The Secret Diary of Janey Jones

[sweetmoonbeam]

I don’t know what has been happening to me lately. I keep getting really lost in the forest. The deeper I go, the harder it is to find my true house. There is no house.

The path to self-destruction is easy to find. I want to focus on all these great things about me. I do great things. I have good judgment when the caring is for others. I always have the answers. The knowledge is placed on the tip of my lip. It spills out gracefully on command. It is the awareness cascade.

I don’t know how to take care of myself. None of that goodness matters much as I dig my own hole. I fail to bring those same very skills into my own heart.

And when this happens to me, and it has happened before, I cry. I cry because it is back to the institutionalization of myself. I wish someone would help me out, but I don’t know anyone. I stare at the blank sheet of paper and with my best block print I write:
1. Eat breakfast
2. Take a shower
3. Drink water
4. Run
5. Hang the clothes out
6.
7.

This is task orientation and I find it so pathetic, but it is the only way to get home. There can be no deviation from the plan. I can’t relate, and talking about it doesn’t fix any of this.

The past is a war and I will kill memory soldiers with my machine gun heart.

Here is what I know:

1. I love your machine gun heart. I believe you will win. I would sink a large sum of money on that bet.

2. When you’re in the trenches, in the darkest hour, all you can do is the first thing, then the second thing, etc., and so on. You’re doing the right thing.

3. I think you’re better at living than most people; you’re just doing it on a different spectrum. That’s a good thing.

4. I don’t think you’re depressed. If you were, you wouldn’t have a machine gun in your heart.

5. Nobody brilliant ever had it easy in life.

6. You have a standing invitation to talk to me anytime. I'm not so good at knowing the right thing to say, but I love to listen to you.

 

[sweepthefloor]

Soldiers used to carry bayonets attached to their rifles, this way they would have a weapon to yield even when they ran out of shells.

One does not need grace to stab a heart, because for all the style of a coup de grace, an ending is but the beginning of something new. So when you end your battle with your enemy, you are not alone. It finishes in the most intimate of petite morts, leaving one triumphant and at peace, and the other, sadly tasked with facing yet another day and searching for a new enemy.

When classically trained Pat Benatar sang of battlefields without guns, she knew she was neither the first nor would she be the last. So carry on and know that your comrades-in-amour are by your side, in depressions and over the hills, as we face another day in this war fought across heart shaped terrain while a beating drum calls us all to rally once more.

W~

This is beautiful, I hope you are glad that we are in the same camp.

 

[waaitg]

This is beautiful, I hope you are glad that we are in the same camp.

That is the first time I have been called "camp" and it hasn't been a veiled insult

 

[sweepthefloor]

Have you tried research? Find miss goody2shoes and take notes.
Or what about those life coach people...

But hey, you've made it pretty far, you should be proud girl.

I don't know about being coached, but I know about research. The evidence weighs not in my favor but yes, there are exceptions to every experiment and I will re-train the dog that the Pavlov-in-me, implanted inside my chest. *ding* *drool*

 

[sweepthefloor]

I see your Pat Benatar and raise you a Peter Gabriel

Andre has a red flag, Chiang Ching's is blue
They all have hills to fly them on, Except for Lin Tai Yu
Dressing up in costumes, Playing silly games
Hiding out in tree-tops, Shouting out rude names

Whistling tunes we hide in the dunes by the seaside
Whistling tunes we're kissing baboons in the jungle
It's a knockout
If looks could kill, they probably will
In games without frontiers
War without tears

I don't understand.

 

[sweepthefloor]

Here is what I know:

1. I love your machine gun heart. I believe you will win. I would sink a large sum of money on that bet.

2. When you’re in the trenches, in the darkest hour, all you can do is the first thing, then the second thing, etc., and so on. You’re doing the right thing.

3. I think you’re better at living than most people; you’re just doing it on a different spectrum. That’s a good thing.

4. I don’t think you’re depressed. If you were, you wouldn’t have a machine gun in your heart.

5. Nobody brilliant ever had it easy in life.

6. You have a standing invitation to talk to me anytime. I'm not so good at knowing the right thing to say, but I love to listen to you.

Ante up, I believe you. Let's gamble. My deck is full of jokers, and they are all wild. Your words are aces.

 

[sweepthefloor]

That is the first time I have been called "camp" and it hasn't been a veiled insult

I rarely insult people. I am trying to think of a time when I deliberately insulted someone. I can't remember a single instance. I am sure I have insulted someone unintentionally before. I have to think about this for a while.

