So these last two months, I’ve taken the summer off of school, gotten a new job, watched movies, read books, hung out with friends. Amidst it all though, there’s been this sort of emptiness lingering, I journaled the other day about a gap I can’t place but so clearly feel. The ssri’s in my system doing nearly too well at their job where i can’t bring myself to feel too deeply, I struggle to cry. I feel sad, but I can’t point at any specific thing, or even exact feeling! Am I sad? Or unfocused? Am I sad or just overheated, feeling sunk into nostalgia like I am every monsoon summer season?
Writing this at the end of July, post two weeks off of working and currently training at my new job, i feel more stable. Which annoys me, as for those two weeks i was ready to read Prozac Nation, (the first in my attempt to read what i’m calling the sad girl canon) i was ready for motivation, instead i felt anxious. i still read Elizabeth Wurtzel’s memoir, wrote two poems, and was constantly dipping my toes into some form of writing, but among it all, i was feeling lost. I rode a wave of wondering if anything was worth writing, if anything i did or said was important. More than anything, i rode a wave of indifference, unable to explain how sad sat in my body, and how much of me it was taking up.
In the midst of reading the memoir (which i still haven’t finished), i was battling with my own work in progress, a personal essay (which i still haven’t finished) about my mother, the relationship she had with her own mother, and how i fit into that. Elizabeth Wurtzel was born the same year as my mother, as i’ve read the book i’ve looked for pieces of my mother in it. i haven’t actively read a book written in the perspective of a gen x woman, maybe ever, maybe just for now. But as i’ve read about Wurtzel’s own strained relationship with her mother, having a distant father, being a depressed woman in the nineties, i do see my mother. This summer, i’ve seen nothing but connections with the women i was raised with, i see the rituals, i see how many strange things i have in common with them, or how as i age, i look more and more like my mother. As i read Prozac Nation, and look for my mother in the little things, or i start a job that my grandmother once did. i find all the spots where they are not. I find myself grateful for the space i have made for myself, even my sadness. Because it is my own, perhaps inherited or formed in many ways by those women, but it’s lived in my body for so long, it has been with me on long nights, through breakups, life changes, healing and regretting and coming all the way around again.
“I wasn't just the madwoman in the attic--I was the attic itself. The past was all over me, all under me, all inside me.”
“homesickness is just a state of mind for me. i'm always missing someone or someplace or something, i'm always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. my life has been one long longing.”
-Elizabeth Wurtzel
It’s strange to experience so much joy lately, watching Twisters with all its pop country glory, listening to Brat on repeat, talk to my neighbor and eat a croissant with peach jam after. While watching the olympics, and fully experiencing the hottest summer, heat wave after heat wave until it breaks and rains with thick, heavy droplets for hours on end. It is strange because among all of this, is the knowledge that it’s an election year, feeling scared and disappointed, knowing that there’s a genocide that i’m firmly against, empty houses that could solve so many peoples problems, there’s so much awful among the good. While one day brings joy, where i’m smiling and thinking nothing could be better, then the next and the strange, empty, unknowable feeling comes around. i think between being in the summer season, where i find nostalgia around every corner, and working on this personal essay project, where i am digging through my memories, my photo boxes, and where i allow the flashbacks to play in their entirety, of course i am riding the waves of emotion.
So i listen to the music, watch the movies, read the books. I see the memes about being coconut pilled, jokes about current events which seems the only way to cope. I want to believe there’s better days ahead, days where i can name the pain and where it comes from, where the summers aren’t as hot, the people are taken care of.
i have this urge to romanticize my life. i think of the things i love in lists, i come up with a million ideas for this substack while reading others, i pretend i’m some literary it girl a-la sex in the city carrie bradshaw blogger girl. i listen to my cd’s and watch my dvd collection pretending its the nineties. i allow myself limited daily delusions. sometimes its just enough.
Lover’s Corner
i went to a noir fest at local theater with my boyfriend, we watched The Sleeping Tiger and The Naked Kiss, both were weird, great noir films, made better with my love and a local theater. i’d recommend them to anyone who’s looking for a new kind of noir if they’ve already watched the popular ones.
i read quite a few books so far this summer (and bought way too many more) some favorites so far are The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez, Boy Parts by Eliza Clark, and Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin. They were all trippy, books i found myself reading fast, consuming till the end because i just had to know.
you can be mean by Indigo De Souza
Theatre by Etta Marcus
Guess by Charli xcx feat. Billie Eilish
other movie mentions are Twisters, LongLegs, Women Talking, Climax, and most importantly a rewatch of Secretary.
That’s all from me, i hope your corner of the world is okay. Much love, see you next time.