Jane Monologues 16
Greetings from Loss-of-Identity Land.
Population, one. Maybe.
The flag looks like a faded memory, seen out of the corner of your eye.
National past times. Moping. Fretting. Deleting voicemails before they're sent.
Currency... Fortune cookies.
National anthem. Something depressing. But I'm straining the metaphor.
I have a hard time letting things go. I spent a long time a long time defining myself, being defined, by some very negative traits. Shy. Scared. Fearful. Lonely. Weak. Depressed. Angry. But they were my negative traits! They were what I had, what I am. And no one was going to take them away from me.
I got better. I made me get better. Because you deserved more. Because you helped me realize that I deserved more. I shed those labels and replaced them with love. Being in love. And being loved. Or liked, I guess is as far as it went.
And then you went away and those labels didn't work any more. I couldn't keep loving you, even if I do, because there was no where for it to go. And if your feelings are the same... “Jane the liked”? Yeah, I think I'll go back to the negatives. “Jane the depressed” has character. Jane the liked is a footnote.
It'd be so much easier if you were here. Yeah, still stuck on not letting things go. You could love me. You could fix me, and tell me who I am. It would be easy. It's how it was supposed to be, you were supposed to fix, make me better, and then we get to happily ever after. But, that's what he was supposed to do too. Why does it take me so fucking many times to learn my lessons? Why can't I get it right?
I don't need you. I want you, but that's not the same thing. You've got your life to live and I've got... what? That's why I defined myself in those terms. Jane the girlfriend could be taken away, was taken away. But Jane, the shy, scared, fearful, lonely, angry, depressed girl, those were mine. I knew who I was and no one could make me lose those labels.
They don't fit anymore. What you did to me... what I did to me... I can't make them fit. And I've got nothing else. I'm not who I was, but I'm not who I'll be, not yet, not whoever that is. Jane the blank. Fill in the...
And I'd tell you this, and you'd listen, and I'd start to realize my truth. About who I'm supposed to be. And I'd tell you this... if I could ever answer the phone.
Jane the scared. I'll hold on to that one a little longer.