Much A-Cry About Nothing
Wherein I try to come to terms with the burden of feeling too much
A week ago today in a post-drunken-nightout-with-friends haze I had a mental breakdown on the kitchen floor of my one bedroom apartment that culminated in me furiously scrubbing off my makeup in the sink while actively sobbing. Wiping off the tear-stained mascara smudges from my eyes with the back of my hand, I wondered how I always seemed to end up here: slouched over in a fetal position at 3 am in a crying fit. The culprits for this involuntary emotional outburst were the usual suspects: the all-consuming apprehension of loneliness that creeps in when the inital buzz of the after work pints wears off, the stifling stench of chronic self-doubt that settles in when I notice myself fall silent in a crowd of people, the self-conscious guilt of a lacklustre love life and of course the pièce de résistance of this routine indulgence in self-pity: the incorrigible fear that I am fundamentally unloveable. None of it strikes me as particularly unique to the current moment in my life. I’ve spent the majority of my early twenties crying or worrying about being incapable of love. Just seeing the words typed out is enough to make my eyes swell with well-restrained tears. I try to talk myself out of it by practicing “self-compassion”. I google affirmations to performatively repeat to my reflection in the bathroom mirror: “I am enough; I am a good person; I am not a waste of space”. I know that the burden of a relatively happy - if lonely - childhood shouldn’t fall this heavy. But I can’t help but hunch my shoulders under its weight. One of my resolutions for the new year was to stop wallowing in self-pity as an easy cop out of dealing with hard feelings. But I’ve had to learn the hard way that old habits die hard and some nights a public declaration of committement to unmitigated emotional maturity isn’t enough to prevent a meltdown.
The incendiary of my spiral down the self-deprecating rabbit hole was so trivial as to not bear mentioning: I’d happened to catch a glance of a friend’s phone in passing and saw that they had been inducted into the exclusive of league “close friends” of a mutual friend of ours. I immediately grabbed my phone from my coat pocket and felt my stomach churn as I scrolled down the list of usernames at the top of my feed in search of the green circle around the familiar profile picture I already knew wouldn’t be there. My worst nightmare had come true: I was being left out in real time. It was like middle school all over again only this time I was older, blonder and seemingly more self-aware of the limits of my emotional terrain. I wondered what I had done to be excluded so blatantly. Was it because in relying on my unwavering faith in our friendship I had sent one too many unsolicited texts that went unanswered? Was it because I hadn’t made enough of an effort to be likeable on the rare occasion she did get back to me? Or was it because at my core I wasn’t socially forthcoming or interesting enough to be officially designated as a close friend? From then on the negative thoughts kept on piling like condensed water droplets to form a looming dark cloud of dejection over my head. I caught a glimpse of a couple in mid-embrace swaying to the pitchy karaoke on stage and was reminded of my acute aloneness. The dominos toppled down on top of one another as it occured to me yet again just how much I had fallen behind my peers over the years. The newly defined cracks in the facade of cool I had worked so diligently to keep intact, through the trusty combination of a BA and a corporate job, revealed to me just how deluded I was to believe that I could be the kind of person I aimed to project to the outside world. I was reminded of my lacking history of lovers. I was reminded of how long it had taken me to enter the ever-elusive world of the sexually active and how I still didn’t categorically feel like a part of the club. I was reminded that for all my drunken twitter tirades about the dwindling artistic integrity of contemporary cinema, I was a sucker for the zero-sum logic of the cashgrab rom-com. I would never be the instrinsically pithy and quick-witted tastemaker I’d aspired to be. I’d always pick the lovelorn optimism of Austen over the robust realism of Ibsen ultimately failing to conform to my ideal of a well-rounded smart person.
I am a cat-person born and raised but in the wake of last week’s, shall we say “unprompted personal crisis” I’ve been drawn to depictions of man’s best friend as the definitive physical embodiment of unconditional love, oblivious to the naivete of its innate pursuit. The words from a Phoebe Bridgers song echo in my head as I reach out to friends in advance to make plans for the week ahead, so as not to isolate myself further with my thoughts. Crouched on my knees begging them to respond to my over enthusiastic queries about getting coffee sometime. “Love me! Love me! Love me!” I seem to yelp at them my wet puppy dog eyes aglow. I’m not as sly as I think I am. I feel their judgement in their eyes seep through the phone screen as they curtly tell me no. “Please take me on a walk.” “Please read what I’ve written.” “Please laugh at my jokes.” Please like me. Please. Please. Every request I make on my part feels obtuse. As if I’m deliberately refusing to take the hint and leave the grown ups be. I’m a shrunken little girl in ill-fitting women’s clothing who can’t put her finger on why she can’t unlearn the corrosive belief that love ought to be earned. I tally up my wrongs on the bedroom wall to see if I really deserve my misery. The odds are stacked against me everytime. I don’t know how to make people love me, I think before I go to bed and wonder what that says about me.
Some of the things that have helped me get through the week:
The abashed cheesiness of the ending credits of Anyone But You feat. Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield
The music video for Tiny Moves by Bleachers starring Margaret Qualley
Rehash Patreon Exclusive Minisodes
Getting back into Wordle
Okay look, I'm not trying to play therapist here, but acknowledging loneliness is the first step to not being lonely. It's good you've realized that instead of doubling down on it.
That being said, I have a question -- do you hang out with your friends solely to be around people, or do you do it because you truly enjoy being there?
I ask 'cause reading through your thing reminded me of a time when I used to think that loneliness and being alone were the same thing -- hence being around people all the time was the answer. But since then, I've realized that you can be surrounded by people of all kinds and still feel empty. It's why a lot of people advise focusing on activities that you are genuinely interested in, because that's how you find like-minded people who understand you on some level.