Wednesday, December 12, 2012

I feel like I want to explain myself, for some reason



So while you're happily watching the video above, I am going to do some explaining. (And by the way: Isn't that video sort of horrible and attention-grabbing at the same time? Like the proverbial road traffic accidents on motorways. And no, I certainly didn't know half of those things.) See, I started to suspect I had been not only a wee bit cryptic but, worse, really quite pompous in my last post. Now please, I honestly did not intend pomposity – who does? No, wait, this is actually interesting. Do people actually intentionally sound pompous, and if they do, is it then real actual pomposity, or is it this (yawn) irony we keep hearing so much about? Anyway, that's subject matter for another post – so yes, I did not mean to be pompous, quite the opposite: I wished to be short, to the point, concise. Something that doesn't come to me naturally, right – hence the really rather uncharacteristic slip into pomposity, what-what. But I at least admit to my failures, okay; I failed at conciseness and landed up being pompously cryptic instead. I guess I'll live.

I'll try to make amends, though. What I said was

  • I feel as if I have been made privy to one of life's vilest secrets – This meant that as my mum's illness is eating up her capacities, marching relentlessly on, I see something that perhaps we all have a natural aversion to, something we'd all rather turn our heads from and not look-see. I see not only my mum (the omnipotent mother goddess of the universe, remember) dying very slowly, dying alive; I also see the way dignity does go; and perhaps the most unsettling thing is I see what it does to me, how I react, inside me and overtly, the emotions the situation arouses.  They are not impressive and neither am I. I feel more than ever like I am a tiny shit of a human being. I, in fact, am.
  • …and it sets me apart from other people… – I know a horrible, horrible secret. Most of you don't know that this comes at the end, to all of us, everyone: me, you, everyone you ever loved (or hated, for that matter). It comes to our children, for fuck's sakes. Oh we all know – we think we know – that it comes, but we don't know it is in fact thisThis: this stripping of capacity, of capability, of dignity. This slow and vile disintegration, as slow as it is vile, as vile as it is slow. And don't forget: I also know how low I can go. Emotionally, I mean. No comfy pretense upon a high horse possible here. I am a shit; when it really comes to the crunch, I am a shit. This is where we may indeed differ; you may never find this out about yourself. Although maybe you will. The problem is it may be very, very typically human to become your innermost shit when it really comes to the crunch. 
  • …makes me lonely… – I am so lonely. God, I'm so lonely. I really rather like being alone and both need and crave a fair amount of alone time. But lonely can be bad. It's easy to say, "oh I like being alone", if a) you actually still have someone who will hold you when you start to come apart at the seams and/or b) you aren't coming apart at the seams. Unfortunately, if you start to come apart at the seams and don't have anyone who will hold you, alone can turn into lonely. Which is not so likable, craveable, needable or nice. 
  • …makes me long for forgetfulness. – Well, you know. Now is the moment when a supply of drugs in the house would be good. Any kind of drugs. Fucking anything. Nicotine. Red wine. Something to remove my mind and consciousness from each other and from me. Unfortunately, the house is as clean as a whistle. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Not even a beer. (Okay, so my son would have cigarettes – but I have been off them now for eight months, and that's ruined them. They taste too awful and so do I if I try one – which I did to celebrate six months off; I then spent the next hour trying to turn my face inside out because of the stale-ash taste in my mouth. So I just said "Fucking anything. Nicotine." for a cheap laugh. Nicotine, my old faithful pal, just won't do it for me anymore.)

Hmmm. There was going to be other stuff I wanted to talk about – a wee revelation of sorts that I had, very exciting I'm sure, an insight into as to why I get the tight, angry jaw and the horrible, snippy, snappy demeanour when I just can't cope any longer. Well no, okay, maybe not "an insight into as to" as much. Just a correlation between childhood and something I wrote about it and the way I'm feeling now. But guess what: I am suddenly enormously sleepy. Like so sleepy I may have to go to bed without either brushing my teeth or washing my face. I know – disgusting. But like I said, I know the vilest secrets of life, you know, so I can be as disgusting as I feel. Oh yes I can.

