the circle
I use writing to identify and nail certain truths to the wall - realities that live low and in the depths of the body, south of consciousness, safe out of sight. Some of us spend years evading them. I do this too, but nothing haunts me quite like the action of going back home. Last night I sat in a pub in deep blue thought, eating the kind of meal you can only get in the town I was born in. I was brooding over the next generation, thinking of the patterns of dysfunction and addiction that are grown and nurtured in families - how my brothers remind me of the things I have put years between, sanded away and built layers over,
how my little brother’s children look like unspoilt copies of us when we were young
the square
only it isn’t true, is it? Humans are such messy narcissists. We make everything about us - what horrible things happened and what we didn’t get. There’s no pleasing us. Growing up, I hated that my Grandma always brought flowery flasks along everywhere we went. The flasks were full of homemade soup and, alongside them, sardine sandwiches in Tupperware boxes - it was totally embarrassing! These days it’s all I want, home-cooked food in containers being the only food you can trust. Our kitchen back home was blue and tiled. Our bathroom tiles were the same indistinct pattern, only pink. Now, of course, I want it all back.
the triangle
Help! I was just in a YouTube hole while anxiously trying to get dressed and out the door for a whole day of meetings. I needed to hear some voices - any voices. On the YouTube show, the host was trying to get the man to express how he felt, but the man couldn’t ever say how he felt without destroying property or hitting his spouse, which is why they were on the talk show in the first place. It ended with everyone crying. The man, who had been in jail for much of his life, finally agreed to get help. The talk show host told the man he didn’t need to be in that relationship until he found healing. The man and his wife nodded, but who knows what happened after that? Like, did they take the host’s advice?
I changed my outfit twice because the anxiety was rising, nothing looked right, and my hair was a mess. The next segment played. It was about a poly relationship that wasn’t working because Person 1 did not feel sexually or emotionally satisfied with Person 2, so they brought in Person 3, which probably wasn’t a good idea before they were on solid ground. Persons 1 & 3 got very close, and Person 2 felt entirely left out and broke it off with them both for a while. Unfortunately, this did not have the desired effect. Person 1 proposed to Person 3 in the interim, and they even spoke about starting a family, so Person 2, who was hearing this all for the first time, was devastated. They were both very in love with Person 1, who, in fairness, seemed more into Person 3 but already had a family with Person 2. There was a slight twist to this because Person 3, who felt bad about the whole thing, was siding a little with Person 2, and so was the host, which was a little unfair. Everyone was vilifying Person 1, who was revealed to have anger issues and proved everyone right by storming off stage. The host sagely advised them all to break up—a running theme.
the star
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