GINGER

As always, I have to start out my year with a complaint. On the night of New Year’s Day, I came down with some kind of horrible bug and commenced to shivering and sweating and aching in the joints all night and most of the next day. The next night was marginally better, as was the next day, and now I’m back at work with only a 1 degree higher than normal temperature.

It was seriously so bad on January 2 that when I got up to take the dogs out (I was watching a friend’s dog), I had to lay down on the sidewalk for five minutes because I thought I was going to pass out. “You couldn’t just have sat?” asked my mother. In fact, no, I had to lay, it was that bad. “Are you ok?!” hollered a concerned landscaper who saw me go down. “No, I have the fluuuuuu! I need to reeeeeeest!” I whined back, and that was enough of an answer for him to leave me alone. Sorry to disappoint the romantics, but I was not picked up and gallantly carried to safety that day. Instead, after I got my wits about me, I got back up with a dirt clod in my hair (not discovered till later, unfortunately) and shambled back inside.

So anyway, I’m still not 100% today, and I think it’s partially because I swear they put rat poison in my apartment over Christmas break and I’ve somehow come in contact with it. Or I might just be sick. Either way.

As I was walking down the street the other evening, walking my dog, I looked up at the sky and trees and thought, “What a beautiful night.” And I thought about how I felt happy, basically for no reason, and how being alone and getting to appreciate everything all to myself, just with myself, felt really nice. It was and is all I want.

I know so many people who spend their evenings a little sad that they don’t have a significant other, or even when they’re out doing fun, amazing things, they have that twinge that they wish they could be sharing it with someone they love. I don’t have that.

I like spending time by myself, I like seeing or experiencing things and not having to clutter them up by yammering about them with someone else, but just thinking about them, all alone. It lets me be in the moment more. I don’t have to convince anyone of my point of view, or show anyone what I see, or discuss with anyone what’s to be gotten out of it. I just get to let everything happen and process and really experience it with no distractions.

That’s not to say I don’t like being around people or sharing things with them, or that I never want to be in a romantic relationship again. One of my greatest joys is hanging out with my friends, talking and laughing and rehashing events and conjecturing on others’ motives and behaviors and what-have-you. But when all of that is over, and I come home to my dark apartment and think about my life and what I’m doing with it, I never, ever feel sad that I’m alone. In fact, I feel happy and free.

I can’t help it, and it’s probably not a good habit to get into in this world where everyone pairs off, cos I could very well live like this forever and be considered weird. But it feels good to me, the aloneness is lovely. I pity the people who are lonely and wanting more and can’t appreciate what they have because they’re not in a relationship. Life is gorgeous by yourself.

A friend of mine wrote on another friend’s facebook wall, “I hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable day,” for their birthday. Are we that old and awful that instead of saying, “I hope you rocked the shit out of your day,” we’re hoping it’s RELAXING? She’s younger than I am! I realize this is coming from someone who deliberately hermited away her entire Thanksgiving break, but a relaxing birthday sounds old and depressing.

As always, I’m not going home for Thanksgiving this year. For the past couple of years, I’ve either hosted a feast at my house, or gone over to friends’ houses whose parents were in town. Which have all been really fun! But this year Maureen and Mindy are out of town, Christina and Christoph don’t live in NYC anymore, and suddenly I’m facing four days alone in an empty city.

I CAN’T WAIT!

I was actually invited to a couple of holiday meals, don’t cry for me Argentina, but I am really looking forward to chillin at home. I’m gonna take my dog on a hike, go to an early matinee, watch some Netflix, read gossip magazines, drink champagne, and in general love my life. I might do a brunch on Black Friday, I feel like making crepes again.

I was fine with the extremely loud moving in my neighbors did last night and today, in fact I’m always happy to see an apartment turn over, because hey, some eye candy might move in. However, my heart really sank when, as I was quietly relaxing on my couch, I heard the first few chords of an acoustic guitar being played.

Please god PLEASE GOD don’t let them have an amateur band. I will certainly die.

(And for the record: no eye candy.)

