take what you have gathered from coincidence

While I was dying of the lurgy, I missed a psychiatrist appointment. The counselling service kindly offered me a replacement appointment, but I misread the email and thought it was this evening. It was three hours ago; I've just emailed them a long apology explaining that I've been busy dying and thus unable to go out or respond to things. It was over half true. I just left out the part where I flicked through their email two days ago and then didn't reply to it because I cannot speak to people.

It's ridiculous, really. On the one hand, I talk at length on here, spend most evenings in company of some sort; I get up on stage and prance about, and I stand up in front of groups and sing. On the other hand, there is a constant litany on repeat in the back of my head: please like me, please like me, oh, please, God, like me. Every moment that I spend in company is a twisted combination of enjoyment and utter, paralysing fear. The nights afterwards, lying in bed, I spend going over every nuance of conversation, every syllable I said, every glance from the audience, every whisper as I leave the table.

I am so tired of being afraid. I have missed so many opportunities in my life because I am too scared to take them. I don't make phone calls; responding to emails needs a run-up like the high jump. There are things that need fixing, complaints that could have been made, jobs I could have had, friends I could have made: I have missed all of them, because I am too frightened to ask.

People talk to me. I've got one of those faces that mean people start chatting at the bus stop and cashiers tell me about their day. It's a good face for a bar wench to have, I suppose, and a good face for collecting stories. I talk back; I am good at pretending I'm not scared. I say too much, sometimes, and other times too little; I overshare and then backtrack by closing in like a poked snail. I am tired of lies and afraid of honesty.

I regret every email ever sent. I want to take back every text typed, every phone call I've ever had. I want to erase this journal and leave the country, because I am afraid of what I say and what I don't say, and more than that, I am afraid of what other people do and do not say. If you think I am not talking to you, ever, I am just busy writing and deleting a letter times and times over. No matter how much I love you, how much I trust you - insofar as I am capable of trusting anyone - I am, nonetheless, afraid of you.

I like people. I think people, humanity, I think they're pretty awesome. I like to watch them and listen to them and I only ever want good things for them. I admire their courage and persistence and I love their faults and foibles. I am inspired by them and in love with them and I want to shake them until they do the right thing.

I would, perhaps, if only I wasn't so scared of them.

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the weight of your bones: a mixtape for days when your skin doesn't fit

01 - counting crows - blues run the game (live)
02 - cat power - (i can't get no) satisfaction
03 - antony with bryce dessner - i was young when i left home
04 - bright eyes - lua
05 - patrick wolf - wind in the wires
06 - tom mcrae - sao paulo rain
07 - jain vain and the dark matter - c'mon baby say bang bang
08 - belle and sebastian - get me away from here, i'm dying
09 - the smiths - still ill
10 - sea wolf - you're a wolf
11 - azure ray - displaced
12 - wolfmusic - all the way back
13 - alanis morissette - surrendering
14 - bob dylan - it's all over now, baby blue
15 - fruit bats - flamingo
16 - kim richey - a place called home
17 - counting crows - rain king (live)

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