A very very long ramble through the thoughts of the wendy-bird
I am tired of poetry. I’m tired of rhythm and rhyme. I’m tired of rules and grammar, of connotation denotation metaphor and lies. I’m tired of worrying about flow, and how things would sound out loud.
I’m tired of putting myself out there, I operate much better behind the scenes. I’m tired of wanting something, I generally prefer to just drift. I’m tired of having to think about the future, I’m tired of making plans. I’m tired of sleeping too much.
I’m within acceptable parameters for my depression. I’m not manic. But I still have the feeling most days of oh god how much longer will this life take? I try to enjoy myself day to day and look at the good things. But in a lot of ways I’m uninterested in life, I’m past the point where I expected to live and I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. I feel like my life is void of meaning or direction. I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t know where I want to go. I can’t even get excited about the things I know I’ll enjoy, like travel. Time weighs on me like a lodestone. I have so many days left to live. And not much to fill them with. So I try to just keep busy to distract myself from the fact that I have very little interest in my own life. This is the thing which scares me the most. That bottomless pit of boredom that I slip into whenever I have time to think.
‘well don’t you know that time is not my friend
I’ll fight it to the end
Hoping to keep that best of moments
When the passions start
Heaven help my heart’
‘everytime I have time to think I think of this’
I think in terms of song lyrics and other people’s opinions. I’ve been hiding for years and I decided to try to explore and move out, but it’s harder than it looks. And maybe I have no where to go and nothing to do. I fear that deep down inside I am nothing. I have nothing. That when other people look for me, I am just a shadow of their impressions and hopes. I don’t know what it is that I need to make myself real. I feel like I’m haunting my own life.
‘I was floating above myself
watching her do just what you wanted
poor little friendly ghost
wondering why her whole life feel haunted
and I told myself I’d grown strong enough
that I had plenty of blood to give
and each elbow cradled a needle
but listless and weak ain’t no way to live’
it would be so easy to just fall in love and have that take up the room inside of me that is so achingly empty. I like falling in love, I like being in love. But I’m not good at it. I let it consume me until I wake up one day feeling lost and disconnected. I don’t need to find someone to be with in any sense of the word. I don’t need a fling, I don’t need a relationship. I need to be alone. Which is the one thing I life I hate the very most. The different parts of me that keep themselves in a cold war by using the nuclear threat of other people’s opinion give up all pretenses and launch full-scale campaigns when I don’t have someone to distract me. But distractions wear thin, and I want something real. I want something that will last forever. I want something that I know I want, with all of myself.
‘I’ve never loved nobody fully
always one foot on the ground
and while protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind all these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music
And it breaks my heart, and it breaks my heart’
‘my life may not be something special
but it’s never been lived before’
I do know that I want to rush through this period of life. Where I feel lonely and crappy and am forcing myself to come to terms with myself. Despite what I can see logically, I still see no value in me. I see myself as a drain on others, or at best an entertaining distraction. If I disappeared tomorrow I don’t believe anyone would care. Logically, I think they would. But in my warped reality I feel like everyone would be happier without my whining depressing crazy shenanigans.
I am lonely. I want someone to go see movies with, or make dinner for. I want someone who I’m excited to see at the end of the day, and who wants to tell him about their day.
Sometimes I think I’m expecting too much out of life. I know I can’t have everything, but I always thought I could have anything. If I wanted it, if I’d work for it. I don’t want to get cynical and jaded. But I don’t think I can help it anymore.
Anyway, what is this anything I want? For a long time I thought that art was my raison d'être, maybe I should think about that more. I no longer (did I ever?) like my art, really any of it. Maybe this sort of slow low persistent depression is worse than that world shattering valleys of life. I know that I was more like this when I made the drunken decision to take the bottle of xanax. Not that I’m going to do anything stupid, please don’t worry people. Everyone is fucking worried about me, it’s a lot of pressure to convince everyone that everything is fine all the time. If I need you, I’ll let you know. Otherwise leave me the fuck alone. That’s not fair. And that’s not nice, and that’s not really how I feel. I’m just a bitch. A selfish bitch. I need to come to terms with it.
I used to post like this on my deadjournal. I don’t know if it’s helpful or not. I don’t know if I should let this out to other people or not. I don’t know if it’s attention seeking behavior, a cry for help or an attempt to integrate my fragmented psyche and destroy the walls and personas that I seem incapable of not creating.
I feel embarrassed having people see my weaknesses and faults. I feel like I need to be perfect for everyone all the time. I need to be happy and friendly and bubbly and cheerful. I need to be everyone’s best friend and listen to their problems, and offer advice, but only sometimes. I need to read their faces and analyze their words, I need to see beyond what they tell me and completely comprehend everything about everyone all time. I need to have complete control over all aspects of my situation and life. Unless someone else assumes control and lets me have a break. But there is no one in my life, not anymore, who I trust to take over. I’ve never thought of myself as a control freak, but when it comes to this I am. If I don’t know what’s going on with everyone all the time then I’m in a position to be embarrassing myself, to be laughed at and have people feeling pity for me. I want to appear perfectly together and strong and in control of everything all the time. And I am so not that it’s not even funny. My image is important to me, and I craft it carefully. And sometimes someone comes along which makes me want to take a sledgehammer to the whole thing because I so desperately want them to understand me. But I’m far too insane for any of that.
Bah!
There is a big beautiful maple (I think) tree outside my window. Some of the leaves are starting to turn yellow. I wish I could exist simply to exist. I feel like if I don’t have a purpose then I’m missing out on an essential part of the human experience. But most of the time I just want to be and see the beauty all around me and feel the way I feel. Modern life doesn’t suit me. But it’s what I’m stuck with. Find a job, find a home, get a cat and get over it. I think that I’ll revert to my plans to have a big house on the hill covered in vines and be the crazy cat lady. I’ll give out caramel apples at Halloween and homemade rootbeer that kids’ parents won’t let them eat because it’s not pre-sealed and factory-made. I’ll have a garden with random herbs and foods and own a small bakery down the street. I’ll be the neighborhood witch where running up to the doorbell is a rite of passage for pre-teen boys. I’ll grow old with laugh lines on my face and my neice and nephews always wanting to go visit aunt wendy, so I can split my time between spoiling them and trying to teach them things no one else will. I’ll read voraciously and write stories and theories and work on trying to create a better economic model than what we have today. I’ll be involved in local politics and be annoying to the more suburban of the populous. I think that would suit me ok.
Or maybe I’ll discover myself out there, and save me from myself. Maybe I’ll find someone who knows all about me and thinks i’m pretty good anyway. Someone who finds me just annoying enough to keep things interesting. Someone who I’m just crazy about but they are ok with it, since they’re rather fond of me as well. Someone who gets my random jokes and who wants to be around me when I’m in a good mood and has the sense to let me be when I turn into ms bitchy-bitch. Maybe I will find someone to grow old with, who loves me for who I am, and who I adore through slightly rose-tinted glasses. Someone whose faults I can condone and whose virtues I admire. Someone who I look up to and impresses me, but not so far I crane my neck and not so much I feel unworthy.
I really want to find my own balance and equilibrium. And I know it’s not out there. It’s in me, I just need some fine tuning.
That’s right, it’s not that I’m badly made or missing something. It’s just that I’ve been out of tune for a long time. And it takes some time for the strings to remember where they should be.
I like that.