Update: I woke up this morning and already feel better, and I don't feel like relating to this post at all. I just want to push it out of my mind and pretend I never wrote it. Pathos embarrasses me--and even moreso now. I'm feeling angry and embarrassed I indulged in it. I have half a mind to erase the whole thing and pretend it never happened, but I won't because it's real--the path where I'm going isn't always perfectly paved, and I can't hold that against myself or pretend I'm perfect and that I never have moments of weakness--that's what I *used* to do, and that never worked. And it's important for me to realize I have some more work to do, and this will be a reminder. So I'm leaving the post up, but it's already mostly irrelevant.
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A few days ago I was going to write a post about the fact that I'd suddenly realized I was beginning to forget what it felt like to be me before I started getting better. I'd planned to describe how surprised I was that the memory of it all seemed to have faded, and how shocking it was to contemplate that I might only be feeling positive from now on. How odd that felt, and how strange to start losing something familiar I'd felt for years--to not remember how it felt to be that girl anymore. It seemed somewhat scary, although also probably positive. But I was thinking I ought to record some of the old feelings before they faded entirely and I could no longer write about them with any clarity or realism, which I want to be able to do, for myself and for others.

It's funny, though, how tiny triggers can bring back feelings that you thought weren't there anymore.

It seems those feelings I thought were entirely gone aren't completely eradicated yet, but were instead just sleeping in a distant corner of my mind, coiled up like a dark cobra inside a basket, just waiting for the right tune to lure it back out and strike, sending its poison into my blood stream.

So. I realize I haven't forgotten what it felt like. Not yet. Not totally.

And sensing the first edge of those feelings again brought me back, as it often has in the past, to this song and scene from the film Magnolia. The scene and those feelings are so inextricably bound for me, that experiencing either one will often bring a craving for the other, regardless of which is experienced first.

It has an emotional resonance I can't shake. When I watch this, I remember being the me I thought I was forgetting. I feel everything I did then.

I don't want to go back to the place this scene speaks to me of. But that's where I'm at today, sitting back with that girl in a darkened movie theater, seeing through her eyes, stunned by the grip recognition--this is me. Wanting to watch it over and over, a confirmation of that darkness. And since that's where I am today, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. And I'm not going to disallow myself my desire to watch this scene a few times and feel the dark and frightening and yet somehow still seductive grip of what I used to feel.

But I won't cater to it for too long. I'm not gonna let that win. This isn't me. Not anymore.

I'm not going to take it as a failure that I can still feel something I hoped I'd conquered.