Posted January 1st, 2004 by Michelle

January 1, 2004

When writers sit down to write about their own sadness, what is it they wish to accomplish? I’ve been wondering this about myself today as I composed the first line of tonight’s blog: “I’d write about the rather sad and uneventful New Year’s that I had last night, but let’s gloss on to bigger and better things.” This is the line I’ve been thinking all day, but as I crept down the steps, lit a candle, and sat down to write, I seem unable not to write about the last twenty-four hours. I’m not sure why. I’ve written of so many embarrassing moments, so many unsightly ailments and ugly disappointments and I’m just wondering exactly why. Or is it many things? “A lot of things” like my old friend Russ used to say? I know that by writing them down I also work through them. I also admit to them, call these evils by their name, even put a spotlight on them. Do I do this so publicly because that is the only way I’ll own up to what I’ve done? And if so, isn’t that rather false? Isn’t that marching down the street and blowing horns to show my faith?

Or, by writing them down, do I hope to create change? I think there is a part of me that would admit to this. It’s an odd hope, because nothing has ever changed as a result of posting my issues in this tiny slice of cyber-space. And yet, if I write about going to bed alone at 10:30 PM last night for want of anything better to do, do I at the same time make a grand wish that this will never happen again? Is that what is written between the lines? Or is it a more subtle despair, a quiet “maybe” that I won’t have to go through that particular trial again? I don’t know.

My dad once said that when he stepped off an airplane into Anywhere, California, he could suddenly breathe more easily. This state, be it southern or northern, is his home. This state is quite clearly not mine, and so I have to find a way to make it okay for the duration of my time here. I didn’t go to that party last night because 1) some of the people have disappointed me and 2) I didn’t actually want to talk to anyone who was going to show up. I spoke this past summer about wanting to meet people outside of the restaurant and theatre world. What I didn’t realize is that some of the best people I’ll ever know were seated at the kitchen table where I spoke those very words. I came out here to escape my life and am still stuck with myself. (Good company, I mean, I’m not complaining, but still.)

Honestly, the only real problem here is my incapacitating level of self-absorption. But that is one of the dangers of spending New Year’s Eve with only the company of a bad cold.

It seems as though I’m almost proud of my misery. I’m not. Ultimately I guess this is the way I deal.

I dated a man for over five years who thought sadness was weakness. At least, that is how he saw it in others. For him to be sad was poetry, in his eyes. “I never cry. I haven’t cried in years,” he sobbed in my arms, easily the third or fourth time that month. Naturally he was drunk and probably had already bruised me somehow that evening- never with a direct hit, but I bet you I could find the print of his hand somewhere on my body. But if I was feeling blue, or even if he walked in the room and I was staring off into space, he’d call me on it and say, “What is with you today?” with a half-smile reeking of malice and disappointment.

Man, oh man, FUCK YOU, icky dude from my past.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe because I spent my twenties with a man so utterly full of shit, a man who approved only when I was sunshine and light and butterflies. Lucky for both of us that I often was that happy. But he didn’t want a rounded human being, he wanted a reasonably attractive fuck doll who would laugh at his jokes and hold him when he was drunk and sad.

There I go again, detailing my failures. But I know I’m not the only one, so by god, I’m going to keep writing.