Quarter Century Curve Ball

I feel old and young at the same time.
Wiser, more experienced, yet so completely unsure.
The world treats me as an adult sending me credit card applications and offering me home loans and saying I should start thinking about retirement plans and settling down.
And yet, my brain is the same as it has ever been.
Though I have learned much, so very much, I still feel like young and awkward me. Like I am a teenager with a fake ID.
The decisions I have made and get to make in this decade of my life will shape so much of my future.
And it is equally exciting and frightening. Reinventing myself and detouring my paths as needed.
But I feel like I am on the precipice of many beginnings and many ends. Like this point in my life is one of bated breaths and elation and disappointments and pleasant surprises. Not entirely hopeful, but not entirely distraught either.
I know that life offers certain bad things with the good, risks with chances, consequences to choices. But I also know that you can never know what might come your way. You can never know where things will lead you. And sometimes you find things you didn't even know you were looking for. Needing things you didn't know that you wanted.
I am not where I thought I would be, but that is not said in negativity. Two months ago, two years ago... parts of life seemed very far away.
I have spent so long working to get to certain points in life, both externally and internally.
It's interesting to see so much of it pay off. And I almost appreciate the let downs that have come thus far if not only to keep me humble and grounded.
This all sounds so "inspirational" or mushy and didn't really come out like I hoped.
But I guess it basically comes down to this.
I am grateful for my friends and family, for my home, for the opportunities given to me, for the things I cannot describe but would not be here without. If I have one wish for the next quarter of a century of my life, it is that I never take for granted what is right in front of me.

Polar Opposites

I teeter between self preservation and self destruction.
Though it seems as though a very wide expanse could live between these two polar opposites, the line is very fine indeed.
In fact, if I am not exactly in between, my pendulum swings all the way to either side.

The idea of anything harmful but avoidable drives me to wrap myself up as tightly as possible as to not let the wrong things in. To keep it all out is to keep safe in case the good things go bad. I seek distance and loneliness to maintain a controlled world of very few variables. I was born with tendencies toward severe anxiety, stress and depression. So it is that I block out that senses and outside forces that would aggravate these tendencies. As best I can, that is. Because life happens so widely outside one's realm of understanding and will.

So when under these closed-in environments, negative things still occur, things that deeply shake me down, I am spurned to the other side. Practically embracing nihilism and fatalism and existentialism. I seek out things that are short term bursts of life and end up as long term spirals of doubt. I figure that if I cannot control things to keep me well that I might as well just do exactly as I please. I might as well experience everything I can while I can because the light will go out soon enough. Like the melancholy cousin of carpe diem.

But when I am locked up, I am so cold and empty.
And when I am out and lashing, I am stone and anger.

I cannot maintain the in between for long. The smallest infractions trigger the biggest fall outs. I absorb everything so deeply, so perceptible am I to others' reactions and follies. It comes in and rots and begins the cycle again.

I do not expect happiness. I just wish for some form of peace. To be able to sleep. To be able to let things go. To be able to grow and move and learn. To be able to process in a healthy way.
I feel as though I have done so much work already. I keep wondering when I will get to coast a little, when something will not constantly require more of me.
I am hoping as I age it will become easier. But it seems so far away.

And perhaps this is my strict upbringing or some sort of distorted Puritanism, but I feel as though I will never deserve to not be so heavy souled. It is as though I have used up all of my graces and what has come to me is what should be with me. Someone must pay for my transgressions. I am scared to move forward because I am never sure when I have finished paying. Life costs too much. It requires too much of me. I would rather forgo the good if it means I could forgo the bad. The repercussions of my self destruction are likely to reinforce my self preservation.

I'll Be Seeing You

I thought I saw you yesterday.
It probably wasn't you at all. But it felt like you.
Your walk, your movements, your clothing, your presence.
This has been the longest stretch of time in which we have not seen each other or even talked.
I know why it is this way now and it is probably for the best.
I said I could not abide by your terms. You said there was no other way it would work.
But having been friends for so long, I feel this vacancy left by you in your absence.
You have always been around. Even if for brief moments. But it took me til now to notice...
I think that I loved you. No, I know that I did. Maybe I still do. Maybe I always will.
You told me once in jest that I did & I adamantly shook my head, calling you ridiculous & rolling my eyes.
But now being deprived of you and far away from your cynical sway, I realize that I probably always have.
You told me that you wish you had been my first love. Well maybe you were, even if we never got to see it.
You used to tell me that someday everything that worked against us would fall away.
It would happen in the end. But it just seems as though it is simply the end.
I wish you well. I hope you're happy. I'm sorry I didn't make it easier.

