I’m buying this house for my baby’s wedding present. Forty thousand dollars, cash! Now, that’s… not buying happiness. That’s just… buying off unhappiness.
08 Nov 2011 Leave a Comment
I’m unhappy. Try as I might, I can’t seem to catch a break. I’m not depressed, not that. Just unhappy.
Last week was hell on wheels. This week is better, objectively, but I’m not really feeling it. I should be happy that I got one of my term papers in and all my paperwork for my graduation in order and handed in. Instead, I can’t help but worry about those letters I still haven’t posted, these phone calls I need to return and the emails that need replying. And no matter how hard I try, the workload never seems to diminish. In fact, it’s reproducing like tribbles. Work at the call centre continues to bore me to tears. I think I’m not even doing that bad, as far as I can tell all my stats are ok. But the money I make there is negligible. I used to do well for myself in my ghostwriting days, but they are long gone. I wasn’t making a fortune, definitely not enough to put something aside (not with all the medical bills), but I wasn’t struggling either. I’m not even unhappy really about having to turn over every penny. I’m unhappy that this is another worry on top of a mountain of worries.
You may say life is not always about being happy. And you’d be right. But it can’t be about being this unhappy either.
I look to my friends for comfort and they offer much, but they can’t make me love myself.
So often, I think “Just take control. Start loving yourself. As evidenced by your friends’ repeated comments, you are not the ugliest person to have ever walked the planet. Take control. Stop whining, adjust to your appearance and be proud of what you have now, just work with what you have and when that has changed, work with whatever has come out of that. Just take control.” But I feel as big as a pebble, facing down the Himalayas.
It sounds desperate, and maybe it is, but the simple fact is this: I need love. Not more love than my family or friends give me, just a different type of love. Regularly now, I dream of being in relationships. I am wearing blue dresses and the person I’m with is kind and caring and when we kiss, the world around us vanishes for a split second. When I wake up, all I’m left with is an overwhelming feeling of sadness mixed with longing. I hate feeling that. I hate having to feel that instead of getting what everybody else seems to have: love. Kisses, cuddles, love. I am literally starved for cuddles. Of course, all this doesn’t help. Nobody wants someone who needs love so badly that some days, it’s like they can’t even think straight. Desperation is not sexy. But after five years of celibacy, how do you not become desperate? How do you keep living for yourself and being all happy and relaxed just enjoying your own company?
I have no problem with my own company. Similarly, I don’t equate love with being-together-24/7 and welcome independence in a partner. I’m happy to buy my bras alone, go to the movies by myself and spend an hour just playing with some makeup. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t appreciate someone to go grocery shopping with me, or to cook with or to read to, at night, before we go to sleep.
Every day, I see things I want to share. Not with friends, not with Twitter, not on this blog. With a partner. That flower floating in the lake. Those bats against the sunset. That special shade of twilight blue. The milkrice that turned out so horrible it was funny. My glistening shower that I spent an hour scrubbing with a toothbrush. My term paper in all its glory before I hand it in.
Is there really no one out there, not one person? What do I have to do? And please don’t tell me I need to stop stressing and it’ll happen in its own time. That just stresses me out more because I’m trying to figure out what and when that “own time” is. It’s too late for those cliché bits of advice to have any effect. I’m not even in that category anymore.
I just want to be a little less unhappy. I want a sweet, polite Irishman with a grizzled reddish beard to laugh at my silly jokes and sit next to me simply because he wanted to. I want the hands of that strapping Swiss cupping my cheeks and kissing me. I want to fall off the bed laughing with my best friend whom I’m also in love with. I want to discover what he loves and make it my own.
To all of you out there reading this who have someone like that: don’t take it for granted.
Looking into her eyes, melting inside at the sound of his voice, staring at her perfect lips while she speaks, secretly smelling his cushion after he left for work, cleaning up the mess she made in the kitchen, organising his desk, watering her plants and feeding his goldfish while he’s on a business trip. These are things some people would kill for. Treasure them as you treasure your own life.
I probably wouldn’t even think about my workload and my financial woes if I had someone’s goldfish to take care of. Seriously.
Instead, I’m reduced to this. A pathetic, whining blogger, forlorn and alone in the universe. I’m aware I’m not a pretty picture right now. But at least I’m an honest one. Right now, that seems the best and most I can do. For better or worse.
Live long and prosper, peace,
Anna
Oy to the poodles, already!