On Second Thought

After all this talk about loneliness, I’m starting to wonder if a relationship is really what I need right now. Looking back at all the things that have occurred in the last ten months… it really seems like a relationship and intimacy is the last thing I need. I’m unsure of myself — my self-confidence is at its lowest for the first time in two years. I feel as if I have no direction in my life, except for the routine of suits. I don’t keep in touch with as many people as I would’ve liked after college — and much of it was not my own doing. I’m starting to wonder if creating new connections and relations is really what I should do right now, or if I should just focus on myself for a while. But then again, I’ve been “focusing on myself” for the last nine months, and nothing really good has come of it.

But how else to cure this loneliness?

The Other Side

I’m on the other side of where our lives used to be
I can feel all right about whatever’s good for me
Baby I wanna go back
You were supposed to come with me
All I ever wanted was to be with you
Yeah, supposed to come with me
Anything I’ve started now I will never do
- Rachael Yamagata, “The Other Side”

I wish you could save me from the person I’ve become. I wish you could save me from this mess I’ve become. I wish you could save me from this pain and loneliness.

I wish you could save me.

Had another dream about you last night. We were friends again, like the way we used to be. You shared your thoughts and feelings with me, and I, while wary of what was happening, liked the fact that you were talking to me again on an intimate level.  I wish these scenarios wouldn’t play out only in my dreams.  I wish they really happened in real life, and we could stop dwelling on the past.

I wish you wouldn’t move on and leave me behind.

Girls are so weak.

Us girls, we are so weak, aren’t we? We like to pretend that we have control over our lives and that we know exactly what we want, but our judgments are so clouded by our insecurities and fickleness that we could never accept any situation without warping it into some twisted plot against ourselves. We like to think that we’re strong enough to maintain the kind of confidence required to sustain our own dignities in situations where temptation rises and our wills tested.

However, in reality, we are weak. One or two drinks will completely erase our ego and self-confidence, and we will be at your beck and call.  We are pulled in all directions that lead us away from our true desires and obliterate whatever strength with which we set out at the beginning. We cannot make up our minds without having our insecurities and inner thoughts eat away at us from the inside.  We are determined to make ourselves feel better by doing things we wouldn’t do otherwise. Why? Because we lack the self-confidence and clarity with which to judge our own true strengths and desires. We want you to like us, whether or not we like you. We just want to be liked, and if it means having another drink with you or having dinner with you, then so be it. At least we are liked. At least someone wants us. Anyone.

The truth is, this weakness is something I cannot understand. I admit that I was once victim to my own weaknesses, but now, I see every other girl making the same mistakes and succumbing to the same weaknesses with which I am all too familiar. And it is one of those lessons that every girl has to learn for herself. No matter how much she can verbally convince herself that she is not a victim to her own insecurities, it’s a lesson that has to be learned in a painful way. One day, every girl will wake up and realize that she doesn’t need alcohol to gain confidence, and she certainly doesn’t need alcohol for others to like her. And if she is mad at a certain situation, then she should confront it, not cling on to another guy just to feel wanted at the end of the night.

It’s a waste of time to be with people that you don’t like. It’s not a luxury that we can have every day, but when the opportunity arises, you should always stick with company that you enjoy. Life is too short to waste it on people you don’t give a shit about. So, girls, don’t be weak. Pick and choose your company. Don’t succumb to your weaknesses and insecurities, and cling on to a guy just because he shows the slightest bit of interest. It’s both unruly and plain pathetic.

Routine of Suits

Recently I have felt very trapped inside my world. I fear that I have fallen into a routine that is both mundane and unrewarding. The routine of suits. I get up every morning at 8:20, take a shower, make my lunch, and leave at 8:55 to catch the 9:06 train. I get to the office at 9:33 and wait until 12:50pm to take my lunch. Then I sit around and read the news until 5:30, then I take the 5:50 train, which brings me home at approximately 6:15. Then I sit around and check my e-mail and eat my dinner until I go to bed at 11:15pm.

That is my day, and it depresses me to no end. I hear of all the people who are traveling the world, seeing the sights that I want to see, and here I am, dreaming about it while I sit in my cubicle underneath fluorescent lights. I want to see the Taj Mahal in India, the ancient city of Macchu Piccu, the Great Coral Reef in Australia, Hadrian’s Wall in Britain, ice caps from Greenland to Argentina, and the Great Wall and Forbidden City of China.  I want to eat Pho in Vietnam and Nan in India. I want to explore the volcanos in Hawaii and lay on the beach in the Maldives.

I want to do all these things, but I fear I won’t have enough time to do them before I am tied down with obligations that prevent me from exploring this world. I find myself imagining timelines and time tables, trying to plan out each trip and disgarding the ones that I probably won’t make in the next five years. I wish I could see all these things before I “grow up,” but money is another issue. In order to make these pilgramages, I need to raise money, which means I need to spend a good part of my youth raising money just so I can see these things. But by the time I raise enough money, my life will be filled with other responsibilites and obligations that are not oriented around money, which will prevent me from partaking in these adventures. And that is really what it comes down to — a race against time.

I don’t know how I will reconcile these issues, but I am scared to death that I may never reconcile them. I fear I will compromise the Great Coral Reef for the Taj Mahal and leave a void in my lifelong itinerary that I will never fulfill before death. My youth will have been spent raising money for sights that I may never see. It leaves me feeling lonely, helpless, and anxious. Nevermind that I have nobody to go traveling with to see these places, which is another issue. For now, I am focused on whether I will ever make these trips… It’s scary.

The Mirror

One point of reference – from below.

I can’t even begin to describe the loneliness that I feel on a daily basis, and the pain only worsens as the day goes by.  I know I’m in a period of transition in my life, and extremely vulnerable to the quarter-life crisis, but damn, I’ve never felt as vulnerable as I do now.

I want to stop focusing on myself. I want to share my life with someone. I want someone to call me, so that we can get this started. I’m sick of looking at myself in the mirror and knowing that I’m the only person I can really depend on. I just want companionship.  I’m not looking for a husband or a soulmate. Just someone to spend time with and have fun with. I have tickets to a concert in 3 weeks, and nobody to take. I have 4.5 vacation days I need to use before December 19 and nobody to go with. I have so much to share, and nobody to share with.

When will this end? I just keep thinking about that scene in “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” which I know I referenced maybe exactly 2 years ago, in which Miranda July is waiting for that call from the shoesalesman so that they “can start their lives together.” Here I am, two years later, waiting for that same call. Except… I haven’t given my number to anyone.

Ironic.