Hamlet: I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us.
Hamlet, Act Three Scene One
My desert island text – if for the rest of my life I could only read one thing, anything – would be Hamlet. I could (nay, I will) write an in-depth appreciation of the play one day, but right now I just want to focus on the above extract. This comes just after Hamlet’s great “To be or not to be” speech and he is speaking to Ophelia. They are just beginning an argument which her father, plus Gertrude (Hamlet’s Mother) and Claudius (Hamlet’s new Stepfather) are secretly listening in on. It will be the first, and only, major exchange between these two characters before they are separated forever.
Listen to these words: “I could accuse me of such things that it / were better my mother had not borne me.” Haven’t we all muttered the same in moments of depression or frustration: “I wish I’d never been born“? The literary difference in this case is that Hamlet was born – and raised – to be the future king of Denmark; his raison de’tre. And this was taken away once Claudius came in and (illegally) took his place on the throne.
Worse, he is talking to his kind-of-ex-girlfriend who he half-believes has sold him out to the ‘powers-that-be.’ Plus his father was murdered by Claudius. So he’s in a bit of a pickle and has the full right to be pissed off and act a little crazy.
Our own problems may pale in retrospect. We do not have scriptwriters to edit and tempo our lives with the necessary tricks to make great drama; yet we fully believe at times that our dramas are THE dramas; that we are the be-all and end-all. In these dour moments we have the hubris to assume that everybody else is dying to listen to our problems when really they mightn’t be; a possibility we’re too afraid to acknowledge.
All that said, I have a confession: I have been struggling a bit lately. My head is still feeling fragile. The kids – well, while Keira is almost recovered, it’s that “I’m well enough to be sooky and generally miserable to be around” kind of way – the kids are wearing me down; I’m yelling more than I care to admit and I retreat to my bed early of a night-time, with the dishes still in the sink and the toys over the floor because I think, “I cannot be stuffed.”
Then there’s the end of year preschool parties (Question: since when were teacher’s presents compulsory? I was practically the only one the other day not to bring along a little ‘something’. She probably thinks I’m a right royal tight-ass now) and the shopping and the husband coming up to me every five minutes saying, “What do you want for Christmas?” like I have a moment to myself during the day to think purely about further material possessions. Then when I say what I do want (“I want time to myself more” “Give me time”) he scoffs and says, “No, what do you really want?”
Actually, I do know what I want: I wanted my dear friend to be pregnant. Alas, this was not to happen: ‘Not this cycle’. The derivatively dry jargon of the fertility world is enough, I would guess, to almost send someone off the edge. As it was, I was sobbing into the kitchen table after she rang with the news; sobbing enough for Adam to turn Keira’s head away, saying “Don’t worry about mum; she’s just a little sad at the moment. It’s all okay. It’s all okay.”
Sure, for us, it is. Then, when I head Fergie warble on the radio:
“I need some shelter of my own protection baby
To be with myself and Center, Clarity
Peace, Serenity”
I snort to myself, “Well half your fucking luck, lady.”
Which brings me back to my Hamlet analogy–– he never wanted to avenge his father’s murder. No, and if he hadn’t had that calling, he would’ve spent a fair time grieving, yes, but then would’ve gone back to his studies, waiting for Claudius to die. A simpler life, perhaps, but it would make a boring play.
And so we must all go along with the narrative of our own lives; for its drama, its rectitude, its solace, its comedy and its joy.
And next time I am lying in my bed with my copy of Buddhism for Mothers and I count off on my fingers all the things I did wrong that day, and swear to myself that today perhaps wasn’t better than yesterday, like I swore it would be 24 hours previously, I should just slap myself for being an arrant knave and roll over and get a bit of sleep.
For what else should such creatures as I do in this a state?
What do you do when you get the ghoulie-downers? Do you deny them? Or do you occasionally, as I just have, be indifferently honest with yourself?
