jem on jém

[ENTRY 017]

terminal\user\jem\journal

Frances: I'm so embarrassed. I'm not a real person yet.
...
Andy: So what do you do?
Frances: Eh... It's kinda hard to explain.
Andy: Because what you do is complicated?
Frances: Eh... Because I don't really do it.
...
Frances: It's that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It's sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don't have the ability to perceive them. That's - That's what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess.

There are a lot of different ways to skin this particular entry.

For one, it’s my first late entry. The streak is finally broken, which may have bothered me to death in the past, but not now. In its place, what bothers me is the coming back. Returning with what should be a very good reason for missing an entry, or else I have lost my right to weekly introspection.

So then, a weird pressure builds out of nowhere to over-deliver to myself. The thought of turning twenty-three was supposed to change how I write. Even in the moment where, of course, I knew that wouldn't be the case… it felt like it would… for no good reason? Either organically or perceived as such, as if the matter was controlled by some invisible, omniscient puppet master. In true ‘me’ fashion, I pushed the responsibility off to something that wasn’t me.

I’ve found the most intrusive incision of all is what’s going on up here. How a corrosive wildfire of influence has been waged across my inner sanctuary. I see labels long past their expiration date. The ripening of fruit on my pantry shelf and the mould on my Greek yogurt, stuffed in the back of the fridge. ‘Activity’ becomes ‘Idle’ becomes ‘Playing with others’ becomes ‘Listening to Spotify’ on a monitor. I relearn how to colour grade on YouTube videos ten hours after my roommate wakes up to go to work. Thousands of kilometres away, my sister discovers her birthplace and heritage surrounded by a side of our family that hasn’t seen her in twenty-five years, while I close the blinds and fall into an afternoon nap. I unlock all the door bolts on myself and risk being known even partially through the gap for just a moment. I buy eleven-dollar beers to feel a little better with normies (non-derogatory) as I piece together new lore to later forget on a freezing, twenty-minute walk to a bus stop in the dark, periodically looking for a tree to urinate behind that isn’t on private property.

I’m a ‘beautiful person’ and the hope is that I’ll realise it, I’m told through an awfully sweet and conclusive text. And I truly believe it, to a reasonable point. Sooner or later, the withdrawals I’m having from the frequent self-love injections grow beyond something negligible, and I’m forced to contend with that less-than-forgiving other half.

Enter Frances Ha, I guess. I haven’t seen it since before starting uni, and although I always found it incredibly charming and deeply emotionally resonant in parts, I see it with different and older eyes, and now it's more prescient than before.

I’d argue Frances is one of the biggest losers in film, and I think that’s why I relate to her so much right now. Not to say I could even begin to deliver a globally recognised unit of measurement that quantifies her unbelievably candid on-screen presence, but I feel a kinship. In her enduring rolls against life’s endless punches, her spontaneous spending, those weird vocal ticks or unique behaviours or specific lines that can only be quoted or expressed when you’re with somebody for so long… but most of all in her longing to be understood. How succinctly (or not) she’s able to put feelings into words versus how they come out in practice, whether in her little white lies or pleading for connection, is what I find so captivating about Greta’s performance. Watching the gradual ripping apart of a bond or place so familiar, with a hard cut to the next thing before you even have a moment to sit with it. Knowing nobody in a room and trying to embrace the not knowing with mixed results. ‘Not having your shit together’, I guess, could my sentiments be so unneatly generalised.

This sucks, because I’ve realised the caveat here is I have romanticised being this loser in the worst ways. Secretly, as if there’s been a deep cover extraction team buried in my skull for years, I’ve learned to revel in some weird and perverted version of being complacent about ‘my current situation,’ when this whole time it’s been masquerading as some profound feeling of righteous acceptance. It’s gross, I hate it, and most of all, it’s been a source of spinning gold in the form of the worst introspective drivel I’ve had the pleasure of typing.

My suffering is in words now, immortalised in digital space, so I’m forgiven – and look – I’m talking about it! Problem solved. Onto the next thought, the next topic, the new problem.

I talk about cycles, or rather think a lot about the cyclical nature of the beliefs people perpetuate, whether consciously or subconsciously. It’s a great framework for at least trying to understand why you’re like that, and I think I have the authority and possess a level of awareness that helps me identify the root causes of most things that plague me. But this pseudo-analysis or method I've adopted is too surgical, cold and unfeeling. It probably shouldn’t be, especially when it’s to do with, y’know, ‘feelings.’

I look back on past entries and see this cycle of winning and losing. ‘I’m sad now, for a little bit, but it’s okay because I’ll be better.’ This, over and over and over again. The horse should be dead at this point, but it neighs its little neigh and continues to clop and… fuckin, whatever. What I think I’m experiencing is something so universal to everyone, yet singular to me. The scope of this self-imposed critiquing of my cyclical suffering, and then a sudden burst of newfound optimism for the future, form patterns of emotion that, in the moment, I feel way too intensely. No matter what point I’m at in the cycle, it’s my hyper awareness of the fact that I’m oscillating between ‘shit’ and ‘okay’ that strips me from feeling anything. In other words, intellectualising my emotions.

The current thinking is: I feel bad for being a loser who has nothing happen to them, who’s been watching as everything and everyone moves without them. I am the end product of someone not learning from their mistakes, making the decision to over-analyse my growth without actually growing, time and time again. And then once a week, I complain about my lot in life and hit publish. There are variations of this, and a spectrum of emotions felt about each different entry, but ultimately, the rigidly assigned milestones are achieved, fulfilling the prophecy.

At times, all this writing makes me feel worse, but it’s better than feeling nothing at all.

I know something needs to change, and never did I feel this more than when I ate lunch yesterday. I came up to my room, set aside my things, sat in my chair and… sat. Thinking, while not eating, for a lifetime of ten minutes. And as each subsequent bite was rewarded with unfeeling nourishment, all I could think about was how pathetic this moment in time was, and how pathetic I was for thinking it was pathetic. The fact that I could take something so innocuous and innocent, astral project out of my own body, and treat a normal routine with such unrestrained contempt… It’s a reminder of a cruelty I harbour but could only exercise upon myself.

This is what playing the dangerous, unending comparison-making simulator does to a motherfucker. I can have my self-awareness skill tree fully maxed, understand I’m only seeing what people want me to see or what they don’t bother to conceal, and still find living a gruelling pain to endure. I’ve adopted such a brain-dead, hypermasculine approach to coping without realising it, or confronting it. I don’t have some Batman-level willpower moderating my emotions with a measured stoicism and calm reaction to every action. I bury shit I’ve killed with a gun and hope to never talk about it to anyone, because what would be the point in that?

I want to be everywhere but not with me. I want to be a Swiss Army knife to others but never myself. I want to feel the fluctuating highs and lows without each low tanking me to the brink of unbridled sadness every time I face a minor rejection or dent to my perceived character. If I’m in a pretentious film biopic about a generational talent, I feel I’m constantly treading in that awkward space between the second and third act. But I have no memory of what happened before then, nor can I make out what happens to me later, and thus there is no catharsis for me. Just existing in a moment where I may or may not feel bad about things, but only just starting to realise that maybe I can turn things around. But I don’t. It’s just pompous Oscar bait.

Ordinarily, I’d end with a conclusive beat. Sometimes I overshoot the whole fucking thing and insert a studio-mandated happy ending to appease general audiences. From no such notes will I be acting on that kind of feedback this week. I want to sit in this, whatever it is, and realise what I’ve done later. Come back, pick up the pieces, regroup, mobilise, whatever. There will be a next time, and it won’t come a week late.

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