And yes – as for the other stuff, I'm sure it will keep. (And no, the video isn't really anything to do with anything – I just happened to see it yesterday and it made me sort of go, "well is it any wonder we're all so fucking exhausted" so I thought I'd share. Although perhaps that sort of exhaustingness exhausts you, or perhaps you weren't exhausted in the first place. Perhaps both. I don't know. I really need to stop now and get into my bed. (Okay, so there are some drugs in the house – ha-ha. The boring, prescribed-yet-sleep-inducing kind. Ah well. At least I feel I'll go under the moment it becomes possible.)

3 comments:

Reading the Signs said...

Actually I think more people know about this horrible secret than you might imagine. Hence the old "life's shit and then you die" adage. And people with M.E., especially the severe kind (sorry to bring this in, but I couldn't help thinking) know about the slow and vile stripping away. Honestly? Until we come face to face with this we are, so to speak, virgins.

But there is a light in each of us. I believe this because I just do and I know this may not cut any ice with an intelligent, philosophically inclined person. But I remember hearing someone say this as though it were a simple and indisputable fact and thinking, yes of course. Something in me recognised it as truth, pure and simple. And I have also witnessed the light in action, in people who endure almost unimaginable darkness. I am not speaking of mere happiness.

When it comes to the crunch, we are (with perhaps some very few exceptions) all shits, yes. Once we accept this we can then let it go. Loneliness is difficult and it would be wrong and stupid of me to come out with some banal whitewash. I know someone (pwme again, yes) who has suffered much from this and has said that she has experienced loneliness as being toxic to the soul. But having named it gives one a certain hold on it. Perhaps?

I'm glad to know you.

And now (how banal is this!) I'm going to prove I'm not a four-X-ing robot!

x

Fire Bird said...

I read your post and I felt for you and wanted to tell you that I am experiencing something similar with my mother's decline into old age, depression and physical frailty. Compassion many times eludes me and I count the hours that I must be with her. There is too much history between us. Maybe paid carers can be more loving sometimes without the baggage. Though not always I know....

Anna MR said...

Ach, my beloved Signs – you are right, of course; it's not as if I'm the only one or the first one or anything. But you perhaps know what it's like: sometimes one looks at Les Autres and it seems that what they are on about has nothing to do with this grim thing that is in the background and underneath it all, the solid/soiled base upon/above which we teeter, precariously. For some reason, knowing of This Thing makes me also feel tainted. Just me, you understand; it's very difficult to explain. Like I have looked into something that one should avert one's gaze from. Or eaten from The Tree of Knowledge, perhaps? And am fresh out of fig leaves to hide my self with. Oh I don't know. Like I have failed, somehow. Profoundly. (i am beginning to think my words betray me as suffering from a narcissistic omnipotency delusion, or something. Oh man. What a bummer.)

The not-mere-happiness thing feels very true and familiar, though. Happiness would need finer defining, actually. I remember A Certain Someone wrote about how the company of "relentlessly happy people" exhausted them. I think I know what kind of happy they meant; but then there is the deep-soul happy which is perhaps what you refer to as light. I have some time ago come across this differentiation between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being; hedonic (not to be confused with hedonistic!) well-being meaning happiness and aversion of pain, seeking of pleasure; whereas eudaimonic is more to do with self-realisation, self-actualisation. People who fall into this category of happy, I guess, are less tiring to be with than the "relentlessly happy" ones (I should apologise to That Certain Person for so freely utilising their words in their absence. But it happens to be a very good description. At least I give them credit for it.)

It goes without saying that I am not only glad but a better person – and closer to eudaimonic well-being – through knowing you. But I'll say it anyway: I am so glad to know you, my dear Signs, and am a better person, closer to eudaimonic well-being, because of our friendship.

So just watch it.

Fire Bird? Hei. And thank you. Isn't it just awful when it seems that The History Between is more of a weight than a buoy? If you know what I mean. It is such a deep-seated rattling of everything, finding out these things. At least for me, it feels like the comfortable fit of my life is gone, like something is continuously eating into my soul, rubbing it raw, defenseless creature that it is.

And Fire Bird? It was really special that you should come here and speak of these things and share them. Please know that I realise and appreciate this, very much.

Mwahs to both you lovely, lovely, lovely lady-people

x x