"at straws or sticks or stones"

I've written half a dozen journal entries, relegated them all to either the void or a google doc.  I can't put my finger on what I want to talk about, I can't put my finger on what is making me feel so jumpy today, this hypersensitive feeling of being poised either to give offense or take it.  But I can tell it's there, and I can tell I want to write.   

I'm struggling with something, it feels like there's a bird in my ribcage, banging to get out, trying to communicate some sort of desperation that it doesn't have words for, that I don't have words for.  It's something about a hand in my hair, something about wanting fountains of reassurance, something about not knowing how to feel when I'm not providing a specific service or explicitly reinforcing a way someone wants to think about themselves.

I assume, for the most part, that what I can do is figure out what people are willing to give, and accept that, and so I almost never get to the point where I figure out what I want, and whether or not I'm willing to cope with the inevitable mismatch of what I want and what someone wants to give.

And so I throw myself into that same desperate circumstance over and over again, and I want to learn to do something better.  I think I might be learning to do something better.    One of the many things I've realized in the past couple weeks is that I'm starting to surround myself with people who I have no idea what they want, and that's liberating and terrifying all at the same time.      (Another thing I've realized in the past couple weeks is that I really enjoy referring to myself as 'chock full of agency'.)

But I sometimes still end up here, feeling like I've overplayed every hand, that I've spent too much time in the sun, that I've given more than someone wanted to receive and now I have to stand here, wanting to disappear, while they try to find a way to politely reject me.   And it's a losing proposition, of course, because the feeling almost never goes away, it just gets postponed, moved forward to wait under the next bridge.   But maybe I need to retire this narrative of always being too much, and find someway to consider myself just the right amount.  You must be this emotionally tall to ride this ride, etc.   I want to be needed, I want to be wanted, I want to be craved.  I want to be important, but I can't pinpoint what that means, practically, other than I want to be remembered and I want to be included.
 
But now, onward to glory.   Or to lunch with Delight and getting my hair repurpled, which for all practical purposes is the same as glory.