Charlie’s emotional constitution is a dire mess, royal at that. He can’t seem to get a grasp on that aspect of his life to 100%. He manages to eek out a living where occasionally he can forget about his emotional situation. Frustration, inability to move forward and move ahead when it comes to finding a partner to live with and the narrative he feeds his ego, all drag down daily sentiment down the path of gutter hell. The muck is awful which paralyses the living quality of the every day ens. It shouldn’t be like that.
That he manages to gain some sort of composure to deal with the everyday when interacting with others and give the illusion that everything is dandy is surprising even to me. Not that he’s about to enter an emotional crisis or breakdown emotionally either. Although he contends with issues of change which occur nilly willy it seems, since of late he seems to be holding more to the past than the present.
Note to self: buy milk and brazilian nuts.
It’s a veritable mess indeed. Life I suppose. Emotions are weird. One would wish you could just get rid of them as easy as they came. Emotions, however, tend to have a life of their own. Like liking this girl which has troubled he’s soul for years now. When is that feeling going to be over and done with? He really hates it that whenever she suddenly comes in his vision field she evokes all kinds of torrentious emotions for no reason at all and then he has to contend with the idea of her in his soul, of all places. I get the beauty and the beast effect. But Charlie doesn’t. “I start assessing myself”, he says, “and I just can’t come to par with that beautiful Nordic beauty queen with no fucking equal on this fucking planet. I see myself as a terrible fucking beast that is no match for her.”
I listen attentively to what Charlie says and then remember to add beer to my shopping list.
“It’s not her fault I get all gooey whenever she happens to appear. I really try to be the man about this. I try and pull myself together and ignore my feelings as much as I can but somehow she has penetrated the veins where my blood courses. What to do? I do try other methods to control my emotions. Meditation, avoiding the girl and God why isn’t there any other women who can distract me?”
The session ends. Charlie gets off the chair and stops looking outside the window, as soon as the second the session ends. His habit, to stare as he talks, outside the window. Like the elderly Manhattan lawyer office in Bartleby the Scrivener , the brick wall before is a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade. He knows his hour is over. I look pensive and jot down another thing I must by at the store. He steps off the rum and I place my notebook in my desk. I think about this femme Charlie talks about. I wonder when will I be dumbstruck by a woman in my life. Charlie makes it sounds as if his guts are being torn apart; as if his veins are on fire; as if his soul is being burned alive on some sort of personal hell. For godsakes, he comes to me to talk about an imposible love and the feelings unprocured by it. This guy is in guy limbo. Nowhere to go, imposibilitated by his own accord. He is stunted in every way by his own self.
“You know it’s all his fault”. He heard himself saying. It’s all about the gall. ” Says the guy who just wished he felt like Charlie.” Yeah, I suppose. What does he stare at when he comes to talk to me about this flame?