March 3rd, 1971
The descent has begun…. everything is beginning to crash.
The medium I went to in Oklahoma City foresaw two immediate phases to my life. One was a period of great activity– extremely hectic, confused, jumbled. This was to be followed by total madness. She saw this period as the summer. She said the bottom would seem to fall out of my life, psychologically all the walls would crash in around me–
The show, I realize, is about to begin.
I very smugly had believed that period immediately following Oklahoma City was the period she had described. Everything was chaotic, there were thousands of mental hassles, uncertainty [?], etc. then it seemed as though everything calmed down– and was more or less on an even keel.
Yesterday Bob told me he would be going back to The Journal in Oklahoma City. The implications of that situation suddenly became vividly clear. Bob will go– Jim more than likely will follow shortly, – in short all the psychological props will be gone.
I think I’m beginning to more clearly understand what Oklahoma and the people I have been involved with from there have meant to me in a psychological context somehow, they were my past– Oklahoma/Missouri, Bob/Father, Jim/Father, Naomi/Mother, Oklahoma City/Springfield. Living in Oklahoma City, the emotional bonds that I made there became some sort of a reconciliation with all of the unreconciled aspects of my past.
Bringing them all back to Washington was really a mental complication– somehow my association with them became the mainstay of my life. My entire existence became based on my continuing relationship with them. They were my past, that part of me I had been forced to choke in order to survive– they were the family I had had to mentally exterminate in order to survive– became completely involved emotionally with them.
And now I know they are going. Going, its madness– I panic– I feel like they’re going off and leaving me– all alone– totally and completely alone– I can’t make it out here all by myself– I want them, their world, their life. I want to go back with them and buy a house in OKC and run around with them– and go to school out there.
But I know I can’t.
I voluntarily gave up that life– I swore I would never succumb to that existence. I would fight it– I would go East, the East of the movies– the fulfillment of my movie years–dreams– where there was culture– and sophistication– and OPPORTUNITY– and bright lights, etc–
But sometimes I just want so desperately to have dinner in a warm, good smelling kitchen with my mom and dad. The mom and dad I don’t have.
My mental needs for love, a home, a family, a sense of being accepted for my role as part of a family– are quite literally, overwhelming. I do not know if I can cope with them.
What are my goals? What, ultimately do I want out of life? What am I doing on the East Coast when it seems as though I could be so happy in Oklahoma, or Missouri?
I’ve got to get these questions ordered in my mind. For over two months now I have lived a jangled hyper life– I have lived in absolute filth– eating out of McDonald’s– everything is fucked up. Nothing seems to be “right.”
I am at home now– I woke up this morning and all these thoughts suddenly flooded my head and I knew I couldn’t cope with work today. I know I needed a day to get myself together.
And I am going to.
I may not get any of the answers resolved but I can at least get them ordered. Think, think I’ve got to think my situation through. It seems so complicated but I’ve got to do it.
I will not breakdown. That would be so easy to do. But I refuse. I will make it through this hassle and many more worse than this before it’s over.
I am going to lay back and close my eyes now–