Lonely, lonely

I read Sputnik Sweetheart, the first of only two Haruki Murakami books I’ve tackled (1Q84 did me in), a little over two years ago. In it, the author says, “Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”

His questions ring true to me right now. I’ve been lonely lately.

Being lonely makes me depressed and irritable, which in turn makes me not want to be around people. Being depressed and irritable makes small tasks seem enormous, and I feel pressured to fully dedicate my time to being a responsible adult just to stay on top of the cleaning, dishes, laundry, bills. Even now, I’m writing while cringing at the thought that I still have the seemingly humongous tasks of packing tomorrow’s lunch, picking out tomorrow’s clothes, and getting ready for bed waiting for me. Sleeping doesn’t come easily, but I’m tired. It’s difficult to focus on anything. I have no passion.

I think for most people, loneliness can’t be cured just by the presence of other people – everyone knows the “alone in a crowded place” concept. I have a good number of people I could be around, but that doesn’t do it for me – I want connection, and I want to be known, loved, and inspired. Where and how can I find that as a single 24-year-old in a new city, hundreds of miles from anyone I care about? How do I find that as an introvert with very high standards? As a sensitive person prone to depression? As a lesbian? As someone who needs to be challenged yet can’t handle the responsibility of returning library materials on time?

I know my feelings are not uncommon. In White Oleander, another excellent book (well, at least my 15-year-old self thought so when I read it long ago), Janet Fitch says:

 “
Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.”

I would like to disagree, if I may. I’d like to have the high expectation that I might find fulfilling relationships. They make life better. And, obviously, I’m not at my best when I don’t have them.

The world of the toothless

I have a dilemma. I said I’d go to a coworker’s house warming/ugly sweater party tomorrow night, and I’ve been looking forward to it for a while. However, I had another mouth surgery yesterday and can’t wear my fake teeth for a couple weeks. Do you know how much it sucks to have to, with every introduction I make, be like, “Hi, I usually have front teeth.” Because I’m too self-conscious NOT to acknowledge it.

Then, one of two things happens. The person is like, “Uhhh….okay” and it makes things awkward for both of us. Or–almost worse–they ask what happened. I launch into the brief, as-humorous-as-possible version of the story, but no matter how I present it, they inevitably feel inclined to feel sorry for me, even though I really don’t want sympathy. And suddenly, somehow, I have become that person who tells sob stories at a fucking party.

I’m not entirely sure what to do.

Bad, bad, bad, bad poetry

Last week, I attended a poetry reading. Or, I guess if I’m trying to be honest, I should say I–grimace–participated in a poetry reading. I wrote something and shared it in front of a group of strangers. It is not one of my finest moments.

Participating in a poetry reading had never been an aspiration of mine, but the local YWCA was hosting the event as part of their “love your body” month, and just a little earlier on the day I heard of it, I had been thinking about how much I hate my body. Now I’ve never been one to feel overly concerned about my physical appearance, but this breakup has really left me feeling…well, like shit. When you’ve been discarded by the person you care most about, it’s awfully hard not to feel like trash. Lacey is also the only person I’ve had a regular intimate relationship with, and I treasured that, so much. Maybe I’m crazy, and maybe this was wrong of me, but I grew to feel that my body was just as much hers as it was mine. Have I written this here before? It feels like it, but whatever. And anyway, she decided she wanted someone else’s body instead, and I’m left with this thing that was once just a body, then turned into something special and shared and valued, and is now just a body again. And I hate it. So, I used this event as a prompt to start exploring the correspondence between body image and the loss of physical intimacy.

The poetry night featured a local celebrity of sorts, a Kalamazoo College creative writing professor who has had a book or two of her poetry published. She read a few of her pieces, and a line, or more a phrase, from one of them stuck out to me: “bad, bad, bad, bad poetry.” THAT I could relate to. Because I’m not a poet. The extent of my poetry happened in college when I’d write intentionally-cheesy sonnets commemorating special occasions like birthdays and such. Or, actually, I just wrote them for a professor I was enamored with. I don’t do serious poetry. But without further ado, this is what I wrote.

When I met Lacey, I wanted to get laid.
Me, of limited experience, who had renounced dating,
riding on the emotions of my grandma’s death.
My friends laughed.

Before I knew Lacey, I lived with regular insecurities:
Breasts too small, waist asymmetrical,
And a backside that can’t even cushion my seat–
Nothing serious.

When Lacey and I were us, she showered me with love–
Constant kisses, welcomed fondling,
Six hours spent naked on a springtime day.
I embraced the intimacy.

During my time with Lacey, my confidence grew
Through photo shoots, pushups, situps, squats
And a beautiful woman to hold my hand–
I had never felt sexier.

Now Lacey has rejected me, I struggle to even eat.
Hips protrude, clothes sag,
I’m constantly cold, coming from the inside.
I shake.

Now Lacey has replaced me, I despise my every part.
These breasts, this vagina.
I loathe every moment of eye contact–
How dare anyone look at me like that?

So that was last week. Things have gotten a little better, but I’ll admit that it’s still hard to look in the mirror and see anything beyond an emotional shell of a girl who was broken by a gorgeous woman she loved (and still loves, for some masochistic reason) so much. But I’ve started running again. And I SHAVED today, guys! I now no longer have the body hair of a French female lumberjack. It’s a shame, really, because I was considering seeing if I could model for next year’s Greenpeace calendar. Also, a ladybug just bit me, and it really  hurt. Wtf. Okay that’s all.

