Notes on a Scandal: I – Last Night's Regret

Thomas

He woke up to the lingering smell of last night's cologne on his pillow.

He made an attempt to turn his head away from the strong scent stained beside him, catching instead the sharp morning light streaming from the room's sole window.

The screaming pain coming from the back of his skull as his eyes burned inside their sockets forced him to stop, forced him to assume his previous position with a defeated sigh.

Averting his gaze from the sunlight, he turned his attention to the still mass snoring softly beneath the blanket beside him.

Thinking it was easier on the eyes than the first glimpses of sunlight, he had yet to discover the dangers behind this vision- the meaning of it and the repercussions that will follow.

For now, he only took silent inventory of what he was seeing beside him at face value.

Shaggy dark hair spilled onto the pillow next to his.

A forearm draped over the eyes of an unidentifiable face.

A small, slightly upturned nose rested above a slackened mouth, outlined by a thin set of lips, from where the source of the soft wheezing came.

The neck beneath the angular jaw lead to a flat, bare chest, rising and falling with every breath, sparsely decorated with hair in the center that trailed down beyond the boundary of the covers.

It was an unfamiliar scene, finding a body next to him in his bed.

At least, it had been a while since he last found himself in this predicament.

Two years, three months, and nine days since, to be exact.

Not since the day Robert decided to effectively end their seven-year partnership by sleeping with somebody else.

Even since then, he remained faithful—to what, he didn't know now that everything he had believed in had dissolved in wake of his lover's departure.

He dutifully went to bed alone every single night since then, never once bothering to fill the empty void beside him even when the nights grew long and the bed loomed lonely after a hard day's work.

Until now.

He closed his eyes, willing himself to remember the previous series of events that transpired to this moment but not being able to see past the drunken haze of last night, couldn't recall anything beyond opening his eyes to the morning's harsh light and the cologne on his pillow.

It wasn't until the body of the man—no, a young man—beside him stirred, removed his arm away from his face and blinking his sleepy eyes back at him, did the entire night come back to him.

"Julian," he whispered in a gasp, shocked by the sight of the familiar face staring back at him.

Sleepily, Julian smiled back at him and touched his face.

"Good morning, Teach."

Looking for Trouble

Trouble is his only friend and he's back again.
Makes his body older than it really is.
He says it's high time he went away; no one's got much to say in this town.
Trouble is the only way is down.
Down, down.

As strong as you were, tender you'll go.
I'm watching you breathing for the last time.
A song for your heart, but when it is quiet,
I know what it means and I'll carry you home.
I'll carry you home.

If he had wings he would fly away, and another day God will give him some.
Trouble is the only way is down.
Down, down.

As strong as you were, tender you'll go.
I'm watching you breathing for the last time.
A song for your heart, but when it is quiet,
I know what it means and I'll carry you home.
I'll carry you home.

And they were all born pretty in New York City tonight.
And someone's little girl was taken from the world tonight, under the Stars and Stripes.

As strong as you were, tender you go.
I'm watching you breathing for the last time.
A song for your heart, but when it is quiet,
I know what it means and I'll carry you home.

I'll carry you home.

- - -

Expectations are gone, and I don't know who I am anymore.

From the moment I sent the text, I knew what would happen.

Knew what kind of unfulfilled emptiness I was doomed to repeat yet again.

But I still pursued.

This casual business has gotten me nowhere before, and it's getting me nowhere now.

I can only think of two things:

1) Old habits die hard, and
2) Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Problem is I can remember my past; I just choose to ignore it.

Stingaree, 10-0122-23

  
Good times.

Signs

Found this while cleaning out the microchip in my phone:

I saw this at the Starbucks when I went to do some soul-searching.

It was the headline that caught my eye.

Am I still looking for a sign?

You Can't Handle The Truth*

"It's love that we need, Mike understood: sex is just what we do to get it."

Preaching to the choir, Mr. Scott.

I'm just envious of those who make it possible to base a relationship on sex first, romance later.


* Scott, Kevin. The Boys in the Brownstone. New York: The Hawthorne Press, Inc., 2005. Print.

Inertia

You think you're numb.

