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WARNING: I've been in the habit in recent years of Friends-locking the Depressing posts as well as the Posts-Where-I-Need-To-Protect-The-Innocent, but any more half the people who USED to read my friends-locked posts can't even log in any more and the other half just doesn't care and the three or so people who magically don't fit into either half who DO still read friends-locked posts, well, they're awesome and all, but I sometimes wonder what the point of posting at all is if nobody (except the mathematically impossible three people) can read it, so anyway, while I DO still intend to friends-lock the Incriminating and Privacy-Wrecking posts, I'm afraid the depressing stuff is going to make it out here occasionally. SO, IF YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE LISTENING TO ME BE DEPRESSING, STOP READING NOW and go find some LOLCats to look at instead.
They say everyone's got a story to tell. They say write the story you need to tell. I keep looking for fictional stories to tell and lately I just don't care enough. It occurred to me that maybe the only story I want to tell is my own life story. Maybe actually all I want to do is barf it all out so it's out there and I can die in peace. Not that I am, as far as I know, dying. But if I AM having some psychic moment that is inspiring me to prepare my autobiography in a great important hurry and I DO suddenly die, at least you'll have had fair warning here and will know where I have went. And my autobiography will be out there, because I will have gathered all the bits I've already written and put them together propery and filled in the blanks and put it OUT.
This is the Prologue to My Autobiography that I wrote yesterday:
I want to share my life with you.
Not live with you, do stuff with you, argue about money and furniture and child-rearing. I just want to take my life-- all of it, every nuance of my past, every hope of my future-- and hand it over. Here it is. This is me.
I think of what my life is not: I was not an abused child. I did not struggle with learning disabilities or poverty or war. I wasn't non-white in a white world or non-straight in a straight world or left-handed in a right-handed world. I know those viewpoints are important to hear about. But then I start to think that maybe I'm not important, then, that maybe my life is meaningless, that maybe my joys and tears and loves and hates are all for nothing, because they're just like Everybody Else's.
Except they're not. And I'm not. I'm not saying I'm anything special, but I've LIVED, and I'm worth something, because just like everyone else, I've got an entire multiverse wrapped up in my skull, and you can't just ignore that, belittle that, because I seem so dull. People are always so much more than they appear. They each carry the whole universe of their lives around and you, stuck as you are in your own little universe, never see it.
Well, I want you to see mine. Here is life as I know it.
I'm just desperate to reach out there. Desperate for some real contact, some real understanding. I want to get that whole multiverse that is inside me OUT there, save it, immortalize it, share it.
My husband said a terrible thing last night, and I'm not sure I've forgiven him, even though I know he's been thoroughly depressed himself lately so his ideas of philosophy should probably not be relied upon as "uplifting." But when I said "I just wish I knew what I'm supposed to DO with my life!" he said, "You and I have reached the point in our lives when we begin to fade away, and now all we can do is pass it on to the kids so they get to shine."
But WHAT? What's being passed on? I haven't shined yet! What kind of torch are we passing if it was never lit in the first place? It's survival of the species, that's all. Meaningless.
"But this is why I don't Get the Arts," J continued, pointing out how the great artists weren't considered great until after they DIED. Which was exactly the point I was trying to make from the other side. I want to DO something BEFORE I die. I want to MEAN something. I'm not looking for fame, I just want to have ADDED something to the world. Not just perpetuated the species. Not just survived, day to day. I want a POINT.
I feel stagnant. I've wanted so badly to just run away, run off to NYC or Boston or London and live in some horrible bohemian artists' flat being some totally different person while finding myself. But, you know, I won't. Much as I don't want my ENTIRE life to REVOLVE around my kids, they still are the most IMPORTANT thing in my life, and I have got to get them raised properly. The trick is somehow making the best of this depressing wastehole I'm stuck in in the meanwhile.
And hope I get my act together before I die.
They say everyone's got a story to tell. They say write the story you need to tell. I keep looking for fictional stories to tell and lately I just don't care enough. It occurred to me that maybe the only story I want to tell is my own life story. Maybe actually all I want to do is barf it all out so it's out there and I can die in peace. Not that I am, as far as I know, dying. But if I AM having some psychic moment that is inspiring me to prepare my autobiography in a great important hurry and I DO suddenly die, at least you'll have had fair warning here and will know where I have went. And my autobiography will be out there, because I will have gathered all the bits I've already written and put them together propery and filled in the blanks and put it OUT.
This is the Prologue to My Autobiography that I wrote yesterday:
I want to share my life with you.
Not live with you, do stuff with you, argue about money and furniture and child-rearing. I just want to take my life-- all of it, every nuance of my past, every hope of my future-- and hand it over. Here it is. This is me.
I think of what my life is not: I was not an abused child. I did not struggle with learning disabilities or poverty or war. I wasn't non-white in a white world or non-straight in a straight world or left-handed in a right-handed world. I know those viewpoints are important to hear about. But then I start to think that maybe I'm not important, then, that maybe my life is meaningless, that maybe my joys and tears and loves and hates are all for nothing, because they're just like Everybody Else's.
Except they're not. And I'm not. I'm not saying I'm anything special, but I've LIVED, and I'm worth something, because just like everyone else, I've got an entire multiverse wrapped up in my skull, and you can't just ignore that, belittle that, because I seem so dull. People are always so much more than they appear. They each carry the whole universe of their lives around and you, stuck as you are in your own little universe, never see it.
Well, I want you to see mine. Here is life as I know it.
I'm just desperate to reach out there. Desperate for some real contact, some real understanding. I want to get that whole multiverse that is inside me OUT there, save it, immortalize it, share it.
My husband said a terrible thing last night, and I'm not sure I've forgiven him, even though I know he's been thoroughly depressed himself lately so his ideas of philosophy should probably not be relied upon as "uplifting." But when I said "I just wish I knew what I'm supposed to DO with my life!" he said, "You and I have reached the point in our lives when we begin to fade away, and now all we can do is pass it on to the kids so they get to shine."
But WHAT? What's being passed on? I haven't shined yet! What kind of torch are we passing if it was never lit in the first place? It's survival of the species, that's all. Meaningless.
"But this is why I don't Get the Arts," J continued, pointing out how the great artists weren't considered great until after they DIED. Which was exactly the point I was trying to make from the other side. I want to DO something BEFORE I die. I want to MEAN something. I'm not looking for fame, I just want to have ADDED something to the world. Not just perpetuated the species. Not just survived, day to day. I want a POINT.
I feel stagnant. I've wanted so badly to just run away, run off to NYC or Boston or London and live in some horrible bohemian artists' flat being some totally different person while finding myself. But, you know, I won't. Much as I don't want my ENTIRE life to REVOLVE around my kids, they still are the most IMPORTANT thing in my life, and I have got to get them raised properly. The trick is somehow making the best of this depressing wastehole I'm stuck in in the meanwhile.
And hope I get my act together before I die.
