this is rough. really really rough. i mean truly rough. i just wrote and didn't think twice or go back and read it and try to fix this or that or give names or make any sense of it. i just wrote. and i don't think i'll fix it. it's meaningless, really. to you at least. it says a hell of a lot about me, actually. but it's meaningless. i won't read it again but a sort of vain side of me likes to share these things with you, so i will. and here it is. my midnight ramblings. these thoughts that won't let me sleep.
“I don’t really know how to go about doing this, you know,” she quietly said while her mind raced. Should she start with her Father? For the majority of her life she had blamed him from everything that had gone wrong with the family. That seemed like a pretty decent place to start. Yet, it didn’t seem right somehow.
“Just feel free to start wherever you’d like. Think it through, anything you feel you need to share. I’m just listening,” she adjusted her specs while she spoke, it was nearly comical.
“Yeah… alright, I don’t know. So I’ve ben thinking I’m a bit of a hypochondriac. Except not, y’know? Like, I don’t make myself sick just ‘cause someone else is and I think it’s cool. It’s sort of the same idea, just more mental…”
“You think you have mental hypochondria?”
“Yeah, well, sorta. More like… I’m attracted to the idea of flaws. Anything faulty, anyone flawed. I mean, sure, we’re all flawed, but more importantly, diseased, mentally. And when I find something I’m sorta attracted to, I kind of… personify it in myself. It’s all in my head, of course, nothing physical, but it’s there. It’s sort of like this, you know when you’re walking down the street and you see someone with hair you like or wearing something a cute way that you admire, so you mimic it. It’s like that, except without the hair and the clothes.”
“So in what way do you mean?”
“Sort of….I don’t know how to describe it, just more emotional. Flawed personalities. Nobody’s perfect but more… depressed. There’s something about someone needing help that’s magnetic, almost alluring. You want them to be okay, you want to help them. But they’re also just so damn insightful, and usually grateful for everything, too. Something about stars shining brightest in the darkest night, know what I mean?”
“Hunter S. Thompson?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I was wondering where’d I’d heard or read that. Anyway, it’s like this. I was sitting in my psychology class the other day, when they started talking about repressed memories and all that shit. So I’m sitting there thinking how weird it must be to suddenly have this memory that was’t there before, when it happens! It pops into my head and I’m thinking about it and I’ve never thought of it before and I had some odd sense of déjà vu!”
“What was it?”
“It felt like a repressed memory, only I’m not too sure just what it was. I haven’t told anybody, I don’t want to get anybody in trouble for something unnecessary, it doesn’t bother me in any way really. Just the fact that it came out of nowhere tripped me out.”
“Well, do you think you’d like to share it now?”
“Sure, I don’t see any harm being done by it and it doesn’t really bother me. It was from years ago, when I was like 5 or something. Some really young age where you can kind of recall things but they’re also a bit blurry, kind of whimsical and dreamlike and you can’t differentiate the dreams from reality. Which is partly why I’m not entirely worried about this.
Anyway, it’s on a family vacation to Mexico, and we always stayed with family. I had this one cousin in particular that I used to spend all my time with. He was real protective of me, a real sweetheart. I never thought anything bad of him.
So in this memory, we go into my grandma’s back room where there are these old sofas in storage. We always used to play around back there, just like kids do, so I didn’t think anything of it. Only this time, he starts roughing me up. He throws me onto the sofa so I’m laying there on my back and he jumps on top of me. This is where it gets blurry for me, but I don’t think anything happened. I think I just pushed him off me and ran out of the door. But still, he was transparent.”
“And this doesn’t bother you?”
“Well, no. Nothing happened that I can recall and I don’t really know if it actually happened or not. I mean, sure he was a couple of years older than I was and more unlikelier things have happened in this world, but not to me. I was just thinking that it had something to do with my hypochondria. Kind of, I heard something interesting, and my mind created it for me. End of story. It sure does give me something to think about though. I don’t really know whether to make heads or tails of it.”
“You’re speaking a lot of your self-proclaimed hypochondria today, are there any more instances that have lead you to self-diagnose?”
“Well…sure, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.”
“Take your time, there’s no rush.”
“’Course not, for you doc. You’re getting paid by the hour, aren’t you?”
“We’re not discussing this, you shouldn’t have to feel rushed, this is all for your benefit. If it makes you feel any better, it’ll be off the clock.”
