Ever have one of those days where you’re just too tired to fake your way through it?

The city feels grimy today and a thick layer of smog is hanging low over the high rises.

It hit me today that I actually dread weekends now because I increasingly spend them alone – whether it’s shopping alone or puttering about the house alone or exercising alone, for the bulk of those two days, I’m by myself.

I actually woke up early this morning with work on the mind – the second my eyelids fluttered open, I was mentally compiling a list of things that needed to be done and racing ahead to other pojects to get a head start on.

I like work, but I don’t like it that much – and I guess the only reason I have my brain wired to work more and more is because there’s nothing else in my life to occupy my time.

And yes – I know I write solely about being lonely and depressed, but for the most part, when I’m not actually sitting at the computer, tapping out a post, I actually do okay, pushing aside those thoughts. Instead, I read, I watch TV, I run errands, I go about my life – existing and basically telling myself that I’m okay.

I move in autopilot – it’s not like I’m this mass of raw nerve-endings, tingling with pain 24/7.

I have two modes:
1. Loneliness-ridden pain
2. Just going through the motions in the moments when I feel nothing

Today, an aquaintance shot me an unexpected e-mail, enthusing about a mutual friend’s newfound love.

The aquaintance – let’s call her The Young Bride – is a 26-year-old newlywed who is a firm believer in fate and true love. She pines for her husband when he’s at work and counts the hours until they both get home from work and then, they do lovey-dovey things like taking long, leisurely walks together hand-in-hand around the neighbourhood, discussing plans for a house in the ‘burbs complete with 2.5 kids and maybe a dog.

I won’t sit and write a spiteful paragraph or two about how much this makes me want to choke on my own vomit.

Anyways, I was surprised she wrote – I guess she must have been bored at work and thought I’d help stave off some of that boredom.

When I wrote back that this mutual friend was off her rocker to give up everything in the name of love while the new boyfriend sat back and counted his blessings over how the Universe had hand-delivered such a “Whatever-you-want-is-what-I-want” girl into his life, The Young Bride chided me.

I obviously hadn’t experienced the magic of true love yet, she wrote. I had to try and understand – when people are in love, that’s what they do. They make sacrifices for each other.

Yeah, well, I don’t understand it…and perhaps I never will.

What really got to me, though, was when she wrote that this mutual friend really “deserved” to finally find some romantic happiness after all the bullshit she’d been through — all the bad relationships with jerks.

It made me wonder, “What makes her deserving, but not me?”

Because, seriously, sometimes, it feels like I’m being punished for some reason…and I realize that, in the grand scheme of things, I don’t really have a right to complain when I compare myself to other people out there in the world.

Why doesn’t that make me feel better, though?

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I’ve been listening to Sarah McLachlan’s “Train Wreck” a lot today.

Part of this song describes how I feel today.

Because I’m a train wreck — waiting to happen
Waiting for somebody to come pick me up off the tracks
A wild fire born of frustration