Onions and Sadness

March 20th, 2014, 12am

I bought an onion the other day because I needed one the day before. Now I don’t need an onion because I used up all my other ingredients. Buying that onion was the most useless thing I did all week.

I’ve been falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon because I can’t sleep at night. I can’t sleep at night, probably, because I keep falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon.

I’m thinking a lot about cycles. Synchronicity. The way one thing impacts another, which in turn impacts the first thing all over again. I’ve become very in tune to the mechanisms of storytelling and I can’t decide: what came first, the fact or the fiction? Did we invent storytelling to make sense out of our lives, or do stories make sense because we take them from real life?

It’s hard to grow. I keep running into the same problems. I’ll never find love. I won’t get a job. I can’t keep up with my responsibilities. I can’t figure out the story I’m working on. I feel like Joel Barish in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, wondering, “why do I fall in love with every girl who shows me the least bit of affection?” Am I just lonely or do I really like this particular person?

I wish it would rain. Walking in the rain is beautiful. Walking in the wind, not so beautiful. It’s always windy here and it never rains. Then again, when it’s nice out, it’s very nice out, so that helps.

Sometimes I don’t know if happiness is better because it starts or if sadness is better because it ends. See what I mean about cycles?

I’m trying to be better at being alive. I want to be one of those people who walks into shops just to try things on, or who stops to talk to strangers about their day, or who can just go outside and sit on a park bench and look at the sky. I spend too much time inside in front of a computer. Basically I want to be a manic pixie dream girl. Boy, that got awkward.

So I laugh at everything, so what? Life is funny. There’s so many different kinds of laughter, too. I have to be careful from time to time that people don’t think I’m not taking things seriously enough. I am. I just think it’s funny, that’s all.

I’m not sad, exactly. I’m just tired. Tired of winter. Tired of feeling stuck. Tired of dreaming but not doing. Tired of feeling, constantly feeling, that I’ve missed my opportunity. I waited too long. She’s lost interest. That possible employer has changed their mind. That friend is frustrated with me. I hate feeling that way. I’m also tired of making goals for the next day only to wake up so exhausted I can’t get anything done. I have so much energy at night. Maybe I should give up on trying to maintain a normal schedule.

So if you see me standing on a street corner laughing at something nobody else can see, I’m not sad. I’m just sleep deprived, and going insane. Oh, and I’ll probably be carrying an onion with me, because I still don’t need it.


Adrian, David Wade, Crystal and Sanna said thanks.

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Samuel Rafuse

Journalist, culture and movie writer. Sometimes he says funny things. We're trying to make more of him but we lost the instructions. Website: samuelcharlesrafuse.wordpress.com

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