Essay on Shame #25

I talked on the phone yesterday with both my sisters and we talked about shame, though we didn't use the word. In one conversation we talked about the mean mistake-free self (although she visualizes either Edward Cullen, from Twilight, or a bunch of weasels) and how badly it wants her to stay in the past and focus on things she can't change or do differently -- to trap her in time with her mistakes. This takes that divide, that split, to an additional level of malevolence -- the mistake-free self is actually trying to destroy the mistake-making self, to remain alone, hollow and sterile, cold-blooded and chattering and sparkly, in the world, half-dead and half-alive.

With my other sister I talked about reducing the amount of time between flailing and realizing the flail -- making the mistake of unkindness, of misinterpretation, of violence -- to seconds and hopefully to negative seconds. To know what selves, what impulses, may be lying in wait in the very near future in this complex of thoughts filled with enemy actions.