I need love and peace or else

My journal entry titles will inevitably lyrics, or mangled lyrics. I think in quotes, or lines of lyrics, and I’ll listen to music that I don’t like just because I like the words.

There are a lot of factors this fall which have influenced my writing, for better or for worse.

One of those things is that my brother attempted suicide. Luckily, he contacted the University police who rushed him to the hospital. He was admitted to the psychiatric ward of the hospital, and he’s still with us today. I do not believe in God, but not a day goes by that I do not feel lucky that I still have my brother. We had known he was depressed for a long time, and I had personally taken the threat much more seriously than my parents. As far back as a year and a half before his attempt, I had blogged on my private blog that I was afraid that I knew how he would die.

I’ve always been fascinated with that idea. I fear death. I am not afraid to admit this. I am surrounded by people who do not fear death.

The girl with whom I am in love, and let’s just call her MG for my girl here, struggles with a great deal in her daily life and she does not fear death. One of my recurring nightmares is that I get a phone call from her roommate saying she’s been hospitalized and I need to come down to see her. Ironically, I did receive that phone call this past February. Luckily, it had nothing to do with a suicide attempt or her eating disorder. She survived, perhaps miraculously, and I am lucky in this regard too.

I study peace and conflict resolution…I am constantly reading about genocide, war, mass atrocities, rape as a victimization tool, rape as a method of genocide, infanticide, human rights abuses, etc. I have PTSD from the places I’ve visited, and things I have witnessed. Death is all around me.

But what would happen if you knew how you would die? For something outside of your control? What if your death was predicted in detail centuries before you were born? Or one day you were told you would surely die the next day? People always ask these questions, but seriously. Think about it. What would you do? It’d be nice to say that you’d do everything you didn’t do before but that’s not feasible. It’s not possible. Would you sit down and cry? Would you go out for a run and try to outrun Death? Would you tell anyone?

I gave my fear of death to Cale. She’s caught between immortality and mortality, and she has chosen immortality because she fears death. She’s chosen to chase immortality. In doing this, she lost her childhood. She lost out on friendship. She is myopic, narrow-minded, cruel, cold, calculating. Zair’s death has been predicted but he does not fear it. His father does not either and perhaps Zair was raised this way. But is it the way we were raised or is it hardwired into us?

When I was twelve or thirteen, I asked my dad what the afterlife is like. He said that no one could tell us and I said I’d really like to know, if only for a few seconds, because I thought it was interesting. He was quiet for a long time, and then answered something about how I shouldn’t want that, and that everyone dies eventually and we’d find out then. I stopped asking.

Another thing that affects my writing is that in the past two years, I have adjusted my views on sexuality. I see sexuality as being fluid: you are attracted to whom you are attracted and that should be enough. Sexual organs don’t matter and really only complicate matters when it comes to labeling. For that reason, I consider myself bisexual because I don’t want to limit myself. Currently, I’m in love with a girl and yes, she knows. I was never good at keeping secrets. But I still check out guys on the street, and would consider dating members of both sexes and genders. As it stands, I’ve been in love with this girl for two years, and only recently have been more than open about my feelings towards her. I am very thankful because though she still sees us as just friends, this has not come between us. We love each other, as friends first, and that’s the most important thing. She is the most amazing wonderful beautiful young woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. She is not my Muse, but she’s ever supporting of my writing. She’s the only person to read both of the prequels to this novel and lists my first novel as one of her favorite stories on her MySpace page. She makes me smile when I thought I could not, and the feeling I have every time we talk–I wish I could bottle that. I attempt to capture this in my writing but I’ve found it nearly impossible. Every person should have a chance to feel like this though.

Three more things that I can think of:

1. I have synaesthesia. In specific, I have touch => pain syn and word => physical sensation syn. This means that certain textures are absolutely unbearable to me. Fleece, velvet, the ceiling of cars, bananas, eggs that are not scrambled, the center of hardboiled eggs, rice pudding, things like that. It’s hard to explain but they’re absolutely revolting. I can’t stand it. Additionally, certain words evoke certain physical sensations. Not all words have a feeling but for instance, “peace” feels like water on my feet. It sounds like I just created a mnemonic device right? “piece” creates the same feeling. The word “world” feels like pressure on my chest but so does “word” because I often hear those words the same. The word “sharp” tastes like metal, while words with zz sounds like fuzzy or buzz make my ears hurt. Some people have delightful syns such as seeing colors with words or seeing colors with sounds. I have pain syns essentially and its not so fun. In my writing, this often manifests itself because one of my minor characters has syn.

2. Wow, I forgot the middle thing. Hm. Okay well I’ll put number 3 here and hope I remember the next one. And I forget number 3. So I guess “I have a bad memory” goes into this. OH! I remember. I do not believe in ghosts but I do believe that places can hold memories. I’ve stood on mass grave sites and genocide sites and I swear you can still hear people screaming and hear gunshots and smell the blood. I also believe that societies have collective memory and chose whether to accept that or not. And I believe memories are a burden. Burdens are not necessarily bad.

3. I still can’t remember. Oops. I think it had something to do with disordered eating. Yes, I believe that was it. MG has an eating disorder. I call it one of her demons and it’s absolutely terrible. It tears me apart to see this controlling her life, but I have to walk every step next to her. I do not have an eating disorder, but I do occasionally have disordered eating. I revel when I am able to skip a meal, and I find immense satisfaction from the sensation of hunger. I believe the only thing keeping me from having a fullblown eating disorder is the fact that I’m terribly lazy. I have no work ethic. Having an eating disorder requires work and I can’t find it to put in that work. But if MG is having a bad day, or I am, it might come up here. It certainly does in my writing.