05.12.2002 | 12:50 p.m.
so hard and lonely too when you don't know yourself.

Tuesday night, I called a suicide hotline. I just needed to tell someone and I didn't know who else to turn to. Part of me just wanted to call Derek, but I knew I'd only get his machine, and then what good what that do, worrying him like that? It wouldn't be fair at all for him to come home from work to that. And so I called that number that I've had for a while now.

Everything I was saying was unhysterical, and matter-of-fact. I felt like Ritchie in The Royal Tenenbaums when he says,"I'm am going to kill myself tonight." That's exactly how I felt. I think that calmness and that sense of resignation is what scared me most. I'd rather have been screaming and yelling and sobbing like a mad woman because yeah, that feels wrong. But this. This just felt so normal.

The woman was really nice. I guess the anonymity of it all helped tremendously. She was really patient and didn't force me to talk when I went silent, never once asked my name or any personal information. I found myself telling her every damn thing that was on my mind and that had been on my mind this past month. And once I was done, she said really gently..."I know you must think I say this to everyone...but...you're worth more a lot more than you think you are. You're articulate and intelligent...and...the only reason you can't see that is because you don't want to. Don't harm yourself. It's not worth it. None of this is worth it."

So now,I'm trying really hard not to beat myself up over feeling like that, but instead thinking, "No! You've come this far, and you can continue to do this. You can't fucking expect things to improve overnight. You've dealt with a lot of shit far better than most people, without any substances controlling you. You've been realistic and self-aware, and you can't expect NOT to lose control sometimes. But instead of brooding over it, get out of that rut and start living again. Make yourself proud again. You did well to call. The bottom-line is you didn't act on your impulses. You didn't let your feelings obscure your common sense. And that is something to be proud of"

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It's really weird the way the world works sometimes. I got a call from Ipshita yesterday. She's studying in Norwich which is about four hours away from London. She said she was going to be in London for the day and asked if I wanted to meet up with her. It'd been so long since I'd seen her. I didn't see her all the four months I was home over the summer. We e-mailed each other occassionally but that was it. When I went home last X-mas break, we saw each other once. But it was at a social gathering and it was just awkward because I was with my friends and she was with hers,and the two groups don't really like each other.

So I picked her up from Richmond Tube Station...and...it was just so good to see her, and so surreal too! It's just weird to be with her in London. Little things came into my mind like, "Wow this is the first time we've seen each other wearing coats." I took her to dinner and we just talked and talked and talked. Sitting with her, watching her smoke, just brought back so many memories. The play in 11th std - There was this one time where she improvised on one of the scenes we were doing; she just threw the glass of water on Vivek and it fit. It was so spontaenous and...so...GREAT. But he didn't take it too well and stormed out of her house. I had to run after him and yell at him for being 'unprofessional' and...

Reminiscing is a beautiful way to spend time.

She stayed over at my house; we got back from dinner pretty early. We were home by 10, and the rest of the night, until 5 a.m, we just stayed up talking. It's not easy to say this without sounding like a pretentious fuck but somehow every time we have conversations, we meander into these pseudo-philosophical discussions and each time, I come out feeling so connected to her as a person.

She asked me (in true girly fashion) what was happening with boys and after a lot of cajoling and threatening and statements like "Auri, I just told you I resorted to heroin. What on earth can possibly be stupider than that?", I broke down and explained the situation to her. And she just looked at me and said, "Why? Why are your feelings stupid? They're your feelings and if others don't like that, they can shove it up their asses." And it's true. I know if a friend of mine was facing the same dilemma, I would tell them the same thing. I'm a firm believer in not fighting your feelings or not analysing your feelings because they're YOURS and that is the only thing that matters. I mean, how fucking boring would life be if everything was logical and mathematical? I realised that I always pick the most impossible people to fall for because in this really twisted way, it makes me feel good about myself. When I get hurt, I can say, "Ha...look. I told you I was a worthless piece of nothing." It's just another tool for self-destruction.

I don't think I allow myself to be happy. But maybe happiness isn't meant to be permanent. Maybe happiness is this fleeting for every single person on this earth, and I'm just one of the few who analyses it to pieces. Maybe unhappiness is just an inseperable part of our beings, and seperating it is what leads to so much despair. I don't know who I am right now; I am not content. But knowing who I am...fuck,won't that defeat the entire purpose of living? Once I have all the answers,then what? Then, I just twiddle my thumb and wait to obliterated? No I can't do that either. Being content will only lead to discontentment, because it will feel like I've run into a brick wall. So I live my life, ignoring the happiness, waiting for the next catastrophe to occur. In this strange way, when it happens, it's like a triumph for me. "HA! I knew it!" So I push everything away. I hold on to nothing. When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose...

As for love, no matter how much I fight with myself over it, at the end of the day, it's an emotion. And if nothing else, emotions are the only honest things we own. There is no way to explain them, and perhaps that is what warrants so much enamourment. But really, love is so simple. The complexities are just a direct consequence of not wanting to accept its simplicity. Why can't it be as simple as "I love you?" The mindgames and the mindfucks....those don't have to be part of the packaging. We choose to see it that way.

I told all of this to Ipshita because I could, and as always, she understood completely. It's just so weird that she came back into my life at this point. But I KNOW I will never ever be able to deal with her on a daily basis. She knows I can't too. We've accepted that about each other. I love her dearly but there is no way I can deal with her morbidity. The difference between her and me is that she does the things I want to do. She smashes glasses, she screams like a banshee, she cuts herself and she doesn't hide it. This is who she is and she has no qualms about it. I try so hard to stay away from those things, so it's too close to home for me to be comfortable around. That sounds really lame but it's true. I can't deal with that much intensity.

So yeah - maybe I don't have the answers. But, what makes this so catharthic is coming to the realisation I don't want the answers. I'm perfectly happy being unhappy with the world.

deja vu? | jamais vu?