The Eternal Pessimist

Here I am entertaining the darkness again. It has lulled me into nightmarish pessimism filled with images of death and pain and loss. I wish I could just be happy with what I have. But it doesn’t seem that I can.

You can take Alison out of The Dark Place but you can’t take The Dark Place out of Alison.

I’m in a beautiful new apartment where I can sufficiently play house (not some tiny, dark, shithole). But it all means nothing to me. It looks pretty, and somewhere under all this darkness I feel proud. Proud that I accomplished what I set out to accomplish. That I have the job I set out for (well, sort of). That I’m making the money I designated as “enough.” So why do I still feel so empty and dead and meaningless and pointless and blah? WHY?!!

Because you have a brain that doesn’t know how to shut the FUCK UP.

Leave me alone, Brain. Please, just leave me alone. I want to be happy. I really, really do.

I can sit here and list all the things in my life that are great, all the things I should be thankful for and fulfilled by. But that just leads me to guilt and self-berating voices.

You have all this, and you’re still not happy? No matter what you do you still feel like a big empty vessel with no meaning, no purpose, a big gaping HOLE of a person. What is WRONG with you?!!!

They can’t give me drugs to fill this hole. Maybe I just need God.
Uh huh.

Ok, now back to reality.

God doesn’t work for me because God doesn’t make sense. In order for me to believe in something, I need it to make sense. I’ve read about all versions of God. There are a few philosophies that I agree with, but does this result in devoted belief? No. I’ve read time and time again that believing in a higher power makes you happier. But I can’t find it in me to believe in anything. I believe in life and death and love and pain because I see and feel it. I believe that Nature is a beautiful force that is more powerful than the human race because I have seen it amaze and destroy us.

Still, no institution, no belief system, has inspired me enough to believe in it. I even find myself questioning science, which is supposed to be based on observation, something a little closer to reality. But then I find that this school of thought is flawed, too, because it is run by flawed human beings with flawed perceptions and biases that invade and threaten objectivity. And, to make matters worse, Science is skewed by the pursuit for funding. They push studies through that support agendas, making the Truth not really the Truth, just an exaggeration of some data we recorded once.

The best lies are 80% truth. And that’s what the world feels like to me. Lies, lies, lies. It makes me feel dead inside. It makes ME feel like a lie.

It’s so hard to believe in a lie.

Home Sweet Home

Long time no post.

So yeah, I moved. And it went really well.

I didn’t realize how much I missed Oregon until I was back in it. Southern California is too shiney and plastic for me. I needed something more earthy and friendly. People are so incredibly nice here, and you actually get customer service instead of being treated like a customer nuisance. The traffic is lighter. The pace is slower. And it’s soooo beautiful and clean here. There’s so much access to organic food here that I’ve already begun eating better. Yesterday I had organic buffalo steak with organic greens farmed locally and some Dave’s Killer Bread, which if you like multi-grain, organic bread, this is the bread to go with. The bread is so good that I was completely surprised to find out that it is vegan. (Usually I personally steer clear of Vegan foods. I don’t knock it—it’s just I’m a meat eater through-and-through.)

But enough about my love affair with Oregon.

I’m back in contact with the band again, so hopefully I’ll be jamming with them soon. And this weekend I can’t wait, I am going to go get my favoritest piano! A few years ago I rented this awesome Roland piano when I lived here before. So tomorrow I am going to the same store and renting it again. This digital piano sounds better than most acoustic pianos—better than ALL acoustic pianos in that price range. And then I’m going to move it into my very own practice/office/exercise room. I’m so freaking excited!!!

I feel as though I am picking up where I left off two years ago. Like LA was this black hole or alternate hellish universe. I stepped through a wormhole and instantly ended up in Oregon 2 years later. Or something like that. Now that I have the job to match all the great personal opportunities here, I have a feeling this is going to be one of the best years of my life.

With that said, I’ve got to say, I am a bit apprehensive, as anyone in my position would be. Everything’s going so well right now, falling into place in so many ways, that I am looking both ways 80 times before crossing the street, checking the expiration dates on everything I ingest, and trying to stay away from sharp objects and big cliffs. I don’t want some freakish accident taking it all away from me.

You see, five years ago when I set out to get my Master’s degree, my goal was to be able to get a job that would allow me to live comfortably without having to worry about being in debt all the time. And I chose to get a degree in writing so I could have the option of working from home. When I finally got my Master’s degree, I moved to a city where the cost of living is so out of hand that even though I was making more money than I ever had in my life, I was broke and almost doubled my debt. Now that I’m back in a lower cost of living, I can now live better, and I’ve reached my goal of working from home.

So everything is going really, really well right now. And I’m enjoying it. But there’s the pessimist in the back of my head, saying “Don’t get your hopes up. This will never last.”

And I’m sticking my fingers in my ears going “LALALALALA,” but it’s really hard to drown out the internal voice.

