Melancholia en Masse

There's been something seriously off about today. So off, in fact, that even after an astounding display of productivity -- in the form of striking in its entirety T.S. Arthur's Ten Nights in a Bar-room from the list of books I need to read for the semester -- I'm still completely unsettled. I awoke today at about 12:00pm, and after having spent much of yesterday in bed, and getting a full ten hours last night, I still feel groggy and exhausted. My body feels like it's rebelling against me: my lunch consisted of two small slices of pizza and a salad, and I felt bloated for much of the afternoon. Dinner was similarly small: a tiny bowl of pasta, a side of carrots, and some nibbling at an indistinguishable beef en croute that did nothing but contribute to my feelings of indigestion. I've been in a funk for the entire day, sharing nary a word with anyone in the club though the door to my room was propped open for the entire day. I spent almost no time online, sent one single text message but made no phone calls, and have engaged in little more than the exchange of pleasantries with the few human souls I've come in contact with over the past seven hours.

Unsettled has seemed to be the only right word to label things, since I can't figure out the exact source of my mental daze -- though I have a suspicion, which I'll get to later -- and I don't have the means or, frankly, the desire to explore the options required to eradicate the cloud hanging over me. The last time something like this happened, I did what I've done today: I've kept to myself, isolated myself, and hoped to drown my miseries in work or some other obligation. It's failed. So I figure now I owe it to myself to follow the professional suggestion Leslie offered me last week: whenever I get angry or upset or need to vent my emotions in some way, I should write them out. (A fine plan, I thought: isn't that the purpose of this thing anyway?)

The problem is that the last time I decided to write out my feelings, they were in no way appropriate for publication here -- which, if you've had the occasion to read the content of some of my posts, you would realize, speaks volumes about their contest. They were caustic, vitriolic words, spewed from my fingers stream-of-consciousness-style in a bitter bile of hate, resentment, and disillusionment. At the time, I hated everything at which I was angered, and my malice shifted without warning from one topic to the next but never seemed to come back and resolve any of it with any degree of certainty. Most distressingly were long periods in the text where I broke the fourth wall and asked myself, as narrator, the questions that I, as author, wished to truly answer; and instead of actually getting anywhere, I found that I was only more frustrated and more angry, which led to more questions and, ultimately, a complete detachment from what I'd set out to do that was so strong that I wrapped the text up frustratedly, saved it, and resolved not to look at it for a day or two, as was the original plan suggested to me.

I've yet to open it since. I haven't looked at it again because I don't really know if I have any reason to look at it. The problem I realized as I engaged in the writing, the problem that gave me pause and caused me to stop my ranting after a page and a half, the problem that I'm addressing more openly here though I know I could never hope to resolve in a single blog post -- that problem is that I can't ever seem to settle the source of my problems.

Back in darker days, at worse times, I realize now that I'd made the mistake of thinking I understood precisely the source of my concerns. Granted, at the time, the source seemed obvious, and the nature of the problem and the relative ease with which the solution presented itself placed all the blame and the cause of the issue's development squarely on my shoulders. It was my shitstorm, and I was the only one who would be able to drive myself out of it. So I took my time, unloaded my weighted mind, and did everything I could to focus on strengthening myself such that I would have the wherewithal to go through with the solution and bring myself back to some semblance of happiness with an added dose of confidence and strength to boot.

For a while, all seemed well. Then things began to take a turn for the worse -- and here, the speculation on my concerns begins, patient reader -- when I came to the conclusion that even though the resolution of that particular situation was my responsibility and mine alone, the responsibility for ensuring the enduring utility of said solution was not just in my hands. I had, in my ignorance, neglected to realize a lot of things -- and granted, they were concerns that I'd elucidated before and been honestly afraid of for quite some time; issues that I guess I'd decided were simply going to vanish and never did -- that were out of my control to resolve. The pressure of trying to get those things resolved, however, when I am in no position to actively do anything about them, is frustrating me, and it's causing a slip in faith that is by no means fatal but is also extremely disconcerting.

It's scary because it feels like the rug I've built for myself over the last three months is being pulled out from under me, and quite frankly, I need that rug to be there if I'm going to get out of this haze. It's not so much a crutch as it is a component: think about it as having a laptop whose wireless card suddenly and inexplicably shits the bed. The computer still works, many functions still operate, and there is another way to access the Internet and regain certain functionality; but the loss of that ability is crippling because it involves completely reevaluating where, why, and how one uses that computer in order to achieve the same kind of functionality it had before. It means not rebuilding the machine but rebuilding how to use it. Overcomplicated metaphor aside, I've learned that I'm not ready to rebuild the how. I don't want to have the solutions I was so certain of flushed down the drain because I was too ignorant to have thought things through. I also don't want to feel like I didn't consider everything like I promised myself I would. That would be far too much for me to handle.

At the same time, in leaving certain situations exactly as they are, they are becoming more volatile and more painful with each new day. This weekend, then, I will speculate, did not ultimately contribute to my good nature and jovial humor, as I'd anticipated it would. What it did was show that, not unlike before, there are serious and glaring situations that are being ignored. Sunday was like a microcosm of the problem at large: a huge amount of inactivity; a certain degree of incompatibility; a horrid lack of communication that was only increased over time; a misunderstanding that, by all accounts, was practically unavoidable yet still resented; severe shifts in tone from calmness and jocularity to hatred and screaming, all with little warning; a lack of resolution that only became furthered by forced departure, a departure that then compounded the original problems; and, most frighteningly, the ultimate realization that at the core of arguments and conversations that should be had but aren't, of problems that should emerge but are kept concealed, are very strong and dangerous personal issues that are present, known, and not being solved.

If I've addressed that all in an overly-veiled fashion, and it doesn't help anyone to understand things, then I'm afraid this whole thing is for naught and does nothing but help me. I did need to write it down, though, and this helped much more than simply letting my feelings spurt uncontrollably in fits of rage. The problem is that there's still a problem, and that even if I tell myself I'm ready to work on it and make it better, there's no guarantee it will change. There's no way to take something like that, something that weighs on you and crushes your frame until the psychological and physiological have no barrier between them, and just pretend it doesn't exist. I've never been the kind of person who could pretend that shit like that didn't exist. I have no choice but to wear my heart on my sleeve, but the exposure isn't therapeutic anymore like it used to be.

Things like this can't be slept off. I guess that's why ten hours wasn't enough. Or why almost eight hours of work hasn't been enough. Or why maybe this whole week won't be enough.

What scares me isn't so much dealing with it: it's not knowing when it may be resolved. That implies that the problem is more severe than I can currently fathom; it implies that the problem may take longer than I realize to fully resolve; and it implies that there is no definitely time frame for the ultimate resolution, and thusly no time frame for the beginning of relief from this overwhelming melancholy and frustration.

That's the thought that's been criss-crossing my mind since I awoke today. And it horrifies me.