Forever Empty

If I had talked to you in April, I would have told you that I was struggling to accomplish basic tasks of life, personal hygiene, going to school, going to work, doing homework, getting out of bed.

If I had talked to you in June I would have told you that I was feeling much better. I would have told you about how I loved the summertime and my new job. But I also might have told you that sometimes I wonder how long my interest will last, because sometimes I take a deep breath and I see what I'm doing and I know that the novelty will wear off and when I'm through with being interested in it I will hate it just like everything else. But I wouldn't mean hate, what I would really mean is that I wouldn't feel anything for it. I would simply stop wanting to do it, and I would rather do something else, or rather do nothing. But thinking about that would have made me feel uncomfortable, so I probably just would have told you that I'm learning new things, but sometimes the days are long and the work is hard.

If I had talked to you in July I would have told you that I upped my prozac and I was beginning to feel a different kind of happy. I would have used the word happy but I wouldn't have meant happy. I would have meant that I felt something. Something that was different than what I was used to, something that although I wasn't used to it, seemed to fit with what I thought normal might actually be. I would have meant that I was feeling in a way that I had never felt before. I wouldn't have told you that it was hard and strange and bothersome and sometimes I didn't like it, because I would have felt like I was saying, I don't like being normal. 

If I had talked to you in August I would have been better able to tell you about my feelings. I would have told you about how they were new and yet still felt familiar. How they seemed more normal but were inconsistent and seemed to come up at strange times. I would have told you about feeling insecure in the car this one time with Tash. How I rambled on about nothing and then suddenly was embarrassed and wondered what she thought of me. Wondered if she thought I was dumb or annoying and if maybe I was actually those things. I would have told you that I had never felt that way before. I would have told you how I recognized the feeling and thought it was silly but couldn't stop it. I would have told you that I had to get away from her to get away from the feeling and so I lay in the trailer and cried. I also would have told you about feeling happy. A real kind of happy. I would have told you how it happened when I looked at my friends and thought about how much I loved them. I would have told you how for the first time in my memory I understood why people talked about hearts and love and all that sort of stuff as a feeling in your chest. Because I felt it. I felt it in my chest. I would have had to take a moment to explain that I had never physically felt like that. How I thought it was funny that all this time I had said I was happy but maybe I never was. Maybe before I was just distracted. Underneath whatever thing my mind was focused on and my smiles and interest there was nothing. There wasn't anything there. I would have explained that this kind of happy was full, and deep, and seemed so simple. I would have told you that I felt sad too and that seemed very similar to real happy. I would have expected you to think that was a strange thing to say but I would have meant it. I would have explained that happy and sad were both full and deep and simple and they both well up in your chest. I would have explained that it made perfect sense that they were similar, maybe all feelings have that in common, and maybe that's why for the first time feeling happy made me want to cry. Because real happy is beautiful, and it's hard to keep inside of you. And so is sad. I would have told you about how refreshing it was to feel a sad that was full, and simple. I would have told you that I thought it was beautiful. 

If I had talked to you in August I might not have told you about crying to my mother when she left to Nova Scotia and I had to pack up all my things. I might not have told you because I was feeling a lot of things and they didn't feel simple. I wouldn't have known how to explain that I almost had a panic attack on the way to her house but wouldn't know how to tell you that I didn't think it was related to me crying over her moving. How I told my mom that I was scared and sad that I didn't think I could ever really love anyone. And that wouldn't have been a lie but it wouldn't have been the full truth either. Because I was also feeling nostalgic and missed her. If I had decided to tell you this story it would have been to tell you about how my mom didn't think for a second that I was crying about her leaving, how not once in the last ten years have I ever been sad about a thing like that. A thing that was simple. So I didn't even know how to explain to her that I was sad she was leaving, and didn't want to, because on the slight chance that she would have actually believed me, it would have devastated her. Because I think the only thing that makes my mom feel okay about being on the other side of the country is that there isn't a thing that she can ever do to make my sad feelings go away, because they'd never been real feelings before, they'd never been simple. I also might not have told you about being upset with my roommate. I wouldn't have wanted to tell you about how I was hurt over something. I would have found it difficult to talk about feeling hurt because it was also new, and I didn't think it was as noble a feeling as happy or sad, and somehow I thought it made more vulnerable than I was when I felt insecure.  I would have said vulnerable, but I might have meant weaker, I wouldn't have been sure.

