Lost in Translation has always been one of my favorite movies. Like the book, The Sun Also Rises, it is a piece of art that made me feel less alone in the world. It is a movie about two people that share an unlikely, but meaningful connection to each other during a period of disconnection from their own lives. I love it because it perfectly encapsulates the disconnection I've felt at times of major change or adjustment. Right now is one of those periods.
I tried to make myself feel depressed yesterday. I listened to Olfar Arnalds, Blonde Redhead and Radiohead, I watched a bunch of depressing shit on TV, I walked around my neighborhood in the rain, I read some depressing poetry, I thought about really horrible shit that has happened to me, and I thought about depressing shit going on in the world. I just wanted to feel something other than indifferent. I tried, but I just wasn't feeling it. I ended up just laughing at myself for making such a trite effort to feel something that I didn't feel. And I guess I felt a bit disheartened that I was so out of touch with myself.
I told that to several different people today, but they either laughed or looked at me like I was crazy. I can understand their reaction, and I'm well aware of how insane it sounds to try to make yourself feel depressed. I just wanted to feel something other than indifferent. I feel like I just don't give a shit lately, and I find that troubling.
Usually when people say they don't give a shit, it means that they do--real bad. Everyone gives a shit. Even I give a shit about not giving a shit. I never believe people when they say they don't give a shit, that they don't get jealous, or that they don't internet stalk people. Come on, basic neuroscience and evolutionary biology render all of those statements impossible. So what are you trying to tell me? Are you trying to tell me that for thousands of years, biology, evolution and socialization have compelled the human species to reproduce and be territorial, but you somehow missed these biological imperatives? Wow! What are the odds of that? Are we the same species? Even sociopaths give a shit about things, just not the same things as normal people.
So let's establish: I DO give a shit. I just don't know how to articulate how I feel. The best way to describe it is disconnected. And the best way to understand it is by watching the movie Lost in Translation. But I don't know if everyone is going to understand the sentiment portrayed in that film. Obviously, some people do, or there would be no market for that film.
It is not so much that I want to feel depressed. I just want to feel something. I've been feeling so flat and apathetic lately. I feel disconnected from other people. I don't like feeling like that.
I think this started when I started working in late January/Early February. But it seems like it has gotten worse as the months have passed.
I posted a few months ago about obsessing over some guy. It turns out that he asked me out and we dated for about a month. I broke it off. After all of that obsessing, the first time I kissed him, I felt nothing. I wanted to feel something, but I just didn't. I kept dating him for another month, but no matter how much time I spent with him, he always felt like a stranger. He said and did all of the right things, but there was this superficiality and emotional emptiness behind all of his kind words and gestures. And in the end, I ended up feeling lonelier around him than I did was when I was by myself. I tried to break up with him via text message, but my co-worker told me that it was not very nice to break up with someone over text. On some level, I guess I knew that, but I didn't want to deal with a conversation. I had nothing to say.
I started talking to another guy directly after that--he was nice, funny, good looking. There was no reason for me to be so apathetic, but I just was...and it fizzled out.
I decided to not date anyone for a while. I was really overtired and overextended because of work, so I tried to just focus on myself for a while. I spent a lot of time by myself, and I really enjoyed it. I surfed, I did yoga, I read a lot, I listened to a lot of music, I wrote in my journal. For the most part, I was very happy in my own space--but I always felt disconnected from other people. I didn't know how to explain what I was thinking about, feeling or experiencing. It didn't seem like anyone around me was in a similar place. Even if I knew how to explain myself, I didn't know if anyone would understand or relate. I guess, on some level, I just felt really different. And in all truthfulness, I probably was in a really different place than everyone around me. It wasn't depressing--but I was thinking about heavy things. I felt interested in a lot of different things, but nothing I wanted to share with anyone else. I guess I was just thinking about, and reflecting upon my life in a very detached, unemotional manner.
I didn't share much (if any) of my inner world with anyone. I felt completely secluded and disengaged from other people. I wasn't telling other people how I was feeling or what I was thinking. I wrote a lot of it down in my journal, but felt no need or desire to share anything with anyone. It wasn't because I was afraid that I would be judged. It was because I was afraid that they wouldn't understand, and that would make me feel even more detached than I already was.
A couple of times I broke down and confided in my supervisor. I didn't want to tell him anything, but it reached a point where it was absolutely necessary for me to communicate my state of mind to my employer. He strikes me as a very intuitive person, so I got the sense he already had some idea that I was working through some things in my head. It was kind of an odd situation because I didn't even really know him--but I knew I could trust him. And, in fact, that says quite a lot about him because I don't trust very many people. And I especially don't trust strangers. But he seemed to get the gist of where I was without me having to be too specific. I felt very grateful for that. I also felt odd, because I shared my most personal thoughts and feelings with someone I didn't even know--on one particular day, I told him more about my state of mind than I had shared with any of my friends or family. I felt understood and I didn't feel judged at all, but I couldn't help but feel a little vulnerable after being so candid with someone in the midst of a long period of emotional silence. And on some level, I don't know if I was entirely comfortable with someone else knowing how lost and overwhelmed I felt at that point in time. It was a risk. Had he been an unkind person, he could have hurt me deeply with the information I had shared with him. But he kept it to himself, and he never used it against me or brought it up again.
