sorrow and dread
December 13, 2002 04:47 PM

I dread.

More specifically, I have attacks of dread. Non-specific dread. You might say Oh, god [blank]. I just say, Oh, god. And that's it. I get sad this way, too. Just non-specifically sad.

It seems terribly self-indulgent to have dread that won't identify itself. Do you examine it? Do you wait for it to pass? Leaving it unexamined, I feel Thoreau and Emerson are watching and clucking disapprovingly. Sitting and thinking on it leaves me feeling like something of a spoilt child. Neither is really a good option.

This is a situation in which I'd like to truly empathise with another person. I'd like to, for instance, know certainly how someone's depression or panic attack feels. I'd like to know certainly what level of self-doubt is experienced by the people I suspect of being most confident.

I feel that - if I knew these things, if I knew how others felt, I could know that sorrow is human. I could know there was some essential similarity between us. I could understand ordinary and recognize myself as same.

Some days I love this aspect of consciousness. That inclination to constantly wonder - am I alone? or not? Some days I, like a years-younger version of myself, just wish for some reassurance that I am Normal and Not Crazy.

The real and simple answer is that everyone is normal and also crazy. And I am, though I cannot prove it, like everyone.