Romantic Rebels

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh..." (Jack Kerouac - On The Road)


I have had this dream, or obsession really, that my friends (or those that I know in my time, rather) will somehow leave their own mark like the Beats and the Impressionists and the like. That all of the work that we produce with our blood sweat and tears, while we ourselves judge it harshly, will be remembered and appreciated by those that come after us. That we will be immortalized by our art. That all of the heartache and interactions and sacrifices and scars that happen in our lifetime will add up to the big picture of a grander scheme.

Somehow with time and with the salve of our creative output, our pain and disillusion and frustrations will be redeemed. That when I look back, I will not see that I loved and lost. But that a great love story had a beautiful, tragic end. I will not see the hours spent alone and desolate, but remember the moments of great communal pleasures. The laughing and drinking and learning that went on as we slowly figured out what not to do... as we became adults while trying to hold on to our idealistic, youthful spirit.

I do not care if I die young or if I spend my life mostly in solitude or if I see little given back to me for my efforts. I care only that I leave something behind that resonates more strongly than just the mundane every day routines.

The people I crave the company of are always the ones with the bohemian aesthetics, dreaming huge, impossible dreams. Those that I can spend hours with doing nothing but talking and planning and hoping. It is the way I fall in love with the world despite the deep wells of sadness just beneath. Give me a bed to lounge upon, a record to play and a fellow creative soul to converse with and in it you will find my solace.

Restraint in Speech

When I do not speak
It is to say that I do not wish to speak
For fear of the words that will mar me
That will litter the ground behind me
Those piercing arrows that I have sent
I break and burn them, only to revive them
I wish no harm but it is coming up and up and up
And while inside, festering, with-out they lie
In heaps of miniature corpses that are those spirits
I cast out, I take down, I slay with little thought
To the consequence, to the cost, to the meaning
Would not for the world cut you, but cut you I do
Fickle rash fragments of minds' webs, despise the utterance
It is my one solace in a place that I find little joy
Weighs so heavy, so heavy, heavier each day
I groan beneath the bulky weight of it
Been cast the lot of nightmares and ghosts and creatures foul
Demons as unwelcome bedfellows, yours and mine alike
Waking in dampness and darkness and short of breath
The sadness, the futile anger entwined in brine
Of my own making, again I weep and lash out
Expecting some learned lesson, a different result
I am so very young, but so very tired
Have no way to set aside this burden
It is in my nerves, my very fibers
From birth to death, never a child
You were so close, but somehow made it worse
I seek penitence for something I cannot change
Laden with guilt over my only way of knowing

Type 4 - Enneagram

http://www.9types.com/newtest/index.php

http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/descript.asp

4
THE INDIVIDUALIST
Enneagram Type Four

The Sensitive, Introspective type:
Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental

For more about the meaning of the arrows, see below.

Type Four in Brief

Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity. At their Best: inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.

• Basic Fear: That they have no identity or personal significance
• Basic Desire: To find themselves and their significance (to create an
     identity)
• Enneagram Four with a Three-Wing: "The Aristocrat"
• Enneagram Four with a Five-Wing: "The Bohemian"

Key Motivations: Want to express themselves and their individuality, to create and surround themselves with beauty, to maintain certain moods and feelings, to withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else, to attract a "rescuer."

The Meaning of the Arrows (in brief)

When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), aloof Fours suddenly become over-involved and clinging at Two. However, when moving in their Direction of Integration (growth), envious, emotionally turbulent Fours become more objective and principled, like healthy Ones. For more information, click here.

Examples: Ingmar Bergman, Alan Watts, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrisette, Paul Simon, Jeremy Irons, Patrick Stewart, Joseph Fiennes, Martha Graham, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Johnny Depp, Anne Rice, Rudolph Nureyev, J.D. Salinger, Anaîs Nin, Marcel Proust, Maria Callas, Tennessee Williams, Edgar Allan Poe, Annie Lennox, Prince, Michael Jackson, Virginia Woolf, Judy Garland, "Blanche DuBois" (Streetcar Named Desire), Thomas Merton.

Type Four Overview

We have named this type The Individualist because Fours maintain their identity by seeing themselves as fundamentally different from others. Fours feel that they are unlike other human beings, and consequently, that no one can understand them or love them adequately. They often see themselves as uniquely talented, possessing special, one-of-a-kind gifts, but also as uniquely disadvantaged or flawed. More than any other type, Fours are acutely aware of and focused on their personal differences and deficiencies.

