The straw in my homemade iced coffee is twirling around in a caffeinated maelstrom; Brand New’s “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows” is streaming through the desktop’s speakers; the air conditioner is doing its best to keep up with the climbing heat.
And I’m finding myself contemplating approximately 248 things.
So I halt the circling straw, take a sip of coffee, glance at the Shiva statue staring at me from the desk alcove, and try to focus on the positive things and breathe and do all of the Zen stuff that you’re supposed to do when you’re feeling inundated by all sorts of stimuli.
Breathe in.
There’s a new journal next to me, the first seven pages of which I jotted full with a business schematic, each sentence ending more with a punctuated dream than a period.
Breathe out.
The All-American Rejects just queued up, and “Move Along” is bubbling into the slowly chilling apartment.
When all you got to keep is strong, move along, move along like I know you do…
The tiny Art Deco vase on the nearby kitchen table holds the last of the week’s dying flowers. The red is morphing into a deep umber–the color of floral finality.
A gulp of coffee later, and I’m scanning through my mind, trying to pinpoint what it is that I want to do.
…move along, move along just to make it through…”
I’ve been sleeping incredibly deeply the last two nights, and I’ve woken up in an oddly crisp haze–the most contradictory state of being I’ve experienced in a while. So unless Andy’s been slipping me roofies, I’m experiencing an unexpected catharsis–like my body knows something that my sleepy mind hasn’t yet wrapped itself around. Because this kind of sleep only follows emotionally-charged decisions: leaving graduate school, leaving my horribly toxic job, leaving for California.
…when everything is wrong, we move along…
And it hits me. We’ve moved. Moved along past the wart-covered parts of the past year. We’ve pushed forward, through tears and sleepless nights and cardboard boxes and packing tape and goodbyes and hellos. We’ve kept the momentum going, and are starting to feel the potential of just being happy.
And we don’t know what to do with that feeling.
Jay Brannan’s “Housewife” fills the room. I turn off the air conditioner. And sit and listen, fading in and out between the lyrics.
…two boys are falling hard…
Because we’ve overcome a lot together.
…crazy about each other, we both have fucked our pasts…
Shared and taken, embodied change and effected it.
…but when we are together, we have a fucking blast…
And have plenty more ahead of us. We just have to unlock our combined potential, nurture it, and help it breathe on its own.
So that it can help lead us on, into a future where we sleep deeply–dreaming of happily ever afters, and waking up in the middle of their reality.
Here’s to continued bliss….
For sure!