The Mean Reds

I love Breakfast At Tiffany's. Not because it's the cool movie to like, I just genuinely like it. At first glance, it's about a fabulously glamorous girl who knows exactly what she's doing and where she's going, but really, she's just a frightened girl whose only smarts are how to take care of herself.

There's something Holly Golightly, the heroine of the story, mentions a few times: The Mean Reds. And no, they're not like the blues. According to Holly, the blues are because you're getting fat, or maybe it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible; suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. And the only cure for those, for Ms. Golightly, anyhow, is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's.

For a while I couldn't relate to the Mean Reds. Tiffany's, certainly. I've never gone into a Tiffany's boutique, but I do quite frequently troll the website, drooling over enormous, perfectly cut jewels and yards of diamonds and pearls. It was perfectly clear to me from the start the appeal that Tiffany's has; what girl doesn't adore beautiful colors and sparkle? And having a pastry and coffee while seeing them in lovely window display certainly seems a good way to end a rough night.

But only recently have I begun to relate to the bulk of Holly's fears and feelings. The Mean reds are horrible. The sudden creep of some unknown fear just chokes you, makes it impossible for you to see the light at the end of a suddenly very long, very dark tunnel. I've been in a state of depression once before. It lasted for quite some time and it was the scariest time in my life. I felt like a complete failure, like I disappointed everyone just by being, that I couldn't do anything right or good enough, that I'd never get anywhere, that I'd never meet anyone because I was too ugly, too loud, to confused. It really does shake you to your core. It's terrifying.

The scary thing is that lately the meanest of the Mean Reds are starting to come back. I think part of it is that I don't understand myself. I can make myself go to work way early in the morning, work overtime that no one asked me to work without even expecting to be paid for it week after week, and yet I can't go to a single one of my classes. Why the hell is that? Money is a factor, certainly, but shouldn't the promise of a degree be motivation enough? I'm certainly not making a long-term career out of my current job. Why can't I go to classes that aren't even that challenging?

And why can't I ever see myself as pretty for more than a month? I'll FINALLY get to a point where I'm not insulting myself every time I see my reflection, and I feel so good about everything, and then suddenly, it all just...falls apart. And each time it falls apart feels harder than the last. Right now I feel fatter an uglier than I have in a really long time. I feel alone, ugly, dumb (and not unintelligent-I feel I'm making stupid choices), unmotivated, and basically an overall failure. And it sucks. It's the shittiest feeling in the world. It feels like the Mean Reds just up and sucker punched me in the throat. Suddenly I'm afraid and I don't know what I'm afraid of, other than life itself. I spend so much time living in this fantasy world, making myself okay in my head, that I can't even face the real one anymore. I'm afraid of never finding the things that make me truly happy. I'm afraid of wasting my life. I'm afraid of letting every person I've ever looked up to down.



I don't know what my Tiffany's will be, but I'd really like it to come along soon.

This shit is getting to be too much.