ppoli61

@ppoli611674629039 · 03 Feb 2021

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A diary may help

#socialanxiety 


Claire writes to me. She thinks she doesn't have a life of her own and even envies the pain of others. I urged her to objectify herself in a diary, to distance herself from her emotions, circumscribing them.
By narrating ourselves, we discover that we have a plot and, re-reading ourselves, we even become passionate about our history. Everyone has his own life, the one that was destined to him, also made up of voids and expectations. Still something to tell.
Here is what she writes to me then:

"Six months.
I've never walked around the block from the right since I've lived here.
I found myself without cigarettes. I knew I would finish them. My head hurts and I'm nauseous.
I'm on the bike path; a family cycling past me, I move but the road is wide, they can pass. A woman is walking and has her shoulder bag. She may be sixty. I think I'd like to talk to her, maybe she's a spinster. If you ask me how I'm doing, maybe I'll tell you I'm sick. We cross; I don't know if she has looked at me, she has sunglasses too.
An old man with a cane walks slowly, his feet are very swollen. Actually no, he's not that old, in the face. He tears some sprigs of rosemary that come out of the net of a private garden into the street.
Since I've lived here, I think I have to go and steal rosemary when I need it, I haven't done so yet. Not today, the smell intensifies my nausea. And then, how long does it last for me? I don't cook these days. It would dry out.
I'm dressed very badly, and on purpose. The shoelaces are too long, I bend over to fix them and my head is spinning. I have the sun in front of me now, I see the little lights.
Ah, this is where it comes out, that's right. Orientation is not my forte, I never know where I am.
The restaurant is on the other side of the road, on the crossroads, in front of me before I turn the corner.
They repainted it red, the sign is the same.
A pasta with cream and speck. Or was it bacon? Something good that filled. It was buckwheat.
There was no one, only us I think, and little light. Or was there one sitting alone?
It was lunchtime on a midweek day. We came back from I don't know where. It was my other life.
It was life.
There is a couple in the parking lot. I don't know if they're a couple. They smoke standing up against the car, they don't talk. About my peers. They look tired.
I make the transfer to the landlord. Even if it's Sunday, it's the first of the month.
I have a headache."  (Claire)

Note that "I move but the road is wide, they can pass".
We always move, we are always the ones who disturb. Here, another thing that comes to mind to tell you: learn to listen to your desires. Accustomed to step aside, accustomed to considering sacrifice as the only way, you have forgotten what you want. Maybe don't do it, maybe sacrifice yourself and postpone it again but, at least, understand what would make you happy.  Understanding it, that's already a lot.