If I had talked to you at the end of August I would have told you about Tash and about feeling angry. Or I might have said irritated instead of angry, because I was confused about how exactly they were different. I'm still confused about that. I would have started by telling you good things. I would have told you how I've never been so content to be around someone before, how the simple fact that I never got tired of her was almost bewildering. Then I would have mentioned how I sometimes flipped between being happy about caring about her, and sometimes hating the effect she could have on my feelings. If you had asked me to explain that I would have told you about the night she was drunk and I was in sylvan lake and I was worried and mad about her because she was being unsafe, and how I tried not to worry because I do things like that all the time and treat people who worry about me like it's a stupid and unreasonable thing to do. And I would explained how confusing that was for me because I'd never really worried about anyone before and I had certainly never been mad about someone who did something that didn't directly affect me. And as soon as that sentence was out of my mouth I would have realized howI had just betrayed how little importance I had always given to feelings. How limited my understanding of their effect was. How I acted as though the law of cause and effect was strictly limited to the physical realm. I would have then told you about what an asshole I was the next day, and what a stark contrast it was to the night before and how all of a sudden I didn't care and I was so relieved to not have those feelings. I would probably be rambling by that point and told you about how after that I suddenly was convinced that I had lead Tash to believe that I was caring and nice and wasn't either of those things. I would have had a hard time explaining about how the day that I made plans with her and didn't follow through I didn't really do it on purpose. But in a way I felt like I did.
After that I probably would have thought it was strange that I had so many dramatic things to say and would have told you that we worked it out and she told me she hadn't been duped and she was okay with my weird feelings and how comforted and silly that made me feel. I would have told you that she challenged me and cared about me in ways I had never allowed anyone to before and although that irritated me, I appreciated it. And I would have shrugged my shoulders and said, and she wanted to date, and I was open to the idea, and want should always trump indifference. I would have said that even though I wasn't sure I was suited to being someone's girlfriend. I was glad I was.

20mg-of-prozac happy

Sometimes I go through really low periods and I know it's time to get on some anti-depressants. Three times now I've hit a point where I could no longer get out of bed to complete basic tasks. Three times now I've been pulled out of a slump with 10mg of Prozac. It's a low dose, but a pretty normal starting point for youth. It helped. A lot. I had never thought I needed anymore than those 10mg. This summer, my doctor mentioned increasing my dose and out of curiosity I started on a daily routine of 20mg. I've started noticing the effects of the increase in drug over the past several weeks. People talk about anti-depressants getting you back to normal. I don't feel normal on 20mg. 20mg is like nothing I've ever felt before. My mom always says that when I was a kid I was her sunshine, always happy and always smiling. But then you turned thirteen, she says. I'd never really thought about it before but I guess I've probably been depressed since I was twelve or thirteen. I have journal entries from the eighth grade, that although uncomfortably juvenile at times, are also dark and emotional. The details aren't important but I think I missed out on some integral part of emotional development. It's not like I was never happy or didn't have friends, but I was always kind of different. I skimmed over most of the crushes and the junior high drama. Not because of a high moral code, I guess in a way I was just a little more disconnected. I didn't have feelings like other people had them.

Let's wait and see.

I feel dissonant. My worldviews and my life philosophies don't match my emotions. My actions are getting inconsistent. When I'm with you I want to feel like something matters. The worst part is that sometimes I do. Sometimes you make me feel like we matter--but when I'm alone again I know it isn't true. More serotonin can't make me believe that there is a purpose to life, even though I can act that way now. I think I half-hoped it could. Maybe one day I'll be okay with this. Maybe one day I'll happily act like it matters while knowing it doesn't. Or maybe one day I'll just forget.

nothing fucking matters

Right now I feel like I'm either about to experience the best twelve months of my life, or I'm going to be absolutely batshit crazy before the year is through.

A dream about fog.

There are so many levels here.  You don’t just go around things. You go over, and under and through. There are over-passes on over-passes. There are plus fifteens above plus fifteens. The heavy fog gives the illusion that they come out of nowhere and go in all directions. It clings to the glass-covered pathways. Grey and cold, like everything else here.  As I look out the train window at the cement city, I can’t guess how high up we are. Thick, solid buildings are the only things that promise any ground under all of this. They’re massive and heavy and rise up out of the depths below. But I’m only half convinced they rise up out of anything at all. Maybe there’s only fog. I don’t know where we’re going. I can’t see any destination on the horizon. I can’t see a horizon.

