I think I know who the cheeky monkeys are.

Funny how things just drop into one’s lap sometimes to explain otherwise inexplicable things.

The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle:

Totally fascinated by the realm of the senses

it swings from one desire to the next,

one conflict to the next,

one self-centered idea to the next .

If you threaten it, it actually fears for its life.

Let this monkey go.

Let the senses go.

Let desires go.

Let conflicts go.

Let ideas go.

Let the fiction of life and death go.

Just remain in the center, watching.

And then forget that you are there.

***

I’m not going to be extreme and say that I can make a complete turnaround, but yes, I do think that the cheeky monkeys I need to watch our for are the manifestations of my ego. My ego loves stimulation. But these past couple of months have proved to me that too much ego is a recipe for disaster.

An interpretation

So, the Big Love came over this morning and we talked a bunch about the meditation/dream from the other night.

This is what I came up with:

The ocean is the void. It’s the void that I feel I’m being sucked into, that I’m terrified of. The void is need, it’s fear and it’s cold and numbness and suffocating. The dead people in the void are my needs — the ones that I can’t handle facing, the ones that I ignore and pretend not to have. My needs have become toxic. I don’t want to get sucked under by them.

The beach is where I am now. It’s not exactly safe, but it’s not as dangerous as the ocean. It’s unprotected, and it’s close to the water’s edge, so I’d rather not be there. The closer I get to the water, the more terrified I become.

The shack on the beach is an empty shell. There are dried flowers hanging there, so someone used to live there, but right now it’s just a skeleton. It’s safer than the ocean or the beach because it’s protected, but there’s no glass in the windows, so I’m not really protected here. I think the shack is somewhere I need to get to. I need to rebuild it. I need to be closer to the void, to face my fears, my needs, but still be at a safe enough distance that I’m not going to drown.

The forest is the safest place in the dream. It’s warm and I can hide there. I can find a spot to sit in and I can see whoever is coming. There is a safe path from the shack to the forest, so I can definitely come out of the forest as soon as I’m ready. When I walked through the forest I found a boardwalk which led me to some little dormitory-style houses. There was a sign outside that said “Watch out for Cheeky Monkeys.” The first dormitory was empty. The second one was empty of people, but there was a sleeping bag on one of the beds and a pack on the floor beside it. I curled up in the sleeping bag and went to sleep. I have a tendency to hide in other people’s sleeping bags. I have a tendency to hide behind other people because that’s the only way I feel safe. I need to find a way to get out of the forest, to bring whoever’s sleeping bag it is with me to the shack on the beach. To show them the place that I’m going to rebuild and tell them that I don’t need their sleeping bag, but they’re welcome to come and stay with me in my beach shack once I’ve rebuilt it. Until then, I’m going to try to be okay without their sleeping bag, but knowing myself and my propensity to run toward other people and away from myself, I have a feeling I might wake up in other people’s sleeping bags from time to time while I’m rebuilding the shack.

I forgot about the boat. There was a little rowboat on the beach. It only had one oar. I think I should make another oar and go out on the boat. That way I’m not actually in the water, I’m still safe from drowning in the void, but I’m facing it, getting closer. Maybe from the rowboat I can call out to the dead people and ask them how to bring them back to life. The dead people are my needs and I want to know how to listen to them. I want to talk to them and hear what they have to say.

Lately, I’ve been hopping from sleeping bag to sleeping bag. This is a bad habit. The Big Love offered his to me, and I hid in it for three years. Then I realized that I couldn’t really breathe in there, and I hopped into the Catalyst’s. But then he went away and when we were together again, I realized that he didn’t really want me in his sleeping bag — he preferred for me to have my own and sleep beside him. This would have been a much better thing to do, but I wasn’t confident enough for that so I ran away from him. Then the man came along and he opened up his sleeping bag to me, but there were conditions. I was happy with the conditions, hell, I sort of created the conditions — that other people would be in there sometimes, and that I’d only be in there from time to time. Except now I’ve realized that I don’t want to be in anyone’s sleeping bag any more. I really like the man, but hiding in his sleeping bag is really stupid. He doesn’t actually want me in there. And I don’t really want to be in there either. With him, I’d much rather be running around having fun. I’d rather not have anything to do with his sleeping bag.

