Two Six Six: Voix

A new year has begun. No one is quite sure whether we're in the Twenties of the new century yet. There's still that debate over whether we have to wait until 2021 to say that a new set of Roaring Twenties is here. Tonight it seems likely that "Roaring Twenties" may refer less to parties and Bright Young Things and more to a new war in the Near East, but there are still a few optimistic souls who hope that the new decade will be all Gatsby's mansion and debs in Bugattis.

I'm finding that the new year and new decade are likely to be one of silence.  New Years itself was grey and quiet here by the lake. I began 2019 with an evening of cocktails and flirtations with lovely bartender girls. This year as the numbers changed I was at home with a glass of Irish whiskey, sitting alone on the deck, looking out to lights on water. I do suspect that most of the year will be like that.

I've always prided myself on my ability to tell stories, to create a world out of words. I've always said that such luck as I've had with lovely, long-legged Young Companions has been based on words and not flesh. There's a certain kind of literary co-ed I've been able to talk into bed, and I'm all too aware that it has nothing to do with my looks or body. It's always been about the stories I tell. This year, though, this new year--- I suspect I've lost that.

2019 began with lovely girls talking with me all night and finding me to be an experiment worth trying. That seems to have evaporated.  I've lost the ability to talk, to tell stories. There are places where I spent the last half of 2018 dining, sampling wines and cocktails, and flirting with lovely girls. I can't bring myself to do that any more. I can't bring myself to have conversations in public. For reasons I can't quite articulate, I spend less and less time out. I haven't been back to any of my old haunts in six or seven months. All the doorways downtown where I used to go seem alien and depressing. I've managed to talk myself into a state where I feel unwelcome everywhere. Sitting at a barstool that may have been a favourite spot once upon a time now feels empty, uncanny, and out of place.

I no longer know what to say to lovely girls. I no longer have faith in my ability to tell stories, or to do exchanges, or to be part of a conversation. I no longer believe I have anything to say to anyone. I find it harder and harder to believe that anyone would want to be part of a conversation with me.

Part of me wonders if the social rules have changed, and whether I'm simply excluded by the new rules. No one has ever said anything like that to me, but the nagging fear is there nonetheless.

Let's also note that I'm less and less at home in my body. I've become uneasy thinking about my own flesh, and I find myself  uneasy, ashamed, and preemptively embarrassed by the thought of having my body seen or touched. It's harder and harder to imagine undressing for a lovely Young Companion, and the thought that a lover might be disgusted by my flesh haunts me in a way it never did at sixteen or twenty. I find myself scrubbing my skin 'til it's raw and showering twice a day under the hottest water I can stand. I find myself looking for OTC drugs that will shut down bodily functions lest they humiliate me. I find myself unwilling to imagine a lover's touch, or be undressed even when alone.

My suspicions are that I'm approaching some kind of depressive spasm, and that by Lent I'll have talked myself into being housebound and mute.

I do walk past downtown doors and listen to music and voices leaking out and realize that I can't speak there, that I have nothing to say, that I no longer know how to respond to voices. I can't imagine anyone wanting to hear anything I have to say.