Certain things make time fluctuate such that it becomes difficult to tell when anything happened. Staying up late is one of those. Last night was my first full nights sleep in such a while. I had to set quite a bit down and let it go, despite texts and emails from everyone about the end of the world piling up and worry in my head and heart, and just sleep.
I’m sitting at Smarty Pants having dinner, my first time in a bar in a while (Ginger says just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen), reviewing the week and thinking about the next few days. Should the weekend be a cross race and some tinkering around the shop on bikes, a camping trip to Olympia, or more time in the office attempting to quell some complaints? The decision is bigger than me, which tends to leave me over thinking the choice.
Despite much of the last couple of days being spent helping Jeni move, today was spent moving office furniture to conclude my long delayed personal project of ridding the office of the better part of a decade’s collection of old, unused desks and filing cabinets. Whilst driving I enlisted some counsel, which was mostly the acknowledgment of the emotional difficulty of taking others into account. As it should be though, life isn’t easy or simple and I left being pandered to behind some time ago.
My shins and back are sore from climbing stairs and lugging bits. The office had an “end of quarter” party today, some new morale enhancing scheme that came along with the acquisition. I happened back into the office in the midst of this between trips and snuck in to grab a beer, then escaped back to my office to deal with those emails that seemed most urgent. Drinking the beer, a coworker came in and commented about not having the energy for the coerced socialization either.
Deification is the real problem. If you understand the condition well enough to predict its course, you are less likely to make damaging life decisions based on its emotional imperatives.
I often comment that I can’t understand boredom, because I have more interests than time. However, I have recognized recently that one may have circumstances that inhibit them from engaging their interests. I suppose I’m glad that my social, financial and cultural realities allow me what they do. All the same, I find myself having to choose carefully how to spend my time more than I have in the past. To some degree this is newly found consciousness and the acknowledgment that Fear Of Missing Out often keeps me from making the choices that construct the foundations of a life of meaning.
The more I consider stepping back and taking life slow, the more solidly I feel that it is cliche advice, further that it fails to acknowledge the experience I have with my thoughts and feelings. Everyone with something to say advises that feelings tend to blur the logic in our choices, but this is something that I’m fully aware of, and seemingly rather indifferent to. If I’m not living according to how I feel, what is the point? Short of a life of pure logic, even living for what one thinks is righteous appears to be subtly trying to feel good about who one is. I nearly tire of arguments where someone is simply unwilling to admit to themselves that they’re making all of their choices because of their feelings.
But still, I’m cautious, nervous of being hurt, especially reluctant to share how I honestly feel, exponentially so (untrustingly?) after being abandoned when I was last assured it was safe to. My feeling shouldn’t be a burden, I’ve never believed they should be, but I worry others will feel burdened by them. Frankly, those who have most strongly claimed they weren’t were also those who have most strongly felt they were.
Always concerned and stressed about problems that don’t yet exist, but worried about how I will deal with them when they, I feel, inevitably will. How do you show your concern when a hug, or even your presence, is the problem? The short-answer-to-every-dilemma folks would have plenty to say, I’m sure. Why does it matter so much? I feel so god-damn strongly that building a long-term intimate relationship is an arm of the tree of leading a meaningful life. Heart is what is important, and due to how I feel, there’s an abundance of it awaiting an opportunity to be appreciated. Once again my heart releases me on my own recognizance, like an authority figure reminding me that it has expectations of me.
I’m ultimately a positive person. As open and willing as I am to admit my feelings, particularly my desire, sadness, and hurt, I try to feel like this is some kind of ever improving triumph over how I expect I should be. It is not. More and more I find myself saying that the way I am is not the product of some focused self-assessment and articulate resulting plan of action, it simply is the way I am. While writing that, I recognize it isn’t likely all that true, because it operates on the utterly bullshit cultural implication that growth is something that happens amidst life defining moments. ‘However, I’ve been at this life for years now; I really tried; the traditional regret is just not happening.’
It doesn’t work that way. I recently read a quote imbued in a facebook status update by an old coworker recently about there being only a handful of life defining moments and I felt wholly sad for them. There feels a clear relationship between ones level of distraction and ones thoughtfulness about what is going on around them. Save the extremists who are fascinated by what they do defining who they are and their ultimate value, every moment is an opportunity for the unknown. It’s really best to let it go.
Three drinks in at the bar and I’m worried about being productive later tonight. Maybe I should avoid any responsible projects and put that chainring on the cross bike. I’ve noticed I’m more emotionally honest (and thus have more cause for careful concern) when I’m tired than when I’m drunk. It isn’t a matter of having more practice at one than the other, so I wonder where that comes from.
The problem with honesty is when it isn’t reciprocal. Or, if it is, it is two unidirectional streams of honesty. This feels like an extension of the “waiting for ones turn to talk” phenomenon. I worry much more about the unspoken conclusions that people draw than the absurd ones that they might express. Perhaps I’ve simply become accustomed to an unreasonable normalcy. Although a friend recently reminded me that often one will say things that they don’t feel to sound reasonable when accosted, it is still what thoughts remain that I can’t cross-examine that worry me.
On the ‘replacing feelings with hookers’ front, it is worth contemplating that when people choose to leave our lives, we still have to live with ourselves. And we are who we are, which isn’t an excuse for our actions, but the reality of our feelings. I shouldn’t allow myself to be so affected by others reactions to my feelings, and ensure that my actions are ones that I’m morally comfortable with.