All this good fortune is forcing me to try to stay optimistic and ignore that voice. Because that is the voice that drowns out the good voice and makes me depressed. Because, even though all is going incredibly well, at the end of the night, when I’ve stopped working-working-working, the feeling of listless emptiness plagues me. General unease because there is something missing. I can’t really explain it beyond that. I know that there is nothing on Earth that could fill that emptiness because it will always come back. I’m starting to accept that the emptiness will always be there, so I just need to live with it. Not obsess over it. And try to live life appreciating what IS there. Instead of focusing on what’s not.

The emptiness is in my genes, just like the color of my hair. I’ve seen the listless emptiness in my father’s eyes, and I’ve seen it in my sister’s eyes. It’s something that is an inescapable fact of life. In the past, the emptiness has pushed me to pursue and troubleshoot. How can I solve this problem with me? As though some day I will reach a point where all the problems will be solved and I will finally be at peace. But this moment will never come until I am dead. So instead of expecting “happily ever after,” I will cherish “happy for the moment.” And tell the emptiness to fuck off.

Gone Fishing

I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. Just in the process of moving. Feeling absolutely ecstatic because I'm escaping my 500-sq-ft personal hell-hole!!!!

I’ll be back in February.

More Bleh

I was actually at the point this weekend where I was going to delete the blog. I haven’t posted much lately because I’m tired of it. And I feel like such a complainy, self-centered bitch. I feel pretty weird about this need to share my life somewhat anonymously with the world. About complaining all the time for everyone to see. So I may eventually move the blog to Wordpress (better blog functionality) and make it even more anonymous…but we’ll see. If I do, I’ll let you know so you can email me for the URL. I wish I could bring myself to write things that are more interesting than all this whining and bitching. Like make it more memoir prose. Or make it more factual and informational. Rather than random rants and raves and bitching and moaning…

But I’m feeling like crap today. And I guess you could say you’re the only ones I have to talk to right now. And I’m sorry that it’s so one-sided and I’m negative and cynical all the time. Must be downright frustrating to read sometimes.

I skipped my psych appointment because I didn’t want to have to work late to make up for it. But now I’m wishing I hadn’t skipped my appointment. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway. It’s the psychiatrist who prescribed me an antidepressant, right after I told him I don’t want an antidepressant. I want something for anxiety. I’ll work through the depression on my own, thank you. I’ve read article after article that antidepressants don’t work for the moderately depressed anyway, that only the severest depression responds to SSRIs.

I’m in the midst of a mild depression that invades only my own brain (lucky me) that no one else seems to see on the outside because I keep it under lock and key. I wish I could unlock it for my doctors, my friends, my family to see. But ahh, that is the nature of this dis-ease. If I could express my emotions properly, I’m guessing I wouldn’t get so depressed all the time.

I’m moving soon. In less than 3 weeks. Kind of scary. I haven’t found an apartment yet because I haven’t really looked. I’m afraid to. My work said they would let me telecommute, which is awesome, I think. (Although wouldn’t it be nice to take a few weeks off?) But I still don’t have the details. I wish I did so I could move forward. I really wish I could take the next few weeks off. Life is feeling too overwhelming right now. I am quite content sitting on my ass watching movies, smoking to oblivion.

I want to crawl in a hole. Life is so sad. A series of missed opportunities and broken relationships. Keep everyone at a safe arms-length distance. Because it’s too much.

I moved every 3 years as a child, and I think this has affected my relationship skills permanently. Prevented me from keeping any relationships for long periods of time. All relationships are reduced to a 15-minute phone call, a status update on Facebook (if that).

I miss all these people, but I also feel like less than them. Maintaining relationships takes too much effort. Invests too much time. The world is so overwhelming as it is. The last two years have been such a non-participatory period of my life. I can’t maintain relationships because I am so stressed out.

Why am I stressed out?

• I can’t play music. (This weekend I actually wept when I heard one of my favorite piano pieces because it's been so long since I've played piano. Music, why do you torture me so?)
• Being social causes great anxiety.
• Going outside causes great anxiety.
• I don’t love my job. (While I certainly hate it when we are busy because they take advantage of us, I would venture to say that the rest of the time, I am just bored of it, which seems to happen at every job I’ve had after six months or so.)
• I’m not particularly happy about my substance consumption.
• I feel distant from my family, not just physically, but especially emotionally.
• I feel distant from all of humanity because I’m not going about my life in the “normal” way. (Don’t ask me to define normal because I know this is a delusional “belief” that normalcy is a big secret that everyone else seems to know except for me.)

I’m not trying to fix any of this right now because I’m moving and don’t have time. And I’m hoping that at least some of this stress is because of living in Los Angeles. I’m used to cities with less than a million people. This place has fifteen times that.

Going back to Oregon is good because I can reconnect with my music therapist, who I think helped me more in six months than my CBT therapist did in five years. And I can reconnect with one of the only friendships I’ve had in the last seven years of my life. And I can be around music again. And my apartment will be bigger. And my husband will have his best man friend back. And I won’t feel so freaking overwhelmed (I hope).

Sorry for the lack of focus in this post. I am everywhere. And I am nowhere. Just biding my time.

I’m tired of writing. I’m tired of this dance. I’m tired of everything.