On Moving and Feeling, Mostly

05/07/2008 6:02 AM – 6:26 AM

Awake and old as I am, I’m young and will remain so. Happy people fill their time. They have packed schedules. I bought new shoes from Bean’s yesterday. They should arrive next week. I bought Mom a Mother’s Day gift from Amazon. It should also arrive next week. Poop.

I didn’t lift yesterday, but I did call Phil and drop off the rent checks for June and July. He said he’ll probably start showing the place in mid-June, so I want to have as much crap as I can moved out by then. I’m not connecting to my writing lately. Probably because I’m not really writing. And also the numbness in my emotions since the panic attacks, it doesn’t feel as if I’m for real connecting to anything. Though the numbness is growing less. Little by little, less. I’m forced to consider what actually works to make me happy. That’s what the whole obsession with happiness is about. I used to have my dreams of the future, but the future is now. I used to have God to rely on, now I feel far apart from him. I don’t want to be. I want that assurance that everything will be alright. That there is a plan in all of this. That I’ll end up doing what I was meant to do. That I’ll be happy and joyous and exuberant. I don’t feel in love that much lately. Odd how fast that goes away.

Before the panic attacks, the idea of going to Ithaca would have been thrilling – a new place! In the country! New stuff to see and do! In the country! Now, I’m wondering how long it will take me to find a job and how much of the money that I’ve saved will be spent in moving and setting up again. I’ll miss my job. I’ll miss my bosses. I’ll miss the building. I’ll miss the walk to work. I’ll be the new kid again instead of the old hand. I’ve gotten used to this life in Buffalo, as much as I don’t like living in a dirty little city, chock full of bums and thieves and bullies. It feels as if I’ve fallen in love with the ugly mean girl because she’s the only one that would sleep with me. Heehee… This coffee is weak. I’ll mix it stronger tonight. What was it that I used to love about moving? I was anxious to get out and prove that They were wrong about everything, that I was going to be a writer, if only I had a chance. I’ve had the chance and now I wonder if I picked the wrong thing. I am self-motivating now, I guess, but how do I motivate myself to write when I don’t really feel like I was destined for this, that “destined” is a crap word anyway? But it’s not enough for me to just read and watch TV and get drunk anymore. I have to think of myself as something. I have to make something noteworthy of whatever it is that I am. And bragging rights is a part of it, but there is that need to know in myself that I can do it, that I can be interesting. Goddamn it, there are still emu farms to found! Heehee… It’s the excitement that I miss, the sense that “if I can only do this, then this will happen and then this will happen and then I will be happy,” but I know that happy is found where you are, crafted from the sludge of normalcy. Oddly, I feel kinda happy right now.