I’m in one of my nostalgia loops I am so prone to falling into. I get lonely for myself from another year. I get lonely for other places and smells and feelings and routines. I don’t know why. And then there are these other times in the recent past that I look back on and cringe because I see I was SO miserable and living such a sad depressed existence. I want those times to go away. I’ve been thinking about them a lot recently though, because last winter was one giant one. From about October to March I was incredibly lost and sad and depressed and therefor I dug myself into a lot of ruts that I’m still trying to get out of. But my most recent memories of cold weather and christmas and all my warm clothing and such are associated, for the moment, with last winter in its infinite coldness, and so I am stuck here thinking about her, the winter of ‘10, and I don’t want to think about her.
I was on the subway a couple nights ago and right next to me were a couple, and I recognized the man, because he was a brother I’d seen photos of of a man I dated during that sad winter. And this man I dated was a pointless thing. I’m not even sure I’d consider it dating. More like we got attached to each other and spending time together for a string of weeks. But nothing was really there, and those kinds of short lived relationships when two sad lonely people become a daily fixture in each other’s lives mostly for the sake of filling some space up, don’t help at all but feel so tragic and dumb that they weigh on you even after they’re finished. So standing next to this man’s brother who doesn’t know me, and may or may not have ever heard of me (probably did) was so strange and so unappealing. Why must those moments in my life remain. Can’t I forget them? Can’t I live in these real moments? Because I don’t want to admit those are real too- as real. I don’t want to be that person who needs things and wants to connect but can’t and won’t connect and is so, so lonely and takes long walks to keep from having to be alone with herself any more than she already is (which is most of the time). For years and years I’ve been dealing with this feeling that when I’m alone the world ceases to mean anything. I don’t need or want to be surrounded by people. But to be totally alone…the world feels different to me than it does when I’m around my family or my boyfriend or a good friend or collaborators or even strangers. Alone I am a totally different me than in the actual world. And I hate myself for that because it is what creates this sad existence whenever I’m low. I can’t maintain myself and my world when I’m depressed. I don’t mean I can’t take care of myself or seem functional, but I can’t maintain my world in my own head. I become like an actor waiting in the wings whenever I’m alone. Or a player on the bench. I don’t feel a part of it unless I’m around people, and maybe then I only feel a part of it because I’m making the effort to seem a part of it to them, and I can convince myself a little that it’s true. But then going home becomes the hardest thing every night, because you know when everyone goes home and you go home to your apartment with the lights all off, which you have to turn on yourself to create a nice atmosphere, you will have to face the truth of you. So you take people home with you just so you never have to drop the little act of being a real person. So long as someone is there, you can sort of maintain it. But in the morning you don’t feel like it anymore and then you have even more to feel awful about, and pretending for that long starts to feel nauseating for some reason.
This is why I like being in a relationship, because I neither have to rely on pretending in order to feel real, nor do I have to act okay all the time. I can be me and be real without trying. It’s a good thing. But that’s a big responsibility for another person (and they don’t even really know they are expected to carry this torch for me) and I know it’s wrong. But I am sad because I don’t know any other way.
