This is a writing exercise I did for fun (aka procrastinating on homework with external creative endeavors) in which I wrote about my experiences with someone without using the word ‘you’ once; i have no clue whether it is good or bad writing.
[below: text from aforementioned ‘someone,’ received and read at 2:25am 10/21/2015]

Was it giving up or self preservation? I spent so long praising myself for my ability to hang in there, to be patient and ride out the moments that felt so bad. I have a history of quitting, it’s something I’m sensitive about, so there was a certain amount of self-admiration associated with standing there and just taking it. Probably martyr aspects, I took some kind of satisfaction in over apologizing during inflammatory situations, breaking down too easily, playing at playing dead. I repeatedly told people ‘the pros still outweigh the cons,’ and they did for longer than anyone who knew me could understand. I didn’t know the last reason on the cons side was the final con, the factor to tip the scales, until it happened. The reality is that the various points of contention were worsened by the situation, exacerbated by the attention. There is no more attention as of now, I put an end to that for the time being. This is a tricky spot for me to be in, because for the first time in a while, neither self destructive, nor self care decisions elicit a response. This makes motivation difficult, because if I’m not performing the action for a specific audience that’s guaranteed to give it some sort of attention, the action loses its intrigue. It did not matter whether the attention was positive or negative, just that it was there was enough. Obviously I can still exist, arguably better than before since I supposedly have so much more time now that this element is eliminated from my days, but like I was saying, motivation is an issue when there is no more external accountability. Physically, this shift does not impact my days at all, I still go to the same places, do the same things, see the same faces. I walk around as I did before, but now I either feel light, free, and determined or empty, lost, and broken, often both within the same walk. Perhaps it was this way before I made this decision as well, and I now just have a concrete reason to blame. It was not a physical matter that I put a stop to, but an emotional and technological one. The lack of physicality, of face to face and voice to voice was contrasted by the few physical encounters and their drastic difference in tone. It is perhaps due to this lack that it was able to continue for as long as it did. When primarily reduced to text, one stops being a person in the minds of others. When reduced to text, it is easier to manipulate the circumstances and convey only as much as one wants about only what one wants. This benefitted the situation in the short term, but over time the lack of willingness to engage in other forms of communication altered the shared reality, because of the drastic contrast between the written exchanges and the physical encounters. I did not give up because I wanted to, but because I needed to. Conversely, I will not pick this up again until I can want it instead of needing it. We broke up in early July, it’s late October now and I think that this almost week had been the longest we’d gone without exchanging words since we first met.

our school is requiring us to record our responses regarding deep travel, an activity we participated in during the experience and meaning™ workshop.  below is my response (i promise the things i post on here will be more interesting after this).

the first thing i noticed was the dog park (we were sitting across from it), i’m a sucker for dogs.  one guy caught my eye in particular, though.  he was a big buddy, taller than all his friends, with sleek grey fur and distinguished features, standing majestically on an octagonal wooden bench.  it was unclear which human was his owner, most likely because he was so clearly his own master.  the exercise was to pick a subject and draw it, then sit quietly with No Phones for ten minutes, and then draw it again, so i chose him. i suppose then that the “sense that dominated” was sight, cause i could not stop looking at him.

the questions i asked to ˜*create the wonder induction*˜ are as follows: why are there dog parks? why do some dogs stand out more than others? why do we domesticate animals? what is significant about this moment? am i doing this right (i probably wasn’t)??

the unique thing about that moment to me was not that i Achieved Deep Travel, cause i’m pretty sure i didn’t, but that i felt that i was exactly where i was supposed to be. all my life because of my nontraditional educational background, i’ve been so worried about being behind or in the wrong place academically. for me college is a huge affirmation that i am in the right place and not in fact behind my peers at all. sitting in that park, watching the dogs, after just having recently moved into my new home, making friends and feeling hopeful in a city i already love made me feel like i had made it, which was pretty damn unique.

the things i noticed because of my identity, personality and personal history were these; i wondered if the two women sitting on a bench together were dating, because i’m queer and assume the world is gay as fuck at all times. i focused heavily on the dogs because obviously i love every dog on this damn earth to the point of being extra. i noticed the design elements in the park like the cool shaped bench around the tree etc because of my ˜*art background*˜ (lol).

i don’t really think i “moved beyond thinking and questioning and entered into free attention.” it’s hard for me to get out of my head, especially with a planned exercise like the one we did. i remember being a kid and my mom trying to meditate with me and being so concerned with Doing It Right that i could never actually meditate. this felt a lot like that. i wish i was the type of person who could slip into deep travel, or meditate, or have an out of body experience or something, but i guess i’m just not there yet.

i have included the pictures of the dog for your amusement.