breathe julia.

you need to calm down.

i'll tell you what it's like. it's like being able to function and go about day to day, and not once do your emotions reach your head outside of a pressure in your chest or an inkling in your mind.

and then sometimes in the quiet moments when you're alone, you hear echoes. echoes of images, fleeting moments, emotions that had been collected throughout the day below your awareness. of people, and invitations that you didn't see when the moment was there for you to grasp. and a longing. a longing for something more, a longing for some kind of connection even though deep down, you know you may not possess the capacity to accept it.

i had an email from david by the time i got to berlin. i expected it. i expected to read what he wrote but it still made the blood drain from my head and gave me a sinking feeling in my chest.

all i do is leave a wake of hurt and disappointment in my path.

i get lonely, then i break down and show a stranger the real me. and these strangers usually want to follow me home, want to keep me, want to intertwine our futures.

how can a man be so sure after knowing me for one day? that's the thing i want to tell him but it's not nice, even though it's the truth. what he feels, i can't vouch for because i've seen it too often to trust it. so many people have looked at me the way he looks at me. and they are not in my life, even though i always think about them and wonder if they're still awake.

what i give to you
is just what i'm going through
this is nothing new
no no just another phase of finding what i really need
is what makes me bleed
like a new disease,
[he's] still too young to treat...

(volcano - damien rice)

i am a seeker but as a person, my capabilities are limited. so fucking limited that i don't understand how someone who can project so much warmth and love can have such an empty heart, but it's because i seek and i share what i discover and what energy i capture, but as a person, i am not much outside of my function.

so often i feel that i am not human, but perhaps the irony is that i'm devastatingly human. so completely limited by human flaw. i stumble through life but my insides are underdeveloped, and while others can coexist with loved ones and built emotional bonds and futures, i skirt the surface and only give in one shot, one night, the dribbles of heart i've saved up for long stretches. and one night is often all i've got. i can not sustain any bonds to my insides because there is nothing for others to tie themselves to. but i keep searching, hoping that somehow, i can find a heart to put in place of the empty space where i don't have one. so much love and warmth can radiate out of me, but no heart. i can't understand it.

getting close to people hurts my self-esteem because as intelligent and as good at so many things as i am, as hard as i work to always be improving aspects of myself and my capabilities, nothing reminds me of how limited i am as getting close to people. having someone want things from me reminds me of how limited i am in what i can give emotionally, even though spiritually, i can give abundantly. but that's never enough. they want emotional connection. and eventually, they want a commitment. and it makes me feel like i only disapoint people because as they get closer, they realize that beautiful oasis they thought they saw was just a mirage, and the things they felt were promised don't even exist.

giving emotionally, feelings...it's like trust. you can't just say you trust someone. you either have trust in something or you don't. you can talk around it, think around it, but it comes down to that. same thing with emotions, interpersonal love. you either have it or you don't. and i feel it surging inside me for certain people in a spiritual sense, but when what they're looking for is something that comes out of my chest, it's not by my choice that there is nothing in there.

i've philosophized about it. i've tried to spin it so many ways. i've tried to come to terms with it as an existential quest. i've told people straight up that i don't even belong to me...i belong to the universe, to a journey that i don't always understand, but that i am committed to follow.

you can't tell me it's because i'm avoiding, or that i just don't want to commit. if i could find someone that i could consistently have feelings for and it felt right to tie my future to his, then i would. i absolutely would. but so far, nothing fills that void in my chest except sharing and giving spiritual comradery, protection and knowledge.

when i meet people i care about, i end up wanting to protect them from me, but also protect me from them. i don't want them to get too attached because they will get hurt, and i don't want them to get too close because their disappointment will hurt me. but nothing makes me feel emptier than being close to someone.

look, why do i have these spiritual meetings with strangers that come out of the blue like a bolt of lightning. people are always asking me what i get out of it and i'll tell you the truth--when i share a message with someone, i am filled with love for that person, a burning desire to see them free and awake, aware of their potential and how beautiful they are. i remember that love and that person i shared it with and i carry all of these experiences with me, these perfectly encapsulated moments where two strangers, two spiritual travelers, met on a dark road and shared something meaningful before continuing on their individual paths.

but to get close to someone, means giving up that moment. it means taking something magical that happened in the deepest of night to be scrutinized by the light of day. in essence, it destroys the moment...it destroys the magic.

all this may not make exact sense right now or it may sound like a load of spin to hide a commitment issue, but i'm just throwing out everything inside me while i figure it out. my thoughts on this will probably change hourly. i'm starting to see that this trip is for me to understand this aspect of myself, and either see if this is something i can change on a personal level (a psychological block), or something i have to come to terms with on a spiritual level. every person's life path is different, and everyone's function is different. i proved to people i can commit, but the problem is, i need to want to commit. something has to be worthy of my commitment and i only want to commit to the things that are right for me. what you are meant to do, you'll do best, but what you do best may not necessarily be what you want to do. that's the rule under which everything else falls. from there, you have to decide where you will live.

so that brings me to now. watching the rain come down in fat pellets outside my window in berlin, sitting in an unbelievably beautiful and comfortable hotel room that makes me feel safe and inspired.

and david. who's on a train right now because he's decided he needs to see me in berlin tonight.

breathe, julia. breathe.

i don't belong to anyone.