I, Forget

“…I was always bursting with vanity. I, I, I is the refrain of my whole life.”

- from “The Fall” by Albert Camus

The nearness of December arrives with a wave of depression. This depression is a less familiar one, one that takes a retreat to writing.

D.’s Qatar project at work is seemingly insurmountable, and that’s just on top of the most intricate details she’s patching up for the wedding. We didn’t have that much disposable income or financial resources. It scares me to think of what people expect, that no matter how carefully we decide there will always be wicked tongues nagging.

The world doesn’t always repay kindness in equal terms.

My pledge was to keep a positive outlook for D. I want to take all her sadness, all her worries, and make them mine alone. I want her to continue to think that the wedding is a beautifully conceived process. I’m probably not helping with that recently. Sometimes all my meddling with the details makes everything twice as difficult.

All of a sudden, I ran out of positive scripting for myself. In this moment of weakness, my zeal to stay optimistic simply waned.

This sadness is a reminder and a remainder of my selfishness. Because I’m thinking of myself again. You’re only lonely when you think of yourself. Specifically, if you think of yourself alone. When you remember that you are that lonely island. I have to make D. happy
because my own happiness is hers.

Overcoming selfishness is a lot of overcoming. There’s just going to be a lot more trepidation, embarrassment – if I tell D. that I no longer think of myself solely. She’ll probably just laugh that off.

All this selfishness and sadness took on a different degree when I ran this morning. Running in my own homemade void makes me think clearly. During December, I even expect an air of holiday cheer to brush against me. But with all other things I couldn’t remove from my mind, this morning’s run was just a sad waltz with the wind.

One selfish thing begets another. It looms you further into your own infernal circles. You’ve got to snap out of it before you drown.

Some writers and some existentialists are in their own form of self-absorption, the kind that results to poor fiction or lousy philosophizing that ultimately denies truth, reality, aesthetics and
life-affirmation. If it were coffee it would taste nothing but artificial. When you’re drinking it, you know, none of it is real. Strawberry fields. Nothing is real.

I understand it now. You are just the loose change you rummage in your pockets. Forget your leftover self.