2003-02-11 - 8:39 p.m.
new words for old desires
"duct tape and saudered wires
new words for old desires..."
(weakerthans, left and leaving)
i read a.'s journal yesterday - a break down, i know - but i must admit, it was good to listen in on a conversation between people who i used to know, who ( i hate to say it ) i used to enjoy and have much in common with. there is something to be said for the conversation that occurs only between people who share the same givens and speak the same language, even if you don't really like the others personally or are convinced they are entirely wrong. i miss it.
it was, i must confess, pleasing to hear my name mentioned in passing, as if i were suddenly restored to some sort of dignity by the implication that i at one time had something of importance to contribute to the discussion (even if it was only the recommendation of an interesting book which noone will read).
oh, i am lonely. the fact that i'm going back to the same soapbox on which i was publically stripped naked and denounced simply for the sake of intellectual engagement... i need to go back to school. i don't belong in the real world. i can fake it for a while, and it is a relief sometimes to do so, but it doesn't take long for everyone to realize (especially myself) that i don't quite fit. for this reason, i've learned to avoid prolonged interaction with, well, anyone. christians tend to find me either pagan and irreverant or untouchably intellectual. the rest of the world finds me naively idealistic and religious. what they all have in common is the endearing tendency to want to bring me into their world and show me the key to their own happiness, perhaps introduce me to someone they know whom they "are sure i would like." i suppose this is the simply the human social instinct that i have lost somewhere along the way. i have no desire to forge new relationships, no desire to make myself known or to know anyone else. i feel a repugnance for the whole prospect that one might feel towards the food that one ate just before getting violently ill, and which is suspected of being to blame in the whole ordeal.
my relationship to God is at a similar standstill. only of this i am far more aware and much more fearful of the consequences, should it continue. perhaps (undoubtedly) this is the reason for my active turning toward the Roman Church. i can no longer follow the paths of my parents; for me they are untenable. i cannot follow in a tradition that i find dubious at best. only the very best and most saintly (my mother) can follow the course set before them by protestantism - to discover Truth and the essential center of Christianity, with nothing but one's own psyche and the slippery written Word - this is a task for moses, a man who did not cringe at the prospect of talking with Almighty God face to face. i am not so brave and i doubt very much whether my dark heart should be able to endure such an encounter without distorting it into heresy. i will take the word of those who have been There, because for now, it is all i can do to join the grand procession of saints and stumble along with them, receiving the manifestations of Grace as they come.
