The migration drama 2

November 28th, 2011

I have such periods in my life when everything is good, everything is wonderful: no one is scolding you, you can sleep as much as you want, and the greatest test can only be getting food at three or four o'clock in the morning, when someone has to go to school or work...

On these days, peace should come, the purest and most innocent, it should, but for some reason it does not, and you look for something nasty and vile in every good event, you accuse people of not paying enough attention to yourself, instant coffee even ceases to be the best delicacy for a cigarette, and what's more, the cigarette itself ceases to be a delicacy. And when all the movies on the 500 GB hard drive have already been watched, you start cleaning the desktop, tidying up directories and files, finally satisfying the operating system's passion for deleting non-working and old shortcuts on the desktop and waiting for some event comparable in scale to the end of the world... A flood, a war, maybe even coups and revolutions would do, I'll even agree on a regional level, but as if by someone's evil plan nothing happens. NOTHING.

A long time ago I discovered a simple pattern: when I work a lot, life seems overloaded with events, it seems that any minute now the last juices will run out, and I will simply disappear, because I can no longer sit at the computer for so long, rub my red eyes, frown, eat all sorts of nonsense and smoke in the room; when all this is somewhere in the annals, hidden and frozen, it seems to me that everything that happens is meaningless, it does not obey the same laws, it is illogical in the same way as people are illogical, to whom I am drawn during hard work, from whom I am disgusted when there is no work.

When I work, I am not sure, I am in constant doubt, but the price for that is an endless stream of ideas, new and juicy, which do not let me get a good night's sleep, which eat up every hertz of the endlessly wavering brain, now and then dodging its responsibilities.

When I work, people around me talk all sorts of nonsense and for some reason do not understand simple things, do not understand that it is SO important to solve the problem, to solve it in an original way, do not understand why it needs to be solved. When I do not work, I do not understand people. I do not understand why, how is it that they lived their lives while I lived by work, met and fought, insulted each other, slept drunk and bought the car of their dreams. They lived, but I don’t understand why they don’t meet me, returning from the world of my own wars, with stripes on my uniform trousers and aiguillettes. Why don’t they share my victories, don’t rejoice with me and don’t enter the capital on a white horse. Everything is the same for them as it was before my protracted throw, no matter how long it lasted.

Then I get drawn in, and I am haunted and haunted by the feeling of my own insignificance, the feeling of an advanced disease from which I am rapidly growing dull. Things that seemed clear and simple to the machine in my head turn out to be illogical and confusing. I sacrifice everything to change sides, but for some reason no one is waiting for me on the other side. That’s how I rush about. I need to shoot up with work. Now. I have a couple of acquaintances who for some reason do not change themselves and do not change anything in their lives. After a year or two, they will still be living with their parents, not working, it is not clear what to do with all their free time, and everything seems to be fine - live and do not interfere with the life of others - but when you meet them, you just want to put them in an electric chair or give them a ton of ice cream with metal crumbs.

I absolutely do not understand how you can live like this. I do not understand how you can see the same face, apartment, job, boss, window, refrigerator for ten years and not want a simple change of scenery. At least go to another place, not to the one you have been going to for the last forty vacations. The most sacred and mysterious thing for me in all this is that they are truly happy with this situation. They like such predictability and banality of each of their days, they like to go to the same cinemas and cafes to drink invariably half a liter of unfiltered beer. And the biggest nightmare and secret fear of my life to this day remains the possibility of all this in my life. I will become like that someday, and the only joy in the gray similarity of the endless queue of days will be home repair and alcohol in, if possible, unreasonable quantities...

But! While I am a ship, I need fuel, more water and space. I will carry passengers and hum in ports, and they will smile and wave. I will sail far, turn the propellers, crash into icebergs and sink. And I will do "tu-tu"!

When you are isolated from everything and everyone you love, all isms get out. My isms were alcoholism and workoholism, as might have already guessed.