So what I really need to do now is get my own sleeping bag and rebuild the shack on the beach. And every day I need to go to the water’s edge and talk to the dead people in the sea and hear what they have to say. I really want to figure out a way to get them out of the void. One day, eventually, I will dip my toes into the void to see how horrible and cold and toxic it really is. But not for a while. I think I need to rebuild the shack first. Each thing in it’s order.

The Sea

I’m going to be writing all day long, but I figure a good way to start myself off, get the proverbial juices flowing, is by getting some of my shit out on here.

Still lots of ups and downs, but unsurprisingly, drinking less is helping my levels of instability. Sleeping and taking care of oneself prevents mania. Fancy that.

I had a really intense night with the Big Love a couple of days ago. He came over to make me dinner. We’ve decided that this is a good agreement as he owes me big time (or feels he does) and I’m not going to be working for a while, and being broke and tired means that eating tends to involve toast or the like. So he came over and we were both in absolutely ridiculous moods. Went to the Intermarche and acted like children, all giggling and causing shit and generally enjoying the fact that we were together and not having to hold back. No judgment here.

The intensity came from the fact that I read his Tarot cards. When we were going out he thought that all of this stuff was mumbo jumbo. He derided me for believing in clairvoyance and energy and tried to make me see that science and rational thought were the only ways. I sort of resented him for that, but never made too much of a fuss and just kept on believing it anyhow. Well, on Wednesday night he started believing. The cards he pulled were eerily accurate. I knew that they would be because that’s how it is. That’s how it works. It’s all about psychology any how — it’s not as though you’re predicting the future. Your body is aware of the cards you are pulling and your body also knows the choices you are going to make, it’s just that your conscious mind isn’t, so it seems amazing or crazy when a spread of cards tells you exactly what you’re living.

To repay me for the reading he started giving me a massage and I just lost it. I had been feeling really chipper all day — I’d hung out with Emo while he was getting tattooed, started getting excited about a potential tattoo for myself. And then Big Love started massaging me and I felt a giant wave of stress flow through me, I started getting heart palpitations, I felt really cold. It was insane. And so I got him to stop. Went and sat on the couch. Couldn’t understand why it won’t just release. The same thing has been happening to me in yoga the past while. I feel like shit after practice because it starts bringing the negative energy out, but there’s something still blocking it and keeping it in me for some reason. I have a feeling that this weekend’s workshop is going to help me release it. I have a feeling I’m going to start bawling during one of the sessions.

But that’s okay. Anyhow, I told Big Love this, and he told me that it was okay to cry, except that I couldn’t — it was stuck. So he started massaging my shoulders again and trying to calm me down, and then he started asking me to visualize it and I went to this beach where the water was steel gray and completely still and terrifyingly viscous and I was terrified of it. There were giant storm clouds and the beach was long and flat and went on forever. I didn’t want to go into the water. I was petrified of it. Couldn’t fathom the idea of going in. If I went in the dead people would pull me under and I’d drown. (I know — it sounds sort of childish, but that’s exactly what I was seeing). There was a forest behind me that I wanted to go into, that I felt drawn to. I wanted to hide in the forest. Big Love suggested that I get a branch from the forest and throw it into the sea, but that made me get really upset because I didn’t want to go near the water. Every time I thought about getting near the water I was overcome with fear and started crying.

It was one of the most visceral and intense meditative experiences I’ve ever had. The wave of emotions were unbelievable. I would literally freak out when I felt I had to get nearer to the water, and then completely relax when I was in the forest. I felt happy in the forest.

I wonder what’s in the water that I’m so afraid of?

***

Today I need to spend the whole day working on my screenplay. I was meant to have worked on it all last night but then I got into a little bit of a funk because of thinking too much and being sort of excessively emotional. I had a wonderful day at the costume shop, but when I got home I just didn’t want to do anything, talked to the Best Friend for a while on the phone about our dramatic personal lives, and read my own cards. Got online and was immediately asked by Combat if I wanted to go for dinner: he was feeling blah and in need of company, and we always have a great time together, plus he’s pretty incredibly good at helping me figure out my shit. So we went for dinner and talked about our various crises and I came home feeling a lot better than I started out.

I am enjoying the fact that I’m starting to take more control of my life. I’m too busy for bullshit.

Evacuation plans?

I’m tired of being so emotionally extreme. It’s good for my creative output, but it’s also exhausting. I feel like I’m going around in circles trying to figure out what it is that I want, need, but then I come no closer to actually knowing, or having any idea how to put changes into motion. I’m tired. I just want to get away.

