greetings from lake lachrymose!

The thing about the cruise ship that is my interior life is that I never know ahead of time which event I’ll be attending. One day, I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go but my own emotional gala. Another day and I find I’m at some suburban coffee klatch, chatting amongst my selves while we all talk over one another’s sentences and refuse the pound cake (only to eventually succumb to its buttery vixen wiles). Still another, and I’m at a frat party, downing body shots with abandon. On any given Monday, I’m at an inner wake, dressed in fetching black and mourning…something. On any Wednesday afternoon, I’m at a tea, all sedate and crumpet-eating. Outside, it might be raining, but inside I might be entertaining. There’s no rhyme or reason or invitation in my emo life.

Lately, and for a long and completely understandable time, I’ve been attending a drawn out pity party. It’s been necessary, this Mad-hatter’s tea of patheticism. I’ve moved my way down the seats of the seemingly endless table, surrounded by the scraps and orts of my lingering feelings for my X and metaphorical china cups ringed by the vestiges of something that was once comforting and warm and now is cold, congealing and faintly repulsive. There’s been a lot of self-pity and frankly, I have laved myself in it. I lost a lot, and loss requires mourning and yadda yadda yadda cookies.

Then, suddenly, there was a break in the party. I thought I saw the last of my pity guests as they sloped sullenly out the door. The tail of Eeyore. The grey skirt of Emma Bovary. The metal clunking of Marvin the Robot. I thought I’d courteously shoved them out the door, goodie bags in hand (a package of Kleenex, a sample-pack of Xanax, a copy of Eat, Pray, Love) and bid them a not unsentimental adieu. I thought that with the tender pop and bang of my 2,500 mile booty call my pity party had ended.

Not so much. In the past few days I’ve found myself once more surrounded by the disco dirge of lament. I have found myself once more on my couch in the classic “woman weeping on fainting couch” pose: body flung like laundry, legs curled in an S, arms folded origami-like under face. I have been that woman on the couch weeping inconsolably and I have heard the slow inexorable crank of the pity party, like the worst sort of French accordion music, start up once more.

I have tried to resist the pull of the increasingly morose Julia, my emotional Cruise Director. I have tried to beg off, and like Amy Winehouse cry, “No! No! No!” as Julia has tugged at my sleeve and led me pity-party-ward. I have tried, and I have failed. Ultimately, I just succumbed to the chthonic beat. I went limp and I wept. A lot, and with Buffy in the background because if I am a geek, I am at least consistent. Nothing has quite the cathartic impact of Buffy’s words to her sister Dawn right before she flings herself into the glowy-red rift between demon dimensions thereby fulfilling her prophecy that death is her gift. “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it,” Buffy tells Dawn. Currently, I’m resisting getting that tattooed on my body.

I’ve been resisting a lot lately. Most recently, I’ve been resisting emailing Donny and telling him something so drippy in bathos I can’t even write it here. I’ve resisted calling him. I’ve resisted emailing him. I’ve resisted and I’ve resisted from one moment to the next. I’ve felt like I can’t live another moment without smelling his scent, and I’ve resisted telling him that. I’ve resisted calling him and telling him that my heart simply will not stop breaking. I’ve resisted every impulse to tell him the truth: that I miss him palpably.

So instead I called him with the news that Snoop Dogg had made a cameo on One Life to Live. Never mind that neither one of us has ever watched a soap opera. Never mind that neither one of us has more than a passing interest in the oeuvre of Mr. Dogg. Never mind that telling Donny this piece of news was tantamount to telling him that I am having a hard time living without him because this piece of news was so pointless as to travel around the bend and become pointed.

No, on second thought, do mind that last bit. Nothing says something like nothing, really, and there’s not a lot less of something than Snoop Dogg on a soap. It’s the kind of bubble that screams when popped.

So greetings from Lake Lachrymose. I’ll be leaving here soon. I think I’ll take up a residence at Chagrin Chateau, where I’ll be staying in disguise. Look for the woman on the couch with the dark glasses, wadded hankie in her hand, and cookie crumbs besprinkling her bodice.

Comments

[J.J. Adler]

Ahhhhh, Lake Lachrymose. I spent a good amount of time there m'self. Look for my initials carved into the trunk of that bent weeping willow nestled in Lovelorn Cove (in the southern part of the lake marked off-limits as a reservoir).

