It is an unusual Monday - sushi and a movie with close friends - we have set aside our precious time, our only gift to each other. We are the kind of friends to whom you would donate blood, the friends that unconsciously use "we" when referring to the group, the ones that remind you that you're not, in fact, crazy but perhaps just misunderstood? The friends who cry with you because they are as frustrated/disappointed/angry as you are, and do so because they simply cannot help it.
Dinner was tasty. The movie was a total letdown, as expected, but nonethless an escape and well-timed for a dour, difficult Monday, when all parties are in need of a mindless diversion. When did our personal lives become so burdened, so busy, so quickly? Where is 2004, in which we were all single, poor, happy, and didn't know any better? I want to go back there sometime, if only to laugh at my own bad decisions and remember how good bad liquor tastes when it's (a) not yours, and (b) mixed with something fruity. My past is the only place where I can truly remember the allure of a bright red Solo cup and some innocent flirtations with a light-eyed man in an army green cable-knit sweater and khaki cargo pants.
Now, years later, as I sit alone with the heat-lightning as my evening's entertainment, I think heavily of what it means to be an adult. Is it a mortgage? A marriage? A child? None or all of these things? How self-indulgent of me to ask when the answer should probably be clear as day, and yet it is not. Where are we going, anyhow? We take trains to where we need to be. We hire taxi cabs to drive us to unknown places. We take gambles with our time, our feelings, our lives. We spend time with one another because we cannot leave a conversation well enough alone, and because we know the dialogue could not be dicussed with anyone less worthy.
The rain comes down tonight with a force I can see - walls of water, pushing and slapping against the concrete fortress outside my window. The window expands outside the silhouette of the building and I cannot help but imagine that if the structure somehow failed rightthisveryminute, the bay section of the living room would drop and I would meet an untimely, unappealing end. Am I the only one who considers these worst-case scenarios? Either way, I think I safe for now.
The streets shine with moisture, yet my high-rise windows are inexplicably dry. Somehow the rain drives straight down onto the empty thoroughfare and all of a sudden, I want to give everyone I see an umbrella, just in case. I think about strangers often, I buy McDonald's giftcards for homeless people - I worry. I am alone a lot, it's a life I've chosen and it suits me. For now. Someday I'll look back and be able to appreciate this quiet time, this empty time, because then I will have something physical with which to fill it.
Until then, there is just me, and I am more than enough.
Dinner was tasty. The movie was a total letdown, as expected, but nonethless an escape and well-timed for a dour, difficult Monday, when all parties are in need of a mindless diversion. When did our personal lives become so burdened, so busy, so quickly? Where is 2004, in which we were all single, poor, happy, and didn't know any better? I want to go back there sometime, if only to laugh at my own bad decisions and remember how good bad liquor tastes when it's (a) not yours, and (b) mixed with something fruity. My past is the only place where I can truly remember the allure of a bright red Solo cup and some innocent flirtations with a light-eyed man in an army green cable-knit sweater and khaki cargo pants.
Now, years later, as I sit alone with the heat-lightning as my evening's entertainment, I think heavily of what it means to be an adult. Is it a mortgage? A marriage? A child? None or all of these things? How self-indulgent of me to ask when the answer should probably be clear as day, and yet it is not. Where are we going, anyhow? We take trains to where we need to be. We hire taxi cabs to drive us to unknown places. We take gambles with our time, our feelings, our lives. We spend time with one another because we cannot leave a conversation well enough alone, and because we know the dialogue could not be dicussed with anyone less worthy.
The rain comes down tonight with a force I can see - walls of water, pushing and slapping against the concrete fortress outside my window. The window expands outside the silhouette of the building and I cannot help but imagine that if the structure somehow failed rightthisveryminute, the bay section of the living room would drop and I would meet an untimely, unappealing end. Am I the only one who considers these worst-case scenarios? Either way, I think I safe for now.
The streets shine with moisture, yet my high-rise windows are inexplicably dry. Somehow the rain drives straight down onto the empty thoroughfare and all of a sudden, I want to give everyone I see an umbrella, just in case. I think about strangers often, I buy McDonald's giftcards for homeless people - I worry. I am alone a lot, it's a life I've chosen and it suits me. For now. Someday I'll look back and be able to appreciate this quiet time, this empty time, because then I will have something physical with which to fill it.
Until then, there is just me, and I am more than enough.
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