i am a rock

and a rock feels no pain
and an island never cries

so an unexpected result of the optimism experiment is... sometimes i just don't feel anything. almost like the only way i can keep from sliding into dispair is to not feel anything much at all. i've noticed that i've felt less miserable and also less giddy. i'm less concerned about my friends' happiness and sadness. i don't feel the same clutch of missing people that i have missed for a long time. i am in an emotional place where the injustices and societal ills do not leap into my heart the way they usually do. maybe this is just a natural and healthy disassociation. part of my growth. a step back to examine. maybe not. maybe it's just a numb.

maybe this is just a correlative experience and not a causal one. i did just go home for thanksgiving and sign the papers to become my mom's power of attorney and sign off on her DNR. so it is possible that keeping my shit together for THAT situation has necessitated some creative emotional compartmentalization.

i don't know. all i DO know is that i have been more content to hole up in my apartment and read and watch TV and work on christmas schemes and not be bothered. i have felt the prick of pain that i have not felt MORE pain for the hurts of people around me. but i have felt more present. more earth-bound. better able to enjoy the fleeting joy of laughing my butt off with my family at a silly movie. and thankfulness for my dear friends who i love.

i miss the mystical, the emotional. i have missed the visceral experience of empathy and anger and the giddy irrational glee of a shopping victory or a sunny vacation booked. but in the mean time, it has been a helpful relief to not collapse into a pile of sobs about the Epic Ex wedding, or my chemo-ravaged mom, or the tears and griefs of my dear friends who i love but who i have not joined lately in their painful places.

here's another line from bono to ponder in this place:
you can't be numb from love
the only pain is to feel nothing at all