My next post was supposed to be reserved for a final review of the Fifty Shades trilogy by E.L. James. Unfortunately, getting through the third installment is much like wading through sex-filled quicksand, so that particular post is going to have to wait. Don't hold your breath, I'm pretty sure this last review isn't going to be much more kind than the first.
Regardless, events over the past two weeks have led me to a place that is completely worthy of a complicated, lyrically passionate Florence + The Machine song. That being the case, I decided to take my own advice, which has been tossed out countless times to friends and students over the years. I figure that if I am going to suggest to others that they "write it out," then maybe I should do the same. After all, that advice has always come from a feeling of certainty that all the world's problems can be hashed out on a few blank sheets of paper. Draw it, write it, whatever, if it's on the paper it's out of your head, right? Well, let's put that to the test.
I'm sure that if you're reading this you're either curious about my life for some reason, Facebook stalking (which is pretty much the same thing), or maybe you actually enjoy my cynicism and lame attempts at humor. Whichever category you fit under, I bet you read my entry last week about my friend Shawn. Maybe his death kicked something loose inside of me, because it seems like I've been on a downward spiral since then. Re-reading that now, it seems cliche, but all cliches were created for a reason I guess, because that is exactly how I have felt, like I'm spiralling away and I will never find a safe place to rest.
Why do I feel this way? It's been difficult to figure this out, mostly because I talk to students every day who have things a million times worse than I ever have. To them, my story would seem like a fairy tale. A friend told me tonight that my problems are just as real, and that I feel them just as deeply as my students feel their own issues. I suppose that on some level, that's true, the same way it's true that I seem to be rambling on here without making any real points.
This spiral feels like drowning at times, when I'm lying in bed at night with my eyes wide open, knowing that my body needs rest. In those moments, I feel as though my eyes may never close and at the same time I am afraid to sleep because I know that I will wake up to the same life that I shut my eyes on.That is my biggest fear: the sameness. I am afraid that I will stay stuck in this rut where I am caught between a million families, all of whom need something different from me. The rut that I've been living in for at least the past year and a half, where for some reason my awesome friends aren't enough to fill the yawning loneliness that is fueling my spiral.
At face value, the people around me assume that my loneliness is a result of a lack of male companionship, and I guess that's part of it, if I'm being honest. Actually this particular feeling deserves capitalization, because it's more of an entity at this point. One that sleeps, eats and breathes with me. In that case, The Loneliness was born out of a lack of career, a lack of new adventures and maybe for the first time in my life, a lack of direction.
So what do I do? Apparently I get wine drunk or watch a chick flick and cry to a friend. Or maybe I take my own advice and write it out. Did it work? Maybe. I have a feeling my Florence + The Machine song is as yet unfinished. For now though, I'll stick with this:
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