Posts tagged with "seasons"

nothing lasts, but nothing is lost

It’s been a few weeks since I left the com­ic book shop. I’m glad to have gone through the expe­ri­ence of being a pro­fes­sion­al nerd, to have met the par­tic­u­lar set of chal­lenges involved and flour­ished, but I could tell it was time to quit when the stress was car­ry­ing over from one shift to the next, even with days between.

Without the need to run tour­na­ments, or the pres­sure of deal­ing with cus­tomers, I have a chance to breathe again. That means doing my best not to wor­ry about being pro­duc­tive or hap­py. Just try­ing to feel okay can be enough of a day-to-day chal­lenge.

Cat in Tigger costume

Their spe­cial bond comes from the fact that she lets him get away with more than I do.

Heather and I are tak­ing the next few months off to regain our bal­ance and adjust to our new dosages of SNRIs. Now that I’m in a place where I’m feel­ing more safe and secure, I can tell it’s still hard for me to let go of neg­a­tive thoughts, even when the stim­u­lus is gone. I’m com­ing to terms with the fact that I’ve been fight­ing depres­sion my whole life, and the fact that I’ll like­ly be on even more med­ica­tion for the rest of it1.

I wish I could turn to writ­ing for cathar­sis, but I’m not strong enough to process the mem­o­ries. Parts of the past are still too recent, too famil­iar, too painful. And some­times it’s hard to think of the per­son I was only a year ago, even know­ing how far I’ve come. I’m start­ing to real­ize that time is what I need most, which means I also need patience and trust from my friends.

Cat and Magic: The Gathering

The only com­mit­ments I’ve kept are my play­group on Sundays, and my Wednesdays with Lisa. Otherwise, I’m lost in Guild Wars; the eas­i­est way to escape and feel pro­duc­tive at the same time is to work on dai­ly achieve­ments by slay­ing drag­ons.

And that’s how I lost the Autumn. I did­n’t even real­ize the leaves had turned and fall­en. Now that I’m not work­ing (and I’m the one who always hosts), it feels like I nev­er leave the house. The only reminder that win­ter is here is when the heat comes on, and the smell of dry fur­nace air fills the room. I was look­ing for­ward to the first snow­fall of the sea­son, but the plows have already been out and I haven’t had a chance to take it all in.

  1. On top of the anti-inflam­ma­to­ries, pro­bi­otics, and psyl­li­um husks I take every day to man­age my col­i­tis. []

it hasn't been quite a whole year yet

I still have fond mem­o­ries of the fall. It’s when the light is at it’s most neu­tral, not warmed by the sum­mer sun or cooled by it’s reflec­tion on the snow. The time of long show­ers, kit­ties being even more affec­tion­ate, and girls always find­ing the right spot to nes­tle under your neck.

On par­tic­u­lar­ly bright, chilly days, with all the leaves a flat lemon-yel­low, I can hard­ly take it all in.

cat in sunbeam

We are on this plan­et to move our cats direct­ly in the path of a sun­beam every 15 min­utes.

The sun­beams form a celes­tial cal­en­dar across my floor, slow­ly creep­ing along as they threat­en to warp the wood in my instru­ments, remind­ing me that I haven’t spent a win­ter in this room yet. I can only hope the mem­o­ries will be bet­ter this time around.

These days, I still dream of a nylon-stringed beau­ty, with warm tones and crisp bass close to the sad­dle. I won­der what she’ll feel like under my fin­gers, mahogany or rose­wood, satin or glossy. It’s a dream that nev­er seems far away cause I know it’ll hap­pen some day, so I try to cher­ish the antic­i­pa­tion.

toy plane

I’ve been feel­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly nos­tal­gic. When the right song comes on, I’m tak­en to the time in my life when it was the only thing I played for a week straight. I used to write so much, but late­ly I hard­ly have any­thing to say it all. That’s why I’m addict­ed to the feel­ing of feel­ing, search­ing for inspi­ra­tion, using my dreams to keep me alive.

just another diamond day

In the mid­dle of this heat wave has come a hail­storm that’s dent­ed the shit out of every pan­el of my car, fol­lowed by a series of unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly cool nights. I slept with the win­dows open, and the breeze kept me con­tent to be wrapped in my duvet until wak­ing.

It may as well be a lazy Sunday morn­ing in Autumn as I write this, sit­ting by the warm light com­ing through the blinds, wax­ing nos­tal­gic about more than I care to admit. I’ve been try­ing to write, but I don’t know what I’ve been feel­ing late­ly.

airplane ride!

Maybe it’s cause I haven’t had time to think. And it’s only going to get busier in the fore­see­able future. I’d like to spend more time alone, but that seems a lux­u­ry that’s quick­ly dis­ap­pear­ing. When I’m try­ing to nur­ture the rela­tion­ships that are impor­tant to me, it’s hard to refuse a hang­out, and mak­ing reg­u­lar plans quick­ly fills the week.

playing Magic: The Gathering

Tiana taps two swamps to add two black mana to her mana pool, and increase her sex­i­ness to nerds every­where by 500%.

Probably a good thing, cause I also feel like I’ve been spend­ing too much time alone dur­ing my bouts of intro­ver­sion.

It’s also been a while since I stepped out of my com­fort zone. I guess I did enough trav­el­ing last year to know where my bound­aries are. Since return­ing from my sojourn in the Old Dominion, I’ve been too com­fort­able, and slow­ly I’m being forced out of it as life catch­es up with me. But I know I can han­dle things, cause I’ve done it before.

So I’m try­ing to enjoy what I have now, caught some­where between day and night, iso­la­tion and over-stim­u­la­tion, work and play, sum­mer and fall.

a path you didn't choose

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.

cats eating

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.

hope springs eternal

I awoke after five min­utes — or five sec­onds — to a changed world. For a moment, I was free of feeling…love, hate, jeal­ousy. And it all felt like hap­pi­ness.

—Maurice Bendrix, The End of the Affair

a fresh start

A fog hangs low in the streets, illu­mi­nat­ed by the indi­rect rays of an unrisen sun, leav­ing every­thing was awash in grey instead of white.

The sea­sons are chang­ing. Winter is offi­cial­ly over. It nev­er recov­ers from a day like this, when the inevitabil­i­ty of spring can be felt on your skin, as tan­gi­ble as any snowflake or rain­drop. This is when I can look for­ward to sleep­ing with the win­dows open again, a rit­u­al made only sweet­er by it’s ephemer­al­i­ty.

And with that moist smell heavy in the air, I for­get all else.