I don't like being alive. But I'm not so emotional about it that I feel suicidal despair. By some measure, I am fine. These days I feel adamant about not wanting to exist; nothing special since it's been a truth to my lived exisistence as far as I can remember. Which is funny because I have plenty to be thankful for—and I am—especially considering where I was one year, two years ago. Yet I wonder—I doubt—that much of the emptiness is directly because of COVID. Because I've been able to do the little things I'd wished to be able to do that COVID hindered me from. I get to go to work, dress up, show out and have nice night outs once or twice a week. I've clubbed recently. My finances are great. My friendships are all fine. My family is fine. I seem to be on track with all the goals I've set for myself, or perhaps convinced myself to believe would be something to hang onto. But I feel inconsolably unfulfilled.
I wonder if it's that work colleague who seems to pose as this chapter's font of misery. Plus my other work colleague who is supposed to be a friend, but betrays my trust and undermines my boundaries. Or perhaps to add to that my personal dissatisfaction with the quality of work I put out, irrespective of external factors. When I think about work, I think about it in a way I've looked at workplaces in the past—the pay, the boss, the kind of projects I'm given. I feel grateful about these things in the work that I do now. It's just these first few things I've mentioned, or perhaps something more, or something else entirely that I've yet to identify.
I think about whether I'm still lonely, but these days I feel like I'm not alone enough. I dread the thought of seeing people even though it's in my nature to adjust well once I'm thrown in the moment. I think for now, I've gone past yearning and have numbed myself to the immense unlikelihood that I'll ever meet anyone I can connect with in the level I desire. It feels so unimaginable that I sometimes feel like I've psyched myself out of the fantasy of many trysts and romantic adventures once I set foot in Europe hopefully June next year. It's not exciting because it feels unrealistic. The reality will be that I will at most hook up with men could perhaps give me the sex my body craves, but not the soul my heart seeks. Because I know that's not what I really want, right now, I don't want any of it again.
I don't know what I want. I've just been on autopilot for the past few months. Compared to before I really am thriving, but in my heartest of hearts I still don't feel alive. This world is too terrible, and I even say that just with the weight of my selfish sadness. I am too tired to even imagine or take on the burden of humanity's ills at large. I just know that it exists, so I know life is horrible.
But a sudden thought: maybe for the sake of the me who had suffered terribly in the past two years, I'll try to get by and indulge in what I can. Maybe it's only as much as we deserve for now. Whatever. Either way I also don't mind not waking up tomorrow morning.
