I am happy.
And it scares the living shit out of me.
This statement will be familiar to anyone who has spent a large portion of their life depressed, down, moodswinging, or otherwise preoccupied with the idea that happiness was never meant to happen to someone who feels as worthless as a depressed person. It's all down there in black and white: I was not meant to be happy here.
I am reading The Magic Daughter, and in it is the statement that her depressions seemed to be necessary, since she came out of each one of them profoundly changed. That holds true for me, as well; this latest depression, this long wallow in my own anger and sadness and worthlessness and isolation, has helped me knit together some parts of me that have been long estranged. I am seeing my own life much more clearly now, and starting to realize that, even though I do have the ability to trust men, I almost invariably pick the wrong ones to trust. But with the wrong choices have come some very right ones, some males who I love and trust and have strong bonds with.
I just need to be careful, is all. I know I make poor choices; my past has left me without some critical coping faculties, the ones by which people decide if another person is going to be helpful or harmful.
It's sort of strange, really; my taste in women is almost uniformly excellent. (Note, here, that I say almost...) Perhaps I look for men like my father and women like my mother, and since my mother is a very nice person and my father is...well....not, I mess up my choices of men. A lot.
I haven't decided yet.
So Chris sent me mix tapes last week. Or, rather, i got them last week, since they arrived while I was gone. And....well. As usual, I am overawed. Chris has been a huge influence on my musical tastes, and this latest set of mixes is nearly all a capella music. A lot of really great a capella music.
But probably the best part of the set of six tapes is half of one side, which is a recording of a poetry reading he did at an open mic in East Lansing. I was listening to it with a stupid grin on my face, thinking to myself, 'Wow...he's good! Like, really good! I KNEW it!" See, about six years ago, I encouraged Chris to write, because I'd read what he'd done and I knew he could be an excellent writer. And he is! He writes to be read aloud, which i think is an admirable quality in poetry.
So it makes me happy to listen to him.
(Hey, Chris. I love you, even if I don't tell you so very often these days.)
I now have a kitten. I'd like to say it wasn't my fault, but I was the one who found her. She's black and white, she's about 11 weeks old, and she has a little round kitten tummy and big round eyes. And she loves people. Her greatest pleasure so far is to be picked up and cradled against a chest and petted. She closes her eyes and puts her head against my collarbone, and just purrs.
such a lovey kitty!
Her name is Lillith, or 'Lil'kitty'. She's not quite getting along with the big cats, but she's already starting to calm down. Juniper and Kallisti are kind of jealous, but i'm paying lots of attention to them, as well, and the household should be peaceful again soon. I hope!
I also rearranged the house yesterday. The goldfish tank went downstairs, the bookcase moved across the room, the table went into the corner that the goldfish tank had been in and the quarantine tank went onto the table, since I don't entertain very often and I certainly almost never actually eat at the table.
The living room looks huge! Without the table sticking out into the middle of it, it looks like a place that one might actually want to sit and spend some time in. i'm no longer frightened that I'm going to reel into the table on the frequent occasions that I lose my balance and spend a few adrenaline-driven seconds attempting to figure out where I left it. (Yes, i do occasionally fall down entirely, but it happens less often than it used to. i haven't fallen over without reason for over a year now.)
I also have made a smalls' corner in the office. It's out of the way, and it'll be a place where, if I need to, i can go and be little. Even the knowledge that there is such a safe place makes me feel a lot more secure than I was.
The place is starting to feel like a place I really want to live in...not just my head but my heart, as well.
Like I said, i'm happy.
Oh, yes, the girl makes me happy, too. Not to be holding out on you, dear readers, but I think I'm just going to leave it at that.
Because she knows and I know and we both know together.
Mike is 30 today. My mom is coming into town on Thursday. Paula's not moving here. I like Squirrel Bait. I'm thinking about doing a quickie redesign of dream|reality. Shannon talked to me for the first time in weeks the other day and it weirded me out. Joanna is now standing on the outside. Ben may very well be a deity of some sort.
And me? I'm good. Life is enough to work on without having to worry about dying.