America, Day 13

I foresee a long day of blogging and working on my site ahead. Also I may actually finishing watching Gundam Unicorn, especially as BQ has a nice TV on which to watch it.
No car in the US can be quite a downer. There’s a bike but it’s not yet travel-ready. Tomorrow perhaps.

And for the first time in 10 days no one’s around and I can sing to my heart’s content! Yay!

May just take a walk around the neighbourhood and call old friends, just for the heck of it. In fact I think I will.

Getting more in touch with the enormity of what actually happened to me. The thing about mental illness is that you can’t see it on the outside. I took the equivalent of multiple shotgun blasts to the chest over the years but if I actually look at my own body…I don’t see any bleeding wounds. They’re all on the inside. Or at least, they were.
The comparison to people that I’ve done all my life…it’s so riduculous if I think about it now. Do you look at a war veteran without legs and think “oh my God, why hasn’t he gone to school or gotten a job?” No. But I did for many years, because my mother and society seemed to think that way. And the relentless comparison to my friends and people whom I knew…none of whom I know (personally at least) had more than a hundred nervous breakdowns.

It’s easy to hate, far harder to love. But love we must, for it is the surest way to cleanse evil that I know. And I’ve walked the path of thorns for so long that what used to score my flesh now simply bounces off. There is still further to walk on this flower-strewn path of life.

What comes next? I still don’t know, but I know a hell lot more than 5 months ago.

Always makes me think of this song.

I think back to my younger self and his childish notions of how if I just moved back to the USA everything would Be Ok. But I think letting him out to simply imagine was the right course of action. As an adult there are so many other things that we don’t think of when we’re younger – taxes, healthcare, housing, the cost of living. Visas. Immigration permits. All that kind of stuff.

But he still cries to return, because he knew none of that when he was younger. I’ll let him, for as long as it takes.

Actually let myself laze around in bed for like 2 hours because well, it’s been a rollercoaster of a trip so far and I need some kind of rest. I don’t want to go home and have to take a holiday from my holiday.

Another contrast – the older people on my trip all ate really healthily and had their houses arranged neatly and in order, whereas the younger ones…not so much. Comes with being a programmer in the Valley I guess.

Back to psychoanalysis for a bit. Guess we can’t really escape for it after all huh?

Realized that much of the mental pain and anguish I experience isn’t really mine and may instead have been displaced from my mother. My sister talks about how she experiences physical sensations that she has no record of ever having – I probably got the mental end of stick. Not pleasant but something that I can work through.
Went for a walk around the neighbourhood. It’s interesting. Seems like a very nice place to live. Took pictures!

Worked throughout the afternoon despite technically being on vacation. 相変わらず仕事熱心だな、俺。 (Guess I’m as keen on work as always.) Sigh. Perhaps it’s my inner Asian talking.

Watched lots of anime at night with BQ and C as expected. I still can’t get completely used to new anime. Probably due to watching way too much old anime when I was younger. Ah whatever, it’s all good.

Had a really good conversation with my old friend. It’s good to find people whom you can share almost everything with. No matter what pain I’ve had in my life (and I’ve had considerable) I have always been blessed with many, many close friends, and for that I am grateful. To myself as well as to others.

He commented that it seemed like our past selves were other people entirely, and I think that’s only as it should be. There is so much that I clung to unconsciously and that held me back even as I wanted to go forwards.

Who was that person before?
So angry and hateful
lashing out not only
at the world around him
but at himself.

Were his chains truly his
or fashioned from the pain of others?
it doesn’t matter now
everything is left go of
one by one
until nothing remains and we can
start anew.

It is like waking up from a long sleep
Or rather a nightmare
to see that the world has changed in some ways
much more than I thought
but in others so much less.

I had better not overwork myself. Going to meet my cousin tomorrow, should be interesting! I’ve never seen her younger son before.

Wrote a bit more and went to sleep,