Dear depression, you’re a bitch.

I am writing this not to rant (I hope it doesn’t come off sounding like a rant!) and not to evoke sympathy, but to hopefully open up dialogue. I want to hear input that isn’t coming from my convoluted brain.

The other day, my always-wonderfully-blunt friend Heather (no sarcasm! seriously!) pointed out to me that I’m severely lacking coping mechanisms. I pouted for a minute before deciding she’s completely right. I have this thing, it’s called depression, and I don’t know what to do with it. Kind of the same way I feel about children, only thank the good Lord I don’t have any of those.

I’ve been dealing with depression on and off probably, I’d say, since I was 10–coincidentally also the same age I had my first legitimate crush. More on that in the future. Anyway, it got progressively worse as I got older, and it came to somewhat of a climax in January 2013. In the several months leading up that, the way I dealt with it was by working. A LOT. There’s nothing like distraction, you know? Plus I’m poor and needed money. It wasn’t until I passed out, knocked my teeth out, had a couple oral surgeries, spent a few days on the couch, then couldn’t return to one of my conversation-based jobs for a month that I really had to face the reality that I was depressed. When that happened, it suddenly hit me that I literally had no idea what to do with myself. I had all this free time on my hands, but I had forgotten what it was to have the desire or motivation to do anything. I’m generally a person who enjoys everything and loves alone time. But books, movies, craft projects, writing…nothing was interesting or could hold my attention.

I have come to that place again. I have to force myself to do the obligatory, and the optional just has no allure. I get done with work by early afternoon and have no clue how to spend the rest of the day. Last time this happened, when I finally chose to deal with it, I did so by causing some drama, coming out to my family, working as much as possible again as soon as I could, eventually quitting one of my jobs, and moving. Basically, I forced as many major life decisions as I could into one short period of time in order to keep myself stimulated. Though it all worked out, it probably wasn’t the wisest way to go about things.

So, what do I do? How to I work to gradually make my way out of this? I’ve been forcing myself to eat, go outside, stay busy, see people, and get some exercise, but I’d like to make it to the point where I’m no longer afraid of being by myself, where I don’t have to panic as I wonder how I’ll fill my days off. Does anyone have suggestions?

Not like the movies

Confession: I cry on the way home from work every day. Or, shortly after I get home. I think it’s because I’m leaving a fast-paced, distracting, usually-positive environment and know that I have to go home, by myself, and face my emotions.

Breakups, at least in my experience, are nothing like they’re portrayed in media. They’re often depicted as being characterized by tears, binge eating, lying on the couch in sweats, and, in the case of Legally Blonde, throwing things at the television when something romantic happens. Or, if you’re Tegan and Sara, “I flip on the television and watch sad movies and look for sad, sick people like me.” While the latter is a little more accurate, I think that author Rebecca Connell, in her book The Art of Losing, really hits the nail on the head: “I want her here, so badly I can taste it, the acid tang of need sickeningly fresh and surprising every time.”

No one likes to show the version of a breakup where the person can’t eat, can’t sleep, and can’t watch TV, because those aren’t the people who comprise our modern-day heroes and heroines. And I think they’re right. People with such emotional intensity don’t have the capacity to be very successful in their lives. We can perhaps make good artists of sorts, if we’re blessed with those talents, because we experience life, joy, pain, and beauty on an infinitely deeper level than everyone else. Sadly, though, we have to invest so much energy caring for our complexities that we’ll never get far.  It’s the reason that’s Lacey is able to tell me, from the perspective of “someone who has had [her] heart broken many times,” that I’ll get over it and love someone else–she just can’t understand. But it’s also why she is extremely successful in her career and pretty much everything she does. She’s probably a whole lot better off without me weighing her down, actually. She already is a hero to many.

A new chapter

I’ve been feeling the occasional need to write lately, and unfortunately both my mother and grandmother have access to my other blog. I’m not too keen on censorship, but there are things they’re just better off not knowing at this point. Nothing horrid, but I want to be able to occasionally use the word “shit” without incurring the judgment of those I have to interact with on a regular basis.

I guess the real question is, why do I feel the need to broadcast my feelings/processing on the internet? Really, I’m not sure. Perhaps because I fall prey to the very 21st century need for cyber validation. Perhaps I’m a narcissist (though I definitely won’t guarantee reading anything I write will be worth anyone’s time). But I’d like to think it’s because I write differently and think more clearly when there’s a chance it could be read by other people.

This blog is born in the wake of a very poignant breakup with someone I’ll henceforth refer to as Lacey. I don’t see the harm in using her real name, as anyone reading this who knows her will know exactly who I’m talking about, but in case she catches wind of this, I no longer want to do anything that could be even remotely conceived as adding salt to the wounds. That said, a lot of this is probably going to be exploring my heartbreak. I don’t want just to melodramatically spill all over the internet, though; I hope to delve into topics like mental and emotional health, raise questions, and possible foster a conversation or two that may never have happened otherwise.

With that comes my first question: I believe it would be unanimously agreed that in general, people have the tendency to over-share, what with instant messaging, instagram, and the instantaneous nature of the rest of today’s technology. On an hourly basis, we learn about near-strangers’ habits, opinions, sex lives, and food intake. Yet honesty and authenticity seem to be things most people agree we’re lacking. So where do we draw the line between what is overly sharing and what is admirably honest?

Oh, also, I reserve the right to stop writing at any point in time. This is by no means a commitment.