I don’t think anyone really reads this blog anymore, so this is sort of a safe place to write this. However, I do know this is public. Hopefully, if you do read this entire tirade, you’ll glean something from it. I guess, in a backwards way, I could actually help somebody with this letter. If you know who I am, please don’t leave any comments with my name in them. And I would also appreciate not saying anything about this to me on Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. Thank you.
Dear world,
Here’s just a few things I need to get off my chest. I feel so stifled. The things I love and the things I need to do in order to survive are so different they’re almost contradictory. In this day and age, especially when I have mounting debts and a spouse I will eventually need to support, I fear I am being imprisoned in a life I do not want.
I love the theater.
Ever since I was a little boy I loved acting. I loved to get up in front of people and sing and dance and make up stories. I was always taking sheets and dishtowels and turning them into costumes. I had the most fun performing in front of an audience. That passion still burns within me. I feel like it’s a fire the world is trying to put out. I want to be in shows. I want to sing. I can sing. I am totally capable. But where’s the future in it? It’s almost a guarantee that, even if I were to graduate with honors in a theater program, I would not be able to find work. This is reinforced by multiple people every day.
I love art.
I was drawing for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories are of drawing. I’ve taken multiple art classes not because I needed them, but because it gave me an excuse to do more art. I love to paint. I love the human form and I love to transfer it onto a canvas. I’m so proud of my work. From the moment my pencil first sketches a form on the blank canvas to the very last stroke of the brush, I am happy. I feel such accomplishment when I see a beautiful portrait hung on my wall. But like the theater, there is no future in pop art. Perhaps if I lived in the ’60s this wouldn’t be an issue. It was, after all, the age of Andy Warhol. Pop art was the thing, and everyone loved it. Now, when I paint an image of Lady Gaga or Catwoman, it seems the only person who appreciates it is me. In a way that’s a good thing because my best work comes from my painting for myself. But all that really gives me is a surplus of paintings.
I love writing.
Words are some of my best friends. I love to string them together to form sentences. I love to use the sentences to paint beautiful pictures seen only in the mind of the reader. I love to write creatively, but I also love to write journalistically. I am, after all, the opinion editor at a college newspaper. But again, cashing in as a writer is a gamble. The time and effort I put into my writing might as well be spent in the form of cash on a lottery ticket. I think my odds of fiscal stability are actually greater with the lottery ticket. I have so many ideas and so much to say. I could sit and write all day, but in the end it means nothing to anybody but me.
I hate school.
When I was in high school, I always assumed a collegiate career would be a focus on whatever my life direction would be. I thought college meant honing your career and improving upon the talents you already have. I couldn’t have been more wrong. College does have its advantages, and I have improved my writing skills since I have returned. However, in order for me to complete any type of degree, I also have to prove I know how to do calculus, what the difference is between a lithosphere and an atmosphere, what the ethics of Habermas have to do with a woman on an island, and various other aspects of life I hardly see myself ever using. But when I fail at something I never had the intention of succeeding at, then suddenly I become a bad student. Suddenly I become lazy, or I don’t know how to allocate my time. I’m looked down upon by so-called professors who were my age so many years ago that there’s no way their class content can be relevant.
I hate the world’s perception of school.
In this day and age, if you don’t have a degree, then you don’t have a job. It doesn’t matter that I can sing. It doesn’t matter that I can act. It doesn’t matter that I can paint. It doesn’t matter that I can write. It especially doesn’t matter that I can do all those things and more. The fact that I can’t do math and I simply don’t care about geology will mean I can’t have a degree. And without a degree, then I don’t have a job. Establishments that have nothing to do with math or geology and would have everything to do with my writing, acting, singing or artistic skills wouldn’t give me a second look unless I produced some sort of B.A., B.C., or, as I’ve deemed the most appropriately named, a B.S. The world thinks that a person isn’t capable of doing anything unless that person has gone through the motions and paid his dues. What good is paying your dues when the payment itself is unobtainable?
I hate myself.
I was so ambitious when I was in high school. I went to a private school where I was elected student body vice president. I loved my classmates, my teachers and my administrators. But when I graduated at 17, I fell into a state of stagnation. I was working as a grocery bagger at a store that wouldn’t allow males to do anything but that. All my high school friends had moved on to bigger and better things. I was left at home with my parents and without theater, music or art. I was just a bagger. Then I found a group of people who seemed to be having fun all the time. The reason was because they had drugs. The next ten years of my life were spent dedicated to having fun in all the wrong ways. I bounced from job to job and home to home. I even found myself homeless at times. I was a mess. Then I got sick. Terminally sick. I had to have chemotherapy. This was when I was 27. In a way the chemotherapy was a good thing, because it stopped my life partying, but it put me back in a place of stagnation once more. I just sat around. Finally, I came back to college where I was determined to succeed. And succeed I did. Up until this semester I’ve received nothing less than a B–even in the most difficult of classes. But now I’m failing. I’m failing miserably because I’m either too smart to know the content of these courses have nothing to do with my life interests, or I’m too stupid to get the classes and I’ve blamed it on the former excuse.
