Monday, May 28, 2007

I am Magic.

Dear MPJ:

One of my dearest friends is in a serious relationship with a black guy...she's got blond hair and blue eyes, and she's a lit chick, and she has been very suspicious over her man's relationship with a former girlfriend. Every time we talk, I keep referencing things you've said in your blog...partly because I'm reading it a lot, and partly because I've found it really helpful in my own life, and partly because the overlaps in your situations seem eerie...not just the obvious parallel with the race stuff...something about your writing and tone and its resonance for me has reminded me of the way this chick and I hit it off...she's one of those folks who I just loved, pretty much from the first time I saw her, much like I felt when I read your blog the first time...that sense of recognition, of finding someone who GETS it...

Anyway, she's been riding the crazy train the last few weeks. And I've been feeding her bits of wisdom from you blog, half thinking I was doing the thing where I read her life through the screen of mine, half expecting her med-school boyfriend to be using heroin, or, next best thing, to be a sex addict.

And guess what?

He was TOTALLY cheating with the girl she thought he was cheating with. That weird intuition that we so often dismiss as paranoia was right, once again...that little voice that tells you something isn't right is always, ALWAYS, right on point.

It's amazing.

There is a tiny, eensy part of me, however, that believes I have cursed her. Because I saw the parallels between your situation and believed in them, I have somehow magically transmuted reality...I have bent time and space, taking the stuff of her life and turning it into yours. I am magical.
It's a strange thing, this magical reasoning, this belief in my own intense ability to change the world, my own centrality in the universe. It's the way that part of me believes that my magical pussy is going to change my husband...
And it's a strange feature for someone who so often is full of self-doubt, frustration, questions...I don't know why I swing from this pendulum of wild self-assurance and intense self-doubt. It's quite like Mr. Junky's own swings...perhaps less extreme, but within the same range...
Hmmm...

3 comments:

Mary P Jones (MPJ) said...

Well, at least your magic has made me secure in my anonymity. Just when I figure how many other people are there that fit my profile, I find one.

Weird about the magical thinking, because I was just blogging about my dad -- and I have had this feeling for my whole life that just thinking less than perfect things of him (um, thinking the truth) is going to cause anger and evil and bad things to rain down on my life.

We fear the power of our own thoughts...

Anonymous said...

Gut intuition is a weird thing...my gut is never, never wrong and I have learned to ignore it at my peril...

Wayward Son said...

I recently finished reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Dideon. her story is about how grief causes one to think in magical ways. I think her point is that it is a delusion of self preservation. She leaves it up to the reader to decide as grief is a unique experience for everyone despite all of the commonalities.

I happen to believe my own delusions of magical thinking blur easily with my need to take responsibility for everything. I cannot tell you how much grief that brings me. I am working on it now that I am clean and have the clarity to do so.

BTW, Thanks for stopping by and leaving the comment. It is quite meaningful for me to get them. I responded in the thread of your comment because I wanted to be clear about my thoughts on "dwelling in my addiction".