am scared to make any loud noises around her, I worry she might vibrate apart.

Incidentally, part of that advice rant - the "no reply to email" part - annoyed dear Shmuel, but I've apologized. I should state it for everyone else's benefit too: Just because I don't see the virtues of the social pleasantry, or the message which simply says, "Hi, I'm here and still paying attention," does not mean that you're foolish if you do, or that I think less of you because you do. This is very much a your-mileage-may-vary situation.

Actually, I'm rethinking my position on the whole mess. Shmuel, whose persuasive paragraphs are so smooth that I think he must have secretly negotiated the Wye accords, included this wonderful statement:

To a certain extent, if I tell somebody about my problems, the subtext is, "Tell me that you understand me. That this is normal. That my reactions are sane." And the ritual confirmations carry the subtext of "I understand what you're going through. You're okay." I'm not really looking for solutions; I know I have to work things out for myself. I just want reassurance that I can do so.

Thanks, Shmuel. It doesn't cover some of the situations I most object to - getting a problem or a cry of anguish from someone, I agree, calls for a reply; getting general news/gossip/babble maybe does not. Nonetheless, in a way you couldn't possibly anticipate, it helps me clear up some of the things that have confused me over the past four days.

You folks have got to remember that I barely spoke to humans outside my family for years. I think I said about ten words in my first three years of high school - those Dark Ages I mentioned. I'm having to learn this human-interaction thing late in life, just like everything else I'm learning.

More to come today. Check back again later.

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