"Say something..."
"Something."
I feel strange yet again. Writing feels impossible.
My real urge right now is to continue not posting at all, or just keep posting a series of dot dot dots.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………
Much more honest. The only real feeling seems to be in silence. Everything else is just forced and fake.
Why am I here then? What voice to use now? Cheerful one? Despondent one? I don't seem to have an actual voice. My thoughts/feelings/whatever all feel like options, and after some analysis, I find I can only chose from them arbitrarily . And then when not analyzed at all, there is nothing really left behind. Listen to your heart, bullshit; it’s not calling for me. Close my eyes and what do I really feel? Despair, I guess, would be the closest approximation. To say you “feel” numb is dumb.
Tired too, but then I'm tired of being tired and you must be tired of hearing how tired I am. Let’s move from these things.
I know I have painted myself into a corner on this blog regarding T. I spent a couple of days thinking again of the mismatch between my tone when I speak to ‘him’ here, and that when I actually speak to him on the phone. There is truth in my letters and other pieces. As I have said before, all the events recounted here are real. But I cannot shake the feeling that my retrospective interpretation of them is distorted. I am writing to someone else. There is fiction here too. I feel I do love the real T in my mind in a sucker-punch kind of way, like a I would an older brother. (Holy incestuousness, like I didn’t get enough ‘incest’ hits already from mentioning my mom and sex in the same blog…) But then I love the imaginary T too like I would a god, with terror and hope and awe. And then the truth lies somewhere in between, or they are all lies, I am not sure, because the two- the real and the dream- do share quite a few similarities, they do sometimes overlap, they do sometimes bump into each other in my thought-bubbles and then disappear with a pop.
Sounds crazy. Yes.
But realizing this, I stopped caring about it really. I gave up on it. So I wove a free little story, drawing threads from T, who cares? Maybe it is just a writer’s thing, who knows? As long as I could realize this, I was ok, right? Until T asked me why I’d stopped sending him pieces from my blog, said he could remember a time when I did. And then asked me if I could start sending him the parts that I could, so that he would feel a little less curious, not worry about what frustration I may or may not be venting here. (The whole issue of him possibly reading here is finally settled by the way. He was clearly not. I don’t really feel like going into it, it’s too long and boring, but suffice to say, I was justified in believing that he was, but am also justified in now believing that he isn’t. Just one of those things. Trust me. Blah.)
Looking over there is scarce little I want to send him from since the last time I sent him anything. A currently misplaced part of me deep down knows I should be
horrified. What happened to the heated fantasies, what happened to the excitement, what happened to being open and sharing? Some of it is to be expected with his break-off and the difficulties of a threesome and talk of my own struggles which he cannot expect me to share all of, but some of it is not. Some of it is just melodramatic bullshit that I want to be gone. How do you explain it to a friend anyways? Listen, there’s these letters you see, there are these entries, they’re about you but they’re not really about you. I love you but I don’t really love you. Listen, it’s not important, you don’t have to worry, you’re the inspiration, but you’re not the source, it’s crazy me, there are just-dreams you know, there are just-thoughts, they can happen to anyone, not that you’re not worthy of it, quite the opposite, but honestly, I know how black and white and ugly these words look here, or maybe it is the opposite, maybe you will read more in between the lines then is actually there, either way, just forget about it, these words, these thoughts will pass, they all pass, it was my mistake to put them on record at all.
It's gone on for so long too. So I do what I must. Dash out of the sticky painted room, leave the corner unfinished, hope not too many telling footprints are left behind. How much of my back-track is real? How will I know?
I have always been a bit like this, utterly fantastical in my mind, horribly realistic in practice. Sometimes, I think this is an ok way to be, but it’s that goddam balance thing again, and it is still hard to continue to make the distinctions and still feel like you have an ounce of integrity.
Bah, I don’t care. Why am I even talking of this? Distract, detract, hide.
I have never spent a summer like this. This inside freeze feels so incongruent with my sunny, balmy surroundings. Quite irrelevant to any one specific thought, I’m not all there right now. I have that feeling again. You know that feeling? When you send a wind-up decoy of yourself to pretend to plod along the safe, flat, normal path of your life, while the reality is, you are bit by bit driving yourself off a cliff.
