Zombie

Aug. 23rd, 2006 04:37 pm
rinue: (Default)
[personal profile] rinue
People whose lives are going badly: please stop. Please stop. Please. Stop.

It's not that I don't love you. I am not without compassion for your pain. But this last hurt was too much for me. This last "I knew this was going to happen, but why did it happen?" This last "I am hurt and will continue to be hurt and why don't you fix it without my needing to change, you're supposed to be smart."

Stop. Please.

There's an economic principle called the Tragedy of the Commons; Alfred Whitehead called it "the remorseless working of things." When property is shared, people take more than they conserve. The need is individual; the cost is everyone's, which means no one's. Together, they graze the sheep until the pasture is gone, pump so much oil in a day that the surrounding wells collapse, force more and more paper through the machine until it falls apart. No one person is especially bad, or mean, or selfish. But everyone is selfish, a little. It adds up.

If you weren't all calling, all hurting, all at the same time; if you could work up a schedule, conserve a little, remember that other people are calling me, hurt.

But you can't. That's not how hurt works. You need me. I understand.

I want to help, but there is no more grass. The well has collapsed. The mechanism is dead. I know I seem to be doing well, that I am a subject of envy, but any joy I had in it is gone. The happiest time in my life, and I am insulated, unable to feel it, dizzy and blank, brain submerged in coedine. I nearly wrecked the car today. I move very slowly because I can't stop shaking. I'd like to say I care whether you get better, but I am numb to it; my ability to feel has broken. Which includes my ability to feel love, to be fully present in the two weeks I have left. You made me leave him early. For that I will never forgive you.

I love you, and I'm sorry. I know you are only taking so much because you need it, because this is the worst time of your life. I am not leaving you. I am still next to you on the road, crumpled, dusty, scraped bloody from pushing myself forward. I went as far as my body could carry me. I'm lying next to you, unable go any further. So please,

stop.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-08-24 12:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] narcolepticcat.livejournal.com
full stop.

would you like me to call you this evening? sometime?

*love*

(no subject)

Date: 2006-08-24 05:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rinue.livejournal.com
Thanks for the offer, but I'm doing okay now - I've been given a sandwich, and cookies, and hugs, and beer. So thumbs up. We do need to get together, though - it's been forever. I'm out of town this weekend, but otherwise relatively schedule-less.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-08-24 05:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] narcolepticcat.livejournal.com
i, too, am out of town this weekend (most likely), but available after midnight any day of the week until the wee hours.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-08-24 03:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pinkheadriot.livejournal.com
BIG HUG! I'm sorry that you are suffering though other people's pain. It's hard to hurt, and even harder when you are feeling it through someone else first. I promise that it will get better thou..... all things do.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-08-24 10:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] marveloustrick.livejournal.com
I hope that I can lay claim to providing the beer, the cookies, and at least one of the hugs. I'm sorry my apartment was not more pleasant, the layout has now been revised and should be more pleasant for your next visit.

I noticed that you were out of it yesterday, but I did not realize that it was this bad.

My birthday is next Friday. Do you know what that means? Sunday lunch at Benihana! Yay! You are invited! Yay! Good food to be had on the 3rd of September! Yay!

(no subject)

Date: 2006-08-24 11:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rinue.livejournal.com
Hooray! Hooray food! Hooray!

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