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salixbabylonI've been unreasonably exhausted lately and not wanting to do anything, and finally last night I realized that, DUH, this is how I feel when I'm having another round of depression. So I guess I'm depressed. Blech.
I've been reading a real physical book lately, Dorothy Sayers' "Gaudy Night." Usually her mysteries are somewhat lighthearted and witty fun, but this one has made me think an awful lot about the mind versus the heart, and determining one's true passion and life's work...
It's probably not helping that a year ago this week, my marriage hit the most major problem it's ever faced and almost fell apart. It didn't, and we worked things out, and I dare say our relationship is much better than it was over the last couple of years, since I was ignoring a lot of problems... It was odd to think of splitting up though, since we've been together since I was 20 -- those are a fairly dramatic 11 years to have made it through.
Yet I've always felt somewhat torn. Like if I'm meant to be a writer, I should live alone, in a flat in the city, and be depressed and gothy and have lots of meaningless affairs and hot sex and my heart broken at every turn. Isn't that what being a writer is, for a woman? Virginia Woolf meets Dorothy Parker?
Yet I've always also felt like it's part of my life's work to be married. To live in partnership, to learn compromise and think of another's well-being, to be less selfish and yet true to myself. A vocation, which I have always taken as seriously as I would have taken Holy Orders or some such, had I remained Catholic.
And yet how pathetic is that, in this day and age, to think that it's part of my life's "work" to be MARRIED? How can I consider myself a feminist at all and feel that way? Yet it feels like that's an entirely intellectual contradiction, not at all an emotional one. I don't feel all women should be married, and I think I would feel the same way if I were a man. (If I were a man and still me, that is, which is probably unlikely, since we are products of our environment, and I would not have had anywhere near the same life experiences as a male.)
And what the hell am I doing with my life anyway? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing?
Three eternal questions that have been plaguing me for the last decade or more. And still no answers. What brings me pleasure and a sense of rightness? Writing. Living as part of a couple.
It's hard to believe that life could be so full of misery and angst and personal trivial pains and traumas and not have any point. And yet, what point do other people's lives have to me? Do a few lines of their scholarly writing, poetry, or novels really matter? Make a difference in my life? Sometimes... Sometimes not.
And poetry and art... aren't those really so subjectively personal that they don't mean anything? Mine never feels like anyone else could ever understand it or know what it means, and I'll be damned if I'm going to open my veins and explain it to them. Writing is different though... To make others think, to make them feel, even if it's only to titillate and amuse, is at least something.
Maybe.
Circles, it's all just circles, like my dog tramping down the wild undergrowth only to discover it's plush carpeting and it didn't matter what he did to it before he laid(lay?) down.
Now I can't even remember proper grammar.
Blech.
I've been reading a real physical book lately, Dorothy Sayers' "Gaudy Night." Usually her mysteries are somewhat lighthearted and witty fun, but this one has made me think an awful lot about the mind versus the heart, and determining one's true passion and life's work...
It's probably not helping that a year ago this week, my marriage hit the most major problem it's ever faced and almost fell apart. It didn't, and we worked things out, and I dare say our relationship is much better than it was over the last couple of years, since I was ignoring a lot of problems... It was odd to think of splitting up though, since we've been together since I was 20 -- those are a fairly dramatic 11 years to have made it through.
Yet I've always felt somewhat torn. Like if I'm meant to be a writer, I should live alone, in a flat in the city, and be depressed and gothy and have lots of meaningless affairs and hot sex and my heart broken at every turn. Isn't that what being a writer is, for a woman? Virginia Woolf meets Dorothy Parker?
Yet I've always also felt like it's part of my life's work to be married. To live in partnership, to learn compromise and think of another's well-being, to be less selfish and yet true to myself. A vocation, which I have always taken as seriously as I would have taken Holy Orders or some such, had I remained Catholic.
And yet how pathetic is that, in this day and age, to think that it's part of my life's "work" to be MARRIED? How can I consider myself a feminist at all and feel that way? Yet it feels like that's an entirely intellectual contradiction, not at all an emotional one. I don't feel all women should be married, and I think I would feel the same way if I were a man. (If I were a man and still me, that is, which is probably unlikely, since we are products of our environment, and I would not have had anywhere near the same life experiences as a male.)
And what the hell am I doing with my life anyway? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing?
Three eternal questions that have been plaguing me for the last decade or more. And still no answers. What brings me pleasure and a sense of rightness? Writing. Living as part of a couple.
It's hard to believe that life could be so full of misery and angst and personal trivial pains and traumas and not have any point. And yet, what point do other people's lives have to me? Do a few lines of their scholarly writing, poetry, or novels really matter? Make a difference in my life? Sometimes... Sometimes not.
And poetry and art... aren't those really so subjectively personal that they don't mean anything? Mine never feels like anyone else could ever understand it or know what it means, and I'll be damned if I'm going to open my veins and explain it to them. Writing is different though... To make others think, to make them feel, even if it's only to titillate and amuse, is at least something.
Maybe.
Circles, it's all just circles, like my dog tramping down the wild undergrowth only to discover it's plush carpeting and it didn't matter what he did to it before he laid(lay?) down.
Now I can't even remember proper grammar.
Blech.
