as I long for scooters and seventy degree days, kristin. I hate you. :) no, I love you endlessly. and I have to say that I also love. the. decemberists. almost as much as you and my parents. I can't stop listening to them. and in that addiction, I wind up fulfilling the rule of no band you're going to see in the 24 hours surrounding either side of the show. so the frames will be new and refreshing and full of sparkly shiny explosions.
so - my want for sitting here, as I pack for a quick trip to florida and back to transport a car. if there is a god, whatever it is, the organized randomness that grows the flowers and streaks the sunsets, it pulled up the emergency brake on the car that is my life today. while I was doing, I don't know, seventy-five in the left lane. snow and all.
see, I've been in the place of total decadence, and I wrapped it up a week or two ago. it kind of finished itself in cabo. I mean, everything. warm brownies right out of the pan, no regard for finances, masturbating in the afternoon, whatever the fuck I felt like doing. and it was kind of like cutting my hair (circa entries on the manual site this summer) which had to be done to fulfill some need I thought I had, or something I thought I was missing, when in reality it was just a confirmation that I wanted my hair long. but the whole time, the I-want-what-I-can't-have complex was screaming.
so, yeah. the decadence. it was fun, for like, five minutes.
and I woke up this morning broke and overweight. sixteen dollars in my checkbook, rent due, and none of my jeans fit the way they should. it was the kind of morning that would have driven me back to bed in my drinking days, or at the very least had me sobbing in my underwear with every stitch of clothing I owned piled on the floor around me. today, in my utter growth and maturity, I managed to leave for work (only an hour behind schedule, but hey, it was snowing, so I had that excuse at least) and after a few songs played I dialed eve. ready to stab myself, and then to get out of the car and stab everybody else.
now, this is where I love the sea of people around me that I have let into my very being, the people who know what makes me tick, and tock, and blush, and spin out of control. all of it. we determined that given the following, that if I had a few extra cookies and some shopping compulsions, that I really wasn't doing all that bad:
I am brushing up against 29, which means the end of my twenties, implying some type of "shouldn't I ___________ by now?" complex. (yes, starla, the beam is still strong, stronger than you and I even know...) I am in the process of getting divorced, and yesterday was my (former) wedding anniversary. I spent almost two weeks without meetings, which is not something anyone told me was wrong, but as it turns out was something that wound up not working so well. oh, and yeah - I just changed my entire life. all of it. in my apartment, with my cat and my fish, after standing up and saying out loud that I wasn't sure if I should have gotten married. I liked a boy recently and it didn't work out, my job is getting more demanding, I'm financially insecure... oh, and the not-quite-yet ex-husband has a girlfriend. and did not bother to call on aforementioned former celebratory day.
he was probably banging her. my husband. with his girlfriend. is that sentence coming out of my mouth? what the fuck was I thinking?
okay, so we're getting somewhere. and in the midst of this and screaming out the window at the lunatics on the road, I run over what I think is a hunk of ice or dirty snow or something. immediately my car starts pulling to the right, and I'm like, um, eve, I think I have a flat tire, and we both determine it must be the snow I hit. only, I've had snow in my tire before, and this feels a little worse. I drive about three exits and pull up to the gas station on the highway. because of my beautiful day, I have also run out of gas, forgotten my coffee, etc. etc. etc.
I have a flat tire. now I start laughing at myself, because I really have nothing else left. eve comes, the AAA guy comes, and thankfully I have not done any damage, besides needing a new snow tire, and for once I have purchased the warranty, pretty much because the wonderful guys that I trust and adore at my local garage promised me I'd be glad that I did.
and I am. and you know what else I am? aware.
eve promptly dragged me off to the noon meeting, where somehow, I managed to talk about what my head was telling me. all those crazy things. and out of nowhere, I speak these words, these realizations - that I am an alcoholic for sure. and that in that state, not drinking (or smoking even), that I will act out however the fuck I can to fill that void. consuming - beverages, food, people... tangling myself up emotionally to distract me from what's happening in my real tangible life. spend all your money and bang the hot stranger. that'll keep you busy for a while, until you're broken on the floor and you can't button your new pants. see how good you feel then.
as my hair grows back and the car sits with its shiny new tire and I take a loan against my emergency fund, it all sinks in. I'm just so caught up with being alive, you know? I spent so much time lifeless and cold that I tried to take it all on at once. and I had to, to see what worked and what didn't.
so it's on to the next adventure, frames and a quick drive down the east coast. I should see if we can catch any shows on the way down. friday night should find us somewhere in between... and I must pay tribute to these little moments of perfection, to eve's help, and to donna's infinite wisdom when I rattled all of this off:
honey, it sounds like there was something for you to learn there, and whatever it is, you sure learned something.
how she sums up a forty minute rant in one sentence never ceases to amaze me. thank whatever god-type entity there is, in those swirling sunsets and blooming flora, for everything being as it should be. in the words of the boy's favorite quote, life is in the right.
always.
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