every time i try to describe certain experiences, i end up feeling uncomfortable with what i've written. partly, i feel words defile some experiences. or maybe it's that i can't figure out how to say enough yet, that i think it would take a level of concentration or energy i can't manage. a week in toronto. a week in new york. the interaction that led up to those weeks, or was entwined with them. what i've felt for others in my life, what the different kinds of love have meant to me, personally. gk, jamie, and all they gave, what we shared. what my experience of obsession is like.

when i write here, i never feel i'm 'writing'. it's always temporary, throwaway, something to do until i can figure out what to do with myself. i guess there are some feelings and experiences i don't want to treat that way. i'd rather keep them to myself, at least until i feel i can express things better, but it's starting to look like i may never be up to writing about some things.

something significant, not many could understand how significant. i've finally given up my tarot cards. maybe now i'll create new images, images i like better, that express more, but maybe i won't ever create new images. i used those cards to help me cope for so long. they were like a friend, someone to talk to, when i felt like i had no one. it seemed like they offered me more communication, more information than people did. yes, it all came from myself, but that's partly why it helped. i could remind myself in shorthand, in symbols, of huge chains of information, of the complexities of human life, and of my own mind, experiences, emotions.

but i had come to a point where i no longer wanted to keep subconsciously reinforcing certain fears and other things i felt i had outgrown or wanted to learn to express in more complex ways. i wanted to move on to some different level. i wanted to make a conscious effort to restructure my subconscious. i cut up my cards into tiny little pieces, and then 'mixed' all the pieces, stirred the mass of pieces with my fingers, hands. i know that sounds very silly. it's difficult to admit, but this is part of how i am, part of how i behave. i like seeing things in symbolic ways, i'm attracted to ritual. and in spite of how esthetically displeasing and lacking in complexity those cards were on the surface, i do miss them, i do feel grief.

i've been trying to figure things out, trying to figure out what's going on with me. i'm so confused. in painting gk's house, have i been trying to give him some material evidence of all he's meant to me? is it the only way i know how to communicate *to him* that to me he's worth effort? is it about trying to participate in this house, be a part of a family, a participating member of a family? was i trying to make this place into a place i could live? was it about compromise, understanding what parts of gk and myself match up and focusing on those parts, and deciding to develop them? is it gk i want to commit to?

but i don't think it is. i don't think i can do that. i want to be loved in a way that he doesn't love me. i want to love in a way that i don't love him. and while i'm here, i may feel safe, but i feel i'm waiting, waiting for some elusive opportunity that may never come. do i accept my limitations, and stay here, safe, and live out my life here? i think painting his house was probably a personal house cleaning for myself, and maybe a good-bye present for gk.

and the love i've not been able to 'get over'? for me that has been passionate and obsessive, but also deeply frustrating. i *want* to experience a kind of communication and passion that it doesn't seem possible for me to experience in this situation. i'm not totally over it, but i have had a hint that when someone else pays attention to me in certain ways, it helps, i don't feel quite as weak and susceptible to this relationship. i have some 'hope' that maybe eventually someone could want me in the ways i want to be wanted. as for connecting, who knows. but it seems to help at least to have a bit of a hint. i feel less inadequate when someone seems to be attracted to me in various ways, and attracted to the ways i express myself. anyway, i've appreciated the attention, and i think it's probably helped me to get through something very difficult, but i realize it's not going to continue, not this time.

the other night, i felt like i could dance. the feeling came upon me the way it used to, and i was aware i needed to move the furniture out of the way quickly, that this would not be dancing for 'exercise', this was about dancing that came from that elusive, essential part of myself. and i had the feelings, but when i tried to dance, it was like i just didn't want to any more. my body would have done at least some of what i asked of it, but i didn't really want to try. and i started to think that yes, it's safe living here, and maybe if i focus i will be able to dance and put something on film, and maybe it makes sense and i will never have another opportunity like this, but it was like some essential thing was missing. the most essential thing. and without, the dancing would be empty.