Dramatic? Yes. I can't help it. I feel I am waiting for it all to explode, all to fall apart. I suppose that I will be relieved if I can ferret my way out, come bobbing to the surface once again. But I will also feel a little sick.
My parents are finally gone, though there is some more family still around. I try to comfort myself. Or I think I do. I tell myself all the things I can do now and how great those things are. I know that I will do them, and I will probably even do them with a smile. I’m pretty sure we will go swimming or something, some amusement park or the other, meet with friends blabla, fuck T at some point of the summer, even retry the whole threesome thing yadayayada. Good things, I tell myself, things I would have enjoyed, things I will still probably enjoy somewhat. I will do them out of obligation to myself, out of fear of missed opportunities.
It is strange to feel obliged to your own life. When you stop feeling obliged is when death-like thoughts come in. But I only think of death twice every twenty-four hours: once when I wake up, the second when I try to fall asleep. In between is not so bad. Once again, if you feel worried, you shouldn’t be. I’m not. Failed atempts have permanently botched whatever desperate, ridiculous courage I have ever even slightly had. But to say I don’t think of death wouldn’t be the truth.
You learn to leave thoughts where they are. You remain silent. It’s not so hard. Something lives.
Gah, I don’t want to keep writing this same old crap. Aaaaaaaaaaa.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………..……………..
T once told me once that it is ok to wallow in a dark mood. That there is something to be gained from it, once you let go to it. That he cannot think of one song he has written that does not draw a little from a dark patch like that. I wouldn’t have really trusted him if he said it like he was trying to romanticize this for me, but he didn’t really say it like that. He said only that I shouldn’t worry about it too much when it comes. And that much makes sense to me, that if I don’t panic and just wait, I can let it pass and come out strong. The problem is I don’t feel I have the luxury of crawling into a hole and disappearing time and time again. Already I am living off the back of others, and there is this panic right now of wanting to start up my life on my own, get somewhere somewhat stable first. I feel like all these setbacks come at the wrong time and will cost me the rest of my life. But that is bullshit, there is never a ‘right’ time for this, I don’t think.
Again, I know I’ve said this before. (And I’ve definitely used the word ‘again’ too many times here.) A year now and this same worry.
Clearly, this is the part of my recurring narrative where I have my so-called revelation that I am truly not well, that I need to do something right now or something. Or that I am well and I can do it on my own or something, Both would be a bit of a lie. When I have said either in the past, it has been a bit of a lie too. No such revelation is really forthcoming. I don't know what all my"or something"s are.
When reasoned out, I figure medication would be my wisest choice right now. But the secret is I have never “come to grips” with taking them and I feel so utterly trite saying that, and wish I could argue it properly, the whole my-existence-extent of outer dependence-definition of self- brain-nerves-body- mind-soul-identity under whose control- etcetera -thingamabob-schpiel. But I start and then I want to stop immediately, it is just too much and too much has been said and I am bored and uncertain already and scared and fuck but I hate the look on a doctor’s face prescribing them to me after a five minute talk, or their damned look when I look at all hesitant about taking them, that kind of ‘get with the new millenia’s enlightened program already’ look that pisses me off. And I know it pisses me off because it is my own defensive interpretation of their look. But really my resistance is there, it is just this gut queasiness I cannot shake off no matter how hard I try. The thought of taking anti-depressants is just depressing. You feel a little better and then you feel worse for having got better. There is no way around it and I hate the contradiction and I hate that I feel that way but I don’t know what else the fuck to do.
I keep finding things I wrote from a year ago. This is around the time when I began to feel much more alive and hopeful last year. It’s difficult to look back on it when I feel like this. I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing if I am here once again like this. I tell myself I’ve accomplished this blog; it is something concrete. But I hate its recursions, I hate its glimpses of ugliness, I hate its fantasy flights. I know I have felt differently about it sometimes. I stop to add to a list of the things I know I will do at some point. To do: celebrate a year of blogging. But I leave it for later again, when and if it can be unspoilt by this mood. Will you trust me when I do it, will you believe that I truly celebrate? Can I trust myself after up and down swings? I try, if there is one thing I think I try-though I can’t be sure- I try to commit myself to brutal honesty in the moment. It’s fucking difficult. And actually it’s quite pointless.
