03/31/00 Friday ~8:15 pm
I left home this evening intending to try to see this guy’s installation at the M.C.A. Graduate Gallery on Poplar by the Circle K. That was perhaps an hour or more ago. When I got to the gallery, it was closed, so I went to the park. It was way too close [to dusk] even to think about walking the trails, so as a result I’ve spent an hour fitfully walking, walking, walking on sidewalks and on the green. I so want to connect with people — and yet, I don’t. I say I crave connection, but yet I mostly seem to want to be left alone.
I’m still falling in the pattern of wanting to connect, yet not wanting to, of broadcasting my interest and then skittering away like a frightened beach crab at the first sign of interest. Ironically enough, here it is 5/3/2010, and I am wrestling with the desire to do just that yet again, with another potential friend (or whatever) that I’ve recently met. Why do I step outside of myself at all if I’m just going to run away whenever I do get any interest? Why am I so terrified to commit myself to relating to anyone, to make a friend and keep one? Why is potential intimacy so frightening that I feel the need to flee when I see it coming?] I can’t figure me out sometimes. Why do I crave connection, yet fear it so? Why do I strive to be noticed, yet run away at the first sign of potential interest?
Steph. seemed to think that planting flowers would help me get past my block against reaching out. To some extent, that theory seems to work for me. If I can commit to putting seeds in the ground, watering, and attending to their needs, if I can nourish a seed to produce a plant, then I am not totally socially inept. I always thought that I chose to relate to plants because they were somehow easier and required less involvement than people. Now it turns out that engaging fully with plants has become the key to my renewed engagement with people.
Greenfae's Leaves 