Going Through The Motions

i am back here in this self-imposed vacuum. so many years have gone by, but nothing about this familiar old taunting friend has changed. i thought i would have outgrown certain things, but it seems i have not. for instance, i still check my phone first thing in the morning for any texts or calls i missed. i still take quicker-than-usual showers. i still can’t focus on any literature. i still recite the same mantras from years ago - this is for the best, you’re happier now.

this period of adjustment always feels like a warped kind of holiday from routine. suddenly i don’t know what to do with all this time i have. i’m mostly drained but i strive to keep myself busy. sometimes i make progress and i honestly believe that i am moving forward.. but then there are the mornings when i wake up feeling so sharply and keenly the empty space on my lower back. and then there are the moments when something funny happens, and my first reaction is to share the story, but then i realize, with a skipped heartbeat, that i cannot. and that’s when all of my efforts fall apart together into a shameful and embarrassing heap, and i find myself back at square one, rebuilding the wall, making more appointments, reciting the same mantras.

fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen - each time it’s like revisiting an old manual where the step-by-step guide is never obsolete. before i know it, the warped ‘holiday’ phases into a stark permanance that whispers, so this is really it. then comes the awkwardness, or the anger - if that’s what the situation requires. then i start to forget things. the landscape of my desk changes overnight. i sleep. i wake up. i change my speed dial numbers.

Comments April 11th, 2008