25 years: a retrospective (part 2)

Another unseasonably beautiful weekend, only this time I’m spending it indoors, working on a stack of freelance manuscripts. But I wanted to take a quick break to post the next installment of my 25 years of journal-keeping retrospective:

30 November 1994

Suki just came in here and borrowed 2 condoms. Yesterday and today she urged me to get some for her next time I’m at the clinic. Next thing you know, I’m going to be lurking around dark alleyways, ripping open my seedy trenchcoat to revel condoms sewn inside, like a drug dealer. I’ll be a condom trafficker!

3 December 1994

At the concert I sat with Silvia and Manu. Afterwards, some lady offered to take us and Annida home in her funny little car. It would barely start and we were smashed in the back seat, unable to even get the doors closed at first. We couldn’t stop laughing. She only took us as far as the top of Church Street (not even on the side we needed to be on!) and then she dropped us off. We were like, oh shit, we’re gonna get raped. We hurried home through the cold, and Emanuella and I sang “Gloria, in excelsis, in excelsis deo!” in a high-pitched voice half the way back.

16 May 2002

Here’s an interesting thing. When Savvy, Louise, and I were touring the manor house at Ladew Gardens last week, Savvy asked our tour guide why the master of the house never got married. Well, I had sensed from the beginning that this guy was gay, and Louise thought the same thing. The guide, however, snipped, “Everybody thinks that marriage is the be-all, end-all to life. Why should he have gotten married? He was wealthy, educated, talented, creative, and free. He could go anywhere he wanted and do anything he wanted. He didn’t have to answer to anybody. Why would he want to ruin that? Besides, when you are of a certain artistic temperament, you want somebody who is on your level. Somebody who understands you and challenges you and invigorates you. And it is hard to find someone like that when you are of a certain artistic, intellectual, creative temperament.” I wanted to scream, “Hallelujah, sister!!!!” It made me feel better about being alone.

17 November 2000

It is absolutely crazy, but I have been feeling as though someone reached into me with a rusty fork and dug out some vibrant part of me and now I just throb and ache…I feel as if I’ve lost something crucial and now I’m mourning it, but how can that be, when I never had it in the first place?

18 May 1995

When I write to you, I hold a mirror up to my face, and I never like what I see. Beneath my crusty surface boils unimaginable hatred and anger. I am a cauldron in which I have thrown years’ worth of pent-up betrayals, annoyances, rage, and hurt. I can’t tell people how I feel, so I just throw it in the pot so it gets all mixed together. If someone pisses me off, what rises to the surface isn’t necessarily a response to what they did to me. It could be my reaction to something that was done to me five years ago. I guess that’s why I sometimes overreact to insignificant situations. … When I write, I create slices in my surface that let my rage trickle through. When I peer down into those slices, I see the cauldron bubbling out with a blackness so thick, it takes my breath away. And then I hastily seal over my cracks, lest any more of that awfulness come through. It’s all bottled up inside of me, from my toes to my ears, seething and waiting. It frightens me what I could be capable of [doing]. In the past, I always thought it was just depression living inside of me, but now I know there’s more.

7 June 1995

So it’s quarter past 12 in the morning, and I’m bawling like a fucking moron all over my Lollapalooza tee shirt. I had to leave Missy’s house because I was so deeply buried in misery. Every day brings the truths to light that I am so desperately trying to suffocate and drown…the truths that I am nothing, that I am constructed of nothing, and I shall return to nothing when I die. How pathetically I try to forget that I loathe myself, inside and out. I am incapable of feeling, loving, succeeding, writing, finding peace. The reason the future always appears so fuzzily out of focus is that I’m not going to live more than a year. Hopes of a terminal disease to destroy me have thus far eluded me; I am left with only my own hands to accomplish the deed. Ignoring it all these years has been pointless. Let’s face it—I am going to kill myself. I don’t know when, I don’t know how. But it will happen. I don’t understand how I could have lived so long with such a ravaged mind. I am so afraid of everything. My body, my heart, my head are all filled with blankness. I feel nothing but a cold numbness. God, how I hate myself. I want to cry whenever I look in the mirror or read old diaries. I can’t stop sobbing now. I can scarcely breathe. The only person capable of understanding is half a country away, and ever since she had her baby, she’s been healing. Perhaps she won’t be able to understand anymore. Anything that may have once been good inside of me is dead. I shoved it into a remote corner of myself and starved it to death, giving it no nourishment, not even light. I killed it, so I shouldn’t mourn it. I am so nauseous now. My wrists scream to be slashed. I want to take my stash of Inderol and die in the comfort of my dark, air-conditioned room. So many things are closing in on me. I hate myself, everything is a lie. It hurts that I can’t love or trust anymore. People keep taking from me. If I don’t die, my partially latent insanity will devour me, and I don’t want to rot alone in a mental hospital, when it’s bad enough rotting alone at home. I’m so tired, so terrified. I can’t go one much longer. … I’m okay to die now. I have my will, and my room is organized neatly. Everyone can take whatever the hell they want, as long as they don’t take my memory and idealize it, turn it into something it’s not. I am tainted, and I should be remembered for the vile, evil, disgusting monster I am. Not as someone good. There is no good anymore.

