The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said, to Talk of Many Things...

My shrink recently told me that I am basically a very frightened, shy (!) person, and that I seem to be very open about myself but that it's really just part of my need to control. I want people to know that I'm well aware of the truth about myself. It's like a fat girl walking into a room and announcing that she's fat. He says I put on a little "honesty show" to make people think I am not trying to stay as far away from them as I actually am. Also, he says I talk a lot because I identify myself in my voice, and that I am as close as I'll ever get to whoever I am when I am talking. I use my humor as a weapon. An affably hostile weapon. I exist through sound. I narrate a life I am reluctant to live. (Can you believe this guy?) I guess this explains why I get confused in the closet. What do I wear? It's hard dressing for a voice.

My own evaluation is far more morbid. I feel as if I live inside my head like a madwoman locked in a tower, hearing the wind howling through my hair and waiting for someone to come and rescue me from feeling things so deeply by bones burn. I have plenty of evidence that I have a good life. I just can't feel the life I see I have. It's like I have cancer of the perspective.

How old do you have to be to get past caring? In the last prior years, I had become an accepted eccentric at best and a fuck up at worst. I felt like I'd be letting people down if I took away the behavior they’d grown accustomed to disapproving of. There are some personality types who can't do ANYTHING a little bit. I had become smart enough to justify stupid behavior. It's like if I could make it sound smart enough, then I'm allowed to do stupid things.I was into pain reduction, and mind expansion, but what I've ended up with is pain expansion and mind reduction. I don’t think I have a problem, I think I'm just young. And that, by definition isn’t a problem, it's simply a point in your life when it seems okay to do the stupid things you do.

The positive way to look at this is that from here things can only go up. But I've been up, and I always felt like a trespasser. An evanescent at the top. It's like I've got a visa for happiness, but for sadness I've got a lifetime pass.

Sometimes I'm afraid I'm happy, but because I expect it to be omething else, I question the experience. So now, when in doubt, I'll assume I'm happy.