Today really had its highs and lows, the most eventful day thus far of my vacation.
Highs:
1. The inimitable Janet Canon, seeing her sister again, and meeting her very sweet friend.
2. A fantastic manicure during my jury service lunch, just the way I like it. The manicurist's daughter gave me a Skittles.
3. Picking up some free body oil at Bath and Body Works.
4. Coming home to Dozer massaging me with his paws.
5. Complaining to Jose about the injustices of jury service: waking up before 11:00 AM, having to do your leisure reading in a strange place, being asked simple questions about your occupation and area of residence.
6. The very nice judge excusing me.
7. Being introduced to the works of Ian Fleming.
Lows:
1. Being accosted by Orange County scrubs at Sing Sing and Rock Bottom; then getting lost for 20 minutes in the parking lot.
2. Jury service and its municipal idea of efficiency -- moving at the rate of continental drift.
3. Being lost among the hopelessly misled and bored youth crowding the Puente Hills Mall.
4. Coming home and wishing your parents could get along with each other when you're not around.
5. Enduring your friends' dull, apathetic confessions, and being misunderstood by them.
6. The very mean jury service clerk telling me to "take it up with the judge."
7. Trying to reconcile Fleming's Bond with Connery's Bond -- they're not the same guy!
It's a horrible thing, to have so many people around you, to care about so many people, but feel utterly alone. Today was the first in a series of days when I felt anything at all -- after a period of stagnant listlessness -- but it was at a painful, masochistic expense. I'm not making much sense. Better not to, I guess, on something available for public consumption. But the truth of it is, today I felt that the truest words I had ever heard in my life were, "Where there is no sadness, there is no happiness."
I like the fact that I have a joyfulness about me, that I can be so young and unfettered, that I have a contagious mirth. But I'm also very troubled, almost haunted, by the fact that I often feel like I carry around a dirty secret of shamefulness, fear, and unspeakable loneliness. Last year, I remember riding this amazing high, always feeling very alive and as if life could not get any better. I don't understand where along the way that crest was clipped. I don't remember when things started sinking. I like to think that maybe they didn't -- that it's all in my head -- but I can't ignore the fact that I don't feel the same way today as I did a year ago.
Maybe I worry so much for others, and how others think of me, that I never really learned how to worry for myself. That's more than a possibility -- it's practically the gospel preached to me by all my intimate confidantes. Unfortunately, right now, it's still too early for me to adopt complete selfishness.
posted by Lucy Sloan @ 2:51 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home