equivocality » Daily Life

the tide you swim against will carry you back home

Jeff — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:37:04 +0000

How quickly my world fell apart. How suddenly things have changed, never to be the same again. No one blames me for being unable to cope when so much has happened all at once.

When diagnosing the severity of your mood, the professionals always ask if you have a plan. Even the two cops who show up at your door at midnight cause your friends fear the worst will pose the question. I guess a plan is the sign that you’re in immediate danger, and I had three.

It means I get to be selfish now. I get to do what I need to survive. I get to think of myself for once in my life.

Even if my friends have never been through this, even if they don’t understand, they still care, and they prove it to me with every lingering hug, every meal they leave me, every call to ask how I’m feeling, every message left to let them know if there’s anything they can do, every reminder that they don’t want to lose me spoken through tears from those I’ve never seen cry.

I used to have nothing but guilt for worrying them, but now I understand that guilt is the last thing they want me to feel. They only want me to be okay. They’ve done so much to make me believe this, and that’s exactly what I need right now.

morbid self-attention

Jeff — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:01:11 +0000

My life has taken another turn again. The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next. A long continuous chain.

—Taxi Driver

Time loses all meaning when you can’t sleep more than two hours in a row, and everything else becomes meaningless along with it. Some days I can’t eat, exercise, or face the world. All I can do is wonder when it’ll all end, and fight every thought that tells me to give up.

They said the medication may make me feel worse before I start feeling better. This is how I discover rock bottom is always relative. A strange little hole I find myself in, where the days grow brighter with the changing of seasons, insomnia means I never miss a sunrise or sunset, and I have nothing but free time, but none of it matters.

pharmaceutical intervention

Jeff — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:51:35 +0000

Sanity is supposed to come from little portions of Cipralex, but I have to survive long enough for the doctors to find the right dose. It may well be several months before they discover what works, and every day in between terrifies me.

Until then, I can’t sleep, I can’t come, I can’t eat more than half of what I used to before getting full, and I can’t go without Gravol to fight the nausea. The side-effects are supposed to be better than the alternative — and I suppose cottonmouth is good way to get me to drink more liquids — but every wretched day makes me question whether this unique form of hell is worth it.

This used to be one of my greatest fears, and here I am faced with it cause I couldn’t handle life by myself anymore.

what fool hath added water to the sea?

Jeff — Sat, 05 May 2012 04:17:36 +0000

O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain,
That shall distil from these two ancient urns,
Than youthful April shall with all his showers

—Titus Andronicus

I lost my life as I knew it, piece by piece, over days and weeks and months. Now things will never be the same. In moments of crisis, everything has been distilled; what’s gone is gone forever, and what remains is what I will carry for the rest of my life.

And as the threads unraveled, I tore myself from the world away, my face unable to bear the burden to others.

Do we have any movement from the Baratheons?

Jeff — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:40:57 +0000

Our nights are filled with alliances made and broken. I’ve never been particularly good at negotiation or betrayal, and that’s probably why my house is usually the first to go in the Game of Thrones. I’ve become that guy who sucks and consequently poses no threat at the thing everyone is into, but still plays cause it’s always worth seeing the bluffs and calls, the bold alpha strikes, and the development of grudges.

I’ve never gotten along with the caffeinated, shaky, socially awkward guys who frequent the rare binders at the comic book store, perhaps cause they remind me too much of an adolescent version of myself. But this is our own version of geekery, with our own rituals, and the company is never anything less than entertaining.

Armed with Valyrian steel blade and messenger raven, for control of the fiefdoms and the king’s court.

a path you didn't choose

Jeff — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 13:31:19 +0000

People are forgoing their heavy coats for light jackets, even a litte skin. But winter still lingers in the crisp air, a reminder that it hasn’t been long since those frigid nights, but that it’ll soon be warmer and brighter. On the right days, I can wake up with the warmth of the sun on my face, drive with the windows down, and eat dinner in the daylight.

The cats sit intently by the back door for hours, listening for any birds come home for Spring. They haven’t heard any since last year, and for Byron, that’s pretty much a lifetime. Nowadays, I measure time by how much heavier feels every day. There’s a comfort to be found in knowing that your cats are growing and healthy.