After a little time passed, I started to warm up and open up to some of the women at work. I didn't tell them everything that I told my supervisor--and I still haven't--but I was able to build friendships based on common interests and worldviews. I also started opening up to some of my friends in recovery. It was a step in the right direction, and although I was starting to talk about things, I fragmented my truth. I brought certain pieces of information to certain people. I gave a lot of people a piece of the picture, but I never shared the entire picture with anyone other than my sponsor (whom I rarely see). I have continued to do that to this day, and the end result has been a continued feeling of indifference, isolation, and just a lack of cohesion in my life. One of the reasons for this blog is to stop me from engaging in that particular behavior: never really letting anyone know who I am, or where I am--especially not enough for them to hold me accountable.
As the months went on, I started getting really overtired at my job. My fatigue and lack of balance in my life eventually caught up with me. I knew I wouldn't be able to sustain that lifestyle while in school, so I wrote a letter that is affectionately referred to by my friends as, "Liz's communist manifesto." I spoke my truth, to some extent, about my workplace. I felt heard, and I was satisfied with that. I was proud of myself for taking the time to attempt to articulate myself--I also was able to see that I DID still care about people and things going on around me. It was a step towards integrating myself with other people again. I wish I had handled it more gracefully than I did, but it is what it is. I did the best I could with where I was at during that time. I ended up moving to a shop closer to the University. I had a very blunt conversation with my supervisor my last day there. I felt a little rattled by the content of the conversation. He seemed to want me to be blunt, so I was. It was hard though--sometimes I don't know when I'm being insensitive. I definitely can be too straightforward, and I don't realize that I'm doing it. I did it the other day, and I felt really bad because I was apparently too direct in my delivery.
The day that I left the old store, I went on a date with a guy that I had had a vague interest in for quite some time. We talked for a while. It was easy and comfortable--but the whole time I still felt a bit indifferent and unsure of what I wanted. He asked me if he could kiss me. I asked him if I could think about it. He looked at me like I was insane. I ended up kissing him, and when he left, I cried. I cried because when I pulled away, I realized that I thought I was kissing someone else--someone I had spoken to earlier that day. I didn't even realize I was doing it until I pulled away and looked at him like, "who the fuck are you?"
I cried the rest of the way home because I realized that I did have feelings for someone--I wasn't entirely detached and indifferent. It was shocking and bittersweet. It felt good to realize that I still had the capacity to feel anything like that--in all honesty it had been quite a bit of time since I had felt that way about anyone. But, it was also sad because it was an impossible situation and I knew that there was nothing to be done about it. I readily accepted that fact.For me, it was enough to just FEEL something like that for another person. In a sense, it gave me hope. The timing and circumstances just don't feel right, and so much in life is about timing and circumstances.
And although it felt really good to feel like that about another person, the impossibility of the situation made me feel a sadness in equal measure to the happiness. I just can't imagine what that would mean in application to my life--and for whatever reason, I just don't let my head go there. My life is complicated enough as it is, and for all I know, the connection I feel with that person could be entirely on my end, and not at all on his. Nonetheless, it has been the only time I've gone outside of my rather small emotional range in quite some time.
A few days later, I was telling my husband about all of my dating debacles. We had a good laugh. I asked him if I could kiss him. I did. It was nice. I didn't cry. It was like all of our other kisses--with deep love and affection, but not in a romantic sense. I guess our relationship was never really like that. And at the end of the day, I can't fault him for wanting something more for himself.
And since that day, I have continued to feel a bit aloof. I wouldn't say that I am cynical. I'm not. I don't carry such a heavy weight from my past that I've become jaded or fearful of letting anyone too close. It isn't anything like that. It is just not that easy to connect. I can't force a connection if it isn't there. I'm not lonely; I don't mind being alone. In fact, being alone is preferable to being with someone I don't connect with.
Recently, I started dating someone new. I like him, and I can feel a steady affection growing. I have been really honest with him about my emotionally availability, and he has been very respectful of my need for space. I find that very hopeful.
So in response to my last post: yes, I've been attempting to distract myself from my divorce. However, I do think that my husband deserves to feel a more passionate, romantic love than what we share. I want the same for myself. I just don't know if I'm going to get there--especially as I struggle to connect in my relationships with men, and when I do, the situation is stupidly impossible.
I thought I would have more figured out by this point in my life. I guess I feel a little lost. I don't know how to share, or "translate", my inner world to another person. I guess I'm waiting for someone who doesn't find it necessary for me to do that. And until then, I can snuggle my dog.
- Charlotte: Evelyn Waugh?
- John: What?
- Charlotte: Evelyn Waugh was a man.
- John: [shocked] Oh, c'mon, she's nice. What? You know-- You know, not everyone went to Yale. Its just a pseudonym, for Christ's sake.
- Charlotte: Why do you have to defend her?
- John: Well... why do you have to point out how stupid everybody is all the time?
- Charlotte: I thought it was funny. Forget it.
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