May 25, 2003

My loneliness

-Is the strange paradox that occurs when I want to leave work early so that I can get home, and then when I get home and get over the initial relief of sitting down and relaxing, find myself bored to the point of utter frustration, and I want to go back to work.

-Is reading books in crowded coffee shops because it feels good to be around people.

-Is the look on the checkout clerk's face when they see my grocery items:
-frozen pizza
-ice cream
-lots of beer
-hot sauce
-a magazine
-doughnuts
because somehow they know, in their 15 years of life experience, that I will consume these items alone.

-Is the fact that I set out to the grocery store in search of these particular items because I knew that they would fill up my belly in a way that would make me feel better for awhile, and that they didn't.

-Is the little sound that the TV makes when you cut it off at 11:30 because you have to go to sleep and hear nothing.

-Is watching a lot of TV where there are groups of people and laughing, and then one day reading an email from a friend and laughing so hard that you cry, and realizing that it is because you haven't laughed out loud at anything that you have watched on TV in weeks, and that your body is making up for it now.

-Is designing my entire day, my entire life, around small pleasure-seeking activities in a quest for something that feels like a warm blanket.

-Is suddenly feeling a little more doubt, and little more shame, at small things that I do because there is no one who is around that I know respects me.

-Is talking to someone at work when you go to lunch and realizing that the last time you talked to someone was yesterday at lunch.

-Is realizing that you are meaner to the people that love you than you should be.

-Is a silence that seems to follow you into crowded rooms.

-Ends tonight at 9:10.

May 25, 2003 11:24 AM