I just talked to my neighbour about how people like us have this desire to get away from it all, to leave the cities and get into a space that’s more amenable to our desires and our realizations about how life is and what we want from it, and yet here we are living in cities, interacting with the excess and craziness, taking in all of the crazy energies that are seeping from every being that resides within too close proximity.

I want to find myself, but I don’t know how to do it.

I went for drinks tonight with my Writer/Mentor. We see one another very rarely, and every time it’s a big honest outpouring. Tonight felt particularly one-sided. He’s trying not to analyze too much, but part of me really just wants the analysis, wants to know what he thinks of the situations I am putting myself into. I am far too dramatic for my own good. Yet I write my life into reality. I believe the angles I put on situations through writing, although I know that life is not so black and white. There’s more colour and greyness to it all, and although I am fully aware of this, I still try to pin down my feelings, my experiences. I am still attempting to rationalize my emotions and it’s no good.

I’m tired. I should go to bed.

This next period is going to be manic. I need to prepare myself for it.

The suburbs

I was discussing my life with Emo today and he thinks that I need to start writing memoirs . I have a hard time believing that my life is already that much crazier than the average person’s, well, maybe not the average person’s, but there certainly are many people out there who lead much more colourful lives than mine. I think I’m just in a slightly more erratic place right now and it’s reflecting badly.

We were trying to figure out whether I will ever settle down with some nice guy and get married and have kids and perhaps live a stable and conventional life. I’m not sure. Neither of us can figure out whether or not I have a type, considering my recent relationship history. The only thing the guys in my life seem to have in common is that they all make me crazy. Or maybe that’s me?

Me: Maybe I’ll marry an architect and live in a big house in Westmount and have kids and be a mom.

Emo: Not an architect.

Me: Why not?

Emo: I don’t know. I see you with someone kind of normal but not really. Like some computer programmer covered in tattoos, but really pretty solid. Except he might live in Dorval…

Me: I’d rather die than live in the suburbs.

Emo: Okay, so no Dorval.

I would rather die than live in the suburbs. And if I do have kids one day, I’m sure as hell not sticking them in a suburban environment to be bored stupid and drinking in parks. Drinking and smoking in parks sucks. I know. I drank and smoked and hung out in parks. On playgrounds. Constant fear of cops. All sorts of weird group rivalries. And I lived in a really safe suburb. Fucking stupidity. I’ll totally let my kids smoke weed and drink at home. And we’ll live in the city. Well, and my kids’ll probably go to alternative private schools, but that’s just getting a little ahead of myself.

So I’m feeling a little more settled now. I have time off work. I’ve been getting my school shit done. I’m actually pretty excited about the stuff I have to do. I just need to do it. I’m sort of pissed because I don’t think my bro’s going to be able to come up to visit because there’s a wedding he might have to go to in Boston, but maybe that’s for the best. It’ll give me a few extra days to focus on my work before the Catalyst arrives.

Oh yeah, and I think I’ve figured out what’s going to happen there. Emo was laughing at me last night deliberating over it.

Emo: Why are you thinking about it so much. You know what’s going to happen.

Me: I do?

Emo: Yeah.

Me: Okay, fine. I do.

Emo: Yeah?

Me: Well, I’m going to sleep with him and it’s going to be great and then he’s going to do or say something to upset me and then we’re going to decide that it’s a bad idea for us to try long distance and then he’s going to leave.

Emo: So?

Me: So?

Emo: Is that so bad?

Me: No.

Emo: Well then?

I can’t help thinking that’s a best case scenario. If I spend more time with him than just a couple of nights, then we’re going to end up going down the road of intense emotional anguish again. But if there are fireworks, then I’ll want to spend lots of time with him. The other possibility that I’m not really factoring in here is what happens if he doesn’t want to be with me. But I guess if that’s the case then that’s the closure that I’ll need. We won’t hook up, and I’ll accept the fact that it’s over and try to get on with things more successfully than the last two times I’ve tried to disentangle myself from him.

Oh right. And I’m not spending too much time thinking about boys. I promise! I’m spending just enough time to keep myself from going crazy. I swear…

I’ve decided to quit my job. Initially I thought that I was just going to ask for a month off to get my shit together, but really, I would rather just hang out and party than work there. Financially it makes no sense. I’ve been making peanuts for months. The only reason I really stay is because I’m friends with everyone. And I wouldn’t have had time to look for something new, but right now I have so much school work to deal with and other things on my mind, that I really don’t want to be working on top of it all. I just want to take some time off from everything for at least a month. So I’ll get a job in May. I have enough money to last through April without work. And hell, if I run out, there are always credit cards.

