it's one of those stretches of days where everything fits, and nothing at all. and I'm afraid that if my coworkers come in here and interrupt this that I'll throw my tacky desklamp at them. but let's give it a whirl anyways -
I'm doing a temporary fast, just to get out of the habit of habitual eating. I can't stand it. most of the time I'm not even hungry, I just do it because it's there, because I'm bored, because that god damn cookie dough is so good and I know it's just sitting there so I consume. it's getting like cigarettes. if I'm not careful, I'm going to lose the - well, gain, I guess, but - loss that, even though stalled, is still a solid twenty five pounds. go to the grocery store and pick up twenty five pounds of potatoes. it's a lot.
so maybe it's the change of seasons, where we got a hint of scarves and leaf-changing and then the monsoon of rain that's come for days. maybe it's that I haven't been writing, like this, or like anything. maybe it's me feeling scared and displaced for reasons I can't quite figure out. maybe, maybe, maybe... but whatever it is, it's feeling off. donna calls it "the vague uneasies". I call it yucky, but necessary. I love it and hate it, because I know I need it, but then I don't know when it's going to go away, and then I wonder if I need medication. I'm happy, but all I want to do is sleep. maybe it's just my metabolism and the end of my twenties fatness.
I'm going in circles.
so thursday was like, killer. and having tom brosseau here was equally killer, moreso in the fact that he was hanging out in my apartment way - which I'll write about soon, I promise. I keep listening to other people talking and I just want to put on earplugs to block it all out because I can't pay attention. so, anyways, by all standard measures, I am happy. I'm trying to rid myself of unnecessary things. my fat pants are too big, which means I get to pick up a few pairs of jeans at old navy for the inbetween. from last year to now, the progress has been nothing short of tremendous - I was stumbling around in my apartment in branford, not knowing which end was up, thinking a relationship was going to make me feel better, coming alive at the front counter of cafe atlantique in my ninety nine cent notebook, spending hours on the phone with kristin. being pulled and letting myself be pulled and fighting it sometimes and all of the metamorphosis that tends to come along with the coccooning.
and now - I live in one room. I need less. I write more. I'm persuing my interests. I'm going to write a book. my hair is varying degrees of manic panic red, an exaggeration of self, the part of me that I hid behind for so long now cranked out and undeniably loud. so I don't forget, so I don't cop out on myself. I even know what and where my next tattoo needs to be, and I can't wait - but I'm going to, because I know I need to feel healthy to go so it's not a total nightmare like last time. butterflies being seared into my skin. it was quite poetic but it took everything I had not to punch zee in the face and flail around from the fucking pain.
tom brosseau, looking at my industrial: did that hurt?
me: yes. it hurt a lot to get done, but then the healing was easy.
I think that has to mean something. it has to.
so - when I gauge things against things, I'm so much more myself. and maybe I'm right where I need to be, with everything I need to have, and I just don't know it. I've got a flexible job that pays me good and lets me go see lots of shows and have periodic writing fits, mid day, like right now, or whenever I need them. I can afford to do things like go to seattle for eight days and not worry about whether or not I've got vacation time or whatever regular people have to worry about. and I can stream kexp all day at work, and now the national is on, and I can say what I mean - but then if this was enough, would I be wondering what else is there? is there something else, or is it because the chase is all I know? I don't know.
so I don't know why I'm feeling disconnected. I'm losing the popularity contest that I don't even want or try to be in. the light is grey and the corners of my mind are twinged with sadness. and it's not an ungrateful thing, I swear - I've got it so good. and all this cool shit is happening and I'm growing and evolving and yet I'm sitting here, fighting that, going, no, but I'm not okay right now.
consensus, while not as necessary to me as it used to be, says that the change in seasons is not an easy one, even though we welcome it with open arms. and not just a sadness for the summertime, but - well, this is the same time last year I said, I just can't do this, and then everything changed.
(I'm writing a book, and it's genius.)
I want to go intern for a radio station but I don't know if I'll be scared when the money runs out. I want to change everything, again, but I don't want to leave my mom. I feel guilty when I don't answer the phone, and then when I do that these things are all that comes out. I know that kristin is my family, in the realest sense of the word, and that I need to be near her, and how it felt to see part of the ani difranco dvd before I fell asleep again - and the letters that she sends and the houseboys that we'll have and the kittens that we'll save and the mix tapes that we'll make and the books that we'll write and -
I'm struck, suddenly, by maybe being afraid of things being that good? of having comfort in the mundane, because I can handle this, not as bad but kind of like a bad relationship, where you don't go because at least it's familiar and not terrifying. or something like that. see, because I can handle the speed here, I can retreat from the scene, I'm not trying to be anything, I don't feel inferior, and as scared as I am, people trying to be things would push me to be more in the good way, if I could seperate the good from the bad and -
Universe, please, please make it obvious. I'm feeling a little tortured - if I could, I'd know what I needed, when I was supposed to, because it would sparkle somehow, and then when I felt like this I'd know which way to go. I'd feel that undeniable pull, and not just making it up (like, if the light changes right now, that means I'm supposed to _________). I want to be pulled out into the moonlight to feel myself breathing. I want to feel like it feels when you're travelling and these everyday things are all magical and perfect, even when it's just coffee, and then they get more familiar but you don't tire of them - you just get a little more used to it. and there's pictures to take and notebooks to scrawl furiously in and - see, it's all here, but - there's no pull. I can find these things, but there's no pull.
I need the pull.
I think.
and starlit paths for all,
~vvb
Leave a comment