I’m curled up in my friend’s bed in her mountain house outside Scranton.
The trees along the bus looked foreboding, dark and bare, as if we were heading into the Blair Witch Project.
She and her partner have a cabin in a private village attached to a ski mountain.
I wish I had a house. I don’t know if I needed to change the world.
She could, calmly, become a writer now if she so wishes.
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I took the train with one of her friends who became a lawyer in his 50s. He pursued so many occupations in his life. I think what struck me about him is, he’s really had a blast in life. He’s had a great great time thus far.
I can’t say the same thing. I can’t say that I’ve had a blast.
I’m weeping a little, on my 40th birthday, looking at a house with appliances, with a fireplace I spent the evening laying beside, wondering if I’ll ever own a house, grieving the entire decade. Wishing I never became a writer. That was the worst decade of my life, my thirties.
I failed—basically. Who cares if I’m psychic? Who cares if you can be THE BIGGEST THING IN THE WORLD by meditating all day? I met this Hollywood screenwriter who ruined me. This relationship, his ideas, ruined me. I don’t have a house, I don’t have any money. I don’t have love.
He’s a like an acid flashback. His pompous airs. His unethical behavior. He was a boy playing a video game. And, I have to get over wanting to reach these two and slap them — they shouldn’t go diffusing their New Age Seth beliefs to just anyone. I get “it’s true,” but so is “Jesus,” so is every religion’s story. To some, these ideas might be toxic, which they were to me. It might sound obvious to some, as to WHY.
This guru, he doesn’t care about anything, and that, that triggered me so deeply, he reminded me of my mother. I did not need someone with mental health issues, he could have been honest with himself about that. Pointing at me across a room, the second he met me, and shaking his finger in my face… as if we were in a sci-fi… that’s not a “well” move.
I’ve been blown away by George and Amal Clooney’s relationship—I just happen to get tidbits about them on my phone, and I couldn’t help but read about it and be amazed. He wrote her a letter, exposing himself, the whole of himself, because he was falling in love with her… and he was scared. They promised to protect one another’s vulnerabilities. And I felt my vulnerability was taken advantage of. I didn’t meet a guy — I met weirdos.
On the bus, this criminal lawyer told me about the case he just worked on— they had to send a shoplifter to prison, basically. Why? Because he wouldn’t stop. He works for the state. This man cannot stop going into Macy’s and shoplifting. He’s gotten so many chances…sometimes he doesn’t even steal anything. He just takes samples. Now, however, he’s convicted a felony, when, all he had to do was stop. He’s not addicted to drugs, so they can’t send him to that separate court. Macy’s know who he is, “he’s here again…” so he’s facing two to seven years. He’s asking for two, and if they accept, they won’t go to trial, where he might get a harsher sentence. He’s giving this guy the least severe sentence. I mean, this guy has had so many chances, he said.
I forgot that there’s this other criminal world. He said, “a lot of crime is perpetuated by drugs,” there are people spending their lives like that. Just doing drugs. He mentioned it, because I wondered if his legal team could make a case about his mental health? He said no. He obviously has a condition. Unless he can prove that he thought stabbing some guy would, do something crazy, release him to heaven, win “the video game,” he said, “insane,” no. I think the guru would sound crazy in a court of law… maybe not the most insane, but pretty insane.
But he’s not reading this, you know what I mean? Not like I want this guy anywhere near me, like he repulses me, but he was the worst thing that ever happened to me. He’s not a psychologist and he shouldn’t act like one. Why I stayed, I don’t know, he struck me, but then, I met these plant people just before him, and I place him in the same realm of thought… he and his brother read “channeled material” and “bending reality” and this was not my problem. You’d think the guru would be, simply speaking, just self-aware. Just that, and he’s not. WHAT about him told him, you know what? THIS is what THIS woman I don’t even know — needs. I didn’t need him. And I can’t take him back. I died, I really did.
I never thought, in my entire life, that my family story could make me vulnerable, and I understand the Epstein girls, in a sense, in that, they had come from abused households, and that’s where they ended up. That, they were vulnerable… do you know how much it sucks to come realize that YOU were vulnerable. You were prey.
I woke up this morning, after having a restful sleep, enjoying where I was, actually. I had coffee downstairs with my friend’s partner. He’s smoking a turkey, he wished me a happy birthday. I came up upstairs and saw that her left me a gift bag for my birthday that read Joy, and she bought me a couple of birthday presents, one of which is a guided journal, which I might just do, so I can peel myself away from this blog… I did not need “you can be a star…” when it’s unclear what it is that I am good at.
This Hollywood screenwriter, he even sounded like a computer, or a boy playing dungeons and dragons… sometimes. He can be a bit abusive, which he should know. That was abuse of power. And he did that to some random woman. I’m not Amal Clooney, and he would never dare to speak to her in such a fashion, and she got a real man. “Thanks for never asking me to be smaller,” that’s what they had engraved in their wedding rings, or something? I was so touched by their relationship, really, if it’s true. You never know.
Anyway, I have to let go of the past decade… but it’s my whole life up until this point. I made my decisions. Now, it feels as though a bit of a spell as been broken, where I’m contending with what my real life is, has been, as I’ve mostly worked in restaurants, actually. Nothing wrong with it, I’ve had other “cooler” jobs, I guess, but I am in the position at 40 where I appreciate being with normal people, people with nice lives, they aren’t looking for fame…. and why I had to get sucked up into that, I don’t know, it made me feel so ugly, not pretty. I didn’t understand what I attracted.
I’d like a house. I’d like a life. I’d like good friends. I’d like to find whatever it is in life that’s going to bring me success. I like entertainment, at least as an idea, so I’m going to keep trying, and at the same time, I’m listening to people’s stories, their journies, I heard about another woman who became a lawyer at 48. But, at least, I’ll be surrounded by a pleasant group of people, and I’ll ring in the new decade that way… hoping one day, I might be able to organize a Thanksgiving at my house.
That someone won’t try to change me…that I’ll meet someone who genuinely likes me… for who I am… so I’m enjoying the quiet of the mountains… I’m going to just learn to be again…I am not that interested in the MEANING craze, or how to live your life CRAZE. How to get what you want CRAZE. It’s all crazy to me. But now, since I went through hell and back — because I wanted to be a writer, simply, and I came from that story — I would like to envision the best decade of my life. I’d like to say, you know what, I had a blast, I made a break, and I crushed, sorry, just crushed this guru out of existence. He was the worst thing that ever happened to me…next to my parents.
So here’s 40. I’m here.