Day 51: Reality
Isolation changes you. You become so used to just living in your head that when someone else is actually in your physical presence, you don't know how to acclimate to it. I'm starting to understand why prisoners dread going to the shu. You have to develop a new sense of reality when you're alone, otherwise you won't be able to survive. Ane the world you used to exist in seems to drift further and further away. My time alone has led me to dig deeper into myself. Dig deeper into my thoughts. Dig deeper into my faith. Dig deeper into the yearning of understanding of who God is—But I forgot how to be a host. Once upon a time, LeChateau de Chandler was once a raving with business.. I host, it’s what I was raised to do well. Something I used to define myself both literally and figuratively. At Lady of the House I was Head Host. That wasn't even my official title, but one day, Chef referred to me as such when introducing me to the well off white parents of her best friend and I took it and I claimed it for myself—Head Host. Maître d’.. HBIC…—?
And that's remain the safe is vain for me to navigate. The easiest way to find myself. How I could be of service, or how I can be accommodating. Acclimating to another's needs and taking the time to figure out what those needs are is a love language of mine. The study of someone is a love language of mine. To analyze and to spend mental space, performing delicate surgeries on thoughts, patterns and ideas of who they are as a person—circumnavigating their planet in your solar system. That's how I know I love you. Friendships and lovers all the same. So by the time my full thought analysis has been conducted, I've learned how to apply the right amount of pressure at the right time to induce the perfect emotion for that time. I call being the healing aid.. Just by seeing someone. Healing is a love language.
But what happens when all that the access to time spent analyzing and looking within other people to see what can be healed is removed. What happens when you have nothing left to do but return it all back to yourself. And when it's time to get back around other people, you’re not sure where to start. Not sure what to do. Feels like a fish out of water. But now things are different. I didn't have boundaries back then. None at all. What's mine was yours, whatever you need I got it, even if I don't have it for real. If I had it at all, you have it… all of those things sound nice… But when your private reality is that if you spent the last of your money and you alone will endure the consequences of your irresponsibility, somethings gotta give.. So I've learned how to be there and show up for myself, my survival depended on it. When I go back to Michigan it's easy to acclimate to other climates. It's also business as usual. Everyone right where I left them. But bringing someone into my climate, into my atmosphere, I don't know why it was so difficult in the moment. And it all goes back to the ability to set a boundary. I wasn't raised that boundaries were good, indirectly I learned that they were barriers and your family should always be able to have endless access to you. Setting a boundary weather in inadvertently communicate that there was a conflict, because why else would you shut me out. By now I have learned the sacredness of having personal space. Space that is yours and yours alone. There is a reason why animals piss on things to claim it. I don't wanna smell any other animal on my things. I get it. And so now where is the balance.? For so long Mi casa Su Casa, but now my house is my house and where I used to be able to host for days on end – actually I remember not being able to spend much time at all alone alone by myself. There was always someone there– Now I don't see company staying past the weekend. Like a Tigers in the wild I need at least 500 mi.² to myself to feel free. It's not the proximity but the actual controlled space. I'm learning that I'm particular. I'm learning that that's OK.
Having Erada here.. just like the existence of any of my other friends in my life… It's just like looking in a mirror. I genuinely feel like those around me, those placed not by accident but on purpose (blood and not). Those who have came and stayed…They're all just meant to be mirrors for me to reflect and learn from and experience new ways of love together. I've learned that my friendships are just as sacred as my relationships to men and when we sign up and say that we're doing this, we're doing this for life. My true friend group is not that large. Within the mirror you don't just see the things that you share, you see the things about yourself that need examining, informing and evolving. And that's the beauty of lifelong friends, you learn how to water each other and grow together. Patience is a virtue and there's a reason why it's the first attribute when describing the love. It even comes before kindness. It's important for someone to be able to just let you go through it. And this is not to say that my weekend was overly complicated and complex to the point of a loss of fluidity. But a lot of our conversations evolved around my current state. I felt so feral, having someone else in my space. Every hair on my body is fully grown out, I haven't re-twisted my hair, I haven't been concerned with maintaining a very specific face regimen. I just use Cetaphil and throw lotion on my face. I spritz the perfume that I get my hands on, if I remember. I look together every time I leave the house, but all the money and time I spent in my younger years doing the extra things for myself were not rooted in doing them for just myself. I've learned how to survive and adapt to being able to be content at no matter at whatever level of luxury I am able to indulge myself in at the moment. And that has been my reality. I've learned to be very comfortable with my existence at all capacities, privately. I've been a complete shut in shut in I don't go anywhere but work. I don't hang out with anybody but myself. There's no one to look nice for. And I see myself so much that looking nice for myself isn't on the forefront of my mind. I've had to learn how to just feel nice about myself at every capacity. But seeing my friends come shining and glimmering, ready to go out into the world was daunting for me. I remember when maintaining my nails, getting my hair done, and restocking the products that made me feel whole was a priority. Those days are gone, or at least put on pause. But in the reflection of another person all the work I've done to build up his confidence enough to just let myself exist had a come to question in the face of another. Negating the fact that this person loves you and is here for you, and doesn't see you the same way you see yourself in the reflection, there's still the comparison. And that is it's just one of the ways in which isolation affects you—you embrace the new normal and the new normal embraces you.
Day is 49 and 50 work out her via audio. They are still being filtered through, and will be released soon.