December 31st, 2011

...
I have lost everything I had this year. The last months of my life are passing by in a fog. Like Polozkova: my voice has weakened, my fur is knocked out, I do not want to be stronger than everyone else. My life has been different: sometimes there was no one to talk to, no one to drink with, nothing to eat. But for the first time in my life, there is no interest. No interest in anything, nothing pleases or upsets. Apparently, my center of emotions remained in the other 66%. I apologize to everyone who suffered from my mercantile desire to suddenly change nationality, but this is it, universal justice, and the greed of a sucker ruined me. I would like all this to turn out to be a nightmare, and I will wake up in a dorm, everything will be so complicated there, but one-sided, unambiguous and understandable. But this will not happen, because it will not happen. I also understand that asking it endlessly is no longer any good. Simply, either replace 66% with two bottles of wine or 6 times 11% will do, and forget that there is someone else who was tied to you with an invisible thread, or just die like a dog in your European apartment.
...

At the end of the first year, I fell into the darkest depression. I constantly drank and slept, distanced myself from all people and activities I've enjoyed before, feeling no power to carry the weight of all the world that I had to bear. I woke up at 4pm, it was a winter, the apt where I lived with my first husband was shitty and everything seemed burned to ashes. Spoiler alert: is passes.

January 13th, 2012

The alarm clock pulls me out of my third nightmare this week, the smeared remnants of emotions mixing with reality. I put on plaid pants, scurry around the room, remembering why I woke up. The crooked mirror in the bathroom shows someone's reflection, hinting at the hidden madness lurking in the flesh. I talk about the same thing, mutter plans under my breath, not afraid of being late. I get dressed, in the hallway I remember that the laces on my shoes are torn. Who cares.

On the other side of the door, peeling paint waits for someone to notice how small twisted flakes look like wet moss on a stone. It's not lichen, that's why it has an inferiority complex and keeps waiting and waiting. The creaky century-old staircase accompanies me down, hiding something I don't understand, but I also wish it a pleasant day. Why should I go there today?

The bloodless sky crushes with its despair, multiplying itself a hundredfold in the puddles on the asphalt. I walk the same route to the metro, disappearing into a tangle of thoughts before the transfer, trying to find a way out. White wires say something in my ears: they - my only interlocutor - play in the same order, predictable and banal, that's what's good about them. The last button on the player broke. Who cares.

On the surface, the same street, a merciless wind strips the remains of leaves from the trees. Where does it come from in January? A doorbell, a door, a staircase. I twist my hair at my temple, receive good news - it seems I'm smiling. Lately, the scale of the universe scale drama has somehow diminished, both its own new directions and others' have appeared. You all think about when and where, circumstances pull you and me, twist opportunities. Something new will grow in place of the torn out piece of flesh, something scarred and ugly, but it will grow, and at least it will stop bleeding. Even now, I can already look at the reflections formalized in the digital form, press buttons, leaf through files. Desire flowed, I began to see what and how I can touch. The rest will come when I suck out the poison. The day is over, I can't stop thinking about work, because I was bitten by a programmer once. I need to go home. Why do I need to go there today?

This strange thought haunts me. The judgments are so predictable and pale that I feel sick. But I can. I can start building something new, in place of something gradually sinking under water. I can walk on crutches if my leg was cut off. But was it really my leg that was cut off? No, I shouldn't ask anyone's permission, I should allow myself to do it myself. And believe that everything was fine and wonderful before, but someone will exchange it for trifles, someone for a warm place, and someone else simply still has something to lose. In the end, mom and dad do not live in thruples, what kind of childish babble is this. Just a rebellion of twenty-year-olds, look, they decided that they can go against social standards. You have to be a man, hammer nails and carry meat, but you are a factory for producing children, you will conceive and wash diapers, and then stand behind the most important person in the family photo, smiling timidly. It is one hundred and forty percent clear to me that this is already a phase when it is necessary to relieve pain, not save. For some reason, our personal ideals and collective happiness have always excluded each other. Apparently, this is the c'est la vie. The metro provokes a flush in my head, each time causing the same circle of thoughts that lead to nothing. Yes, I can come, yes, I can start studying again, but then why all this, why did I just throw away almost a year to get used to it, to comprehend it and to constantly be in an emotional vacuum? I promised myself that I would squeeze the maximum possible out of it, the maximum. And anyway, why would I go there?

The stairs meet me again, the cold apartment, the monitor, the Google talk - no one is there, everyone is already asleep. Who cares.

The source of all suffering is attachment, isn't it? Forgive me if this is too direct.

Reading this, I realize how deeply traumatized I was by these events. Sometimes you have to feel pain to grow, and to grow greatly you have to die and be reborn.