I finally read Daphne du Maurier’s classic novel, Rebecca. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but not my favorite. I didn’t love it as much as I was hoping. It seemed a little old fashioned, like it should be taking place in the 1830s, not the 1930s. I think she should have set it in the past instead of the present (it was written in 1938). It also wasn’t a terribly deep read, but I loved her descriptions of the estate it takes place on, Manderley. And I really loved the descriptions of the meals.

Actually, probably the biggest thing I took from the book was a burning desire to have tea time. I can’t even tell you how many times they take tea in this book, but it sounded just like something I might like to do every day. In my estate’s garden, with trays brought out to me under the chestnut tree. Absenting an estate, servants, or a chestnut tree, I will make scones tomorrow and have tea at brunch in my apartment.

Our relationship changed so much over our lives, especially in the last few years. It will be the great tragedy of my life that I didn’t get to see what else was to come. I know everyone says you wouldn’t want us to be sad on this day, but that’s not actually true. Because I know you’re sad we didn’t get to have longer together, too. Of course you are. Of course I am.

I miss you terribly. TTYL.

My mom’s friend thought I might be going off the deep end and that I should write something less melodramatic so people didn’t worry. Do my readers not know me by now? I’m not going to pretend I’m not hurting, I’m going to tell you everything. That doesn’t mean I’m having a nervous breakdown. So. I am very, very sad, but I am not having a nervous breakdown. OR AM I.

She asked me why I wrote what I wrote yesterday. There are a few reasons, if you care.

For one, articulating emotional pain makes it somehow easier for me to manage. I suppose that’s why humans invented language to begin with, because articulating thoughts and feelings and requests and everything makes it all make sense. It gives it some order. So this internal turmoil has some kind of expression beyond pure hurt. I can’t spew fire from my mouth, or cry acid, or will the world to fall in on itself like cliffs falling into the ocean. I can’t do anything physically that could encapsulate how I feel. All I can do is make words to show how much pain there is. I don’t know why I need to show it, but I do. Maybe a neuroscientist can tell me why our brains compel us to share our stories; I don’t know.

For two, I write things like that so other people know they are not alone. There is a reason Post Secret is so popular. No one wants to feel completely alone. But this reason is secondary. I mostly write for myself these days. I don’t cling to other people as much as I used to, at least not out of grief, and I don’t feel a burning desire to comfort them anymore, either.

For three, to self-flagellate. Something in me wants me to feel bad about myself, to never feel good enough in certain ways, and when I write down how pathetic and ashamed I am, that something is satisfied. It’s not that I have low self esteem. I think maybe I feel that if I write down how disappointing I am to myself, I’ll do something to change it and make me proud of myself. Thus far, it hasn’t worked, but I do think that’s the underlying motivation.

I am having a disgusting and horrible day, as I always do on this day and November 18 ever since Wyatt died. I have this huge urge to sit out in the rain and let my feet freeze, and smoke a bunch of cigarettes even though I don’t smoke, get really drunk and fall down and hit my head or something. Maybe get hit by a car. I hate this miserable day and today I really hate my pathetic, useless, meaningless life.

Why can’t I move on like other people can when someone close to them dies? Plenty of happy, successful people have lost siblings, and you don’t even find it out about them until later, almost like a footnote, if ever. It’s not that they loved them less, it’s just that they didn’t let their siblings’ deaths define their lives. Or at least not in a bad way. But I do, and it’s bad, and I’m ashamed that I’ve let it happen but I can’t help it. What am I doing with his memory except wishing every second he was still here?

Why can’t I be inspired like everyone else seems to be after Wyatt’s death, or even just be normal? Why do I have to be such a depressed wet blanket all the time, stuck in this misery that never really goes away? Every single thing I even think about doing, I just come back to the question, “Why bother? Your life is never going to be good anyway, now that Wyatt’s dead. Nothing means anything.”

I hate that he died and everything he could have been and done is gone, wasted, and now I’m letting my life become a waste, too. I hate it but I can’t help it.

I’ve found that if I can find a way to be outside when night falls, I don’t get so sad when it gets dark. If I’m going about my day and watch the light fade out the window, I just sit there getting more and more depressed the darker it gets. But if I’m out walking around, it doesn’t feel so bad. Another thing that helps is Christmas lights. Is it too early to put them up??