Aaaagh, still can't sleep

I really am tired, but I can't sleep. More linguistic bullying - it is _never_ a good idea to pair two people who always think that they are right. I feel so frustrated, this shouldn't be so hard, I am a relatively intelligent person, why can't I make things work the way they are supposed to? Perhaps too much stock has been put into social constructs, or contracts between two people. What are our responsibilities to one another? Do we owe people something just because we love them? Do we owe one person more than another because of their temporal placement in our lives? How do we assign value to love and competing interests? Why do we choose to protect the people that we do?

I am fantasizing (must stop) about publishing my first book. How will my name appear? Will I use my maiden name or my married name or both? What if I am not married anymore (anger speaking)? Do I get to keep the name? Am I coopting or appropriating unfairly, identifying with something I am not (for self-serving purposes)? Have I earned the right to wear a name like a badge? What I would _really_ like is for someone to call me by my secret middle name. That would never make it onto the book cover, but I wish to be called this by someone at some point in my life. I would also like to call Isabella by her other name, I picked it especially for her, Sofía, one with the English (or Italian) spelling and the other with the Spanish, a compromise, but both equally pronounceable in both languages, our attempt at smoothing over the continental divide.

There is something predictable and soothing about writing to fill an empty screen, previously an empty page. I can't believe I didn't start doing this sooner, but I guess life has a way of offering us little treasures when we _most_ need them, when we are ready to accept them. Oh the bitter irony. Those who live by the sword die by the sword, those who live by the pen, must therefore also die by the pen? I wish that I had a magic eraser (like the Shel Silverstein poem that has suddenly fascinated Sofía) so as to white out, do over, undo the mistakes in my life, the places that cause me pain and sadness. If I could do things better than I have done, I would, but it seems so unfair that I should be judged so harshly by my detractors.
I don't like to think of myself as a bad person, but lately, it seems to be the theme, and if it weren't for a small person, I would truly believe that I am un-lovable in every way. I don't know what upsets me more, cruel words or passive aggressive silence. They both reek, and wreak havoc on my self-esteem. What? self-esteem, but you insist that I am the most selfish of all people, well maybe it seems that way, but it's just preemptive self-defense. As girls we learn a lot about self-defense, ruffling our feathers like a peacock, not to attract but to warn, a baring of fangs, a hiss... my back is up when you touch me because it is the reaction that I have learned.

This is not meant for anyone's eyes but my own, so if you are reading this and feel alluded to, fuck off, tonight it is not about you. I am anxiously awaiting the diaries whose secrets were robbed. This public forum allows me to repent and reveal without fear of reprisal or repercussion specifically because there is _nothing_ hidden, no expectation of privacy and therefore no trust to be broken. Low expectations ergo no crushing, bewildering dissappointment. At least that is the idea. Reality has a habit of twisting even our most carefully laid plans, and well, if you are a mouse, the cat might just be coming, but then that is what a mouse might expect from life, right? If we nullify our existence, we undress, deconstructing our own funeral pyre, do we undo the greatness of our ultimate departure?

As always my words are like snow falling in the forest, untouched by human life, a sparrow may alight, and mingle with the chilling, thrilling, falling flakes, but nothing else, to disturb the peacefulness of silence and solitude, a prisoner within herself, the warden dangling the keys...