Friday, August 17, 2012

What I've Learned

Life is complicated. The more folks I meet, the more complicated my life becomes. (Un)fortunately(?), I find that I actually like people. It's the strangest thing, especially for a recovering shy girl. It's also a bit dizzying, because a writer by nature needs to have a certain amount of solitude. I need a few hours every night at the kitchen table with just my ipod and a notepad, or my laptop. Staring off in space. Writing a sentence. And then off I go. 

How did the writers of yore balance themselves? The Henry Millers and Virginia Woolfs and F. Scott Fitzgeralds. Okay, I realize that at least two of those examples had tragic lives that ended early, and F. Scott, at least, had a significant problem balancing the social with the writing life. Not to mention Zelda. Poor Zelda! But you get my gist. 

Even when I am at home, there is no solitude. It is like being adrift in a vast and terrible sea. On a hostile pirate ship. Without a sword, or even a parrot. It's not actually funny, but I find myself unable to talk about "the home situation" without making some kind of joke, or smiling in a wry way. 

It's actually pretty tragic. 

To tell you the truth, there's not one aspect of my life that isn't completely f%cked up right now. The 8:30 to 5 job is the least torturous. In 2011, I would have told you the reverse. In 2011, everything was cats and Doctor Who and endless hypnotic evenings spent knitting cardigans/hats/socks. With some Etsy splurges mixed in. I certainly wasn't exorcising/traumatizing myself by writing. 

Writing saves and drowns at the same time. It's like peeling layers of myself open, examining myself, and thinking simultaneously: oh Jesus/how pretty.

So that's the current state of my world.
How pretty.
Oh Jesus. 

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