Things About You

There is this thing called the Johari Window. I am both ashamed and proud to say that the Johari Window is one of the very few things I remember clearly from college. It was created in 1955 by two social scientists as a way to explain interpersonal interactions to the people in them.

The Johari Window, like most windows, has four panes. They have fancyish names for the panes, but this is my breakdown:

Panel #1 - Things you know about yourself that everyone else knows, too.
Panel #2 - Things that you know about yourself that no one else knows.
Panel #3 - Things about you that you don't know about yourself, but that everyone else knows.
Panel #4 - Things about you that no one knows - not you, not anyone else.

Your Johari window evolves over time and depending on the person you are facing. It's my personal opinion that we have a Johari window for every person in our lives, from the most insignificant on up.

I love this construct. I adore it, and I think about it all the time. All of our mysteries laid out in four quadrants - it seems not only manageable but...rational. This is what we come down to. You have four boxes. The things in them - some of it is up to you, some of it you were born with, and most of it was inflicted on you like a wound. But there it is!

It's that fourth pane, though, that plagues me. Things about me that no one knows. I am sorrowful for these things.

I Crack Myself Up

So I was going through some very old e-mails today and I found one that I sent to my (now) ex-husband:


Hey handsome. I just wanted to let you know that I am here in Madrid
safely. It is a huge, busy city full of grafiti. Pretty awesome. I
am a little intimidated, but trying to mask it. I just paid 7 dollars
for a cup of coffee, too. Tried not to freak. Failed. Also had to
have Coca Light out of mini bar, as I was on the brink of death. Cold/
sinus infection/SARS almost gone. Camel toe count: 1, but a very
solid 1. Will keep track for you. Love you and miss you desperately
already.


Love,

A. Bug


Seriously, how funny am I? I am so funny I can barely stand it. It is worth nothing that in all the e-mails we exchanged while I was in Europe, he never said "love" once. That should bother me, right, but mostly I am just smiling.

The Heavy Dream

When I was a little girl, I had this dream I called the Heavy Dream. It came a lot, mostly in the middle of the night. I could hear it crawl in my room - a very crackly sound - and my heart would start to beat really, really fast. Then I would feel the heavy dream climb on top of me and it was this enormous invisible weigh that I (for some reason) associated with Disney films. Mostly Cinderella and Snow White. What I felt was extreme panic, but I guess I probably didn't have the word for that then. I was frantic and scared. And pinned. The Heavy Dream was exhausting and I dreaded it.

It wasn't until I started seeing a therapist that I realized the Heavy Dream was actually a panic attack and that I had been having them since..well, since I was a self-aware being. I still get them every once in a while. Sometimes at night, when the sound of my hair on my pillow makes me want to shave my goddamn head and burn down the entire building and maybe all the buildings. Sometimes, during the day at my desk, when music I love makes me feel disjointed and cracked out and things will never, ever be quiet again ever in the history of ever.

I am getting better at avoiding them. Good sleep, not too much caffeine, whole foods, taking those crazy pills on time. Even though I am a grown up and I know better, the Heavy Dream still scares me. I still dread it.

Against My Better Judgment

I am putting this out in the Universe. I like you. I am smitten. I love talking to you, and I want to bake for you and smell your shoulders. And it's totally freaking me out.

Just Leave What's Left

Twenty eight years ago, I was born in the hallway of a hospital. I've been on the run ever since.

Even though I'm a little too old for this, I ask my parents to describe the day I was born every year. It was cold and dark, and they had to drive from Scotville to Albion because I came early. I know my Dad stopped on the way for smokes and that I was born in the hallway while he was putting on scrubs. I couldn't wait. They didn't tell me until I was 18 that he wasn't there to see me born, but I don't think it's such of a much. I spent my first night out of the hospital in a hotel room, and I slept in a drawer.

I parse over this story and try to find some lasting clues about my life. I so urgently came into this world. That has to mean something, right? Did I know then what I was supposed to do or be, and I forgot?

The last two years have been the hardest of my life, even harder than my deranged childhood. I have felt lonely and pierced. Today, I still feel like I walk on the edges of real life, but I am getting closer and closer to something...genuine.

Can't Stand Being Home

And I can't stand being gone.

Lately, all I want to do is sit alone in my filthy apartment and listen to the quiet. I feel kind of hemmed in by the cold and my own accumulating inertia. I think I am my best when I am alone, but I know that's not true. I am best when I am around people I love and that love can reflect all around the room. This secret side of me is not working. I feel torn between the part of me that believes hard work is the measure of life and the part of me that just wants more. More money, more time, nicer towels. But my heart is still joyful and I am still pretty fucking stoked to be alive.

So

Who wants to go halfsies on a farm with me? I'm thinking chickens, tomatoes, whatever. It all depends on the soil and the location. I just don't think I can keep the pace with a life where I cry in the bathroom at work and have no connection to anything with roots.

I grew up in the dirt. I didn't have jam from the store until I was in middle school. I've planted corn, weeded it, and run through the resulting field with my sisters. People act like living off the land is this great new thing, and I'm like, hello. That's called being poor. Did it. Done it.

And that's what I want, again. Not necessarily to be poor, although I am kind of poor in the money way. I just want to be far away from the world and live in the dirt and be so tired at the end of the night. I don't understand the world. If my divorce has taught me anything, it's that. I'm different. Maybe it's my parents fault, and their love of corporal punishment. Maybe it's my shitty neurons or the offbeat of my heart. But I don't get most people and it hurts. I just want to be alone with the people I love on a farm, where we can grow our destiny.