The winter that I had been waiting for has come and gone. But I'm still
here, trapped inside the ice cube that I slide into my tall glass of amber warmth. I'm covered in cuts and bruises, wounds and injuries of many blows that I delivered to myself lately. I am a shape unhappy with myself, twisting wavy strands of my short hair around a lot after a hot bath to make me feel a little more presentable to myself. I wake up feeling drowsy, from heavy dreams and heavier eyelids, to go about a day that has little to reveal itself for me. When I think about how I have reached here, it all melts into a hazy and fragmented ether. It seems I have lived many lives already and that I'm newborn now, taking shaky steps for the first time with no particular direction in mind. Everyday, I see at least one thing that inspires me, and it may as well be something very small but it's there. It also leaves just as soon as it had come. I've already allowed myself too far into a realm so obscure that I cannot withdraw without some awful tremors.
I've realized that over the last decade or so, my perspective on my self and my reality have changed many times. It's hard to admit that I feel like I have regressed. When I read things that I had written earlier, maybe a few years ago, I am jealous of my old self. How dulling it is to find that I have not moved higher, better. Somewhere, my ego and defiance, faint glimmers of hope, show themselves to me and I like to dwell on them before moving on to another cigarette. More than ever, music has become my constant companion. Just today, I thought about how I used to relish, and really relish, being by myself most evenings. Now I make desperate attempts, and loop playlists, so that the silence doesn't consume me and my thoughts, and possible loneliness. It really is the kind of winter that I wanted to share with somebody. And sure enough, I did find myself warm in the glow of a secret happiness. But just as it started getting comfortable, it was asked to vacate. The madness of contemplation overdid itself.
I'm finally 25 years old. I realize that there's surely a long way to go, maybe in this exact manner, and maybe not. I'm done dealing with juvenile issues like finding my "identity", purpose, and jargon like that. I feel a temporal complacence that is extinguishing what was left of any burning passion and drive to be constructive. I am the looper. I am the bitter-sweet hangover of a beautiful evening, even if for the wrong reasons. I am the drunk call you can count on to pick up the phone. I am an ugly remnant of what used to be a quirky, laughing, predictably tragic entity.
The possibilities of growth are endless. Like an emotional decision taken in haste, spouting off in mad directions, where an infinite chance to seize what ought to be rightfully yours beckons. The sky is clear tonight and the moon almost full. I however, am emphasizing on a zero-content, chock full of bullshit conundrum. An unhealthy type of nothingness. It's the strangest thing you can find your self at- places that you didn't know existed within you, happy places, and yet, a dreary misery over the mess you have made out of it. These cuts and bruises on my body are but reminders that I have been sliding, slipping, clumsily teetering my way through what is NOT the worst and lowest point of my life. Too often I find myself preaching words of advice with such a forceful confidence that even I am alarmed by my vehemence. These words are, of course, what I myself need to hear most. Not that the boomerang has returned back to me. I strap on my jacket of denial and turn face the other way.
Chances are, I am an addict. To nothing in particular, yet certain patterns jump out at me. I tried to psychoanalyze what latent troublesome bit of my past is manifesting itself in me right now. Failed. There is nothing except for a taste for indulgence that I have acquired. An itch that i just have to scratch. Trouble that I just have to create. Work opportunities that I just have to ignore. A song that I just have to listen to. So indulgent that the opulence of it all disgusts me in return. Friends and acquaintances appear to have evolved, some of which I like, some I look at with mock-interest. No one seems to be thoroughly disapproving of me and I wonder if anyone, anybody really knows me at all. And where do I begin, if I want to unwrap myself to somebody, without coming across as a half-baked solicitor of poor judgement?
It's all easy to say that I need to take one day at a time. One simple, looped day. One entirely fluctuating, mood-driven, unproductive, cold winter's day. Entirely spent in the hopeless pursuit of unfruitful ventures, rhetorical assurances, meaningless interactions, egotist pride. The magnetic romantism of this type of life is very strong to a mind as fickle as mine right now. There have been choices made that bear testimony that I have absolutely no logical reasoning to my behavior/personality/opinions. But who runs after logic in cases like these? Don't answer that.
That ice-cube that I mentioned will probably melt one day. And I will see that all is fluid around me. Simply water that takes the shape of whatever it is contained in. And the cyclical nature of my days will take shape into a consolidated, meaningful, well-reasoned existence. Healthy, happy, loving, understanding, well-behaved existence. Might even look good on me.
