My Cold, Happy Heart

"And then that look that you gave me
Sent me rushing through guilt's door
I'd already started to feel callous
Like I really should care more"
-Ani Difranco

Callous
2 a: feeling no emotion b: feeling or showing no sympathy for others: hard-hearted.

If they were to update this entry in Merriam-Webster my picture would be placed beside it. Well...I guess only if there was the addendum "one is not close to or does not know well" after 'no sympathy for others'. And yet, as soon as that Sarah Mclachlan animal cruelty commercial comes on I just about sob openly. Why do I feel so twisted?

In the past couple months, 1 friend became a domestic partner, 3 other friends got engaged, my youngest cousin got married and I just found out my other younger cousin is getting married this summer. I can genuinely say that I am excited for all my friends and can't wait to be part of the festivities. My cousins on the other hand...I just don't know them that well. My youngest cousin I don't know at all. What brought about this whole callous business is the fact that I found out her husband was recently killed in Iraq. They got married in October. This is heartbreakingly sad, but I feel nothing. I guess I feel bad for her, she's never had much luck in life. Period. But what can I do about the situation? I can't comfort her, I don't know her. I don't even have her phone number. My mother tells me her heart aches for her niece, but me? I'm beginning to think my heart has shrunk. It's the same reaction I had to finding out about the separation I mentioned in the last post. I mean, that situation is slightly different because he doesn't want comfort or anyone's pity. But still. It's the start of a broken family and all I can do is look at it from the outside and think 'well that's sad', but not actually feel any sadness.

My younger cousin that's getting married- we communicate a few times a year but we're not really in each other's lives. She used to really look up to me when we were growing up, but again, I don't really know her as an adult. She asked me to be in her wedding to the guy she was engaged to before this one, but hasn't mentioned anything to me about being engaged now or the wedding this summer. My mother told me and has been on my case about it ever since. Not in the 'when are you getting married' way, she just wants me to start making travel arrangements because the wedding is down south. I'm like, she hasn't even called me! I don't even want to look at how much air fare will be because it's a holiday. Why does this bother me so much? I should just be happy for her and call her to congratulate her but instead I'm just kind of annoyed which puts me only one notch above the border of not even caring.

I feel like there's not enough room in my heart to care, but why? What else am I filling it up with right now? And then at the same time I feel like I have so much love to give. I should care but I can't. I could care but I don't. The clash is causing me to feel detached...to just about everything. That's not to say I'm not happy, because I still am- about all the things I've written about since the new year. I think that's what worries me. I'm still happy in my detachment. That sounds disasterously close to shutting down, just in a different way than I have before. A more innocuous way that won't ring any warning bells to let me know I'm sinking and will eventually have to crawl toward the light again. Can you shut down if you're happy?

Perhaps it's just that my present particular human condition is to question my happiness (though it seems extremely pointless and ultimately self-defeating). Maybe I'm happier because I've lessened how much of others lives I let into my own. Maybe by unconsciously (though now realized) shutting it out I've become happier. Maybe I'm just tired of sadness. For the first time in a long time there isn't this latent sadness hanging around me, so now I have to question it. Figures, right? How could I be happy when so many horrible things are happening every day? AND I'm still single? I must be callous. I'm thinking I should just take this at face value for the moment and enjoy my happiness, no matter what the cause, instead of beating it to death with the stick of obsessive self-analysis.

Is there a good place to lose a stick of obsessive self-analysis? Where can I misplace it so I'll never see it again?