Contraction
My life has collapsed in on itself. What was once an emotion ever present in the background has become the gravitational force of my life: worthlessness. I thought as I grew older it would fade and I’d gain confidence. Instead the opposite has happened. If it’s at all possible, I feel less confident than I did when I was younger. This has nothing to do with the extra pounds I’m carrying or the smile lines around my mouth, although they certainly don’t help. Instead, it revolves around something I can’t name. Something that has grown persistently louder over time. I think I was looking for something, something to make sense of the world and give me the key to living, really living, successfully in it. I know that’s why I took up philosophy. It was the only discipline I found that seemed to be asking the right questions. Questions I still haven’t the answer to. Questions I need to be asking myself but don’t. I was looking for the secret to life, not just a way of mechanically being in it. I didn’t want to learn to be a cog, even a very successful one; I wanted to learn and understand the entire machine.
Hence I have little practical experience. Actually that’s not true: I’ve been a teacher, a tutor and an office manager. Even though that’s more than some people have done, it somehow doesn’t seem like much. Or rather it doesn’t seem like enough. Never enough.
So around this kernel of worthlessness I have cultivated self-loathing and contempt, fear and aimlessness. From a bad seed comes a full-grown shit bush. And now it’s culminated in the lack of a life. I had a life. I had connections and things to do. Slowly those connections have dwindled down to a core few. Obligations I happily (or at least not as morosely) discharged became too much to bear. With many trips to the dirt pile, I’ve made molehills into mountains that cast dark shadows. All of them falling on me.
As my life has contracted and folded inward, so has my living space. I have a large apartment but I spend most of my time in the living room. I eat there, sleep there, watch TV movies there. My study stands all but abandoned. The bedroom, having no bed, has become a place for storage. C jokes that this is my studio apartment. Given how much time I spend there, I guess he’s right.
Days run together for me since I have no way to mark them. School and derby have left me behind; I fell off some time back, and haven’t been able to get on top of either of them, though I claim to want to be more involved with both. Time slips by. But this isn’t the land of the Lotus Eaters. I have no blissful dream to dream. All that I have is a self that has all the right components, yet still doesn’t work somehow. I wish I knew what was for me, what I’m supposed to be doing, where I belong. I’ve never felt at home anywhere. Alice Walker said “Be a merry outcast,” and I do try, but the truth is I’ve always wanted a place safe enough to be myself, unguarded and without pretense. I have never found such a place, physically or emotionally. This may have more to do with my own disfunction than with my circumstances, but it’s still true. Does everyone else feel this way? Why do they seem able to handle it and I can’t? Maybe what I’m looking for doesn’t exist. All I know is that for most of my life I’ve felt like an outsider. I’ve always wanted to know how it felt to be on the inside. What’s it like in there anyway? Do I really want what’s in there or is this all a fantasy? I feel like I should know the answers to these questions by now. I feel like I’m getting too old to keep asking them.
I must accept where I am and stop crying over the past. I need to find something to touch and hold onto. Maybe I should have had a baby. Maybe I should have one now. Or would that only give me something to focus my neurosis on? That’s pretty bad when the ‘thing’ in question is another person. I always said I’d start a family when I got things together. Perhaps I was aiming too high.
I’ve folded in on myself. I’ve kept to myself so much that part of me is terrified to interact with people again. But to end this emptiness I have to be with people, and be comfortable asking for help when I need it. That’s hard.
Hence I have little practical experience. Actually that’s not true: I’ve been a teacher, a tutor and an office manager. Even though that’s more than some people have done, it somehow doesn’t seem like much. Or rather it doesn’t seem like enough. Never enough.
So around this kernel of worthlessness I have cultivated self-loathing and contempt, fear and aimlessness. From a bad seed comes a full-grown shit bush. And now it’s culminated in the lack of a life. I had a life. I had connections and things to do. Slowly those connections have dwindled down to a core few. Obligations I happily (or at least not as morosely) discharged became too much to bear. With many trips to the dirt pile, I’ve made molehills into mountains that cast dark shadows. All of them falling on me.
As my life has contracted and folded inward, so has my living space. I have a large apartment but I spend most of my time in the living room. I eat there, sleep there, watch TV movies there. My study stands all but abandoned. The bedroom, having no bed, has become a place for storage. C jokes that this is my studio apartment. Given how much time I spend there, I guess he’s right.
Days run together for me since I have no way to mark them. School and derby have left me behind; I fell off some time back, and haven’t been able to get on top of either of them, though I claim to want to be more involved with both. Time slips by. But this isn’t the land of the Lotus Eaters. I have no blissful dream to dream. All that I have is a self that has all the right components, yet still doesn’t work somehow. I wish I knew what was for me, what I’m supposed to be doing, where I belong. I’ve never felt at home anywhere. Alice Walker said “Be a merry outcast,” and I do try, but the truth is I’ve always wanted a place safe enough to be myself, unguarded and without pretense. I have never found such a place, physically or emotionally. This may have more to do with my own disfunction than with my circumstances, but it’s still true. Does everyone else feel this way? Why do they seem able to handle it and I can’t? Maybe what I’m looking for doesn’t exist. All I know is that for most of my life I’ve felt like an outsider. I’ve always wanted to know how it felt to be on the inside. What’s it like in there anyway? Do I really want what’s in there or is this all a fantasy? I feel like I should know the answers to these questions by now. I feel like I’m getting too old to keep asking them.
I must accept where I am and stop crying over the past. I need to find something to touch and hold onto. Maybe I should have had a baby. Maybe I should have one now. Or would that only give me something to focus my neurosis on? That’s pretty bad when the ‘thing’ in question is another person. I always said I’d start a family when I got things together. Perhaps I was aiming too high.
I’ve folded in on myself. I’ve kept to myself so much that part of me is terrified to interact with people again. But to end this emptiness I have to be with people, and be comfortable asking for help when I need it. That’s hard.