Jumping In The Puddles Of Life.
I'm overwhelmed so easily sometimes. Simply,... and by the tiniest things. Like the two terribly old men who just lumbered past my window together, with their little trolleys pulled behind them. Out in the rain and the cold, chatting away.
They could be right arseholes...
But they have the benefit of my doubt, of my strangers perspective into their moment. Of the way I look at anyone elderly as though I were looking at my Grandmother.
Once I was stood at a bus top at five in the morning in Camden. There were few other people , one was an old women. Even just the fact she was alone at a bus top in the winter darkness of 5am...had me a touch teary...Already thinking she should be cosy at home, listening to Radio 4, like my Gran probably was.
But then, she threw up. And my heart jumped up into my throat - I was stood the furthest away from her. No one else did anything. Didn't even ask if she was okay. I could feel rage building in my stomach,...I bought water in the off licence by the bus top. All the while thinking she could be someone's family, or that what if she wasn't? what if she was all alone and had no one? She wasn't a crackhead...She was a well dressed old lady, in her pleated skirt and woollen coat. And she was sick and shaking at some bus top. I opened the bottle of water and passed it to her shaky hand, it was cold and clammy - We stood for a moment in silence. And then I went to work. I was late. And told no one what had happened. I didn't want to use it as my excuse. And I didn't want anyone to think I was telling them so that they would think I was some kind of fucking saint. I didn't want people to think I was lying either. Thinking that she didn't exist. So I kept her safe in my head. A little thing to remind me sometimes that I'm not such a terrible human being. That whatever the world may be like, I do things with love. I'm one of the good ones. I'm incapable of being mean. It doesn't really sink in.
Sometimes, I'm awfully unkind to myself. Always thinking - I should be better. I should be more.
I believe myself to be weak because I cannot shut the world out. I used to wonder as a teenager how I could survive with this over zealousness of empathy. I wanted to feel nothing. And then I did, on anti-depressants-and it was awful. I search every one of my cells, looking for the weak spot. the part that needs fixing. So resolved against drugs, against alcohol. Not wanting to wash it all away occasionally, and a tiny bit afraid of my capacity for destruction-I wanted to keep that port hole firmly closed in case it invited the devil.
A way to exist so that watching the news, or reading a paper...or just walking down the street doesn't break my heart. Because humanity can be so very desperately, frustratingly...disappointing. We talk of monsters- when we are the only monsters. I've never been shocked by the human potential for being shits.
Sometimes, I watch people...in the street, on the underground, in a bus...Picture their insides.Think of their blood moving through them. Their hearts beating. Just people. We're all the same. We want to think we are different. But we are not.
I've always been a little mesmerised by the way that faces can look so entirely different from a first glance the longer you stare at them. Even people you know well...you stare at their face long enough and they could be a stranger. You start to see the sum of their parts. Like details in a painting. Humans- so filled with shit but so fucking fascinating. All these layers that we have. It amuses the hell out of me.
My brother said to me when I was 15 or 16 "you need to have lower expectations of people, no one will ever live up to yours " . I wanted to learn to be that way. I was accepting of everyone, but walled everyone out. I took some book out of the library ,..." The Highly-Sensitive Person " or something like that. I remember thinking "I'm fucked" this thing was medically recognised. it had terminology and everything. It wasn't exactly a bad thing to be. But I couldn't see the good in it either.
Apparently about a fifth of the population has it. It's a trait brought about by actual biological difference deeply routed in the nervous system. Meaning it cannot be purged. It's intrinsic.
Meaning, you have to stop trying to weed it out of yourself.
I've been through so many stages from repression to isolation in trying to find a way to deal with it. Searching out other people who it seems have this same dirty secret lurking within them.
It's called a "gift"...That's fucking hard for my immensely cynical sarcastic self to take.
But I guess it is, when I can gain such joy from stepping in puddles and looking at glittery frost as though it were diamonds. It takes so little to make me happy.
It's the tiniest most subtle details that keep my stupid little heart warm.
They could be right arseholes...
But they have the benefit of my doubt, of my strangers perspective into their moment. Of the way I look at anyone elderly as though I were looking at my Grandmother.
Once I was stood at a bus top at five in the morning in Camden. There were few other people , one was an old women. Even just the fact she was alone at a bus top in the winter darkness of 5am...had me a touch teary...Already thinking she should be cosy at home, listening to Radio 4, like my Gran probably was.
But then, she threw up. And my heart jumped up into my throat - I was stood the furthest away from her. No one else did anything. Didn't even ask if she was okay. I could feel rage building in my stomach,...I bought water in the off licence by the bus top. All the while thinking she could be someone's family, or that what if she wasn't? what if she was all alone and had no one? She wasn't a crackhead...She was a well dressed old lady, in her pleated skirt and woollen coat. And she was sick and shaking at some bus top. I opened the bottle of water and passed it to her shaky hand, it was cold and clammy - We stood for a moment in silence. And then I went to work. I was late. And told no one what had happened. I didn't want to use it as my excuse. And I didn't want anyone to think I was telling them so that they would think I was some kind of fucking saint. I didn't want people to think I was lying either. Thinking that she didn't exist. So I kept her safe in my head. A little thing to remind me sometimes that I'm not such a terrible human being. That whatever the world may be like, I do things with love. I'm one of the good ones. I'm incapable of being mean. It doesn't really sink in.
Sometimes, I'm awfully unkind to myself. Always thinking - I should be better. I should be more.
I believe myself to be weak because I cannot shut the world out. I used to wonder as a teenager how I could survive with this over zealousness of empathy. I wanted to feel nothing. And then I did, on anti-depressants-and it was awful. I search every one of my cells, looking for the weak spot. the part that needs fixing. So resolved against drugs, against alcohol. Not wanting to wash it all away occasionally, and a tiny bit afraid of my capacity for destruction-I wanted to keep that port hole firmly closed in case it invited the devil.
A way to exist so that watching the news, or reading a paper...or just walking down the street doesn't break my heart. Because humanity can be so very desperately, frustratingly...disappointing. We talk of monsters- when we are the only monsters. I've never been shocked by the human potential for being shits.
Sometimes, I watch people...in the street, on the underground, in a bus...Picture their insides.Think of their blood moving through them. Their hearts beating. Just people. We're all the same. We want to think we are different. But we are not.
I've always been a little mesmerised by the way that faces can look so entirely different from a first glance the longer you stare at them. Even people you know well...you stare at their face long enough and they could be a stranger. You start to see the sum of their parts. Like details in a painting. Humans- so filled with shit but so fucking fascinating. All these layers that we have. It amuses the hell out of me.
My brother said to me when I was 15 or 16 "you need to have lower expectations of people, no one will ever live up to yours " . I wanted to learn to be that way. I was accepting of everyone, but walled everyone out. I took some book out of the library ,..." The Highly-Sensitive Person " or something like that. I remember thinking "I'm fucked" this thing was medically recognised. it had terminology and everything. It wasn't exactly a bad thing to be. But I couldn't see the good in it either.
Apparently about a fifth of the population has it. It's a trait brought about by actual biological difference deeply routed in the nervous system. Meaning it cannot be purged. It's intrinsic.
Meaning, you have to stop trying to weed it out of yourself.
I've been through so many stages from repression to isolation in trying to find a way to deal with it. Searching out other people who it seems have this same dirty secret lurking within them.
It's called a "gift"...That's fucking hard for my immensely cynical sarcastic self to take.
But I guess it is, when I can gain such joy from stepping in puddles and looking at glittery frost as though it were diamonds. It takes so little to make me happy.
It's the tiniest most subtle details that keep my stupid little heart warm.
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