mind habit

 I have been watching Hannibal. Still on season one. It's funny how our society is obsessed with murder, serial killers, violence, and war. We do a good job of packaging it as fantasy, but there is some underlying reality that isn't discussed as reality. It's funny how the mind works to deceive itself. 

I was rereading old blog entries from when I first started this ting. Almost a little over 18 years ago.

I remember the situations, and yet don't. I have memories of memories. The story has changed, and I am not sure if I was covering up the reality for the audience, or if I have been deceiving myself since. The mind is funny that way. My mind has been telling the same stories for so long, that I am not sure if I am capable of telling another. Thats the funniest part. I know that it is possible. I know that I could withdraw some cash tomorrow and start a new life elsewhere. I know that I could pick up the phone and call someone and end my loneliness for a time. I know that I could write my book and get lost in that fantasy. I know I could do my case notes tonight. I could go out and make a snow angel.  I could do a million things tonight, including kill myself or someone else. All of these possibilities, but my mind has been saying the same story for so long that I won't. I will sit here. I will probably go to sleep in an hour or two. I'll wake up tomorrow and tell the same story, not because I can't tell another, but just out of habit. 

It's difficult because I think about the times when I have done things that were "out of character." And how they didn't end up better... not that they were so wrong, but they felt like I meandered in the wrong direction. Thats what it feels like... and yet, because I have gotten so good at telling myself this same old story, I am bored with it. I am lonely. I am hopeless. 

When I was in Baños in Ecuador, a guy tried to get me to bungee jump off a bridge. A bunch of people were doing it, but it wasn't my story. So I didn't do it. I went for a long bike ride with the dude, which was also partially out of character, and I ended up ruining my glasses. I couldn't see for several days and had to leave Banos early because of it. I didn't bring Jesse home for three reasons, A) it was out of character, I liked her boldness, but it didn't fit with the me that I am here, B) we were headed in different directions, C) I felt like she didn't know how to care for me...  but reading old messages, I am shocked at how much love was there, even after we broke up. We might have been codependent, but she says Hi still. M felt like me indulging in a side journey that I hoped desperately would become my new path. It was what I wanted my life to be like... minus the whole, this woman is incredibly emotionally immature and I can't trust her thing. It was out of character for me to have such strong gut reactions that it wasn't safe, and to not listen. In some ways I felt like I was drinking poison from the very first, but I couldn't stop myself. Convinced myself that maybe I'd been wrong the whole time, and poison was the right way of being. 

Anyway... the mind is telling me that I have spent three days alone, and will spend the next three alone as well. At any moment this could change if I wanted it to. But my mind is telling me that there isn't any other path and that when I carve my own I simply get off track.  

It's so weird... its almost like my mind is telling me that things can be good, can be perfect as long as I don't stray... but it leaves me so isolated that my "perfect" isn't worth the price. 

It's climbing up the mountain alone. You get a great view and think of all the people you wish were with you. And then climb down alone. Is that a metaphor for a life well lived? Why does my mind make this story?

I guess I'll go back to Hannibal and think about serial killers all night.