i am, in some small and some not-so-small ways, doing better. i am not screaming. i am not descended into madness. i am interested and participating in the world around me. right now, i am really fine. why should there be times when i am crazy, when all the world seems dark and i am scared of the irreparable harm i may be inflicting on my son? most likely, the only person irrevocably scarred by my rage is me. it is the cycle of fury and guilt that makes the universe bleak. it is that my violent speech is so beyond my control - a monster springs forth from the pit of my belly with such inertia and so surprisingly, that i am stuck, powerless to stop it. there is a me that stands by watching, knowing all the correct ways to handle the situation and instead staring slack-jawed in helpless horror. all the guilt in the world does nothing to dissuade the rambling, ranting me, does nothing to reduce the monster's size. i do all this writing and considering in search of the magic bullet to slay the beast for good. i am forever searching for a way out of the mess, as though this were separate from my life, merely some temporary setback - as though i could distinguish between myself as i am and myself as this other. but where are the lines, the boundaries? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself? how am i not myself?

how am i not myself? that's sort of the thing about me - i am always very much uniquely me. in all the messy, not-so-nice, aggressive, blunt, funny, sarcastic, down-to-earth-ishness ways that i am me and the me comes out in my speech and in my actions - i am me. i am often intensely me. i wear my heart on my sleeve. i literally broadcast my heart across the internet. i am loud and i am hyper. it is how i am organized and how i am capable of doing all the things i do. it is how i am creative and how i am insightful; how i am inventive, decisive, compassionate, cruel, empathetic. how i am positive is how i am negative. how i am perfect is how i am flawed. i try to separate the two sides out to leave nothing but the parts i like. i try to battle the me that is painful, but really i think the best i can hope for is to not rub the parts i don't like so much in trying to scrub me clean that i am left raw and unable to cope. there is a balance here in me, but it is far from perfect or exact. the sides are not prevalent in equal measure. the more i push and prod myself to do better, or more perfect, the more the stressed, angry, bitter me comes out to release the pent-up tension. i cannot be perfect. i cannot do everything. and it is okay to even not be okay. it is okay to feel sad and flawed or angry and bitter. it's just a part of the whole. i am ever trying to balance it out, however unconsciously. i am always in the act of doing more or less, working towards just being, towards just going towards. towards the future, towards an outcome, towards a resting point, towards an action or experience. i am a body in motion, in time and in circumstance. i must find a way to stop the battle. i cannot cut off the limb that holds the ax. it's all a part of the same thing and the key is to accept what is; to be who i am in all the ways that i am. in trying to escape the wrathful me, i deny the entire person and it only digs the hole deeper and makes my world feel bleak and hopeless. i must find ways to accept myself and not aggravate the aggravated by trying to push it away or cover it up. how i let these emotions out is of course important, but the way i try to escape my life is not the solution for moving through it.