When you stare into the abyss, the abyss absolutely does stare back into you. And there is no reversing that stare, no getting it to unlook. As Tom Waits famously sang, you can't unring a bell. And ask not for whom the bell tolls... around every corner a cliche' waits, and it waits for a reason. Because stronger men than myself have been around this track and they weren't hollaback girls. The last few years of Churchill's life were so dreadful that no one bothered to write them down for posterity.
You pass a certain point - not You, but Me - where there is no returning, no medication that will bring you back, no cognitive therapy that eases the anhedonia, no hope for the future, no desire to extinguish in order to cease suffering if you follow the Noble Eightfold Path of the Buddhist, no Meaning to Invent if you subscribe to Existentialism. The medications will wake you up just enough to show you that you're pretty much Fucked, but you can't take the "easy way out" because that is selfish, so you keep your mouth shut until finally, you post some unfathomable thing on a web blog somewhere that has people going "What the fuck is THAT about?" because you've been quiet about everything for so long because you've been told that you have to be positive about everything all the time, even though that's the last damned thing in the world you feel, is positive, the last thing in the world that is true, you feel like 'being positive' is lying to everyone around you, and you hate to lie, but if you don't, you'll be even more alienated than you already are, because who wants to hear it, really?
So you've been holding your tongue and holding your breath all this time until one day it all comes out in a rush and well, maybe that's not all there is to say, but it's a pretty good iceberg tip, it's enough to make some people step back and feel awkward around you, the damage is done and there you are, still not knowing what to do or what to say but at least you're no longer so much of a liar. At least you've admitting that Churchill's black dog is biting the living shit out of you with every rise and fall of your chest as you breathe. At least, for no other reason that if you didn't you were going to explode, you've said, hey, look at me,
yo soy disentegrando ante de sus ojos, I am disintegrating before your eyes, I have seen things I can never unsee and I have scars that will never heal and no matter how much I try and no matter how much I wish to be, I am not like you and will never be. I enjoy nothing and look forward to nothing and they cannot fix me, and I hate what seems to be my state of separation from all of humanity. The alienation that expressing myself like this only serves to make greater.
Never marry a Narcissistic Philosophy Major. He will cut you off from your friends, destroy your soul, and then leave you in poverty to die, without even the decency to officially divorce you, and you will end up like me. Forever broken, destroyed, melodramatic when it comes to prose, a walking open wound unable to scab over, still technically married to a bastard that you haven't even seen or heard from in three years. Yet you're still saddled with all the boxes of junk he didn't want that he left behind, that must be painfully gone through, one by one.
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss absolutely does stare back into you. And there is no reversing that stare, no getting it to unlook. As Tom Waits famously sang, you can't unring a bell. And ask not for whom the bell tolls... around every corner a cliche' waits, and it waits for a reason. Because stronger men than myself have been around this track and they weren't hollaback girls. The last few years of Churchill's life were so dreadful that no one bothered to write them down for posterity.
I forgot to mention that now through Monday May 10 my store is having a 10 percent off sale. You have to use the coupon code KITTYMOM at checkout, and you will get 10% off your total. This is in celebration of Mother's Day. So head on over to FeroshKittyDesigns and buy some jewelry and get your Ten Percent Off, and we all win! Especially the kitties - do it for the kitties! Thank you.
Thank goodness when you go on a tweeting spree, no one gets hurt. I just tweeted more than I care to admit. Last night I was up until 5 am, which technically makes it not last night, I guess, listing new items on Zibbet. I'm still not happy with the quality of my photos, but they are improving, at least. I have lots more items to photograph and list, so I have plenty to keep me busy over the next week, at least. But between you and me and the entire Internet, I always have plenty to keep me busy. I have a backlog of chores and things to be doing so that there is never a moment where I should be bored. I've been living in my apartment here for a YEAR and still have boxes I have not opened. When my husband left, he left me with all of this stuff to deal with. He just sort of dumped it all on me to sort through, and I've put off doing a lot of it because, well, it's a painful process. Every box holds stuff I'd rather not see again, memories I'd rather not relive. It's a lot easier to live in the now, except it's getting to the point where my now is too crowded with my then, and I really do need to deal with this stuff once and for all. Which has nothing to do with my tweeting spree, except for the fact that if I can sell enough jewelry, maybe I could begin to dream of making some sort of little nest egg, and eventually be able to afford a bed. I have been sleeping on a couch for the last two years, and it is hard on my bad back. I've tried inflatable beds, but with cats, they don't last long. And it really doesn't make much sense, because these are camping beds, they are supposed to be hardy enough for the woods, but I have a feeling if one of these beds even LOOKED at a twig it would just suddenly deflate and fly away. And I keep my kitties' nails trimmed, too. There are never visible holes in these beds. But they just don't hold their air. And there's no feeling quite like going to bed on a full air mattress only to wake up the next morning on a deflated mattress, in effect, on the FLOOR. Plus, they are very hard to get out of in the morning when they do hold air. It's no fun to be reminded how old you are, that you can't get off of what is basically a mattress on the floor. Oh, the luxury of a bed to sleep in. THAT is something to really dream about, I'll tell you.