17 May 2001

…I explained how frustrated I’ve been lately with people trying to pigeonhole me. Everyone at work seems to think that I’m dark and gothy and a fountain of knowledge with anything to do with death, suicide, gore, etc…and nothing else. That irks me. I am more than just “the dark chick.” Yes, I am very much in touch with my dark, sardonic, cynical, bitter, misanthropic side, and I’m proud of it. But I am more than that. I have never liked being categorized, and throughout high school and college I managed to evade categorization successfully (probably the only descriptions people could agree on were “creepy” and “freaky”). I certainly don’t want to start being pigeonholed now. I don’t want to be a typical adult who becomes someone when she graduates from college and more or less stays that same person for the rest of her life.

19 November 2001

Oh, bloody hell. Why am I suddenly starting to feel the creakings and groanings of sadness? Thanksgiving is this week—I should be happy. Never mind that the holidays usually bring about a tinge of depression in me. Thanksgiving means that I have a five-day vacation. It means there is joy in the air. And, despite how shitty my year has been, I really have a lot to be thankful for. I think many people feel the same way this year. Those of us who didn’t lose anybody in the September 11th attacks, the subsequent anthrax attacks, and last week’s jetliner crash are thankful. We are thankful that there have been no more terrorist attacks, as feared. We are thankful that bioterrorism hasn’t engulfed us. We are thankful that the US hasn’t been hit by any nuclear weapons or EMPs. In spite of the war in Afghanistan, we are still alive and free. Who isn’t thankful at such things? I am thankful, and grateful that I’ll be home with most of my family (Kristen and Bryan will be in Erie). I’m thankful that we’ll be in Massachusetts this year, united for the first time since Papa’s 80th birthday three years ago. I’m thankful I didn’t lose my job when the Transfusion staff lost their jobs. I’m thankful the tornado didn’t destroy my new car or any of my possessions or—more importantly—my cats. I’m thankful my family has been kind enough to help me out financially, with a little money here and there.

But O, sadness! Gray little wings flapping soundlessly!

15 January 1992

…you realize how humiliating it is to start crying in the middle of psychology class? Today makes it the second time that I have felt tears rise and fall, while I prayed no one would see me as my brain got eaten up by black worms…all in the midst of class, usually in the mornings. Now I suppose Mr. Tuscano’s going to give us ten pages of notes that are illegible and then Pam’s going to start talking to me and she won’t shut up. They never shut up. I think all I ever want to do anymore is run away from all of this—all the crowds, the people. They are so goddamn loud. I am so tired of being submerged and dredged up from the depths of the well, which is claustrophobic and dark and so scary. I don’t think I can stand it anymore.

Oh God, God, God…I really, truly hate myself. I hate myself, my family, my friends, because they hate me. I pick up self-murder like a stone and smooth its cold comfort around and around in my moist palms, thoughtlessly caressing and loving it. When I think about killing myself, I ponder how frightening and lonely an act it is, and how ultimately beautiful. It loves me; I love it. What’s the point of being alone on this teeming, decaying planet anymore? I obviously can’t do anything right and it’s impossible for any person to like me, as all they ever do is talk about me behind my back. I can’t do anything. I’m so tired, and when I think of the shadows, the bastards around me won’t let me alone. They’re all tearing my silence to tatters, killing me…

For the millionth time since I was thirteen…I wish I was dead. The whole world would be better off.

