Issara Simone Edwards's Blog, page 11

9 Regrets.

Friday 29th of November 2019

I am always holding back, and in doing so, holding myself back. Knowing this, what do I do differently? Am I willing to do anything differently? I’m tired of holding back. I hold back out of fear of losing people, alienating them, but who’s left, really? The people that are left I trust to love me regardless, so, it’s time to let go of that fear, isn’t it?

The power in losing people is that you learn to truly appreciate the people who’ve stayed in your life, even in your darkest moments. And, you learn the freedom and truth of who you are and can be without the influence of others. It becomes possible to separate what’s you, what you want to be you and what you were just doing or being for someone else.

I’ve been thinking about regrets and how I don’t need to carry them anymore. Right now, saying I regret something from my past feels like saying : “I regret being a child”, it’s ridiculous.

If I think about the things I regret as mistakes a child makes when they’re learning, they carry less shame, less guilt, they become lessons I’m learning.

I’ve also been thinking about my goals and ambitions and how I attach happiness and fulfillment to them. If I do this I’ll be happy, if I accomplish that I will be fulfilled. The destination of a journey becomes a material achievement. But, what if destination is a feeling not a place? Where do I want to go? I thought I could answer this but I think I need to think.

Time used to move slowly for me and now there’s little sense of it. I feel like it moves when I turn my head or blink. It’s because I’m standing still, I know this, I’m frozen but the world isn’t.

We learn things from the world around us, from the people in our lives, from the caregivers we emulate. This is what I heard today. If the people around us when we were a child were positive they we grow up to think positively. So, it stands to reason that the theory goes the other way too. I’m bringing this up because I don’t feel like anyone taught me how to really live. My attempt at a life had to fall apart and it’s only now that I’m learning, figuring out how to live. It’s like I’m taking a how to live course, let’s see if I pass or fail. I want to pass. I want to live, and I want to love living.

Write from the heart and worry about the details later.

Wednesday 27th of November 2019

I imagine a world where there are no expectations on me. In this world I fill scrapbooks with pieces of the world I wish to disseminate.

The thought of this makes my eyes sting. This still, silent world where the only expectation is from me, but not on me.

I move through this world like a sidhe, connected to the world but also separate from it. Collecting the world to show people what it can be, what it can mean, what we can do.

I’m tired of this depression, but what would I be without it? It’s been my friend for too long. But I dream of happiness, I dream of not being alone with it anymore. I dream of love.

I put my wishes into a balloon and let go of the string. It floats above bamboo gardens, through the bubble of our atmosphere and into the starry space of the universe.

The world upside down, my head under the sofa. The world rights itself and I’m where I always am.

In a dark bookstore I sit and smile, I talk, I fill the room, my fingers touch and hands embrace.

There is love for me, for them, for love, for life, for the books around me.

This is my wish, to be who I always am, to swim to the surface.

I built a cocoon around myself and now it’s smothering. Time to break free and become the moth I’ve always been… of night things.

Night.

Saturday 2nd of November 2019

Let’s capture a moment before it ends. It’s night and I feel it wrapped around me like a shroud. It’s quarter to midnight, minutes away from an end of a day and the beginning of a new one and I feel power. I am power. I am night skies and tumbling stars, moons and planets, moving bodies of water and dust. I’m the elongated shadow on the wall, a tale to be told, a truth wrung out. I’m the dirt under my nails, the accumulation of time, the re-written, I am god and king and purpose.

There’s so much that I don’t write, so much that I don’t hold down, but I’m new, I’m reborn. Like all reborn things I retain the memory of who I was, whether whole pieces or fragments. I hold these pieces, but I don’t want these pieces to hold me. I’m reluctant to go backwards for whatever importance, whatever gems I might have left there, but I do have to, just to see.

I lay my body down on the altar of sacrifice and wait for my saviour to come. The world will be rewritten and I will be recognised.

There’s so much to do, so much to want. I’ve written these words before, perhaps lying in this same spot, in this same position, writing in a journal just like this.

Do I make a plan and do I follow it? Do I follow my feelings and work intuitively, not quite understanding how my intuition works or the flaws of manifesting will?

I’m not who I was and that’s a blessing, a scared creature, unsure, unheard and desperate. That doesn’t feel like me anymore. I know who I am, but, I’m scared no one else will and I let that fear guide me.

The world needs to change but do I need to be the one to change it?

Do I write in pencil because of it’s impermanence, so that the words have less impact, so that they can be erased and fade?

And the moment passes, one moment to the next, a new day begins and I’m scared to go to sleep. I’m scared of the incompleteness of a day, of a lack of progress, of my own idleness. Sleep should be earned, I haven’t earned it.

I’m scared of loneliness, of waking up in the dark and knowing that this is it, this is all there is. Emptiness where progression should be, loneliness where love should be, where someone should be. I’m scared of my own inaction, a markable decision not to change, to stay static, safe.

