Here I am feeling broken again. It snuck up on me and then another heartbreak pushed me over the edge. Damn it. It's a pain that has to do with watching other people's lives change & improve and feeling like mine is stagnant, like somewhere I just fucked up and now I've got this stuck feeling. I'm sick of staying at home, sick of being disappointed and still single, just sick and tired of things.
There's been a depression around the edges for the past year. Exactly one year ago today, my Auntie Janice died. Around this time of night, too. Today I bought a white candle and I'm going to light it later, since I feel like I have do something. I know my parents are thinking about it, but not saying anything (the style of our family).
And there's just my kind of tendency toward melancholy, but desperate desire to be happy. And, you know, the old anxiety problem.
I've just wanted someone to make things better, fix my messy self, not even fix it necessarily, just tell me it's okay, just be there. So whenever a guy comes along, I think maybe he'll be the one to do that. And all of them, they're not there, they just disappear. They end up thinking I'm a crazy bitch, I'm overeager, I'm needy, I'm clingy. What the fuck. I'm sick of it!!!
I've learned a lot, I guess... Like how it's easier to find a guy to go home with than it is to find one who will return your phone calls. Greek letters = not a good sign, generally. Half-drunk/stoned kisses on sea cliffs don't mean as much as you think they did. If he likes you, he shouldn't forget about you. etc.
I've found a lot of short-term cures for this ... not exactly depressed, just stuck feeling. Including but not limited to: long drives, loud music, plans, shoe shopping, schoolwork, vodka...
But what's the permanent cure? How can I get better, how can I change?
Friday, November 7, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
all souls' day
Recovering from Halloween - I woke up in the afternoon to a cold, golden-grey All Souls' Day. The scent of firelight and rich smoke lingers on my clothes, a faint aftertaste of intoxication in my mouth.
We scrambled through the woods by flashlight-beams, arrived at a bonfire on the edge of the night. Someone dressed as a pirate stood over the blaze like the leader of a ritual, smashing an empty bottle of wine over the rocks. A bunch of people ran up and threw glowsticks into the clearing, which stuck in the ground, neon markers in the darkness. The ones that broke open spilled over the leaves and brambles and dirt, glowing specks of color looking like scattered stars. Above the fire and the trees, the deep Halloween-veil of the sky was the same as the ground, cold clear stars shining brighter than anywhere else.
We checked cellphone clocks to see if it was still Halloween, but midnight had passed. "It's November," I said, almost reverently, imagining that the space-between-worlds had already shrunk. "Don't worry," said H with saucer-eyes, "it's Samhain."
K was wearing tin-foil antennae and kept saying she was from Neptune, where it's colder even than Halloween night. E left the bonfire and stumbled over rocks and roots to get back to the house, and when she sobered up told us never to let her do that again - "I couldn't stop thinking about coyotes." R was wearing a feather boa as a scarf as he slowly sipped another beer, sitting on one of the bonfire-rocks and talking in an even, reassuring voice. The rest of them were haphazard, woodland boys and girls with specks of neon on their clothes, talking and mumbling, laughing as the flames leapt up.
Halloween night was an enchanted place, a strange one, unsettling at first but then beautiful. Webby darkness and the pinpoints of stars, sharp smells and leaves rustling, rustling.
We scrambled through the woods by flashlight-beams, arrived at a bonfire on the edge of the night. Someone dressed as a pirate stood over the blaze like the leader of a ritual, smashing an empty bottle of wine over the rocks. A bunch of people ran up and threw glowsticks into the clearing, which stuck in the ground, neon markers in the darkness. The ones that broke open spilled over the leaves and brambles and dirt, glowing specks of color looking like scattered stars. Above the fire and the trees, the deep Halloween-veil of the sky was the same as the ground, cold clear stars shining brighter than anywhere else.
We checked cellphone clocks to see if it was still Halloween, but midnight had passed. "It's November," I said, almost reverently, imagining that the space-between-worlds had already shrunk. "Don't worry," said H with saucer-eyes, "it's Samhain."
K was wearing tin-foil antennae and kept saying she was from Neptune, where it's colder even than Halloween night. E left the bonfire and stumbled over rocks and roots to get back to the house, and when she sobered up told us never to let her do that again - "I couldn't stop thinking about coyotes." R was wearing a feather boa as a scarf as he slowly sipped another beer, sitting on one of the bonfire-rocks and talking in an even, reassuring voice. The rest of them were haphazard, woodland boys and girls with specks of neon on their clothes, talking and mumbling, laughing as the flames leapt up.
Halloween night was an enchanted place, a strange one, unsettling at first but then beautiful. Webby darkness and the pinpoints of stars, sharp smells and leaves rustling, rustling.
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