***

It’s not like we didn’t know this. Like we’ve never read it anywhere or didn’t feel it at some point or another. But it’s true. We’re all walking wounds, at different stages of healing. Some so fresh it hasn’t started yet. But it will.

***

“You don’t ask a lot of questions”
“Maybe I don’t need a lot of answers.”

***

I’m walking amongst (I LOVE that word. The way it makes your mouth, your tongue work. Say it, say it out loud, feel that?) fortresses filled with treasures and secrets. Just being able to peek through the windows is cool. I don’t feel compelled to break in, tear down the doors, know. Being aware is enough. They’re everywhere. And they’re beautiful.

***

Je viens de terminer le journal d’Eleanor Coppola, écrit pendant le tournage d’Apocalypse Now. Une traduction pénible, une lecture pénible, mais néanmoins intéressante. Et puis soudain, vers la fin, crise conjugale. Infidélités.

Une phrase, et puis là, dans le wagon de métro, le mal de ventre, la tristesse. La compréhension immédiate de ces sentiments écrits il y a déjà plus de trente ans. T’as beau te faire à croire que t’es guérie, qu’il faut beau, que la vie t’es si bonne ces derniers temps que c’en est même un peu suspect. La douleur est maintenant plus superficielle, mais la réalité de ces blessures elle, ne l’est pas. Je ne sais pas ce que ça veut dire. Je ne sais pas si je veux m’attarder vraiment à ça. Est-ce que mon coeur est irrémédiablement endommagé ou bien je mêle trop de choses ensemble?

Le plus difficile c’est de cesser de porter toute la responsabilité des sentiments des autres, de leurs gestes, sur mes épaules. D’arrêter de me voir comme un monstre, moins qu’une femme. De vivre les rejets comme autant de constats que je suis juste inadéquate, pas assez.

Mais avec le temps j’apprends aussi, surtout peut-être, à m’accepter. Accepter tout, en entier. Je sais aujourd’hui que je ne suis pas cassée. Que je n’ai pas à être réparée. Que de rechercher l’approbation des autres ce n’est qu’une façon d’éviter d’être ce que l’on est vraiment.

***

I don’t use the “The well” category as much as I used to here. It’s a good thing I guess. But sometimes I miss being able to reach in it and write about it. Not that I have lost all sense of depth, but I’m frightened by the ease with which I can move away from it. I’m torn between relief and shame.

***

***

PS: Je déménage à Verdun le 1er juillet. J’ai changé d’idée, et je l’assume pleinement! Je reviens (presque, bon, parce que Verdun, Montréal, tsé) dans ma ville natale. Je suis heureuse. Point.

PPS: Mon beau Stéphane, je ne t’oublie pas! J’ai jamais été super bonne à la tag, je cours pas vite. Mais ça s’en vient.

PPPS: I’ve started selling stuff on ebay and I have no life left whatsoever.

I want it to be as messed up and confused as it is in my head, inside, deep in there where it doesn’t matter to anyone but me. where I know where every[thing] is, where I can pick up some[thing] I left in a corner years ago, gathering dust, losing importance, until the moment I need it.

when I try to make sense of [things], it just does not fit anywhere in my mess. the boxes, those neat little boxes we’re supposed to fill diligently, store properly, in an organized, alphabetized way. classified. they just don’t fit. on top of a pile of my own important stuff they sit, not in the least securely, ready to fall, ready to explode on the floor and expose their nonsensical content to

it doesn’t work like that up here, in here. anybody who has set foot inside knows.
it doesn’t work like that
[things][exploded boxes]

One of the things he wrote that I always remembered was this: (…) writes about emotions the way a political junkie talks about parliamentary procedure.

Through the years since then I’ve lived a whole lot more than I could’ve imagined. What I thought was the worst of times, in hindsight, might not have been that bad. Yet again, in a couple of years from now I might feel the same way about the last few ones.

Years. Cycles. It should be frightening to be talking in years and not in months, weeks, days. But as I emerge, as a human being, as a woman, from a multi layered and armored cocoon, I can see, accept, that things take time. And that we have to take it. Take the time to cry, to suffer, oh so much and when will it ever end? But also to screw up, to not give a fuck and to just say fuck it all, fuck all that fucking bullshit.

And in the midst of all this, I lost faith in my worth. Thinking about myself first, about my own happiness only made me feel guilty. It’s a long, very long, very hard battle. But I am closer to its end than to its beginning. I wish I could send thanks flying around to everyone involved, but if you don’t mind, I’ll thank myself first.

Lui: L’important, c’est d’être heureux.
Moi: J’ai de la difficulté avec ça, faire des choses qui me rendent heureuse.
Lui: Tu ne devrais pas, il faut prendre soin de ton bonheur.
Moi: Oui, mais je veux être certaine de la justesse de chacun des gestes que je pose pour ça. Il est trop facile de confondre le bonheur, la liberté, avec la fuite. Alors que l’on croit qu’on avance, lorsque l’on fuit on ne fait que tourner en rond!

And so it goes. Full circle? Not quite. But the past is not so far that I can’t see it’s ugly face. As I tread along, it will remain visible, but only as a reminder that I will not hang around his lot anymore.

there was a time when we could just tuck them away. the pictures.
forget about them, their colors, their scent, their laughs.
just stick them in plastic pages.
never look at them again.
easy to forget.

lies! memories are as vivid as a damp print.

I don’t want to click, don’t want to like anymore. I don’t want to play, to pretend, to go through, to please, to ease. to laugh when it’s appropriate, shut up when it’s expected.

today I’ll do it. that’s what I always say, today. and then I forget why.

I wanted more meaning, more structure
a form of some kind to help me heal
I was thinking, the pyramid kind
that always draws the eye
but I’m not that kind
of architect

I latch onto the good. to a point where everything else becomes invisible.

because I will never stop believing there is good in each of you.

Words we see, we read, and do not think twice about. Saved. The changes were saved.

Saved implies assimilated, accepted, approved of. Thought about. Considered and agreed upon. Saved. I can safely close this, as it is saved.

There are no more words worth saving.

Safely close this. Move on.

So, I was thinking, one of these days, yes. Then one of these days came and still nothing. I’m sitting here, sleep deprived, semi-drunk, heartbroken, lonely and desperately mute with the loudest loudest loudest fucking party in my head and I am NOT invited.

call the cops

If you didn’t care, what happened to me, and I didn’t care, for you, we would zigzag our way through the boredom and pain. Occasionally glancing up through the rain.

we. that. word. we. will be the end of me.

you know when the end comes, all they will say is, all she wanted was to be loved. by any means necessary. I was thinking that. no way, no fucking way. but all I can do is get angry at myself again and again. and it’s the easiest thing in the world.

I drive men mad. away. and so I was thinking that we business is just an excuse to get me some free abuse. once I wrote I wrote forty thousand words to explain why and how and yes it hurts but it’s ok because that’s all I deserve that’s all I’m good for. I’ll deny myself my bed, food, water, but do anything. any. thing. for we. and don’t you understand that that’s what you need too? can’t you see that. I’m just mad. insane. I was thinking I can’t say that so I’ll write it but. it’s all the same. my mind is gone along with the words.

all changes saved

iwasthinking
iwas
I think I was somewhere
went

I was going places I had dreams I had no we but a strong I and then I. went mad. that’s where. occasionally glancing up through the rain.

la réalité

ne m’oublie pas

alors résolument

je reste

sans toi.