>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: on the brink of a grey new day
>>Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000

It's too early to be awake and the last thing I feel like doing is going to school to be surrounded by people. I can't ever pay attention in class anyway because I just don't care what they're trying to tell me. College is such a waste of time. I never listen or study and I get all A's. That's just fucked up. My entire life, all I heard was how hard this college shit was supposed to be, and here I am at the state's flagship university sleeping through my classes and acing them.

Something just struck me. Lots of people say things like, "I’m feeling so depressed," when they just mean, "I’m sad." Then they fly off to the doctor because they can't shake a bad mood for a few days. The most unfair part of this disease to me is that I’ve missed my entire life because of it. I’ve had the social anxiety and the generalized anxiety since I was born, but the depression started in middle school and hit me hard my freshman year of high school. I missed my entire high school life. I missed most of the "care-free" years before that, and it still won't leave me alone. Half my childhood was just washed away in a depressed cloud. I’ve felt like this for most of my life. I’ve never experienced a part of my life where I felt completely happy. I’ve never had that stability. I’m almost afraid that if happiness ever does come, I won't recognize it. I don't have the slightest conception of what that feels like. I hate to say "it's not fair," but goddammit, it's not.

Apparently, I’m a very funny person. I was down at my friend’s apartment yesterday, and he was there with his girlfriend. I was lightheaded and half-asleep, so I was just speaking freely and eventually just went off on absolutely everything: conservative politics, morality, god, existence, censorship of all forms,…. My friend has heard that part of me before, but his girlfriend was really surprised, and she kept wanting to argue with me. She just kept saying, "I don't even know where to begin arguing against that," my friend finally said, "Don't bother. He's right." I like bringing a little darkness into people's optimistic heads, but I kept noticing that they couldn't stop laughing at what I was saying. I’m very deadpan and most of the time I don't even realize if I’ve made a joke. I have no idea where I was going with all of that. It was just an aspect of myself that I found curious. I think people laugh at what I say because they're afraid to acknowledge it.

At any rate, I have to begin preparing for another day. I hope your day goes well. Someone's needs to.

Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: on the brink of a grey new day
>Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000

Belacqua,

I've done more this morning at work than any other morning yet this semester. I started working here in September of last year, and ever since then, they've been talking about moving me into my own office. Well, now I’m FINALLY in my own office. I love it. I'm sure you can understand how the seclusion helps. God, I just can't deal with people. As soon as people start fussing about something, I feel like I'm going to explode. It's totally not cool, seeing as how they're the ones with the problem. I'm sitting here alone, minding my own business, and they all come and get in my face and start bitching about shit I couldn't fucking care less about.

Sorry to complain about such mundane life things. I'm actually thrilled to be in my new office. I'm alone and it's quiet. Thank goodness things are finally going to be a bit more peaceful around here. My job is really, really low stress, but the people can just go off on the stupidest little things. Things bug me too, but I don't fucking complain to everyone else in the office so they get in a bad mood too. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Fucking offices. Sigh. If this office had any more stress than the tiny amount it has, I'd be fucking gone. I left my last job after six weeks because I came home everyday feeling like I was the most useless piece of shit. I refuse to fucking work somewhere where I have no time to myself. I can't hold myself together that way. I can only work in short, concentrated spurts. Then I must retire to my writing, my website, or my e-mail until I feel normal again. People don't get how hard it is for me to just get out of bed and make it to the office everyday. I wish I could explain it to them so they'd leave me the fuck alone.

I know what you mean about school. People used to tell me how hard college would be, too, and then I went there only to realize that college has little to do with how hard you work or how smart you are and more to do with knowing how to manipulate the teachers to give you the grades you need. I don't know how I got through college. I barely even remember it. All I know is that I literally skipped half of my freshman year and even managed to sleep through a final. What did I get in that class? B-. How do you explain that?

You and I have so much in common, but I think probably the biggest difference is the lengths to which I go to be exceedingly masochistic. My anxiety started like someone had just flipped a switch when I was fifteen, almost eight years ago. The funny thing is, it's almost like the switch was flipped but I didn't know it. I'd go to classes and know my teachers wanted me to answer questions, and I'd literally sit in my seat shaking every time I thought about answering a question. I couldn't bear the thought of raising my hand in class, and oh god, when they just called on me randomly I'd freeze like I'd just been caught shoplifting and couldn't decide if I should give myself up or drop everything and run. It was torture, I swear. But I thought it was normal. It blows my mind how many things I took to be normal, even though I hadn't really experienced them before.

