Good at life.

I’ve decided that I’m not very good at life. Or at least I think I’ve decided that. I’m not really sure of any of my decisions anymore.

I started reading Vonnegut’s Slapstick or Lonesome no more. Well, to be more precise, I read the prologue and a few pages of the first chapter. The prologue drew me in. The chapter, not so much. Not yet. Or ever.

For some reason I’ve lost my ability to finish a book. Or anything for that matter.

Regardless of my  inability to finish anything, the point of why I mentioned Vonnegut’s book is because he says ….. * a while later after reading the same few pages over and over again and even googling* – I can’t find what he said – at least not the exact thing I thought I was looking for. I’m quite sure he wrote that his dying sister said that she felt as though she wasn’t “very good at life”.

I relate to that statement. I don’t think that I am very good at life.

Sometimes I’m not really sure about grammatical rules so I just apply them where I feel like they should go. I was never very good at languages. I didn’t really speak to anyone apart from my immediate family for a long time. They thought I was shy. I was. But I also feared other peoples’ reactions. I think because of my own familys’, especially my mother’s, inconsistent and unstable behaviour. I never knew, and still am unsure, of what to expect from people. Especially my mother.

I had a lot of tests done on me. They tried to see if I was retarded. But I wasn’t. In fact, I was a mathematical genius but nothing was done about it. I would finish the entire work book and everyone else would still be on the first few pages. Instead of getting more work and being encouraged I was made to just sit there or told to ‘go and sit on the carpet’ like it was Kindergarten Cop.

Everyone got excited about being about to go and sit on the carpet. They would smile smugly while I sat at my desk having to write about ‘what I did last weekend’. As a four year old (and yes I did maths and english as a four year old), I already knew I couldn’t just write,

‘My dad sat in his office doing work while my mother took my sisters out into the city. I stayed home and ate a lot of stuff till I felt sick and watched a lot of cartoons and movies and wished I could be the characters in them. Then I got my teddy bear and put him on a sledge and dragged it around the garden. Then I decided it was lunch and got out 6 plates. One for me and 5 for my imaginary brothers – Brendan is the eldest – he’s the nicest and most responsible, then Justin who isn’t around that much and can be a bit moody and always has a girlfriend, then there’s Mikey, Zac and Hozay. He doesn’t spell it Jose coz it looks ugly. They’re triplets and they’re fun and crazy. I’m the youngest and the only girl so they all look out for me. We live in California and have American accents. We don’t have parents because they died in a fire when I was 2. It’s a bit sad but Brendan looks after us and we can do what we want and are more free without parents controlling us. Sometimes we go in the attic and look at pictures of them and Brendan tells us all the nice things he remembers about them and how I look like our mommy. Later on my real parents left me and my real life sisters at home while they went to a party. We watched Ghost. They thought I would fall asleep. They fell asleep. I stayed awake and cried my eyes out asking why he had to die over and over. Then I cried myself tired and went to bed and pissed myself.”

Instead I would try and imagine the most normal thing ever. I would get wrapped up in own imaginary stories that I would have only written a few words down when everyone else was done. I once wrote, “I bounced a ball and then I went to see my friends”. I didn’t have any friends. And I didn’t really get the carpet thing either.

There’s a lot of things I don’t get.

In general, what I don’t get is life.

What am I meant to do with it? Why does it matter? Why does “the system” suck so much? Why do I have this perpetual feeling of waiting for something, for some critical moment when I can finally do want I want? Why can’t I just do what I want if it doesn’t hurt anyone? Why is marriage such a big deal? Why are people so …

so frustrating. Myself included. I frustrate myself with my idiocy. The fact that I spell things wrong and can never find the right word. The fact that when I talk to people I concentrate more on the way I sound rather than what I’m really saying and do weird facial expressions to look like I’m thinking about what I’m trying to explain but really I’m just stalling because I was contemplating my own accent and tone of voice. The fact that I was an honour student. Moved countries. And became a student who got Ds to match the D at the beginning depressed which is what I have felt my entire life. The fact that my back hurts all the time. The fact that people talk to my chest more than they do to my face and that I’m short so they’ve gone to the extra effort of looking even lower. Is my face that unbearable? Or are my boobs really that incredible?

All of these things. I hate them all.

I dislike socialising. I don’t really care what people do. I don’t care what their name is. I don’t care how old they are. And I also don’t really care what music they like. I hate that sometimes I want to be silent and/or cry. But I have to hold it all in and smile and pretend like I’m fine.

I don’t like the looks they give when I say things. Like I can’t see them looking at each like ‘what the ..?”

They just ignore me and talk about something else like shoes. No one ever adds anything to the debate that I’m having with myself. Unless they disagree. They tell me I’m wrong. And I ask why. Then they tell me they don’t want to have this discussion, not in public. It’s not appropriate. FUCK APPROPRIATE!