Sounds to me like you're grieving a fair amount, CG. You're certainly not alone in this... one of my officemates spent the better part of four years grieving a breakup before he started dating again. It's some potent stuff, especially if you've managed to fully commit yourself (there's that c word again) to someone only to find that it's not gonna be the ride off into the sunset you'd envisioned. Don't they say that it takes half the time of the relationship's life to get over it? I'm not sure I subscribe to the theory as fact, but the idea holds: you're entitled to grieve the loss, be it of the relationship or of something deeper within yourself.

But enough psychoanalysis from a guy who only knows some you. I'll just end it by saying I know where you're writing from. Eventually, I'm thinking you'll get tired of the lake life, pack your bag, and move on to the next location. Vivacious Villa, perhaps. Or Celebutante City. I hear they know how to make a nice dirty martini there...

[john]

Oh bloody hell, get off the couch and go enjoy a spring afternoon in New York.
Plug into some good soul music -- Aretha perhaps. Be triumphant in your heartache and soak up the beauty. Drench yourself in it and shine!

[chelsea g]

Dude, it's like totally raining outside.

kissykiss,
chelsea g.

[Sabina]

Are you still staying at Lake Lachrymose? I do believe we're neighbors.

[DucatiGuy]

Doesn't sound much fun. But it *does* read like one of the best you've ever written. Congratulations for that, at least.

[b]

Sigh. Yep. It just takes as long as it takes, doesn't it? I have found that the longing for the last man I was truly happy with comes screaming back full force whenever I attempt to enjoy someone new and come up short. The moment the high of a potential new love interest fades, I get plunged right back. The first couple of times this happened, the renewed acute pain blindsided me and made me think it actually meant I should retrace my steps and drag myself through the whole failed relationship mess yet again, looking for loopholes. But after the 3rd or 4th time this happened, I figured out it's just a natural consequence of opening that part of yourself again, even just a little bit, with someone new, and finding another dead end (and most dates do lead to dead ends). It's been getting less powerful each time, but at one year post-breakup, I still find myself sobbing over my ex after coming home from a disappointing date, even after not having shed a tear in weeks. I guess this will keep happening on some level until I'm able to find that kind of happiness and intimacy again with someone else. Until then, it's only natural to miss it and crave it.

[marianne]

I hung out at the Lake for most of a year, and still go back to visit on occasion. At first, I emailed him a few times a week, just to tell him silly things that he didn't in the least need (or want) to know. Then it tapered off to once a week-ish. And then less often. And finally, he wasn't the first one I thought of when I had something pointless to say to someone. That's the turning point. You'll get there.

[Innocent Loverboy]

I once wrote that Buffy quote down for my sister, and she then sent me a text saying, "Be brave, live." Hmmm. That really is rather geeky.

[Loch Nessie]

Lovely post, thank you. And having swum through the depths of the Lake for much of my life, one I can well understand. Thing is, this is the part of life that Buffy finally couldn't bear and which eventually overcomes many of us. Life is always going to offer you far more opportunities to watch your aborted dreams stomped into a slimy mess or, if you want to be pretty, to watch the roots of your little dream seedlings wilt, shrivel and die in the cold. I almost smiled at your anticipation of the sweet invisibility that comes with the loss of youth and beauty; I'm afraid that comes complete with a private cabin at the Lake. Scrape all your poor dead dreams off the sidewalk and gently bury them in the compost heap of your subconscious, go back and turn it over from time to time and smell the rich earthy scent of strength and change. Accept that life is going to bring you more chances to make compost than to savor the roses and green beans nourished thereby - but knowing that, the Lake will become a little too cold, windy and gray for year round residence and you'll come to treasure moving a few miles away from the Lake where there's enough sunlight for a garden. You can always go back and visit. Good luck, hon.

Nessie

[jehanne]

I don't think we can ever really purge ourselves of heartbreak; it just has to become a part of who we are. You described that in a post a while ago as forming a pearl... so spot on, chelsea.
It must be said that I'm a "long time reader, first time commenter"... your greetings from lake lachrymose really resonated with me. My long-time boyfriend and I broke up this past January, and I have since written 87 still growing pages in a Word document to him, also drippy in bathos and pathos.
I guess what I want is to thank you for writing. Reading your pretty dumb things has been so therapeutic for me- it's become the life of my own pity party (and sometimes pity parties must be thrown, especially with good company). I'm so sorry your heart keeps breaking, but you are certainly not alone in such a big city. Your heart will heal with time.

I am tired, Beloved,
of chafing my heart against
the want of you;
of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
-Amy Lowell, "The Letter"

[G]

That would be an awesome tattoo.