You can't feel a thing, aren't phased by any glaring sort of emotion, aren't coerced into action due to an overpowering gut instinct too great to comprehend.

You think you've lost your passion, unstirred by any sort of feeling, unmoved by a lack of empathy or compassion in what surrounds you.

You move through your days listless and unexpectant, not hoping for much but just for enough to get by to the next day.

And you're okay with this.

You've settled for this life of mundane content, knowing all the while you are capable of taking on so much more than you're given, as evidenced by the acute, inscrutable pang of emptiness that has burrowed deep inside you that you've managed to ignore.

The situation you've found yourself is not ideal by any means, but for you, for now, it's fine.

Simply… fine.

And then something comes along to knock you off that path of inertia you've been traveling on for God knows how long.

Something so huge, something so profound in its meaning has reached out from the blur that is your life and shakes up your world, shows you that the dormant emotions you've had within you were just idling, waiting for something to stir them up.

What's less surprising is where that catalyst is coming from.

a hand from the past reaches out to shake up my future.

I couldn't have said it better myself (which I did, November 21, 2008).

Same situation.

Same catalyst.

New year.

River Flows In You

 FASHION VALLEY, parking lot B

I'm amused by bodies of water being in places they shouldn't be.

Shiver

Natalie Imbruglia - Shiver

Awesome.

Seaport, After Dark (10-0115)

 

Règle de Reine

"On a high throne, looking into a clouded sky, sits a queen with a raised sword in her left hand. This suggests, 'Let those approach who dare!'

Her crown and the base of her throne are decorated with the butterflies of the soul, and just under the arm of the throne we find a sylph, the elemental of the air. The queen's face is chastened through suffering.

Choose this card for a brown-haired, brown-eyed woman.

Divinatory Meaning: A subtle, keen, and quick-witted woman who may represent a widow or one who is unable to bear children. Perhaps she is mourning for those she loves who are far away from her.

Reversed: Unreliability. Narrow-mindedness. Gossip. Deceit. Malice. A woman of artifice and prudery."*

- - -

"The Queen of Swords indicates a woman who is blessed (or cursed) with sharp perception, and highly honed intuition. She is acutely analytical, with a razor-sharp ability to get to the heart of a situation, seeing exactly what is, rather than what others would wish her to see.

She is a private woman, unwilling to let people too close to her until she is satisfied she thoroughly understands their motivations. But once won as a friend, she is unfailingly loyal, honest and supportive.

She's usually very intelligent, with a dry sense of humour. Her penetrating insight will often reveal aspects of themselves to others that they had previously been unable to grasp - thus she is a capable therapist, teacher or leader.

The woman represented by this card will be experienced in the flow of life, understanding a great deal about both the great triumphs, and the deepest failings of the race. Her clarity and measured expression will be of great value at times of confusion and sadness.

Sometimes in a reading, this card will turn up to indicate a woman in a particular phase of her life, where she temporarily becomes a Sword as a result of what is happening to her. In that case the card is not quite so positively defined, for it can indicate a woman left alone, and perhaps embittered. She may be a widow, or a woman passing through the aftermath of divorce.

In this case we often see the more negative aspects of the Queen - coldness, judgmentalism, criticism. At these times there is a certain sourness about her, with cynicism and sharpness making themselves felt.

It should be said that these qualities are inherent to the woman who is a Queen of Swords by nature too - if the woman concerned has not evolved sufficiently you will often find that the card represents a person who is hard and cold toward others."**

- - -

My guards are rising.

I can feel them going up, even though I know I'm desperate for the opposite.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

I want to say, Come in, come in. You're welcome here.

But the barbed wire I surround the gates with are less beckoning than my whole-hearted appeal.

You're welcome inside, as long as you don't hurt my pride.

And I wonder why the signals are always crossed.

- - -

I know I am meant to be happy.

I just haven't found anyone yet to bring me that happiness.

* Gray, Eden. A Complete Guide to the Tarot. New York: Bantam, 1972. Print.
** (source)

0104-b: Identity Crisis/Great Expectations

Last night's  journal entry made it clear to me that I really did not know myself very well, despite what I firmly believed.

I still look to others to tell me who I am, to give me a definition of myself so I know what the expectations around my neck are.

