love is not a victory march

and i write these things so i won't forget, because forgetfulness is the devil, horns tail pitchfork, the essence of what i cannot become. those who forget their past are doomed to repeat it, to paraphrase some philosopher or writer i once read, and even though i continue to make the same mistakes here and there, it's not worth bothering if you don't at least try.

i'm tired, i wake up tired and i haven't even worked in a month now, all i've done is stress about life, work, and relationships, and put close to 4K miles on the car, but it's more than enough. i feel useless, but it's part of the territory, being stuck with and around yourself for too long makes you too self-aware at times.

*

i spent a few hours with my father today, first, and then my grandmother. i resisted the need to go back and look at what is left of my life after Madison, there in my fathers' old house because it depresses the hell out of me. three years of my life and what i have to show for it will fit into two regular sized cars. that's all i ever moved from Pittsburgh to Madison, and i'm grateful now, but it's so incredibly pathetic. perhaps the worst part is that i am storing my life in my old room in that house, so i guess the circle in a way is now complete, albeit more a rhombus if you chart my progress on a map.

but it's all about moving forward, right? onward and upward, and i spoke with my old corporate chef this morning, he was waiting for the H20 to get turned on in his house down there and in the back of my mind i just wanted to get all this over with, fast forward everything a few months and be happy, settled, beyond all this ungodly mess that has been my life for six months. just be something other than miserable, depressed, rejected, and spent. i want to perhaps live again, regain the energy that i finally got back again just last year and then had torn from me.

it sucks so much it hurts. and that's all it is: hurt.

every couple nights or so y'know you pop into my dreams

i just can't get rid of you like you got rid of me

*

woke up with the sense that i lost something last night, but then i realized that i was simply having the same dream again, where i am managing in some high class restaurant but there are these bizarre rituals and even stranger employees, and there are beads, lots of them, that have some sort of significance whose purpose is gone by the time i wake up.

my head still foggy, i was debating the necessity of coffee when the phone rang at 10:15 and i accepted the job down in Charlotte, knowing essentially no one aside from my old corporate chef who himself is moving down this week as well. nothing says starting over quite like this i suppose.

i made some calls, got ahold of no one of course and went down to the old house in Columbus to see what i could squeeze into my three body trunk and back seat. after laying on the carpet in the cavernous living room for a bit, ruminating on life and the stupidity of the year thus far, i decided that the least i could do was text the x and thank her for mailing that letter from the IRS, because it was kinda important. and instead of just a simple text back the phone ends up ringing, and in a split second i realize that as much as i don't want to talk to her, it's foolish to let it go over to voicemail because she knows i'm available.

twenty-five minutes later i want to be snapping my phone in half, punching holes in walls, laying waste to entire civilizations because she has called me up and has subsequently talked my ear off about how great everything is, the movies she and the B's have seen, parties, how the girl downstairs is making her roadkill stew again and "hey i bet you don't miss that smell," what to do with the crap i forgot to grab and "well i guess since i'm going to be doing this road trip thing later this summer and we're going to be in Raleigh because B wants to see his dad we could just come over and see you in Charlotte."

and it's at this point where i see myself as one of the Four Horsemen, or maybe all of them combined. i have no desire to become one of her ex-boyfriends who she is still on good terms with, who maintain these connections for whatever reason i cannot fathom. i do not want to be her friend, her buddy, her anything. she's talking to me about doing all this stuff with him, and it makes no sense to me that she would think that i want to see either her, because she slept with my friend the night before her mom died (and most of that weekend as well), or him, because he did just about the lowest thing possible.

and she still can't figure out why i went crazy for a bit. honestly, i think i still am, i'm just better at hiding it most of the time.

all it does is just make me feel like shit, all the time, even when i'm asleep. my head hurts from the loops and circles that it goes through continuously, the wanting and need to move beyond all this mess and find a way to erase it all, somehow consciously will myself into a selective amnesia of sorts that will remove every iota of her from my memory. it hurts, it goddamn hurts, and the last thing i needed today was her yammering about her life, one that has nothing to do with me anymore.

too much, you're too late

maybe i should have done counselling with her. i find myself in a perpetual loop these days, the urgency of the last few days has diminished to the point where i wonder if it was even worth going down there in the first place. it's not a done deal, and while i still think that i have this in the bag, i'm so damn tired of the waiting game. it just plain pisses me off anymore. i'm tired of the niceness, the soothing smiles that people give you when all you want are straight answers, a simple yes or no.

but most of all i'm just tired. i spoke with my friend M today and he made me realize that the position i'm in right now is what i've been striving for all my life, one where i'm not tied down by anything and unencumbered. yet all it does is make me want to do less and less. i have no desire to do a single fucking thing every moment of every day. i have to force myself to eat, to even get cleaned up. i go through the motions because i know that if i don't then i've turned that last page in the book and it just might be time to check myself in and throw away the key.

it's the worst feeling in the world, having no place left, no opportunities, no sense of adventure remaining and not even wanting to get it back.

*

you meant everything.