I was watching movies on TV last night, starting with Shrek 3. I remembered this one strikingly, just as I remember most of the movies that came out between 2005-07 while I worked in a cinema complex. I remember barging in at the end of that animation movie as the end credits kept going but all the customers had left, and together with my co-workers we'd start dancing in the dark to the music. We danced to Shrek, but my favorite one was always Snakes on a Plane's end tune. My... How much I danced in the dark to that music playing... Some of my co-workers were even clued up enough to warn me every time a showing of that movie was about to end, just so I could indulge in my crazy outbursts. Actually... I once started dancing to it while a few customers had remained seated (you always get the few who just won't leave till the thing is completely over) and only realised that when they started clapping their hands.
The way I got that little job was odd in terms of timing. I had just graduated from university with a law degree I had no idea what to do with, and I was still immersed deep in depression. I had spent the summer behaving mostly like a zombie when I wasn't out and about with a 'bad' friend who happened to be even more fucked up than I was at the time (we'd met in group therapy...)... This period of my life is such a blur in my head, but let's try to remember for a second. I had just turned 22, I was deeply depressed, I wasn't eating either. I started group therapy at the hospital, where this girl approached me. She kind of was my nemesis in terms of personality. She wasn't the zombie type of depression intent on quietly dying in her corner (ie: ME), she was more the borderline personality disorder type who would savagely go into full-blown self-destruction mode. And she approached me... I felt so listless at the time that her bursts of energy and endless streams of ideas to pass the time allured me.
I started hanging around in her flat more and more often during that summer... By the way, has anyone ever tried to have lunch with eating-disordered people? It's quite funny when I look back on it now. Though there's only a salad bowl of lettuce and chopped tomatoes in front of them, the way they look at the food is like facing the most evil of invisible foes. Then there is the unspoken 'rivalry' between people, meaning that even though you're already eating little more than wind, you would rather die than be seen eating one piece of lettuce more than the other person. Since I hated home life at the time, I was rather relieved to be able to go to this new friend's place all the time... Every night she would have a plan that involved pub crawls, meeting complete strangers and making up stories of all sorts. No matter how drunk I got, I remember always staying shyly in my corner while she went on flirting with guys, and on the way back to her flat I would go sleep off the hangover in the spare room while she 'entertained' her company in her bedroom. I became her quiet companion of debauchery who never took part in it but merely observed around me. Sometimes my lack of interest in pointless flirting and picking up strangers in bars frustrated her and she would lash out on me, reminding me how clueless I was in general, especially as far as sex was concerned. To be fair, I was way too depressed to care whatever anyone said at the time.
Our 'friendship' ended by the end of that summer, when she fell pregnant by a random guy she had met the night before. She went straight for an abortion, but I think when she learned she was actually pregnant with twins (she was a twin herself, so it ran in her family) that really messed with her mind further. Her parents convinced her to leave London for a while to try and sort herself out, and the last time I heard from her she was studying to become a... therapist. Oh, and she was going out with a guy who worked in a circus.
Anyway... right after that, I got that little job and it happened to be exactly what I needed. It wasn't the job itself (alone, it would have made me more depressed than anything) but the people who worked there at the time.
When I was done watching Shrek, I watched Ps: I love You. I'd never seen it, but that movie made me think about some things further... I don't know what it is, but for the past few weeks I've been watching far more movies than usual, but not just watching... My mind is literally analysing every word and scene I watch. I think it's trying to pick up on clues as to how to be a mainstream person within society.
It's all so stupid, really. I was not brought up in the same way as all these people out there. I was never taught social cues, let alone how one is supposed to do anything in this so-called world. Add to that the fact that I happen to be very abstract by nature and what you get is this shadow of a person (me) feeling like she just landed from Mars. Now, if my mother had been more clued up herself, she would have naturally passed on to me that ability to fit in (even just to pretend) and understand the dynamics of society as it stands and within which we must live, but that wasn't the case at all. And there was never anyone else to teach me these things. These things you people take for granted, by the way.
I'm not complaining here... But it'a shame. Why? Because I find myself unable to 'use' whatever things I know or happen to be good at in a way that society would understand or value.
Another thing that's quite sad: I had a beautiful upbringing and there never was anything wrong or flawed with me (even the depression and disorder were an exploration more than genuine illness, which is why I snapped out of it overnight) but the way society works... is to break everything that starts out pure and good to suck it all in as part of the machine.
That's all, really. No more trips back in time. Good day, good night,
Bye.
Bye.
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