I often measure myself up to other people who share my birthday, holding myself accountable for insurmountable achievements that or on par with those of Yves Saint Laurent, Frances Scott Key, Herman Mellville, William Clark, Dom DeLuise.

Doing this only makes me feel even more at a loss at discovering my true self.

I've yet to accomplish any great feats my birth date brothers have accomplished before me, leaving me feeling only more like a failure, like I'm not meeting the maximum capacity of the potential bestowed upon me right at birth.

Instead of becoming obsessed with this realization, I decided to catalogue what I do know about myself.

So while in bed, I took out a sheet of paper and began jotting things down.

The following is what resulted.

WHO THE FUCK AM I??
a map of Jun Belisario

Granted, I couldn't get every last piece of who I am fitted into the 8.5" x 11" borders, but the general ideas of my persona are there.

Hopefully with this better knowledge of myself, I can put these qualities to good use and do something great with them, because it's about time I make my own great achievements to which other people can measure themselves up.

0104-a: Snake Skin

I went to Starbucks today to see if I could make sense out of the uncertain chaos going on in my life.

After yet another failed attempt for human company, I tidied up my room a bit (moved a pile of clothes from one spot and moved it to another) to the old, familiar, comforting sounds of Death Cab for Cutie's  "Transatlanticism."

After accomplishing that task, I crumpled onto the floor, my back against my sliding closet doors, as I tried to make sense of what was going on with my life as the mellow, poignant tunes of Death Cab continued to play.

Finally after a long moment of self-pity I decided, I don't need anyone to escort me through my life, and got up to head to the neighborhood Starbucks on my own.

Armed with cigarettes, my Gold card, one of my trusty journals, and two pens (hey, you never know), I grabbed my usual venti soy green tea latte at 140° and a table outside and got to writing to sort out the heavy cloud of thoughts I had floating in my head.

At a point where it felt like my life had fallen off the tracks, I originally wanted to write about what I was going to do to help myself get back in order.

But knowing the way life goes on (especially my own), I ended up writing about something else, touching on something much deeper that was going on in my psyche.

The following is the journal entry that transpired from this event.

0104 — 0550PM

I don't know what to do with my life.

A common theme, at least I'm sure it's something with which the pages of this journal is not unfamiliar.

I've been here before. This chaotic feeling of being all out at sea is not foreign to me whatsoever.

Regardless, I am still unnerved by this overpowering notion that the ground I've put myself on is still rocky, still unstable — ready to crumble from the immense weight of uncertainty I carry, ready to allow the earth to swallow me whole with no trace of me left for others to find.

Yes, I've been in this same situation before.

These raw feelings of being vulnerable and bare I still find uncomfortable, no matter how many times I've already come face-to-face with them.

It feels as if I'm shedding an old layer of skin to make room for a new one.

It is within this awkward, transitory process do I find myself naked and vulnerable. While having outgrown another layer of my life, I feel I am not ready to take on a new one.

I would very much like to hold on to that old layer of skin because it is there that I find secure protection.

I've earned that layer of skin I'm now trying to shed.

I've earned its experience, earned its knowledge and wisdom.

Earned everything that came with the life I lead while wearing it.

Everything I absorbed from life while living in that skin is what made it tough. The knowledge, the familiarity, the undoubted certainty -- everything that came with the passage of time -- made that skin my protector, my shell.

Those experiences helped to shape me, gave me an identity to show the world around me.

Told me who I was, where I stood.

My strengths. My flaws.

The overall quality of my existence so I knew how I measured up to those by whom I was surrounded.

Now that the powers that be have decided that it's time for me to shed that skin I had grown into, grown comfortable with after all this time, not only am I afraid of feeling raw and vulnerable once more, but also I wonder: who am I going to be once I lose that piece of me?

Despite my immense desire to understand the unknown (especially if it comes with the advantage of personal growth), I'm frightened by the possibility that after all these years of self-introspection and psychoanalyzation, I still don't understand myself at all.

I still look to outside sources to figure out who I am.

I guess in my desire to be a part of this world, I seek out ways to define myself in their terms.

A gay male.

A Leo.

A Rabbit.

A schizoid with minor psychopathic tendencies.

