I realized tonight, while watching someone receive great news in a movie, that nothing I can even imagine happening to me would elicit a response that might even resemble hers. Nothing. Not winning money, not publishing writing, not saving a life. Those things may evoke some sort of satisfaction, or at least elevate my mood from its current state, but the dancing, carefree, wide-eyed elation that the actress showed- the true joy- has never been and will never be something I experience or understand on more than a theoretical level.

When a character in a movie receives news or experiences something so horrible that they have to channel the worst moments of their entire lives to even appear the slightest bit as disturbed as the situation would in reality warrant- I do understand. Many things in my life have elicited responses that resemble the realistic versions of theirs. And nothing- not winning money, not publishing writing, not saving a life- will ever be able to offset the misery that either choice or circumstance has caused. I can’t even watch movies that feature such themes because my emotional maturity is so stunted that I can’t keep from feeling them as if they were mine.

I can’t imagine being truly happy, and I can’t keep myself from being truly sad. It’s pathetic, and my fault, and though I can clearly identify it, it continues to outsmart me.

Pain is a trick, and the magician is who or whatever we allow it to be.

Fuck it. Fuck you.