Black Milk

You can't choose who you fall for, or when. I think we can all agree on that. You don't wake up one day and say, "Hey, I think I'll fall for the cute coworker," and you certainly don't say, "Gosh, that person to whom I have no attraction, with whom all my friends think I'd make a great couple, I think I'll decide to have a crush on her after all." The heart wants what it wants.

So if you can't choose who you fall for or when, then you can't choose when to end your feelings, can you? Which means you can't simply choose to move on. Either you do or you don't, there is no choice. You can choose to distract yourself, play a shell game with your heart and mind. But if you move on, it's not because you have chosen to move on. It's because your heart has found something new.

I guess the question is, what if there's nothing left in your heart to give? If you can't choose when to fall in or out of love, then you can't choose whether you have anything left to give, can you. I've been thinking about this lately.

Don't get me wrong. I still laugh at funny things. I still write and read and talk with friends. I think about winning the lottery. I'm not about to do anything stupid (well, except perhaps the lottery thing).

But I feel empty. On second thought, empty isn't the right word. Empty assumes there is a vessel left to fill. Empty assumes that once I meet the right person, or accept religion or drugs or great sex into my life, all will be well. Instead, it's not a matter of me accepting anything. It's a matter of me giving anything. I have nothing to give back, no thrill. I have nothing to give but clever words and a warm body at night, but nothing beyond that.

And yet I'm still breathing.

I guess it really is easy to say, "Snap out of it." I'm sure if I had to listen to myself, I'd tried to cajole me out of this, then get pissed when I hadn't changed, and leave in disgust to get a cheeseburger.

Sometimes I think about going back on the Lexapro again. But Lexapro doesn't make your mind all sunshine and lollipops. All antidepressants do is take the extreme lows and extreme highs away, so you can live with a dull (but livable) medium. And the thing is, I'm not feeling extreme lows (though I shake with anger once in a while, I'm inconsolable at certain memories--but those are few now). Instead, I feel nothing. A lack of affect to put it in clinical terms.

I know there are people living in misery, that I should be thankful for what I have. But for comparisons to be successful, you need that sense of, well, you need feeling. I'm sorry I can't muster it.

So where do I go from here? I really don't know.

"You say you want to be with me? I've got nothing to give." -- "Karmacoma" by Tricky