I needed to feel a different pain. I needed to reassert myself. I needed to change my body from the one he knew.
I’ve been killing it. Nights that bleed into morning, pots of coffee, retail therapy, English ales that drink like meals. The blood doesn’t faze me anymore. Instead of slowly slipping down the spiral, I’ve decided to fall all the way so I can climb back up.
Sometimes you have to tear yourself down before you can start rebuilding.
I wish Trolley was here so we could play Starcraft 2 like we did when we lived on Island Park. I’d set up my laptop in his room — he’d have a beer and I’d have a joint — and we’d spend hours against some computers in Warcraft 3. Or he’d surf the web and listen to music while I wrote in this blog, sharing the apartment with his kitty and mine.
Those were the summers of No Motiv and Coheed and Cambria. The winters of Bel Canto and The Dears. I remember being happy then.
I wish Aaron and Trolley were here so we could get really, really drunk, even though I don’t drink anymore. Only when I wake up in the middle of the night, and all the thoughts I’ve been pushing into the back of my head come clawing out, leaving me with a restless mind. I pour a glass of Bailey’s on the rocks and practice scales until the alcohol makes me fall asleep again.
One time, we went to the Honest Lawyer to celebrate Aaron’s birthday. In our drunken haze, we thought it’d be a good idea to order some pizza when we got back to my apartment (there was a pizzeria right outside the side door). Aaron hurled in the garden rocks as we were waiting for the order. We brought him in, and gave him a pillow and towel cause he wanted to sleep in the bathroom. He told me later, “I only get that drunk when I’m really depressed”. Sounds good to me.
I wish my friends were here so we could drink like the old days, when we were between school and work, and women.
Also known as a drinking party at Shirley’s.
This is how I learn that people have a good time when there’s at least one person willing to make a fool of himself, because it sets the tone for everyone else.
That being young is to be young at heart. That to be young at heart is to laugh deep and laugh regularly.
And that it never hurts to have alcohol to help facilitate the process.
Trolley left his Tuborg in my room tonight, but I purposely didn’t tell him so that I could have a chance to talk with him when he remembered where it was.
Some people turn to pills and things
To help them through the day
To take them up or down or just
To ease the blues away
But me I really want to feel
The ups and downs of life so real
Happy or sad emotions reign
My tears flow just the same
—Lamb, I Cry
I had been trying to write this for nearly a month, but couldn’t get it down until I really listened to the lyrics of I Cry on the walk home past the power lines. I decided to split this up into two separate entries, after realizing that I have two similar ideas in my head, but two very distinct issues. Perhaps it just took a few extra rough days of work to force me to think about this. All the things falling apart that I have to fix, responsibilities, deadlines, and tons of other miscellaneous things are definitely making me think of ways to get the tension out of my arms and shoulders.
Sometimes, when I come home, all I want to do is get piss drunk or mindlessly stoned. Maybe go recklessly buy a bunch of things I don’t need, to make myself feel better for that little amount of time. Sometimes I just feel like doing something irrational, even though I have no idea what or why, simply because I believe it would get my mind of things. And yet I don’t do any of this, especially when I’m having a particularly bad day, because I don’t want to be dependent on anything.
I don’t want to rely on narcotics, or material goods, or self-mutilation, or anything at all to make myself feel better. I want to be sure that I can handle things, no matter what, on my own. I force myself to feel every stressful, miserable, forlorn emotion, so that I know that I can get through them.
Sometimes, every day can be a test. Music and writing are the only things that I allow myself.
And sometimes I have to tell myself that it’s enough.