The Princess Diarist(26)

I confide in everyone. I have no restricted private self, reserved specifically for certain trusted special people. I trust and mistrust anyone. I have traveled a full circle. But this time, on returning to zero again, I am able to act out the mistake more adeptly. I am on my way to becoming a very skilled loser. A specialist, a loser to end all losers. A flair for failing. I do it with style and finesse.





I’m on physical and mental reserves. Carefully selecting and gathering all the ingredients for my recipe for ruin. Homemade hysteria. Fresh from my mind and ready to serve. Torment to go. I must never again involve myself in a situation that makes me feel this sordid.





Hand over hand on the way to the top So afraid to fall back to the beginning Wishing it were more of a drop Happiness beckons you In the guise of money and fame It can all be yours someday At the drop of a name



To be one of the familiar faces Calling the shots on a first-name basis That’s your desire



But you’ve got to get a lot higher On the ladder



Then nothing will matter You’ll be all set





On top of the world



That’s where you want to get A household word Like Ajax or Abbe Lane A reputation to live up to An explosion to sustain Watch him! There he goes, folks, higher and higher Hoping to get out of the anonymous frying pan And into the Hollywood fire





The compromise I made was not an easy thing to do It was either you or me and I chose you Although far from a joker you spoke in wry, wry riddles I could’ve given you so much but you wanted so little I thought you might supply some tenderness I lacked But out of all the things I offered you took my breath away And now I want it back



I never had what I wanted because I would never want what I had I thought you were different, prettier than most and twice as bad Uncompromising and caustic, sort of short and sometimes sweet I tried to read between your lines as you would so rarely speak But I gave you far more credit than you were actually due You see I thought I was only seeing half the man But that was all there was to you





You took my breath away





Took my breath away





You took my breath away



And now I want it back





I am closer to who I want to be when I am alone lately. With people, I hear my voice and I just wonder who or what I’m doing all this for. Spreading myself out in front of people. Devaluing my ostensible worth by being so readily available to almost any random pedestrian who wanders into the crosswalk of my focus. If someone is within an earshot I shoot off at the mouth.

This drug has placed me in the eye of the hurricane. Or is it a tornado? Whatever it is, it’s a whole lot of weather, placing everything valuable in jeopardy. If I could only get a fixed idea myself, I wouldn’t have to constantly look to other people. Trying to outguess them, to convince them of my idea of myself. Hoping that if they believe that’s who I am, then maybe I’ll be able to believe it, too. But when they do believe it, when they seem convinced that I am who I’m seeming to be—and they even approve—I inevitably feel that I’ve fooled them. That they must be pretty goddamn gullible to fall for my routines.





My panic is rising again. My sense of isolation and worthlessness. And no other senses worth mentioning apparently. It’s not nice being inside my head. It’s a nice place to visit but I don’t want to live in here. It’s too crowded; too many traps and pitfalls. I’m tired of it. The same old person, day in and day out. I’d like to try something else. I tried to neaten my mind, file everything away into tidy little thoughts, but it only got more and more cluttered. My mind has a mind of its own. I try to define my limits by seeing just how far I can go, and I find that I passed them weeks ago. And I’ve got to find my way back.





Stop playing the part of the glib martyr. You’re just trying to make cyanide out of 7-Up. I talk about myself in the third person, as if I were talking about a child of mine, or a new television series. I talk about myself behind my back. I talk about my private life and self like they were just common gossip. I make and sell myself cheap. I serialize myself. I am the Mad magazine version of Psychology Today. I waste myself.

Here’s what he said: People adapt to you. Don’t worry, you can’t alter what they think of you to any great degree, and by the same token what they think of you can’t alter you. You sit patiently, awaiting that dreaded yet hoped-for disapproval. You’re afraid you seem foolish or pretentious. You pounce on everything you say with a pair of tweezers and pluck it about until you can’t remember exactly what it is you said, what context it was in, if you even said it, and if anyone heard you at all. And how much their opinion means to you. Are their mental credentials so impressive that you have to put yourself behind their eyes, find yourself loathsome and/or boring, and then make it matter?

Why am I in such a hurry to find out what people think of me? I even have gone to the trouble of playing myself broadly in order to hurry up their decision. I give them one of many varieties of brief or not-so-brief summaries from which they can draw a conclusion. It depends on how much time and energy I’ve got and then I give away portions of myself according to that. I mustn’t allow myself to get sucked into thinking that it’s romantic to be neurotic, that being neurotic means one has to be complicated and somewhat intellectual. Deep. Proud of the fact that you can sink to the depths of despair. A neurotic, complicated, somewhat intellectual, deep gal who’s also wacky, zany and madcap. A must at a wake.