On Joan Didion

Joan Didion's rants are stylized. They appear to be fragmented, but they are oh-so-controlled. There is a refrain behind everything. An overwhelming vagueness. A stifling question behind every word, every pause, every blank space. There is something missing, something so impersonal about the personal.

She makes it look effortless. As though the words just come out that way. As though she breathes and they appear. But if you study them closely, really closely, the struggle is visible. The exactitude of her sentences, their lengths, their rhythms, their structures, the purposeful repetition.

Why do I write this? Well, first, my presentation on Monday is about Joan Didion's style so I have no choice but to think about it now (and I really should be doing more of THAT instead of writing THIS), but more than that, I am intrigued by Didion's ability to fall apart with words while still being exact, rigid, and disciplined.

Her style, in some ways, is me.

I speak. I make my emotions known, for the most part. Known, yes, but heavily regulated. Even when I break down, the underlying discipline is there. In some ways, I feel more like a text, a walking memoir, than a human being. I am ever-conscious of the ironies, of my contradictions, my absurdities and ambiguities. I have programmed myself to be a writer, to bullet point my emotions. I know how they sound best in a story. I know how they sound best as metaphors. I know how to construct stunning similes from my struggle. I know how to represent my feelings structurally and grammatically. There is one thing I do not know how to do, though. Many things, really. For instance, I cannot play basketball for the life of me, nor can I do calculus. But this one thing in particular is that I cannot, will not, refuse to not consider my phantom readers, my fantasy audience.

In some ways, I no longer know my own emotions because I know them so well. My self-awareness comes from this constant filter, this insistence on seeing the world as my story.

Look closer. I try so hard to represent truth with stylistic tactics that I am a metaphor myself, the shadow of soul.

incessant

They don't get it. 

Sometimes, I don't have anything to say. I just want company. I just want love. I just want to be held. To be mothered/sistered. I just want to know I'm not alone.

That's all. 

I can search Google for advice. But Google cannot replace the human touch, the capacity to care. Google does not care about me. Though, frankly, I wonder if they care all that much more than Google (Not fair. I know. But this is my blog and I can be as fucking unfair as I want to be. Gosh, Trace, why are you fucking fighting with yourself on YOUR blog which virtually no one even sees unless YOU FUCKING SHOW THEM).

Sometimes I just want to sit in silence. Or watch a movie. I rant because it is expected. It is the only way I know to show that I need someone, something...a distraction, a companion, a hug. That is all. 

I feel as though "anytime, Tracy" only means "anytime when it's convenient." I hate being a burden, yet I wish I felt as though it would be OK to be one from time to time. I wish people would just tell me when I'm inconveniencing them. Tell me that that yes, they have homework to do or boyfriends to occupy, but that it's OK. That being inconvenienced sometimes is worth it?

My fear is that it isn't. 

I do not know how to ask for what I want. I feel strange asking someone to sit with me, to hold me. Yet, most of the time, that is really all I want. So simple yet I cannot voice it. Cannot put words to this ache I'm feeling. 

Earlier this evening,  when no one was answering their phones or their doors, I heard myself shrieking, "I want my mommy!" She understands this primal urge for touch. She always knows to hold me when words don't can't work. But Mommy can't help me now. As much as she loves me, she must hold up Daddy. I must hold her... 

But I also have to hold myself up. And that's growing difficult. 

Shame. That's pretty much it. I am ashamed to ask. Embarrassed. I get angry because they don't realize.  But it's not their fault. They don't know what I'm not asking because I'm not asking it because I am ashamed because I am certain I am being melodramatic and because I just "know" they will tell me to fuck off, maybe not with what they say, but with what they don't. 

They are doing what they can. Their responses to my rants are logical enough. And the advice is usually really good. OK, so it's not always something I could get from Google, and there's certainly a time and a place for advice. I like advice. I suppose I even need it (gee, here I go arguing with myself  AGAIN). After all, it usually does make me stop, think, and consider my actions. Eventually it sinks in. Eventually it may lead me to make a change (like, for example, how I decided to try counseling because of advice from several people). 

Advice, logical discussion... is great, just...in the moment all I want to do is to let myself fall to pieces while someone else picks them up. Once again, that isn't fair. But it's what I want, and I cannot help but resent that people don't just read my mind, or my face. DON'T THEY SEE THE LONGING. CAN'T THEY SEE WHAT IS SO OBVIOUS TO ME WHAT IS INSIDE OF ME IN FRONT OF ME WITHIN ME ALL AROUND ME 24 FUCKING 7 WHY WHY CAN'T THEY SEE

Don't they know how I want to be weightless in their arms, if only for a moment...

The incessant heaviness can only be...no, do not finish this sentence. no, it can only end badly. no no no...STOP. 

 

When I exhale, I breathe myself out.

Glancing over past entries, I realized how good I had "then." When I thought things were falling apart. They weren't. When I thought my parents might split up. They didn't. When I thought I could not make it through the semester. I did.

Things are different now. I long for even the worst moments of last year. All of my problems seem so simple in retrospect. As I feel myself slipping away.

I am changing before my eyes. I do not recognize myself. If I had written this last year, I would have wanted these words to be arranged perfectly. To sound beautiful. But there is nothing beautiful about this. Nothing beautiful about watching my father so sick, thinking he's dying, possibly not just thinking but knowing. And it's so fucking hard to stay positive. So hard to stay motivated. So hard. I don't know who I am now and I am forgetting who I was. I know only what I want in this moment: comfort, love, peace, friendship, resolve.

But these things are fleeting. It is not my friends' fault, because they do not know quite what is going through my head. I am on edge. I am vulnerable. I feel burdensome and unwanted. I so hate feeling this way, not just feeling but knowing. I know it when I enter a room. Eyes on me. Willing me away. When I knock on a friend's door seeking comfort, somehow I know they know it's me before I even open the door. They know and are wishing I would go away.

They are angry at me, almost as angry as I am at myself.

Oh, where has my strength gone.