#95
Ambivalent.
Unhinged?
Her: no that’s too far.
Me: hard to pin down?
Her: maybe.
Me: blase.
Her: that’s very European of you.
Yes, that’s right, it was, because I am. There is no hiding it, but why is it so hard? Why does everyone here want to put me into boxes?
Me: It’s like, in this country I can’t like Muse, Sam Smith, Lady Gaga, Peter Gabriel, Jazz, Blues and Opera. Everyone wants me to pick one.
Her: go on.
Me: i’m just still, i’m still looking for a way to express who I am, which is not boxed into specific genres, groups. I need diversity. I need newness. Everything feel stagnant. Boring. I need something to shake me up. Everyone just seems stuck here.
It was not a new feeling for me. When I was young, friends would be confused when I’d tell them my parents were taking me to see the Phantom of the Opera, or, to Hootie and the Blow Fish. Friends in college were equally as confused when I bought tickets to Dave Matthew’s Band and Radiohead.
Me: this world feels too small for me sometimes.
Her: that is a very difficult feeling to process. I can see you working with it, muddling it in your mind.
Me: so I catch myself, digressing into melancholia, or, putting myself into situations that are risky - I feel like I’m 20 again. But I know I can slip into that, I understand.
Her: playing can be helpful, but be careful. Stop, take a break, think about what you’re about to do.
I’ve been exercising more, at the gym, tennis, a rowing machine. Walking. Anything to expend energy that seems to be taking up more space in my body than necessary. Over time it help, in the moment it hurts, but in the mental way. I started taking a notebook to the gym with me, because my mind opens up and things just flow out when I’m doing reps. On the treadmill. Tennis is a mind relief, like yoga, I can’t only focus on the ball, on the return. It frees me. But then, later, at home, it all comes flooding back in.
It’s like life gives you these moment of rest, periods of time where you feel equally on edge and calm, but the edge is sharp.
Her: we’re at time for today. But listen, take care of yourself. You might not feel responsible to anyone, but really, look after yourself. See you next week.
The second cup of coffee gives me jitters and the laundry needs done, and the emails need attention and return and all I can do is sit outside, looking at the grass, listening to the cicadas in the trees, smelling the scents of the fall weather creeping very slowing in. All I can do right now, is this, is only this. My mind won’t budge, won’t give way, but it’s telling me something — tune in — it’s there just on that sharp edge, it’s coming.