Rearticulation (Or Disarticulation?)
My mindset is not as warped as it sounds, really.... (I swear!) No, I have not taken to equating sex with love, nor have I grown as cynical and perverse to think that all I need is sex. I think that mostly, I have succumbed to the mindset of the stereotypical male, in which the ability to access sexual gratification is somehow a reflection of self-worth, and I am therefore trying to refute it, in somewhat twisted terms. I too am a human being. Really. Admittedly, however, the stereotypical mindset does harbor a smidgen of truth, if you're thinking in Darwinian terms of reproductive success.... a somewhat absurd paradigm in our world of latex condoms and birth control pills.... But otherwise, what I am really missing, what I really mean is this: (OK, so the fact that I have to preface it immediately falsifies it, but...) Wow. I cannot seem to formulate this idea in ways that do not make me sound like some sort of co-dependent enabler. Which furthermore reinforces my reactionary beliefs about the evils of romantic relationships. So maybe that's the problem. The time is just not right, and I just have to get used to it. Everything I miss is really either an idealization of the pastâ€â€having someone you trust completely, having someone who'll always be there for you, having someone to believe in, someone you are willing to sacrifice for in order that they might achieve their dreams, I could go on and onâ€â€or it's some fairy-tale of the futureâ€â€someone to have kids with, to grow old with, to buy a house with, to go on vacations to Hawaii or Puerto Vallarta with. It's like the present is a discontinuity or something, a mathematical catastrophe. A metaphorical singularity, if you will. (A convoluted and hopelessly esoteric pun, even if you won't.) So I am pining for straight-up fantasy, complete and utter fiction. (The escapist quality of which is probably the thing that first attracted me to trying to write in the first place, but this is a needless tangent.) But everything that came before is ash, and I don't know how to start again. Maybe I should just let go of everything once and for all. Burn everything that is tying me down, and go with my erstwhile credoâ€â€don't get attached to anything that you can't carry with you. This ideaâ€â€rightly or wronglyâ€â€is what got me started on this mad-cap adventure in the first place, so I might as well see it through. But I know this much, and it is haunting me, especially during the dark days of winter. In the end, I cannot make it alone. It's like the creeping darkness has been latching on for longer and longer every year, and even my summers are beginning to fill with malaise. But it goes away in the presence of some people whom I dare not name. Unfortunately, it only makes the darkness bleaker when it returns. Maybe I should just seek therapy. Electroconvulsive therapy, here I come.
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