Rage and Rot

From: 10/1

This is the first time I have sat down at this desk to write. Even long ago, when it first came to me, I never sat at it to write. Only to pile things up on its various surfaces, only to fill in all the empty cubbyholes with crap I never used, and soon forgot. So here I am tonight, in my first, my very first, apartment of my own writing at this long-forsaken desk.

I said this was why I wanted to move: to write. To begin. To feel at long last that I might have not only a forum, but a physical space in which to get my thoughts out on paper. Yet it is Saturday night, and all I can think to write about is my own loneliness. Perhaps a work of fiction could be like a child: a bandage for this loneliness of mine, something that is for me and only me. Something that will never leave me alone to rot on Saturday night.
I do not have confidence in myself, or in the system. I do not believe that it is possible to write. To write something that contains a piece of my soul. I feel just as worthless as I did in high school, as I always have. No matter how much I accomplish in life, it seems impossible to convince myself of my own worth.

Although I am sorely tempted to ask, yet again, WHY this is, I know that is not the question for this night, or any. The question I must strive to answer now is simply: How can I change this? How can I convince MYSELF of my own worth?

I realize in this moment that part of the pressure I feel about money is actually tied to this lack of self-confidence. I am killing myself, trying to quantify my self-worth in dollars earned, which translates to freedom gained in my mind. Freedom gained is the ultimate goal: freedom to stop feeling guilty, ashamed, of myself. Freedom to love sitting at my lonely desk on Saturday night, listening to the sound of my refrigerator as it hums out a steady rhythm of white noise into this negative space. Negative because it is devoid of company, yet filled already with my own self-loathing. Negative because it is an almost perfect inversion of my original vision for my own place; which was to be a place of peace entirely free of judgment. Negative, because I feel the emptiness, the hollowness, of this American social ideal of individualism; personally understood simply as isolation.

I feel overwhelmed by all the anger I am carrying around. I feel it weighing me down, eating me alive like acid on my skin. Let me give it voice here, in hopes it will leave me in peace. I am angry that I am alone, and that I seem to be the only one in my social environment. I am angry that I haven’t met anyone in the last seven months who even gives me a real reason to have a crush. I am angry that no one seems interested in me, really interested in, despite that brief period of many suitors. I am angry that everyone else seems to dismiss my sorrow and frustration at being alone. I am angry that my loneliness doesn’t seem to bother anyone but me. I am angry that I feel better about myself professionally than ever before and yet worse about myself personally. I am angry that I look in the mirror and I see someone worth loving, possibly for the first time ever, and yet I can’t seem to decide what image everyone else is absorbing since I am so wholly alone.

I am angry that I can’t seem to diversify my income. That I can’t seem to make money. Enough money, whatever that means. I am angry that I do not find my job particularly rewarding, and yet can’t seem to find the time to really invest in a worthwhile outlet. I am angry that my most cherished skill- writing- seems to have absolutely no value in this society, and no hope of ever bringing me any sort of financial stability. I am angry that I will most likely be poor forever, and therefore voiceless. I am angry that as much as I want to make a change in the world, I feel that all the scales are tipped against me, and yet I am so much better off than the majority of the people in the world. I am angry that the reality of wealth truly is synonymous with unchecked power, unlimited freedom, and unjustified greed. I am angry that the world is not only unfair, but seemingly devoid of human connection. I am angry that art made us human, and now art is the least valuable asset of our shared humanity. I am angry that art is not shared equally by all humanity. I am angry that I cannot seem to become financially solvent, or personally independent. I am angry that I should feel guilty about the very human need to rely on others. I am angry that sometimes I feel inhumane, and therefore inhuman.

I am angry that I am a woman and that so much of the paternalistic doctrine has leaked into my own perspective that I now longer recognize my own human rights. I am angry that I almost never feel safe. I am angry that my sexuality is simultaneously a source of sorrow and longing and a source of fear and dread. I am angry that I may never truly enjoy the experience of being a woman, because women may never be truly free. I am angry that men have found so many complex ways to justify their own depravity and weakness. I am angry that despite their general depravity and weakness, I still long with such deep desire to hold a man in my arms, to love him and see love reflected in his eyes.
I am angry because today I feel hopeless and above all: helpless. How can I take control to change any of these things? How can I set aside this anger before it destroys me? Is living alone making me an angrier person, or simply allowing me the space to process this anger instead of burying it?