Healthy Fours are honest with themselves: they own all of their feelings and can look at their motives, contradictions, and emotional conflicts without denying or whitewashing them. They may not necessarily like what they discover, but they do not try to rationalize their states, nor do they try to hide them from themselves or others. They are not afraid to see themselves “warts and all.” Healthy Fours are willing to reveal highly personal and potentially shameful things about themselves because they are determined to understand the truth of their experience—so that they can discover who they are and come to terms with their emotional history. This ability also enables Fours to endure suffering with a quiet strength. Their familiarity with their own darker nature makes it easier for them to process painful experiences that might overwhelm other types.

Nevertheless, Fours often report that they feel they are missing something in themselves, although they may have difficulty identifying exactly what that “something” is. Is it will power? Social ease? Self-confidence? Emotional tranquility?—all of which they see in others, seemingly in abundance. Given time and sufficient perspective, Fours generally recognize that they are unsure about aspects of their self-image—their personality or ego-structure itself. They feel that they lack a clear and stable identity, particularly a social persona that they feel comfortable with.

While it is true that Fours often feel different from others, they do not really want to be alone. They may feel socially awkward or self-conscious, but they deeply wish to connect with people who understand them and their feelings. The “romantics” of the Enneagram, they long for someone to come into their lives and appreciate the secret self that they have privately nurtured and hidden from the world. If, over time, such validation remains out of reach, Fours begin to build their identity around how unlike everyone else they are. The outsider therefore comforts herself by becoming an insistent individualist: everything must be done on her own, in her own way, on her own terms. Fours’ mantra becomes “I am myself. Nobody understands me. I am different and special,” while they secretly wish they could enjoy the easiness and confidence that others seem to enjoy.

Fours typically have problems with a negative self-image and chronically low self-esteem. They attempt to compensate for this by cultivating a Fantasy Self—an idealized self-image which is built up primarily in their imaginations. A Four we know shared with us that he spent most of his spare time listening to classical music while fantasizing about being a great concert pianist—à la Vladimir Horowitz. Unfortunately, his commitment to practicing fell far short of his fantasized self-image, and he was often embarrassed when people asked him to play for them. His actual abilities, while not poor, became sources of shame.

In the course of their lives, Fours may try several different identities on for size, basing them on styles, preferences, or qualities they find attractive in others. But underneath the surface, they still feel uncertain about who they really are. The problem is that they base their identity largely on their feelings. When Fours look inward they see a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting pattern of emotional reactions. Indeed, Fours accurately perceive a truth about human nature—that it is dynamic and ever changing. But because they want to create a stable, reliable identity from their emotions, they attempt to cultivate only certain feelings while rejecting others. Some feelings are seen as “me,” while others are “not me.” By attempting to hold on to specific moods and express others, Fours believe that they are being true to themselves.

One of the biggest challenges Fours face is learning to let go of feelings from the past; they tend to nurse wounds and hold onto negative feelings about those who have hurt them. Indeed, Fours can become so attached to longing and disappointment that they are unable to recognize the many treasures in their lives.
Leigh is a working mother who has struggled with these difficult feelings for many years.

“I collapse when I am out in the world. I have had a trail of relationship disasters. I have hated my sister’s goodness—and hated goodness in general. I went years without joy in my life, just pretending to smile because real smiles would not come to me. I have had a constant longing for whatever I cannot have. My longings can never become fulfilled because I now realize that I am attached to ‘the longing’ and not to any specific end result.”

There is a Sufi story that relates to this about an old dog that had been badly abused and was near starvation. One day, the dog found a bone, carried it to a safe spot, and started gnawing away. The dog was so hungry that it chewed on the bone for a long time and got every last bit of nourishment that it could out of it. After some time, a kind old man noticed the dog and its pathetic scrap and began quietly setting food out for it. But the poor hound was so attached to its bone that it refused to let go of it and soon starved to death.

Fours are in the same predicament. As long as they believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with them, they cannot allow themselves to experience or enjoy their many good qualities. To acknowledge their good qualities would be to lose their sense of identity (as a suffering victim) and to be without a relatively consistent personal identity (their Basic Fear). Fours grow by learning to see that much of their story is not true—or at least it is not true any more. The old feelings begin to fall away once they stop telling themselves their old tale: it is irrelevant to who they are right now.

(from The Wisdom of the Enneagram, p. 180-182)

Type Four—More Depth by Level

Healthy Levels

Level 1 (At Their Best): Profoundly creative, expressing the personal and the universal, possibly in a work of art. Inspired, self-renewing and regenerating: able to transform all their experiences into something valuable: self-creative.

