Posts tagged with "loneliness"

Last Day Of The Year

Outside, the snow­fall is fast but light. From the blan­ket of white on the cars, one can tell how long it’s been snow­ing. Against this white is the aching orange glow of the sky, and the warm flu­o­res­cent street lamps. The blinds of the hous­es across the street are all closed and the lights are off.

City in a snow globe. Lifeless. Plastic. Shaken.

In the dark­ness of my liv­ing room, Emiliana Torrini sings to me about love in the time of sci­ence.

It should­n’t hurt me to be free
It’s what I real­ly need
To pull myself togeth­er
But if it’s so good being free
Would you mind telling me
Why I don’t know what to do with myself

It’s the last day of the year. The lit­tle clock on my screen tells me it’s six min­utes to 2 a.m. I should be in bed, but this is the only chance I have to write.

Where did the time go? I thought I would be bored, or lone­ly, dur­ing the hol­i­day stretch, only to dis­cov­er that it was­n’t long enough.

They say that the days, months, years pass faster, the old­er you get.

Maybe this means I’m get­ting old.

Holiday Stretch

Hi there.

I’m already in hol­i­day mode. Sure, I have one day of work left — Monday — but my brain has checked out. I even took the day off yes­ter­day and made it a long week­end because I have extra vaca­tion days left, and they can’t be car­ried for­ward.

The chaise lounge on which I do my writing

This is how I spend most of my time nowa­days: on my new chaise lounge from EQ3, with a mug of tea by my side, in a gen­er­al­ly unkempt man­ner. Unshaven, with the flour­ish of a cowlick in my hair.

Last year, in which I declared that Christmas is dead, I stayed home out of spite, not direct­ed at any­one but myself. This year, I’ve decid­ed to go to Shirley’s for Christmas Eve and Christmas, and Pat and Jen’s for New Year’s.

But there’s a stretch of a sev­er­al days in between in which I have no plans. Even though it’ll be a chance for me to do some extra writ­ing, work on my pho­to projects, maybe even relax a bit, part of me wish­es I was busy like every­one else.

I know I don’t have any­thing to com­plain about. I’m lucky enough to be spend­ing the “impor­tant” days with friends who are impor­tant to me. I’m even lucky enough to have a choice of where to go. But I know that dur­ing the stretch, when oth­er peo­ple has some­where to be, some­where to go, I’ll feel some­what for­lorn. They’ll have a place where they belong.

Maybe I’ll belong here, at home alone, on this won­der­ful chaise.

Pick Yourself Up

Things haven’t been going my way. As much as I try to let them go, I can’t. There’s just too much right now. My mind jumps from one thing to anoth­er when I’m in bed.

I need to stay away from the blo­gos­phere for a while. Not writ­ing, but being a part of my usu­al cliques and forums. The dra­ma late­ly has been real­ly piss­ing me off, and it’s cer­tain­ly not help­ing.

It’s six in the morn­ing and I’ve been awake for…hmmm…two hours? Another hour before I’m off to work. Maybe writ­ing this has helped.

Pick your­self up, you son-of-a-bitch, because no one’s going to do it for you.

Edit: Nope. Fuck it. I’m going to work, and bring­ing my hood­ie, and a copy of Taxi Driver. I won­der if it’s rain­ing out­side.

Still Human

Crank it. Loud, and maybe you’ll under­stand how I feel.

I’ve been in such a slump the last week. Maybe I’m over-worked, over-tired, and over-stressed. Things haven’t been going my way.

It’s filled me with such frus­tra­tion, sad­ness, and anger.

Now I’m left to face the ugly world alone, and all I can think is to nev­er put your trust in some­one. Never be depen­dent, nev­er expect any­thing from any­one because you’ll only get hurt.

Pick your­self up, cause no one’s going to help you.

I try to ratio­nal­ize every­thing and fol­low the Tao, but I can’t. Everything is so over­whelm­ing.

As much as I’ve learned, as much wis­dom as I’ve gained, as far as I’ve come, I’m still human.

Long to Belong

Among the shots and the rounds, the friends and the fun, I found a grad­u­a­tion pho­to framed on his shelf, a can­did shot of the Class of ’05.

Every one of my “clique” was among the faces. There were oth­ers as well, peo­ple I knew from class, even though I nev­er talked to them. How dif­fer­ent they all looked — all prim and prop­er in aca­d­e­m­ic regalia — yet famil­iar.

I was the only one not in co-op, and grad­u­at­ed a year before every­one else. My con­vo­ca­tion was insignif­i­cant. I only went because my par­ents want­ed to see me make that walk that stage, a return on their invest­ment. I don’t know who the dean of my fac­ul­ty was, or who hand­ed me my diplo­ma. I was just anoth­er num­ber in a prof­i­teer­ing insti­tu­tion. It meant noth­ing.

But see­ing that pho­to struck a chord in me.

It made me real­ize how I’ve nev­er real­ly fit in. How I nev­er belonged to a group. For some rea­son, I still long for that, or, per­haps, to have had that at one point in my life. Last time it was ele­men­tary and high-school. This time it was uni­ver­si­ty. I don’t know why. I have my own group of friends now. Not a clique, because they don’t hang out with each oth­er, but a mot­ley crew I’ve built through the years.

I know it does­n’t make sense. There’s a rea­son I was nev­er tru­ly a part of any group.

The log­i­cal side of me under­stands that it isn’t sig­nif­i­cant. That it does­n’t, and should­n’t mat­ter. That noth­ing is more bor­ing and pedes­tri­an than fit­ting in.

But anoth­er part of me feels like I missed out on some­thing.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever let that go.