25 December 1995

I’m so tired of crying. I’m tired of feeling so alone. I’m tired of slaying the Shadowman, only to find that he’s immortal. He has chased me since I was fourteen, and I’m growing hoarse from screaming “Be gone, be gone, be gone.” I used to exorcise him through stacks of shitty poems, but somewhere along the way since then I lost my will to write. That essentially signed my death warrant. My new year’s resolution? To kick the darkness until it bleeds daylight. But “even the sunlight burns if you get too much.” What then? Kill myself? Poison myself into a coma? Where do I go from here?

31 October 1994

Darkness creeps up on me again, both outside, amidst the torrential grey clouds, and inside. I have to learn to stabilize these fucking emotions of mine. Today, at breakfast, I was filled with a consuming rage towards Paula because I felt that she was laughing too much, and when she called me “Jenny,” I thought I’d go insane. “MY NAME’S NOT JENNY!!!” I wanted to shriek at her. “It’s JENNIFER! JENNIFER!!! JENNY IS DEAD!!!” Jenny is dead. She died when I grew up, grew away from my inner light, though it was always a bit tarnished. She made a brief appearance beneath a highway bridge in Scranton last spring, shaking and cold. Savvy’s sending me my diary from that time this week, and I’m beginning to think it might’ve been a mistake for me to ask her to do so. Time can cover up old wounds, but that doesn’t mean they’ve gone away. They’re still there, hovering beneath the surface. I’m afraid that by re-reading that diary, after a considerable amount of time has passed, will awaken all of the hurt, the anguish, and the betrayal I felt, clawing open the scars. It haunts me now: like a ghost, I sail through the chilly April night, along the railroad tracks, and I see myself huddled beneath that bridge. I see a child who is lost and has been stripped of all security and warmth. I see her banging her head methodically against the concrete, trying to drive those demons out. I see her weeping while curled up in a ball in her pajamas, terrified about what has just taken place, and what had yet to come. I will read about those times and my anger will resurface with all of its almighty strength … I buried it in my diary’s pages, in Heather’s ears, in the back of my mind, which only succeeded in preserving it in a freezer-like state. When I pull it out and defrost it, it’s as fresh and alive and preserved as ever.

13 February 1995

Jorge, Annida, and I cooked stir-fry in her kitchen, and shortly after we started, Deb, Manu, and Camilla came in so Manu could cook them some pasta. Soon the place was hopping with people—Maki, Simone, Beatrice, Suki, and Brigitte were all cooking their dinners. The five of them eventually left, and the remainder of us ate each other’s food and sang (very loudly, I may add) songs from musicals. We covered Grease, West Side Story, Les Mis (most of us were particularly bitter during “On My Own”), Phantom, Wizard of Oz, and I forget what else. We also sang that scales song, “Do, a deer, a female deer…” Annida, Jorge, and I went back to her room to hang out, and then Lucy came by to claim Jorge. Manu came over, and Lucy and Jorge returned. We danced around to Grease wildly, wrote on Annida’s fogged-up windows, and generally acted quite stupid.

28 February 1995

When it comes to my depression, I think of it as swimming in a tar pit. It’s a struggle, an exhausting struggle, especially since I never learned to swim properly. It’s thick and black, and even when I escape to solid ground, I have to scrub and scrub to remove all traces of the tar. But then I’m raw and sensitive and vulnerable, in so much pain that I must return to the tar to soothe myself. Scrubbing doesn’t remove all traces—it always sticks to my hair, my nails, my teeth. Little, secretive places that remind me that the darkness is always going to be a part of me.

