why do I feel like i am dying lately? not sure if "lately" is even the right word for it. it just feels like some sort of end. but a truly terminal kind of end. a no-way-back end. I am just not sure anymore which part of me is going to die sooner: my mental or my physical. Lately it's been increasingly looking like mental going to take the cake on this one. and it fucking scares the shit out of me. because I keep feeling this horrible claustrophobic sensation of the walls around me being far too close in on me, and I keep running and banging into the same fucking walls, bouncing off one and onto the other. bang. ouch. bang. ouch. bang. ouch... there's only so much of this banging and running and banging and never fucking moving out of the fucking box that I can take. it's been an act of endurance all along. when the hell have I ever felt just purely at ease soaking in life? sometime way back in my very early youth. I'm talking about Sy's age. perhaps up until 9 or 10. since then.... just endurance after endurance. here I am now, at 31 inching towards 32, on the brink of insanity. I'm dropping fragments of shattered sanity allover the fucking place. it's like something cracked a long time ago and now it has finally given way to release the hold over whatever sanity I had left in there... just such a mess. it's torture being just sane enough and conscious enough to witness myself going insane. I'm running out of tactics. tried this. tried that. only thing that grounds me at times is Sy's eyes. looking at me and telling me it's ok. "it's ok, mom. it's ok. I love you." makes me feel like shit. complete shit. knowing that I am letting someone so spectacularly wonderful just utterly down. I can't get a grip anymore. and that scares me so much. I don't know who to turn to. I don't know how to help myself anymore. I don't have any resources whom I would trust with my mental state of being. I don't know anymore. it's all on me, it seems. get it together, noemi. get your shit together. take a deep breath. find that spot in your brain - the control spot - and hold onto it tight. squeeze the shit out of it if you have to. but you must find happiness again somehow. you must stop and reassess. and if it means having to make sacrifices in our standards of living or whatever the hell, then so be it. I need to fix this leak fast, because it is breaking fast into a full-on spill.

stop and reassess. and don't forget to smile. smile whenever possible. and repeat to yourself over and over again when trouble strikes or that fucking rumble inside starts up: "I don't care. i don't care. I don't care." and smile some more. and say something funny to make Sy laugh. that always feels good. seeing Sy happy and still loving me. because I know I am getting harder and harder to love. fuck.

I have to add this. I did feel a pure sense of ease more recently in my life. back in 2005, spring in Paris and in love. Vincent... he was a very good man. and, of course. despite the troublesome moments elsewhere during my summer travels last year, I remember Ariccia. I remember Paolo and Laura. I remember being with two of the most warmest and kindest people I have ever met. and two people who I felt an instantaneous connection with, unlike ever with anyone before. with such ease. and just being free. that was a beautiful time. perhaps a time that affected me so deeply because it showed me what life can be like. and it sure made the life I've had til then and I have right now seem like pure shit in comparison. more so than ever. so, an awakening of some sort? yes. but how do I move upward rather than down? I have to solve this.