Happiness, loneliness (not hot)

I recently got some good news – a promise of something really good. The promise extended over a few weeks – long enough for me to worry it might not come to fruition, to avoid counting my proverbial chickens. Today, the chickens arrived, and I counted them. They’re all there. Every last one of them.

The news is really good. It’s one of the two or three best things that has happened in my life since I started writing this blog. In some ways, it’s the best. In others, the second best. In any event, it’s really good.

Which raises the question: why do I feel like shit?

I feel lonely and dissociative. I woke up this morning an hour earlier than usual, tossing and turning, and couldn’t fall back asleep. I couldn’t meditate. I couldn’t write. I e-mailed a friend with whom I had lunch plans to confirm – time and place. An hour before our scheduled lunch, I ate lunch (having forgotten I was going to meet him shortly). Then, I remembered I was meeting him. Or I thought I remembered I was meeting him. In fact, I mis-remembered I was meeting him, placing me in the wrong restaurant at the right time. I got to him in time for us to spend some time together, but less than we’d planned, and I felt dumb.

Later, I walked absent-mindedly into a turnstile in a subway without paying. After having gone to renew my driver’s license without the requisite documents.

I’m like the absent-minded professor.

I can barely focus, can barely force myself to write these words. On this, one of the happier days of my life. What I desperately want to do is to tune out, to sleep, to surf the web for porn, for news, for whatever, anything that will distract me from what it is that I’m (not) feeling.

Why am I so unhappy?

I have a hypothesis.

My mom died when I was in my late teens, leaving a chasm in my heart. I think that good news, in particular, opens up that chasm: I want to share it with her, but I can’t.

That’s a hypothesis. I have others. But for now, that’s my working theory.

3 comments

  1. Interesting. I don’t normally suggest this, but maybe you need to talk to a therapist? Otherwise you’ll be bumping into a lot of things for a lot longer.

  2. Darn, this hit me right in the heart. My mom died 5.5 months ago and everytime something happens, I want to tell her. I shared everything with her and not being able to do so anymore is hard. That’s why I still go to her grave once a week to ‘tell’ her things.
    Hugs to you!

    Rebel xox

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