I dislike this feeling. This feeling of being trapped. Of feeling like I’m in a pool and my face is just poking out the surface. Like someone’s tied me up so tight that I can just about breathe in but my exhales are painful. Like someone just punched me in the throat. The tickle of cold wet tears that have reached my jaw line and continue down my neck. The way my eyes and eyebrows go pink when I cry. The way my voice wobbles when I’m nervous and upset. The way I’m so self-pitying.

I just don’t really like life. I don’t like what it has to offer me. It’s a chore. Something I wake up and sigh about. ‘another day’.

I don’t like the way that a symptom of depression is ‘a decreased/lack of interest in activities’. Why should I always be interested in the same shit to be ‘normal’? isn’t that childish, immature and naive? To always get enjoyment out of the SAME thing your ENTIRE LIFE!? Isn’t it kind of expected to just get bored of things? It used to bug me a bit. That I didn’t really like anything. But now, right now, I realised that it makes sense.

And even though I’m not interested in doing new things that’s only because I know that I’ll do it and then what? great. i’ve done it. woo fuckin hoo. It might have even been painful, tiring, sweaty to do. And then after it. What do you have but a memory that you did it?

When I turned 23 everyone told me that 23 was the best age. Everyone.
I hate it.

I think 17 was the age I hated the least. I was always drunk. Even when I was alone – which was most of the time. I would walk to the students’ union alone and drink and smoke indoors and check out the boys. One boy came up to me once while I was smoking and told me I was smoking ‘rather seductively’. That comment made me happy.

18 was shit. I was in a lame relationship with a boy who is probably a closet homosexual. and was in love with morrissey and had a crush on his cousin and would tell me stories about how they almost kissed. he messaged me years later just to tell me he had a new girlfriend and she thinks he looks like james dean. he doesn’t. he looks like a gay spotty skinny boy with a massive chin and stupid hair and jeans that are WAY too tight. and he was shit in bed. boring. i started falling asleep once and he got weirded out. HAHAHAHHA

19 i got high a lot. moved back home. started going to the gym a lot. i just wanted to get married and have kids. spent a couple of months in the States and did some naughty things in a park with a jewish boy while hobos watched. then i got stung by a bee and chased by the cops. the bee sting hurt for weeks.

20 i got high a lot. lived at home. still went to the gym and started looking hot. didn’t want to get married nor have kids.

21 got high a lot.  graduated from university. went travelling. got in the worst relationship with a complete dickhead who was in love with another girl but was with me because i was more beautiful than that..THING he liked. he was also crap at sex and had a small penis.

22 got high a lot. started talking to a friend from years ago. fell out with only friend from childhood. was glad to finally get rid of her. but sometimes miss just hanging out with someone i have so many memories with. started dating friend from years ago not that long after dumping dickhead mentioned above. lied to family about having a job in another city to move in with new guy. started a masters. had to go through a really horrible situation which I don’t wish to disclose.

23 getting high a lot. dropped out from doing a masters. am miserable. confused. don’t know what i want from life. is this guy the right guy!?  i want to cut his hair.and change his clothes. and wish he was more confident and outgoing and a bit more wild and crazy and found metal music as hilarious as i do and would take me on adventures and we would end up somewhere magical and talk about life and what not and make passionate love in the wild and under a waterfall. and mostly i just want to be alone.

where am i going to live? who is going to give me a job? do i want a job? do i want to go back to my masters? why should i aim so high when taxes are so high? what is the point of making lots of money if half of it goes to the army and to shitty ‘developments’  that make the motorway look even worse than it did before (and other things too obviously but fuck)? do i want to do a herbal medicine course? do i want to do an interior design course? should i get help or should i just suck it up and carry on like always? should i just fucking kill myself and be over with all this shit that i hate and don’t want to wait and find out the answer to? should i just leave everyone to clean up my mess and have to get rid of my stuff coz I’m dead? should i let them find my vibrator?

All of this worries me on a daily basis. The only way I get to sleep is to tell myself the same continuing story since childhood. i imagine a story like i’m watching a film. but its me and my imaginary brothers – the ones i’ve had since childhood and who make an appearance in my mind most nights to this day….. I feel like I’m maybe insane. And no one knows it. no one even suspects it. people think I’m smart and confident and happy and a high achiever and really caring. boys tend to think I’m a feminist and aggressive. I’m not any of those things AT ALL. far far far removed from each of those things. I’m just a really good liar. in fact I’m fucking great at it. I should be a lawyer for criminals but it goes against the morals I think i have.

I’m 23 and it’s like going through puberty for the second time but this time its like what i do/think/feel/say/want/need/have is so much more important coz it affects the rest of my life and i dont even really know what i want or like or need or feel and all that. Much less so than when i was going through puberty the first time. In fact I think I had a better grip on shit. even though I also wanted to kill myself a lot more then.

Sometimes people tell me things. and i just think ‘i should say something in response to this because otherwise they might get upset or think i’m weird that i’ve not commented but i don’t really think anything about what they’ve said so i’ll just say something generic like ‘cool”.

I think that maybe I’m autistic apart from I have great emotional intelligence I just can’t fucking express it nor want to express it.  I only learnt how to socialise because of internet chat rooms.

I hope the Myans were right about 2012.