Ever had the feeling you’ve been here before?
Drinking down the poison the way you were taught?
Ever thought from here on in your life begins and all you knew was wrong?
– Porcupine Tree, Arriving Somewhere But Not Here
I apparently don’t believe in simple, step-by-step change. It would seem, looking back (and in the here and now, for that matter), that I like to take as many areas in my world as possible and shake the snow globe up until everything is in rampant, screaming chaos, and then calmly put things into new places and arrangements.
I vividly remember being about 6 or 7 years old, probably around the time my brother was born. I had my own room in my house, one wall of which was covered with shelves (it had at one point been my father’s office – the opposite wall hada recessed desk built in, with more shelves above). I kept all my toys on that wall, probably neatly organized in some sort of system (as far as I can tell, I’ve always been organized and bordering-on-anal-retentive neat and tidy). And there was an afternoon, probably a Saturday, where I took everything off that wall with a few sweeping gestures of my adolescent arms, and put it all back up in some different order.
I don’t think I did this with any sort of anger; how much rage can you really find in a seven year old’s body, outside of temper tantrums? And while my mom and dad might remember something I don’t — which wouldn’t be terribly surprising, as I don’t have many memories of my childhood outside of all the injuries I sustained — I don’t recall doing it to piss anyone off. It was simply the easiest and most obvious path to reorganizing all my stuff.
Sure, most people would see that as dangerous, violent, and maybe a little overwhelming. Not the first time I’ve heard things I do described that way. Same goes with stupid. But it works for me, or seems to, at least.
So I’m putting off a long-distance move for at least a year, and getting ready to sign a twelve-month lease at a new apartment, a little further from Southside but still in the city. Behind the scenes, things are shuffling at work. I’m going to pull back from the bar work a little — I have been finding myself too caught up in the money, too caught up in the ‘excitement’ (interpret that as you will) of bartending life, and losing sight of what is important to me. I’m going to start writing again (as in, screenplays, and maybe the long-shelved novel), and working on my own music.
Who knows: I may even find time to start sleeping again.
Maybe most important are friends, old and new, that I really want to spend more time with outside of a bar setting. I’m ready to be back in a place — mentally and physically — where I am capable of giving more of myself to someone in a romantic sense. I want to be able to spend my lunch hours eating lunch with friends or dates instead of catching up on errands or responsibilities. I want to be able to waste away an evening with a beautiful woman, watching movies and talking non-stop without feeling like I’m falling behind on things that ultimately don’t really matter one iota in the grand scheme of things.
So, outside of the move, there’s nothing in the way of major change. From my perspective, at least, there’s not. But it’s a little overwhelming, potentially, to juggle this many little things at once. I’m pretending that the muddiness in my head is that same fog that comes when you first put your contacts in in the morning, just before things finally come into focus for the first time that day.
It’s all the way I work best, whatever you want to call it.
