Traveling
I am in Tucson, Arizona right now. Sitting in a wealthy persons beautiful kitchen, listening to John Denver sing about a reason to try.
I am surrounded by desert. Big, beautiful, terrifying desert, with cactus soaring 20 ft above me, hundreds of years old. I am walking someone elses chihuahua, milking someone elses goats, feeding their chickens. Sleeping in their bed.
A part of me loves it. And a part of me thinks it's a very lonely sort of existence, and isn't sure we want to do this long term. Someone elses home, no matter how beautiful, is not my home. And I want a home.
But more than I want a home, I want to be healthy enough to create a home. I want a home crafted from my heart and head, my happy, healthy, and whole heart and head.
So, in order to find a home, I am on the road to fixing a few things. I hate that term. Fixing things. Like I'm a machine with missing and broken parts.
It feels true, though. Regardless of what else I am, first and foremost I am a biomechanism, an intricate machine made of flesh and blood and bone and memories. The memories comprise the BIOS, and my BIOS is corrupt. At some point, a bug got into the system, and has been proliferating freely throughout, creating quirks and holes to stumble in.
Something this trip has taught me, that I never thought about so clearly before, is my tendency to be a martyr. It's been a theme of the trip, honestly, coming up in the weirdest spots. My need to become a victim is a foundational error in my programming.
It drives MUCH of my unhealthy behavior. It informs my relationship with others, and with my own body.
Examples of this need abound, once I started really thinking about it. Most of my relationships with men revolve around the idea of victim, either them or me. T is a glaring example, with our blatant physical play and my own willingness to play the willing martyr to his emotional issues. But it's been there, to one extent or another, in every relationship I've ever had.
It rarely played any role in the casual sex I had with men and women, which is one of the reasons it was so addictive to me.
It's also there in my relationship with my body. With my weight, and my need to exercise but unwillingness to do something that makes me feel truly good. It's there in my teeth, in my inability grasp reality when it comes to them.
It's there in my friendships with people who take more than they give.
It's there in my relationships with authority figures, my need to almost abase myself in an effort to make them comfortable.
It's basically there in my willingness to be taken advantage of. It's a false willingness, since I'll only go so far, and no further. And I have an ability to walk away from it, mostly. But still. My martyr complex helps create situations I feel compelled to walk away from.
That's got to stop.
And that's part of why I'm travelling.
Nothing clears my mind more than constant, wonderful, new stimulation. It doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to get me thinking, get me analyzing.
In the confines of my interactions with strange people and strange environments, I see myself so clearly. They are a mirror to my inner reality. In the midst of seeing them, finding their motivations and secrets, fears and dreams, I find my own, see myself.
I am surrounded by desert. Big, beautiful, terrifying desert, with cactus soaring 20 ft above me, hundreds of years old. I am walking someone elses chihuahua, milking someone elses goats, feeding their chickens. Sleeping in their bed.
A part of me loves it. And a part of me thinks it's a very lonely sort of existence, and isn't sure we want to do this long term. Someone elses home, no matter how beautiful, is not my home. And I want a home.
But more than I want a home, I want to be healthy enough to create a home. I want a home crafted from my heart and head, my happy, healthy, and whole heart and head.
So, in order to find a home, I am on the road to fixing a few things. I hate that term. Fixing things. Like I'm a machine with missing and broken parts.
It feels true, though. Regardless of what else I am, first and foremost I am a biomechanism, an intricate machine made of flesh and blood and bone and memories. The memories comprise the BIOS, and my BIOS is corrupt. At some point, a bug got into the system, and has been proliferating freely throughout, creating quirks and holes to stumble in.
Something this trip has taught me, that I never thought about so clearly before, is my tendency to be a martyr. It's been a theme of the trip, honestly, coming up in the weirdest spots. My need to become a victim is a foundational error in my programming.
It drives MUCH of my unhealthy behavior. It informs my relationship with others, and with my own body.
Examples of this need abound, once I started really thinking about it. Most of my relationships with men revolve around the idea of victim, either them or me. T is a glaring example, with our blatant physical play and my own willingness to play the willing martyr to his emotional issues. But it's been there, to one extent or another, in every relationship I've ever had.
It rarely played any role in the casual sex I had with men and women, which is one of the reasons it was so addictive to me.
It's also there in my relationship with my body. With my weight, and my need to exercise but unwillingness to do something that makes me feel truly good. It's there in my teeth, in my inability grasp reality when it comes to them.
It's there in my friendships with people who take more than they give.
It's there in my relationships with authority figures, my need to almost abase myself in an effort to make them comfortable.
It's basically there in my willingness to be taken advantage of. It's a false willingness, since I'll only go so far, and no further. And I have an ability to walk away from it, mostly. But still. My martyr complex helps create situations I feel compelled to walk away from.
That's got to stop.
And that's part of why I'm travelling.
Nothing clears my mind more than constant, wonderful, new stimulation. It doesn't have to be pretty. It just has to get me thinking, get me analyzing.
In the confines of my interactions with strange people and strange environments, I see myself so clearly. They are a mirror to my inner reality. In the midst of seeing them, finding their motivations and secrets, fears and dreams, I find my own, see myself.
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