My hands feel old and rough on my face, I feel time in them and that only youth can be loved in the way I want to be loved. My time has passed, I never captured that moment. I let all the people who loved me and wanted me go because I wanted more. And I still don’t regret it. That’s interesting. I regret so much, but not leaving any one of them behind. And I still don’t want to go to sleep. I’m still scared.

I’m not the person I was and perhaps this fear is growing pains, or a denial. Maybe this is all a denial and I really will be the nothing I see forever.

Embrace the nothing. I am the nothing, and this is change, the re-write, the accepting of nothing, the use of it. If I’m nothing, I’m everything, I can be anything, do anything. There is nothing holding me back, no rules to follow, no standard. I am the standard, I am the new, the rewrite, I am change.

These are the new rules, my way is law, I am the change to come.

Knowledge of Heaven and Earth.

Friday 1st of November 2019

I don’t want to be independent, I want to be protected by someone and feel safe.

Frida is looking at me with cold, frowning eyes. She’s concerned about my health. I’ve been feeling so drained today and my heart feels heavy in my chest. I can feel it, the weight of it, the labour of it. It feels as if it’s struggling to function. I can hear my heart in my ears, heavy, loud, thumbing tocks, it’s left the tick behind. It’s a slow pounding. It’s tired, as tired as I am.

I want to get a scrapbook, label it ‘Before’ and fill it with things I should throw away. Then, throw the scrapbook away and fill my world with now. An idea of now. I want to see where now can go.

It’s a bronzed coffee bean.

Tuesday 29th of October 2019

I don’t know how to put this into words, it’s a complicated concept.

There’s something keeping me in place. Place being a singular state of in between, of physically and metaphysically being fixed in place.

Imagine a wire. The left of the wire is the past, the past containing ideas of who I want to be and ideas of possible futures. The right of the wire is the future, what I can be, what I can accomplish.

In between these two points is a push pin. I am underneath this pin. On top of the pin is a bronzed coffee bean.

The bronzed coffee bean is the idea that I am this moment and that this moment is eternal.

This doesn’t sound too bad until I focus and see what the moment is. The moment is me, sat in the same room I’ve sat in all my life. The same house, the same street, so on and so on.

In this moment I am an aspiring writer, not a writer. I am friendless, jobless, strange to everyone who knows me. Unwanted, useless, delusional, a failure.

This moment can never end, it’s trapped in amber.

So, why is this moment a bronzed coffee bean? I don’t know, I’m just a visual person and this is what I see in my head when I think of it.

What I need to do is change the moment, remove the coffee bean and fix the pin to a new moment.

That’s all I got so far.

Truths.

Monday 28th of October 2019

My laptop has found the new headphones. Good news or bad news?

In a parallel universe someone has said: “Ahoy” when answering the phone. Or perhaps its evolved to “Hoy” over there, where we have “Hey” and “Hi”.

I think I’m fascinating, intelligent, interesting, that my voice and what I have to say has merit. This is why I write, why I keep these journals.

I also think the exact opposite. I’m dull, boring, stupid, not worth other people’s time. That’s why I keep my opinions to myself, why I rarely speak, why I fear being around others in case they realise how terrible I really am. This is why I write, why I keep these journals.

In my head both these things are true at once. I have things to say that everyone needs to know. I have nothing worth saying and no one wants to know me.

I’ve taken off all my clothes and wrapped a shawl around myself. This, for some reason feel more comfortable.

I don’t feel like I’m ever going to be the person I want to be. It’s not fear of success, it’s knowing already that I’m a failure. How do you unknow something you already know to be true?

People use mantras for this sort of thing, such as “I am successful”. When I try that the word ‘failure’ jumps in front of ‘success’ like it’s taking a bullet for the president.

I just discovered ‘The Politician’ on Netflix and I’m hooked.

I worry too much about too many things.

Right now, I feel like my body is relaxing for the first time in a while. The power of the shawl.

Win or Lose.

Saturday 26 of October 2019

Loss can show us what’s important, what we really want from life. It can reveal what we’ve made room for and what we need to make room for.

I hate loss. It feels too much like losing and someone else winning, someone else gloating, usually the universe. But is it? Or is it simply doing us a service, revealing for us what we want so that we can finally incorporate it into our design, ask for it, go out and get it. Or, even crueler, is loss just making room for something else? is loss trying to teach us to appreciate what we have whilst we have it?

The Existential Crisis of a Public Hair.

Sometime around my last birthday I saw my first grey public hair and pulled it out. Ever since I’ve been waiting for it to grow back, but all has been quietly black. I’m trying not to regret it but I miss it. I see it as a marker of time and not in a bad way as I did before. It showed my age and who I was becoming. Now I’m back in this in between no man’s land.

The Existential Crisis of Broken Headphones.

Another pair of headphones broke on me. I decided to make a donation to the God of Debt and buy new ones. I made the mistake of going completely wireless. They work beautifully on my phone but my laptop is in denial of their existence. Which means I currently don’t have the luxury of watching anything on the big screen of my laptop whenever I like. It’s been making me overly emotional, but it’s also what I wanted, isn’t it?

