6.4.2000

I went to see The Talented Mr. Ripley. It upset me. I hardly ever see movies that upset me anymore. This did.
I don't know what to say, actually. Sometimes I thought he was me when I looked at the movie. I haven't killed anyone but I could have. I have enough guilt to have done something like that. The guilt is already here so it doesn't really matter what I did or didn't do. The last scene was horrible. I kept hoping he hadn't done what he did.

Next time I'm going to see something completely harmless and useless and waste of money and time. I thought Dogma might be funny. I don't know. I just am not used to being upset. The movie scared me. "Sometimes I think it's better to pretend to be somebody than to be nobody."
*shudder*

I pretend to be somebody, all the time. Every minute I pretend although I am nobody. I'm absolutely nobody.
I pretend to be a child, a sister, a friend (sometimes, yes). Someone on the street although I'm nobody on the street. That's why streets bother me. I know I'm nothing but I have to pretend. For their sake. For my sake. I need to pretend I'm something I am not. And I don't know but I'm afraid that eventually I will become like Ripley did. (Or that I am like him already.)
Because the other day I thought that I'm the greatest actress of them all. I've always fooled everyone. No one can really see inside me. I never wanted to be an actress when I was a kid. Other kids did, many of them, I remember thinking that how can they act any more than they do now. You can't pretend to be two persons at the same time. That's why I can't act at all, I'm already acting. And I'm good at it.

I've done it so long. I can't remember why or how I started. I don't know how to stop, either. The guy in the movie didn't, either. I had a goal, at some point, to act, to play along until I'd burst. That's what I wanted. I wanted to die and I figured that quickest way of doing that would be playing along, because playing along killed me. It made me want to die. So, obviously, it was supposed to help myself kill myself. It didn't work that way. I'm still acting.

And now I don't know how to stop and I'm getting afraid. I never was afraid before, never before that movie. I always thought I'd be able to pull it off because there was nothing to lose. There still isn't, not really. No one but myself.
A used to tell me I'm confusing. She couldn't understand me, figure me out. She thought I was extremely incongruous, extremely odd. She said that I'm either the most insane person she's ever known or the sanest one.

I play roles. Sometimes I can't remember what role I'm playing and sometimes I can't remember what role I'm supposed to play. I get distracted, I get tired, I just feel 'odd' in general. And then I jump between roles and confuse the hell out of everyone, but it's okay as long as no one sees the real me. As long as I don't see the real me. Sometimes I think I'm nothing but faces, nothing but different roles and there's nothing inside. Only a machine perhaps, that decides what role palys next, plays now, how it plays. And I felt violated when I was watching Mr. Ripley because roles are my thing, my secret. No one's supposed to know about it.

Everyone has roles, masks, different things in them but i have nothing but those masks. The masks are me, I am the masks. And the masks are all pretentious, all made up by my imagination. I have no idea how I'm supposed to react so I do what my imgation tells me to do, what my experience tells me to do, what the books I've read have told me others do. Do you understand? There's nothing living under these masks. I don't know if there has ever been. The me who's writing this, I'm closest to myself than I usually am. I can label the masks, see that they exists. But the thing that's under the masks, it's a mystery. It isn't here. The masks are, and they're just not representatives of myself but they're something that would never even exist had I not had enough imagination to create them. Because I really am not. I'm nothing, I'm pretending to be something. But the thing that is pretending, that's just… a robot, an automat. It works because the things and the people and the environment outside and around it tell it to. Not because it wants to, not because it tinks it's necessary but because something or someone has pushed the button somewhere that has made it move and talk and grow and look like human. Because even if you think I am alive, even if you think I'm like everyone else, I'm not alive. I'm not real, I'm not a human being. I'm a machine, that's all.

- - -

That what is above is pehaps the most honest thing I've written for ages. And it exhausted me. The same way Mr. Ripley exhausted me. I've been taking so good care of not getting caught. I've been doing so much to avoid getting caught and now I'm tired. So very tired.
I thought it was my secret. Now I feel like everyone knows. But no one knows, not really. No one in real life. Not even A to whom I showed most of myself. Perhaps B who understood me better than I understood myself. I miss the way he'd understand everything. No one else in life has understood so much. And I didn't even have to try to explain, I didn't have to say a word, really. I tried so desperately to explain to A. And she never got it. That hurt me. I'm tired of not being understood, I'm tired of trying and trying and trying and only getting a few weirded-out smiles back. She never even tried. That's why I broke up with her. Because she didn't even try.

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