Bitternutt Lodge

It's fair to state that I don't have emotions like normal people.

Friend asked me today if it would be a good idea to warn a couple we know before seeing a movie that might screw with them emotionally due to some personal baggage they carry.  I said, more or less, "Maybe?  No.  Yes?  No.  You know, you should really ask your sister.  Or your wife.  I am like the least appropriate person to ask on this."

I hate the song Home, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes.  I don't really hate it.  I love the song, it's fun, there’s whistling, it's got a catchy chorus that's east to sing, but I'm jealous of it.  It feels like nothing I've ever had.  Maybe like nothing I ever get to have.

It feels like the ache I used to get when I read Jane Eyre.  I stopped writing this to re-read bits of it, and discover that it works again.  The last time I read it, it was empty and shallow and I couldn't finish it because it felt false.

Obviously, I'm the change, but I don't know what it is.  Is it that I can believe in that kind of love again? “'My bride is here,' [...] 'because my equal is here, and my likeness."  How many times have I read that passage and never heard that line?  But tonight, that's the difference.  Jane gets a lot of criticism for not having a spine and letting Mr. Rochester own her, when she talks at length about how she refused to let him do that their entire engagement.

There’s the difference, they are equals mentally, but they can't be together because they're not spiritually compatible, and that’s why the last third of the book exists, to make both of them worthy of each other.

I guess that's what I've been missing.  Not in the book.

I was something of a mess last month.  I'm better now.  Or, at least, I'm not doing a lot of awful sobbing at the drop of a hat.  I realised last week that I was happy, for no particular reason, which was new.  So, I guess I'm through whatever that mess was.

I'm not used to having emotions.  Well, I am.  I'm used to repressing them.  My jaw has been clenched so hard it clicks when I open it.  I try to remind myself to relax, and then I start holding my breath.  It’s getting better, it’s not an exercise I hold at every traffic signal anymore.  Driving past the intersection to the grocery store, or wandering around it uncertain why I came in is still an occasional problem.

Nothing's changed, just me.