Nine years ago today, this blog was begun... in 2006.
And this the 708th post!... so, about one every 4.6 days. Not as often as I feel-that-I-should, but steady enough I guess.
So, how's it going?
There's egotism of course – I like my own writing – which, I think, has gotten better – though also denser, more tangled – but more precise; with, still, the elaborate sentence structures and punctuation that Jennifer pointed out some years ago – but less of the slangy, less of the everyday.
Reducing the slangy and everyday was never a conscious decision – I think some of it might be my own relative isolation over the past thirteen years; plus the fact that, now that I'm studying at the Jung-Institut, my brain is working harder again – which is good.
And, as I've said before, I think my style changed a bit after my stroke in 2009... we like to act as though I recovered fully, but it's perfectly possible that some minor processing centers burned out in that brief storm. Impossible to tell, but I still think that my mind was oddly clearer after that event – as though some fragments of myself were perhaps lost, erased – but the remainder was more in focus, in some ways. Linguistically, at any rate.
And there's been a bit of a shift away from repeatedly going through past things that had hurt me, that seemed to have thrown me aside: this was a change that wasn't made in reaction to the two who have had the temerity to tell me I was whinging (Michael P., the brilliant choreographer/dancer, who combined that complaint with other behaviour that offended me at the time, to the point where I am no longer in contact with him; and my dear Patrick J., who did get a blast of anger from me, but whom I would never drop completely – though, since he moved away, we merely exchange occasional greetings); but instead, probably, just through psychoanalysis: a resulting decrease in grieving, in perpetually experiencing loss.
•••
So, I'm probably a bit more adult – a bit older, more in focus.
My new direction over the past five years or so – studying to be a psychoanalyst: unthinkable back in 2006, but a pleasure – a plan for the future that is meaningful.
A university department that is still under some stress from upper-level nonsense, but where the emotional temperature has dropped – more reason, more calmness and separation.
A home that is a bit more self-consciously pleasant, organised. There's more junk in it of course – I still need to do some ruthless cutting; but the space works.
Friends whom I see more often than I did in 2006 – I actually see people regularly, something that hadn't been really true since I left San Francisco in 1997.
My mother is gone – not unexpected; she died in 2011 – and, what was more of a shock, my eldest sister died in 2007. The universe changes shape when we lose family....
•••
Another year, and I'll be 59, closing in on 60 – and closer to finishing at the Jung-Institut, which will probably be in February of 2017.
My HIV status is pretty even-handed, feels safer/more stable than nine years ago. Of course I certainly need exercise – it's on the to-do list.
And perhaps I'll free of HCV – assuming the new government doesn't clamp down too fast (in which case, he said ghoulishly, this can become a cirrhosis-and-death blog instead. Hmm, that doesn't sound like much fun.)
In a year I'll be someone else again: planning on more changes and possibilities, I hope –
See you next May.
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