The Mean Reds

or

When the Life You Want is Not the Life You Have

or

When You Get the Life You Want and You Discover it Sucks

I’ve been keeping a journal since I was 18. This little webforum here has provided me an opportunity to spout off on numerous things – but the core “stuff” – ya know, the deep examinations of life, bitchy notes to ex-boyfriends that never got mailed, my weight and food journal, my loneliest times, exist only in written form, in my journals. It’s easy to blog about happy days or interesting controversy. The rest, is private, for some obvious reasons.

Today was one of those days when I needed a few hours to contemplate my life – so I turned to my written journals. An entry, from about a year ago, went like this:

Years go by and nothing seems to change – except my weight (and that’s not a change in the right direction.)

Unhappiness and uncertainty are still confounding me. The feelings of being out of sort, disconnected, unattached, uninvolved – are still here. I try to keep those feelings at bay by revving up on Dayquil, cigarettes and caffeine -- plowing through work, freelance projects, volunteering, etc. It seems like I’m so busy trying to do things to make other people happy, fulfilling their expectations, meeting their deadlines, that I never have the time to think about what I fundamentally need in my life.

There’s a mantra in AA and other recovery programs that insanity is doing the same destructive thing over and over again, yet expecting different results.

I wonder if my gadfly lifestyle isn’t, quite frankly, insane. Do I really care about going to parties and openings and gossip and knowing who to call when this, that or the other happens?

Certainly it’s an image I portray. But is it fundamentally, me?

Same things I was thinking about today, I was dwelling on a year ago. Not exactly encouraging, huh? Maybe it’s because it’s Sunday. I used to vicariously associate with the gals on Sex and the City - take my own personal demons and neatly resolve them around a TV show. Granted, that is a pattern I’ve done all my life. Life is better in TV and books. Real life and real feelings are wretched and confounding, when you feel fundamentally alone and very lost.

I’ve watched a few classic films this week. To Kill A Mockingbird, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (twice). There are a few lines from the latter that provoked some thought. I don’t fancy myself much like Holly Golightly, but she had a few utterances that struck home:

"It's a mistake you always made, Doc -- trying to love a wild thing... You mustn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get….."

”You know the terrible thing, Fred darling? I am still Lulamae. Fourteen years old, stealing turkey eggs and running through a briar patch. 'Cept now I call it 'having the mean reds.”

I have a tendency to try to love wild things and it always ends up the same. Mister Wild Thing is fascinating and marvellous. I fall head-over-heels. My heart gets broken. I get very sad and a little more bitter. I act up (in numerous and sometimes, pathetic ways). I turn to writing.

March is almost over. I’ve been ridiculously over-committed all month. Lots of parties, events, networking functions, freelance projects – the whole nine yards. I tried to do too much and lived too little. I’ve ignored friends. I haven’t taken a walk. I haven’t even read a magazine, or slept late, or had fun that didn’t involve work in one way or the other. Work always looms in the background. And by work, I mean the need to make money in some form or fashion. The boundary between my own life, separate of the newspaper (and in some ways the gay community), my freelance work and my volunteerism has grown so thin that there is no seeming separation from who I am and what I do.

And as time goes by, I’m finding that very draining, tiring and exhausting.

So that’s today’s post. Sometimes the life you thought you wanted is a life you’d give up for some peace and quiet. No cell phones, no false small talk, no bullshit. Gimme a book, some hot tea, a clean house (laundry done and put away), and a few moments to myself.

That’s my goal for April.

Oh, and fewer posts like this – they’re annoying as fuck…but if it doesn’t get said….it only exists as an idea. Now I have something to gauge my success. That’s a little work-related thinking, but in this case, I’ll give it a bye.