Walking around last night from the Black Hole to the 3:00 keyhole to look for a friends camp, I wandered through suburbs of RVs. I wouldn’t be the type to be all “back in the day,” even if I had been coming for years, but it felt too clean to me. I have to stop and consider hypocrisy, as working the event for two weeks straight means I have three hot meals a day from the commissary and I hear there are even showers somewhere that I could use if such was important to me.

I’d guess it was about 3am, and I was chuckling about comparing the past to the present. I have distinct memories of going to parties in Dedham ten years ago and ending up wandering around alone as everyone got drunk and hooked up with each other. I used to plan to either stay sober enough to drive home, or ensure I blacked out. Now, I’m in a place where I can’t go an hour without being offered a drink, from a beer or a shot to a whole bottle. Endless booze. And I’m still not drinking.

M called me remarkable the other day. I’m still parsing this. It feels like the warmth from flirting with a cute girl, but so much more lasting and good. I’d simply call this love, I’m sure, but I’m still conflicted over this. There’s the two-sided shoulder argument, on one I should embrace this and be happy, on another, the shoulds of moving on. The former feels so meaningful, the latter is totally shoulds, and externally influenced. So, my assumptions of labels, monogamy, “its not complicated,” from what feels like a sheltered smalltown youth steps in. This is cheating to some degree of course, as I realized a couple years ago I had never really thought about much of the structure of intimate relationships and specifically what I wanted one to be. Everything is much grayer now, and that’s okay. Relationships have dropped labels and blur from acquaintances, friends, sexual partners, short term relationships, long term, partners. Which are all labels, but you have to let them flow from one to each other.

Hmm… Gotta work.