Thursday, October 04, 2007

Hold On, Hold On

Maybe it's the time of year -- the darkness starts to creep in earlier and earlier, the leaves start to fall. Maybe it's the end result of the Jewish holidays, and the taking stock of my life that inevitably ensues. But whatever it is, I always find myself getting a little more pensive than usual around this time.

It's somewhat worse than usual this year -- maybe because of my grandfather, or maybe because I'm not dwelling on the big-picture career issues that I had to distract myself with for the two prior years. But whatever the cause, I'm spending way too much time in my own headspace -- and even for me, it's mildly disturbing.

For the past couple of nights, right around bedtime, I've been listening to Neko Case. I'm pretty sure it's complicating the matter. I'm drifting off into sleep, trying to unravel my own muddled thoughts, listening to certain words:

The most tender place in my heart is for strangers
I know it's unkind but my own blood is much too dangerous


Lying in bed at night, I'm starting to think I understand this. At least to me, it's about the wall. You know the one -- the wall we all put up, protecting our hearts from others, protecting others from us, protecting ourselves from ourselves. It's easier to be kind when others have no expectations of you and you have no expectations of them.

In the end I was the mean girl
Or somebody's in-between girl


This is the line that kills me, the one I relate to. This makes the whole song make sense to me: The story of the girl taking stock of her poor romantic choices in, of all places, the middle of a wedding -- and resorting to self-medication as the way to get through it all.

In any event, the song just fits. It fits with the somewhat-serious conversation I had with my mother the other day, where somehow, in response to something, I explained to her that, on the inside, I'm still the same scared little kid I've always been, but that from the outside it's hard to see -- or for me to let anyone see it -- because of all of the layers and layers of scar tissue that have accumulated over the years. My mother sort-of chuckled, and asked me why I thought it was any different for her at 60.

The thing is, it's different for her -- she's adept at letting people in. I'm just not built that way.

The funny thing is that I don't want to be this way -- I want to change, to be open and to tell others how I feel, even with the possibility of rejection. But at this point, my behavior is reflexive, a habit. Or maybe it's more than that: It's who I am.


3 comments:

Joe Grossberg said...

"I'm just not built that way.

The funny thing is that I don't want to be this way -- I want to change, to be open and to tell others how I feel, even with the possibility of rejection. But at this point, my behavior is reflexive, a habit. Or maybe it's more than that: It's who I am."

IMHO, if you are convinced that you can't open up and change your behavior, it's a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I'm your age, and I've changed a lot over the past year and a half, and gotten out of a lot of ruts in which I'd previously thought I was stuck.

dara said...

Joe: You're actually younger than me, but that's not the point.

My mother is one of those people who feels things constantly, and is always telling you how she feels. My dad is more stoic. I am way more like him -- I say what I think, but not what I feel. I live in my head. I've been like that since, well, birth. It's hardwired into my DNA.

And it explains why I wrote this the better part of a week ago, and couldn't pull the trigger on posting it until now, until the feeling had passed.

DSL said...

I don't think it's that you're not built that way because you do want to open up more. Perhaps if you start slowly with smaller things, it'll get easier. Or just pick a few people to open up to more, at least initially.