The one thing I don\’t feel like doing is anything I ought to be doing.
I spent, oh, four or five years of my life fairly well socially isolated, going weeks at a time without verbally speaking to anyone other than a doctor, cashier, or occasional family member. After four days alone (three days having had no \”need\” to leave the apartment building, and so I haven\’t) here in isolation, I understand completely why I had imaginary friends up through the age of 22. It wasn\’t because I had severe narcissitic personality disorder, which caused me to live in a fantasy world where I reigned supreme. No — every time I found myself in a position where I was able to be near other people, those imaginary friends disappeared. I didn\’t talk to the vapours because I was a babbling lunatic; I talked to the vapours because I was just that fucking lonely.
To other people, the obvious solution would be to just go out and make some real flesh and blood friends. To a painfully shy, physically gimpy, incredibly broke person (who at the time also had no means of transportation as another hinderance), that \”obvious\” solution becomes not just another obstacle to overcome in life, but a reason to hate going out. Life is set up for social events to revolve around commercial ventures, which require transportation to get to, which require money for transport, which require being able to work, which require having a body that can keep up with the grind.
So I substituted. I did the best I could. I had friendships through the internet, many of whom I got to see in person one way or another. Brief visits, here and there. I set about teaching myself some internet skillz in the hopes that one day it would enable me to have a real job (it hasn\’t). I concentrated on being plugged in almost 24/7 and learned a hell of a lot. Books and music have been the physically comforting friends I didn\’t have. And I enjoyed it, I guess. For the past few years I often remember those times fondly as days when I could spend as much time as I wanted listening to just one album, or with my nose buried in a book, or sprawled at the computer, with no one to break my intense reverie. I would long for that, particularly when there is too much chaos in my current life to be able to concentrate for very long at a time.
But now, here I am, and I have my wish. I\’m four days into my solitude and I have five days left, and you know what? I am as bored as hell. Truly fucking out of my skull bored bored bored. I find it hard to believe that I managed to survive in such an isolated manner for five years. The past three years have been non-stop social butterfly in comparison, and it often leaves me feeling drained. Just because I live with one other person (for two months of the year, two other people)! That leaves me feeling exhausted and like I don\’t like people and don\’t want to be around them. Like being around people in my home has filled my people quota for the day, and I don\’t want anymore exposure or my brain will fry. As it is, my productivity level drastically fell once beginning to cohabitate two years ago. So I thought that having a week and a half off would be a godsend. Ha! For the first two days it was great, and now I feel the strong desire to hurl my books and my laptop off our 10th floor balcony and find someone to go jump around with.
I miss the physical touch. I hadn\’t realized how much I rely on Dr. Maude\’s body. It\’s been great having the whole bed to myself and all, but when I\’m sore, I need that six feet of hot blood to curl up next to. It\’s a body sized heating pad. Even better is when he takes his full 150lbs and just lays them down on top of me — splat — and watches tv or something for an hour. It\’s warm, and it\’s pressure but not too much, just enough to restimulate the sore spots.
Worst of all is there\’s no one here to giggle at me and call me \”Germaine\” when I splay myself out on the sofa and act like a corpse. There\’s no one here to have fun with my jiggly butt with me! There\’s no one here to tell me my Bio Freeze is making them high from the fumes, or that I\’m Ambiened out. There\’s no one belching like a school boy, there\’s no dirty socks to clean up after. There\’s no incessant Aussie Rules on the tv to argue about turning off. There\’s no one to curl up with and watch Doctor Who, and last night\’s was such a good one. There\’s no one to bother at 1:30 in the morning with a sudden query of \”Do you think ethics and the law in the USA should be allowed to further coalesce when ethics are influenced by religion and church and state are supposed to be separated? Hey, are you awake? Wake up, I\’m trying to talk to you.\”
I guess what I\’m trying to say is — and I\’ve never been good with that mushy, gushy, romancey sort of thing — is that I miss you, Dr. Maude. Get your fucking ass home, already.