21 March 2003

On Wednesday night, when I was driving to Debbie’s house, I glanced at one of those electronic signs over the Beltway that provides information about gridlock, accidents, slippery conditions ahead, etc. But instead of reporting on those conditions, it provided info about our heightened state of alert and gave a phone number to call to report suspicious activity. It was really kind of creepy. But the interesting thing about the sign was this: I was listening to the song “I Grieve” as I drove down the Beltway, and as I read the heightened alert sign, he was—at that exact moment—singing the line, “They say life carries on.” And that’s the bottom line. Life carries on, whether we want it to or not. Folks in the Middle East learned this lesson long ago. There is war, there is terrorism, there is danger lurking at every given turn, there are maniacs in charge (that includes Bush)…and there are also jobs that have to be done, groceries that have to be bought, classes that have to be attended, pets that have to be fed, laundry that needs to be washed, bills that have to be paid. Duty doesn’t stop and joy doesn’t stop. Amidst all this crap—amidst me stockpiling water and thinking about assembling a first aid and emergency kit—I am also working on my website, planning my trips to Scotland and Finland, dreaming about skydiving again, reading a new book, and thinking about a new Danish film I really want to see. I refuse to let [terror] rob me of the pleasure that comes from thinking about those things.

10 April 2000

This is what I was thinking about while sitting in typical weekday traffic along University Blvd. this morning: it amazes me how weeds and grass can push through the slimmest of cracks on the concrete barriers between the sides of a highway and on sidewalks. There, in the midst of a sea of concrete, is a lone dandelion or a tuft of grass. How can it survive? What makes it push up in such an unforgiving environment? What else lurks beneath the surface that one would think is impenetrable? Are weeds just bumping restlessly beneath the surface of the concrete and asphalt, waiting for the moment when they are able to burst through the narrowest of cracks? It just seemed like a metaphor for life in general, or maybe my life.

7 November 1994

This morning I went to Greenwich to get one hr. reprints from Emanuella’s film (I’m picking them up tomorrow, since it’s cheaper), and I decided to walk the footpath that goes beneath the Thames. It took me to the Isle of Dogs and the Docklands Light Railway. It was a very surreal, dream-like experience. The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever, and it was filled with dirty tiles, sickly yellow lighting, and grey-faced people who moved past me like ghosts. I was feeling sick all day long, so I was rather dizzy, light-headed, and hallucinogenic down there.

21 March 1995

Something alarming happened yesterday. After walking home from college with Jorge, Jim, and Annida, they stopped into my room to see my Stonehenge photos; Jim really wanted to see my wrist-slashing photos (but I kept one hidden). For some reason Jon B. came by and saw the blood photo, and he asked what it was, if I had gotten a nosebleed. I wouldn’t say, but Jorge kept saying, “Show him!”, so I reluctantly flashed my wrists and said that it was a wrist bleed. I didn’t care too much until I saw the expression on his face, and then I knew that it was a mistake, because of his being a holy roller. I mumbled embarrassed replies to his continuous questions. Jorge commanded Jon not to question it, to just let me do what I want. After that, I got really worried that he would tell Goldsmiths about it, or even worse, O’Grady. I emotionally cannot re-live last spring again!!! Jorge and Annida kept saying, “No, no, don’t worry, he won’t do anything.” When everyone left the dinner table but Annida and me, Jon plopped down and began making small talk. “Oh shit,” I thought, “I know what’s coming.” I shakily excused myself to go take my walk, and that’s when he hurriedly said that he wanted to ask me something. We ended up having a long religious talk—well, he talked, I semi-listened while trying not to laugh. It pissed me off, as I could tell his concern really wasn’t with me, it was with god getting angry because I’m damaging his property through self-mutilation. He just used it as a launching pad to babble on about how only Jesus can save me. In a way, I was even offended, because it sounded as if he was putting down my faith, just because I’m not a Christian. Annida said that wasn’t the case, but I feel it was. I may not believe in God, or even a god, but I believe in something (don’t know what yet…), and just because my faith doesn’t take on traditional forms, doesn’t mean that it isn’t valid. And I Didn’t like how he was almost trying to make me feel ashamed about my wrist-slashing, as if I’m a piteous heathen. Slashing is, in its own hideous way, strangely beautiful. It’s a part of me, and I won’t allow myself to see it as dirty or shameful. And if god did make me…hey, it’s my body now, and I can do with it what I damn well please. When an architect builds a house, he doesn’t expect subsequent owners to live in it exactly as he left it. No, they decorate it, build upon it, make it their own. Just like we pierce ourselves and cut our hair. Jon wouldn’t even listen to my saying that mutilation is the only way I harm myself—I don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. He made it sound like mutilation’s worse than that! Asshole.

