A Long, Boring Mash Note to Apathy

You don’t really want to read this. It’s so fucking emo, it sounds like The Smiths wrote songs for the Office.

I think I scared one of my dear friends last night.

I certainly didn’t mean to.

She was worried about me being depressed.

A little tangent: I passed by the Methodist Church on Orlando Avenue Sunday morning. I also passed the field the church fills with pumpkins for sale every Fall. I thought to myself, “By the time there are pumpkins in that field, my life will have totally changed.” It was sad and scary thought, and a bit melodramatic; everyone’s life changes a little each day, fer Christ’s sake! Who gave me the corner on self-flagellating misery? I’m just feeling mopey, and I admit I am enjoying being self-destructive a little.

This is what scared her. This is where my friends all tell me I’ll survive, that things will be fine. I figure they will or they won’t, and right now I can’t bring myself to care one bit. I could either carve up my arms with self-cutting or shoot sunshine out of my man-nips and it wouldn’t matter. This is my Deep Apathy period; it’s a phase, that’s all. Things’ll probably change, yes, for the better or for the worse is another question, and I am OK with not caring for a little while. I am ENJOYING not caring. I am dead-sick of thinking that every single waking moment (including insomnia) that I am not actively panicking and working my ass off over opportunities grabbed or missed is life-or-death; my soul needs a break from my fucking head.

I think when you’re life is going through significant change, you have to allow yourself to feel depressed, angry, or whatever for a while. You have to allow youself – be brave enough to publish – drippy and crappy whine-filled blogs. Even self-destructive apathy is OK for a while. So I haven’t done any job hunt work for five days. I’ve let my house become a shitbox, and I refuse to be embarrassed about it when people come over. So, I sit on the couch and read my neighbor’s travel magazines I’ve borrowed. I cry for no reason and enjoy the break and the tea I make myself afterwards. And, I temper my venerated opinion a little (which may the thing that cued this friend that something was up; “Steve’s not being an asshole, so something is seriously wrong!”)

I also believe you also have to get out of it your self-pitying funk at some point, even if you have to force yourself out. I’m not quite digging myself out yet, but I know that not digging myself sooner or later leaves me with a pretty dumb long-term alternative. I will job hunt some more today. I am having a very tough read-through of a new play of mine at my house this next Sunday. This is forcing me to clean house (something I haven’t done in a long time). I’ve already gotten some feedback, which is scary, but fine.

My soul may not be able to take the job search right now – my hat in my hands and my fate entirely up to dumb luck. But my soul can take a whole heap of artistic criticism about a play I have some control over. Perhaps I am distracting myself from the feeling that I am just peeling off resumes and throwing them into a black hole, after years of being so good at my job and now having to go out there again and beg people to give me the opportunity to re-prove myself yet once again... The few points of light that emerge from the black hole are dim and far away, and again, I have no control or influence and I sit around and panic about shit I can do little about except send more pieces of paper – resumes – into the abyss – like throw petals to the wind.

Anyway, I love this person, and I never meant to scare her. And I felt like shit for being that candid and transparent with her, I realized it was a mistake about ¾ the way in… Because really it’s not that dire and it’s not that important. I can’t take words back once they’re said, I can only explain and hope she understands.

For every “everything will be fine” that mere humans say to me, I want to scream “fine” is just an opinion – life either will or won’t be fine, and we mere mortals have no control over that. For every unsolicited “that sucks” I get from the mere human race, I want to yell that I don’t need more opinions. I don’t care if my attitude sucks, because whether I cut my arms and write angry poetry or fart rainbows and glitter doesn’t seem like it’s going to affect the fucking outcome one way or another. I am sick of caring one way or another – being pessimistic or being positive – trying or giving up – wishing or fretting. I am sick of feeling. I am sick of feeling one way or the other about the whole fucking job situation.

The only thing at this point that could change any or all of this is qualified, unambiguous miracle from on high or an unquestionable act of cruel and tragic fate. Something decisive. Something that says to me without possibility of misinterpretation “you’ll be fine” or “nope, the world sucks and it’s not going to get better.”

Until the world quiets being ambiguous and apathetic, I am simply here to follow its example.

Now, I should probably clean a bit more.

I warned you this was mope-filled and selfish.

Thank you shopping Blog-Mart; Have a Great Day, and I mean that!!!