I just remembered how T also told me once that although it sounds horrible, he found that sometimes to survive, you have to lie to your 'heart'. What do you think? It’s not a new idea, and it has come up in different ways over here, and at different times of my life before. Though I can see the validity, I guess the problem is that it makes me question again the value of survival. Oh I don’t know, I’m sorry, I can’t believe how stupid that just sounded again. This is difficult… I need to read, think more and I’m dumb, and not enough time, ever, to decide.
Where now?
PS. I am sorry to all I have not written to or responded to. I do hope you are all doing well and thanks for keeping in touch.
4 comments:
Dear Learn:
A harrowing piece, but it IS definitely you, seeking, ever seeking. And it is great to hear from you after several weeks.
Immediate issue: you're classically depressed, admitting as much even if you didn't use the word "classically."
As you know, sweetie, I too am a depressive, AND I spent a lot of years denying it to myself and pretending (does that word ring a bell?) to others that I was fine...or a little pooped, or something equally vague and defensive.
So, OK, you can look am my ideas here as the preaching of the converted. But, even discounting that, please know I came to recognize something hugely important, albeit obvious. Depression is a CHEMICAL problem, so there's no real reason NOT to consider a CHEMICAL response.
You know this stuff; I KNOW you know it; I almost feel foolish mentioning it. But I do see among the few RL friends who know about my depression -- and some online friends as well -- a real doubt that drugs are the answer. And, listen, they will take tylenol for a headache or sinus stuff or -- hell -- antibiotics whenever needed, never bat an eyelash!
And yet they think you're either making a deal with the Devil and/or just a bit weak to NEED something "like that," merely because you're freaking depressed.
Now, stay with me, the other thing you mentioned -- having to put up with the idiot doc who'll scribble a prescription "in five minutes" to get at the needed meds. I have a shrink who does EXACTLY that, once every six months...
But if I want a little support for my issues (because depression, girlfriend, FEEDS on issues!), I need to find a therapist to hear me out. And, dammit, I've yet to find the sympathetic shrink who has a license to pill (heehee!), OR the therapist ditto.
Soooo, get your meds from the dumb doc, then seek out a sympathetic someone (a professional) with whom you really can "talk it out."
I don't know if you saw my recent blog entry on me going back to a therapist. I've had one recommended, and she sounded wonderful on the phone, and I'll see her next week. Stay tuned!
Mainly, Learn, honey, please do reach out that little bit, just do it (sorry, Swoop!). You're not wimping out; you're not a softie! You have too little or too much of a particular chemical in your brain -- it's NOT a weakness of character, dammit. Just take the Zoloft and/or Wellbutrin (my two personal faves!) and GET ON with your lovely life.
Who knows? T might actually look better with your chemistry where it's supposed to be!
(Fuck! I even might look better... think about THAT!)
It'll be better, honest. Please, babe, do it.
Love, Justine
Learn dearest,
I wish I could give you a hug and make you feel better. It pains me that you are so distraught. Please allow yourself the time to heal and the time to breathe, and let each moment matter.
I will keep you in my thoughts.
xoxo,
nina
I sit here, missing parts of me that I willingly, longingly gave away. THe battle between what I want and need and what I should... well... nevermind. I hate it that those things aren't the same. Conscience be damned... but I can't do that. Selfless adherence to some arcane commitment... can't seem to do that, either. Shall we dance? maybe to Whiter Shade of Pale, or Cannonball, or Fix You.... something that lends itself to dancing while melting...
Darling Learn (or Miss S) --
I just got a new broadband thing, and somehow I can't access my Yahoo account. Consequently, I can't see if you've written, much less write directly to you. And I'm a bit worried that you're not posting...Do leave me a note here, and I'll email you as soon as I can. Hugs & kisses! J
Post a Comment