Level 2: Self-aware, introspective, on the "search for self," aware of feelings and inner impulses. Sensitive and intuitive both to self and others: gentle, tactful, compassionate.

Level 3: Highly personal, individualistic, "true to self." Self-revealing, emotionally honest, humane. Ironic view of self and life: can be serious and funny, vulnerable and emotionally strong.

Average Levels

Level 4: Take an artistic, romantic orientation to life, creating a beautiful, aesthetic environment to cultivate and prolong personal feelings. Heighten reality through fantasy, passionate feelings, and the imagination.

Level 5: To stay in touch with feelings, they interiorize everything, taking everything personally, but become self-absorbed and introverted, moody and hypersensitive, shy and self-conscious, unable to be spontaneous or to "get out of themselves." Stay withdrawn to protect their self-image and to buy time to sort out feelings.

Level 6: Gradually think that they are different from others, and feel that they are exempt from living as everyone else does. They become melancholy dreamers, disdainful, decadent, and sensual, living in a fantasy world. Self-pity and envy of others leads to self-indulgence, and to becoming increasingly impractical, unproductive, effete, and precious.

Unhealthy Levels

Level 7: When dreams fail, become self-inhibiting and angry at self, depressed and alienated from self and others, blocked and emotionally paralyzed. Ashamed of self, fatigued and unable to function.

Level 8: Tormented by delusional self-contempt, self-reproaches, self-hatred, and morbid thoughts: everything is a source of torment. Blaming others, they drive away anyone who tries to help them.

Level 9: Despairing, feel hopeless and become self-destructive, possibly abusing alcohol or drugs to escape. In the extreme: emotional breakdown or suicide is likely. Generally corresponds to the Avoidant, Depressive, and Narcissistic personality disorders.

The Enneagram Institute is a Service Mark of Enneagram Personality Types, Inc.
All Images, Content and Layout Copyright The Enneagram Institute 1998-2012.

What next?

There are so many things that one cannot be prepared for in life. And as many times as you might hear someone else say it, it never feels as though it applies to you. Like many others before me, I'm sure, I feel invincible to most things in the sense that "things happen to other people, but they don't/won't happen to me".

It's like reading some article on a new disease and refusing to accept that the symptoms that have been worrying you are exactly what you are reading on the page.

Or that relationship that despite the fact that logically you realize is the prime example of an unhealthy or abusive relationship, you are still able to make excuses for the other person involved (or yourself).

Because it is easier to believe that you are the exception to the rule and there is some way to out-think the inevitable light-bulb that will turn on after far too much damage has been done.

Or that person who consoles themselves by saying that though they are aging and all of their friends are long married, there must be someone out there for them. Someone. Somewhere. Hoping that they won't be that person they know of that spent their entire lives alone. And so spends their entire life alone and waiting for fear of missing something. Manifesting the thing that one is trying to avoid.

Or when it comes to facing your greatest fear, to whatever degree that it may come about... could you do it? Do you really want to? What is gained or lost in fighting or fleeing?

The more things that I face, the stronger that I realize that I am. And the scarier the things that come forward are, the less I seem to feel the effects. Although as an adult you have to learn, unfairly, that the world is not as good or as promising or as easy as it was told to you when you were young, experience in and clarity of the reality around you has no other equal. It's an awkward process but eventually you realize that it just doesn't matter. Not in an existential or nihilistic kind of way, but in a bigger picture sort of sense.

My life is nothing like I thought it would be when I was young. Things have never gone according to plan. But as many bad things that have come up in the process, there are certain things that I never knew that I wanted in the first place that were given to me in transit and transition.

As I make mistakes and choices, new ones arise and sometimes I am just lucky enough to be in a right place at the right time and meet the right person and it has a resounding impact on the entirety of my life. I follow the thread backwards through the last 8 years and I see this huge complicated tapestry that I could never have designed or sought out on my own.

That is not to say that I wouldn't do some things differently. In fact, I wince when I think of all the things that I wish I had handled more gracefully or with more strength. I have still had to suffer the consequences of my actions. I have still hurt people, whether intentionally or not. I am still selfish more often than not.

But I am learning to be grateful for the learning experiences I have had and hope that somehow I will be able to get it right and apply it to finding something really worth having, whatever that ends up being.

If I had been asked when I was 16, where I thought I would be... and again at 18... and again at 21... and so on... I never would have thought I'd be here. But I am and I am trying to make the best of what has been given to me and with what I have worked hard to earn so that eventually I can look back over my life and even without much to show for it, can say that I tried and at the very least, I enjoyed it.