Flying Through The Past - Delusional Bonanza

Getting sober allows me access to my past.  As if I've got a video/dvd collection of everything.  As if I've got FLAC files of every emotional tremor.  As if I've got a hand on my own previous shoulder.  I can almost seamlessly drift or float through these experiential memories.  Every day of sobriety adds a level of precision that I didn't know could exist previously.  As if I just got prescription glasses for the first time and realized that words exist.  As if everything is written out.  And accessible.  And I'm not inured from experiencing it because I don't have to protect my own narrative about my previous self.  Not that I have no ego.  Just that I've found a way to experience the past without defending previous interpretations.  Like listening to old albums with new ears.  I used to think that certain conceptions could only be experienced in one way, and I protected--viciously--those precise experiences, and tried to show others how I experienced them.  And I wasn't wrong so much as trying to get my head around my own experiences at the time, and not quite okay with what it was they were.  And by extension. Who it was that I was.

Which consequently allowed me to fake into my own identity depending on circumstance, audience, and perceived possible reception.  And segregate different identities.  And try to keep them away from each other.  And try to keep myself away from myself.  Which, I realized, when I took the time to look around the abstraction of my brain and piece myself together, to assemble and organize as it were, meant that I was, actually, existent in one self, and not many, and that schizophrenia, for all of the romantic allure and dystopic fervor, actually is on a whole quite negative and costly, and stability was always something that I'd consistently under-rated as important.  At the same time I had a penchant for risk that might enamor me to myself, if I had the courage to look.  As if a precursor to looking. I had to impress myself with myself before I could look at myself.  Which meant that I never, ever, wanted to try.  Which meant that I was never, ever, impressive.  Instead I was vain and puny and weak and hopelessly inured.  To the possibility that I might be alright, deep down, if I found a way to settle the fragments I'd so carefully placed around the room.  As if they could float in the air there, where I placed them.   As if they didn't come down on their own.  As if the powder and shards that were left weren't already cutting into the soles of my feet. As if.