I hate my options.
First of all, I hate it when a person tries to give me alternatives to doing the things I do to relieve my stress. I always seem to get unsolicited advice from people who have careers and who seem perfectly fine. It’s true that I don’t understand what everyone else is going through, but at the same time, everyone else could never understand what’s going on with me. I am clinically depressed, but I can’t afford health insurance–especially since my illness pretty much prohibits any insurance company from taking me. I can’t afford psychological help, and the only drug I can afford to take is a generic version of Zoloft, which doesn’t really help at all. In the past i’ve found solace in drug use. Sometimes I think of how blissful it was to not have a care in the world–even when things were grim. I could be high enough to not give a damn about being homeless. I could be high enough to not care about having relationships in my life. I could be high enough to not care about having a job or being a respected member of the community. My body is also covered with scars. Not little ones, but huge ones. My scars are obvious to anyone who sees me in a t-shirt or shorts. My body is webbed with them. I even remember one time passing out because of the loss of blood from a session of cutting. I told no one when I regained consciousness. Another time I cut myself so deeply in multiple places that I should have gotten stitches. Again, I told no one. One time, a cut made by a straight razor to my calf got infected. Again, I told no one. I remember taking my pants off one afternoon and I could smell the infection. I scrubbed the gash out and covered it in alcohol, but the smell got worse as the days went by. I think I was lucky that I didn’t loose my leg. Luckily I was smart enough to keep changing the bandages every day. That scar remains the worst. So far, these are the only two ways I’ve ever been able to stop myself from crying or killing myself. Cutting and drugs. Drugs and cutting. Sometimes they go hand-in-hand.
And yes, I know this is nobody’s fault but my own. So please stop telling me that. But that is why I cut. That is why I spend money on construction-grade razor blades–the kind you use in box cutters. That is why I punish myself. Physical pain is the only pain that is worse than the pain I feel on the inside. Drugs are the only things that dull the pain. It’s one or the other. Or both.
I love and I hate.
Here is why I’m still alive: I have a partner. We are not allowed to get married because someone else has defined what love is, and that definition means that, in the area I live, I cannot marry the person I love. I also know the person I love loves me back. I don’t want to hurt him. Taking my own life would hurt him. I am a snarky person, it’s true. On the outside I’m even ridiculous. I’m campy and outgoing, but there’s turmoil inside. I think if I killed myself nobody would see it coming. I can’t do that to the person I love. If I were outwardly open with the torture I feel within my soul, then perhaps death would be a welcomed alternative; people would know that finally my pain was over. It’s because of my love that I refuse to die. I hate that because I want to die sometimes. If I can’t live in a world where I am allowed to do only the things I love, then I find living in that world a futile attempt at living.
It’s not really about art, you know.
Yes, I’ve just written a novel on why I’m depressed that I can’t make a living off painting and singing and writing. But, if you haven’t figured it out already, that’s just my justification. I can’t really explain why I am the way I am to anyone. I have so many blessings in my life. It’s not that I take them for granted; I know I am lucky to be living where I am with the people I live with and around. Perhaps there is something chemically wrong with me. Perhaps there is something psychologically wrong with me. Perhaps it’s a perfect storm of both. I am probably, as a textbook might put it, insane. What normal person likes to cut himself? What normal person needs to be detached from reality the way I need to be? What normal person feels an infinite depression at even the most miniscule of setbacks? I wish, I wish, I wish I could be like the strong people I see around me every day. But I’m not. I’m weak. I’m unsuccessful. I’m physically ruined, both outside and in. I have no future. The only thing that actually surprises me at this point in my life is the amount of love I receive from my, dare I say it? Husband. Well, to me, anyway. To America, he’s just my roommate.
If you’ve made it through my entire post, then thank you. It’s been very therapeutic to write this. Again, let me reiterate, if you know me, please don’t tell people who I am. And don’t confront me. I know how screwed up I am and I don’t need advice because trust me, I get it whether or not I ask for it anyway. Besides, 99 percent of the so-called “solutions” require lots of money and lots of insurance, neither of which I have. If you feel for me, then maybe you could take some time and say a prayer for me, or focus some positive energy in my direction.
whyicut 