9 December 1995

After dinner, Dave and I went to the mall, where we got free knives in Boscovs, I stole the slashed wrists cover to the new Hole CD, I tried to buy insecticide (but Kara stopped me when she learned what it was for), and I bought my secret Santa gifts. I returned back to the dorm alone and worked on my paper. Later on, I went to Paragons with Dave and a dyke, Jen, who lives on my floor, but it was closed, probably because of all the snow and ice we got that day. We went back to Dave’s room to gather our bearings, and then we went to Farley’s for drinks. It was pretty fun. We stayed until after 1 a.m., talking and laughing, and staring in amazement when a man and a woman got into a fight right outside our window. It looked like he was trying to steal her purse. Dave and some jocks ran outside to help, with Dave wielding his free paring knife. It turns out that they were a couple, and while drunk, she decided to get back at him for all the times he beat her and treated her like shit, so she slapped him and tried to strangle him with her purse. Exciting. We went back to the dorm and pulled obnoxious pranks, like re-arranging the letters that said “The Crusades” so they said “The crude ass,” stealing Barb’s mistletoe and gluing the church pamphlet on her door shut, gluing “E”s next to the Ho Ho Ho on her wall, filling her mailbox with glitter, adding big lips from one person’s door onto another person’s name crab, etc. Kara had joined us for this merrymaking. Eaflier, Dave and I rubbed out part of the dry erase words on the Gunster calendar that said “Good luck on finals!” so it said “God lick on anals!” and we added crude things to the “All I want for Christmas” list and the “My family traditions are…” list hanging on my floor.

21 September 1998

I was thinking that this aloneness is like winter. It’s a season that is lonely, barren, cold. But it also has tremendous beauty that can’t be rivaled by any other season. What can replace the joy that comes from the season’s first snowfall? Or from the other treasures of winter? Playing in the snow, cuddling with a mug of hot chocolate in front of a fire, celebrating the holidays. Winter is a time when you eat what you want (because you wear bulky clothes that hide your body) and go for weeks without shaving your legs…just like when you’re not in a relationship! It’s a time for you to savor solitude and introspection. It’s a time for you to comfort yourself and take care of yourself. I can console myself by saying that being alone is all of those things, and that for all of the disadvantages of winter—shoveling snow, losing power, getting sick, being trapped indoors—there are so many advantages to consider. Shoveling snow is good exercise, and it usually gives you a chance to talk to neighbors normally ignored. You can moan about shoveling together, and laugh at how sweaty and disheveled you get. Losing power gives you the chance to light candles and huddle beneath blankets, reading a good book. Getting sick gives you a day or two off of work, and permits you to engage in a much-needed vegging session. Being trapped indoors gives you time to read more, or work on crafts that you would normally shove aside. I think that above all, I must remember that winter doesn’t last forever. It can seem interminable sometimes, but eventually it always collapses into spring. Yes, maybe this year spring is damp and cold and not worth much, but in another year, spring might be better. Warm, beautiful. Maybe relationships are like that. After my relationship ended, I found myself in the midst of winter that would not die, but spring will come someday. If it’s a chilly, wet, colorless spring, I can say, “Well, next time it will be better.” In the meanwhile, I should appreciate this winter and embrace it. I should be an optimist for once in my sorry life. I should say, “I need this time to grown and heal. Only when I truly surrender to winter will I be ready for spring to come.” Instead of looking at winter’s bare trees and thinking they are naked skeletons that would look so much better with leaves, I can admire the smooth curves of their bones, and the beautify of their lacework when I lie beneath them and stare at their crisscrossing, delicate branches, black against the gray sky that leaks through them. Instead of saying that the landscape is depressing, I can take haunting black and white photographs of it, capture its somber beauty in intense poems.

What my fear is, though, is that spring won’t come. Winter will rapidly lose its beauty if, because of some fluke, it goes on forever. Maybe spring doesn’t come for everybody…


song heard most recently before posting:
B.M.F.A.—Martha Wainwright