The only way you’d find this blog is to look for it, and I hope you never do. I’m 100% falling on my face right now. My work life, my internal life, my health, my friendships, my heart are all a shambles. I can’t explain why; I only know that. Just when I think things are looking up, they turn back down toward the ground and begin that intense nosedive toward the surface. Everything should be absolutely perfect, really. I have an awesome (tiny, cramped) apartment overlooking the Atlantic. I have a great job, a great partner, fucking amazing friends, a stable life, but it’s all just a little off. But off enough to skew my orbit and push me out of sync with myself and the rest of the world.
In the film Moonstruck, Cher asks Olympia Dukakis why men cheat, and Dukakis replies that it’s because they fear death. I think this is true for a lot of other errors, too. I’m turning 50 in two months, and I can’t stand it at all. Not at all. The realization that my best days are likely behind me and my relevance socially has dwindled to nothing makes me withdraw from everything and hide under my covers, where I am simply watching more valuable seconds tick by.
A sweet friend whom I love dearly tried to make me feel better about this, but it seemed disingenuous, especially when followed later by a blatantly untrue comment, presented as damage control to soothe a crying baby:“You’re not fat.” No, I AM, in fact. And your denial of that to my face makes me question everything you’ve ever said to me. Every “I love you” likely proffered out of transactional obligation, every flattering word said because you want to be liked too, every kind gesture out of what? Pity? Everything. The worst part is that the word “fat” bears no judgment or negative connotation to me, so there’s no reason to deny it. It’s a mere descriptor. It’s ok. That’s not the sadness. The sadness is the desperation, the uselessness, the wasted time, the undesirability, the disgust, the loss of youth, the forfeiture of options, and, frankly, the inability to generate a thought product that could at least make me feel creative or contributory somehow. Instead, my feet are cast in cement, my overheating ever-expanding body is pulled to the ground by a constantly increasing gravitational force, and I’m incapable of identifying a single friend or loved one I can trust with this pain. The aforementioned sweet friend doesn’t need more carry my luggage.
This is the curse of our move to the coast. I left my friends behind, and I suspect my absence goes mostly unnoticed by them. I’ve worked for decades on some of my favorite friendships; I don’t have decades to create new ones. I won’t live that long. What have I done to myself?
I don’t have the option of presenting myself cryptically in visual media as my friend does. I don’t have the energy or talent to write the music that could encrypt my truth. I no longer even have the chops—or the desire—to write confessional poetry that lays my heart out for the reader. I have no way to ask for help except these glaring blog screens, and I don’t even want them found. I used to keep journals (there are so so many), but I don’t want my partner to ever read of the pain I have been enduring. I don’t want them to even know how much there is. They would feel guilty for not helping, not understanding, and I can’t bear that.
I do discuss it with my therapist, though. I’m truly honest with her. She knows the good, the bad, and the ugly. But she makes it seem so easy to solve. So why do I still feel so bad? She asks me what I think I should do with some of my more inappropriate or troublesome feelings, and I know what I should do. I really do. I know the right answer, the answer a good person would offer, but I can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to do what I should.
But it’s all such a waste anyway because it doesn’t matter. It’s like I’m trying to buy this amazing cake at a bakery. The cake is gorgeous, and it’s crafted with love and endless skill and talent and ingenuity, but I know I shouldn’t be eating cake; it’s not good for me, but dammit I wanna eat that fucking cake. However, all of this is moot because the baker would never sell to the likes of me anyhow. I don’t have enough money. I’m too imperfect in too many ways. I’m too old, I’m too fat, I’m too unattractive, I'm too unhealthy, I’m too married, I’m too pathetic, I’m too fucked up, I’m too obsessive. I’ll never be able to have cake that good again, and it sure as hell won’t be from that bakery. That’s the irrelevance. That’s it. And a grown-ass woman who has seen some serious shit in her life should be able to get through it, but I’ve never felt weaker, needier, or more alone. Not ever. And all I want is that fucking cake because it is so sweet and so pretty.
The only way you’d find this blog is to look for it, and I hope you never do.
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