Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Monday, Nov. 19, 2007 - 9:20 p.m.

I had an epiphany today: I'm broken. That might be pretty obvious to you guys, but I really never thought of myself that way. In fact, I got pretty pissed off when people (mainly men) treated me so. It would still piss me off, actually, coz I'm not broken in the way men want me to be so that they can "fix" me. I'm not a fucking toy, and I don't need to be taken under anyone's wing and shown how the world works. I get how the fucking world works. I think it sucks, and I rail against it, but believe me, I fully freaking grasp how the world works. That's not my problem. My problem is that I'm never, ever going to be loved the way I need to be loved. No one is ever going to give me the kind of approval that I need or take care of me the way I need to be taken care of. And okay, I don't want to be taken care of, but the bottom line is, I need it. And I need someone to tell me they can't believe how fucking high I can fly and all the things I can do, and more than anything, I need someone to love me so much that there's no room for anything else. And none of that is ever going to happen. Partly because it's fairly impossible for one person to do all that, and partly because that's not how the adult world works. In the adult world, you take care of yourself. You tell yourself good job and attagirl, and you come to terms with the fact that it's unrealistic to expect anyone to see to your whims and tell you how much they love you every second of every day. And yes, I know I'm supposed to do all that for myself, but it isn't enough. I can't even tell you how much it isn't enough. I've tried. I've worked really hard at telling myself good job and way to go and believing in all the stuff I can do, and none of it matters. I know I'm a good actor. I know I'm a good writer. I know I'm smart. I know I can sing. I know I'm capable. I know all that stuff, and none of it matters. I need someone else to see it, too. I need someone to tell me I rock. I thought I found that once, and it was everything I thought it would be, and it made me feel for one brief, shining period like I could do anything and be anything and actually achieve something in my life. But it turns out that person really didn't care, which is why it was easy to tell me how awesome I was; it was never supposed to be permanent. I just thought that it was. But apparently, that kind of support isn't true. It isn't realistic. It can't be maintained. You have to pony that stuff up for yourself, and I don't know how. I find that without a yardstick, a fixed value to what I've done, I can't be bothered to finish anything. There's no point to it. No one's going to notice, so why bother? I don't feel good about anything I do. I don't feel any real sense of accomplishment. No job is well-done, because it's supposed to be well-done. It's supposed to be perfect. So either it is, and I've done it the way it's supposed to be done or I haven't, and I've failed. There's nothing outstanding about anything that I do. It's either adequate, or it isn't. And you don't get cookies for doing it the way you were supposed to. I mean, you were SUPPOSED to do it that way. Why should you get a prize for doing it merely correctly?

I know I got that from my parents, for whom 6 A+'s and an A was a failure (it should have been 7 A+'s), but what I don't know and don't understand is how to change it. I don't know how to rethink it so that I actually believe it. I know that 6 A+'s and an A is a damned good job. I recognize that. I understand there are others who would be thrilled with it. I know it's adequate. But it isn't outstanding. It isn't perfect. And above all else, it has to be perfect. Perfect is the only thing to be proud of. It's expected. But knowing that's fucked up and grokking that it's fucked up are two very different things. And try as I might, I just can't grok it. Nor can I grok that I am enough. Or ever will be enough. That I am loved and loveable and all that crap that goes with a healthy sense of id or well-being or whatever the fuck it is that comes out of parents who tuck you in at night and say good job and whisper I love you and don't freeze you out or kick the crap out of you for no apparent reason. There's a hole inside of me that I've been trying to fill up for 36 years, but it just keeps getting deeper, and I don't know what to put into it to make it stop. I can't even see the bottom. I told myself for so long that someday I'd be able to fill it, that someday someone would love and cherish me and think I hung the moon, but that never happened, and now, I realize that it never will. Because that person does not exist. That's a herculean task of epic proportions that no human being could ever achieve, especially with me unable to feel any of it for myself. I thought that when I got out of my parents' house, everything would change. I thought I'd find someone who would love me for who and what I already was, and that we would have kids and build a life and this big, bright, shining, beautiful sunlit future, full of green grass and white clapboard walls, sparkling waters, and big, bounding dogs. There would be parties and gatherings and celebrations and all this happy shit that apparently exists only in the realm of Hollywood. I'd have this great career and a husband I adored who adored me, and shiny, happy kids with skateboards and basketballs and too many friends always underfoot, and it would be this great, wonderful, happy life, and finally, finally, I would be loved and happy.

I failed to realize that the problem with someday is that it's always out there. Somewhere else. Out of reach. And *now* isn't working out so well for me. I don't know how to work with now. Now was never an option. Now always sucked, was always too painful to occupy. But it's all I've got, isn't it? Only I don't get it. I don't understand it. It really may as well be string theory or space is a sphere, or any other Hawkingesque concept, because it's just that easy for me to operate under. I get the now, I just don't get making it work. You can't live in a moment forever, because time goes on. What I don't understand and can't make work is how to get from one moment to the next. Time jumps from lilypad to lilypad. It doesn't flow. And I don't know how to incorporate it into me, so that in this moment, I can be enough and understand that I can't always be perfect, and that life sometimes passes you by, but that doesn't mean there's not something to be found in every moment, just the same. There's nothing out there that isn't already in here with me. I know that.

So why the fuck can't I feel it?

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