TITHONUS' DIARY!!
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nostalgia Ok, what follows is basically some muddled up self-pity and nostalgia, so for those of you who find maudlin self-pity offensive (I'm looking at you, kiddo)(j/k) you might want to give it a miss. Really, the undisguised workings of my mind - or anyone's, I imagine - is a pretty ugly affair, so, yeah, I apologise for that. Um. But, you know what they say - this is what the diary's for, right? - I�m so lonely. So unbearably lonely. I keep imagining that if I were having sex with someone� or if somebody loved me, or if only I�d had the courage to tell K how I felt when I felt it� I could probably have L if I really wanted her. Or DP. Probably, if I were ruthless and cunning enough. Or B. I could have had TC for real, if I�d been willing to say I was serious about her. That�s all� I could have D if I wanted her� she�d be lovely. A real treat. Yum. And then I could throw her aside, like I have with all the others� today I had this terrible pang, this awful stroke of pain at the memory of TD hugging me in the library. She just suddenly and spontaneously hugged me, and as she hugged me it came to me that� that what I needed more than anything in the world was that hug. She was a bitch to me, she really was, but I don�t care anymore, all I can think about was how nice that hug was. I�ve had sex hundreds of times and most of them I�ve forgotten, but I�ll never forget that hug. Was I an adult or a child? Am I an adult or a child now? When I�m teaching a class then a lot of these 18-year olds seem like kids� real nice kids, some of them, but just little kids. I�m only a few years older than them, and in a way I feel as though I haven�t done a great deal with the intervening years, but there�s no mistaking the barrier between me and the ones who are 18. I am old and they are young. I am middle-aged and they are adolescents. I�m only a few years older � I�m 26, which isn�t so ancient, after all. I don�t know who to have sex with. This is the problem. Women my own age are basically looking for the one, the last one, the one that�s going to be an end to running � but younger women are too idealistic, and anyway, there�s that barrier there, that makes me feel like a pervert if I�m interested in them. Just because it�s legal doesn�t make it alright. And besides, nothing�s going to let me travel back in time to when MN was in my bed. I still can�t believe how lucky I was. I don�t get it � look at me at 14, with my big square glasses, clutching my Dungeon Master�s guides and my Monster Manuals, getting hyper at the thought of computer games, hating the popular kids at school and fighting with my parents over having to tidy my room. I am a nerd, and like every other nerd I think I�m nothing like any other nerd. Now, look at me at 19 � I�m drunk, or a little tipsy at least, in a haze of smoke and strangers, and talking to MN, who�s just finished her HSC. She�s beautiful. Beautiful and smart � such cute glasses! And she�s wearing some sort of sheer black lacy top, so that her cleavage is showing, just a bit, just enough. I can�t believe she�s talking to me � not just talking, she�s flirting. She wants to dance with me � we dance in an unmistakably raunchy way, people looking on, I think some of the ones who know me are even a little shocked. She asks me to buy her drinks and I do. I ask her how she�d feel about coming home with me, she says that she�d like that. She goes to the bathroom and a friend of mine comes and tells me she has a boyfriend, that I�m being played. I say I don�t care. Being played? Please! I�m happy, it�s a beautiful night, everything in the world is just the way it should be! I don�t care if I wake up broke or hurt or dead tomorrow, tonight the world is on fire! This is what I waited through all those lonely years for! I�m really fucking living! Well, we had sex, and it was good, although, I don�t think it was as good for her as for me. I was 19 and didn�t know much, had never really had a long-term relationship with a girl who would tell me what was good and what was bad. I think although she was a year younger than me she was more experienced than I was� but the sex wasn�t the thing, not really. It was what came before and what came after; before was the feeling that she wanted me, she wanted me and not some other guy, someone better, someone more confident or popular or whatever it is, but me. I was desirable. And after, the feeling of peace. Naked, with her naked body wrapped in my arms, feeling life was good and sweet and generous, feeling that the gods were kind. Feeling happy and open and able to talk without reservation. I used to get that feeling after I had sex, every single time without fail. Now I don�t think I ever get that feeling, before or after anything. I think it�s been years since I�ve felt anything that I could call peace. Maybe a little of it, when I was with TC again the last time. When we were having sex. It seems so unfair to characterise men as being only after one thing, because I think really we�re after a whole lot of things, but we don�t really understand what those things are and we imagine that we can only get at them via sex, and so that�s what we aim for. I think that�s what motivates my sex-hunger, that I feel somehow this core of loneliness and nostalgia and fear about my age can only be touched through the magic of sex� but of course, it�s only magical when the way you go about it lets it be magical. I gave her my phone number but she never called me, I suppose something to do with that boyfriend my friend mentioned, and I was hurt, but I don�t mind that I was hurt. I don�t mind being hurt so long as I have some happy memories; the same thing goes for TD as goes for MN. What I can�t bear is guilt; what I can�t bear is hurting other people. Because I�m used to carrying the weight of my own pain, but I can�t� I can�t bear being responsible for someone else�s. Maybe because it makes me inseperably implicated in the world, in the mess of it, and I want to be clean and separate, using my pain as a shield� Perfectly Alone. I�m so sad now, so fucking sad, thinking about MN and L and TD and TC, thinking of how young and beautiful and good I felt then, and then thinking about now� I am in a wasteland. That�s how I feel, like in the Dan Bern song, �broken up in the wasteland�. Everything looks the same. This is my problem; I can�t fall in love because I don�t trust myself to not hurt someone else� but without love I feel nothing but this loneliness, this aching need, this void that I want so badly to fill up with stuff, with anything, just to stop feeling it for now, for the moment� I�ll let myself feel it later, but not now, not right now, not today! Thinking about all the girls I�ve been with, all the girls I could be with, all the girls I�ve ever wanted to be with, thinking about good times in my life and using the sharp edges of them to cut at myself, to try to give myself some sense of where the edges are, so that I won�t have just this amorphous sense of endless wasteland all around in all directions... they�re selling postcards of the hanging, eh Bob? My great Aunt called tonight, wanting to speak to my parents. She�s old, very old and alone in the world, no children, her direct relatives are all dead, all she�s got are her sister�s children and her sister�s grandchildren. She�s old and lonely and sick and it won�t be long before she leaves this world. I think to myself that I won�t end up like her, but look at me; how different from her am I right now, really? How much better off than her am I right now? The things that made me happy in my last year at school, and in the little while that followed, are as far away from me as her glory days are from her, and nothing�s going to bring them back. - "Broken up in the wasteland Broken up in Disneyland" - Dan Bern - "They're selling postcards of the hanging They're painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town" - Bob Dylan |
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