Light fled

Yesterday I noticed that the LED sign in the subway shook and rattled when I bit down an a thick kettle chip. Nothing else moved, just the sign. I tried it over and over. Looking at little kids, subway cars, my book, my phone, nothing affected by my chomping but this sign. It read OCTOBER 24, 2011 3:41PM and sometimes only read flicks of red and green. This was the first of the larger signs that I was falling apart. Little cigarette burns in my consciousness. Suddenly I realize why I always want to watch Fight Club when I feel like this.

Today I have begun my descent into madness. I’m in bed in the middle of the day, just didn’t do the rest of my job today. Just didn’t go. I went to a conference with one of my clients this morning. Feeling woefully inadequate, I left and checked my email. My tenth please god let them give me that job, I’ll die if they don’t email check of the day. And there it was.. "Unfortunately.." And I drift off not needing to read anymore. Tears well in my eyes and feel like someone’s pulled the ground out from under me. And I’m falling. And I’m alone. The only safety pin in my mental health was the hope for this new job. You might say, fuck your problems at least you have a job. But you’d be stupid to say that. The job I have has been steadily ripping away at the fabric of my sanity for the last three months. And I don’t mean that in a melodramatic, Office Space way. I mean it in the way that means the sanity I had carefully constructed after 27 years and was starting to finally build enough supports around that it would stand up on its own, was slashed apart. I counted yesterday. 6.5 hours in the subway. Yesterday. Do you know what it does to a depressed person to be underground for that much of the day? All the anxiety of trying to schedule and be on time. All of the darkness. All of the lies I cultivated down there to tell people just so I can survive. I should not be therapizing anyone right now. And despite the right now, I don’t think its something I ever want to do again. It’s too much. It overwhelms my constitution and whatever it was I could do well is no longer even done adequately. I wanted that "Unfortunately,.," job. I felt it in my bones. I saw signs in the clouds and knew it was meant for me. Such a loss of sense of meaning in the world now. I had built up a careful cosmic puzzle of what led me to the job and the shapes in the sand that meant it was mine. So careful. Where did I go wrong… The passion I felt for that job unparalleled. This is the first time I’ve ever not gotten something I wanted that badly. The first time I’ve ever allowed myself to want something that badly. First time I’ve ever not gotten a job I interviewed for. What did I do wrong? I read the signs wrong, now I fear I may never believe in signs again, or fate, or meant to be. Devoid of meaning.

So I went to Family Dollar. Did you know you can buy candles that smell like Christmas there and Tide with bleach and sour cherry balls? I went on auto pilot when I got off the train and guided by some ancient urge for survival walked in. Why that place comforts me I’ll never know. But I got my spaghettios and my toilet paper and everything else and felt a little more whole, like there was a little something to hold on to. Now I retreat to my bed with remnants surrounding me. Cookie dough covered spoon and turned over cup on my pillow, sour balls rolling around in the sheets, smell of Christmas in the air. It’s not healing, but it’s something. When pain seems just mitigated.. self harm seems like a valid option. I have fantasies about emailing my supervisor about having to go to the hospital, and then not really going but justifying that I should be going to my shrink because this is a whole real kind of pain that swallows you knees and all. And then I think hey, why not fulfill that prophecy. Like the time I bled on the seat of my friend’s car, I had my period and was thinking it had gotten on to the seat, but I panicked and lied and said I just cut my finger, I looked down and my thumb was sliced on the side. Lies to truth. Thinking about cutting seems relieving and stupid at the same time. As an adult I feel I need a higher method of self mutilation. Something sophisticated. Like booze. No sex, because I have a boyfriend now and sex with him just feels like love and I need to feel pain and dislike and numbness instead.

It was nice to be a happy healthy adult for the short time it lasted. It was nice to actually see things and people for what they are instead of what my cloudy brain colors them to be. It was nice to wake up and feel like waking up. Reasons to live. Joy sometimes. It was nice. Really, really nice.