It's been months since I've felt like writing, like breathing, like waking to possibilities that are anything but terrifying, like feeling something, like taking a chance, like being myself...
It's been months since anything has sparked up in me. I've been sleepwalking, it seems. I've not been here. I mean, I have. But I haven't felt that I was present for the last, oh, I don't know, three months...six months...year of my life.
And now, for some reason, now, today, I feel the faintest hint of something happening. It is small. It is barely discernible, but it is there.
I have awakened to find that some things have happened, and some things haven't. Things have changed, and things have stayed the same. With the exception of a few conversations, and of course, the concerts, the entire summer is a blur. A couple of gut-punch emails, stolen moments with dear friends at home, becoming entranced by live music, meaningless encounters with people I will most likely never see again. These are the things that briefly shift into focus when I try to glean some meaning from the void. The books I've read seem more real to me than my everyday life - my thoughts align themselves in Miller-esque passages. I am aware of the self-indulgence in this, the pseudo-intellectual bullshit of it, the cowardice in adopting another's voice. I find myself daydreaming about his overuse of the word 'adroitly' when referring to anything a woman might do to his prick. And then about his overuse of the word 'prick'. I almost hate myself for how much I love reading him. It's a little sick. I hope no one is reading over my shoulder on the train. It's ridiculous.
I find myself the owner of two completely dysfunctional cats. Obese, anti-social, and (based on their habits of excretion) clearly in need of psychoanalysis from Freud himself. And now, even though they offer me little in the way of companionship or happiness, I feel i am stuck with them. They sort of suit me in their neuroses. They are my kind of crazy. And, their combined weight is almost the same as that of a grown man, so at least when they're sleeping in my bed, it's a little less obvious that no one else is. Jesus.
The country seems to be crumbling around us. Society as we know it is changing, and America is not ready to change with it. We want what we want and we want it now. We've been operating on an inflated sense of credit for so long that we've actually managed to tear down our own financial structure (I am equally guilty). Our image in the rest of the world is a disgrace. No one has health care. At least no one in a boat which remotely resembles mine. I'm faintly placing hope in Obama, but don't envy him the job of captaining a sinking ship. Balls. When did my world view become so goddamned cynical? Am I just being realistic?
What's the point of all this? Hell if I know. But I feel a change coming, and right now, a change of any kind can be nothing but good. So, here I am, blooming in the Autumn of the year, while everything else is doing the opposite. I have quit my stifling job. I will re-begin training for the marathon promptly tomorrow morning (with a companion this time, so it's harder to say "fuck it"). I am finishing a script. I am going into the world completely unsure of how I'm going to live and pay for things, but more optimistic in spite of it than I have been about a steady paycheck for the last year. I have re-invented myself yet again. This time with a hipster haircut and a plan for a new tattoo. A new house in queens. A fresh coat of paint. Not a blind leap into the unknown, but at least a first tentative step. I want to feel something again. Anything. I'm ready to shake the emptiness left by the boy who ruined me. I'm tired of numbing myself to make it through the day. I want to laugh. I want to burst into tears. I want to find someone or something that I'm excited about again. So, damaged and self-sabotaged as I am, my battle wounds and I are no longer sleeping it off.
