Sublime

But then something would snap, some uncontrollable process would kick in, and all of a sudden it would be two or three hours later and I’d be on my sixth or tenth or God knows what glass of wine, and I’d be plastered. I couldn’t account for it, couldn’t explain it, couldn’t even rationalize it, although I struggled mightily to. I seemed to get drun

There’s a good chance I would’ve had a complete and public mental breakdown by this point. I’d still be deeply unhappy and severely mentally unhealthy. I look at the words again. Brave, kind, loyal, sweet, loving, graceful… I shake my head. I don’t cry. The Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” starts playing from the sad man’s stereo. I stand up

I am susceptible to frivolity. I know this about myself. I love beauty; I am weak to surfaces; I am apt to mistake eccentricity for character. I drink more than I should. I love overdressing; I love staying up past midnight; I love breakfasts at all-night diners, and the Irish coffees you order when you can’t decide whether it’s night or morning.

After the thrill of independence and experiments in self-actualization, drinking your so-called “potential for Being” to the dregs, when the exhaustion starts to set in and then eventually morphs into a kind of self-disgust, you can reach a point where you know you want a different life but are enchained to the one you’ve made.

THE ALIENATION IS real. The sense of frustration, futility, of never arriving, never feeling settled with ourselves—these are not figments of the imagination to be papered over with pious assertions of homecoming.

I feel small, like I’ve been beaten down by the city. My outings have been fruitless. I have none of the things that connect me to my life lived in Margate or my mum – only my belly button, and the little scar on my neck – and I have no food. In the dark, my stomach rumbles loudly.