me-specific dimorphism

once again, it appears i spoke too soon. misspoke, too soon.

i had looked so far forward to this, summer now, and being able to relax. and its true that a break from classes offered me up something completely new and unheard of - free time, me time - and plenty of it. the problem has manifested itself as this: with all this free time, it has come to light that i have nothing with which to fill it. i was doing so well the last few weeks - going out, being around people, laughing.

but at this point, there are only so many hours i can sit reading at the coffeeshop, even a book so good as the one i'm reading right now. there are only so many hours i can revel in being able to lie on the couch and watch as many episodes of buffy as my heart desires.

there are also only so many times a week i can get drunk by myself in the living room of this big empty house.

there is such a huge barrier between who i am, who i really, really am and who you all think you know i am, and who i know i am (which is infrequent and hopelessly incomplete), and who i try to make you all think i am.

and it comes crashing back in, the sadness, menacing as usual. the endless longing for physical pain, the fight against it, the sleepless nights and the days that stretch out so long i want to throw things at the sun, try to encourage its disappearance just this once. i am so bored with it, the thinking, the waiting. i begrudge no one their outward (or inward, be as it may) occupations, i begrudge the few friends i have nothing, even on a night like tonight when all i want is the presence of someone breathing in the same room and that is the only thing i can not seem to find.

i have to wonder. how many months of my life have i wasted being hopeless? and worse yet, how many months of my life being alarmingly naive? the hopeful months.

and there will always be things - my front porch, far too many cigarettes and one too many beers, weekends at ceras, but i find myself stretching time out - counting down hours between trips to madison, as if two days on third street is the only reason i am able to keep breathing. there will always be this feeling, my wasted youth.

it stands to reason, based on who i am right now and how i operate, that if i don't fix this quickly then i am wasted. imagine my exuberance at 30, when still alone and waiting, when my tits have started to sag and the lines around my mouth are no longer from laughing, and when settling down and being part of something larger than myself is no longer softly in the future, something bright to look forward to but something i must do RIGHT NOW otherwise its going to be too late.

and it is only the vague recollection of the exquisite sensation imparted by two singular digits, a moment of my life that passed so quickly i wonder if its intensity isn't only something that i imagined. something i recall falsely to keep me going, while i wait and pretend that i am not hopeful in order to protect myself from further disappointment if nothing else.

however unfortunately, even that is invalid, as there is still disappointment. the safety bought by my hesitation at putting myself into the arena is countered by disappointment of my own creation, disappointment in my head. i make these things up, because i want to be validated. if i am going to be sad, i might as well at least have something to be sad about, even if it's a figment of my imagination.

it might help if i knew what i wanted.

tonight is dark, the beautiful weather interrupted by another evening that i will ignore. the couch, soft and blue, and the television whose noise at least interrupts the nagging of the thoughts i just unloaded so ineloquently here - imagine how they arrange themselves in my head.

new batteries, the image of myself in the mirror at walgreens, pale skin and dark skirt, beauty as i move. a bar of chocolate, new batteries, the promise of eight hours of sleep - the sleeping that means i do not have to think about it.

the memory of a single moment sparking anew the hope that begins the cycle, every time i find it back in the back of my head.

i think it will always be this:
myself, alone in this dark room. too hot or too cold, and waiting.