Over the weekend, I read The Virgin Suicides, and then I watched it on Netflix. Sophia Coppola�s movie is about a million times better than the novel, but I won�t go into detail about that.

The weirdest thing is that it made me long for the intimacy of sisterhood more than I have in a long time. I found it very lonely growing up with no other females in the household. I was out of college before I learned anything about putting on make-up and I still don�t know how to do my hair.

It�s not that, though. Sure, it would have been nice to learn about all the practical stuff of being a woman, but it�s more the feeling of solidarity that I want. Watching the film about girls growing up in the 70�s brought home for me how damn complicated the world has gotten, in such a short time.

Of course, I�m not bashing equal rights or anything silly, like that. It just seems like these days we�re required to be amphibian. We need to seamlessly cross back and forth between the patriarch and womanhood.

The story of The Virgin Suicides is rather patronizing, especially the way it encourages speculation about the suicides. Why would a group of beautiful, affluent, teenage girls make a suicide pact? These, of all people, live the most honeyed lives, right?

If the Lisbon girls had any inkling of what was ahead of them, it�s no wonder they killed themselves.

Anyway. Is it just me or are women are becoming less cooperative and compassionate and more combative and competitive? I wouldn�t know, myself, but I do know that it seems very, very hard to break down walls, these days.

Even during the rare times that I can bring myself to be sweet to other women, I find that they have such walls up. Even the supposedly well-adjusted ones, that grew up in suburbs with pretty lives and normal families� or perhaps no one really grows up that way.

I�m partly thinking this because during the past few weeks or a month, I�ve been going through a terrible depression. I�ve been so lethargic and tired.

Part of it was related to my oral surgery. That knocked me out for a week. I spent that time oscillating between a drug-induced haze, puking, sleeping and a monstrous headache.

It�s been a few weeks, I�m physically better, but I�ve not been restored to my pre-surgery self, yet. I�m not sure that will ever happen, actually.

I usually do suffer from a bought of melancholy around this time of year. It could just be the seasonal affective disorder. Maybe I should move the equator.

I�ve also had a realization about a reoccurring nightmare that I�ve been having for the past 30 years. No, that�s not a typo.

I�ll get into that in some other entry, but not today. The realization made me really, really angry at my dream, and really angry at myself for having the dream. Somehow, when it was unexplained, it seemed innocuous. It was just another crazy dream. Don�t we all have those?

Also, last night, while doing my nightly sleepless bed occupation, I realized something else that has likely been subconsciously eating at me during the past couple of years. I�ve completely stopped caring about earning my father�s love. I�d wanted to stop caring about it long before that, but the mind has a mind of it�s own, you know.

Even during my �refusing to care� stage, it still lingered there, and it gave me a goal. My mind was designed around the idea that I am capable of earning love by somehow becoming good enough.

When I wasn�t looking, I think my subconscious mind started catching up with my conscious mind, and now, without that goal, I feel rather aimless, like my life has no meaning. Perhaps I�ll tackle that one in a later entry, as well.

1 comments so far