A.M. 5

What would it be like to spend a day in another person's head? To wake up like they wake up, to see how they see, to think like they think, to be right how they're right? I wonder if other people are as mean to themselves as I am. Or meaner. If I went back in time to visit my old brain, I'd be appalled at the sadness and anger in there. My old brain was much quicker to judge, much angrier, much more restrictive, afraid, rule-oriented, worried. What would Gandhi's brain be like? Barack Obama's? My mom's? My baby niece's and nephew's? My dog's?

To be human is to be alone. I've found ways to get around this idea. But sometimes I go back to it. I can't know you, really. I can only know how you are for me. And it will change. Maybe that's all loneliness is: some realization that you'll never really be known, and you'll never truly, perfectly know anybody else. Shit, I don't know myself sometimes.

I had a dream last night that I accidentally overheard the truth that my boyfriend didn't love me. It was as if I had been waiting for that missing bit of information and finally got it. I wasn't even sad -- I was just relieved to know this Truth that I had been seeking. Then I ran away.

This happens over and over in my dreams. I find something beautiful and become overwhelmed by it and let it transfix me. It becomes everything to me. Then I try to share it when others and they don't understand. They just can't get it. I feel flustered and crazy. Then it's revealed that what I thought was this beautiful Truth was, in fact, a lie and I have to run away to save my own life. Hmm.

I feel stagnant. Writing feels hard. I want to go back to bed. I feel like I'm eating my own brain. I guess that means I'm bumping up against something I don't want to look at.

Waking up is like playing the lottery. It's a gamble how I'm going to feel about life from one day to the next. Sometimes I wake up feeling that everything is as it should be. Other days I wake up with something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong. I wear it around like pants that are too tight. I desperately want to put on other pants but these are the only pants I have right now. I have to be careful because other people will notice how tight they are and laugh at me or be concerned for me. But the world around me is the same as it ever was.

At times I get so fed up with having to take care of myself. Always working, considering, noticing, being conscientious, efforting. It's work. It's life. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.