 

[sweepthefloor]

Got your flak jacket on? My heart is a machine gunner that takes no prisoners.

 

[waaitg]

I see your Pat Benatar and raise you a Peter Gabriel

Andre has a red flag, Chiang Ching's is blue
They all have hills to fly them on, Except for Lin Tai Yu
Dressing up in costumes, Playing silly games
Hiding out in tree-tops, Shouting out rude names

Whistling tunes we hide in the dunes by the seaside
Whistling tunes we're kissing baboons in the jungle
It's a knockout
If looks could kill, they probably will
In games without frontiers
War without tears

I don't understand.

I believe DS was replying to my reference in the message 2 spots preceding his:

When classically trained Pat Benatar sang of battlefields without guns, she knew she was neither the first nor would she be the last.

/end thread hijack

 

[sweepthefloor]

You can jack what is mine anytime.

 

[sweepthefloor]

I went to the mall

I woke up with no drive to eat. I forced one bite of bread, and a small piece of mozzarella washed it down with 118 mls of 100% orange juice.

I notice a man pushing another man in a wheel chair. They must share the same genes, they have the same looks. The man in the chair has had a left frontal craniotomy. I know those scars well. He’s not wearing a helmet so I know the bone flap was reinserted, probably at a later time, months after the initial surgery. I wonder if it was a tumor, or a bleed. It doesn’t matter. I wonder if I have had a craniotomy and I just don't remember any of it.

Looking at all these people makes me tired. I don't love anyone. I don't think I have any love neurons left to fire. That must be secondary to the craniotomy that I forgot about. It was probably a cruel surgical experiment, I just happened to be the specimen. I bet I signed the consent form happily, and the researchers are tracking my confused loveless life right as I type this. If only I knew the conclusions they are trying to reach I would alter my data to provide the results that they want, to get my love neurons back.
--
Shopping made me hungry. Now I know why people spend their money, so they can eat more. I went to the food court. I became confused. I thought I might be having a stroke. I ate a cheeseburger. I almost puked thinking about the food shop across the way that serves all kinds of peanut butter and jelly: any way you can imagine it. I am surrounded by consumers. It’s an awful thought, and we don’t think we kill for any of it, but we do.

Then I get lost in the pathos of angioedema. I try to remember, something about mast cells… I am afraid to lose my own airway. I decide to steal a few straws in case I ever have to intubate myself one day. Leaving space for the protective endotracheal tube is the priority, cause an emergency tracheotomy is never good clean fun.

The mentally challenged are attracted to me by the lunar pull. There is a caretaker responsible for two. I don’t know when they sat next to me, but I looked up to find the gaze of one.
He said: Hello.
I figured that now would be a good time to speak. This way I will know if I am slurry, I am the next ACT F.A.S.T (facial droop, arm weak, slurry speech, time).
I replied: Hello, and just how are you doing today?
He never takes his eyes off of me, and the caretaker smiles.

A woman in line is wearing red heels, and a black dress. Her lips are painted red too. She looks really damaged, but I am too tired to imagine why. Also, her bag doesn’t match the outfit. She should be barefoot in jeans with that hideous bag. I don’t like her, or I don’t like the bag. It doesn’t matter.

I left.

 

[sweepthefloor]

I have these pretty purple flowers potted on the porch. The thing I have to remember is they need water. They are not like my succulents. This pathetic beauty is fragile.

I tend well to sick humans, everything else stands little chance under my hands. I stole a rabbit from the pet store when I was 10. I shoved it into my friends bag and ran. I forgot to give it water. It died in my bedroom. I found it in my closet underneath boxes of packed up nightmares. I felt guilty, and I buried the rabbit in the backyard, along with other guilt worthy ideas.

The guilt I didn’t bury that year is the crime of being loved by men that should not love me at all. I am not sure if it was actualized that year. I felt the weight of that shame at age 17, because until then I had no understanding of what had unfolded before me on the table cloth of recent years. Death brushed the dark picture very clear to me in an instant with black, red and blue paint. And although I seem to have been born into womanhood, there was a time when I was a girl.
--
And just like walking out of a mall that I never wanted to be inside of to begin with, I walked out of that story. I left. I am good at leaving.

I only go back to back to that diamond-mine when I am broke inside and need to pawn a few concentrated tears, to salt my food.
--
And so the battle rages on, and while I try to kill that part inside of me - I contemplate giving up because sometimes I forget what the goal is. Only an idiot keeps getting up off the ground after being beat up by something much larger than itself. I am that idiot.

