I've got that feeling, that building intensity, when something's bothering me, something is floating right beneath the surface, and if I just let the words flow, it'll come spilling out.

I tried earlier today, which turned into a repetitive bundle of wreckage and left me frustrated, incomplete.

So here I am again. Nearing 11PM. Sitting in bed. Eating strawberries.

Mind flitting from topic to topic, waiting to land on that one mental flower that will open up for me.

Trying to figure out what I'm trying to remember.

The things we do.

Is that right?

Maybe... it's the things that we want to be, so we engage in actions to convince ourselves that we are the things we do. Something like that.

I see flaming wrecks of men, differing levels of functionality, differing levels of intelligence. There are those men that you know, you know instantly when you walk into their living space, that there is something completely damaged about them.

It isn't the mess or the disregard for presentation.

It's the hollow. It's the faceless furniture, the bare walls, the complete lack of personality imprinted on their space. It's that moment when you walk into a person's apartment and you ask them how long ago they moved in and they tell you they moved in four years ago.

But it looks like they moved in within the last two months.

I was at a man's apartment (surprise!) a few months ago. His bedroom was a mattress and box spring, a couple boxes of paper, and a stack of clothes. He had been living there for a few years.

Gears shift and click together.

He was a successful businessman, well dressed, presentable, very intelligent, MIT grad, if I remember right.

Walked in, looked around, and thought to myself, "Oh, god, you're irrevocably broken."

It's easy for me to identify damage, especially my own kind. It's easy for me to work with others, I love digging through them like a box of broken parts, trying to see how things used to fit together. It's not a mechanical draw, detached and oh so distant, but, I think, more like a child when they see their reflection for the first time. Entranced.

It also makes me want to wrap my body around theirs, breathe together, not just for them, but for me. To talk, to learn, to work together. To discover. To show that a sort of healing is possible. For the both of us. For all of us.

It's important to me.

Even more so is that need to be understood. People think so well of me without perceiving, or at least speaking of, the flaws, that I have trouble accepting their compliments. I feel like I've been idealized for things that I don't deserve, things that I don't do. It's isolating.

One of my dearest friends, who I spoke of several postings ago with his girlfriend who wanted to open their relationship so she could bang this other guy, only sees the positives in me. When I go to him for advice, because he's known me so long, because he's the one friend I have that watched my entire fall from grace and the slow rise back up... he can't provide me with an objective opinion. He's supportive to a fault.

I can tell him anything.

When my mind started breaking after the incidents that happened in December, when I could no longer cope with reality and the things I would have to do, I went to him. I called and told him I needed him, I needed to feel safe, I needed his arms around me and his hands working my tight muscles or I would break something with the tension. And he did everything I asked, letting me cry on him, curled in the fetal position on his lap, then massaged me for a couple of hours, letting me relax for the first time in weeks.

But I can't expect reality from him when he offers his opinion. He sees me too positively. To him, I'm flawless, or close enough that those tiny flaws don't matter.

So we're close... but not with that bond that I would so desire.

Which means when I find those I share values with, those I can relate to... it's a hopeful affirmation of not being alone with my specific torque. The major twists to my life that have caused/allowed me to become who I am, how I am.

That's very important for me.

Day after day I interact with people, constantly feeling outside of everything and everyone. A complete lack of belonging, a lack of community, nothing but myself and my family to call my own.

Family, family is wonderful. But it's also limiting.

I keep trying to find, keep hoping that one day I'll stumble upon a group of people like me. That the dream I had a few months ago might be true in some respects. I still remember walking up the dirt road on the hill, overrun with wild plants and midday sunshine. Just a few people were lazing about. Under trees, on porch swings, in the fields. Wild and damaged, bestial, driven and mistrusting, adapting and surviving... but coming together in one place where there is no outside judgement and social force towards normalcy, one place where they can relax in silent peace, accepted.

Home.