Redux Redux
mood: 
pensive
pensiveBut I am not here to make jokes. I'm not really sure why I'm here, except that I have things that need to be put into the ether that are far too intense for any other medium. These things also revolve around stuff that was well-documented here on LJ, and so since I am a ritual-based creature, it feels right and proper that this is where I put those thoughts. I don't know if I can call this closure, exactly, but it does feel like a cycle is complete. I don't even know who is reading this- I pared my friend's list down some years ago, and of those who are left I have no idea who is still around. Indeed, I can't even remember who belongs to some of the use names anymore. But these are things that need to be put down somewhere, and here seems as good a place as any.
Today was the tenth anniversary of finding out that Tom Fox had been killed in Iraq.
http://violachic.livejournal.com/468596.html
Ten days after that I woke up in intense pain, http://violachic.livejournal.com/474543.html which quickly hurtled out of control into a lifetime of chronic pain.
So much is connected here. I can't think about one without thinking about the other, and somnetimes I have a hard time telling them apart. But for the sake of trying to make any sense at all out of insanity, I'll try to talk about them separately.
The hardest part about the hostage crisis and Tom's death is that I can't help but make it about myself, about my pain over it. I think that's probably the trauma speaking. I can cognitively think about Tom's friends and family, about the three remaining hostages, about the Iraq war and its aftermath- about the fact that there really is no "aftermath", it's all just "war"- about war and violence all over the world. But there is always a spiraling down to my own abject physical heartbreak over it all. But I think that maybe this one thing has come to symbolize all the others; I suppose that's the double-edged sword of being a ritual person, that one thing can't contain it all, but it sort of has to. I don't know if that makes any sense.
The other thing is the way it has made me see the world. In my fairly short tenure with CPT and as an international activist I learned things about the world, about governments, about people and their capability for violence, and for justifying violence, that I wish I hadn't known, but am glad I do. I mean, I'm not GLAD, but I am in the sense that I'd rather be sadder and wiser than ignorant and blissful. And I can't imagine not knowing these things now. But it makes it hard to stay unengaged in world events. Watching or listening to the news is difficult; I get my news in written form, and even then I keep it fairly throttled. It isn't just a theoretical discussion to me, it all feels intensely personal. Again, that is probably at least in part the trauma speaking, but regardless of the reason, it's kind of exhausting. And it makes it hard to be an ally for other causes, because at some point I have to back away. And because I know what I know, now, about governments and war and war politics, I have found it much easier to forgive the people who kidnapped my colleagues and killed my friends than my own government who created the environment in which this all happened. Even 7 years after Bush has left office I have utmost contempt for this unnecessary war. Perhaps I've focused on the hostage-taking and the murder of my friend because it it easier to digest than those injustices they were present to fight against.
The other thing in my double ouroboros of my life is the chronic pain stuff. Having emerged ten days after the hostage crisis came to a head, there is no doubt in my mind that the two are somehow connected, but we've never been able to figure out what the connection is in order to unravel it. In the intervening years I've been given a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia, although there are myriad other issues, especially in my back, that probably warrant a closer look someday. But diagnosis and treatment aren't what sits around nagging at my brain- what does is the fact that it's been ten years since my life shifted, and it really fucking sucks.
My 30s. My 30s, the absolute prime of my life, are gone. They were wasted. I did nothing. I am turning 40 in a little over 2 months, and while there are so many good things in it, I hate my life. I try not to say this to people, especially the people who work so hard to make me happy- and there are so many people who do, and they are so precious to me- but I hate my life.
I hate that I'm in pain every day. My baseline, what I refer to as my "status quo" hangs around at about 4-5 on the pain scale. I don't think I've been below about a 3 in ten years, except maybe when I've been on heavy medication, and of course heavy medication has its own down sides. I hate that I don't have the energy for anything that isn't work. I hate that I'm about to turn 40 and I'm a freaking nanny- and a really limited one, at that. I hate that I put a career in teaching and performing that I really loved on hold to do some activism, and now I can no longer do it. I hate that I can't be an activist anymore. I hate that my viola playing sucks- and it really does, compared to what I've had, it's terrible, and I'll never get it back. I hate that I will probably never find a partner that can deal with my shit, and I hate I hate I hate the fact that I'll most likely never have a family of my own. I hate that I am financially and emotionally dependent so many people. I hate that a certain leadership at CPT disliked me so much that she cut me off without health coverage, and I struggled for years to get any healthcare at all for a chronic condition. I hate that my family is a bunch of narcissists who have left the entire burden of me to my friends, who have their own problems and their own families to take care of. I hate that regardless of the fact that my life is filled with beautiful and amazing people, that I am very, very lonely. I hate that I fell in love with and married my best friend, who decided two years and nine months later that he'd rather be with someone else. I hate that I had to leave my hometown and so many of my closest friends in order to escape and find any peace at all. I hate that no matter how many comforting words my friends murmur to me, I still hate my life.
So. Yeah. That's where I am with this. Don't get me wrong, I have so much more than I did even a few years ago, in a lot of ways. I have a few violin students, I have some outlets for music, I have a lot of really good friends and strong communities. But I struggle with all of these things written here in a very big way, and today it all feels overwhelming. And I don't write these things to whine or complain; on the contrary, I think that these are things that have been locked up inside for a long time, and I need to face them head-on if I'm going to deal with them in any kind of healthy manner. I've worked so hard at building a life, any kind of life, that I haven't let myself think about any of these things too hard. But today I'm too tired to let them continue unacknowledged.
And you know, or maybe you don't, dear reader (whoever you may be), but I left Chicago and have lived in Seattle for a little over a year and a half. Something had to give, I needed to get away from hurtful people and destructive situations. And I miss people back there terribly, but it's been good for me to be out here. I've had to take a frightening look at what I carry and meet it head on, and I don't think I could have done that if I'd stayed.
So as I said, there probably is no real closure here. But now I hereby shut down this chapter, this decade of trauma and heartbreak, pain and poverty, bad decisions, bad health, bad relationships. I don't know what the next ten years will bring, but if I've survived so far, I'm pretty sure I can survive the rest.
cynical