These are definitions made by other people that I assign to myself, believing in the knowledge of others as a means to understand myself instead of going straight to the source.

Because the truth of the matter is: I don't even know myself.

But then again, does anyone know their selves at such an intense and intimate level similar to what I am in pursuit of with myself?

It's very rare, if not impossible, to come in contact with an individual who knows everything about them self whole-heartedly.

For one, not many out there are willing to exchange their vision of the world around them for a closer look inside themselves.

They might already be too preoccupied with their outside world, too involved with the external to even consider the internal.

Or they may have already taken a peek at who they are inside, and either they were satisfied with the superficial snapshot of what they saw and moved on, or they saw something in themselves that frightened and discouraged them from the possibility of deeper exploration of their psyche.

Also, because of our resilient and pliable nature, it may very well be impossible for anyone to completely know their selves entirely.

As we move through life, we grow. We change. We are not always the same.

The beliefs, ideals, and understandings we hold on to one moment may not be the same ones to which we subscribe the next, or years after.

Because of the infinite possibilities bestowed upon us and the forward, linear fashion of our existence, our movement through life, we will never fully explore all the avenues within our grasp, therefore unable to fully understand the limits of our capacity, our actions, our thoughts, our essence — in short, the whole of our being.

Knowing this, however, has still yet to prevent me from attempting to wholly explore and understand myself with what I know and what I've been given.

I could have gone on and on, but unfortunately due to my body's design, my hand was already exhausted.

Also, I became distracted by the goings on of Facebook via my cell phone, so I decided there would be a good stopping point for that entry.

Going back to what I originally planned on writing about: my life being a jumbled mess of sorts.

Now that I'm officially no longer in school, it's as if my life is one big open road with just me behind the wheel.

While other people take solace in that and often doggedly pursue to be in a situation like that with their own lives, it has the opposite effect on me.

In all honesty, it scares the shit out of me.

I'm a person who craves structure.

Being the schizoid that I am, knowing all the predetermined rules and boundaries of a situation helps to make me feel safe and secure (then my minor psychopathic tendencies kick in so I can manipulate known variables toward my favor).

That's just the nature of my individual life's philosophy that I've willingly accepted.

I'm used to having life being dictated for me (under my conscious decisions to pick and choose my actions, of course), used to having schedules and tasks and preset expectations that I can meet and/or exceed.

This creates something of a bubble for me, if you will. An environment where I know what is expected, and thus, in control.

Take that bubble away and give me the freedom to choose where to go next in life with some dire and pressing points to consider, and I will inevitably choke.

I don't know where this fear of making my own decisions for myself stems from, because I know it's apparent that I have a mind of my own and am deftly capable of picking and choosing things of my interest or benefit.

However, when it comes to the huge, life-changing decisions, that's the part I always have the most trouble with.

I've experienced this before, after graduating from high school. Instead of going back to college immediately that fall, I decided to continue working my part-time retail job and wasting time.

Sure, I had a general idea of going to massage school, but I sat on that for two-and-a-half years before I eventually got myself around to enrolling.

Now that massage school is over, I'm back to square one. Back to trying to figure out what new direction to take my life on next.

I have yet another general plan, one I've already shared with countless others.

I've already publicly made known what my intentions were after finishing massage school, so not following through with them will only make me feel like a fraud, fill me with humiliation over the fact that I am unable to follow through with what I've set out to do in the first place.

I have the resources ready to get the ball rolling in that direction, so why I am hesitating?

Going back to what I've written earlier today about feeling like a snake shedding its skin. That's exactly what it is, where I am in life at the moment.

I'm being forced to outgrow my old skin (the safety and structure of going to massage school) to make room for a new one.

The only problem is that I don't know exactly what this new skin is meant for.

All I know is that I'm at a point in my life where things are fresh, the opportunities abound, and I'm still standing in the hallway, wondering which door to pick.

It's as if a burden has been lifted from my shoulders after completing school, only to have another, weightier load placed on my back— the weight of the world.

The question is not what am I now supposed to do with it, but rather, how can I get my fickle ass to make a decision?

That remains to be an unsolved mystery.




(another topic begs a response [just who the fuck am I?], but that's for another journal entry...)