Thingy came up behind me and hugged me, and I actually smiled. I don't know why I become panicked with the sense of my solitariness, but it sticks in my throat much more than my voice right now. And my voice is vanishing into higher octaves and squacks.
I wish Christ were on earth. When I'm seized by the urge to cling to someone's leg and sit at their feet, and just listen to whatever they say until the lost feeling dies in my heart, I realized all over again how useless this all is. There is nobody who can know me fully; nobody who would really want to, come to that.
Friends are lovely. Mine are delightful and life-changing; I wouldn't want them to alter themselves at all. Yet all is folly, all is inevitably insufficient. No human being can bear the weight of another's heart, with all it's joys and sorrows and individuality. Soulmates do not exist. Eventually those you trust to be constant fail you. To trust someone completely is to place them on a pedestal, so that they have further to fall.
My life is going very well. I have everything I need, and am assured of continuing felicity. So why does the pointlessness of all attempts strike me so hard? I've been trying to make solid what is ephemeral, forgetting that even with multiple friends not everything is possible. I'm not bearable. I should know from trying to bear other people, but I don't. Not to my core. I still search for someone, anyone to give me the assurance that the smallest parts of a character are essential.
I miss what I never had. I only ever thought I did, and it hurts still.
I must assume that nobody reads my blog, so I've been talking to myself for quite some time now. Perhaps surprisingly, this does not bother me.
I just put my watch through the wash, after clearing out every other pocket-kept necessity, and I am not amused. It's bad enough that the bands have broken and I must be timeless. Beside which that cool white stripe on my wrist will vanish without my watch there. But for some reason I'm very attatched to this particular timepiece, probably because of the blue face and silver numbers. I love that combination of colors.
I have been working on trying to understand enough of the way this site is put together to change the style, but unfortunately I need more than a cursory overview. I think I must go look up my father's programming books in order to really change it, and since I'll have around three weeks at home, I may complete it to my satisfaction before anybody really looks at it.
Night is like daytime without distractions, says someone behind me in the lab. I would agree except nighttime is also generally when I have the opportunity to see friends.
As always on Sundays, restlessness has seized me and much as I desire to sleep the afternoon away, I will not. I will read, or bug a friend, or generally make a nuisance of myself to those around me. It's the priviledge of those with an average of less than six hours of sleep per night for a week --or more. I cannot pretend that working on Sundays doesn't bother me, from the years of training and personal conviction, but the lack of goal also grates. What am I to do?
For someone with little time for friends, this would seem to be the optimum gift: a full day for fraternizing. Why is it I end up lonely, then?
I cannot focus on my Power Point for ICS class, probably because I have no interest in it. But I found my sense of humor again.
I'm going to be abstract.
Options are nice. Options are scary and confusing as the first step off a cliff.
Today is Nathan Vish's birthday, and since he is on the AT in either Tennessee or Virginia, I have no way of wishing him many happy returns. (That would have required forethought, of which I have only a limited supply.)
In a strange way I'm enjoying the tension on my shoulders right now. I'm going to crack, but continuing to cope with the extremely difficult gives a sort of satisfaction at the same time, because I'm doing it --for now. By God's grace. And perhaps because of a foolhardy stubbornness not to give up, give in. (Play out. Fall off, drop out, and why are all these prepositions at the end?)
I will be grateful for an only physical stress in Boot Camp. I've said it before.
Act like
you know what you're doing;
as though
(where is my belt?)
a thousand thoughts did not pull
(have I time?)
in a thousand directions at once
and the fog and the excitement of sleepless nights
muddies all intention.
While you search for fingerholds on this wall
(will someone catch me if I fall?)
and then the next barrier to climb
before rest
(oh for peace!)
from a job finished if not well done,
exult in mental gymnastics
(to know is the essential goal)
and pray your body holds out longer
(for as long as)
your mind
(can cope, I promise I can.
Peace, is merely focus on the Christ.)
All (the) rest is just a history of prayer,
a concession that I can't.
I had forgotten how much I enjoy studying. Paper writing is interesting once you get into it, but oh for the joy of the written page; thinking through an equation in mathematics or chemistry, understanding a biological process with that leap of comprehension, seeing the full meaning of a philosophical passage or the sheer beauty of the history of the Church. I could be a professional scholar, I think, and take classes for the rest of my life. I was born to this, to the expanding of the mind to the depths and heights of human experience all written out. It's like a good practice session, when my hands ache but I'm so entirely conscious of the quality of the sound wrung from my violin that the weariness is satisfying. The difficulty is the extra spice to coax me into pushing on more steadfastly.
My hands are scarred with tiny reminders of battles won, a job well done in the past. And I'm going to push on with these final weeks and enjoy the hard work, so long as I keep a sense of humor.
Just a little while ago I was walking down to the Carter computer lab on the stairs from the Blink. In the lamplight, snuffling about in the grass beside the pool, I saw a creature cat-like in size and shape. Of course I was interested, so I went closer. Then I realized it was a skunk, by the white stripe and pointy nose, and oh, the fluffy tail. My first reaction was to walk quickly away; the second, overpowering urge, was to step closer and closer, watching in fascination. The wet nose bumbled up in my direction, and the creature started up the stairs, unaware of my presence standing at the top of the stairs, until I spoke. "This is not wise, " I said. And it looked up at me, startled, and I smelt it faintly on the night breeze. Beady eyes, and the mop tail attempted levitation, and I ran, laughing at myself.
First I write poems about the Purkinje fibers and Accelerans nerve, next I walk up to a skunk. Madness is being a biology major.