sometimes i imagine leaving
(no theme to this newsletter at all, there never will be. theme is me.)
i just walk out the door, out of my own life
without announcement and somehow without notice (already this fantasy falls apart when faced with how leases and money work), i just move away. to some other place where i’m happier. to some other dimension.
i’m a new person, with flaws of course but different, more charming ones. i am whatever the opposite of emotionally distant is (emotionally close sounds wrong). i don’t hold grudges on things people said years ago. i have neuroses, but a more manageable set in quantity and quality. i don’t spiral in anxiety or depression. i know how to cook well and i don’t have a pile of clothes on a chair in the corner. i eat tomatoes. i am open to new experiences without having to plan for every possible negative outcome. i hit my reading goals without having to read 10 books in december. i remember my friends’ birthdays. i’m close to my family.
then i realize, every time, that the real fantasy of this is not even that i change in all these ways. the fantastical part is not having to apologize for all the times i haven’t been who i want to be, not having to have the awkward, unsettling conversations where i don’t know what to say or how i feel or maybe i just don’t know how i feel about what to say. i wouldn’t have to face every past version of myself that is contained in the way the people around me view me, have to stare her down with empathy and also frustration and also grace. i wouldn’t have to see every time someone who knows me misunderstands me as someone i used to be or someone they think i am and wince. but then eventually in this new life where i eat tomatoes or whatever, everything would pile up all over again.
i think i’m tired of everyone around me but let’s be real i’m mostly tired of everyone i’ve ever been and the fact that i have to deal with all of their consequences. i’m the problem and i’m also the solution. i actually like the second part less sometimes.