I have these patterns of thinking . I'm not sure how I'd draw them. It used to be an intricate maze of circles and spirals, spirals going down and down and circles going around and around. Sometimes, something would happen and the circle would jump to the next blank sheet of paper, some revelation or frustration would hit and I'd stop a destructive thinking pattern. And then the circle would fill with more circles and those, in turn, would be eaten up by more circles, which filled with circles and in amongst all of this were the mazes and the spirals.
Then I met a boy. I kind of hate myself for stooping to that level. I grew up in a household of strong women, in a life where I was determined to be stronger than anyone else and knowing that men fucked shit up really grates me. But only if I see it like that. If I see it as a blank phrase on a piece of paper that isn't real. Stop thinking about them as men, I tell myself. If you say "people have made things more complicated", it no longer seems stupid and weak. They are real people. You are a real person. Stop being such a sexist douchebag.
Yes, this does help. I find women tend not to think of themselves as sexist and in my opinion, this is half the problem with our worldwide gender-equality issue. Sexism is sexism, no matter the sex. Just as racism is racism, no matter the race.Ā
Then something happened and it was a flatline amidst random dots. I went from intricately thinking about everything to refusing to think at all.
Now, it's a combination of the two. Mostly not thinking if things get uncomfortable in my head. I used to confront myself about shit all the time, knowing that no one else will do it quite as bluntly.Ā
Now, I get irritable when I know that something is wrong and I refuse to think about it. It's partially good (the destructive stuff seems to have mostly gone) and mostly it's bad.
I am enjoying making bad decisions and drinking too much when I do drink and failing at adulthood. I am fucking loving it. Not the no money part, though. That sucks. I'd like to be an irresponsible, drunk, rich hedonist. I am just so chuffed with doing what I want instead of what I think I'm supposed to.
I honestly love my mind. I love how it works and I love its humour and I can sit there and truly appreciate how great I think my mind is. Maybe it's egocentric. Maybe it's just "self love".
Simon said to me, "Stop trying to be a grown up, promise it doesn't work. Just do your thing, part of your issue is you spend so much time fighting yourself that you get tired of it and just go 'eh, fuck it'."
I've just realised that I put on lipstick and completely forgot to put on mascara. Hah.
I read Gone Girl recently. My word but did that women say things I've been thinking for years. All that stuff about pretend people... I swear, it was like someone read my mind from a few years ago and put it in a book. Here, let me quote it:
āWe stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I canāt recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didnāt immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasĆ©: Seeeen it. Iāve literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality canāt anymore. I donāt know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script.Ā Itās a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters.
And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we donāt have genuine souls."
There have been times where I say what I know I'm supposed to say but I don't feel anything.
Scary, when it happens to you. But also numb.
Yesterday, I was talking to T about why I didn't like Original Amy that much. "She said things that you want to feel. You want to be that person who loves someone so much that they'll forgive them and bend backwards to make it work. You want to be that person. But it's not real. No one ever actually does that. And the worst part is that we don't want to be that person for whoever we're with - we want to be able to look back and say, "I was the bigger person. I was better. Look! Look at what I did, what I put up with, the lengths I went to! I was better". We just want other people to see how good and kind and loving and amazing we are. It's not real. None of it is fucking real."
I've been thinking a lot lately about the lengths we'll go to so we'll be the better person, so others will think of us that way. It's a debate I've had with myself on and off over the years. Gone Girl, Nick, said it the way I've thought it so often. It was amazing.Ā
I see something beautiful and I put it up on Facebook and tell people how beautiful I think it is and add, "I've been wanting to do this for years", so that they know how good I am.
What a fucking pointless and pathetic thing to do.
But then, would any good we do be done if we only ever did things that we knew weren't for our own partial glory?
They're playing Bird Of Prey by Fatboy Slim. I'm thinking of him again. I thought of him so fondly this morning, over the past few days, that I had to almost slap myself. I am so terrified of seeing the past through rose-tinted glasses and idolising him. If I still feel something then fine but it has to be real. He's not real in my head anymore. I withhold all judgement until he's real again.
I'm going to have another beer.
