I have been a bit heavy on the drama this past week. It is what Charles Ryder, in his eloquence, dubbed "[my] Phooey!" I have explored the length and breadth of my Phooey, and seen how I can be Blanche, Septimus, Richard, Quentin, and so many others in a matter of seconds. I hate this. I hate me.
"I am a scientist!"
I would like to take a moment and make this clear: I am a scientist. Do not treat me as though I were an idiot. I mean, "Hooker, please!" So, there is this gentleman in one of my labs, and he rather enjoys snapping at me, and teaching me how to hold a pipette. I am sorry, I wasn't aware that to be taken seriously as a scientist, I had to speak in the infamous dialect of pointing at reagents and grunting, and dressing in sombre argyle sweaters paired with Dad jeans. Of course you do your lab work exquisitely! You're a grad student, it would be astounding if you didn't! So all I have to say to you, my noble lord, is go and play with someone your own size. By which I mean yourself. There may be a lot of my self-esteem to go around, but I am very discriminating as to who I allow to bite a chunk out of it.
"I shall do no such thing!"
Seriously, ladies, we are not in the other ND anymore: I have striven long and hard to exorcise those memories, and I beseech you not to resurrect them and have them dance around me in a farcically twisted re-enactment of 'Thriller'. By heaven, I had a year to learn your choreography: didn't happen then, and won't happen now. Next time, I suggest you try not to cut the line, and hope that I shall save your slothful asses. I didn't this time: if anything, I had to create ma-h-jor drama, and put myself first. I am not asserting that I am superior to you in anyway, all I am saying is: I am done.
"I am sorry."
I am in the process if ruining a perfectly good new friendship by being cold to a genuinely genial person. I am doing this because I do not want to scare him off. It's a frightening realisation for many when they see that the 'dark and twisted, scary and damaged' is all too real, and not a quirky idiosyncrasy of this guy who thinks in multiple languages. Hamlet stayed. Hamlet stayed when he found out. Hamlet stayed when I would have yelled, "Fuck this!" and ran in the opposite direction, only to meet me in as phatic a sense as possible. I miss Hamlet. We don't see each other as much as we used to. I won't even be doing Thanksgiving with him. The practicalities of both our worlds have caught us in a stranglehold so enticing in its agony. And as far as my new friend is concerned, I shan't be able to stand it if I scare him off! The reason? I shall only have myself to blame...
"No! There is much more to be written! NO!"
They had to physically wrest me away from my immunology exam; I broke my bracelet in the process. It was ugly: I was sleep-deprived, overdressed, and just plain nasty to everything that so much as took a breath in my direction. Publicface was a task that day. A Herculean one.
The truth, constant reader, is that I am tired. I am tired of subsisting on the crust of reassurance. Or rather, this currency of reassurance, that is worse than charity thrown in my direction. I shall end with a few lines from my beloved Baudelaire, partly because I these lines are beautiful in their decay, and also in an attempt to add credibility to this post that has teemed forth from my spleen.
"She weeps, mad girl, because her life began;
Because she lives. One thing she does deplore
So much that she kneels trembling in the dust-
That she must live tomorrow, evermore,
Tomorrow and tomorrow- as we must."
-The Mask, Charles Baudelaire.
Because she lives. One thing she does deplore
So much that she kneels trembling in the dust-
That she must live tomorrow, evermore,
Tomorrow and tomorrow- as we must."
-The Mask, Charles Baudelaire.
A point I try to make all the time I am afraid... No one can make you feel horrible about yourself without your consent, believe it or not. If someone tries to bother me, I either a) laugh it off or b) ignore their very existence. I have to say, even though some people in this world exceed the realms of obtuse, it works.
ReplyDeleteDrama... Sound a lot like high school, because in my dictionary (the metaphorical one), high school literally means drama. It's crazy. One girl likes a guy, but he likes her friend, and her friend likes his brother, and his brother likes her other friend, and the guy the second friend turns out to be a guy... It's just weird. Plain and simple weird.
I understand most of it, but if you were to suddenly alter your attitude toward him, would that not, in turn, scare him off as well? Am I missing a crucial point here?
Ah... Writing in the margins... It's how all us nerds survive. Or at least, how this one survives. I swear, the day a teacher tells me not to go into the margin, I will die.
Anyway, good luck with life my friend. As we all know, life can sometimes be a load of poppycock.
I would love to peruse your dictionary when you publish; I imagine it shall be a rivetting, redefining sort of a read!
ReplyDelete"Bowling for Soup" were right when they sang that "High School Never Ends", what with unrequited love, scratches, bruises, fights, fits, bites...It never ends, it only gets more refined!
I don't know why I am behaving so strangely with him; I cannot even confide in myself. I can actually feel my therapist judging me, and that is never fun. I can only pray that this is some astrological influence (the new lows that our desperation attains) that shall soon pass.
My dear Ghazal, has anybody told you what a solace you can be?
When I publish? I believe it is more suitable to say, if I get the opportunity to publish. I am flattered, and have to say I feel the same way about your vocabulary. For a super-nerd like me... it's like modern Shakespeare!
ReplyDeleteAh... so true. Though I have only begun my high school career, it feels as if I started long back. The unrequited love, scratches, bruises, fights, fits, and bites seems all to familiar.
Well, it's not really up to your therapist to make presumptions. He/she is there to help you, and not judge you like everyone else [might]. I am sure it's nothing you should be worrying about- as long as he doesn't complain that is. If he does, confiding in him might ease and balance out the equation.
There are times when people say they are grateful to have someone who listens, but never like that. If anything helps though, I am glad.
By the way, we had to write short stories for English class (a daunting task for someone who tends to overwrite- a lot), but I managed to fabricate something which could be a considered a satisfactory output. Anyway, I have posted it on my blog. If you have time, please give it a read and notify me of any changes that might need to be made.