A little more than 10 years ago, I began looking back at the diaries I had kept over the previous decade. I wondered if I’d changed. So I loaded all 500,000 words of my journals into Excel to order the sentences alphabetically. Perhaps this would help me identify patterns and repetitions. How many times had I written, “I hate him,” for example? With the sentences untethered from narrative, I started to see the self in a new way: as something quite solid, anchored by shockingly few characteristic preoccupations. As I returned to the project over the years, it grew into something more novelistic. I blurred the characters and cut thousands of sentences, to introduce some rhythm and beauty. When The Times asked me for a work of fiction that could be serialized, I thought of these diaries: The self’s report on itself is surely a great fiction, and what is a more fundamental mode of serialization than the alphabet? After some editing, here is the result.
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Just because he has the courage to ruin his life and sell his soul doesn’t mean I must do that, too. Just because there are difficulties, it doesn’t mean you have done anything wrong. Just because there is someone you want, it doesn’t mean you can have them. Just because things are hard, that doesn’t mean you have made the wrong decision. Just deprive that part of my brain, deprive it of oxygen, let it die. Just don’t think about it. Just kidding! Just like how the summer before last, I remember walking down a dirt road with Pavel and saying that I wanted to be in New York by next spring — and here I am. Just make the decision not to; mourn the part of you that slightly wants children, if there is such a part, and move on. Just me and my books. Just showered and dressed up in the black cashmere sweater that Lemons sent down with Ida. Just sitting here. Just sort of be here, even though I don’t necessarily understand why. Just talked to Dad. Just talked to Priya. Just talked to Rose. Just to enjoy this feeling of having accomplished something that was so incredibly difficult to do. Just to have a serious and deep and beautiful life with the man I love the most. Just to have that kind of happiness. Just to keep up with people’s lives now and then. Just to look at what they’re wearing. Just write a novel. Just write the truth from your feelings. Just write the truth. Just writing this at the airport, waiting for the delayed flight to Exeter.
Killing evil thoughts. Knew it would only last a day. Knocked my tooth out this morning, and I can’t find my gold coin. Know better how to eat. Know how to love a man by knowing how to love writing. Knowing that bad things are going to come should make you really calm.
Lark calling me drunk. Lark came calmly, smiling. Lark doesn’t want you. Lark is back with his girlfriend, who he cheated on three times. Lark is not going to write me back, either because he’s a selfish and uncaring person or because I’m a bad and selfish person. Lark is reticent and secretive and private. Lark is so truly not in love with you. Lark is stuck. Lark is the most amazing-looking man I have ever seen. Lark passed me his phone; there had been a choir on the streetcar earlier, and he had recorded it on his phone. Lark pulled my hair, grabbed me. Lark put his hands on me and led me into a corner. Lark said, “I paid for your ice cream, and that’s that.”
Lark texted me. Lark said it might be best not to say what qualities he thought he wanted in a woman. Lark was beautiful, and I tried to persuade him not to go. Lark was lying on the floor, too drunk to be sitting up. Lark was lying with his feet to the door, at a slight remove from the other three people who were talking. Lark was naked. Lark was talking about theater or something, and I realized that I was bored with his interests. Last night at the party I told him I had big news, and he suddenly turned red and asked me if I was pregnant. Last night he took me aside and pulled me close to him and looked down into my face. Last night he was talking about how bad he had been — a drunk, getting thrown in jail, drinking a hundred bottles of wine, getting into a fight. Last night he was wearing a T-shirt. Last night I had dinner with Pavel, but I got nervous right at the end that there would be a romantic moment, which I did not want. Last night I made him walk down the street as though he didn’t know me. Last night I read through old letters. Last night I was on Criticker for several hours. Last night we went for a walk and in a very natural way ended up in a gelato store. Last night, walking in the streets after the movie, I felt so different in relation to the other humans — not inferior or superior to them but as though we were all members of the same species. Lately I have been noticing something strange: With the older people I know — writers, I mean, who are in some way mentors, who I look up to — part of me wonders whether I should bother getting close to them when they are soon going to die. Later, when I went to wash myself off, I found a little red-blood tissue, some tiny flesh, like a teardrop, in the toilet. Lemons and I emailed yesterday. Lemons and I were talking about having dinner together. Lemons and I were there, sitting on the fake green couch, while Pavel and his friend waited outside, Pavel smoking. Lemons and Ida were there, and Rosa said, “Ida is a genuine weirdo.” Lemons asking what does it mean to live a human life and me saying that you can feel the feelings without having to put them in a superstructure. Lemons came out of the bathroom. Lemons had spent the past two days cleaning his apartment and looking through mementos of him and Ida. Lemons has at times felt contemptuous of her but never enough to corrupt his admiration because there is too much to admire, he says. Lemons is losing some hair, I think, with all the stress of the past six months — perhaps some of the blond has gone out of it, too. Lemons just broke up with Priya — that lasted a month, maybe two. Lemons just emailed me. Lemons last night marveled at how many chances he got — one got — at a good life. Lemons once said to me, “You want a boyfriend who’s like Priya.” Lemons said all his best relationships have been the ones in which he was the pursuer. Lemons said not to publish the book if I was uncomfortable with it. Lemons said of his relationship with Ida, “That drove me crazy.” Lemons said that he wished they could get all the romance and seduction over with and just settle down to being comfortable with each other. Lemons said, “Yeah, you two have little Jew-crushes on each other.” Lemons saying the other day that people will look back on Brooklyn as they did on Paris. Lemons saying, “You shouldn’t have said that about Ida.” Lemons says he was numb these past three years. Lemons should break up with her already. Lemons still doesn’t know or understand why Priya loves him. Lemons talked openly about being willing to break up with her to have five or 10 more years without kids. Lemons thinks I need a new project, a big project, one that is more ambitious than the other ones and longer — he seemed to be implying — to occupy my days until I have a kid. Lemons today said, “Pity the man who gets what he wants,” and I said, “Pity the man who gets what he wants all in one night.” Lemons was saying that both Priya and Ida had criticized him for wanting a relationship in which he could take them for granted. Lemons wrinkled his nose. Lemons, unreliable but perhaps a real friend. Lemons’s mother died when he was a young boy. Let everything inessential die. Let her life take the wrong path. “Let’s sit here,” he said, and we sat beneath a Godot-like tree, small. Life here is so good. Life is so hard, and it never ends. Like a bird moving from flower to flower — you will just move to another flower. Like a good-looking girl. Like a little abortion of something. Like a little kid running after a train. Like a table with four legs. Like being a monk. Like I cut off one head and another head grows somewhere else. Like I said, I was happy. Like when he kissed me downstairs and I thought, “I love you.” Loneliness after his wedding. Loneliness is not the end. Loneliness is unavoidable and will be unavoidable. Look at you. Look, I am nearly 30. Looking at Craigslist apartments in Hungary, I thought, “I do not want to move to Budapest.” Looking out the window of the living room, covered in vines. Losing him as the center of my life. Lots of people reach out to old lovers in this state. Lots of women want him, and you are the same. Love and the snow. Love that phrase of the art critic, “I write poetry for my assistants.”
Sheila Heti is the author of 10 books, including the novels “Motherhood,” “How Should a Person Be?” and the forthcoming “Pure Colour.” This is part 4 of a 10-part series. Sign up to get it in your inbox.
Photographs by Yael Malka.
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