When the storm hits, it comes from nowhere. Just like the city.  The air begins to violently rotate. The fog swirls and thickens. It funnels as it reaches downward. In the distance several more tornadoes are visible, tearing through the city. A train is derailed and falls into oblivion.

I peel my eyes from my window to glance around the cart, expecting to see my fellow passengers tense and startled. They sit just as they have since we first boarded, quiet and composed, their eyes listless.

The tornado rips into an apartment building, shredding storeys of homes, tossing crumbled cement and evidence of a once-lived life aside.  A lamp, maybe a chair, I can hardly make out exactly what makes up the waterfall of debris plummeting out of my sight. Next a mattress.  Then a child.  The ground, somewhere beneath the rolling fog, calls them home at an ever-increasing pace.

I hear my own screaming and pleading, but not clearly. I hear it as if my head was submerged in water. My hearing is dampened.  I am pounding on the window, trying desperately to get through. As if there was something I could do. 

“There’s no one in those buildings, dear.”  The voice is calm and forgiving.  

I continue pounding and screaming, as if I could somehow get through to the people  around me. But I am horrified.  
 

And they are not.

Cut it up

"I'm not depressed or anything, but I totally cut the other day. It was a weird impulse. And it's not like I was upset or something. I was singing to music and eating popcorn."

I guess most people would think that's really messed up.

But sometimes when you think about what it means to be alive. And I mean really think about it. . When the idea of your own mortality is held in the shallows of your subconscious instead of tucked away like a repressed memory, then life can start to seem strange and silly. And you see the futility in the way people busy themselves, trying so hard to distract themselves from death. And you become aware of how amazing and strange it is that every thought and dream you've ever had is somehow trapped inside these layers of skin and cells, and you realize you can end them with the slice of a blade. Your body is you, and that's amazing, and sometimes you just gotta cut that shit open and watch the blood flow.

Do guys have this much fun?

Picking up guys could never be this complicated.

With girls, you have to be pretty enough, and feminine enough. You have to make the move but it has to seem like it was an accident. You have to get lost from your friends, or be rescued from a pursuer. You have to be funny enough so you can giggle real close to one another, so you can catch her eyes as you catch your breath and realize that you're still holding her arm. So you can smile shyly and sweetly as you let her go and pretend something else has caught your attention. But of course she's got your  attention. Because you're noticing if she's looking at you while you're looking away. And you notice how readily she takes your hand as you turn back to her. You tell her how pretty she looks, or how adorable her dress is, with a hint of surprise, like the idea just popped into your head. And you make eye contact with a guy behind her so that he thinks he has a chance and comes to dance with you. And you let him press his body against you so that you, in turn, can press yours against hers. Until you make a face to show you're bored of him, and you laugh together and tuck into the crowd. But now you're close dancing. You lean into her and your cheeks brush for the first time. As you pull back you look to the ground and take a quick breath in before you look at her. And now she thinks for the first time there might be something between you. You let your breath out as if to shake off the thought and keep dancing. But now she's extra aware of where your hands are, and you make sure to keep them appropriate. But when you lean in again and your cheeks brush for the second time you run your hand through her hair and you graze your hand along the back of her neck. You keep your hand steady and your mouth slightly open as you pull back, only enough to look at her. You look at her mouth and then you hold her gaze. And now you can tell. You can tell if you've done enough. If you haven't you shake it off and keep your confidence. Pretending to be unaware of how such a silly thought could cross your mind. But if you have. If you have done enough. Been pretty enough, feminine, funny and casual enough. Then you hold her gaze and you pull her in and let your lips just barely touch hers. Slightly parted, just for a moment. Because now she's in and she wants to and she's curious but you hesitate. You hold off for a fraction of a second. And when you finally kiss her lightly she doesn't know if it was you or her. For all she knows it might have been her who came onto you. You keep kissing and let your hands roam staying keen to any resistance she might give. Reacting quickly to her body so that's she's comfortable again before she even knew that she wasn't, making her trust your hands. And now she's yours, and you can kiss her like you've wanted to since she first caught your eye.

It's too easy.

You know that little voice in the back of your head that says you're unattractive? I don't have that.

At least not anymore.

The other day my friend asked me if we were attractive. I said that I thought we were an average amount of attractive, but that our personalities made us more so. When I go to a house party I never have even the slightest concern that I won't fit in. I always fit in. Especially well with people who have no idea who I am and have been drinking. When my friend and I hit up a party, guys flock to us. We're fun. Guys like girls who are average-looking and fun. Confidence is fun. It's so easy to be fun.