friday, december 31, 2004
the world i KNEW
fitting title i believe. i always like to make up those catchy little snidbits in hopes that someone reading will get the joke..... or pun.... or whatever. last entry was "the world i know". it was fitting... now as it's come to be the 31st again... i am here to write my annual year-end wrap-up :the world i KNEW.
perhaps i should have called the entry "bittersweet" because that would decribe this past year as a whole and not the one incident that happened on christmas day. this year i have found happiness. i've rediscovered my purpose and have been both scared out of my mind and so very content at the same time.
this is the year that i spent with jeff. that's how i think of it. while things were a bit rocky in the beginning we both finally realized (me first of course) that we belong together. as the result.... we are getting married in july of next year. there are so many ends that have to be tied up before we can have a "proper" marriage. by proper i'm referring to getting married in the Catholic church. no. i'm not Catholic. yes, i am converting. i really hate that term - converting.... it sounds like i am making this huge, very strange, change into a world i know nothing about. of course, it is a world i don't know much about... so...
it didn't take long for me to realize that being Catholic to Jeff is as important as walking to him. his faith has taken through and brought him out of some of the most awful experiences you can imagine. yet he nor his family has ever swayed from his faith - even at times when i think i might have given up all together. because it's so important to him i looked inside myself to see that my faith was simply out there with no direction. i was, perhaps, ready to make a change.
damn. i'm not done but i have to get moving........ hell! this entry will take forever...... i'll be back.
monday, january 3, 2005
more to know...
i'm back. i planned to be back sooner than this. i believe i was in the middle of writing my "year-end" entry. it looks like i finished up by talking about jeff. he is as wonderful now as he was the first day i met him. i had some tough times trying to be patient enough to let him really get to know me and fall in love with me. i'm not a patient person. in all of my other relationships i've jumped in feet first and hoped for the best. was i truely in love ever or not i don't honestly know. however, if what i am now is "truely in love" with jeff, there is a great possiblity that i never was. damn..... time to go again... hell, i'll get this entry written soon. it's mostly just for me anyway......
wednesday,march 9, 2005
lots of new things
no time to write!
a good webpal of mine reminded me that i haven't written in ages. i looked and realized that he was right. believe it or not ;O)
i wish i had time to do something for you all. I have update the "Vault". if you've forgotten what that is just click on the "Vault" button and it'll explain sorta...... it's just weird things that i've written since way back. i think it's always so interesting to look at that stuff. it's mainly stuff from paper journals that never made it online. which, of course, was the plan. however, i decided a while back that i did want to include it. if you've read anything of mine you know by now that i've been fighting mental devils...... the paper stuff is where most of my battles took place - i'd come here to lighten things up.... so.... now i'm letting you into the really weird side of me.
thursday, march 10, 2005
train conversations
These train conversations are passing me by
And I don't have nothing to say
You get what you pay for
But I just had no intention of living this way
-- counting crows, raining in baltimore
that's how i felt when i left chicago to come back "home". i was beyond sure that i'd never miss the place. i'd miss Lauren, of course, and jonathan, but not the town. i hated it. all it did was remind me day after day of all the mistakes i've made and how sick i ended up.... my fault? or not. i hated it... the spit and piss on the streets... the people walking around never looking at anyone - tied up in themselves. it's a selfish city, chicago. It's a cold, dark, unfriendly place for me... one that i never thought i'd miss.
jeff and i have been going up to chicago every month or so to chat with jonathan. we all know how i feel about jonathan. it's hard to imagine what the city may have done to me if i'd never met the man. i know i wouldn't be here right now. so, jeff and i go.... it's not so much the "sessions" that have been tugging at my mind. i believe it's the city itself. yes, the dark, cold, angry city that i remember. it's been tugging on my sleeve lately. maybe it's conversations here with other people. maybe it's the fact that things here, while i am more happy than i can remember, things here aren't a lot different then things in chicago. "things"... school, finances, people in general.
when i made the decision to come back i was sure it wasn't because i thought everything would be different. i was sure i wasn't running away from anything or anyone. one day, before i moved back, i was visiting and jeff said to me that moving wasn't going to change things.... i couldn't run away from the stuff that was "bothering" me. i told him that i was definitely not coming back for that. i was coming back because "home" was a comforting place for me. things were more familiar even if i hadn't lived here in over 10 years. i just needed some comfort. now, i'm faced with the fact that maybe i was kidding myself. maybe i was running from something.
i can't really tell you what i might be running from. there are so many things it could be... for some reason, instead, i'm being reminded of the good things in chicago. yes, there were some good things. or, perhaps i just perceived them to be good things... i could hide in chicago. if i didn't want to be bothered i could disappear by simply just turning the corner. i didn't have too many "quality" relationships... didn't let too many people know me - the mental illness thing and all. i let them see the "poor jami" side of me. i didn't have to open myself up - or, maybe it's that i wasn't opened up or picked apart like i am here. people know me here. i'm not sure that is a comforting thought. in addition, i've developed a bit of a conscience as well. i can't just call into work and lie about something awful happening to me so that i can have the day off (not that i did that often - or, acutally i did). not only have people gotten to know me - i know people here. either i've known them since i could crawl and feel like one wrong move and i've let them all down. or, i've gotten to know them while i've been teaching - or maybe doing other things - church or such. i can't be mysterious around these people. they know who i am - they know where i am..... i just can't turn the corner.
so my "train conversations" are fewer now. not just shooting the shit anymore. can't lie to cover things up. when i don't feel like being social i can't just turn things off. it's a constant motion - a constant motion that i thought i was leaving behind. last night jeff told me that i was trying to clean things up from my past... make things better and that he was trying to have patience while i'm doing it. i hope he's got a lot of patience. i'm afraid again... like i was in chicago. it's a different sort of fear though... it's a fear that i'm going to wake up some morning and jeff's not going to be there and my job won't exist. i'll wake up and find that coming home never really happened.
eventually i'll have to stop running...