or maybe i'm just exhausted, and want it all to stop. and know i've got to leave here, i've got to make a decision. i don't know. it feels like something's got to give, that i can't keep going on the way i am. and i know that so many people feel that way, and somehow their lives go on. and i've apparently felt like i am 'in transition' for what, a year and a half now? so i don't know. i want my life to change. i'm afraid of breaking down, and maybe i need to focus whatever energy i've got left to see if i can live independently for a while, to see if that helps me to understand who i am now, and what i want.

for the last couple of weeks, i've been trapped in bulimic behaviour, figurative and literal. i've been totally snowed under by so many emotions, so much confusion that i haven't known how to process. writing so much email, trying to find some way to 'resolve' various feelings as well as i could, a situation that seems so hard to resolve for me, a situation that seems to have no resolution except to just end all contact.

i don't seem to want interaction with the world at all any more. i go out very rarely, and i try to think of myself as just getting it over with as quickly as possible. if i were to travel, i think it might be similar. that i wouldn't really want to be doing anything, or talking to anyone. i'm so lost, i don't know what to do. i don't want gk to be stuck with me. but maybe if i could gather the energy to leave, to make some kind of plan, then somehow i'd at least have a chance of doing things differently. and gk wouldn't be stuck with me.

i don't know, it's like nothing in life really appeals to me, and i don't know if that's going to change. i don't honestly seem to have much left in me. someone wrote me an email i liked a lot in december.. commenting on a photo, about the sadness and exhaustion the photo conveyed. it was the way he put it, it felt like exactly what i felt. i had just come back from new york, and i felt exhausted in a very serious way. maybe that was my last little bit of life, of effort.

as for other emails, things people have sent, thank you, so much of what has been sent to me touches me. i've received some very beautiful emails. i'm sorry i chase everyone away. but before long, i always need to. it's like if there's no chance i can get close, close in a very sick way to someone, if that person doesn't have the potential to drop their life and live sickly with me and kill ourselves together, that unless there is some other unexpected thing that just spontaneously occurs, i'll get scared, i'll feel a lot of stress, and i'll need to run. because i won't feel i'll be able to offer anything.

maybe if i was on my own for a while i'd open up to life in some way i can't currently foresee. but here, i don't see any chance for it. there's just me and me struggling to cope with bulimia, or the times when i'm holding it back, controlling myself. i'm either in control or out of it, and neither state is comfortable. it's all horrible, it's all stressful, and i want all of it to stop. i can't see how it could ever stop. the cravings, the urgings, never stop. i don't know how to distract myself. at times, i've forced myself to exercise in preparation for dancing. i'm not sure how much of that i can force myself to do again. i've forced myself to read, but i'm not sure i can force myself again. i don't know. i feel stuck, like there are no more options, like there's nothing left for me to try. and so all i can say is that even if i'm not so interested, maybe if i could go through the motions, and plan a trip, an extended trip to various different places, and just follow my itinerary, and go from place to place, taking photos and writing, maybe i'll get an idea about what to do next, maybe i will understand something better. i think that's what i'm aiming at, however negative i seem to be at the moment.

i just feel exhausted. i want to collapse, but there are so many hours in the day, and i can't seem to stay in bed all day. i feel restless, i experience excruciating boredom, time passes so slowly, and there's nothing i want to do. somehow i endure it, but i don't know how. i don't want to endure it. i feel so scared. it's like i know i need to do something, but i don't see any real options. i don't know what to do.

i guess i'll try to control my eating again, and give up caffeine again. if i don't, i don't see much chance of me doing anything, because when i'm out of control in these areas, i don't have energy for anything else. i'll try to build myself up after once again going through the kind of emotional chaos i've been going through on and off through the last couple of years. it's so draining, it always takes so much out of me. and again i'll try to figure out where to go from here.

i don't know how clear this is, but it's like i just can't see anywhere in the world for me to go. not wanting to stay here, but not seeing anywhere to go that won't be stressful. not seeing anywhere to go where i could experience pleasure or a feeling of release. it really doesn't seem to make any sense at all for me to put in any effort toward anything, except killing myself. i mean, that's dispassionately, my intellectual observation. i don't feel like i have the energy to kill myself.

all i can do is wait. for energy, inspiration, whatever.

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