I believe wholeheartedly in the saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”. The first time I heard it I was a kid and I remember thinking, ewww, yuck! I would never want those people anywhere near me. Why would you ever want the people you like the least, the ones you don’t trust, those who have hurt you closer to you than your friends? But I get it now. You keep them in close so you can control them. It’s a great strategy, and it works.
It gets tricky, though, because you have to use your powers for good. If you’re going to gather your enemies up into the fold and hold them close, you can’t fuck them over later. Continue reading
I knew I’d blown the interview as soon as I’d said it. My prospective employer asked about my biggest challenges, to which I replied that a therapist once told me my personality at work was like wild horses that needed to be harnessed and brought into line together. I watched as the interviewer blanched and slightly recoiled from me across the table.
Continued from Tuesday…
The way I knew to do relationships was to find the least available, most aloof, detached, disinterested person in the room and fling myself at them, a full-court press. I dazzled them with my attention, affection, caring and consideration. The more they ignored me, the more I wanted them. I would make myself into someone they wanted, prove to them my worthiness. I would do this by showing great interest in their experience, asking about them and listening intently, remembering details. I would do this by showering them with thoughtful little notes and gifts. I would do this by making myself completely available to them, their whims and fancies. I would do this by giving them anything I perceived them as wanting, and asking for nothing in return. The lengths that I would go to…just to prove I was worth loving. It was extremely dysfunctional, it didn’t work, and I got hurt a lot. I scared people off with my relentless pursuing, or attracted the wrong people. I went along this way for nearly the first three decades of my life before I realized I was going to need to make some major interpersonal changes if I was going to have the kind of life I wanted. This was the way I attracted Borderlines to me.
I spent the better part of last week in New York City, a very special place I consider my spiritual home. About five years ago I made a decision I wanted to try to get there annually, until I can find a way to spend a season there (life goals). Years before that, I went there the first time as a wide-eyed 24 year-old and it grabbed a hold of me, frozen early-March weather notwithstanding. My first awareness of New York came straight from the Daryl Hannah/Tom Hanks Little Mermaid-inspired (the HCA fairytale, not Disney) romance Splash, set in early-80’s Manhattan. And of course the film where The Muppets take it.
I visited Carlsbad Caverns over an August weekend, and there’s nothing like exploring our National Parks system for instilling a sense of wonder, history and gratitude. Just when I think we’ve destroyed all of nature, that we’ve polluted the entire world, slashed and burned and dumped and drilled the environment into oblivion, I get outside and see we haven’t quite. Not quite yet. Which makes me realize that for my strong identification as an urbanite–Manhattan being my spiritual home, the place I feel most alive and centered–I need to sense the natural world. I crave the astonishing beauty of 
Boredom is my greatest foe, sneaking up and overpowering me, trapping me, pinning me down. Once it has a hold on me, it’s nearly impossible to shake loose, inertia setting in. What do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do? I’m bored. If I don’t get up, get out and do something, I won’t. And if I stay trapped too long, it’s only a matter of time before I slide down that slippery slope to depression, ass first. And once I’m down there, forget it. Anhedonia rules the day, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to get interested again. So I have to stay on guard. 
candid uprising 