Any Old Actress

No one’s ever really broken my heart. I did decide once, that someone was worth the price of pain, and later discovered I’d mistaken them for someone else. I broke my own heart, over other things, other realisations that happened to trigger the realisation of my mistake. So, I don’t have any deep grief or deep-seated heartbreak, no sense of betrayal or worthlessness. Anything that I could interpret that way, I tend to think that I exaggerated its initial importance. And that’s not some self-denigrating perspective; other comments have led me to view the ambiguous possibly hurtful ones in context. “Always” doesn’t mean much from someone who would later tell you that you were wasting your life by making a fated inevitable decision. Why would I even want “always” from someone who can’t or won’t understand that my life’s paths are already sketched out, that all roads lead to Rome, and that no matter what I do I’m going to end up in the same sort of impossible, successfully-doubtful, solitary lifestyle I always have. Even when I try not to, people and situations force me here. This decision is beyond me. Call it fate or predestination, whatever. But don’t criticise me for this thing even I didn’t choose. Wouldn’t have had the nerve to choose. Didn’t have the nerve to, in fact. Avoided it even. Don’t you dare criticise me for being true to destiny. Not after all your talk of self-actualization and independence and knowing yourself. Not after all those lies.
So, I don’t have any heartbreak. Just this pent-up resentment over critical comments. Judgmental comments from someone I once felt safe from judgment with. Sheer anger over being disbelieved and scoffed at. Indignation at condescension and the arrogance of questioning my self-knowledge and ability to discern my way. Especially when I’d been poring over my heart and mind and undermining everything I thought I knew about myself to really honestly accurately verify the exact nature of my heart and fate. I avoided that one too. So, here I’ve reluctantly confronted this mind-blowing self-knowledge, had it thrust in my face unavoidably, and I reach this determination, this decision of what I have to do in order to be true to this new hard-won knowledge. And you, who were supposed to accept without judgment, to trust and believe, to not care for presentation and manner, you dared criticise me. With judgment and insult. With condescension and hostility. I’d still like to know what you thought you had to be hostile about. What, did I inconvenience your world, your sitcom conception of life? Maybe my reasons weren’t good enough; maybe you wanted a better explanation… I can only explain so much, there’s only so much I can qualify… and you don’t want my reasons. Remember, I tried to reason, to explain myself and you only found labels, generalities, anything to safely invalidate me and my outrageous behavior. Anything to make my outrageous claims not count. Even if it was fiction. I still count, my claims are still valid, and they can’t be reasoned away or made comfortably still. They’re irksome clamoring things. They demand attention and response and all I really want to say is… don’t lay this at my feet. I haven’t been ridiculous, or immature, or melodramatic, or deceitful, or exploitive, or dependent, or escapist… just mistaken and remiss in my response to my life. I’m about as involved in the ultimate plan as a pawn in a game of chess, and as inconvenienced as anyone else.
That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.

-t.s. eliot: the love song of j alfred prufrock