I’m having a difficult evening. It comes on so sudden sometimes. A wave of depression. Although that’s not what it is. It’s more physical. My feet feel like they are tied down with weights. I move slowly. I feel down but not necessarily sad. Gloomy. Slow. Like I’m in water. My whole body feels like this now. And I don’t know why. Sometimes I wonder if the medicine I’m on is doing anything. If my diagnosis is correct. If any diagnosis can be 100% correct, and even if it is…, even if it is, we are human, who is to say we have invented medicine for everything.
I went to the mall to the super-pharm to refill my prescription, I only had one day of meds left, and I put off trying to find the actual prescription, as I knew for a fact I had lost it somewhere in all the papers of my life. After about an hour of searching I found it. And I was happy, and went off to get the meds. As I walked through the mall afterwards, I stopped at a few clothing stores, to very casually peruse, get some ideas. I’m going to a couple of weddings this month. It can never hurt. And it struck me how odd it must seem to people (if anyone were to pay attention to me at all…which I suspect they don’t – there are very few genuine people watchers anymore, very few aware people, I think) that I was dressed the way I was dressed, arranged my hair the way it was, walked around the way I was. Plain is an understatement for how I go about sometimes. I either dress up a little, or I don’t do anything. Today was pretty bad. Hair in a bun. No makeup. Blue trousers, light blue shirt, black sandals, canvas shoulder bag. No jewelry. And a morose expression. And this from someone in her prime, who wants to date, who wants to have friends, who has a good job, has vast interests and talents. And they tell me I’m not depressed. Just imbalanced. Mood imbalance. Sometimes that makes sense. The other times are just weird. Like spontaneously feeling like my legs were made of lead and realizing I was walking through the mall, no not walking, shuffling through the mall, at a snail’s pace.
It doesn’t scare me too much. It interests me more than anything. If we only live once, and I have no evidence to the contrary, I might as well be interested in myself, in my experiences. Life in many ways is harder for me. It’s hard to do normal things. It’s hard for me to make good friends, to know how to act in public, even though most people don’t suspect it of me. It’s hard for me to clean. To pay bills. Even though I like my house to be clean, and I have plenty of money to pay bills. I need to make lists to be the least bit productive. I have to force myself to do a lot of things. And when I’m sad, I’m sad. And when I’m scared, I’m really scared. And I’m scared a lot. But I’m also fascinated a lot. This world, everything in it, intrigues me. It makes me so happy to learn new things. I love it when I smell beautiful fragrant flowers just walking down the street. I get chills when I finally see and touch ancient historical monuments. I want to cry when I see a clear, perfect, dark night sky littered with stars. I wish I could identify more constellations. It was a goal at one point to learn. I wish I knew more plant species. Speak another few more languages. Know how to make the fluffiest croissants. I wish I could read every book in the library.
My biggest frustration is that I have so few to share this passion with. And I don’t even know what to call it. A love of learning? A love of life? A fanatical awareness of our existence? Plain old insatiable curiosity? Curiosity. Someone recently called me the most curious person he had ever met. It doesn’t surprise me. I haven’t met many who are. Mostly I identify with children. It’s so fulfilling to get to share some fascinating tidbit of information with a child, and it excites them, too. When I reveal a glimpse of how curious I really am to a new friend, or a new date, I either frighten them or fascinate them or both. When I was younger I took it as intimidation. Such an experienced person who knows so very much and who wants to know infinitely more…
There must be people out there like me. I think we all start out like this, but learn to become numb and complacent as adults. Maybe that’s my problem: I never grew up. Or, never believed I had to give up wonder and curiosity and naive hope and dreams. I just wish I could meet a man who had some concept of what it’s like, to want to devour encyclopedias, build model rockets, bake many-layered cakes, learn to fly airplanes, build airplanes, go hiking all over Europe looking for old Roman roads, sing opera, learn a new language, learn to play a new instrument, collect stamps, learn about economics, master calculus, write essays, poetry, novels, perform chemistry experiments on household products, plant trees, have an organic vegetable farm, fix the ozone hole, protect endangered animals, find a way to feed the world, find or invent new sources of energy, colonize the moon, and simply travel all over the planet, the solar system, the galaxy.
Sure, I know it’s not all possible. But I don’t believe that one day it all could be. And I could do an awful lot of that. That’s Socratic irony for you. The more you know, the more you want to know. But the more you know, the more you understand that you know nothing. There is just so much to know. One person cannot know everything. Even a whole race cannot know everything. Because everything is infinite. So what do we do? Throw our hands up and turn on the TV and eat potato chips? I can’t give up. Because learning is addictive. It’s one of the things that makes us human. Curiosity. Life would not be life without it. Not for us.
I just want someone at least a fraction as enthusiastic on board for the ride. Because I need the support. And some extra energy. It’s hard on your own. When your legs feel like lead. And you look like such a plain Jane.