Funny how little things can trigger big decisions. As soon as the thought of actually quitting popped into my head, I realised how much sense it makes. It’ll be so nice not to work. I’ll be able to see so many of my friends. Plus, when I do start working somewhere else, it’ll be a change of scene which will be really nice.

Ah, man. I’m just fucking tired of it all.

On track. I think?

I actually had a fairly productive day. How’s about that?

Feeling good. I think that I must embrace this intense buzz of creative adrenaline and accept that as crazy as I feel at the moment, it’s something that I can harness and it’s actually going to be a really good catalyst for getting all sorts of projects off their feet. The amount of stuff I actually have to achieve in the next month is slightly intense, but hey, I’ve done it before. I’ll manage. She wasn’t kidding when she told me that this programme gets extremely time-consuming. Shiiiit. Sleep is definitely going to be taking a back seat for the next few weeks, but that said I have been rather well-behaved for the last little while, so I think I’ve got a little store of energy reserves that I’ll have to make do with. I’m crazy excited about the project I’m doing for my Media and Tech class, plus I have one of the most helpful and energetic sources of knowledge around, who also loves this shit, so when I need to know something, I have faith that he’ll have an idea about what’s going on. Just as long as I find enough theoretical resources, but I think that’s doable too.

On to boys. The man is awesome. I like hanging out with him. We chilled this afternoon and watched loads of videos interspersed with my reading a bit and a little bit of fun. I feel a lot more relaxed about my whole situation now. I emailed the Catalyst and he responded today, so whatever happens when he comes, I feel like it’ll be some sort of resolution to all this, whichever direction things go in. So now I can just get on with things and get my shit done. My bro is coming up on the weekend of April 5th, so I need to get as much work out of the way as I possibly can so that we can hang out and smoke joints and fucking rage on the nights. Woohoo! Can’t wait to see him.

Only issue now is telling the Boss at work that I can’t work very much over the next while because school comes first and there’s no fucking way I can pull all of this off and work ’til 4am 3 nights a weekend. School comes first!

A list of things to think about:

Don’t be so impulsive.

Just because it seems like a good idea now, doesn’t mean that it actually is.

Sex is all good and well, but you can’t really substitute it for actual happiness.

Just because someone shows interest doesn’t mean that you should pay attention. Even if you do like him.

Focusing on the things of importance in the immediate present (i.e. school work and friends) is actually going to be more beneficial in the long run.

STOP THINKING ABOUT BOYS ALL THE TIME!

Go to yoga, eat well, drink lots of water and sleep.

Stop giving in to distractions. There are some pretty awesome goals you’ve set for yourself that you’re not going to make if you keep on partying and staying up all night.

Listen to other people’s advice but don’t take it too seriously. The person you really need to be listening to is yourself, and don’t ignore even the littlest whispers.

Breathe.

Chill the fuck out and stop thinking so much or you’ll drive yourself crazy. (Oh, wait. I think I already have.)

C-razy.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how erratic I am. I mean, am I just really emotional at the moment, or is there something deeper under it all?

I’m not going to stress it too much. I feel much better right now. Talk about emotional see-saw. I don’t really know what’s going to happen with any of it. I know that I feel considerably better about the man, with whom I do enjoy being a partner in crime, and with whom I’m don’t want any deeper involvement. He’s a great friend, but what he’s willing to offer me and what I’m willing to offer him is just friendship. That’s it, that’s all. I’m pretty retarded sometimes. I think that were there anyone random just reading this blog from start to finish, they’d probably not want to have anything to do with me. She’s CRAZY.

I talked to my mother this evening. She thinks that I need to just relax and disentangle myself from men in general. The great motherly advice: how can you truly love someone if you don’t know yourself? Thanks mom. I’ll keep it in mind. She also made a quip at me for being an attention-seeker. Like I didn’t know that already.

Feeling better.

Need to just suck it up and sort our my shit and maybe just stop thinking about the guys in my life for long enough to get the important stuff sorted out.

Friends are key. Need to spend time with friends. Romantic involvement is what’s destroying me and making me a bipolar mess.

And overthinking…

Ha ha. Foolish girl.