More and more, I'm finding myself absolutely bored with the mundanity of my life.
I see all my friends starting to settle into their own lives - getting engaged and then married off, having babies and buying houses, throwing dinner parties after coming home from their nine to five jobs - and it terrifies me, because I'm nowhere near that place. As a result, I launch into this sort of pre-midlife crisis at the ripe old age of twenty-five, succumbing to a peer pressure induced panic that I might never be in that place. Or, worse still, perhaps I'm simply not cut out (or deserving?) for(of) it. Possibly even happiness in general.
I spend a lot of my time pretending. Maybe pretend isn't quite the right word I'm going for, but it sounds a bit less cruel than fake. I pretend to like my job - or so I have been up until recent history - when in reality, I get slightly sick to my stomach each morning with the thought of having to go through another day of it. I pretend to be content with all my current situations, when I'll probably never get past them. I think I probably even pretend to be a better person, a nicer person, than I actually am. Certainly a great deal less bitter, at the very least.
I do try to keep a good sense of humor about life, and myself, because really it's one of the only things I've got. I've accepted that I will always be the least attractive - and probably also the least interesting, to be completely honest - female within my circle of friends... but at least I have the ability to entertain the masses while in that spot. Yet somehow that doesn't stop me from lying awake all night when I'm told my purpose in life might be to serve as "the other girl" who makes guys realize how happy they'd be with "the right girl."
There's a line in the movie "Girl, Interrupted" - and by the way, terrible film - which really resonated with me. If I could remember exactly what that line was, I'm sure this paragraph would be a lot more poignant... but for a pop culture buff, I have a surprisingly terrible memory for detail when it comes to quotes and key scenes. But back to the point at hand. The gist is a realization Wynona Ryder's character had about the self-inflicted burn victim. (Polly?) She ponders if perhaps the girl's sweetness is genuine or an act intended to hook in people who wouldn't otherwise give her the time of day. The line - which again, I paraphrased... and possibly to a generous degree - always jolts me, and makes me question my own personality. Am I genuine, or do I just suffer from some sort of immense desperation to be liked by everybody? If there's even any difference of the two.
I often find myself trying to beat the boredom out with stupid little missions and projects... the majority of which I never follow through with. I have to believe that's why I'm so fascinated with Danny Wallace's novels... he was able to take a stupid little side project and turn it into something that changed thousands of lives. I want that. (Yes, I'm aware of what a horrible transition that was, as it happens.) Granted my mission to get a contact picture for everyone in my phone book will probably never lead to the accidental creation of a cult (not a cult, a collective), but still. I want and need something like that in my life for my own sanity.
This really isn't the direction I was planning on taking in this blog - yet another stupid little side project to keep me entertained or (and) prevent me from thinking too much. I guess I was just feeling a bit morose for reasons I have no real explanation of.
I'm guessing I'll be back to your regularly scheduled puns and pop culture drivel in the next entry. If I can manage to follow through on this project.
Obligatory Me...
- Lani
- Hampton Roads, Virginia, United States
- I'm an enigma wrapped in a sweater wrapped in a vest.
2 comments:
Other people may have more direction in their lives, or more security in their future, or jobs they actually like, but you... You have 2 brand spankin' new dining room chairs.
So tell everyone else to sit on it, literally.
Dear Morose,
I find that dinner parties are a great little way of avoiding the subject of what to do with my spare room.
There are many of us out there unhappy with our current occupational situation, (If I start to sound like Dr. Phil, please read on, for it is highly unlikely you will be able to stop me) but we are terrified to try something new because we can survive if we stay where we are. Survival is warm and safe.
A good sense of humor about life is a necessity. You do not have the luxury of deciding how attractive or interesting you are unless you base it on a different scale from the rest of the world, which then has no meaning with anyone else but you. I'm not sure who told you that you serve as "the other girl" but i genuinely hope he is currently working in a coal mine in Micronesia for 20 cents an hour.
Morose you are beautiful and you have much to give to the world. There is nothing "other" or "wrong" about you.
Side note: When I was single I would get depressed about being lonely, now in a relationship I worry about things in life, finances, work etc... and then get depressed about burdening my better half with these things and wish I was single again for then I alone would have to handle this burden. By no means are these equal but the unsingle truly do envy the single on many occasions for their malleability in life. And let us not forget the reverse is true for stability a relationship provides. There are things in this world that don't go our way and for some this list is looooong, but if we take pride in the few things that do go our way then they will grow. One perfect sunset every once in a while can become a weeklong perfect sunset if you nurture it.
This planet has become so gobbled with the genuine and the desperate that no one knows who is who anymore. No one really knows themself. We can theorize and some of theories are quite entertaining (I once thought I was meant to be a mysterious lanky skateboarder living life on the edge of morality and proper diet). What I like to do is let myself go (really go, like talking to bars of soap in the shower or hiding behind curtains) when no one else is around. The more I do this in private the more it that pops out in public.
On the other hand, maybe there is no need to want to be liked as you may already be liked by everyone, at least by those that matter and not the coalminers of Micronesia.
We are all very much proud of you and some of us a little envious of your new world experiences. Please try not to feel like you are the odd wizard living under the staircase because it is all in your head. Loneliness can make us do and think strange things. We have all been a little more alone after college. I'm alone right now and I'm playing with my food.
I trust that my words have been received with some belief and some not so but please trust that I mean every one.
- Content
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