Fix You

Most of the time, I'm a problem-solver. You know the friend that you love but can never just sit there and let you complain about how much your life sucks without them telling you why it sucks and what they think you need to do to fix all your problems?

That's me. I'm a fixer.

The problem is, I can't fix myself. I used to be able to. I used to be able to sit back, objectively look at myself in the mirror and give myself a to-do list: "step 1 + step 2 + step 3 = problem solved." I used to spend hours and hours taking personality tests, reading self-help books, and "researching" my way out of all of my self-diagnosed "issues." Now, no matter how hard I try, I can't. Or won't.

I'm not entirely sure when or how this happened. Maybe I've been like this for a while and have just been so numb for the past year that I haven't noticed and had no need to try to fix myself. Maybe it's been so easy to pour all my energy into fixing other people that I forgot myself in the process. All I know is, I'm starting to feel again, and my heart is going into it kicking and screaming.

Feeling frightens me, and it didn't used to. I used to take such comfort in my emotions. They were my best friends, allowing me to escape from confusing reality into a world that made sense to me.

But when I finally allowed someone into my heart and my emotional world, for all the wonder and joy and passion and ecstatic happiness it brought, it also hurt. Sometimes, a lot. All of a sudden, I was vulnerable. Naked. Unprotected. And the more times I was hurt, the more I consciously or unconsciously put part of my soul to sleep. Now, it feels like there is a wall around most of my heart, except I don't remember building it.

Now, so much has happened to force certain parts of me out of hibernation that I have begun to realize just how much of me has been sidelined. And it scares the crap out of me.

What scares me more, though, is that instead of feeling my way through this mess, I'll tuck those last little parts of my heart away and shoot them so full of anesthesia that they may never recover.

Is it possible to experience all the depth and breadth of human emotion without simultaneously destroying that very essence of what makes us human? Or do we only have the capacity to feel so much at a time before reaching a critical mass of emotion, forcing some of our cylinders to stop spinning so the other parts can keep functioning?

A to-do list would be nice right about now.


Fix You
Coldplay (X&Y)

When you try your best, but you don't succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

High up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
If you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I...

Tears stream down on your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I...

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Looking Forward

I don't think I've ever been more excited to go to Disneyland.

This last few weeks has really taken its toll on me. I won't go into all the gorey details, but if you can imagine combining the stress of finding a new job, possibly moving, family issues, and financial struggles, then throw in some abnormally bad health problems just for fun... well, you start to get the idea.

Times like this (and yes, I have been here before) make me desperately wish I could just take a month off from life and lay on a beach in Hawaii. Or go to Paris and sit in a Cafe and write in my journal every day for two weeks without a care in the world.

I think the attraction of Disneyland is its artificiality. People go to Disneyland - and see movies, watch television, read novels - because we want to escape. Disneyland is always pretty, clean, fun and happy. Not to mention nostalgic, helping us remember the happier moments of our childhoods (another great escape tactic).

There was a time during the late 90s when television and movies began to tend toward reality. Producers reasoned that audiences no longer wanted to escape, they wanted to see real life in all its grim, gorey, messy disfunction. It worked for a while, until even so-called "reality" shows started moving back toward a fairy-tale and often soap-opera-ish view of life (e.g. Survivor, Desperate Housewives, The Bachelor, American Idol, The Apprentice... even my beloved Grey's Anatomy has become so over-the-top drama-filled that I find it hard to watch sometimes). Even game shows and sitcoms have swung so far to the reality side of the spectrum with nuerotic consestants and dysfuntional families that they allow us to feel superior and disconnected, therefore escaping what we perceive is wrong with our own lives and making us feel better about our own mild (or not so mild) neuroses.

All this leads me to believe that all people, even seemingly happy people, want to escape the stress of real life as much as I do. This gives me some comfort, since lately I feel like I am betraying a part of my normally confrontational personality by wanting to run away so much. It's the classic fight-or-flight syndrome that is the hallmark of my personality type ("Sentinel," classic Aquarius, and either ISFJ or INFJ, depending on the day I take the test), at least according to research I did to try to "find myself" in high school (consisting mostly of online personality tests and self-help books).

So I guess the conclusion of my rambling is that I will be in good company this weekend, side by side with thousands of other escapees, desperately hoping our real lives don't come to find us.