kiwifruit's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All Grown Up and No Place To Go I�ve been away for a while. The thing is, I�ve turned ridiculously, comically old and I�m feeling an odd mix of euphoria and crippling fear. I still don�t know what I want to do when I grow up. But at 33-years old I am, inarguably, a grown up. I�ve spent an embarrassing amount of time telling myself that I couldn�t possibly write anything else here until I redesigned the page to better suit this new more mature me. Possibly a revamp with muted colors (in tones that are more flattering to all my newly discovered wrinkles). It�s really just crap isn�t it? Because although I look at photos taken a few years ago and it�s impossible to ignore the fact that yes, time has passed, I really don�t have a clue where it has gone. I think a great chunk of time is hiding somewhere in that plastic baggie of lipstick samples in horribly unflattering shades that I still keep in my bathroom cabinet. I am certain I�ve lost a great deal of time to watching The Bachelor and Rich Girls on television. I probably could scrape half my lifetime out of the corner behind the treadmill at the Crunch on Lafayette Street. I will admit that this has been my first birthday that has passed and left me feeling different from the previous year. It didn�t happen overnight. It�s been coming for some timr. But it�s easier to mark the occasion with a date and the hangover I woke up with the next morning than to say that this is just a random occurrence. I�ve become as boring as dry toast. And the funny thing is, most of the time, I don�t even mind. Of course, I know that eventually everyone grows tired of going out all the time. The whole blow-drying your hair straight ordeal alone is enough to make me want to stay in forever. It�s just so pointless and exhausting to get dressed and go out to pour drink after drink down your gullet and try and act charming and interested in what everyone has to say. I�m too fucking tired. I�d rather wake up the next morning and not feel as though my head was going to split open like an overripe melon. Oh Christ, it�s true. I�d rather go to a good yoga class than stay out until four in the morning. Yes folks, the times, they are a changin�. But I shouldn�t get ahead of myself here. While it�s true that in the past month I have gone to see a doctor, a dentist and gotten new glasses�I still have a long way to go. While I do make my bed every morning and scrub the bathroom on a regular basis, inside I am still about fifteen years old. I am horrified, absolutely sick, with fear that I will never, ever accomplish anything. That I will never create anything. That I will be stuck in one unfulfilling and unsatisfying job after another until I�m so numb with it all that I forget that I ever wanted anything more. Or worse still, I will never lose this feeling, and I will always be haunted by the feeling that I am not doing what I should be doing. Every day I am driven mad by thoughts racing through my head of what I should or could be writing. I can�t wait to get home and start. By six o� clock work has deadened every inch of me. I go to the gym, come home and make a salad, and then I can�t. I just can�t. I have to crawl into bed with the New York mag�s crossword puzzle. I have to ignore my screaming brain. I am so anxious that I can. Not. Do. It. But then of course, not writing makes me even more anxious. It�s like ignoring a bill that just keeps growing and growing and growing�it never gets any smaller. Eventually you have to face it. With added interest. I will acknowledge that I�ve made some strides. I have to acknowledge that. But I am scared that it�s not enough. And the thing that I want the most alludes me. If I could just let go of this need to write then maybe I�d be better off. Lots of people don�t feel like a failure because they haven�t written a novel. Lots of people go to bed at night and sleep like babies even though they�re not the next Salinger or Hemingway or even Candace Bushnell. They can swallow it. Why can�t I? Maybe I should find a hobby like knitting or baking corn muffins or something. There is more�but I have to go do my crossword now. I have to get up tomorrow morning and make my coffee with cinnamon (the way I like it) in my ridiculously expensive coffee maker. I have to try and run on the treadmill and do yoga in the morning because work promises to be hellish and frustrating and stressful and I just may kill someone if I don�t. I have to pay my bills and oh yes, plan C.�s 30th birthday surprise party. In other words, I have to be a grown up. La dee dah. La dee dah. 10:24 p.m. - 2003-11-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||