The Tertiary Ellipsis
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warning: noxiously maudlin post brewing.
I was thinking last week, as a battle of the self-referential blogs played out on the internets, well, I was thinking about blogging. It's still an ugly word, all these posts later.
Two young people, good writers each, with the great fortune or great misfortune, to be prominent in the new media, had an affair and proceeded to go very, very public with their soiled laundry. Their private hurts flamed in arena of public consumption for us faceless, nameless, hungry plebes to lap up with unrestrained glee. Who doesn't love a tasty flame-out, who doesn't love to smack the gristle of someone else's hubristic comeuppance. I do. Thank god I wasn't blogging in the way-back of the late nineties. I say stupid shit in my own private little forum all the time, shit that would invariably get me condemned in certain circles, but I am not a public person. I am just the girl you passed on the street, or I am just words on a screen, what I get to write here is mine.
But I think I thanked God a little, that I wasn't 27 and spilling my guts on the internet, because I was married then, and I would have probably abused my little forum for hateful, heartbroken screeds. I would have probably posted the pictures I found of my husband and his lover on the couch of our apartment. I would have screened my own indiscretions. While not as numerous as his, my own were equally as treacherous. Mostly for myself.
I don't dwell much on those days, quick, painful jabs, followed by veiled nostalgia. Don't get me wrong, D and I have made our peace, and I will always love him. Mostly I am plagued by the memory that I was in over my head almost everywhere I could turn, and when the bottom fell out I nearly drowned.
I am reflecting on the internet and I am reflecting on depression. At the almost bottom, I nixed the hairdryer in the bathtub as I was worried about inconveniencing my neighbors, that's when I realized I was pretty sure that suicide wouldn't be an option, no matter how I checked out, someone was going to pay, I was miserable enough, why would I want to risk further burden in purgatory. I was, at that point, seeing my therapist twice a week and the psychiatrist every other week and I was fantastically medicated and a raging alcoholic. But I was 27, it was the last days before the collapse in San Francisco, I was bartending, making lots of money that somehow evaporated before I made it to the bank, dancing on bars, raising hell, crying a lot, young enough to not be crippled by hang-overs and not enough sleep. I was also really skinny then! Yay! Poor health!
I am thinking of those two people with their hearts on their sleeves and their public greivances as I think about the fact that I hid for seventy-two hours, crawled inside the TV eye, felt as though I was circling the drain, listened for the thunder as it broke far, but it wasn't the same, and I could not surrender, I could not get abject, and I wanted to. I wanted to sob until I choked, I wanted to beat my breast, I wanted to drink and smoke and drink and smoke and drink and smoke, but moderation prevailed. I eked out a few half hearted tear drops at the commercial breaks, and begged the question what fresh hell is this? Should I sue my therapist for being too thorough? Because I know I have the tools to deal with it and can't indulge in the caprice of depression, or are my neurotransmitters fixed? Am I a grown up? Shit is wrong in my wee universe, got no job, got no prospects, I am this close to getting myself a newsboy cap and selling papers on the corner, I am too old to be an urchin. Shit is not right. I spent the afternoon dandling other people's babies and didn't wish for one of my own, but I did wish for someone to come home with.
Shit is not right, but it will be. Of that I am absolutlely certain, and that is the difference between me at 27 and me at 37.
...
...
...
warning: noxiously maudlin post brewing.
I was thinking last week, as a battle of the self-referential blogs played out on the internets, well, I was thinking about blogging. It's still an ugly word, all these posts later.
Two young people, good writers each, with the great fortune or great misfortune, to be prominent in the new media, had an affair and proceeded to go very, very public with their soiled laundry. Their private hurts flamed in arena of public consumption for us faceless, nameless, hungry plebes to lap up with unrestrained glee. Who doesn't love a tasty flame-out, who doesn't love to smack the gristle of someone else's hubristic comeuppance. I do. Thank god I wasn't blogging in the way-back of the late nineties. I say stupid shit in my own private little forum all the time, shit that would invariably get me condemned in certain circles, but I am not a public person. I am just the girl you passed on the street, or I am just words on a screen, what I get to write here is mine.
But I think I thanked God a little, that I wasn't 27 and spilling my guts on the internet, because I was married then, and I would have probably abused my little forum for hateful, heartbroken screeds. I would have probably posted the pictures I found of my husband and his lover on the couch of our apartment. I would have screened my own indiscretions. While not as numerous as his, my own were equally as treacherous. Mostly for myself.
I don't dwell much on those days, quick, painful jabs, followed by veiled nostalgia. Don't get me wrong, D and I have made our peace, and I will always love him. Mostly I am plagued by the memory that I was in over my head almost everywhere I could turn, and when the bottom fell out I nearly drowned.
I am reflecting on the internet and I am reflecting on depression. At the almost bottom, I nixed the hairdryer in the bathtub as I was worried about inconveniencing my neighbors, that's when I realized I was pretty sure that suicide wouldn't be an option, no matter how I checked out, someone was going to pay, I was miserable enough, why would I want to risk further burden in purgatory. I was, at that point, seeing my therapist twice a week and the psychiatrist every other week and I was fantastically medicated and a raging alcoholic. But I was 27, it was the last days before the collapse in San Francisco, I was bartending, making lots of money that somehow evaporated before I made it to the bank, dancing on bars, raising hell, crying a lot, young enough to not be crippled by hang-overs and not enough sleep. I was also really skinny then! Yay! Poor health!
I am thinking of those two people with their hearts on their sleeves and their public greivances as I think about the fact that I hid for seventy-two hours, crawled inside the TV eye, felt as though I was circling the drain, listened for the thunder as it broke far, but it wasn't the same, and I could not surrender, I could not get abject, and I wanted to. I wanted to sob until I choked, I wanted to beat my breast, I wanted to drink and smoke and drink and smoke and drink and smoke, but moderation prevailed. I eked out a few half hearted tear drops at the commercial breaks, and begged the question what fresh hell is this? Should I sue my therapist for being too thorough? Because I know I have the tools to deal with it and can't indulge in the caprice of depression, or are my neurotransmitters fixed? Am I a grown up? Shit is wrong in my wee universe, got no job, got no prospects, I am this close to getting myself a newsboy cap and selling papers on the corner, I am too old to be an urchin. Shit is not right. I spent the afternoon dandling other people's babies and didn't wish for one of my own, but I did wish for someone to come home with.
Shit is not right, but it will be. Of that I am absolutlely certain, and that is the difference between me at 27 and me at 37.
posted by emma at
11:10 PM
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