“Huh. I misread you when I met you. But I’m glad I came to talk to you after all.”
“That’s good, I’m glad you’re finding it so easy to open up to me. Take your time, you only have to tell me what you’re comfortable telling me.”
“Sure, but I think I’ve raised the bar a bit with that first story. Maybe now that I’ve spilled that story my brain will come up with something juicier. Who knows, I’ll let you know.”
She just smiled her encouraging smile while she waited for me to continue.
“I don’t know. I’ve got my own personal chaos theory.”
“Continue.”
“Alright, well… You know everything people try to avoid to be happy? Hormones and everything tied to them, the emotions, the tantrums, the mood swings, the drama… all of that and the chaos it brings, the untrustworthiness, the unloyalty, the infidelity, all of that, rather than avoiding it, I welcome it with open arms. Rather, when things get too easy, when I become complacent, I panic. I think, this is too good for me and I can’t handle it. When shit is fucked up, then there’s something to deal with, there’s something happening, it’s not boring, there’s a problem to solve. So rather than working through something to reach a happy ending, I’m rushing the happy endings because I don’t deserve them and trying to continuously work through something.
I figure, with my luck, I’m bound to get the bad end of every deal. People cheat all the time, things fall through, lives fall apart. I’m no different. Why do I deserve to complacent? What makes me any better than the other people suffering out there? I don’t deserve any better, I am not better.”
“You realize that not everybody is unfaithful, not everybody cheats, not everything has to fall apart.”
“I know, but it does. A lot more than it doesn’t. I just want to be prepared. Or maybe I just don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“But everybody goes through this, what makes you above the suffering?”
“I’m not above it. I just… I hope too much as it is. I can’t get my hopes wrapped up with other people. I can’t depend on them, I can’t trust them. But I want to. I want to believe that people are inherently good. I want to believe in the goodness of humanity, but you can’t deny there’s an awful lot of evidence stacked up against them.”
“But you’re creating this world of unhappiness for yourself, rather than trying to make yourself happy, you’re making yourself miserable.”
“That’s not true, you’re getting ahead of yourself. I’m trying….I am trying to be happy, I’m just not…doing it the same way everybody else goes about doing it. I argue with myself all of the time. I have these conversations in my head, I’m ambivalent. You, you’re not real. You can’t offer me anymore insight that I can lend myself.”
She stared at me, her glasses slightly falling off her perfect nose. A nose I didn’t have. The perfect skin I ached to achieve. I was right. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. Still not ready to deal with the day’s errands, still not ready to leave these thoughts behind. I closed my eyes again.
“I can offer you more than you can offer yourself. I’m here to help,” she (I?) finally responded.
“Sure, sure.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to share?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t I said enough? Isn’t it about time you shared something now? Some insight, a solution? Anything?”
She smiled warmly at me, like I was a child, just maybe not quite so condescending. Then again, that is how I always perceived myself. Younger than I looked, purer. Maybe I just lied to myself often. “You know that anything I saw you’ve already thought of before I can even get the words out. Besides, there’s no real solution, I’m just here to listen.”
“I know. It’s just encouraging to hear a voice. Even if it is just myself.”
“But I’m not you.”
“No…you’re not. But you’re enough of me.”
“You’re not pleased with yourself.” It was a statement, not a question. I vaguely acknowledged the difference.
“No…I’m not. I think that’s why I do it. I’m not vain, I’m insecure. I’m trying so hard to keep up, but I’m never good enough. I’m never sad enough, never happy enough, creative enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, thoughtful, intelligent, anything. I don’t even know who I am, I’m trying to take so much from other people. I’m like a cutout doll. I’ll take this hair, those legs, that top but oh, those pants. I don’t know what the original doll looked like, I don’t know who I am. I’m afraid to like something in case it doesn’t fit in with the image I’ve created, but it’s a faulty image because it’s still more me than what I aim to be. So it’s… a jumbled mess. But I’m still more of myself than who I’d like to be.
The troubled have mystery. They’re helpess, they’re creative, they’re insightful. The “happy” are liars. Deceitful, they’re hiding what they’re really feeling, hiding behind a wall of complacency, either that or they’re ignorant, moronic. I’ve never taken well to that idea. It’s not me. Maybe that's why I do the things I do. Really, I don't know."
don't try to make sense of it, though. it's not worth it.
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