For a long time now I’ve been watching stuff as distraction, as escape, as a way to not look at my life and all the things missing in it. With this distraction now restricted, it’s taken away an excuse. If I can’t watch stuff I can work, I can write, I can start living, I can move forward. No more distractions, right?

The Existential Crisis of a Name.

Do you ever feel like you’ve outgrown your name? Like your name was a title, a garment you wore, that you grew into and became you? You wore it a and let things gather around it, attach to it. Now, when you hear it, it doesn’t fit, you’ve changed. The ideas of who you are, the ones pinned to your name just feel fake, outdated.

I think about ‘Lost Souls’ by Poppy Z. Brite , a lot. I think about Nothing. I think:

“His name is Nothing, care for him and he will bring you luck.”

I think about how his name didn’t make him feel worthless but like a blank slate, like he could be anything. I think about the monks from that parable, Yesme and Nome. I think about ‘Sense8’ and Nome, I think there is no me only we, I feel my ego take a hit. It wants identity, individuality, it wants a name.

Untitled.

Wednesday 23rd of October 2019

Sometimes something has to be hidden foe something else to be revealed. I went for a walk in the fog today and this is what I came back with.

Luna set me three tasks:

For 7 days I won’t doubt myself, I’ll believe in myself, in my abilities and that I can achieve any and all goals. Just for 7 days.For 6 days whenever I have a negative thought I will flip it around and change it into a positive thought. Just for 6 days.For 5 days whenever I look to the past I won’t feel regret or shame. I’ll look back and know I survived and see that as an accomplishment. Just for 5 days.

Survival vs. Living.

Tuesday 22nd of October 2019

I’ve been thinking today about word choices. People say a lot that they don’t want to just survive, they want to live. I’ve thought this too sometimes.

A few moments ago I started questioning that, why is surviving wrong? Sometimes surviving is the accomplishment. I’ve survived. So far I’ve survived everything thrown at me. I’ve survived my own mind, which hasn’t been easy. I want to go on surviving.

I’m reading ‘Circe’ by Madeline Miller at the moment. I’ve got to the part where she’s banished and contemplating her banishment. She expresses how to the gods, her family, being banished from their presence is the punishment. That’s their arrogance, thinking they’re so wonderful no one would want to be without them. It reminded me so much of my family I almost laughed out loud. Thinking about it, all the times I went grovelling back to them, I was reinforcing their belief that they’re so perfect, who would want to be on the outside looking in.

Well, like Circe, I want to thrive without them. They’re nothing special, just people like everyone else. But, they made me, and I want to be grateful for that. Maybe one day I will be. For now, I’m going to enjoy the freedom of my exile. But am I being arrogant as well? Do I believe that the absence of me can make an impact in their lives? Nah.

I would be a lost boy,

Wafer thin and sharp like glass.

My words would roll like silken eels,

Charms and curses would cut from my lips,

Cracked and dry as they may be.

My tongue would twist out truths and lies,

And I’d dare anyone to to tell one from the other.

I would be a wanderer,

A dodger on the streets.

My rough bare feet, split heels and splintered toes

Would dance around brogues, cleets and clogs,

Espadrilles, boots, sandals and trainers.

I’d be unknown, a glint, a shadow,

A memory faded long ago.

A breeze passing by.

Yes, I would be a lost boy,

A deserter on an ageless island.

I’d carve out sand huts and live like a hermit.

I’d spend my days in trees, watching creatures come and go.

I’d be simple and wild always looking for a place to call home.

I’d be half mad from weeping,

And half sane from peace.

I’d be a lost boy,

Stretched across the surface,

A map with a single black spot.

The Invokation of Diana, Aftermath.

Monday 21st of October 2019

It turns out I enjoy writing, who knew. I enjoy the act of expressing myself in a way that I can’t with anything or anyone else.

But this isn’t why I’m here tonight. I’ve been reaffirming my path, re-finding myself, rediscovering.

When I suppressed my heartaches and losses, I let go of a lot of things, I lost my way. I’m not saying I’ve found it, but I am following a path again.

In all honesty, I’m a little scared to go to sleep. I had… bad dreams. Something I’d suppressed came right back to the surface. I woke up crying, then had dreams about… well, let’s start from the beginning.

The dreams that came after the tears were of a giant plane hangar filled with trash, debris, the like. There was a dog, a stuffed animal dog and a woman explaining everything.

The hangar was my brain, the trash all the pain and anger I carry around. She helped me sweep and carry the bigger pieces, arrange them in piles. Then we used a compactor to squash them down into these still pretty huge cubes.

We got into a small airplane, sat in the pilot part, her driving… flying? piloting? There was a sort of grip thing on the underside of the plane that could pick up a pile so we could fly it out to the ocean. We’d fly out to a spot where the water was churning, she explained that this particular spot was like a recycling plant, we’d drop in a cube and the pain would be recycled into more useful components. We did this several times until the hangar was empty, only tiny scraps left on the ground.

Even though this dream was… therapeutic, the dream before it was so hard that I don’t want to go through it again, so I’m not going to.

I feel different, better. I wonder how long it will last.