It feels like so much of what I used to cherish has fallen to the wayside. Like I’m relentlessly trying to catch up on sleep, on time spent with friends, on guitar practice, on various projects, on getting to inbox 0. With time now such a valuable resource, I’ve been re-evaluating things to salvage as much as I can. Figuring out the difference between what I truly enjoy and what I enjoy because I think I should, between what I need and what I want.

It’s strange to think that I’ve ended up here, and yet it’s hardly different from where I was not so long ago. Life is always interesting, no matter what age you are, and regardless of how you think you’ve settled into it. If you’re doing it right, at least.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2012. | 4 comments
Post tags: Byron, cats, Dolly, seasons, spring | Categories: Daily Life, Photos

little victories

Jeff — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 05:06:16 +0000

Remember when I used to write about everything? When there were a million distractions to keep me warm, and all the lyrics captured a moment I never wanted to forget. The changing seasons, the goosebumps beneath my fingers, the taste of affection; it all lived on in my songs, and I wanted nothing more than to put it all on paper.

I’m trying to get there again. Not with dramatic, sweeping changes, but by rebuilding brick by brick. I can make it if I focus on putting one foot in front of the other, living day by day.

So I’ve been cherishing the little victories, cause they all count. And luckily, life is full of them.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2012. | 3 comments
Post tags: reflection, self-evaluation | Categories: Daily Life, Photos, Thoughts

this is my happy face

Jeff — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 05:11:06 +0000

All i want to write about lately is sunsets and awkward hugs and rediscovering coconut macaroons and underwear and secondish chances and growing old and justice and my new awareness of food industry issues and the smell of outdoors no matter what the season and wanting to see Germany and my new Magic decks and that last date and how hard it is to do Street Fighter IV combos and pictures like this

and not having to wear a coat anymore and handshakes after really close games and people being nice to me and feeling more comfortable with barre chords and what Geneviève wears and Breaking Bad and Nick Drake’s life and root beer floats and the sound of a melodica and pretty cats and opening boosters and the luxury of saying no and how weird it feels to drive somewhere in your PJs and introducing others to that aloe drink and the same old memories that I still cherish and mini-Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and walking baselines and being surrounded by such good people and having a PS3 and the time complexity of sorting algorithms and wondering if it’s too late to call and how excited Ryan gets when I visit and the songs I want to write and my memories of America and scented oils from the Body Shop and chocolate beers and the image of a gauzy dress in the sun.

Protected: retail therapy

Jeff — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:30:30 +0000

missed connection

Jeff — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:49:29 +0000

(I was going through some old e-mails when I found this missed connection post I wrote years ago. Aside from getting in touch with the person I was writing to, one person replied, “I am not her… but I read this page hoping that one day someone would post something this nice about me after a random smile exchanged on a street corner. Well Done.” Don’t we all.)

I was walking north on O’Connor around 5pm yesterday, lost in a thought, when I turned the corner and saw you looking at me.

You gave me an uninhibited smile, the likes of which seemed to convey a strange familiarity. Like we had seen each other at an office party but were never formally introduced, so we knew of each other’s existence but were too shy to be the first one to say anything, and relegated our communication to giving each other quick glances when passing each other in the hall.

It made me think of this line that Emilio Estevez says in St. Elmo’s Fire:

There are several quintessential moments in a man’s life: losing his virginity, getting married, becoming a father, and having the right girl smile at you.

Okay, so maybe Joel Schumacher got the entire concept of St. Elmo’s fire wrong in the movie, and sure, Andie MacDowell’s role was as challenging as putting butter on bread, but she was perfect for it. She had a fresh face with the right amount of charm and mystery to be the love interest of the guy who played the popular jock in The Breakfast Club, and for a moment yesterday, YOU WERE THAT GIRL. If that makes me the crazy, obsessed waiter-cum-law student then so be it. At least I wasn’t the wild frat boy with a bastard son who couldn’t hold his life together that Rob Lowe won the Razzie for, right?

You were the girl who defined one of those four quintessential moments, and it came at the right time, as I had just spent so much time cursing Ottawa for having such inconsiderate drivers and inaccessible downtown parking. I was the guy you smiled at who probably lives a little too vicariously through 80s coming-of-age movies cause I was never cool enough to have any “real” problems, and your smile stopped me in my tracks. By the time I gained the clarity to turn around, all I could see was you walking away, in a long black coat, black hat, with red hair.

All I need now is to lose my virginity, get married, and become a father. Maybe you could help me with those too.