Mythological Unconditional Love

Some people say that happy romantic relationships depend on the beautiful lies couples say to each other.

“You are unbelievably perfect for me.”

“No one could ever be as wonderful as you.”
“I was miserable before I met you. I’m so glad the moon told me to kiss you. You’re the best kisser of life.”
Etc.

Yesterday, I felt deprived of such beautiful lies. And I wrote this Haiku:

Haiku: M.U.L.

 

Mythological

Unconditional Love is
Something I’m missing.

Some of the 12-step people invented something called Sexual Addiction. S.A. I did not feel like researching all that much about this condition, but my understanding is that Sex Addicts (also referred to as S.A.’s) seek out sex and love to remedy their low self-esteem. Or maybe they are lonely.

 

I did the twelve steps a couple of times for my eating disorder. For step three or four or five, I had to compile all of my character defects. I wrote each character defect on a little slip of paper. The first time I compiled my character defects, I threw them all into the Lachine Canal, near Griffintown. That was in 2009. I imagine that the Lachine Canal must be full of character defects. In 2011, I wrote out my character defects again. This time, I put them in my homemade God Box. Before I moved to Halifax, I gave the God Box to Simon, my ex-ex boyfriend who I wrote a mediocre epistolary novel with. The novel was called, The Little Savage and the Hermit. Simon was the Hermit. I am trying to refrain from referring to Simon as my ex-ex boyfriend who jumped off a building on January 4, 2015, and this is going not that well.   

 

I don’t know what happened to the God Box. It was covered with splatters of paint. I used to be quite artistic.

 

Beautiful lies are the best cure for character defects.

 

“I love you even though you get peanut butter all over the walls.”

“I love you more than spelt bread.”
“Your vagina makes up for your obnoxious meltdowns, even though you have questionable groin welts from misguided attempts at pubic hair removal.”

As I mentioned, I am missing the Beautiful Lies. Perhaps I am an S.A.

 

R.S.A. equals Recovering Sex Addicts and such people do not seek out sex and love as remedies for low self-esteem and loneliness. I wonder what they do instead.

 

I think it is a bit dumb to pathologize loneliness into a vague disease or unflattering label. Probably the S.A.’s and R.S.A.’s are the same as everyone else. They’re just bad liars. I can relate:

 

“Everyone wishes they were my duvet.”

“My crooked do-it-yourself haircut is spectacular.”
“I am the funniest writer in the world.”

The End.

 
Selfies are the ultimate beautiful lie.

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Thursday, February 19, 2015

On Tuesday, I translated three sentences about barley.

With its varying hues, the barley gives this dish a two-toned appearance. This colouring is due to the fact that the hulls are still wrapped around some of the grains. This dish makes a wonderful accompaniment to chicken, fish, or pork.

On Thursday, I translated a letter for a bank that is firing all its employees and switching to automated machines.

In 2009, I drew my body in the shape of a small gingerbread man. I drew a circle in the throat area and inside the circle, I wrote green. My old psychologist Dr. Henderson used to teach me how to colour code my day. Pink meant happy. Orange was average. Okay or mediocre but not horrendous. Green equalled shitty. While she was explaining the code to me, she used smelly markers on her big chart paper. As I went through the day, I was supposed to rate my mood. Whenever there was food or eating disorder symptoms, I would automatically say that it was green, even though sometimes puking something tasty into your mouth felt soothing. Other times, it was just disgusting and it made me feel ashamed. My fear for you, Dr. Henderson said, is that the eating disorder will continue to insert green into moments that would otherwise be pink or orange. She explained that it was important to leave room in your life for orange moments. Sometimes life is just orange, she said. Not terrible or catastrophic, but also not spectacular. You don’t need to let the eating disorder add green and make it bad. This makes her sound dumb, but she was actually quite a good psychologist.

The gingerbread man with green in his throat

I always felt pressured to rate my eating disorder times as green and unpleasant and terrible. Except that the vomit wasn’t always particularly unpleasant. Sometimes it felt better than faking it. More honest. The insides matched the outsides.

Dr. Henderson told me that eating disorder or not, I would probably always be a fairly anxious person. I found this news to be remarkably disappointing. I had the vision that once I stopped puking in my mouth, I would transform into someone exquisitely calm. Someone who remains impressively unphased by life’s whims. A Chill Chick. Alas, this is not quite me.

Back when I tried to do the twelve steps for overcoming alcoholism in attempts to overcome my eating disorder, I made a God Box. It was in the shape of a long rectangle. I covered it with sheets of paper which I decorated with splatters of pink, yellow and purple paint. Maybe there were also other colours. Naomi, my friend and roommate at the time, called it the Allah Box. We wanted to be inclusive of all religions and cultures. Probably we were also being a little bit obnoxious. The Allah Box was for putting all your problems and worries into. I wrote down my problems on small square sheets of paper, folded them in half and slid them through the rectangular slot on the top of the Allah Box.

The A.A. people recommend writing all your character defects down. You can make a list or write them down on small squares of paper, and put them in your God slash Allah Box, or throw them in the Lachine Canal. I think I tried all of these things. I have a list of all the character defects I put in the God Box and on a list and in the Lachine Canal. It is not that interesting. I think I got a bunch of my character defects from the sample list on the A.A. website. Oh well.

Erica’s List of Character Defects

Easily discouraged                                                   resentments

Give up easily                     tendency to create drama

Hypochondria                                   disorganization                                        prejudice

         Perfectionism                                        distractedness

                         INTOLERANCE                                     selfishness

Judgementalness                          carelessness                                        jaded facetious skeptical

Pride                  greed            seeing the negative all the time

Defects isn’t the kindest word.

Before I left Montreal to live with the Boatman in Halifax, I gave the Allah Box to Simon.  Even though we didn’t get along that well, Simon kept the Allah Box until January 4^th. Then he jumped off a building and died. Maybe it wasn’t very nice to give someone a box filled with my character defects.

On my bedside table, there is a dusty lamp that doesn’t work. There’s something wrong with the plug, and perhaps also the lightbulb. Not sure. The Boatman and I are terrible at following through with stuff like that. We could spend the rest of our lives looking after shit like that. Lightbulb after plug after leaky shower head.

The End.

I Let Go
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Simon Girard 1979-2015

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Rumplestiltskin