Fear, Quake

Last night I hung out (hanged out? mm… nah) with Mackenzie and Yeong and a crowd of people they meet regularly for sushi on Wednesday nights.  They also have a tradition of playing pool at a bar next door while they wait for a table; according to MackenzieYeong, the same terrible band plays Beatles covers there every Wednesday.  I can definitely back up that part.  Their cover of “Yesterday” consisted of one guy strumming the chords on an acoustic guitar with another shouting “WHY DID YOU HAVE TO MOTHERFUCKIN’ GO?”

The food was deelicious.  The bar part is what made me most nervous.  I made myself go as part of my “Angela, stop avoiding social contact” agenda.   At Sushiyama, I got to listen to alot of people talk at the table.  I really put forth effort into listening to people and then trying to generate some thoughts and speak them, rather than waiting for it to be over in silence.  It’s not that I don’t like Mackenzie and her friends or that I don’t like people in general; I just get really afraid of revealing my opinions or anything indicative of inner substance.

 

My concentration right now is learning how to do things in front of people.

 

When we left Sushiyama, though, Yeong’s friend/roommate Jen whom I’d met that night gave me a hug and said, “You get a hug, because I like you.”  I sort of gasped on the inside and thought, “I showed myself and someone liked me!”  It was a small immediate affirmation. 

The fear is a patch of weeds, and I’m slowly uprooting it one by one.  Every myth that I confront is another tangle of roots loosened.

 

As for the problem of existence… Problem?  Only philosophers are screwy enough to refer to existence as a problem.  Heh.  As for the question of existence, I have a collection of ideas swirling around me as to why I’m here.  That’s not the brick-like ontological security of a holy roller, but I realize now that I would be horrified if I ever arrived at that much certainty.  This happened in junior high.  I spent seventh grade in a sort of turmoil of fragmentation… and then in eighth grade I decided that even if I couldn’t absolutely know everything and why, I was here after all and, well, I liked it, for whatever reason it was given to me.  And I decided to be.