Emotion

Warning: This is almost purely neurotic. This is me saying stuff that has bothered me recently. Stuff that I've felt pressing into me and that I have need to push back a little bit, if only in order to breathe and examine it.

So, I recognize this feeling. This panic swelling inside me like a tumor, ready to strike, to become cancer, to kill me slowly and painfully. I've been here before and it wasn't pretty then. How have I gotten back here? How have I found myself in this exact same position, when I knew all the warning signs? When I had carefully mapped out the road that led to the last destructive adventure?

Let us back up several years. Say... about when I was 11 or 12. I remember standing in front of my bedroom mirror and wishing, practically begging to the universe, to be beautiful. See, at this point in time I was already one to chase boys. I thought they were pretty neat and all that jazz. Boys though, at this time, wanted nothing to do with me. They would much rather be around my best friend Nellie.

As a young and impressionable young girl, I believed that the only difference between me and her at the time was that she was prettier than me. That when I stood next to her, I looked awkward and ugly. So several nights found me whispering over and over again a plea to become beautiful. Now, looking back, I see that was a foolish wish.

Now, I shy away from make-up, spending too much time on my hair, and only about 5 minutes in total to think about what I'm going to wear. Not that I'm trying to look like a slob, because I try to always be presentable. But I'm trying to be more average than the "beauty" that I had thought I wanted to be at a younger age. The attention that I once thought I wanted, I realize now, is not what I truly need. At that foolish age though, I believed that all attention was that same and that it was something that I had to have.

I can't say that I've surpassed wanting so much attention, but that I now realize there are several different types of attention that can be given and received. The attention given to my body is what I always thought I wanted. I can't say that I don't enjoy it, but that these days I would like attention paid to all of me. Mind, body and soul.

That's where this stems from, I guess. I feel like the only attention that I've been getting lately is that paid to my body. When it's happening, I don't mind. Hell, I encourage it. And there are day's that that kind of attention is all I want. That anything else would be too much, too heavy for me to handle. But I know that in the long run, what I want and need is attention paid to my mind, but most importantly, to my soul.

My body is fully aware that it's attractive. It's gotten the picture, fully developed and blown up in large scale. My mind is pretty confident in itself as well. So really, my soul, the poor fragile thing, is the only one that is being neglected.

Honestly, I don't know how to tell anyone how to go about paying attention to another's soul. I mean, it's not the body, physically capable of receiving attention. Nor is it like the mind, that can be exercised and complemented. No, the soul is just a bit more complicated than that. It's possible though, just not something easily taught.

I'm sorry universe, that I'm asking you for this, something that so few have mastered, but it's what I feel like I need. Something that I've been missing out on. I need someone that is spiritual in nature. Not necessarily of the "Christian" religion, because my spiritual self and those of that religion don't tend to mix. But someone of a spiritual nature of some sort. I can't ask those already in my life to take up this cause. Spirituality has to be a desired thing. I'm starting to fear though, that spirituality isn't desired enough for me to find what I need.