D'you know, I've
spent much of the last month looking for spare seconds when I can sit down and
get my thoughts together. I mean, other than that week that I didn't do much
moving at all due to a fall and back injury. Can we talk about that? It's just
scary that you can miss one step and end up in pain that reaches at least a 7
on a scale of 1 to Bane breaking Batman's back. And it's scarier that you could
have pain like that perpetually. It's scary that there are unfixable pains out
there, and that they can become realities in your life. It's scary that I can
hurt like this.
But, aside from all
of that, I think the last month has been an exercise in worrying and plugging
in everything I can to block out the worry- worrying that I'm an unbearable
burden, worrying that I'm a frustration in other people's lives, worrying that
I won't be good enough, worrying that I'll never be healthy again, worrying
that things aren't going to work out, worrying that the transition from this
plan to the next is going to be more than I can handle. The problem with my
worries is that I don't know which ones are realistic and which ones aren't. My worries live
in a mind of freedom and opportunity- they're all created equal as far as I'm
concerned, and only time will tell which ones are going to grow up into big,
important problems. Then again, certain worries are subsidized by the
department of self-doubt, so they're probably going to succeed anyway. It's
just easier to avoid all these potentials and realities and just watch Friends
or go watch movies and fill up the schedule until you think you're squeezing
seconds out of your day to do anything outside worrying and avoiding worry.
Along with several
people in my acquaintance, I have a gap between when my lease at my old
apartment ended and when the lease at my new apartment begins. For a lot of
people, it's like hitchhiking through the weeks- one night here, three nights
there, only staying as long as it fits in with other people's schedules and
contemplating the possibility of sleeping in their car. Luckily, it's more like
catching a ride with me, where I'm spending my entire time without an address
at a friend's apartment in a mostly-empty room. But I can't help feeling that
everyone else is just as lucky, because they're hardly a problem, a momentary
obligation, rather than a perpetual burden. It's just difficult, to get used to
not possessing a space after having nearly a year of a having a place that was
mine. I mean, currently, I have a room to stay in, and my stuff's there, but it's not
mine. This gap in housing is just something I'm dealing with, a temporary
thing, like having to wear a cast on my independence until it's functional
again.
When I think about
all of this, though, I get a little weighed under by the nostalgia of a summer
spent never owning a space and never having to move anything larger than a
backpack and the thought of people who have nowhere to stay and why I had so
many offers of places to sleep when others have none. It's this weird, depressing spiral
where I feel guilty for my blessings, wonder why the world isn't fixed
enough so that everyone can have the same things I have, and wish that this dumb
idealism with which most of us post-college purported world-changers are
saddled would either go away or push me enough to do something that secures
good in the world outside of my own self interest. I also want to get rid of
half the stuff I own and I want to be able to move at a moment's notice just by
packing up my car and I want to walk lightly upon the earth and I'm so
confused, because I don't know that you can live deeply and walk lightly and I
think that conversations like that are best held when the day is just waking up
and not many of us have the motivation to stare down the dawn and dare it to
blossom into another day that will leave us with more pain than we started
with. Probably.
All I want to do
right now is move into the new place on Friday and Saturday and settle into a
routine. I want to hold still for a few weeks before something new starts. I
want someone to sit beside me and listen to me rant and ramble and then tell me
how to make things happen, to push me, to send me on a mission, and to watch me
while I finish it. I want to understand the length and depth and breadth of
universe and then I want to tell someone else about it and call that my
contribution to humanity.
So, that's all a
little too much to ask, you think? Anyone want to help me move instead? I'll
give you pizza and beverages and my lasting thanks. That's what I've got right
now.
