I just don't know what to do with myself

For the record, I am about to get way too morbid for a Friday. But I feel like recording this somewhere, so as usual, too bad for the few of you. I have written before about my strange logic when it comes to impending death- when I am flying on airplanes, I always take a deep breath and get comfortable with the notion of crashing.

Maybe it is not so strange. Maybe everyone does it. But I was thinking about dying last night. It was not just because it was ridiculously cold outside, and I was worried I was going to collapse from hypothermia (okay, that's an exaggeration, but by San Francisco standards, it is extremely frigid these days). And I was not at all depressed. In fact, I had just talked to a friend who is really down in the dumps. A lot of my friends have been in a slump of late, and one has been saying worrisome things. Some of the highlights have been:

• You'll be sorry when I'm dead.
  
• I've been staying home because I'm like one of those wounded animals who retreats to a corner.
  
• My life is certainly circling the drain.
  
• Don't rush depression.

Some of that noise is funny for the sheer absurdity, but it actually has me a little concerned. Really, her life is not that different from mine. In fact, I think she is, in many ways, better off than me. I keep thinking about why she is depressed and I am not. I know that is a little self-absorbed. But I genuinely wonder, because I am reaching the point where I do not know what more to do to snap her out of the funk.

I complain a lot. About everything. Incessantly. And I demand a lot out of life. Too much. More than is actually even possible. Yet, if you asked me today, I would tell you I could leave this world content. I told W the other day that I feel my cells are inhabited by a parasitic optimist that may one day kill me. I do, in fact, brim with hope, although the average person who meets me might never guess that. That is okay. I am very selfish about hope. It is mine, all mine, and no one need know anything about it but me. Well, and you, patient readers.

When I was young, I sort of swooned for Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King. The main character was a kind of jerk, a big lug of a fellow who stomped around like a bull in a china shop messing everything up. But he had an undeniable yearning. There is something about that which feels familiar to me. This idea of wanting everything, or more importantly, never feeling resigned, never not wanting, it is so vital to me.

I have never thought about wanting in the sense of- If only I had X, I would be content and happy. I know I am not built like that. I will always want more; I am the eternal malcontent. But nothing makes me happier than wanting something badly, even when I haven't ultimately attained what I wanted. There is no better way to feel urgently alive.

It makes it easy to die, if that makes any sense. I am happy with what I have, but I want so much more. That is living. When I die, all I will surrender is the wanting. And even until the last second, I will be smiling as I want just one more second. My parents are superstitious, and, if they read this, they would probably be horrified that I would issue such a proclamation, as if I was tempting fate. But cheesy enough as it sounds, I feel like I do just that, every morning that I get up and walk out in this world.

p.s. Just to lighten this shizz up, last weekend, after getting a neck massage at the salon that had me in euphoria, I sat down at the chair and my song was playing on the stereo. Just as I was about to settle on pledging my undying faith to this salon for the rest of my days, the stylist walked over, groaned and said, "Now can we listen to something else, please?" Why do you build me up, buttercup baby, just to let me down?