Acts of Desperation

by Megan Nolan

Being with other people was, to me, the feeling of being realised. This was why I wanted to be in love. In love, you don’t need the minute-to-minute physical presence of the beloved to realise you. Love itself sustains and validates the rotten moments you would otherwise be wasting while you practise being a person, pacing back and forth in your shitty apartment, holding off till seven to open the wine.

In fact, I wanted to want them, would have loved to live a life like that. Or rather I would have loved to appear to live a life like that. All the things that Lisa did for her own genuine pleasure were things I thought looked good, things I didn’t want for their own sake. I thought a life that looked that way – clean and gentle and high-minded – would get me what I truly wanted, which was to do with having as much of people as possible, their attention, their desire, their curiosity.

And then, whenever I fall in love, everything is made new, including myself. My body, my brain, the way I see the simplest things. And the best part is it doesn’t even have to be the first time to work. If I fuck it up once, the next time works just as well.

I listened to sad songs in the shower and cried along. Sometimes I would stop and see myself as from the outside and even laugh at such trite performances of heartbreak. I