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New York & Existentialism
Thursday, 31 July 2003 10:28 pm"Yeah, Well, You Think Everything's Boring. You Know, I Mean You Wouldn't Say That If It Was the Lost Hope Diet."*
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I want to die.
Or, as Millay put it, "I've a weary head, and I wish to be dead, but I do not want to die." Only I do want to die. I want to put my weary head down on a cool, cool pillow and never wake up again. I'm hurting in so many ways, an empty feeling that isn't really empty, it's overflowing with loneliness. Filled with nothing.
Much as I hate the big dramatic "you're too much trouble" scenes I've lived through more than once, what I think I hate more is the, "ignore her, maybe she'll go away" way of ending a friendship. If you can call it a friendship, though I always do, always. And the expressions of joy when we run into each other unexpectedly. "Oh, are you still on the planet?" OK, no one's ever said those words. But what else does it mean when someone who has no time for you seems so happy to see you? "I don't have a spare minute" means "I don't have a spare minute for you."
Obviously I'm doing something wrong. Why should this surprise me?
Couldn't I just stop? Go away, forget?
Next month, next month. I can see myself in New York (only I can't see New York), I can see myself on Celia's doorstep, knocking, but there is no reply.
I wrote her yesterday, hoping to sound . . . not crazy. Yeah, good luck with that. Not obsessive and strange, not a stalker, just a fan, and a friend. Does she think of me as a friend? Does she think of me at all?
I have to break down these walls. I guess I put them there, these self-conscious, don't-bother-anybody walls, but they are very much my mother's walls, and probably my grandmother's, too. Probably my great-grandmother brought them over with her from Switzerland. They're Swiss walls, do-not-disturb walls, only it's us straining not to disturb anybody else. I might as well be dead, if I'm not going to make a ripple in the water while I'm here. It's cold here on the mountain, it's lonely. I'm not Swiss enough for it.
I want to sleep. OK? Forget about dying, I just want to sleep, for a year, or two, or a million. And wake up feeling like I can talk, think, smile.
My anxieties are attaching to money (as I believe I have said) and I'm trying to detach them. I'm really afraid of being disappointed with Celia, of Pat having a bad time, of getting lost and never getting home again, of being arrested (for . . . ? Yeah, I don't know), of Something Bad Happening, the Something Bad that has been haunting me ever since the first Something Bad Happened when I was a little girl. Pre-emptive separation anxiety. If I was pretty, I wouldn't feel like this. (Do I believe that? It depends which part of my brain you talk to.)
There's fog today, and it's discombobulated the sparrows. They were tweeting and chirping, flying fretfully from one low-to-the-ground thing to another, afraid to go too high. I nearly got out of the car to join them.
*Michael, The Big Chill
-:- -:- -:-
I want to die.
Or, as Millay put it, "I've a weary head, and I wish to be dead, but I do not want to die." Only I do want to die. I want to put my weary head down on a cool, cool pillow and never wake up again. I'm hurting in so many ways, an empty feeling that isn't really empty, it's overflowing with loneliness. Filled with nothing.
Much as I hate the big dramatic "you're too much trouble" scenes I've lived through more than once, what I think I hate more is the, "ignore her, maybe she'll go away" way of ending a friendship. If you can call it a friendship, though I always do, always. And the expressions of joy when we run into each other unexpectedly. "Oh, are you still on the planet?" OK, no one's ever said those words. But what else does it mean when someone who has no time for you seems so happy to see you? "I don't have a spare minute" means "I don't have a spare minute for you."
Obviously I'm doing something wrong. Why should this surprise me?
Couldn't I just stop? Go away, forget?
Next month, next month. I can see myself in New York (only I can't see New York), I can see myself on Celia's doorstep, knocking, but there is no reply.
I wrote her yesterday, hoping to sound . . . not crazy. Yeah, good luck with that. Not obsessive and strange, not a stalker, just a fan, and a friend. Does she think of me as a friend? Does she think of me at all?
I have to break down these walls. I guess I put them there, these self-conscious, don't-bother-anybody walls, but they are very much my mother's walls, and probably my grandmother's, too. Probably my great-grandmother brought them over with her from Switzerland. They're Swiss walls, do-not-disturb walls, only it's us straining not to disturb anybody else. I might as well be dead, if I'm not going to make a ripple in the water while I'm here. It's cold here on the mountain, it's lonely. I'm not Swiss enough for it.
I want to sleep. OK? Forget about dying, I just want to sleep, for a year, or two, or a million. And wake up feeling like I can talk, think, smile.
My anxieties are attaching to money (as I believe I have said) and I'm trying to detach them. I'm really afraid of being disappointed with Celia, of Pat having a bad time, of getting lost and never getting home again, of being arrested (for . . . ? Yeah, I don't know), of Something Bad Happening, the Something Bad that has been haunting me ever since the first Something Bad Happened when I was a little girl. Pre-emptive separation anxiety. If I was pretty, I wouldn't feel like this. (Do I believe that? It depends which part of my brain you talk to.)
There's fog today, and it's discombobulated the sparrows. They were tweeting and chirping, flying fretfully from one low-to-the-ground thing to another, afraid to go too high. I nearly got out of the car to join them.
*Michael, The Big Chill