8:16 p.m. - March 11, 2003
I'm feeling okay now, everything is under control. Why does that strike me as apropos for a bumper sticker? Trivializing binaries of push and pull, only one can win.
Tumultuous day and maybe you see tumult and place it under a to-be-qualified advisement, play with theoretical (non)binaries of form and meaning, or chalk up such a pronouncement as yet another tired emotional play, much like the last (disappointing) Superbowl. I feel the same way most of the time, caught up between defending self-validation damn-what-you-think and declaimatory rhetoric, seeking that balance of self and Self and achieving that plateau called serenity. But today, tumult in reverse order because events cascade and the root is the same.
I don�t know how or where to begin.
In December I ordered a background search for the man who molested me all those years ago � how strange, how calmly I write that � and I knew I had the correct man, I remembered his football jersey number, looked him up in the yearbook at the high school I taught at so briefly and his face was his face and I became sad after that, more weight on the declination of my thoughts and emotions for a long time now. I received the results in mid January and for $89.95 learned everything I thought I wanted to know and more about his work history, credit history, relationship status, finances, a terrible invasion of privacy and I didn�t know what I expected to come from knowing the value of his house. I didn�t know what I wanted. I wanted to know what could be gleaned and I was sated on the one hand, piqued on the other with an intense hunger that frightened me. I needed to know.
For $350.00 more I obtained targeted services of this company to find out further details and today the folder arrived and I feel so angry with myself I�m frightened and confused, I feel right this minute absolutely detached. A few minutes ago Twids asked how are you and I replied the standard I�m good and I was surprised I could type, nearly wondering how did I learn to do this? In this folder are pictures of Mr. Eric Vincent Thompson and his wife; he has three children (two boys, 8 and 10, one daughter 7). He is 35 years old, eight years older than me, which means everything started when he was 16. What makes a 16 year old act on demonic impulses is something I don�t want to think about now or later. He works for the city of Fresno and his wife works part-time as an accountant and his children�s names are Trevor, Marshal, and Kylie and the house looks like your typical three bedroom California rancher, long and low and there is a chimney which surprised me for some reason. There are no arrest records, no convictions, many tickets and mediocre credit, he is not a church goer and was legally separated from his wife for a year and a half. He drives a 1995 Ford, gray, and they have a Saturn wagon and I can�t help but wonder if it�s for family trips to Baskin Robbins. I am angry, better word is enraged deduct the magniloquence and I�m having trouble breathing slowly, my hands shake and there are likely many misspellings and do you understand this anger, can you feel it but probably not, I never open up completely and damn it, Howl is already taken. I want to yell and do something and I�m nauseous, putrid psychosomatic influences frustrate, I am feeling overwhelmed.
How blithely I opened the manila envelope and pulled out the information, how calmly and I recall I was proud of myself for being controlled and rational, emotionally flatlined the way I prefer, the disinterested interest that never fools anybody, much less me. I can�t write, I have to do something but I can�t drive, I don�t want to drive. Control, control. I will be fine in a moment. Sententiousness, that.
My anger is immature, hell for that matter I am immature period and I recognize this, affirm it, shrug it off but hide it well but perhaps not well enough but I am angry, do you understand this? I cannot think of how to express it, times like this my English degenerates and it�s better for me to sign, the sign is anguish made with both hands twisted by the gut moving quickly up out of the mouth and there is some minor relief to signing that just now, but it is that I feel. My secret, that dark passion, I want to confront him and kill him and it is not fantasy but zeal and whatever bravado seen is illusory because this is a big man, he is 6 foot 4 and that helps me understand why he is always looming, so much taller than I but I want to hurt him with such a passion, a yataghan, and I can feel my heart aching, pumping bile which it is likely doing. I am such shit because as much as I want to hurt this man Eric Vincent Thompson I know I can�t, I couldn�t because let�s face it, I�m not a man but a shriveled shadow unsure of living or dying and fading fast and I don�t even know how to fight well and JESUS do you understand what I�m trying to say, it galls me to the pit because this man is normal, he is normal, he is normal and I feel violated, I feel his normalcy is what he stole from me and I am so angry I don�t know what to do and my fingers ache from typing too fast and I just dialed his telephone number and my heart feels like it will explode and in addition to all this, I wonder if I should inform somebody to alert him and how crazy is that?
I have to breathe.
Later.
Calmer. Not much, but some. I don�t know how to put it aside, let it rest and gather dust, I�ve had all I want with roilsome emotions and what my clueless therapist said was likely PTSD and how quickly I dismissed that, it�s just a matter of putting things into perspective in their rightful places and if I was smarter better capable it wouldn�t be an issue at all. I am tired of crying as much as I do when I�m overwhelmed and it is this subject that overwhelms, but what else can I do? I thought it was good, healthy, fill-in-the-blank, to confront these issues, to see what was there. What he did for those three years made me nothing more than a plaything tossed aside and as much as I try to sell myself the concept, I feel the same way now, used. Used for nothing. I think it was better when I didn�t think about this but it�s a bind, I opened the box to better understand the gay issue � and maybe that�s another cop out � just everything converged.
I feel ashamed that I invaded this man�s privacy but I couldn�t help it. I feel guilty for doing this. I hoped to find that his life is substandard, that he has problems, hoped to find something that didn�t exonerate but could help me understand why. And I didn�t get that. Instead I see the glaring contrast and I am hurt and angry and ashamed all at once. And contrite. Such an odd thing to say, but I feel as if my eyeballs are melting, I�m squeezing too hard. I had hoped there was a reason other than for the fun of it.
I don�t feel like writing. That�s not true. Will this ever fade away? It�s killing me, you know that?
