Posts tagged with "loneliness"

god I hate myself for loving smoke and drink

The weath­er has been love­ly. It’s the per­fect tem­per­a­ture, though the humid­i­ty has giv­en my ukulele a much more pro­nounced buzz on the C string. Spring offi­cial­ly begins when I can take the mit­tens out of my car and dri­ve with the win­dows down, my only con­cern being that my music isn’t too embar­rass­ing, and I don’t get a sud­den burst of I BE ON THE HOTLINE LIKE ERRRRDAY when stopped at a red light.

cat on windowsill

 

I’m still phys­i­cal­ly recov­er­ing from last week­end. I got back to Darren’s late after work­ing a very intense 14 hours, and since it’s been so long since we last saw each oth­er, that was just the begin­ning of the night. Then we woke up ear­ly to see Chris. On the way home, I had to pull over at a com­fort sta­tion to grab a few winks in my car, but I was too uncom­fort­ably exhaust­ed to fall asleep, and end­ed up dri­ving home bug-eyed. I’m sure this is why my col­i­tis is act­ing up.

Probably not good that I’ve been liv­ing such a hedo­nis­tic lifestyle. I stay up far too late, drink too much caf­feine, and indulge in too many sweets close to bed­time. I can’t tell if I’ve stopped car­ing, or if I’ve stopped feel­ing guilty about it.

I’ve been going through long stretch­es with­out con­tact from the out­side world. It’s forced me to face my own iso­la­tion, yet I don’t feel lone­ly. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s cause I tend to get obsessed with my small hob­bies, and it dis­tracts me enough. I wor­ry that I’ve become a lit­tle too com­pla­cent in this intro­ver­sion. It makes me won­der how long I can keep going down this path, and whether I even want to be on it or not.

Team Fortress 2

On nights like this, I won­der how I’m going to kill the time before it’s late enough to fall asleep, wor­ried that I’ll be bored on a Friday and con­se­quent­ly faced with the fact that I’m so very alone. I was crav­ing some kind of human con­tact tonight, but spend­ing time with peo­ple takes too much ener­gy nowa­days so I decid­ed, instead, to play Team Fortress 2.

I pur­chased it on an impulse, but this was still three years after TF2 first came out. There’s a very good rea­son I avoid­ed buy­ing it for so long: it’s the sequel to Team Fortress Classic, one of the games I was most addict­ed to in my life, and a huge time sink1. An entire day could go by with­out real­iz­ing it when I was play­ing TFC, and I pur­pose­ly did­n’t buy TF2 when Aaron was get­ting into it too; I knew I would­n’t stop if I had friends encour­ag­ing the habit.

TF2

 

Continue read­ing “Team Fortress 2”…

  1. Also the same rea­son I haven’t tried World of Warcraft. [↩]

I didn't come here for the tea

I came here to get out of the house. Room, actu­al­ly. I haven’t had a face-to-face con­ver­sa­tion with any­one in three days.

I kept going through my phone book. No one. Not a sin­gle per­son I want to talk to. No one with whom to be myself com­plete­ly, with whom to spend in com­pa­ny with­out con­ver­sa­tion. Hank told me a morn­ing of awk­ward­ness is far bet­ter than a night of lone­li­ness, but I beg to dif­fer. The morn­ings always seem to last much longer.

At the same time, this is when I want to dis­tract myself the most, and being with oth­er peo­ple is the most effec­tive way. I’m too busy being focused on spend­ing time with some­one else that I can for­get about myself.

In the car it’s all Kid Cudi, and even though I’ve always told myself I would­n’t dri­ve when I’m like this, I’d always want­ed to hear this album when I’m in this kind of mood. I was nev­er one to resist a night in cool sum­mer air, cruis­ing under the city lights to old haunts.

Waiting for my order affords me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sur­rep­ti­tious­ly observe peo­ple and try to fig­ure out their roles each clique as they inter­act. Even though I’m alone, it’s com­fort enough to be among strangers.

Lonely Lot

Lonely parking lot

Sometimes, you need to get out­side. Dodge the drunks stum­bling through the halls, the peo­ple stand­ing and wait­ing for their groups, the famil­iar faces. Maybe because it’s snow­ing out­side, and you don’t want to miss it, when the sky aches the same orange as you do.

This isn’t your scene, but there’s no one to back you up, so you smile and nod. Fake kiss­es and oblig­a­tory hugs, think­ing, “I don’t know you, and I nev­er will”. A façade to appear nor­mal, when mem­o­ries come flood­ing back. Sitting alone at a table, won­der­ing why you came in the first place. Times with­out a per­son to make you a promise. Moments with oth­er peo­ple’s wives, because he’s secure like that, and wish­ing for noth­ing else. Walking these halls alone the way you’re doing now. Memories you wish were a lit­tle more dis­tant. Maybe you’ll come back one day, and break even, or maybe even come out ahead.

Until then, your indif­fer­ence will keep you alive.

Sometimes you need to take a pic­ture of some­thing, any­thing, because noth­ing you see here is how you feel, and it’s the only way you can scream.

Maybe it’s not so much out­side, where you’re run­ning, as away.

Hello Neighbour

Nighttime condo

The blinds are open so I can see out­side.

Secretly, I hope a face from one of the win­dows will appear and look out­side, some­one who’s think­ing the same thing, so that I may not be so alone. A way of com­fort­ing myself, when I’m by myself in this veneer of a house.

I’m not sure if it’s work­ing.