Into the void...

2004-08-16

8:29 p.m.

I cannot even begin to express how incredibly busy I have been lately. I was recently promoted into a new job here in the office. This is a huge promotion. Unfortunately, I can’t go into too many details here, but let’s just say it’s a huge promotion that is keeping me so busy that I keep forgetting to eat, drink, and pee throughout the day. Training is so strenuous that I’ve practically forgotten my name by the time I get home because all the new stuff pushed all the old stuff out of my brain.

Then I get home, and it’s time for homework. Add to that a houseguest, periodontal surgery, painkillers, pain, a five day trip to the beach (during which I still couldn’t eat many solid foods), a conference with my summer writing instructor, and shopping for family birthday presents, and you can begin to see why I haven’t been able to update recently.

Apologies.

So, believe it or not, this is the absolute first free moment I’ve had for writing in my journal for way too long. No meaningless excuses. When people say they’re too busy for stuff, they’re never this busy. I’ve never seen anyone this busy. I’m so busy that I’ve had to cancel appointments with the therapist because I just can’t fit it in.

As you may imagine, that makes me feel just great.

The funny thing is, though, that the busier I am, the more stressed out I feel, the more I accomplish, the more I feel like I’m doing with my life; it all spirals into this conglomeration of strange paradoxes where I’m too stressed out to enjoy anything, yet simultaneously too glad to be accomplishing stuff.

It’s impossible to stop.

I’ve always known that sometimes I do best when I’m overwhelmed with work. It seems the more that’s demanded of me, the more I achieve. The only problem arises when the stress overcomes me and I end up losing control of my energies. And this is more likely to happen when the increased amount of stuff to do adds to my tendency to forget to refill my prescriptions. I’m learning so much and accomplishing so much that I’m forgetting everything else. Once something is accomplished, it’s like I never saw it in the first place. You can talk to me about something you just saw me finish, and I’ll stare at you like you’re speaking Greek.

Speaking of Greek, the Olympics are on again. Christ, I love the Olympics. I don’t know exactly what it is about the Olympics that has always made me feel a certain hopefulness that I can’t experience anywhere else. Watching the Olympics reminds me of when I was a kid taking gymnastics lessons. I wanted to be Mary Lou Retton like you wouldn’t believe. And it wasn’t one of those latent daydreams that most people have about actually becoming the best in the world.

I was convinced.

There is something intriguing about people so passionate about what they do that they can’t bear to live without it. They’ll endure just about anything to be part of the Olympics. I wanted that. I wanted that moment on the podium when the whole world knows I won.

All I wanted to be was best in the world.

Once I outgrew gymnastics, I started thinking I could be a figure skater. For years, I did everything I could to convince my parents that I needed to be a figure skater. But the problem was always that no one could see how intensely I wanted things. I didn’t want to be “just a singer,” either. I wanted to be a household name. I wanted to change the world.

Look how much my world has changed.

This is the first time in quite a while that I’ve been able to appreciate the Olympics once again for the pure enjoyment of watching someone’s face when they’re surprised to win the gold medal. For a long time, I couldn’t handle the fact that other people were experiencing the one thing I wanted. It was hard to watch that. Now, I wouldn’t even mind losing at the Olympics, so long as I could experience one emotion that intense in my entire life. One absolute win or loss is all I ask.

But there are no absolutes.

It doesn’t matter how much I want something. It doesn’t matter how intensely I feel things. People will never believe it’s stronger than what they feel. And I’m starting to wonder if I should try and respect that a little more. My argument has always been that I experience emotions so strong that they literally send me falling to the floor. How can you say you feel things that strongly if you don’t likewise fall to the floor? How can you say you feel as much as I do if you don’t turn bright red and start shaking and lose your voice and feel your throat closing off your breath?

And yet I’ll never know what Olympians know.

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