I haven’t been able to write in a long time. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve started and stopped sporadically, writing with urgency for a short time, staring into space, abandoning the urge. These pieces have so far not made it onto the blog. I’m not quite sure what they’re saying.
Things are not exactly okay with me, though they’re not exactly not okay either, if by saying, “not okay” I conjure visions of ledges and medical intervention. But, I’m not entirely okay. That’s just a fact of life for me right now. The last few months have been rough, raw, emotional, chaotic, without precedent and in the midst of all the shit just happening, it’s hard to know what to say, or, even how to say anything at all. In the sprawling feeling you get when your life shifts drastically, there are no edges to write up against. There is nothing by which to measure a feeling of okayness.
And yet, this is what those who care about me seem to need most of all. Out of my silence, they need reassurance that I am okay. This is the question, the desire: are you okay? You seem to be okay. I hope you’re okay… And, of course, I am okay, which is to say, I’m functional, getting out of bed, eating fairly regularly, exercising a little, appearing to the outside world as a capable human person. For me, so far, there has been no option outside of this kind of okay, though sometimes it seems like a little bit of crazy, a binge with the unhinged, an experiment with my life as a John Waters movie would be cathartic. Instead, for me, all that is not okay seeps into the unspoken: an inability to concentrate, a sense of humour worn through, chronic rumination over the loses that have come before, my unwillingness to tolerate banality, pettiness or superficiality, above all my need for vast tracts of empty space and time, long walks through winter suburbs.
