Self Pity / The Hours

One of those nights again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. No, I do know, but that doesn’t help.

I do know where this unsociable character comes from, I can trace its roots. But how does that help?

I thought I was doing so well. Chatting up everyone on the trip. And then tonight.

Am I being hard on myself? Does it really matter? If it doesn’t then why does it feel so strongly that it does.

There is no one right now that I feel like being with. Not my best friend, not my husband. Not even the unknown perfect stranger. Just want to be with me.

I feel so inadequate. Why does the world place such a high premium on talk?

And it’s not just the superficial who do. Some deep thinker said ‘Speak so I can see you.’.

Damn. I should be way over this by now. I’m 27 for Chrissake.

It should be simple. Why is it such a big deal?

Anyway no point dwelling.
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My favourite bit from ‘The Hours’:

She and Sally bought all these things, she can remember every transaction, but she feels now that they are arbitrary, the spigot and the counter and the pots, the white dishes. They are only choices, one thing and then another, yes or no, and she sees how easily she could slip out of this life – these empty and arbitrary comforts. She could simply leave it and return to her other home, where neither Sally nor Richard exist: where there is only the essence of Clarissa, a girl grown into a woman, still full of hope, still capable of anything. It is revealed to her that all her sorrow and loneliness, the whole creaking scaffold of it, stems simply from pretending to live in this apartment among these objects, with kind, nervous Sally, and that if she leaves she’ll be happy, or better than happy. She’ll be herself. She feels briefly, wonderfully alone, with everything ahead of her.

-------- The Hours, Michael Cunningham