Shopping Trip

To the drug store this morning. I go to a different one every time. I'm afraid of them noticing. Noticing that I always buy gauze and band aids and things to keep my broken self together. I'm afraid they will ask me how I get hurt so often. I'm mostly afraid of my own reply, and my inability to admit that I do it to myself.

I feel a desire to finally explain the title of this blog. It relates to one of my favorite authors, Albert Camus. For anyone who has not read "The Stranger" I recommend that you do. It will put your life in the light of existentialism, in a world where your life is irrelevant. For someone like me who is a scientist, a non-believer, it cast doubt on my very reasons for being alive. But I digress. Camus wrote a short essay called "The Myth of Sisyphus" in which he replies to the age old Greek myth. Sisyphus is forever doomed to push a rock to the top of a large mountain. Upon completing his task, it rolls back to the bottom and Sisyphus must begin again. Camus infers that Sisyphus must be happy in his plight--he is never disappointing. He never hopes for more only to be let down. In knowing his eternal fate, he finds relief rather than punishment.

I would challenge people to think about that. If you knew exactly where you were going and how your life would turn out, you wouldn't bother to worry about much. Funny what a little perspective can do to you.

There are people out there prettier than me. People who run faster than me, people who are smarter, funnier, and better than me. And I can’t fix that. There are certain things in life that you have to live with. Genetic predispositions and inherited features. I can’t change how tall I am or how smart I am. I will never be an Olympic athlete and I’ll never win a nobel prize. There is one thing that I get to change, to improve my status in life: I can be the thinnest. Whether or not people want to admit it, thin is equated with beauty. And not just beauty. Thin is will power and dedication. It’s saying no to ice cream and yes to 6am workouts. Thin is light and airy and wearing whatever you want. It’s what people envy and strive to be. Fat is lazy and disgusting and pathetic. Incapable and useless and stupid. Fat is where I am now. But I can be better. For once maybe, I can actually do something better. Change something for the better. No more swearing to do well on a test only to fail again. Going on run after run and never improving. Promising to learn new material, to keep up with reading, to actually learn something for once, only to be perpetually and painfully disappointed. This is in my control now, and I can’t fail again.

Two's a Crowd

More and more I’m beginning to fear relationships. There is so much to them that I don’t know how to be comfortable with. Plus, how can I be responsible for someone else’s happiness, someone else’s emotions, when I can’t even keep a reign on mine? Relationships require mutual need for each other and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to admit that I need someone else in my life. The other person needs to be needed. And I can’t offer that. Not to mention the mutual trust and honesty which I feel will rip me apart. And then there’s the intimacy. I find it near impossible to willingly take of my clothes in front of anyone. My body is revolting and made even more unpalatable by the scars that ladder up my tree-trunk thighs. No amount of alcohol has ever made me feel ok naked. And try as I might, no number of drunken one night stands has ever made me feel less prudish. I’m starting to worry I’ll never find the right relationship after all the people I’ve pushed away and told no. There have been so many people who care about me that I turn away. And worse yet are the ones who tell me they love me and then seem to find it ok to never speak to me again—I know it’s my fault that they can’t ever be around be anymore but it hurts a lot that they can so easily abandon me. Some friendship I thought I had turned into unwanted romances. I always feel used after that. Especially because I’m not pretty enough to be actually wanted. I’m sure I’m a backup, a second choice. And the longer I stay out of a relationship, the more comfortable I become with being alone. I’ve always done it this way and I’m okay. So I don’t need anyone right? Relationships feel like an intrusion; something that I have to deal with and something I have to work around. They cause me undue anxiety with the pressure to be someone else and the expectations to share and be happy and be intimate. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do it. I feel like I’m walking around with 10 of me in my head, all telling me different things. And the listen to your heart bullshit? Does anyone ever stop to think that their heart is a giant muscle? Might as well go with listen to your quadriceps. So it’s back to thinking with your brain, but what do you do when your brain manages to simultaneously tell you different things? I can’t listen to all of them; most of all I can’t listen to myself.