 

[waaitg]

I have these pretty purple flowers potted on the porch. The thing I have to remember is they need water. They are not like my succulents. This pathetic beauty is fragile.

I tend well to sick humans, everything else stands little chance under my hands. I stole a rabbit from the pet store when I was 10. I shoved it into my friends bag and ran. I forgot to give it water. It died in my bedroom. I found it in my closet underneath boxes of packed up nightmares. I felt guilty, and I buried the rabbit in the backyard, along with other guilt worthy ideas.

The guilt I didn’t bury that year is the crime of being loved by men that should not love me at all. I am not sure if it was actualized that year. I felt the weight of that shame at age 17, because until then I had no understanding of what had unfolded before me on the table cloth of recent years. Death brushed the dark picture very clear to me in an instant with black, red and blue paint. And although I seem to have been born into womanhood, there was a time when I was a girl.
--
And just like walking out of a mall that I never wanted to be inside of to begin with, I walked out of that story. I left. I am good at leaving.

I only go back to back to that diamond-mine when I am broke inside and need to pawn a few concentrated tears, to salt my food.
--
And so the battle rages on, and while I try to kill that part inside of me - I contemplate giving up because sometimes I forget what the goal is. Only an idiot keeps getting up off the ground after being beat up by something much larger than itself. I am that idiot.

We all contain, buried within us, sadness, and stories, and scars. We mine these veins to the heart of them hoping to find at their core, not stones or sapphires , but seeds from which we can let our happiness begin to grow.

We are our old own fragile ecosystems and we are all different. Some take in carbon and make diamonds, while others make graphite and tell tales of hearts and Ravens talking in the night. Finally some of us take in water and nitrogen to combine with the carbon and try to make a garden in our soul where something may grow.

But all growing things die without light and energy, so we are left to wonder, Is it better to make that stone? Or the garden?

 

[sweepthefloor]

We all contain, buried within us, sadness, and stories, and scars. We mine these veins to the heart of them hoping to find at their core, not stones or sapphires , but seeds from which we can let our happiness begin to grow.

We are our old own fragile ecosystems and we are all different. Some take in carbon and make diamonds, while others make graphite and tell tales of hearts and Ravens talking in the night. Finally some of us take in water and nitrogen to combine with the carbon and try to make a garden in our soul where something may grow.

But all growing things die without light and energy, so we are left to wonder, Is it better to make that stone? Or the garden?

Rocks and stones will break my bones, and the weeds in my heart will choke me.

Which reminds me to study for special certification: The job of the heart is to drive hemoglobin to the cells. And we interrupt this battle to better understand hemodynamics, my first true obsession: preload, afterload, and contractility. My love we are the great monitors of our own cardiac function!

I suppose for the sake of survival the garden would be the priority. There is no stone soup to sip on without a fire to cook it.

Sad stories and are just what they are, and scars only form if the wound is left to heal itself. So, restrain my wrists with gauze, and I will stop picking the scabs.

 

[SweetCherryWine]

Wow. You are so incredible. I'm only on page 10 and can't wait to read through all of it! Thank you for this beautiful glimpse into your beautiful mind.

 

[waaitg]

Rocks and stones will break my bones, and the weeds in my heart will choke me.

Which reminds me to study for special certification: The job of the heart is to drive hemoglobin to the cells. And we interrupt this battle to better understand hemodynamics, my first true obsession: preload, afterload, and contractility. My love we are the great monitors of our own cardiac function!

I suppose for the sake of survival the garden would be the priority. There is no stone soup to sip on without a fire to cook it.

Sad stories and are just what they are, and scars only form if the wound is left to heal itself. So, restrain my wrists with gauze, and I will stop picking the scabs.

If weeds have taken home in your heart, then it is only because there is a wild garden run rampant.

But I do not hope you shall expire for failing to aspire but leech and steal the iron from the stones in your soup to seal and heal your cuts and contusions until they scab absolutely. When you gaze upon the gauze, and suspect there are scars, bar your fingers from lingering and simply sleep and keep your thoughts deep, far from sadness.

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

Only an idiot keeps getting up off the ground after being beat up by something much larger than itself. I am that idiot.

I have some plants that someone gave me, from her garden. Someone important to me. Someone kind and creative, who cared deeply about me, no matter the stupid mistakes I made, and still make. She's dead now. Every autumn, the plants die, exhausted. Each spring they poke out of the earth and grow again, yielding blooms and memories.

Not idiocy.

