He took me away from here. Quick, habitual, familiarised; while I’m useless and sniffling. Ruminating. Resenting. Staring into nothing, knowing he sees everything. I might be the most inadequate thing on Earth.
— Is It Worth It, Yet? by N. A.
Hello. Don’t mistake this for a self-pitying character but don’t listen to me. Ever. I’m used to it anyway (says the self-pitiful)—says the resentful. And the self-aware. I can barely stomach listening to me, either. Like: how I’m about to say that alongside this denial of self-pity, I also claim to be so detached from “myself” that I don’t… care. Even when I am resentful, pitiful, inadequate: I am uninterested. Ultimately, I have such deep apathy for myself that I can’t even dislike myself; that takes too much energy. To dislike yourself. To hate yourself. Instead, I think of the words apathy, anhedonia. Anhedonia. Anhedonia. I’d call myself an anhedoniac before I call myself a name.
“Could my love ever be enough to help this?” he enquires, stood by my opened car door; an offer wordlessly accepted, alongside his opened palm.
“Oh—! You’re so cold,” I fret. He smiles. “But I don’t know. It hasn’t so far.”
Raised brows with a low whistle and no harm done: “Ruthless.” The car door shuts behind me.
We know it could [help] and it’s my fault it won’t. I like that he loves me anyway. He likes that I’m still a whole person. Even if it’s a stubborn, hollow one. Or… I dunno… I’m not an empty person. But the person I might be isn’t known to me, yet. If ever. Maybe he can see it far clearer than I; he’s always had much more hope & excitement for “me.” Whereas to the anhedoniac, “I” am more akin to a concept, a project, a thing to bother being. Hair to manage, voice to learn, addictions to have, flesh to scratch, discomfort to feel, gender to lack, art to make. These are tasks and activities and emotions and thoughts and reactions and results-of-the-aforementioned; these, according to the anhedoniac, do not equate to “me.” Nothing does. Except for nothing.
“It’s not a special thing. Nobody really knows who they are and every-goddamn-one is depressed.” I continue holding his hand, warming it despite a sunny beach walk.
“Sure. But they still have pride in their career, or the one meal they’re great at. They might’ve thought they knew then had a mid-life crisis. They might just be too stupid to figure it out.” He lifts his head to me, always irritable upon mentioning strangers. Made-up people and their made-up feelings. “There’s certainly more like you though-”
“More like ‘me,’” I sigh, following sunken footsteps... someone’s second toe is longer, too. “I don’t want any ‘me’ or ‘I’ or ‘my.’ But if there’s one thing I know is me, it’s not feeling like there’s a me at all.”
I’m begging myself to get this unrest OUT for the sake of a chance that a complete stranger will relate to the assertion that even if “I” was met with an exact clone of “me:” that stubborn hollowness still echoes through the anhedoniac’s ribcage.
- I’m horrified knowing I’d still be rotting in a helpless little corner without him.
- I’m writing this ‘cos I still feel like the most inadequate thing on Earth.
Then he’ll come home—exhausted yet attentive—and tell me why he loves me. What he sees in me, how horrible it is to be around anyone else, why there’s nobody even worth befriending; despite this feeling of nothing, “I” seem to give him everything.
The anhedoniac doesn’t question this; the anhedoniac doesn’t care for their own fulfillment.
I love him. And that’s all.
