Des Perles de Pluie

A phrase from one of my favourite songs, Ne Me Quitte Pas. Bic Runga does a particularly beautiful version of it on a live album, but it's hard to find. It only means 'drops of rain', but it sounds so nice to just run off the tip of your tongue. But simultaneously, I think is manages to convey a far more profound sense of wistful sorrow than the plain English 'drops of rain' could ever hope to evoke. Des perles de pluie.
I learnt French when I was overseas, for three years. Some phrases remain, like "J'aime la pomme de terre" (I like potato) and "Comment allez-vous?" (How do you do?). So many hours learning masculine and feminine, various ways to use verbs, etc.. and what do I have to show for it? I can't speak French, I can't even pretend or hope to be good at it. The whole thing absolutely smacks of mediocrity, which seems to be the central theme for my life.

Today hasn't been a very nice day. It hasn't even felt like a full day.. more like mismatched puzzle pieces. I honestly can't tell you whether something I recall from this morning actually happened this morning, or whether it's my mind remembering something from days ago and just blending everything together. I'm begging for a routine, something to regularly look forward to.

Sometimes, and today is one of them, I feel as though other people are the only thing that keep me from .. well, disappearing. Such cruel irony - that disappearing, usually considered an easy option or a release, would be the most difficult thing of all to actually do. I suppose making yourself disappear would be the ultimate selfish thing.. throwing yourself to oblivion without a care for how it might affect anybody else. Why does it have to be so hard?
For convenience, perhaps I should invent a machine. Once I step inside, it would alter past, present and future to a place where I didn't exist. Therefore nobody would feel the 'lack of me', nobody would have to arrange an appropriately ceremony, people's lives would be more full of the things they want to do rather than catering to the wishes of a particularly silly little girl. That creates a little issue - if I never existed, who would there be to push the button to permanently erase me? And if I couldn't push the button, how could I be erased in the first place? The cycle continues and there is still no solution. Not a permanent one, at least.

People like to imagine that dying is like going to sleep and never waking up. I'll go to bed now, and although I will probably wake up in the morning, at least for those precious few hours I will be blissfully and completely unaware of that unfortunate fact.