manic me

people whose best hope for a connection to other human beings lay in elaborating for themselves an elegiac mode of relatedness, as if everyone's life were already over.
-- fragment from russell banks' affliction, quoted from a story from adam haslett's you are not a stranger here 'my father's business'.

if only life's like that. a current read, it might be so good you can feel emotionally involved with the characters, you can still spend your time with them, but you have nothing to do with their faith. you're only an outsider, with perspectives over what you are reading. and then you'd come to the end of the book, and goes on with your own life.

there are times when i'm just tired of being me. not that i'm not familiar with the grief, or the numbness, in fact i'm getting used to it. but it only takes a look into the mirror for me to realize i've become what i had (at least tried) avoided to be. at times, i browsed through my mostly visceral experiences, tried to appreciate them, as one would suggest. i should be grateful, i know, for what i've been through shaped me into what i am today. but then again, i'm questioning myself right now, this is not the person that i was supposed to be.

i'm afraid i'm drowning deeper. i'm afraid i've blithely lost orientation of what deep water am i in. and my frenzied energy will become useless.

do you know what i need? i need to stop thinking. yes. and maybe stop looking into my reflection too. and i won't worry too much about my life again. or my existence.