I attended a concert by the lovely fadista Mariza at the Lobero Theater tonight -- the fourth time I've seen her in the last six years -- and she was, as always, luminous.
I am having a difficult week and a particularly difficult day. There are times when I really feel that there is nothing I like about my life, and that when I feel "content" what I'm really doing is putting at bay all the despair and dissatisfaction that seem to reign. Just writing that makes the so-called despair seem even that much more ridiculous and self-pitying, but there you have it. The "best times" lately are those during which I simply -- temporarily -- forget how miserable, directionless, and alone I feel. Those during which I forget how consistently I keep making the same bad decisions or doing nothing "constructive" at all. Those during which I forget that the reason I'm not actively putting time toward attempting to date is because I know deep down that I don't have many reasons to really like myself lately, and how could I possibly try to date someone and possibly ask them to like me when I still can't find much to like about myself? Not much changes in twenty years... "The common denominator in your failed relationships is you."
Forgetting about how miserable I am and being able to have a "good" day -- or even long strings of them -- are far cries from being genuinely "happy."
It's quite sad when the future just looks like nothing more than one big long road full of "nothin' or worse." Is this the realization that strikes at some point after several decades of life when all the dreams seem to be dried up? Within a few days, I'll have covered all this back up with a pleasant veneer of Buddhist-style detachment, but it won't fix the problem. To be honest, I'm quite tired of everything.
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As an encore, Mariza sang the Roy Orbison song Crying, and it moved me as much as the haunting Spanish version in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.
I thought that I was over you
But it's true, oh so true
I love you even more than I did before
But darling what can I do
For you don't love me and I'll always be
Crying over you, crying over you
Yes, now you're gone and from this moment on
I'll be crying
What are you supposed to do when you just can't get over him? Or him, or him...?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
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4 comments:
Keep your chin up- there's a lot there to like when you stand back from the mirror. And lift your wings, they aren't as broken as you may have assumed. BTW, thanks for the reminder on Roy Orbison's song, I particularly love this version myself. It's been awhile. Be well- d.
You can write to your friend in Ogreville, that's one thing you can do. :)
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Oh, I could have written this same piece this week, though I probably would have said 30 not 20 years. I used to shake myself out such a funk by repeating the mantra "Since giving up hope, I feel much better". I've not given up all hope, but I have pretty much abandoned the one of finding a soul mate which makes me more cheerful.
You have all of the signs of being in a clinical depressive episode. You have said you are on meds, perhaps they are not strong enough. You should return to your psychiatrist for a current evaluation and assessment and perhaps new meds -- to get you thru this hump. Clinical depression is permanent and the feelings of despair you describe are its symptoms -- and they never go away. They have nothing to do with the objective you -- your real looks and worth and value and so on -- they are internal (infernal) termites eating at the foundation of your esteem from within. You are also middle aged. As a former therapist, I would suggest that you need to make a choice now to radically deal with your ongoing depression and figure out how you are going to live with it instead of hoping you can overcome it. It's called recovery and it means learning to live with the reality of a mental illness. The disconnect between your joie de vivre, extensive interests and intelligence, your humour and so on with your despair is 100% clinical -- stop beating yourself up and seek some outside help.
a friend who knows
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