{ 11 21 2008 }

Remembering Another Life

Recently I came across some old journal entries and notes from when I was interning in New York City after college. They alternated between being funny and heart-wrenching. At first I delighted in seeing early threads of what would become my writing style on the blog (including finding a note that said “what would a one-night stand contract be?”), but as I continued reading I felt a familiar sadness surfacing deep inside.

I’m sure the year I lived in Manhattan was a key time in becoming who I am now, but it can be hard to see that as a good thing through the thick film of memories from that time: hating my job, fucking guys I barely remember now, regularly eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for dinner, cutting myself, crying every night, and trying to convince myself that this was the best year of my life.

What a fucking idiot.

It hurts to remember that year. I thought I was so hip with my nose ring and chic bargain clothes, but really I was a girl twenty pounds overweight walking around in a cheap skirt with a torn hem.

As I read through page after page of notes, I remembered the state I was in for an entire year. Trying so hard to make it on my own and yet barely managing–and that’s if you include my mother silently bailing me out of bad credit card debt. My mother didn’t need to say anything because she knew that I was far harder on myself than she ever could be.

I did things then in the name of Indepedence! Singledom! Fuck-Me Feminism! that were empty mantras in a long chapter on self-delusion. Now I see them for what they were: a crappy apartment I couldn’t afford, a tattoo because my parents weren’t there to stop me, and a bad fuck in a hotel room rented by the hour. It was a year of loneliness even though I was in the most populated city in the country.

Please don’t think that the point of this post is that casual sex is bad. That’s not it at all. One night stands and fuck buddies are a wonderful thing when exercised correctly: having sex because you want to have sex, not because filling the hole inside with a hard cock will make the emptiness go away. How many times did I have to wash the smell of a guy off myself before I figured that out?

When I came back to Texas to visit my parents for a holiday, my mother and I were sitting in the kitchen chatting. She told me how lucky I was to have the opportunity to work in New York City. This shocked me because my mother had always been wary of my living there. When Mom saw the surprise on my face, she explained, “You are living on your own. I never got that chance. I went from my father’s house to your father’s house. I never got to live in my own place or support myself like you do. I’m jealous.”

I felt like a fuck-up because I was falling far short. Rent took one and a half of my paychecks. As the designated peon at the office I had minimal responsibility and barely had a chance to learn anything. I called my friends in Texas constantly because I had no friends in New York. The only person outside the office who ever said hello to me was the nice man who worked in the breakfast cart on the corner. I wanted a dog but had neither the space nor the reliability, so I bought a hamster instead. I needed someone, anyone, even if it cost ten bucks and smelled like cedar chips.

How could I tell my mother that I was flailing in the life I had so desperately wanted since high school? I was living the life she had never gotten for herself. I had to do well for both of us.

Instead I returned to Texas defeated. Within my first month back I fucked four guys, two of them at the same time. I went through the motions of grad school without any heart. I started dating a guy who was nice but ultimately wrong for me because I needed someone on my side. It took years before I had the strength to be on my own.

Now when I think about that life I wish I could go back in time and hug my younger self. “Everything will be better one day, sweetie, I promise.” Back then all I could do was hope.

I remember telling one of my friends once that I went two months in New York without receiving a hug. A fucking hug. It’s not like I had no physical contact–there were hand shakes, pats on the back, and heaving bodies on top of my own, but none of those are nearly as satisfying as feeling someone’s arms take you in and hold you long enough to breathe in their comforting scent.

Why must I revisit that long year? Why can’t I board it up and hide it deep down inside where I may hope to forget it all one day?

I have to remember. I have to remember how far I’ve come since then, lest I start to slip.

Posted by Over Educated Nympho on Friday, November 21st, 2008, at 4:41 pm, and filed under sex, life, depression, singledom, trying to be a grown-up.

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