| 3/12/04 I was supposed to call the insurance company today about the bumper on the car. Forgot, again. I'll do it tomorrow. What would I do without tomorrow, hmmm? Sometimes it seems like the only thing keeping me alive is a form of procrastination. Because I do think about it. I already feel dead. I would never do it, of course. Never. I couldn't possibly cut my wrists open, swallow the pills--whatever. Can't even imagine how terminally ill people self euthanize. What if you changed your mind at the last minute? I think I would. Wouldn't that be horrible? To be, say, lying in the tub, blood leaking out of you, the water turning bright red, a warm haze descending in your brain--and then all of a sudden a blinding flash of certainty that this is not what you want, it isn't, it's a mistake. But you'd have lost too much blood. You'd be too weak to get out of the tub. And you'd sink down into the water with your last thoughts being, "Shit, I fucked up again." That's almost kind of funny. Well, anyway. It is and it isn't. It isn't, because I feel sick, like something is essentially wrong with me. Something is missing. Something is missing in me--some basic bit of instruction or internal machinery that everyone else has. At some point in my life I had energy and will and vitality, but now it's all gone. I don't know where it went. I feel old. And dry. Dried up, juiceless. Sterile. Cheated. Angry. I secrete bitterness like venom, store it up in a space below and behind my lower ribs. But there's nothing to do with it. It just stays there, poisoning me. I wasn't always like this. Every day, everything I wanted drifts further and further away from me. Children--already had my chance, twice. You can't reject a gift twice and expect it to be offered again. Gone. I'm too old. Marriage--I could, I should, I can't. Don't know why, I just can't. But can't leave. If I did, where would I go? Who would want me? I'm 36. Not exactly pretty, shy, and loaded with enough baggage to sink the Titanic. No one even looks at me anymore. (I don't really want them to, in a way--it's easier not to be noticed) I go to meetings and it's so hard. So hard to sit there, caught between my desire to be noticed and my urge to run away. At least once every time I have to run away, because I have to get away from the eyes. From any eyes that might be looking at me. But not seeing me, seeing just this failure I've somehow become. It seems so easy for all of them, they seem so smart and accomplished and together. So always, at least once, I have to leave. I usually go to the restroom. If there's someone there, I slip into a stall and wait for them to leave. Then I step out and wash my hands, usually several times, staring at my face in the mirror. I look at myself--eyes, hair, skin, lips, an inventory--until I'm convinced I exist again. When the pounding in my head and chest has slowed, then I dry my hands and go back. Just like a normal person. So many evenings, I come home feeling lacerated. I don't want to die. I don't. But I think about it because I want so badly for this to stop. |