I still sometimes write you letters here even though I know you no longer have access.
There's so much rattling around in my brain. So much I've wanted to say...to someone.
Life has felt so strange for some time. I have a hard time describing what I mean. I don't feel real. This doesn't feel real. I so often feel as though I'm playing pretend at living. At life. At being an adult. All the while at various times becoming bored of this game, of the rules that I don't really follow because I find them dumb or nonsensical...I lose sight of the point of the game...of how to win...I lose my competitive edge...it seems as though the other players have become distracted or wandered off...as often happens at parties ...the game has lost it's novelty...or sometimes I'm the one that's wandered off...
I was inspired to write back here by a book I recently read--I've been reading a lot lately...a healthier [relatively speaking] check-out coping mechanism for this existential depression as I'm momentarily terming it, than other alternatives. The book, I think know you would love, is called Normal People. The main characters, Connell and Marianne, write lengthy emails to each other as a means of staying in touch through long periods of physical distance. The dynamic between them is different--they are in love and you and I are siblings...but they understand one another better than anyone...I'm not going to attempt to give a synopsis as I'm notorious for butchering them; you'll just have to trust my judgement and look it up for yourself.
This book has elicited in me...longing. Heart ache. It's re-opened this yearning to be seen and to be known and to be the main character in my own tragic romance. I long to feel passion and to have my heart ache for someone. I long to feel. I've been in this strange, liminal space of...existing. I've strangely lost my sense of how to socially maneuver, how to flirt and, at times it seems, how to even hold a basic conversation; especially if my mind is set on existing publicly in my own space. Just yesterday I was at the diner down the street from my place...I ordered my food and took my table number scanning the tables for a seat. I awkwardly made eye contact with these two guys, obviously not from here...handsome...and tucked into a table next to them. Several more times we made eye contact and I shyly smiled but my mind went blank...one of them smiled and complimented my leg warmers as they left...I looked back at the anatomy notes I'd nerdily brought in with me to study while I ate and contemplated how I'd lost my mojo. Not that I ever had any mojo...and thus soared back down that mental spiral of my deficits and how many times in my life I've shut myself off to letting people in.
I tipsily allowed emotions to wash over me this evening. Recollecting that feeling that I used to have that "no one really knows me." The realization that I've sunk back into this self-protective space washed over me. Why would I continue to share parts of me that I find significant, vulnerable, valuable to have them disregarded and not valued...each time that happened perhaps I shut myself off a little bit more from exposing these parts of me...
And then I remember that I'm likely creating a dramatized story of these occurrences in my life because I feel insignificant and lacking in...gumption for life...
A friend asked my recently how things were going. I responded:
"I'm pretty good. I'm in the thick of school which...I don't think I ever fully wrapped my mind around the intensity this would be. It's been great. Life-altering. I'm dealing with a strained thumb which is just part of it I think. I need to find alternative ways to do things that doesn't hurt my body ... Turns out I have hyper-mobility in my joints. Don't know how I've gone 36+years of my life not Knowing that but alas, now I know."
It felt true. But...came lightyears short of answering the question of "how are things?" How can I answer this when, the truth is, I don't know. I couldn't answer with "nothing feels real" or "I'm just waiting for civilization to unravel" (as that's the direction we seem to be heading)...or "they're fine, just fucking fine."
It's been a long time since I've had a lengthy conversation with someone where I felt utterly unrestrained and not self-conscious in the sense that not only is it ok to share about my experience, it's desired and appreciated. And vice versa, I was eager to hear about the other person. Or that I felt a connection with a kindred spirit.
It at least feels nice to get some thoughts out. Even if they go un-witnessed. Even all this doesn't come close to capturing what I'm feeling, experiencing, the depth of longing. But, then again, I'm just remembering that an intention I had for this 36th year of my life was to embrace the ordinary, the mundane experience. Perhaps that's what's being called for here. Sitting with the strangeness that is existence and embracing the ordinary.
