My core

Crawl 'till dawn

On my hands and knees

Goddamn these vampires

For what they've done to me

-The Mountain Goats





I've tried not to let the bastards get me down. I've tried in all things to remain true to my core, even when I've hated myself thoroughly. I noticed from an early age how many adults were empty at the core, or rotten, or simply floating disconnected from it. & I swore that would never be me.






I planned carefully as a child. Every book I read & every song I heard & every person I loved gave me some bit of wisdom I held onto in the pursuit of my ultimate goal. I clung to myself when my life was dark & traumatic. When my parents were harsh & my family was abusive & friends felt hard to come by.






I had a surprisingly robust resistance to the corruption around me. I was damaged but not broken & I survived the Fuck out of my youth.






& then in college the depression hit even harder. & my anxiety got so bad I was terrified to go to the bathroom which was right down the hall from my dorm room. & I had a boyfriend who told me regularly about all of my weaknesses from my weight to my feelings. Who actively worked to isolate from the rest if the world. & somewhere in all of that I sort of lost myself. & I had to rediscover her in the aftermath.






Struggling with severe social anxiety, I still entered a masters program & flew across the country by myself to complete the residencies. & I fought my fear to make a few friends. One of which turned on me, & told me repeatedly how selfish I was & how I wasn't meeting my potential.






& despite all this I still believed in love & I reconnected with my core & I got up the courage to marry the man I loved. Despite my utter disbelief that marriage could ever work out, I chose to gamble that maybe it could.






& still I was true to my core & I loved her. But then the anxiety got real bad. It took over my life. I had panic attack after panic attack for years. I became afraid to write. I hated myself & my life. I found myself unable to answer the phone, even if my dearest friends called. Then even emailing & texting became a great effort. I was so lonely & so isolated & the weight of life fell down on me. & it's unbearable lightness too. & somewhere in all that, without even realizing it. I lost my core. I became inauthentic.






It wasn't when things were worst that I crumbled. It was when I felt like I had to settle for, at best, things being okay. But Fuck that. I may fight depression for the rest of my life. But you can bet your ass, I will fight it hard.

Apple Pie Logic

One time an adviser I greatly respected, laughed affectionately as he told me he liked my essays best that followed "apple pie logic". I had to have him explain what he meant by that. Apparently, sometimes I write deep truths as if they were all part of some logical & simple recipe. It's a compliment that stuck with me.

When I know something I just know it, I've processed it long enough, carried it around in my mind, & eventually I just say what I know, or what I think I know. Unfortunately, I often need to write about something before I'm ready & then it often comes out incoherent & insincere.

I loved what little Deleuze & Guatarri I've read. & they certainly don't read as a recipe. It's hard to write past a certain complexity with any real sense of logic. I like the idea of being more conversational & playful & engaging the reader on this quite human level of thought instead of conclusion or decision. I like that idea, but that was not how I learned to write. That is not what comes easily.

& how much this dependence on logic & essay & English has influenced my mind is hard to overstate. There is so much of what makes us who we are that is so far beyond our control. But my stubborn yearning for control, ah yes; that is another thing I did not choose & I find difficult to change.