I really have wanted to write something for a while but I don’t know what to say. I hate the thought of bitching about life on the internet but I’m compelled to share what I’m thinking about somewhere. There’s something in me that associates writing to this thing as anonymity, which is ridiculous, but makes me feel comforted enough to have the poor taste to express whatever trite nonsense I want to share about myself. Also, some part of me feels like I’m so secretive about what I feel to most people that sharing is good for me and I need to do it. Now that I don’t live and talk a bunch of fantasy I need to feel comfortable accepting what my life really is.
The other night I had food poisoning. My roommate and brother were both quite nice to me and offered medicine and to go get me anything I needed. It was very generous and made me grateful that I had them. Later in the night I laid in bed, vomiting off and on and unable to sleep from the pain, cold sweats, waves of fever and shakes. I kept thinking about how when someone I loved had food poisoning years ago I spent half the night sitting with her in the bathroom, bundled up because she needed the AC to be so cold with her fever, having to clean up after she was sick and didn’t make it to the toilet in time and laying awake in bed in case she needed something. I was in love with the girl but it wasn’t that I was in love with her and felt privileged to take care of her that made me do everything, it’s that I was with her for so long it was just second nature. It was a mildly sweet, but mostly boring event for me. I was frustrated I couldn’t play videogames in the next room but I waited to be nice while she was sick. When I was sick she’d do the same for me, not because she wanted to, but because we loved each other and it was just what we had to do. When I had food poisoning now, I laid alone naked sprawled across the bed, feeling sick every time I turned over and yelling at the dog not to growl at me because I moved the covers. I didn’t have enough money for medicine if I did have someone go pick it up for me and nobody has a key to my house to come in while I’m in bed and bring it to me without me getting sick again by standing up. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell have I done with my life.
My friends were all very considerate and kind to me while I recovered. Everyone asked about me and showed genuine concern. I was touched and was grateful to have so many people in my life that are so nice. I still couldn’t shake that something in me felt different. I felt hardened by the experience somehow, as if it was a moment I could see the reality of the state of my life a bit more clearly and though it was sad, it wasn’t completely dreadful and it’s enough. It’s not exactly what I want, but it’s enough, even if I’m too greedy or selfish to see it.
Life was really good at one point. I was a good student, I had a bright future and I was with someone I loved that loved me back equally. We laughed constantly around each other, we were best friends and we were so lustful of one another we were pretty much uncontrollable. Then I became obsessed with my body because I thought she’d leave me for it. I thought I was ugly and worthless and that there was no way this person I loved could love me if she could be with all the beautiful men who liked her. I made fun of her for her friends, since I feared she would leave me for one of them. I made her feel like she was hardly good enough to be with me and I was embarrassed to be with her because of who her friends were. To this day, she has no friends besides the person she’s with, who is the only person I made it seem like was as good as she or I. I didn’t trust and I wanted too much and it ruined everything. I have never in my whole life felt as comfortable around anyone as I did around her and I ruined it. Not once since then have I felt comfortable around a girl I’ve dated. I’m constantly nervous, feel the need to entertain, feel like I’m on pins and needles trying to think of how to best express myself. With her, I felt like I was at home and like I was with the same person I would pass gas in front of when I was 80. Now with everyone I date I wonder if they like me at all or if they’ll have interest in holding my sweaty hand the next day. I haven’t dated anyone who even makes nice gestures or says anything sweet to me in a year. This is the life I chose over being in love. I did it to myself. It was a long time ago now but it’s still on my mind.
I was so mean and so controlling. Now I’m helpless in every situation I’m in (even in friendships, career stuff or anything), grasping at whatever I can get so that I can feel the tiniest hints of validation to keep me hoping for something someday down the line. I don’t think that I’m capable of being myself around anyone I like anymore. Maybe I can again someday, but the way dating works with all the secrecy around town and hesitation early on it makes me too on edge and nervous to feel like I can act the way I want to, which is like a romantic fool in a Lubitsch film. The times I act like myself it always backfires, which just reinforces whatever strange behavior I indulge in where I’m a nervous wreck and sit there silently trying to think of what to say to keep whoever I’m with from being bored to tears.
Plenty of other gambles I took never paid off either. The main being a career as a writer or filmmaker over an academic. If I continued to take school seriously I’d have financial means and stability. I’m coming to terms now with the fact I’m at best an inconsistent screenwriter and only a decent film-maker. Realistically, compared to my peers I’m not so bad as a screenwriter (only judging the things I’ve produced this year, everything before then was garbage with perhaps a handful of exceptions) but the things I write range from very good to terrible. Also, the really good things are so boring that any reasonable person would have more fun watching paint dry. The gamble to focus on writing over documentary stuff also proved to be wrong. Now the debate is whether to focus on documentary stuff temporarily just to continue whatever work has been put in and make a product I’d actually be pretty darn happy with but may amount to nothing or just go back to school for something nice that’d pay the bills (education perhaps).
Anyway, I’m having some kind of crisis of feeling old and unsure of what the hell to do lately and I’ve realized a lot about how my greed never pays off. I’m going to try and be happy by wanting just enough.
However I learned that Ernie Kovacs played a really funny alcoholic.