I was always shy when I was little. I specifically recall being at restaurants with my parents and I'd have to ask them to order things for me because I was terrified of the wait staff. We’d be in McDonald's and I'd want french fries, and my parents would tell me I could get them if I went to order them at the counter myself, and I couldn't do it. Stupid things like this were the beginnings, I guess, but it didn't really strike me as more than shyness until tenth grade. Then I just considered myself SEVERELY shy.

I guess another difference between you and me is that you went with the shyness and I fought against it. I'd literally throw myself into the most atrocious of situations, hoping to beat it out of myself. My parents were so sure I'd get over it if I just kept trying, but that just made things worse. I'm a singer and I have such horrendous stage fright that my nerves make me turn bright red all over and my hands start to go numb and I feel like I can't breathe. So I just thought I'd work harder and harder to get over it, but it just got worse and worse. My anxiety was so bad last fall that I was terrified to go into my own apartment because my roommates hated each other and I couldn't stand the tension in the air. That's not the way your own home is supposed to feel.

People frequently find my own take on the world quite amusing, too. It seems so obvious that everything's fucked up in the world, and yet people don't realize it. So they hear it, and they think we're exaggerating, when we're really just thinking things through further than they are. I wrote a poem my freshman year in college, and I actually almost sent it to you once before because you said something that reminded me of it. I don't remember why I didn't send it to you, but it's probably got something to do with the fact that I always expect people to dismiss my writing as simplistic, when they always miss the entire idea anyway. I'm sure you'll know where it's coming from, though. It's kind of long, but here it is:


Some people’s brains have a limit –
most of them, really.
They extend a certain reach,
then snap back
to a more comfortable sense of knowledge,
and it’s not that they give up,
though I’m sure they could try harder,
they’ve just been blessed with the opportunity
to remain naïve,
to only understand so much
before approaching a dead end
where all comprehension fails.

I, on the other hand, am not quite so lucky,
and neither, it seems, were you.
I may not be a genius.
I may not be a writer.
No, my mind’s limits end there
and stretch infinitely backwards,
winding through catacombs
most don’t know exist,
but I remember seeing you
somewhere in the distance,
darting from one dark corner
to another even darker…

And I heard you crying out
in tears that choked your breath,
and I saw the air around you
turn to glowing shades of red.
I felt the heat intensify,
I watched your glory fade,
and I could see your heart
beating wildly in its rage.
I saw the walls close in on you,
I heard your last request,
and on my pitiful cheek
I felt the kiss of death.

Still I stood quite distant:
upset, but not surprised.
No one who gets lost here
can all the hell survive.
We all will end there sometime
since we found the catacomb,
this world of understanding
we regret to call our home.
So instead of wandering
and waiting for my time,
I looked into your eyes
to put their pain in mine.

But mine still need enhancement;
I can’t get lost yet.
Certain rules apply
to our time
and mine just wasn’t planned that way.
So I have to wait
to try and learn my share,
put up with the voices
that insist it was your fault,
that don’t know what they’re saying
and won’t ever,
because some people’s brains have a limit.


I know it would be practically impossible to discern this from the words alone, but I wrote them as a rebuttal to people who said Kurt Cobain was stupid to have killed himself. People used to laugh about that so much, and it tore me apart inside because I knew exactly how it could be possible for a famous rock star to feel isolated and miserable. So, I wanted to be kind of sardonic in my explanation to these imbeciles who won't ever understand it anyway.

Sorry I'm rambling on, but I have a lot to say today. I almost called you last night. My fear of the phone is rather disturbingly strong, though, so it'll take some working up for that one. I was sitting in front of the TV, probably watching more Drew Carey, and a thought occurred to me. For my entire life, I've wanted to be famous. I thought at first it would be singing that would be my claim to fame. Then I thought maybe it would be my writing. Now, I'm convinced that I have no talents, and the only thing that would make me feel as though my life hadn't been wasted would be to actually go through a major public place with a majorly lethal weapon. I swear to god, and I'm 100% serious. There is nothing in my life that feels like it matters at all. Killing may be my calling in life.

Hopefully I haven't freaked you out. And I hope you don't kill yourself unless you come to Boston with two guns so we can do it together because I'm fucking sick of trying to fix myself. There is no fixing what's wrong with me, and I don't want to feel better anyway. You're right, you know, about not being able to recognize happiness. My drugs have shown me what happiness COULD feel like, and it feels so foreign to me and so wrong that I can't force myself to struggle through the rest of my life trying to remain in that strange place.

Perdita