09.09.2006
my return to oz
I am truly pathetic. I don't feel a connection with the rest of the world, so I watch tv shows that make me feel like I'm part of something bigger. Even if it's only that millions of other people in the world are thinking and wondering about the same things, just for an hour, once a week. Sad, right?
But even that's not enough. So I take this drug, this bitter little pill that doesn't make me forget. It makes me think about the world and mostly, about myself. That's what it's supposed to do; it's very insular. So I was thinking, just now, outside, while smoking a cigarette, how truly pathetic it was. How pathetic I am. And I know what you're thinking. Oh, come on, don't be so hard on yourself. I can hear Joe saying it now. And just when did he become the voice in my head, replacing my mom? And although I think that's a change for the better, it's still more than a little disconcerting.
And then I came to this little gem: my drug can't even make me feel good about myself. And there's the rub, I suppose. Why people keep taking more. To get to right before the moment of awareness comes, that bright, blissfull ignorance that either only the truly lucky, young, or drugged out of their minds get. The something I can't achieve. The knowing, or the not knowing. I can't just be. I'm always trying to crawl out of my skin for more, an explanation, a sense to things, some sort of order.
No matter what I reach the same conclusion. There is no order, no sense. There just is. We just live, here, however we can. Maybe some of have purpose, but that's not the same as having a purpose. I could be wrong, of course, and if that's the case, I will be mostly deeply and humbly sorry for getting it all so sodding wrong and also be slightly angry that I could have had it so wrong for so long and felt so alone when I didn't need to. It's needless, this hurt, this loneliness. There are people sitting at home, doing the exact same thing I am, for the exact same reasons. Or maybe some of them are out right now, at a bar, looking for the same thing I am. Or maybe some are actually out of their minds on drugs, or getting laid, or working.
Maybe this is when people really get their work done. Fucked up like this. I can swear songs sound different, like the person is singing it just for me. Does that make me crazy(Gnarls Barkley)? Or is that too passive aggressive(Placebo)? I swear I can think clearer. Isn't that what everyone says? It makes you think about yourself. But you probably already know yourself pretty well, says Joe. Do I? Do I know how pathetic I feel most of the time? Is that going to go away with the surgery? I don't think so.
But maybe I can find someone. Someone who can understand me, understand how lonely I feel in a world of billions, knowing there are others like me, if only I could find them. But I can't. I'm trapped here inside this world of solving claims and answering voicemails and eating meals and trying to make it for just long enough to breathe. I can't breathe in here. But I also know that this changes nothing. It's the most horrible thing, to be able to think. I can work myself up into a frenzy, then wind it back down because I know, I know, that things are not going to get any better. Don't get me wrong, they won't get worse.
I just think that this is what my life is. Finding things to keep me busy, find a job that I can stomach, find friends or activies that I enjoy. Stay healthy, make good choices, someday, something good will come along. Bull shit. Ten years from now I'll be wondering the same things I am, only with more loneliness, maybe some anger at a few more people.
I just wish I could find some way to be happy, just me. Not worry about what I accomplish or don't, not worry about who I meet or don't, not care about whether anything means anything. Find joy in the mundane, find happiness in one other person and hunker down with it until I'm old and I don't even have my thinking anymore.
I think long after everyone around me can't comprehend their situation, I will. I'll look around at everyone's mostly empty bodies and see what's left of who they used to be, and wonder if I scream, will anyone hear me? Or will they think I'm just old and crazy. Like I would now if I heard it. God, that's terrifying. I should really be nicer to old people.
And part of me thinks, no, they had their chance. Their chance to be young and influential and to meet people is over. To see things. All they can do now is relive everything like watching old movies, papery and deflated.
It saddens me that I can think about things like that, situations I can't possibly understand or care about, and still be so young. I technically have all the time in the world to do things, to go places, to meet people. Who cares if those people last in my life or not? It's like being in college, changing roommates every semester. It was fun, but hey, gotta go.
I want to go to Europe. Like for real, like people do, not just for vacation. I want to meet locals and get them to take me their favorite places. I don't want to go do the touristy things, although I suppose I'm not the only one who feels that way. Then everyplace becomes a tourist place eventually, doesn't it? Unless you earn your way in by being there long enough.
I really want to do it, though. Not just dream about it or write about it. And I don't want it to be one of those wistful movies about the 30/40-something woman who moves to France/Italy/wherever and meets the man of her dreams, while going about her own way. You notice how no romances are about romance of the individual? It's always about romances between two people. Like no one can be alone. It's what America wants us to think. That if we just find one other person, we'll be fine. We'll make babies and we'll be happy and we won't worry about what's to come. It's so fucked up how our biological imperatives can still so firmly hold us together, like living in caves and searching for water.
And I still really want to go into the Peace Corp. I worry about what would happen with my bills, and Joe and my mom, but I have to let that go at some point. I don't know if I want to do it because I think it's right, to try to help other people, or whether it's to run some more.
Hang out with people who don't speak my language. No mistake of someone not understanding me when they can't understand what I'm saying. So I'd have to communicate by means other than talking. Suddenly, facial gestures, hand signals, body language means everything. Can you fall in love with someone if you don't speak their language? How do you know he's a good guy? Does he build houses with you in the village everyday, then sit by the fire and drink a beer at night, just glad to have done a day's worth of good, solid work?
I want the day to come when I get screwed over by someone in another country, in another language. So I can rewrite my misery over and over, just with different faces, different locations. It's so sad, living like this. Expecting nothing good to come. Expecting the worst, which is that nothing has meaning and that I'm still miserable. It's one thing if life has meaning and you're just miserable. At least something bigger is happening. But with me, in my world, nothing happens. I keep on shrinking it down, inch by inch. At some point, there's going to be nothing left to try to take out. And then what will I do? What will I do?
alannablue at 11:25 p.m.