Trying to Break It Down.

Trying to make sense of this despair by breaking it into components is, perhaps, a bit less painful than just sitting here swimming in it. Is my reaction to this breakup out of proportion? Nothing in my life – and I’ve been through some shit – has had me crying uncontrollably for a week. I’m frightened of the anguish I’m feeling now. Maybe if the rest of my life had some order, I’d feel like there was a way to recover.

I am almost 50 years old, I can’t support myself, and I am alone. I live in a room in someone else’s house. I don’t have any routine to go back to. All I have to return to is the howling anxiety of everything else in my life that hasn’t made sense for years. Any semblance of order I had before I met M is gone now for having been neglected. I have no home to hide in while I heal. I have no job to throw myself into to keep my mind occupied. My work is some consolation. I’ve done a little shooting and writing for my high school diary film, but it’s hard to stay focused. My ideas, and my confidence in them, are fragile -- because the work is new, because I haven't had success with anything I've done in the last 5 years, because I'm unsure even of what medium I should be working in -- not strong enough to withstand the waves of sadness that hit me over and over.

M was a bright island in this sea of anxiety about aging, poverty, and failure. Being with him, I could at least feel that someone found me attractive. Maybe somewhere deep down I knew I was hanging everything on that, but I didn’t have anything else to hang anything on at the moment. For him to lose interest in me confirms all my worst fears: I really am dull, unskilled, not as smart as I think I am, not talented enough to be successful, and, if that’s not bad enough, unattractive, too.

So, to recap: 1. old, 2. stupid, 3. untalented, 4. a failure, 5. unlovable, once you get to know me, and 6. super-pathetic and extra annoying and unattractive because I’m so goddamned insecure.

Fuck my life.