Your Ex-Lover is Dead

I spent today – literally the whole day, from 9am to midnight – watching movies with John in an attempt to prepare for writing this screenplay we’re working on. We watched The Weather Man, Sideways, Tadpole, Clerks, Clerks II, Everything is Illuminated, and Lucas, in that order. The core theme of the story is the idea of what we make of our potential – do we relentlessly pursue the greatness we are capable of, or do we shrug off any onus of responsibility for how our lives turn out? Afterward, we discussed things we liked and disliked about the seven films we’d just watched, and used that as a starting point to get into ideas for our own story. I am really excited about starting this project, and I feel like I might finally be making progress toward living up to some of my own potential.

Things have been so heavy lately. I got back on my meds, which always makes me feel a little weird at first, but now I’m feeling much more stable emotionally. I’m drinking less than I was the past month or so, but I guess I do still get drunk more often than I’d like to admit. I’m socializing, I got a job (at Banana Republic – it pays the bills), I’m feeling more outgoing and productive than I have in over a year, but at the end of the day when I’m going to bed, I still feel struck by a sense of metallic hollowness. I still feel so unhappy with myself: I hate my appearance; I have next to no self-worth; I still have little sense of any significant purpose. I am utterly unsatisfied with myself, my life, and everything that has led me to this point. I think too much about things, I recognize that, but I am sometimes just so appalled by the person I see in the mirror that I can hardly take it.

So, with watching all these movies, I am supposed to be brainstorming about the characters and the story we are about to create. But when I visualize the protagonist in his shitty town, living his shitty, stupid, meaningless life, repeatedly failing at the few things he ever even bothers to attempt and sabotaging the even fewer things that do miraculously go well for him, the person I imagine is not some fictional loser – it is me. Just me, the perfect fit for a story about a guy who’s so caught up in his own ennui over the inability to find meaning and purpose that he never even attempts to create something meaningful where maybe there was nothing before.

“Hi, my name is Jay, and I’m a huge fucking loser. I am so indifferent toward the state of my own life that I am ostensibly content to be merely an observer of the events which comprise it.”

Hoo-boy.

I recently mailed Emily (who, I assume, will probably read this – hi, Emily) a letter to say that I hope she is well, Seattle is great, and, oh yeah, please don’t ever talk to me again. For some reason I don’t even really understand, I wrote out the lyrics to Eef Barzelay’s “Lose Big” on the back of the envelope right before putting it in the mailbox. I think it’s because I think about Emily every time I hear it, and I have been listening to it so much lately. I guess I just wanted her to know the words to it, even if she never hears the song. The line which makes my heart pause every time I hear it is the one that goes:

Some girl told me last night,
she found my rhythms so tight.
I swear she only bought me one or two -
I told her all about you.

Every interaction we’ve had since… well, since our trip around Europe, I guess, has felt painful and awkward. Part of me still loves her, and I can’t imagine that ever not being true. But part of me – a small part – simply hates and resents her, both for what she did to me (dumping me, breaking my heart, the standard procedure) and also for what she represents: my unfailing ability to repeatedly fuck up my life. Ever since her big revelation in Ireland that she could already see the day when we would break up, every conversation, whether in person, by email, or on the phone, has just reminded me of the pain of being held at arm’s length by the person you want to be closest to.

And now she has some new boy, a stupid beardface dickhead musician. And while, when I am being rational, I truly do not spite her happiness with beardface dickhead, I sometimes do hope that he makes her miss me. That being with him reminds her that I was smarter or funnier or somehow better, and that it makes her regret breaking up with me. I hope he has a tiny dick and their sex is unsatisfying and she cries herself to sleep because she loved me but she just fucks him.

I have all these confusing, painful emotions toward her, but, ultimately, I want to move on. I don’t want to dwell on the horrible, drawn-out ending of our relationship, nor do I even want to fondly remember all the wonderful, happy experiences we had together. I just want to remember what it’s like to feel happy for some reason other than because I remembered to take my meds that morning.

It’s time to nut up and follow through on all my big talk about making something of my life. The hardest part is remembering that I have to do this for me, because it’s what I want. Not because I’m trying to impress or spite anyone else. It’s just hard to remember why what I want matters.

On the day that I forget you, I hope my heart explodes.