The Valley of Ashes

I’m having a tough time reconciling much of anything: the numbness I feel, the suffering inflicted on me and others, the deep, penetrating emptiness I feel… It’s existentialist really; I simply can’t find an explanation for the absurdity of this mockery of a life, this incessant suffering that undercuts whatever joy I have left, or, rather, had.

I was kicked out of the house by my dad a year ago after I got into it with him over his alcoholism and my apparent laziness and moved in with my mom and stepdad; however, I left home to live on my school’s campus (it’s a boarding/day school) after they nearly dissolved their relationship over drug use.  On campus, I know almost nobody, and almost nobody wants to know me.

I feel more comfortable isolated now than I do with other people around. I hardly even feel comfortable around my friends I met when I came to the school. My friends are totally ignorant of my struggle; as a matter of fact, one of them joked to my face about putting me on the suicide watch list after an hour-long seminar on it.

I feel like a shell of the person that I used to be, like a decaying tree trunk in a dead forest. My sense of humor has all but evaporated; I am in constant pain from my spinal surgery, Tourettes Syndrome and the hole in my stomach; I don’t have the confidence I once did.

My libido has vanished as well. I used to chase girls with the vigor you would expect of any 17 year old. I haven’t had a girlfriend for roughly 2 1/2 years; I was rejected numerous times, and the one that did finally date me ultimately cheated on me for a straight month before telling me.  I feel completely and totally used.

I don’t have anybody I can talk about this to now. My friends hardly care (I met them as a triumvirate; they were friends before I came onto the scene, are friends once they start ignoring whatever input I have in our conversations, and they will be now that I’ve decided to remove myself from the situation and quit ruining their happiness) and my parents have spent whatever cash they had on booze, cars and vacations together (myself excluded), meaning that I can’t afford my therapist anymore. I’m going to have to get a part-time job somewhere if I want to continue seeing my doctor – which shouldn’t, in theory, be a problem, except that I go to a prep school, have an overbearing course load and am the head of numerous extracurriculars; that doesn’t exactly leave you a lot of time to make cash on the side.

I feel like I have nowhere left to turn but the bottle and the barrel; alcoholism has run through every generation on both sides of my family – no reason to fight fate anymore I guess. I might as well kill myself for that matter; I’m never going to escape this internal hell, so why bother?

I’m an abomination, a dark scourge to my corner of this meaningless world; but my parents hold me up on a pedestal as the idol of all their hard work and grooming, only to turn around and remind me exactly how low I am. There’s nothing left in this world for me. I used to be excited about going to college next year – but I realized that this pain will never leave me alone, no matter how far away I drive, no matter how much I try to drown it in work and industry. I don’t even have the motivation to finish my college essay, which was due months ago and I need to submit in ten days to apply to Penn State (one of my safety schools, but important nonetheless).

My life feels largely equivocal to the Valley of Ashes in The Great Gatsby: a bleak, desolate land dominated by false idols, lies and ignorance. I don’t feel like I have anywhere else to turn. Death is inescapable; might as well stop running.