familiar sadness
the last couple of months have been strange. the anniversary and the loop starting over in austin have made me switch from survival mode to a search for meaning and the future. i keep questioning whether i am just homesick and suffering from a bit of ptsd or what it all means.
i had a lot of problems with new orleans before i left but the way i departed was so disruptive. every trip home has been a bit panicked and super busy. everything seems familiar and so different at the same time. i feel like i need to go on a trip and just spend some time absorbing that environment and processing it.
austin has been okay and we haven't really connected here, which is our fault, but we are trying and planning to give it a year or two. while i like austin and i am inspired by some things here, i am still saddened and unresolved about everything back home. i am going to start talking with someone and try some medication. after reading chris rose's article journaling his own recovery and how medication helped, i though i might try the same.
my life has felt like it is in black and white lately and i only pour myself into all the injustices of life in the states and the world today. i can only see black. this combined with work has had me in a bit of a hole. my bright point in life has been my intership, which is ironic. i have looked through theory and thought that part of this is just understanding that life is filled with suffering and it motivates you to find meaning. it is just so disrupting to realize everything can die. i have never viewed life this way so it is somewhat of an existential crisis to me.
when we were thinking of possibly getting another car, my first thought was of getting a prius or something very fuel efficient (and the prius can run with out gas if you keep it under 35) because of the sharp memories of the fuel shortages and people abandoning cars. part of me can't help but remember the chaos that ensued as society broke down in nola and austin flipped out when rita was headed this way (grocery stores emptied, fuel shortages, and worries of power outtages and flooding). reading stories of life in other countries, i know europeans are more adapted for this but not americans. we think we are all insulated from bad times (minus that depression thing that happend to our grandparents). this event was a wakeup call and left me feeling like much of the states is stuck in a "wrinkle in time" world that new orleans were ejected from.
what can you compare to the storm hitting new orleans? the only thing i can say might be similar is it is like waiting for a warhead to hit a city and devastate it. everyone knows of the impending doom, struggles to get out, you see the devastation, then you can't go back or when you do, it's totally different. the saddest part is this wouldn't have happened if the levee's had been built correctly. it's so great to know the federal government can mess up, not own up, and then go on as if everything is normal.
therapeutically, i seem to be trapped in a stage. i don't know what will move me past it. some sort of acceptance or coming to terms with home and the decisions to leave, i suppose. i guess the acceptance of the world being a place where bad things happen is a crazy thing to me.
i remember when i was a kid, i asked my dad what would happen when we die. he told me about heaven but i always felt a cold icy hand and darkness when i thought of death. i knew each of us dies alone. when i was in school (a k-6 school i disliked) i remember feeling like a piece of a machine that i had no desire to be a part of as i didn't understand where i would fit in this machine. i haven't always felt this way but i did then. i remember feeling that chill of sadness almost like an internal rain storm that would never leave me while i was in high school and my parents were seperated and/or fighting. i was alone at home and it was a dark place with seemingly no escape. maybe all of this is why i have been such an optimist because i never wanted to go back in that dark place that i have known from an early age.
i had a lot of problems with new orleans before i left but the way i departed was so disruptive. every trip home has been a bit panicked and super busy. everything seems familiar and so different at the same time. i feel like i need to go on a trip and just spend some time absorbing that environment and processing it.
austin has been okay and we haven't really connected here, which is our fault, but we are trying and planning to give it a year or two. while i like austin and i am inspired by some things here, i am still saddened and unresolved about everything back home. i am going to start talking with someone and try some medication. after reading chris rose's article journaling his own recovery and how medication helped, i though i might try the same.
my life has felt like it is in black and white lately and i only pour myself into all the injustices of life in the states and the world today. i can only see black. this combined with work has had me in a bit of a hole. my bright point in life has been my intership, which is ironic. i have looked through theory and thought that part of this is just understanding that life is filled with suffering and it motivates you to find meaning. it is just so disrupting to realize everything can die. i have never viewed life this way so it is somewhat of an existential crisis to me.
when we were thinking of possibly getting another car, my first thought was of getting a prius or something very fuel efficient (and the prius can run with out gas if you keep it under 35) because of the sharp memories of the fuel shortages and people abandoning cars. part of me can't help but remember the chaos that ensued as society broke down in nola and austin flipped out when rita was headed this way (grocery stores emptied, fuel shortages, and worries of power outtages and flooding). reading stories of life in other countries, i know europeans are more adapted for this but not americans. we think we are all insulated from bad times (minus that depression thing that happend to our grandparents). this event was a wakeup call and left me feeling like much of the states is stuck in a "wrinkle in time" world that new orleans were ejected from.
what can you compare to the storm hitting new orleans? the only thing i can say might be similar is it is like waiting for a warhead to hit a city and devastate it. everyone knows of the impending doom, struggles to get out, you see the devastation, then you can't go back or when you do, it's totally different. the saddest part is this wouldn't have happened if the levee's had been built correctly. it's so great to know the federal government can mess up, not own up, and then go on as if everything is normal.
therapeutically, i seem to be trapped in a stage. i don't know what will move me past it. some sort of acceptance or coming to terms with home and the decisions to leave, i suppose. i guess the acceptance of the world being a place where bad things happen is a crazy thing to me.
i remember when i was a kid, i asked my dad what would happen when we die. he told me about heaven but i always felt a cold icy hand and darkness when i thought of death. i knew each of us dies alone. when i was in school (a k-6 school i disliked) i remember feeling like a piece of a machine that i had no desire to be a part of as i didn't understand where i would fit in this machine. i haven't always felt this way but i did then. i remember feeling that chill of sadness almost like an internal rain storm that would never leave me while i was in high school and my parents were seperated and/or fighting. i was alone at home and it was a dark place with seemingly no escape. maybe all of this is why i have been such an optimist because i never wanted to go back in that dark place that i have known from an early age.
posted by was at 12:03 AM
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