A stark and barren instrumental version of Madonna’s ‘Live To Tell’ plays in the background as I write these words. In the attic, I sit alone by the dim light of a lone bulb and the plaintive glow of this computer screen. Writing like this and letting the torrents of words out in some ill-conceived stream of consciousness has only ever gotten me into trouble, or landed with a deafening thud of nothingness – still not sure which is worse, even after all these years of picking up the pieces of both. Behind my veneer of perceived and pursued perfection, even against my better judgment and will, I see the mess I am, the mess I will always be, and the illusory phantom of put-together competence and manufactured proficiency that people have somehow construed as the real thing. As if anything I’ve ever done could be called real, as if all of this wasn’t conceived and run-through in my mind before actually running itself through in public and actuality. As if I could ever be spontaneous and carefree: to be free of care would be a kind of heaven, achievable only by my death or the destruction of my mind. Probably not wise to wish for either, not openly at least. And this damn stream gurgles and stumbles onward, bumping up against smooth stones, through slimy water reeds…
If I ran away, I’d never have the strength
To go very far
How would they hear the beating of my heart?
Will it grow cold
The secret that I hide, will I grow old?
How will they hear,
When will they learn,
How will they know?
Writing at night, in the solitude and the darkness, is best presented in the same fashion, but this post will go up as the first one on a Wednesday morning, because sometimes these things need to be seen in the first light of day to be truly examined, in the hope of becoming something close to being understood. It’s my own sort of therapeutic exercise seeking catharsis until my next actual therapy appointment, where cathartic moments happen with greater frequency and haunting regularity; whenever I think I’m done, a new revelation comes to our discussions, and I realize with frightening clarity that I will never be done. It makes me want to weep from weariness or break the chair on which I sit with one quick burst of primal force – both would be shocking to anyone and everyone who thought they knew me. Only one would be a shock to me.
(Spoiler alert for those guessing: we’ve lost a few lamps over the years, not by accident, so don’t bother with the tissues.)
And yet somehow there is such a relief in knowing and fully realizing that it will never be done, that there is no end-all-be-all ‘cure’ for being human in such a rotten world, that the closer I get to not needing therapy is the further I get from enlightenment. Somewhere in the trying, the searching and the seeking, is the closest path to peace. It’s probably not as far as it seems, though to start believing such things about oneself likely leads me further out of the way, but I’ve lately been one to take the longer path if it appears prettier or more interesting. My therapist has said that whenever I’m faced with a challenge I rise to overcome it, and maybe underneath all my endeavors is the desire for such a challenge.
She also thinks I need a new adventure.
I just want to get out of this life alive.
