Writing on new leaves

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Leaving a place gives you a chance to turn a new leaf, but you have to work hard to write something new on it.

This was a comment I made in chat to MJ last night, while talking over how moving away or changing your job doesn't change anything inside you. She suggested I copy and paste it into a blog entry, but I didn't think I would. It opens me to exposing my own inability to write cleanly on new leaves no matter where I go or how much I want to.

But there you go. I am full of apparently unbreakable bad habits and personal flaws. And there are ugly gaping wounds, too. Some I don't see - those are the ones that friends either kindly overlook or end friendships over. Sometimes I recognise my faults and can overcome them. Sometimes I recognise them, but they overcome me.

One overcame me yesterday. I received an e-mail from a friend - not a dramatic missive, just a pedestrian hello - but after I replied, I sat at my desk and cried tears of frustration that our friendship has shifted into something I can't abide. It's a struggle each time we meet or communicate. I think about the way I wish things to be and I cling to hope that our friendship might change even though that is not remotely realistic.

The ugly, gaping wound in this case is my childish desire to have things my own way. The personal flaw is my conviction that sad emotions are a form of weakness. The bad habit is instinctually cloistering myself when I am sad or upset. I ride out the storm of my emotions alone; even when I crave a hand to hold or a body to hug. I punish myself for feeling bad by pushing everyone away.

Last night, I declined a dinner invitation because after crying and being pointlessly sad over that e-mail, I couldn't summon the will to leave the house and socialise. But being around people - leaving this place - would probably have improved my outlook, turned the leaf so that I could start writing something new.

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hello , I am french , I saw your tutorial for thaî pattern , I put the link in my blog, however I have one and I have done yet a lot (go to see it in my blog) your pattern is very well explain ! thanks !!!!

A friend in Melbourne is collecting fallen leaves and writing messages on them. She wants to throw them from a building soon, and watch to see if anyone picks them up.

I'm in Argentina.
I have just read your post and for some reason which I cannot ascertain it has deeply moved me. Maybe because I recognize myself in that childish desire to have things my own way --I find it terribly difficult to accept things as they are or else to let them go, when I think they are are too far from where I'd like them to be. Your "turning the leaf to write something new" seems to be a possibility I had never thought of. Thanks!

"but after I replied, I sat at my desk and cried tears of frustration that our friendship has shifted into something I can’t abide. It’s a struggle each time we meet or communicate. I think about the way I wish things to be and I cling to hope that our friendship might change even though that is not remotely realistic."

This tore my heart as if I were reading about myself. I, too, have a friend, and I think about the way things USED TO BE and know that our relationship will never be that way again - due to circumstances; and for no other reason than each of us turning a page in a different direction. I offer you sympathy. I wish I could offer you advice, but I, myself, am wishing for fate to take charge, as I cannot accept nor can I change the situation. BTW, I also hide away when I am so sad, depressed and spiritless. But, of course, you are right; the better thing to do is to get out and socialize. Easier said than done. I will remember you, Kuri.

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