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To be a woman is a horror I can little comprehend.
SOMETHING IMPATIENT AND SNAPPISH has swollen inside me. I feel as though I carry some fragile, painful growth in my throat, and every small challenge or inconvenience threatens to burst open the pustule and fill my mouth with poison.
If I give in to that impulse, the need to be seen, understood by another, then I do not know what howling wave of past pain may capsize me.
All I had was myself, and the weight of that burden was almost more than I could bear.
I am fine. I have to be. I have no time for weakness.
“What is right about it? I should do my best not to anger anyone.” “Why?” I am flummoxed. My face grows hot, and for some reason I cannot comprehend, I think I may cry. “Because it is bad. Are we not all taught that as children? If I have made someone angry, then I have done something wrong. We should endeavor to bring happiness into the lives of those around us.” Carmilla yawns. “That is quite boring. What of bringing happiness to yourself?” “I … That is not—that is a selfish way of thinking, to only concern oneself with one’s own happiness.” “The people you endeavor to make happy—they are
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“Disappointment tells us what we truly wanted. And to want is to be alive.”
Everyone about me seems slow and stupid, and if I am not in every place at once, ensuring each decision made is the most rational and logical, none of this will come together.
“Life is a sterile thing in your hands—all necessity and obligation. Do you want to see her again?”
A carapace suited me better than soft skin, and I found it powerful to want nothing: for then I could never be disappointed.
“What I want has nothing to do with this. What do you want?” “Stop asking me that. Why do you always ask me that? Why do you want me to be a selfish person?” I am crying now, short, staccato gulps of air into lungs that will not fill. “Wanting is not selfish, Lenore.”
“Oh, little Lenore. It is terrible to be alive. But it is worse to be dead to ourselves.”
All my gowns are like costumes, embarrassing reminders of my failed attempts to be different women.
Can no one think for themselves? It is quite maddening. I am in a house full of adults and not a single thing would get done if I did not urge it into being.
“You simply have to do what you want, not what you think is safe.”
Perhaps I might experiment with a little violence.
“That is no sort of answer.” “Do you truly need one?” Yes. Some part of me does. There is a deep, old anxiety in me that cannot abide uncertainty, that cannot rest without all facts and knowledge within my command. To be so wholly in another’s hands is unbearable.
I want to be free. I want not to analyze every decision that lies before me. I want to act on whim. I want to follow each passing curiosity. I want to make mistakes. I want to ruin things. I want to lay down the vigilant watch I have kept over myself and my life.
All we can hope for in life is to know one’s own desires in order to be able to act on them. To want is to surrender to uncertainty. To step into the unknown. To expose ourselves to all possible outcomes and trust we will not be destroyed by disappointment.
