 Carry Every Sadness |
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I was driving home from work the other afternoon and these lyrics came on country radio: "I couldn't be happier on my own, but I've got the slightest of a jealous bone." And I was looking around at the woman running down the street after the little girl riding the bike flailingly without its training wheels and the mom throwing the ball for the golden retriever who caught it in his mouth and then rolled in the grass with the little boy and the dad sitting with his kids in the front yard, and all of a sudden my eyes filled up with tears. I spy a family, I spy a family. All of this was going on literally a block around the corner from my house. And I came home to my cats and my dogs, and I was glad to see them, and they were glad to see me. But I felt a little bit sad. And I just feel a little lost, I guess. And I hate writing this kind of stuff, because I have Memere's journals, and reading her talk about being alone -- it's heartbreaking. And I don't want anyone I love reading my words that I write late at night and assuming that all I feel is sad. Because I don't. There are lots of things about my life that I love. But at the end of the day, I am alone. I have family and friends who care about me, and I love them for it, but there's no one who especially cares how my day was. Just my day. There's no one who particularly wants to hear my little stories and thoughts and ideas and opinions and observations from the profound to the mundane. And I have to say that I miss that. And I think that's part of why I often feel like I have nothing to say to people most of the time these days. Like, I feel like all of these things -- stories and thoughts and ideas and opinions and observations -- no one really cares all that much. I mean, they care, and they ask, and they want to listen and to know ... but no one's role in my life anymore is to listen to me with that kind of attention. With that kind of interest. So when people as me how I am and what I've been doing, I find I have nothing to say. And this journal is certainly an outlet, and I love writing in it about both the serious and the trivial -- but it's no substitute for people. For a person. Who wants nothing more at the end of the day than to sit with me, listen to me, think with me, laugh with me, love me. And as much as anything that I miss, I miss how we would listen to each other and talk to each other and laugh with each other at the end of the day. About everything and nothing at all. (I realize that the obvious advice here is "get back out there!" I posted an online personal ad at a friend's urging, got about six pages of responses, and pulled my ad in about a day in a panic at the idea of responding to even a single one of them. The thought of dating terrifies me and horrifies me, let alone dating a complete stranger.) I talk to lots of people during each day, in person or by phone or email. I go to yoga or to dinner or to movies. Not to bars so much lately now that J. has reunited with one of his prepubescent girlfriends and he was my main bar friend now that the vast majority of my girlfriends are toting fetuses around in their wombs. (And you know what? I'm glad he has a girlfriend, because it takes some of that weird pressure off of our relationship, but I miss him. I miss his drunken middle of the night phone calls and his daily invitations to go out that night even if I usually said no.) But at night, at home, if I have a snarky comment about Vaughn's new wife or a question about what that white powdery stuff is growing on top of the potting soil in the houseplants, I either turn and say it to one of the animals or don't say it at all. Being alone sometimes is wonderful. Being alone all of the time, I think, might be slowly driving me out of my mind. And I don't know how to live while I wish for him pain and suffering and regret and misery and loneliness and I wish him happiness and contentment and safety and health and joy. While hating and loving someone for all that he did and didn't do and all that he wasn't and was and how to live with how I feel about myself and my life without feeling like I'm being torn apart from the inside out. And these just aren't the kinds of things I can tell people when they ask what I've been doing and how I am. This does not make for socially acceptable conversation. Because there's nothing they can offer in response other than a look of helplessness or what I would automatically intepret as a look of pity and even impatience, like, isn't she over this by now, or she has a great life, what the fuck is her problem? And maybe I'm not giving anyone enough credit, because for the love of God, they are true blue siblings and parents and friends, but I worry that they will tire of me even more than I'm tiring of myself. So I'm finding myself not reaching out or letting others reach in, and the aloneness is perpetuating. And I feel helpless to stop it, and I can feel myself becoming someone who is gradually ceasing to be interesting to know. And I wonder how long my friends will want to keep talking to me and sharing their thoughts and feelings and experiences with me when I can't seem to find the words to share mine in return. And over and over for months now, the same song plays in my mind. I'm so hard to handle. I'm selfish and I'm sad ... And I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
About this time in ...
© Copyright 2003 elb |
Every hour your heart was broken Every night the fear and darkness Lay down with you? Hem, "Half Acre" ::: It's such a lie that you should do what's in your heart. If we all did what was in our hearts, the world would come to a halt. It just seems like, you agree to have a certain personality or something. For no reason. Just to make things easier for everyone. But when you think about it, I mean, how do you know it's even you? (Can you tell what DVDs I'm making my way through?) |