 

[sweepthefloor]

Wow. You are so incredible. I'm only on page 10 and can't wait to read through all of it! Thank you for this beautiful glimpse into your beautiful mind.

Thank you SweetCherry. I hope after passing page ten you still enjoy this. It's thoughts like this that make me want to read myself to see if I can find beauty, or a four leaf lucky clover. I am not convinced such things exist.

 

[sweepthefloor]

If weeds have taken home in your heart, then it is only because there is a wild garden run rampant.

But I do not hope you shall expire for failing to aspire but leech and steal the iron from the stones in your soup to seal and heal your cuts and contusions until they scab absolutely. When you gaze upon the gauze, and suspect there are scars, bar your fingers from lingering and simply sleep and keep your thoughts deep, far from sadness.

The weed whacker seems like such a cruel tool. It makes no discrimination. It doesn't have the ability to do that: It takes out weeds and pretty blooms at the same time. The unwanted in the garden must be plucked out by hand. It is labor in the sun of warmer days to come.
--
I always wondered if that scar removal cream really does work. I never tried it.

When I see one person stabbed in the chest by another person, exsanguinating in the bed I realize my own wounds aren't as deep as I once thought. I also know that the treatment includes: put a finger in the wound and replace the volume.

It's a simple idea, it makes sense and that is my plan.

 

[sweepthefloor]

I have some plants that someone gave me, from her garden. Someone important to me. Someone kind and creative, who cared deeply about me, no matter the stupid mistakes I made, and still make. She's dead now. Every autumn, the plants die, exhausted. Each spring they poke out of the earth and grow again, yielding blooms and memories.

Not idiocy.

This is very tender. I appreciate the imagery of blooms poking through the dirt, resisting all that could identify defeat.

 

[sweepthefloor]

The laundry line hangs between two trees.

When the weight of wet clothes on the line of the mind drags all that is clean to the ground—get a stick and prop yourself up in the middle between the trees of reasonable and prudent. There is no sense wasting a load, and hot water is hard to come by.

 

[Curious_in_Cali]

The weed whacker seems like such a cruel tool. It makes no discrimination. It doesn't have the ability to do that: It takes out weeds and pretty blooms at the same time. The unwanted in the garden must be plucked out by hand. It is labor in the sun of warmer days to come.
--
I always wondered if that scar removal cream really does work. I never tried it.

When I see one person stabbed in the chest by another person, exsanguinating in the bed I realize my own wounds aren't as deep as I once thought. I also know that the treatment includes: put a finger in the wound and replace the volume.

It's a simple idea, it makes sense and that is my plan.

Don't forget that friends can be the place holders to fill the holes in our hearts until our bodies are able to grow newer, stronger (even if it is scar like) heart tissue. I would happily wedge myself into your ventricles and bop my head along with your tired heartbeats to amplify them if it would help. Or I can play something inspiring on my ipod that resonates with your feet as well...I suspect you are a fine dancer to watch.

Sadness and happiness are 2 friends on the same playground, each taking a turn at playing hopscotch. Each showing in their play simply who has had more practice lately. One will win more than the other at times, sure... but both are equally beautiful in my opinion. Each makes the other more beautiful at times too.

 

[sweepthefloor]

Don't forget that friends can be the place holders to fill the holes in our hearts until our bodies are able to grow newer, stronger (even if it is scar like) heart tissue. I would happily wedge myself into your ventricles and bop my head along with your tired heartbeats to amplify them if it would help. Or I can play something inspiring on my ipod that resonates with your feet as well...I suspect you are a fine dancer to watch.

Sadness and happiness are 2 friends on the same playground, each taking a turn at playing hopscotch. Each showing in their play simply who has had more practice lately. One will win more than the other at times, sure... but both are equally beautiful in my opinion. Each makes the other more beautiful at times too.

The first thought that came to my mind when I read the first few sentences is the Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump.
(link with a 42 second rationale) And I am smiling. What a curious cardiologist you are! You could have invented the technique!

I can almost feel you swimming up to my aorta, with a red balloon negating the effect of heart failure.

 

[sweepthefloor]

I decided to get a professional massage, everyone at work does it. I bravely called the place to make an appointment.
The receptionist said: I can schedule you in with Nick, at 2:30pm, is that good?
I quietly closed my calendar book blushing and replied: Can I call you back when I find my day-planner?
She sounded confused, and I hung up immediately.
I am just not ready to pay Nick to pleasure me.

 

[sweepthefloor]

I don't think beating me is part of Nick's massage therapy.