Sunday, June 05, 2005
dead hearts
I’m lying in my bed
The blanket is warm
This body will never be safe from harm
I still feel your hair, black ribbons of coal
Touch my skin to keep me whole.
-Jeff Buckley - Mojo Pin
Sleeping has become a bit of a challenge.
I had a dream last night in which I was living in Austria, in a drab, sad-looking, and rather dirty little apartment with one of the other cashiers at work as my roommate. Someone served us preserved cadaver hearts spread on toast, which I found rather distasteful, but nonetheless sampled. It was just as revolting as it sounds, and it smelled like the absolute worst thing in the world. There was a very controlling woman in charge and I couldn't get her to tell me where I would be living or when I could leave. I ran a bath at one point because the smell of death in the place was so overwhelming. People kept coming in through the bathroom door, utterly oblivious to my nakedness and seemingly unaware of the concept of privacy. In my dream I got fired from work for real and I couldn't talk myself out of it -- hence the whole deciding to go to Austria thing. I started to panic because Austria was so terrible and the only way I could stop feeling like I was going to die and have my heart spread someone else's toast was to wake up and remember that I still have my job, stressful as it may be.
I woke up to a monsoon outside. I have never seen it rain as hard as it did this morning. The pathetic fallacy seemed appropriate, but I was also rather intimidated by it. How could I cry when nature itself was falling to pieces with sorrow? I felt really quite insignificant to the whole scene.
I was on my toes at work again. Working with Emma on the weekends makes things even more tense, because she always seems worried about something. I wished she would just chill out and talk to me about gay and lesbian YA fiction or something. That's a topic she's pretty chill about. I've started reading a a book called Annie on my Mind about young lesbians, which she recommended to me. She always recommends the best books. She's a brilliant woman and I wish that I wasn't so scared of her most of the time. I'm just worried because Boss #2 told her to give me "feedback," but I feel pretty fragile right now and I'm not sure how much of it I can take. So I just try desperately to do things right all the time. It's exhausting, and I am constantly fighting back tears.
I was supposed to go to dinner with PR tonight, because frankly I've run out of friends and so I've decided to repair our tattered history. He's clearly moved on, which makes me feel relatively comfortable about the whole thing, but my mom is convinced he will break my heart again, and so she talked me into coming home for dinner instead. Everyone agrees that he was bad for me. But I don't want to fight with him. I want to forgive, and I want him to be my friend. I really, really, really need someone to talk to right now.
Carrie is perhaps another possibility, since Julie won't return any of my emails. That's shit, by the way. From now on I want people who don't like me to tell me so. None of this bullshit 'losing touch' stuff. Just tell me you don't like me so I can stop thinking about you. I never thought she was flaky enough to just not contact me, so I'll assume she either doesn't like me or is really busy right now, probably the latter. Anyway, Carrie is super-nice and really into music like I am. I'll burn her some cds tonight and that'll give us reason to talk at work on Tuesday.
There's a line in my cashier's training manual that reads: "Come to work happy." This line has always mystified me, because every time I read it I think to myself: "What if you're never happy? Does that mean you get fired?" If one can be fired for trying too hard, then certainly one can be fired for being sad. Both are grounds for firing that are massively illegal in this province, but there's not much I can do about it without a lot of money or a union. Yet another reason why I cannot buy into all the anti-union bullshit that people are always spouting. A union would not put up with such an abysmal lack of job security. A union would not allow me to sacrifice my mental health for my job. Plain and simple.
Just got an email from Cait saying that she'll be home for the summer in a few weeks. This is exciting, but that said, I'm not getting my hopes up. She will be busy, I will be busy, same old story. I'll try to see her, I want to see her, but doubtlessly she will have other stuff going on.
I'm thinking about joining a book club. It would be cool to meet people who are smart and talkative and aren't judging me all the time. Cause lord knows I'm not getting it anyplace else.
What I would really like right now:
1) A wish list. I want a list of wants. Silly, I know. I will post one, and watch it be ignored.
2) To feel useful and helpful at work.
3) To have people at work ask me about my life and actually listen to my response.
4) To have someone ask me how I am and not expect a watered-down response. "How are you?" "Good." -- BIGGEST LIE EVER!
5) To have a single person in the world, friend or lover, who is here for me, physically and mentally. Simply here for me. In the same country, the same province, and the same city. Someone who is not constantly too busy to see me or talk to me. Someone who doesn't think I'm annoying. That is all.
6) To have someone tell me that they love me and not have it be a lie.
7) To not feel like crap all the time.
I don't really want psychoanalysis. I don't want to learn to meditate. I don't want religion, or any hippy-dippy New Agey crap. I really don't want to be medicated. I don't want to be talked down to, or told I'm cynical, or negative, or any of those things. What I want is to be happy with my life, from now on, on my own terms.
Any suggestions?
-N
