This past year has been about the worst in my life. Not that is has been filled with disaster; I can't think of a single major tragedy; call it a melodrama in grey. It is a time where only cognition of future hindsight keeps one from being blinded by the fogs of tribulation. There is a Sondheim lyric, "every day a little death," which seems appropriate. My confidence and esteem are shattered. My bitterness and envy and jealousy are energized (the last I was unaware of possessing, to the degree I feel it). The loneliness that has been and will be with me all the days of my life is exacerbated by isolation, for I seem to be a more social creature than I had previously thought; it took losing the constant interaction of school to realize this. Although my shyness constantly improves, the simple task of reaching out even to people I consider friends seems like a chasmic reach, and I stutter, and I spend my time alone, or with one particular friend. Besides the acrophobic nature of the confessional, the task of presenting all the strands coherently is dizzying. It would be easier to puree my mind, my heart, and splatter the mixture on a canvas like Pollock.
Nearly a year has passed since I realized what damage I had done to fund my undergraduate studies. That was the numbest weekend I have ever felt, and I'm not sure I have yet fully recovered. It was a grand start to an intentional tutelage in the School of Fooldom, where I would seek to be reckless in romance, careless, and understand what it meant to give in to the irrational desires; yet I had discovered I had been a fool all along. Compounding the terrors of debt was the lack of income. I have no idea how many applications I've submitted, several dozen is likely, yet I have had only three interviews, two of which were with companies that were last ditch attempts, and the only two who hired. One has obviously proven to be better than the other, yet it is a lose-lose-loser situation through and through. I hate my job, and I lack the luxury of having something meaningful to suffer through it for, like a family, a love, or a way out.
Thus I feel like a failure. First for falling far below expectations. People see wonderful things in me, and I give them Walmart. There are many things I have said I would do: improve my German, read books, write works of words and works of music, etc. Almost nothing have I accomplished. Foremost, though, I feel I have failed at being an emulatable (making up words as needed) human being, a strong one I suppose I mean. I come from stock who have held jobs they disliked, who work to make a living, and do so stoically. I try, but I can't, and I feel weak. I must live what I do, and not just do to get by.
This is all exacerbated by the successes, big and small, of most of my friends and peers. I am rarely happier than when this one gets to continue their education/dreams; when that one falls in love; when another gets engaged, or married; when Friend Such-and-Such attains a wonderful job; when Friend So-and-So gets to travel; when Ms. Someone gets to live in a place to-die-for. (On the flip side, I am rarely more contemptuous and disgusted when a Mr. Nobody gets great recognition that is most undue.) Yet, envy makes this matter equivocal. I have had none of this, and the part of me which cries "Why not me?!" feeds the monsters of the deep, and they wish misery on all. There was one day where I had two parties to attend; I bailed out of both, because I was sick at heart, and because I simply couldn't face all these people whose lives seemed better than mine.
This feeds into my natural propensity for being alone; that is, what I thought was so. Although most of my friends still live in the area, it is tiring being practically the only one who has travel half an hour or more to interact. I am a part of nothing that I feel ties with; I connect with practically no one at work (though I get along fine with them); although I am now in a choir, excepting a few the next oldest person is at least twice my age. Looking at my friends, I see they have friends from all sorts of places, from other college departments, other professions, other walks of life. All my currents friends are from the music department I studied at, or my one great friend and the acquaintances I gain from her social realm. As I said earlier though, I have always felt alone. I can remember being in kindergarten and feeling like there were connections I simply lacked. Though it seems I do yet need more social comfort than I had thought.
So much for a year! I am 23 years old, and I should not feel this way. I am 23, and I should not feel like I have the burden of great expectations to fulfill, and feel like I will fail them utterly. I am 23, and should not feel so alone. I am 23, and should not feel so bitter. I am 23, and should not feel like I have already missed the advantage of the prime of youth; so much time has been wasted on hiding the nature of my love, and now that I am finally in a position to openly embrace the object of it, I cannot, because I desire after vain and impossible romances. I am 23, and the air of death should not be ever around, informing my fears and infiltrating my art. The saddest of this is that you can replace those "23's" with "11's" and "15's" (give or take a year for both) and you would still have the same situation, for, although this currently isn't a breakdown but a strange need to vent some venom, I have had two prior instances of breaking down because the pressure of outward expectations and inward doubts finally blew up.
Again, I don't why I should be flaying myself publicly. Perhaps for pity, which is nice, but is soon outdone by the guilt of receiving it for these reasons. At the moment I feel fine, perhaps nervous, and not looking forward to work tomorrow; there is no desperate haste to post my emotions. Nietzsche once wrote "That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking." Perhaps that is one reason I have such difficulty with talk and conversation. However, these words above are all written down, and, as Emerson said of Montaigne, if you cut them they bleed (for me). I have already talked them out with some, but they need to be written down to be alive for me outside myself.
Not all has been bad, and it won't remain so forever. The latest, perhaps last, but most important lesson I have learned in my time after graduation is that there is very little for me in St. Louis anymore. I had been fighting it, I think, and it took a conversation with a confidant for me to accept it. I need a clean and decisive break, and so I am applying to grad schools in England. It will be risky indeed, but that is another thing I know I have been lacking which all my successful friends have had, this risk-taking. This is not to say I wish to sever ties with people, but a change of scene is needed; the act has gone on for too long (it has been five years since I have been outside the St. Louis area). I know this is the right thing to do, because I feel an excitement I have not felt for a long time.
Perhaps this song selection is cheesy, but I couldn't give a damn.
