A Dour Winter

This holiday season has been bleaker and lonelier than usual. The on-going conflict with my parents which has effectively paralyzed me for the umpteenth time in what I rather euphemistically refer to as my adult life, plays a big part in that but it's also a product of my inability to plan my future. Simply put, I have no idea whether I should stay in New York or not.

I like it here but I'm torn between how terribly lonely it is and how this loneliness is probably something inside me. Like the old adage, the downside of going on vacation is that you have to take yourself along. Were I to move somewhere new, I'd effectively be giving up what little I've managed to build up over six years to start anew somewhere else...much like I did when I left Egypt in 1999. It's a sickness, this need to escape my reality by succumbing to this wonderlust, but the problem with finding a cure is I scarcely know where to begin.

Do I tackle my rejection of my mother, or the paralyzing panic attacks that strike out of clear blue skies or the crushing depression or the unbridled mania that leads me to extend myself far beyond all prudence and common sense? I oscillate between an oppressive need to be alone and a burning desire for companionship...a contradiction which is being tested by the latest contestant in America's fastest-shrinking dating game 'Who wants to date Basil'...the delightful Sara. Of whom I don't know what to make.

It's baffling me, this relationship with Sara. No sex, as yet, and no indication that she's even attracted to me. No surprise since even I'm not attracted to me half the time, why should anyone else? That said, I know that my own self-flagellating view is unjustly skewed and that it's possible for other people of similar insecurity and vulnerability to see me as a creature worthy of reciprocal nakedness. To that end, I've initiated a couple of make-out sessions which usually don't last beyond a few minutes and typically ended with a change of subject or, more bafflingly, a resumption of the original subject we were on, prior to commencement of said amorous overtures.

I want to get her in bed. And I want to talk to her afterwards. And yet, I also want her to run away and never look back. To find somebody else, someone with a more stable mind and to leave me to wallow in this pool of my own insecurity and paranoia. It is diabolical how I feel compelled to work against my own best interests.